and all i have to say is, thank god the red sox swept because i couldn’t have taken any more!

ok, so that’s not really all i have to say(of course).. it was impossible not to be swept up in baseball fever here. it was the biggest thing to happen here since….. ok, ever. (nevermind that the local hockey team competed in and won the stanley cup several times and that was barely a blip on the local news, but whatever.)

first there was the 22 out of 21 game winning streak – then there was the ticket sales scandal – then there was the series itself against the underdog boston red sox who came back from being down 3-1 in the series against the indians. so yes, it was the kind of thing sports legends are made of and impossible to ignore if you lived here, but i don’t know if that justifies or even explains how we ended up watching whole games… looking back now, i don’t know what that was about. i honestly, really, truly, did not care who won, but still i watched.. i watched in total, over 24 hours of baseball. wow!

and while there were more moments of excitement than i would have expected, and i learned a lot about the game, and the two teams, and the idiots on the two teams – did the mlb win ME over as a fan???

oh god, no!!

why not, you ask??? (i know you didn’t ask but humor me) because, baseball is sooooooooooooo boring!! every other pro sport has a penalty for “delay of game” – not baseball. omg, throw the f’ing ball already!! but i realize, before he can throw the f’ing ball the dumbass with the bat has to step up to the plate. omg, step up to the f’ing plate already!! you were just there, you didn’t even have to swing at the last one, the pitcher thew a ball, it was so far off you didn’t even have to think about swinging, so WHY for the love of god do you have to step back, take a break, then swing the bat over your head and shake your ass, can i get ya a cup of coffee while we wait? just stay in the damn batter’s box!! and you with the ball and the big fat paycheck, just throw the ball again! quit shaking off the pitcher’s calls, stop stretching your neck and spitting, are you calling your broker while you’re out there? stop worrying about what the guy on first base is doing, if you would hurry up and do your job he wouldn’t have time to steal a base. THROW THE DAMN BALL!

so here’s my suggestion, you need two different “shot clock” type situations. you need a clock counting down that gives the batter 10 5 seconds to get up to the plate then resets and gives the pitcher 10 5 seconds to throw the ball. i was going to say 10 each but that’s way too generous, i mean this is all you do, you get paid millions to do it, what do you need to think about?? it’s not rocket surgery!! and if the batter takes too long, he gets a strike; and if the pitcher takes too long, the batter takes a base. done! the game goes from 4 hours to about 2, and it would be higher scoring too because of all those people getting walked in (kind of like game 1, 13-1, ouch!) and fans like that.

but even if this was instituted, i don’t think i could hang, because during one of the eternal-ass games that i watched the annoying broadcasters were talking about the big news in baseball that day being “a. rod” passing up a contract extension that would have paid $240 MILLION over 4 years or 8 years or something (hell even if it was over 30 years that’s a lotta fucking money)… he and his agent felt he could do better on the open market! are you kidding me???? god i hate these greedy bastards! and people in denver want to bitch and moan about the ticket scalpers! please!!

then there’s rockies star, todd helton.. the fucktard was interviewed before the series started asking him if he was excited, yadda, yadda. stupid question of course, but his answer.. ‘yes, but i really hate that i’m missing out on hunting season’. i’m paraphrasing but that was the gist. omg, i don’t even know where to start with that, but you’re a dick sir, and i have to say i’m not sorry you lost.

bottom line.. clearly boston wanted it more and/or it was just a fluke that the rockies got there at all, but whatever…

congratulations, red sox!

got a visit from Zorak, he was just hangin’ out in front of our house.

pretty cool, huh? hopefully he brought some good luck with him.

got a phone call from a guy with the colorado avalanche organization trying to sell me a baker’s dozen of hockey games. i was his last call of the day and i’m pretty sure he wished he had gone home early. no, i didn’t yell at him or blame him for the demise of the nhl in my eyes; it was much worse than that – i whined. i explained how much we loved the game and how much it physically, emotionally, spiritually hurt me when they didn’t play. ya know, the girl perspective on sports. poor guy was just looking for a commission. and ok, i was kind of looking for a gesture of good will.. i mean, if they really want me back they can surely spare one set of tickets for just one game for free. m’s theory is that i went to a game live, in person, that i could be convinced to forgive (tho not forget). watching on tv is never going to work because you are subjected to the annoying announcers and barrage of beer commercials, but at the arena you get to watch the zamboni and the pee wee players (arguably the best part of pro hockey), and hear the sound of the blades on the ice and the occasional puck hitting the crossbar, drink a five dollar soda, have people shooting t-shirts at you with a potato gun, feel the pressure of the power play, etc. it’s the best! god i miss hockey!! anyway, no such offer was made which is probably for the best because i don’t have the time or finance$ to go back.

speaking of sports — GO ROCKIES! (no i’m not jumping on the band wagon but i’m happy for their fans, i vaguely recall how exciting the playoffs can be.)

oh, i added a couple things to the weekly tivo lineup. tuesday night’s “Pushing Daisies,” which i think is trying a little too hard to be dark yet charming, and i think the critics are just happy with it because it is different for a network show, but long-term the narration will probably become tiresome. we’ll see. also “Life,” which i’m very ambivalent about, which will serve me well when it gets cancelled. having him try to solve his own case that sent him to prison for 12 years in his free time really isn’t that much of a twist on your typical show about a quirky detective. but, we’ll see.

most importantly i just learned that BLOCKBUSTER has reached a new level of evil (who knew that was even possible?)!! so i go to Hollywood Video over the weekend and i’m looking for 1408. i was originally thinking i would wait to watch it to nearer halloween, but i was somewhat desperate for entertainment on a cold and rainy saturday night. i expected it to be all checked out considering it was like 9:00 on a rainy saturday night which typically means there’s like 3 dvd’s left in the whole store and those are foreign films, but i couldn’t even find the empty “display copies” on the shelf. so i pick up some drew barrymore romance nonsense (ugh, well at least they’re likely to be speaking english, and hey, “music & lyrics” was pretty funny), and i ask the nice kid with pimples & braces about 1408 and he said they were all checked out and i said but i didn’t see an empty space for them anywhere on the shelves, and he was umm, uhh, really evasive and said well we only have a few copies because it’s umm.. a “blockbuster exclusive.” what does that mean, you ask (because i did)??? it means that even tho they all use the same distributor, blockbuster cut a deal with said distributor to have exclusive rights to certain rentals. WWHHAAATT??!! i know right!!? so the only reason hollywood video has even a few copies of that movie is because they went out and bought them RETAIL!! that’s it!! blockbuster is the devil!! they’re like the microsoft of movie rentals! i detest them! and i will NOT condone this and rent from them because i have to. there is still on demand, or amazon unbox, or illegal downloads (just kidding), or something. i will not be blockbuster’s bitch!! they are DEAD TO ME!

aaaaanyway!! what else?? i actually think that’s it for now… but hopefully now i won’t be blog blocked!

ok so we are what? 4-5-6 weeks into the fall season? something like that, all i know is several shows this week were in re-runs. RE-RUNS!?! are ya kiddin’ me? oh wait, is this because of the world series? grrr, i really dislike baseball. ok, not the game itself, it’s fine, but what MLB has become with their over-paid primadonna players, the constant sterroid scandals (the sterroid use is really just pathetic, btw, and if you’re a pro using performance enhancing drugs your stats REALLY shouldn’t count at all, but don’t get me started!) etc., etc.. ugh, it’s worse than the NHL with the drama, and it only took one lock-out season to put me off hockey entirely and i LOOOOVED hockey. did you know that ticket prices for NHL games have gone up across the board? so who benefited from those payroll caps?? hmmm.. not the players and not the fans, so who?? this just all reinforces my theory that organized sports are like organized religion – they’re all bad! and i mean from little league on up! it may be a great game but once you add the human element, and everybody’s agenda, forget it, it’s ruined. and in a utopian society there would be no sports. and if i seem bitter it’s because i fuckin’ am, and i’m glad the team formerly known as the Avalanche had their first ever non-sold out game! damn gary bettman and your minions, and the NHLPA, damn you all to hell!

whoa! where did that come from? sorry! while i do think it’s ridiculous that the baseball season is so long that they are playing the world series in below freezing temperatures, i was supposed to be bitching about tv, not about sports. so anyway, where was i?…

oh yeah, five weeks or so into the television season and things are not so hot! you can look back to see what season passes i started out with on my tivo, and see below what has changed.

things that have been removed from my tivo schedule:

Survivor: Cook Islands – i only watched one episode. and i could go on and on as to why but the sad fact is, i’m just over it. i’m not saying i could never get invested in a survivor season again, i’m just sayin’ i can’t imagine wanting to.

Justice – i didn’t delete this one it just apparently disappeared. which shouldn’t be a surprise because i had already said it wasn’t good, but come on, it’s FOX.. consider the standards. what are they going to replace it with? re-runs of buffy? oh wait, isn’t the world series on FOX? maybe that’s why it’s gone (don’t worry i’m not going to get into the whole baseball issue again).

Six Degrees – six degrees of boring that is… no thanks, JJ.

Smith – ok, now this really pisses me off, because again, i did not delete this one from my season pass, it got cancelled!! after 3 episodes!! which just happened to be the best 3 episodes of television i had watched thus far this season (obviously, that is just my opinion and obviously i am in the minority). as i indicated, i didn’t have high hopes for the show, but that’s because i thought it was about an undercover government agent leading the secret, double life, ala alias if you will, which has been done, and done, repeatedly. but it wasn’t! agent smith in this case, was a bad guy! apparently a really bad guy! so while he did have a secret, double life, it was way more interesting! with pretty good writing and pretty good acting, so wtf?? we can keep the ghost whisperer but not smith?! i guess it’s ok if we sympathize with the bad guy on the big screen (i.e. “Heat” or “Ocean’s 23″), but on network, primetime, american, family-values television we are only allowed to see the side of the good guys, aka cops, lawyers, and doctors, because that’s all that’s on!! whatever! it was a good show. i guess they should’ve pitched it to hbo – it could’ve taken the sopranos place (as if anything could).

things soon to be removed from my tivo schedule:
[i just realized this is going to be a very long post so bear with me]

Boston Legal – omg, this is why i didn’t wach allie mcbeal! it is so…. bad. the legal issues aren’t even interesting anymore, it’s just so tacky, and low-brow while pretending to be hi-brow just because they’re playing hi-powered attorneys. they’re just trying soooo hard to be shocking, that it is.. shocking – just not in the way they’re trying to be. the only thing entertaining is the dialog between spader & shatner, but that’s only like 5 minutes of the show on a good night and now that they brought back lake bell (ick), who is dating colin farrell btw (double-ick) it’s not worth the trade-off so i think i’m out.

Studio 60 – this one will piss me off too but it sounds inevitable that it is going to be cancelled, or at best, not renewed for a second season. i really like this show and i really did not expect to. it is different from anything else on tv right now (including 30 Rock), perhaps because its not about cops, lawyers or doctors, and it has the right combination of drama & comedy – i think they call that “dramedy.” good writing, good acting, but it’s not doing well. people don’t like it, they say it’s too full of itself, which while i can see what they’re saying, and i can see a problem in that they talk too fast – not for me or anybody north-east of nashville, but they do talk fast – it’s a good show. but i guess i just better enjoy it while it lasts and try not to get too attached.

things that had been removed and have now been re-added to my tivo schedule:

Heroes – This is why the name of this post is “mis-tv-guided”.. I tivo’d the pilot of Heroes because the pre-views that they showed ALL summer were intriguing. and while the pilot too seemed intriguing, it seemed like it moved a little too slow and was opening way too many cans of worms than i felt one show could handle. it was giving you all this back story information at the same time it was showing you all this unexplainable, paranormal type shit. sound familiar?… what other show follows way too many characters’ back stories, throws in some paranormal type shit, and moves really, really, really fuck slow?? LOST, that’s what show! and i hate that show like i hate MLB, but i’ll get back to that later. so i was like, uh-uh, no way, i’m not getting sucked in and screwed over again. so really, based purely on being burned by LOST i decided i was not going to watch this show. however, i was hearing really excellent things about it, and i don’t mean around the water cooler (whatever that means), so when i heard they were doing a mini-marathon last weekend which picked up after the pilot i set the tivo. then on monday or tuesday i watched all four episodes i had missed. it was great! compelling! interesting! and allowing for the possibility it could go very badly by the end of the season, i can’t wait to see what happens next! glad i gave it another chance, but lemmetellya – this gives me yet another reason to haaaate LOST! but as i said, i’ll have to come back to LOST. in fact i think LOST will require a whole post all to itself because it falls under the category of “things that never should have been added to my tivo programming but were due to a lapse of judgement, that now i can’t seem to stop myself from watching just because its like a frickin’ train wreck and apparently i need something to channel my anger:”

But in my final category – things i apparently should have added to my tivo programming but didn’t:

The Nine – haven’t watched a minute of it for the exact same reason i decided not to watch Heroes originally.. because of fucking LOST. i didn’t want to get caught up in some convoluted, intermingled, series of backstories, with a plot line that had nowhere to go, just like LOST. but now i hear really good things about The Nine. so unless they schedule a mini-marathon that includes the pilot, i guess i’m missing out. oh well, maybe i’ll have something to watch next summer.

Stay tuned for my bitch-fest about LOST, coming soon!

If I had to give you a one word review of it, it would be convoluted. But maybe I should just give you a one syllable review – don’t! Actually I could go on & on (the movie certainly did) and try to be funny about how bad it is, and I swear I don’t just think it’s bad because I’m resentful that it’s stealing money out of Superman’s pocket (by the way, it didn’t start ’til 2 a.m. and it was raining so they were no longer charging admission so my movie-going dollars did not go to this disney debacle); but I read a review that is so frickin’ funny I know I can’t top it, so you should really, really click here to read it. It starts with..
“If you have to see one movie this summer, for the love of God and all that is holy, do not see this movie.” And it ends with, “All in all, this movie really sucked. Out of 5 cowbells, I give it a 1.5. The Bruce Willis cameo was just gold. Other than that, I felt I was justified to shoot at least two elderly women on the way out to my car.” Everything in between is far more entertaining than the actual movie so save your $10 bucks and read it! Then take your $10 bucks and go see “Superman Returns” (sorry, I’m not supposed to be talking about SR am I).

In sports news.. I just happened to see the Italians win the World Cup today, well sorta. The game was tied 1-1 and they ended up in a “shoot-out”. They just started doing this in the NHL and I think it’s retarded, but at least in Hockey they didn’t go to a shoot-out in the playoffs. In the playoffs you go to overtime after overtime until somebody scores a god damn goal. And if you ask me, a shoot-out in soccer/football is really stupid because the goal is as big as my bedroom and the poor goalie isn’t even wearing skates! I mean, in Hockey the goal is only about six feet wide and the goalie with his equipment is about three feet wide and he can move back and forth really fast on his blades. It’s pretty tough, even for your super star, power forwards to score on an NHL goalie (unless it’s David Aebischer) in a penalty shot / shoot out situation. But in soccer the goal looks to be about as big as my house and the poor goalie usually looks like he weighs about a buck-fifty and they don’t even give him a stick, the poor schmuck! It seems like even a mediocre player should be able to score about 4 out of 5 times like that. But 4 out of 5 was not good enough today. Now I’m not one to feel sorry for the French, but it sucks to lose a championship like that, basically on a technicality (just ask the Buffalo Sabres, right Kevin?), or to win like that for that matter. Then again, a win’s a win; a hollow victory is a victory nonetheless. So congratulations, Italy!

OK, so I made it thru a whole post without rambling on about you know who. But I never said anything about not looking at him…

Anyway I still hate summer! It’s hot! It hit 100 degrees in Denver today – hotter than Vegas! It’s only supposed to be in the low 80′s! We’re going to die!

Plus the drive in is too crowded (they didn’t change or re-arrange anything for this week), and there is nothing on TV!

To keep my Tivo from going dormant I’ve had to find something to record in the wasteland that is the summer television season, so I have added Season Passes for the following:

“Windfall” – watched the pilot, it was OK. I wish it was Brandon instead of Dylan as the devoted husband, but thus far it is not unwatchable.

“Saved” – watched the pilot, it was OK. I think they’re trying to hard tho so it will probably get tiresome fast.

“Last Comic Standing” – I know this has been around for awhile and I’ve never been interested. Not sure how it caught my attention this time, but I was fascinated by the Simon Cowell counterparts and what they considered funny and how you couldn’t read their reactions at all. And there were some truly funny people who turned up. I obviously appreciate good comedy so I’ll watch. But with some bizarre added reality tv twist of having the finalist live together in a big brother-ish house, I will probably get over that real fast.

“Treasure Hunters” – premiers this sunday and I would have higher hopes for it if (a) the amazing race hadn’t gone so far south in recent seasons and (2) if it wasn’t from the producers of “the davinci code” but we’ll see how it goes.

That’s it for now, but I did add a wish list for Brandon Routh, my new boyfriend, and set it to auto-record! He’s also my new wallpaper, and on the holographic Superman Returns Slurpee cup I got today!

..yummy!

I do have standards, low ones, but standards.. So here are some things that I won’t be programming into the old Tivo:

“The Rock-Paper-Scissors Championship” – seriously, I couldn’t find the remote control the other night and this came on A&E. Live from Vegas of course.. on A&E!? They really need to remove the “A” since it is supposed to stand for arts, and change it to WTE, white trash entertainment.

“America’s Got Talent” – it hasn’t started yet and I could see myself getting sucked in, some of the acts on the previews look.. intriguing. But I have to try and avoid it, if for no other reason, two words.. David Hasslehoff!

“Chris Angel: Mind Freak” – I hate this guy! Really, is there anything sadder than a David Blaine wannabe?

“Big Brother All-Stars” – Are you frickin’ kiddin’ me?!

I’m sure there are others, but that’s the worst I’ve seen so far. Besides, I’m constantly finding it necessary to adjust (aka lower) my standards.

Oh, wait there is something else I programed in my Tivo.. (I can’t believe I’m going to admit this) “The Bold and the Beautiful.” Wait, I had a reason… I had the Tyra Banks Show on (oops, I shouldn’t have admitted that either, but there’s a reason for that too. it’s on right before the mid-day news and i like to watch the weather before i leave the house.) and Antonio Sabato, Jr. was on. And I have to admit, he does not look as bad as that picture I posted a few weeks ago. Anyway, he was on because he is now on The Bold & The Beautiful as a regular, permanent cast member. Did you know that “The Bold and the Beautiful” is now literally the Most Watched TV Show In The World!? So I couldn’t resist, I had to check it out. It seemed pretty obvious really, in all those tv movies he looks and acts like he’s on a soap opera. So I set the Tivo – not a Season Pass, just a few days because not everybody is on every day. And there he is engaged to Felicia with whom he has a child, but in love with Brooke’s daughter, Bridget, who turned down his proposal previously but now knows she made a mistake and wants him back so he was going to break off his engagement to Felicia who is a Forrester, but I watched B&B in college and Ridge & Thorne didn’t have a sister, but you know how soap operas work, Brooke didn’t have a daughter then either (wait, if Felicia is Ridge’s sister and Bridget is Brooke’s daughter doesn’t that make Felicia Bridget’s aunt? wait a second, did Brooke get pregnant when she had an affair with Eric, Ridge’s dad? because then they would be half sisters. ehww! how do people watch this stuff?) but when Dante (that’s Antonio’s name) got to the Forrester mansion he found that Felicia had his whole family flown in from Italy to surprise him and they were totally smitten with her already and she moved the wedding up to this week so his family can attend. (dramatic music rises) uh-oh, this is awkward.. what will Dante do?

But the surprising part, because that’s all S.O.P. for a s-o-a-p, was the opening credits… do you know who else is in The Bold & The Beautiful cast? Soap opera veterans Jack Wagner and Lorenzo Lamas, as well as Patrick Duffy!! Oh and also one of those kids from Saved By the Bell. Wow! That’s kind of alot for a half hour show, plus from what I could tell most of the core cast is still there from when the show started. I just can’t figure out why they are so much older and I’m still the same. So I guess if you had to watch a soap opera, that would be the way to go which could be why it’s the most watch show in the world. But I think it’s because “Baywatch” isn’t on anymore. OK that’s two Hasslehoff references in one post. I gotta go!

**crap! just found out the president is going to be on during prime time monday nite!! going to have to adjust three tivo’s accordingly! grrr.. immigration-schmimmigration, it’s sweeps week! this is not going to boost his approval rating i’m thinkin’.

the sopranos are also in a slump, and it hurts me to say that. but not as much as it hurts me to see that! the last two episodes have just stagnated the season. too much a.j., too much vito, too much all over the place, with nothing really going anywhere except chrissy getting married, but i’m still in mourning for ade so i don’t approve. but the worst part by far, is they only have 3 episodes left!! that so sucks!! i can’t believe i waited a year and a half and they’re almost done already! then suposubly there will only be another 8 episodes sometime next year, and that’s it! boy, they’ve got a lot of ground to cover! i realize that every episode at this point is a gift, but does it have to be a pair of socks? (that’s an inside joke) i also realize that it’s not bad writing that’s a problem, in fact it’s good writing.. they want us to be bored because tony’s bored. the wine has lost some of it’s pop, i get it. but come on, life is short, especially in the mob, we need to move it along, whack some people or somethin’!!

then there’s “alias” & “lost” which i cannot wait to be finished!! i am so done with j.j.! they are so beyond ridiculous.

and last and maybe least, now that i have provided a working definition of a “mimbo,”..

i thought i should demonstrate what happens when good mimbos go bad. Antonio Sabato, Jr., once a major mimbo!…. what happened?

oh crap – the stars just scored to tie it up!

————–

end of the second, dallas 3, colorado 1. ruh-roh! it is a very exciting game tho, and while those old paranoid superstious feelings are trying to creep in, i am fortunately not invested enough at this point to to feel bad that they are losing even if it is because i am watching. now, if the avs, want to pay me not to watch, i’m willing to negotiate.

————–

well 1:05 left and the stars just made it 4-1. i’m telling you the empty net, extra skater strategy never works. well, not never, but not often enough to be worth it.

no sweep. oh well. the devils are just lucky that their game 4 will not be broadcast here tomorrow.

on the bright side, i’m feeling okay emotionally and will definitely watch more playoff games!

hahahahahahahahahaha! i know those italians are a little flamboyant, but holy flaming penises! hahahahaha! what sport is this representing anyway?!

let’s see, what else is new? oh yeah, the design of my blog. little less girlie now. did you know people can hack your blog? if you had been here a few weeks ago you would have seen links for kiddie porn sites! nice, huh?

hockey’s back too. sadly, i’m not back with hockey. i have not yet recovered from the lockout. sometimes i turn on a game and it actually makes me sad. i guess the politics of professional sports and estrogen don’t mix, but whadda ya gonna do? i’m going to try and follow the playoffs when they come around to try and get back in the spirit. then next season i’ll try and jump back in there. they took a year off, now i’m taking a year off, then maybe i can move on, forgive & forget… we’ll see.

the good news is, in the meantime, i don’t know how it happened exactly, but around here we replaced our hockey fixation with… are you ready for this?.. celebrity gossip! ok, maybe that’s not good news. but the good thing about it is it’s not seasonal and you are NEVER disappointed! its unnecessary for me to recap things here, there are waaaay too many sites & blogs dedicated to celebrity shenanigans already and i can’t possibly compete. but i’m sure i’ll be hitting the highlights & lowlights. brangelina (highlight), britney & k-fed (lowlight), etc.
this just in, under the topics of celebrity news & hockey news that disappoints… wayne gretzky (and i was never a big fan) is involved in very suspicious sports betting with possible organized crime connections. as much as i love the sopranos (who will be back soon too – yay!) i don’t even know what to say. we’ll see how that all unfolds.

survivor is also back and the amazing race is on the way so there should be plenty to talk about.

anyway, i’m older, i’m bitter, and i’m back!

Marty got fired
Patrick retired
and Neo got deleted or died or both i’m a little unclear

2004 will have to be better. ..right?

and i will try and make my ‘blog’ better by making more entries which will make them shorter and therefore less daunting. sort of a quantity over quality policy but we’ll see how it goes.