Do You Remember?

I was listening to XM and Michael Jackson's "Remember the Time" came on. He asked a question that I think all of us should think about, but for whatever reason, whether it be out of shame, shyness, or denial, we refuse to. But I can pretend no more! I think you all should consider these words and think hard about what they really mean, in terms of your own lives:

"What about DRRRAK DUCK DUCK, DRRRRAK DUCKOODUCK?"

Take some time and think THAT over.

Demographics

Every once in awhile, companies try to go after those highly-sought after demographics, like Males 18-35, African-Americans, or any other subgroup that they hope to market their products to. I thought I would salute Taco Bell, for going after that group that doesn't get too much attention: the Complete Douchebag demographic.



Good work, Taco Bell. Complete Douchebags need a place to eat, too.

Oh, the Hoyer

It's time for another pronunciation lesson, boys and girls.

I have been watching these commercials about DLP technology (it has to do with clarity in TVs), and there is a little girl who claims that the picture is so good because of the mirrors. Of course, she doesn't say, "mirrors," she says, "It's the mee-yers." This is another one of those weird phenomenons (phenomena?) where the common pronunciation is much different than what it should be. Apparently that is the only word where it is acceptable to replace two "r's" with a "y."

I have never seen a hoyer movie, nor have I ever worried about teyorism, but apparently it is acceptable to call it a "meeyer."

Just another one of those things that bugs me. But maybe that is the correct pronunciation of that word. If it is, I apologize for the eyor.

Casino

On my drive to work today, I saw a billboard advertising a casino in Oklahoma. There was a picture of a female spokesmodel and right next to her head it said, "100s of loose slots!"

Am I the only one whose dirty mind found this funny? Or would a woman next to a sign referring to "loose slots" only inspire thoughts of gambling for most people?

Science

One of my friends refers to friends of hers as being in certain "orbitals," to signify (as I may or may not mistakenly believe) how close these friends are to her. Of course, this may not be the motivation behind this system, and there may be another reason why some people are in the "p" orbital and some are in the "s" orbital, but then I never claimed to be good at science. If I tried to prove the existence of gravity by throwing myself to the floor, I would probably end up floating in the air.

But I digress.

The point here is that we all have friends who we consider to be at different levels. There are the BFFs, the casual acquaintances, the people you hang out with to watch football with, and the people you have as friends but you don't trust them enough to tell them anything about yourself. I always found it fascinating to think about how some people "rank" each other differently. For example, I may have a friend who I respect and admire and consider to be one of my closest friends who I can confide in and trust, etc. However, that person may see me as outside that close level of friendship; someone to talk to on IM or the phone casually, or maybe go to dinner with once in awhile, but not as someone who would even be invited to his/her wedding.

You would think that like most things in life, that friendship would eventually revert to the mean, where some sort of compromise would be reached between the two where one person will start to distance himself and the other person will start to let the other person into his/her life a little more. But that usually doesn't happen with relationships. In most cases, either it will continue as the status quo, or the person giving his all will start to distance himself somewhat, while the other person doesn't change his/her behavior. I guess what actually happens is that the relationship devolves to the level of the least interested person. To me, that seems sad, but such is the nature of relationships. The strange thing is that usually the other person is not aware of how much he/she means to the person. Or in rare cases, the other person may feel the same way, but his/her actions are not representative of those feelings.

So without getting too preachy here, have you considered how the people on the other end of your relationships feel? It's easy to see when you give so much to your friendship and you don't feel like it is reciprocated, but how about those situations where you see someone as just a casual friend/acquaintance and he/she thinks the world of you? Are those relationships worth it to you? In some cases, they aren't. But I think there are plenty of friendships that we don't bother to think about in that respect. I believe that just about everyone has only a few people that they feel fully reciprocal with, whether that be on an extremely close level or on a casual level, but in the middle of that bell curve is an amalgam of friendships where neither of you feels the same way.

I once read a quote that said, "Never treat someone as a priority when they treat you as an option." I used to firmly believe in that, but sometimes I wonder if I have treated someone as an option when I should have treated him/her as a priority. Maybe it's time that I did something about it.

The Price is Alright

Those of you who know me know that I am a HUGE fan of "The Price is Right." Many of you also know how irritated I am by stupid contestants. I had to watch today, as it was the first episode hosted by Drew Carey. He did an okay job, but he needs to learn a few things.
At the beginning, it looked like he was a little nervous and/or uncomfortable. Seeing as it was his first show (and his first show replacing a legend), that's understandable. One of the big problems was that he didn't really do a good job of explaining the games. As a seasoned veteran, I understood how all the games worked, but contestants might not have understood, nor first-time viewers. It all worked out in the end, though, and it ended up being a "perfect show" (all 6 contestants won, and 2 even won $1,000 on the spin to determine who goes to the Showcase Showdown. By the way, is there a better title for a segment of a game show than the "Showcase Showdown?" I don't think so). Also, the contestants on this episode were more excited than I have ever seen before. One guy who was going to play a game to win a Jeep Wrangler actually tried to get into it while the spokesmodel was showing it off and they were describing the features...and this was before he had even played the game to win it.
Of course, idiocy had to rear its ugly head. On Contestants' Row, contestants bid to see who can get closer to the price of an item without going over the price. The first person bid $1250, the next bid $1850, and the third bid $1000. There are pretty much 3 or 4 "strategic" bids that can be made by the 4th person: $1 (if the price is under $1000), $1001 (if the price is between $1001 and $1250), $1251 ( if the price is between $1251 and $1849), or $1851 (if the price is over $1850). Even bidding somewhere between $1251 and $1700 might make some sense if the person isn't thinking particularly "strategically." However, what does the 4th person bid? $1245. This means that the price of the item would have to be between $1245 and $1249 for the person to win. A little advice: if you are going to be on a game show, you should probably figure out how the rules work, and perhaps have a little common sense.
Hopefully, Drew will get this turned around (his hosting, not the idiocy...although it would be nice if someone could prevent these people from being on the show...or even better, preventing these people from reproducing). It definitely doesn't feel the same without Bob Barker, but I think it will be fine once he learns to describe the games ahead of time.

Congrats to P and R!

Theme Weaver

Whatever happened to predictability? The milkman, the paperboy, evening TV?

To be honest, I was going to start this out with just saying, "Whatever happened to TV show theme songs," and then the theme song of one of my least-favorite shows popped into my head (DAMN YOU, OLSEN TWINS!).

I don't know if this is a nostalgic thing, but it seemed like back when shows had those inspirational, "I-can-do-anything" theme songs, sitcoms seemed more like BIG EVENTS. You would hear that song, and be excited to watch that week's episode. The theme song always came before the show started, as well. There wasn't the 2- to 5-minute "teaser" portion of the show before the theme song started. On Monday, I discovered that one of my favorite childhood shows was on in reruns again, and for some reason watching the opening credits with the theme song gave me goosebumps:



It seems like most shows don't have these uplifting theme songs anymore. Back then, I used to think it was kind of cool when a show had some electronic, synthesized theme song (like "Miami Vice," "Quantum Leap," or "Street Hawk"). But I guess you always want what you can't have. The television was flooded with those songs ("Growing Pains," "Diff'rent Strokes," and "Facts of Life"). Even now, some of the shows I like don't even have SONGS, they have SOUNDS (like "Lost" and "Heroes"). Granted, none of these are sitcoms, but it does seem like there was a shift away from opening shows with theme songs. Even "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Seinfeld" didn't really have opening theme songs (unless you count that little bass riff), and the "Friends" theme song was more of a pop song that was adapted to a TV show. I don't watch many sitcoms these days, but even the ones I do, like "The Office," don't have these semi-power ballads.

I think it's time to bring back the inspirational TV show theme songs! Of course, it would help to have a few sitcoms worth watching!