My First Evening of Cable

The best part of living in the shed in my friend Gina's backyard when I first came to California in 2000, was that I had cable.

Since then, I've had other things to worry about and watching TV has been way down at the bottom of my list of priorities.

However, now that Sandra and I have installed cable, I realize I forgot all about how great it is.

So I would like to record my first evening of cable viewing -

Monday July 23

I came home from work about 5:15pm and, even though cable was installed, jumping in the swimming pool easily took priority.

Soon after Sandra and I waded into the pool, we were joined by 3 ducks. I tried to befriend them, but they all ran away from me in single file. Sandra was able to interact with them a lot better than I was.

After our swim, we dined on a Trader Joes cuban chicken cha cha cha recipe which was delicious.

Then the cable viewing began:

1. The Soup on E!
I haven't seen Talk Soup in years and years. Since they had that skinny little guy on there. It's still a great show. The best of the best.

By watching The Soup, we learned about Poison front man Bret Michael's new reality show, so we watched that next.

2. Bret Michael's Reality Show.
I forget what this is called. Rock of Ages. Love on the Rocks. Something not very memorable. Bret Michaels is no Flava Flav in terms of charisma or entertainment value, but drunken skanks are always fine to watch and I enjoyed this show immensely, but not nearly as much as Flava of Love which we recently watched on DVD.

3. Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
I haven't seen the Daily Show since before Jon Stewart took it over, but of course I heard all about it because it's since become a cultural phenomenon. I thought it was ok. I have the sense that Daily Show's best years are behind it though. The Colbert Report, on the other hand, was out of this world. That guy cracks me up. Love it. I'd heard all about his talk to the White House Press Corps., so his reputation preceded him and I was not disappointed.

4. Hell's Kitchen.
Had to go back to network TV to catch the latest installment of this show. Chef Gordon Ramsay never fails to entertain and he called his cooks "donkeys" again. I love when he does that.

5. Most Embarrassing Moments 2 on VH1.
Again, great trash TV. An hour seemed like 10 minutes plus commercials.

On Tuesday, I worked an evening shift, so didn't get in much TV viewing, but Sandra and I did manage to check out Ice Roads on the History Channel. That was awesome. We love stuff like that.

In conclusion, I think the first night of cable viewing plus Ice Roads is worth the monthly cable cost already. The rest of the month's viewing will all be like a bonus.

Telethon Update

Still no Charo, but she rarely shows up until a little later in the 2nd day, so I'm still confident she'll appear.

Not a lot of highlights to discuss, though there were some mildly amusing incidents like the fact that Jerry Lewis keeps calling Tony Orlando a Puero Rican.

Ms. Nguyen was interviewing a girl in a wheelchair and asked her how long she'd had her wheelchair. The girl goes, "You want me to do math too?"; which was kind of out of line. Ms. Nguyen looked visibly distraught like she'd said something wrong. It never occured to Ms. Wen that the kid might be out of line saying something like that, even though she was a victim of MD.


Ms. Nguyen with Casey Kassem - inviting viewers to pledge on their credit cards (note variant dress).

It was also funny when a local CEO pulled a check out of his jacket that was wadded up all to hell and Casey Kassem looked at him like he was street trash.


They aired a brief retrospective of the supermarket "Aisles of Smiles" program, but that's about it as far as highlights go.

Oh, and there was an urgeant message from Kenny Rogers:

Addendum
OH! - And this morning, the Amish guy (photographed in the previous post) announced, "You never know when somebody's gonna be looking through their telescope and they'll say, "There it is! There's the cure!"

haha - and I'm sure he meant "microscope" rather than "telescope".
Well, you can't expect the Amish to understand science.

Telethon 2005

Jerry Lewis Telethon '05 - Early Report:

Jerry has lost quite a bit of weight this year.

Entertainment so far has been a brass band, a bunch of drummers, and a lounge singer.

No Charo yet, but I will try to catch her again this year, as I try to do every year.


The local LA network center is about as entertaining as the main stage this year.
Again, no Charo, but they do have local newswoman Ms. Nguyen:


And a very Amish-looking gentleman:

I'm glad I took a nap this afternoon.