Holly wood sure does love to exploit a winner. They take what seems to work someplace and duplicate, twist it or rework it to get every last dime out of a show. Lately L.A. has been raiding British shows and trying to put an American spin on them. some of those shows never make it to the major networks but they are popping up on the cable channels. I need to look into more of these reworks and see what is original and what is a spin off – or a rip off.
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May Your Christmas Be Merry and Bright
December 24, 2011 // Posted in Culture, Music (Tags: carols, christmas, happen, singing, words) | Comments Off
Years of hearing Christmas carols and piped in Christmas music while shopping have left me a little numb about music this time of year. I just realized that I don’t even the know the words of most carols well enough to get up with a karaoke microphone and do a decent job of singing any of them. How did that happen? You hear them year after year, but you never really listen to the words and try to sing them on your own. Maybe I should learn at least one or two carols – keep them in my pocket until I need them.
Word Play
December 19, 2011 // Posted in Culture, People, Thinking (Tags: achieve, deceive, goal, language, spin) | Comments Off
Have you noticed that some people are masters of word play? They take every day, common speech, add a few more complicated words, and spin lies. Without going into politics, it is amazing to listen to professionals who have been trained in word play. Spin doctors are really good at this. They take a situation and twist it around or push it out in a different direction. All the while they are using language to deceive you or achieve some goal, such as sell you a product or change your beliefs. I like the Indian reference to this by saying that those men “speak with forked tongue.”
Dept Store Makeup Counter
December 9, 2011 // Posted in Culture, People, Stuff (Tags: lipstick, makeover, mall, stuff, women) | Comments Off
This time when I went to the mall I decided to take a look at the makeup counters in the big Department stores. Most of the time I avoid that whole area, as all these overly made up women are always looking for someone to pounce on and give them a free makeover. I don’t want a makeover but I do want some new lipstick. I’m not sure there is enough difference in the quality of the lipstick at the mall to make it worth $30 when I can buy good stuff at the drug store for only $12. So I took a look and the women were so busy gossiping among themselves that they never even came over to help me. So fuck ‘em. I left.
Talking Heads
November 28, 2011 // Posted in Culture, TV and Movies (Tags: channel, channels, guy, news) | Comments Off
Do you have a favorite news braodcaster? There is not much difference in the local news here, but we have 4 channels that do the news every night. I like some of the personalities, but none of them have a full team that I like for the entire 30 minute show.
The anchors on Channel 4 and Channel are the kind of people that I wish were my neighbors. People that I like in a general way and respect. I think they are basically good hearted and well mannered. But the weather forecasters on Channel 5 seem to be more accurate and more informative than the ones on the other channels.
I don’t care about the sports news and usually don’t much attention to the sportscasters on any of the channels. I used to like a guy named Rudy, but he retired and just comes back once in a while as a fill-in. Channel 5 let their main guy retire recently and that was good riddance. But they haven’t replace him with anyone significant. They are all just talking heads with no personalities. Boring.