I’m convinced that the writers of 24 believe that everyone is stupid, impulsive, and unable to follow the directions of their superiors. I’m also convinced that they believe the best (and most entertaining) way to solve crimes is to go at it alone but win in the end.
And for some dumb reason, I’m still persuaded to watch the next season.
But here’s a real world application of lessons from 24:
Continually go back to your ex-girlfriend and ask for advice after getting burned time and time again.
-President Palmer
Pick dumb boyfriends time after time. Fail to realize that your bad choices negatively affect your life. Mysteriously get it all together and get a good job.
- Kim Bauer
Shoot people. Take drugs. Stab your superior. Disobey the commands of your boss. And not get fired.
- Jack Bauer
Lie and devise all sorts of schemes in order to get your way. In the end, everything works out and you’re not punished.
- Pick your favorite character
Engage in torture and disobedience for the pragmatic reason of saving lives.
- Pick your favorite charactcer
I can’t think of a single show that is so far removed from the reality of life…but it’s intriguing and creatively put together, so I watch on, in spite of some serious character flaws among the cast.

Have you seen the new Liberty Mutual commercials? I saw one a few mintues ago that is easily on of the best commercials I’ve seen in recent history.
You can see it here…just scroll down the page a little bit and hit the play button.

From AutoBlog: Woman finds that dead body is the source of her steering problems.

A young woman from Ecourse, MI was driving through Detroit at about 1AM on Friday morning when she noticed that something was wrong with the way her car was handling. The teenaged driver pulled over into a nearby service station, thinking that she had a flat tire, when it was discovered that the problem was indeed much worse – a dead body was wedged into the vehicle’s front suspension.
Apparently, the deceased was the victim of a prior hit-and-run, and had been left lying in the road when the second driver came along and snagged the corpse with the undercarriage of her vehicle. It’s estimated that she drove about two miles with the body dangling underneath before realizing that something was wrong. She will not be charged for any wrongdoing, and the perpetrator of the hit-and-run is being sought by police.

I tihnk that qualifies as a bad night.

I think this pretty much sums up Cars (especially when comparing the movie to other animated films): (from John Hartl at MSNBC [link]

The company’s latest, “Cars,” which could easily turn out to be the summer’s best movie (and it’s only June), instantly wipes out memories of the past year’s other computer-generated cartoons. Without relying on endless references to other movies, without paying homage to Disney (Pixar’s partner/owner), without resorting to toilet humor or relying unnecessarily on the marquee value of its voice talent, Pixar maintains its quality in movie after movie.

I love to see it happening: commercials are slowly dying. Once I got my PVR, I stopped watching them for the most part. I’ll see a handful during a game, but other than that, my tv consumption is done in a time-shifted manner. Statistics show that most of America is following this trend, albeit not as quickly as I dove into it.
Within the past few months, TV networks have been scrambling to put their TV shows on the internet. ABC scored big by being the first, but not the others have joined the fun. For a couple bucks, you can download the entire show sans commercials. Or you can watch the show with the same commercials online, but I would suspect that more people download than endure the commercials.
I see this as the beginning of the end of traditional TV. For the first time ever, it’s feasible to buy only what you want to watch. I could reasonable buy a subscription to Lost and Scrubs and cancel my cable. I no longer have to pay for all of the crap that’s out there. And that’s wonderful.
But I started wondering how you could put advertising back into television unobtrusively. Think of it as commercial advertising in the style of Google adwords.
What if you could pause a tv show, and everything in that scene could be purchasable. You like the shirt, so you click on the shirt and it takes you to Amazon to buy it. Amazon already knows your size and has your credit card info, so all you have to do is click the remote a few times and you have it. Or maybe you see some Lays chips that you want to buy, you click on them and they are automatically added to your grocery list.
Like adwords, this would be perfect, because the consumer would be in charge of the situation. Advertisers would pay for product placement in shows and reap the rewards of one-click buying. And for the rest of us that don’t like commercials (and don’t feel like they hold a lot of sway over our buying habits), we could breeze through shows knowing that we don’t have to sit through 17 minutes of ads per 1 hour show.
I think it’s coming; I just wonder who will be the first to introduce it.

I just saw that Crash won the Best Picture award. I can’t tell you how glad I was to see this. In fact, I liked the film so much, I dedicated a post to it several months ago.
It’s a wonderful film with way too much language. But it still tells an interesting story of prejudice.

The Olympics have saturated television once again. It’s a biannual celebration of athletes and waste.
When I was a kid–I loved the Olympics…particularly the Winter ones. Between skiiing and bobsleading (who didn’t like Cool Runnings?), I enjoyed watching these highly trained athletes risk their all to win at these races.
However, in my mind the commercial aspect of the games has destroyed them. The athletes are billed as amateurs–except they’re not. They are highly sponsored athletes, and some this is only a second gig–think of all of the hockey, basketball and baseball players who are invited to join the olympic teams.
Half of the “sports” aren’t even sports. Ice dancing? Come on…ice dancing isn’t a sport. It’s a dance. I’m not saying it’s not difficult, but it’s not a sport. Ice skating… also not a sport. The outcomes are scored by a set of men and women who have proved themselves to be quite biased in the past–remember what happened at the last winter olympics? Yea, the French judge who sold her vote.
And I wonder about all of the companies (Bank of America, Home Depot) that drop millions of dollars supporting the games. Does it actually help their marketing efforts? I know BOA is reconsidering their olympic support following the 2006 games.
I guess at the end of the day, I see the whole olympic scene as a farse. The IOC is a biased, political body who look out for themselves more than anything else. The advertisers waste their money. NBC wasted billions for the tv rights for two weeks of programming. And the athletes have spent their entire lives training to win one race–only to be forgotten the second they step off the platform.

I listen to a lot of music, and I’ve heard a lot of dumb lyrics. (I’m sure you’ve experienced this too…) Here’s a very abbreviated list of songs w/ dumb lyrics
1) “We Rock in Stilettos” -Unknown. It is repeated ad infinitum in a screaming / rap style. Terrible.
2) “Good is good and bad is bad.” -Cheryl Crow. She should take the Caption Obvious award for the month!
3) “Roses smell like poo-poo” -Outkast. I think this is funny, but it’s still dumb.
4) “Put on my airrrrr furce ones…” -Unkown. Stupid song about stupid shoes. Dumb!
5) “Bi***** ain’t s***” -Dr. Dre. Don’t ask me how I’ve heard this song. I don’t know how, but I recently heard it again. It’s dumb, it’s stupid, it doesn’t make sense. And it’s sad how it talks about women.
6) “Milk and cereal. Cereal and milk.” -Unknown. Really funny. Really stupid. Sorta entertaining, but straight up dumb!
7) “The thong song” -Unknown. Once again, don’t ask me where I heard this because I don’t know. Any song that yodels “thong” deserves to be in the dumb category!

Do you ever wonder about how society perceives reality?
We live in an age where absolutes are shunned, morals are failing, and reality is different for everyone. Unfortunately, the only thing society agrees to be ‘real’ are ‘reality’ shows–which aren’t really ‘real’ at all.

It amazes me how women are still potrtayed as objects. Of course, by objects, I mean “Objects of Sex.” Even after the feminist revolution and the supposed enlighted society that we live in, women are still sexual object in marketing, music and media.
I saw a commercial for the Suit Mart here in Houston. The camera panned across four attractive young women–except the camera focused on their chests. Think of any major beer commercial…most have women as objects.
I listened to a song by the Black Eyed Peas the other day–I think it was called “My Hump” or something like that. The song was totally degrading for women. Throw in songs from Usher and virtually any other rapper, and you’ll find demeaning lyrics and actions.
Here’s the deal: I simply don’t understand why women are not offended by this demeaning talk and behavior. Most of my friends not only listen to Usher and the Black Eyed Peas, but they sing along with the songs. Occasionally I’ll here a comment about that being “gross.” But that’s about it.
It saddens me that our society allows and encourages such behavior. This is more damaging than any perceived “glass ceiling” in the corporate world.