I Love Me a Good Game Show

As the model of television broadcasting and programming changes, I find that everyone I know only watches “high quality” shows in large chunks. A whole season of Game of Thrones on a random Sunday, season 4 of Dexter the next week, season 1 of Walking Dead on a long weekend. It seems no one has time anymore for one of my favorite childhood pastimes – burning a half hour watching a disposable, gleefully stupid show that you’ll never have a discussion with anyone about. As a tribute to this forgotten form of television viewing, I’ve written a few longer nostalgic posts. Today’s focus: game shows. I decided to look at some of my favorite game shows through the lens of how well I would fare if I was somehow selected.

American Gladiators

How I would fare: Would sustain massive injury

Loved loved loved LOVED this show. The open embrace of 1980s-style steroids from juiceheads lovably named Nitro, Lazer and Turbo led to all kinds of over-the-top ridiculousness. One of my favorite steroid rage moments was the inexplicable decision of Turbo to punch a contestant in the face during one game (see 0:58 and 1:35 of this epic clip). Suffice it to say, I would not thrive in this environment. I don’t even think I would do as well as Steve Urkel does when he goes head-to-head with Carl Winslow in a truly underappreciated late-era Family Matters classic. Note that Urkel makes it all the way across the handbike. Could I really pull that off? Sometimes you have to ask yourself the hard questions.

Price is Right

How I would fare: Game-changing business idea

A lot of people have written about what it takes to get on the show, which is basically a lot of un-ironic enthusiasm and stupid clothing. Vish’s friend made it on in college – it’s easier to get on this show than you might think. I also think you can do pretty well on this show by just studying the pricing of a lot of basic consumer goods. But to strike it really rich on this show, you need to make the showcase showdown, and to do that, you need to be able to properly spin the big wheel. Which brings me to my awesome new business idea: The Price is Right Training Camp.

Making it onto the show could be a once-in-a-lifetime event – and you’re going to step into that situation playing a game for the very first time? In front of a studio audience? Wouldn’t  all these senior citizens want to know that they had prepared themselves for the best way to slide Plinko chips, or have mastered the Range Game under time pressure? Most importantly, wouldn’t they pay $250 apiece to master spinning the giant wheel to land on 1.00? If people will go to Ninja Warrior training facilities, I’m certain they’ll want to attend The Price is Right Training Camp.

Sequence of events: 1. I build exact Price is Right replicas in an old person place like Florida or Arizona. 2. I mint cash. I’m already oversubscribed for my Series A round.

2 Minute Drill

How I would fare: Obviously awesome

ESPN had this awesome sports game show from 2000-2001 called “2 Minute Drill” hosted by Kenny Mayne, which I actually would have tried to get onto if it wasn’t cancelled so soon. You can still play an online version of the game here. 

The funniest thing about this show was that the questions were read to you rapid fire (two minutes in total, hence “2 Minute Drill”), by former star athletes. While I am making no commentary on athletes in general, I will say that some former athletes do not appear to have complete mastery of skills such as reading and pronunciation. I would laugh as the contestant squirmed awkwardly as Franco Harris or Barry Alvarez spent 15 seconds to read only one question.

A few years later, one of my associates in banking revealed he was a contestant on the show, and furiously claimed the only reason he lost was because Tug McGraw couldn’t read the teleprompter. Though to be fair, this same guy claimed he “invented bottle service at clubs”, so it’s possible he would have lost regardless.

Jeopardy

How I would fare: Pretty solidly, if I could go back to the knowledge I had at age 16.

I should start by pointing everyone who somehow hasn’t seen Leonard from Little Rock, Arkansas completely crush Jeopardy’s Teen Tournament to this incredible episode. Leonard is a boss.

When I was in high school and actively studying most of the subjects that appear on Jeopardy, I was pretty convinced one day I would go on the show. The only category that consistently stumped me was opera. In the back of my mind, I had this plan to one day learn a lot about opera, and then proceed to dominate the show. Of course, I never learned anything about opera, and also forgot everything I did know to begin with.

I also think they should do a cross-format show, where the best kid under age 9 competes against the Celebrity Jeopardy champion. It would be awesome to see a 7-year old Indian kid go mano a mano with Sam Waterston. Super compelling television.

Family Feud

How I would fare: Nightmarish. Possibly even worse than Chris Paul’s family.

The biggest problem here would be the involvement of my own family. If you surveyed 100 people on literally any topic, my dad would produce an answer that matched exactly 0 of the 100 people surveyed.

“We surveyed 100 people – what is your favorite thing to do on a Sunday?”
Dad: “Eat a $5.99 chinese food lunch special and then watch 3 movies on DVD. Also, the $5.99 meal is very overpriced, I don’t know how they can justify charging so much!”

“We surveyed 100 people, what is the first thing you would buy if your boss gave you a raise?”
Dad: “The raise pool is pathetic now, that would not happen.”

“We surveyed 100 people – what is the best kind of sandwich to put on a roll?”
Dad: “Nobody likes sandwiches.”

I would really need to carry the team here.

Hollywood Squares

How I would fare: I’m a great tic-tac-toe player and I can always tell when celebrities are lying, so I think quite well.

Honestly, I didn’t really like this show that much, the forced banter of the C and D list celebrities never much appealed to me, and watching two people play a giant game of tic-tac-toe is not exactly Kasparov versus Deep Blue. I only bring this up because I wanted to talk about a remake that recently came to my attention: Hip Hop Squares. Airing on MTV2, Hip Hop Squares is the same show, except the celebrities have changed from Martin Mull and Joan Rivers to DJ Khaled, Ghostface Killah and Fat Joe. The “Secret Square” has been renamed the “G-Spot”. In this groundbreaking television clip, Lil Duval explains that the “F-Cup” in bra sizes stands for “F*ck-Cup.” I see what you did there, Lil Duval. Well played.

Someone needs to explain to me in meticulous detail why this show did not become a worldwide phenomenon.

Next time: Nickelodeon game shows for kids.

The Airplane Magazine

Let’s start this off with a few facts.

Fact 1: Compared to the average person who is not a management consultant, I know an overwhelming number of people who are or used to be management consultants.

Fact 2: Management consultants travel a lot for work, so they’re on a lot of flights, which means they either achieve status on airlines or make meaningful progress towards getting status.

Fact 3: Management consultants think it’s an exciting topic of conversation to other people to describe the various methods and tricks they used with their employers and airline companies to achieve as high a status as possible on as many airlines as possible. (Example: “I demanded McKinsey buy me a Delta ticket for my Tokyo project because I was close to status, then I got the Delta redeemable points global planetary unified alliance card, which got me status thanks to an extra mileage bonus you get for using that card only at movie theaters, which worked out perfectly since I was on the beach and had a lot of time to watch movies – a lot of people are stupid and get the Delta SkyMiles card but even though you get more miles from groceries and gas they expire more quickly which revokes status and you can’t cancel it as fast which means you might pay annual fees and I don’t buy gas, fortunately I am the world’s greatest travel genius and have solved the entire system.”)

Fact 4: Every time I experience Fact 3, I want to shove a freshly sharpened fork into my face.

As far as life burdens go, you might say that’s pretty light and I am being a whiny baby. I have no response to that, but instead, I’ll redirect the subject to something I do genuinely enjoy about flying and wish people would talk about to me more often – the airline magazine.

Not to be confused with a SkyMall or Duty Free catalog, airline carriers’ in-house magazine publications delight me to no end. I always read through the entire thing on a flight, and if I’m flying a lot in a short period of time, I’m massively disappointed when I see I’ve already been through that issue.

Sidebar: When I lived in Washington, DC, I frequently rode Amtrak, and also thoroughly enjoyed the Amtrak magazine, which is a different animal from the airline magazine. At the beginning of the Amtrak magazine, there’s almost always an article about the importance of trains in our nation’s history, and how we should all continue to support the railroads. Haha! Amtrak, you so funny! For a period of time there were all these pages on a giant celebration for National Train Appreciation Day, with an appearance by special guest Randy Jackson from American Idol. I had trouble deciding whether it was more hysterical that the best celebrity they could get was Randy Jackson, or that Randy Jackson only appeared for 10 minutes.

End of sidebar.

Now, my favorite parts of the airline magazine:

The Top Doctor in America – I would pay over $100 to have a 30-minute chat with someone who chose an out-of-state doctor from these ads. If there is someone who was on a plane thinking, “Damn, I need full mouth rejuvenation but I won’t settle for anything less than the nation’s best doctor – whoa! Wait, here’s a list of the best doctors! Okay, and this guy is in Houston, that’s only a 2.5 hour flight for me, I’m gonna jot down this phone number and call once I land!” then I absolutely, absolutely need to meet that person immediately.

I also have a fascination with how much the doctor in the picture pays relative to the other guys who just have their names listed on the right. Invariably, the guy in the picture always seems to look like a greasy douchebag, which I think is devaluing the ad for the guys on the right. Unless the reasoning is that they all look like greasy douchebags, so including pictures of everyone would only exacerbate the problem. Or maybe the point is that these aren’t supposed to function as ads at all, it’s just like 6 friends from medical school who, back in their medical school days, always dreamed about being rich enough to blow money on one of these ads, and now they all carry a copy of this page in their wallet and show it to women at bars, but then get rejected because no woman wants to hook up with the doctor who couldn’t even afford the primo full picture placement.

I’ve also never seen a woman listed in one of these ads. I think the obviously logical assumption there would have to be that no female doctors are among the best doctors in America. Women are getting smarter every day, though, so I have hope that one day a female doctor can break through and become one of the best doctors in America. That’s going to be a landmark event – it would be really awesome if it happened in my lifetime!

Airport Terminal Diagram – Is it some kind of federal airline magazine law that multiple pages of every magazine have to be devoted to this? I tried my best to think of how this has proved useful to anyone, here’s the best I could come up with.

“Okay, we only have a 30 minute connection window in Denver. Do you think we’re going to make it?”

“It’s gonna be tight, it depends on how far away the gates are.”

“True, what gate are we coming into?”

“I don’t know.”

“Damn, okay. This connecting ticket says our next flight leaves from Gate B67.”

“Okay, I’m looking at the Denver terminal map right now. I see that Gates B65, B66, B68 and B69 are all pretty close to Gate B67.”

“Ah, good find – I see that too now. Gate B64 is actually also not too far away, so there’s a lot of good options.”

“Okay, let’s hope we come into Gate B66.”

“Yeah, hopefully not B1! Look at how far that is!”

“Well, it’s sort of hard to tell without a scale. Maybe it’s pretty close.”

“Yeah, maybe. Fingers crossed!”

Best Steakhouses in America – how has the Internet or Yelp’s mobile app not made this obsolete yet? If this ad still exists in 2015, we may be in trouble as a country.

I also am a huge fan of this recurring ad for a dress shirt. The tie is killer.

12 page section on city that maybe shouldn’t be spending city funds on 12-page magazine inserts  (Ex: Morgantown, WV, Roanoke, VA, Huntsville, AL, Peoria, IL, etc.) –  My favorite parts of these: (1) all the great world-class science research that is happening at the local university, coupled with a picture of a woman looking into a microscope or a guy pouring something from a beaker into a flask; (2) the “emerging foodie scene” which says something like “everyone knows this town has great barbeque, but now people are into farm-to-table concepts!”; (3) whenever a city that historically had a lot of slavery glosses that over by using the word “historic” a lot of times; (4) the picture of city hall; (5) the picture of some random flowers because they ran out of pictures to put in because they bought 12 freaking pages.

It’s Just Lunch – Matchmaking services for the busy professional who is also scared to date! Hey dude, don’t worry, it’s just lunch! She’s not ever going to hook up with you, it’s literally just lunch! I’m extremely curious, over the lifetime of the business, what the total cost of airline ads has been to the It’s Just Lunch matchmaking company. If you said it was well into seven figures I wouldn’t blink an eye - I think this ad has been in every airline magazine ever printed. In particular, I’m a huge fan of their probably-trademarked dating Q&A format, where no one knows who is asking the questions. The headline nowadays reads “An Insider Look at Dating in the Modern World.” I love insider information!

Here too, I wonder how they decide which woman gets the full-page picture. The crass assumption would be that they pick the matchmaker who is the most attractive. Don’t be so crass.

Route Map for large airlines: What information do I glean from this? How can anyone discern anything other than “United flies a lot of places,”? I have this image in my mind of United Airlines executives sitting in a giant conference room with a 30x20 foot route map printed on the wall.

“Dude, look at this route map, it’s so sick bro!”

“It’s almost entirely blue lines! Damn son, we even fly to Parkersburg!”

“Think we can’t get you to Rouyn-Noranda in Quebec? WRONG, try again! We have a partner airline that hooks that up!”

“Man, you know, I think more people need to know how f*cking awesome this is.”

“Hold it, hold it – IDEA GENERATION UNFOLDING - Let’s put it in the airline magazine! Heads gon’ explode, yo!”

“Wait YOU HOLD IT - I’m about to take that awesome idea and elevate that sh*t to the next level, kid – WE MAKE IT A THREE-PAGE GLOSSY INSERT!!!!”

“OH SH*T IT’S OVER!! IT’S OVER!! IT’S OVER!!!!!!!!!!!”

[white guy high-five]

YouTube Classic of the Week

Kevin Everett was a tight end for the Buffalo Bills who was badly injured onfield, and was given a "statistically small chance" to ever walk again. The good news is that after a long series of surgeries and rehab, he did regain full walking ability, appearing on Oprah in 2008 walking without assistance. The even better news is that News 12 Sports in West Palm Beach is notorious for major errors in their news telecasts. Enjoy.

Warren Buffett Sings For China

I'm just going to go totally literal here. Wearing a crew neck sweatshirt that says "Still plays with Trains", Warren Buffett, billionaire investor, sings "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad" while playing the ukulele. Behind him is a model train set. The song, broadcast on CCTV, is being directed at the residents of China in celebration of the New Year. When he finishes, he says "xie xie" (thank you) to somebody, I guess maybe all of China.



If someone could explain to me what is happening here, I would be very appreciative. Thanks.

Great Episodes of Great Shows: Full House

Continuing my recent run of nostalgia, I’m starting a new series today, “Great Episodes of Great Shows.” Today, I look back at what is arguably the greatest episode of “Full House.” Though the show was on its last legs, Season 8’s third episode, “Making Out Is Hard To Do,” remains my personal all-time favorite. To try to spice up the famously mild show, “Full House” gave middle daughter Stephanie Tanner a “bad girl” friend Gia, played by Marla Sokoloff. Thankfully for this blog post, someone on the internet (maybe James Franco?) remains completely obsessed with Marla Sokoloff, and has thankfully cut and posted “Full House” episodes with only the Marla Sokoloff scenes. Unfortunately I can't embed this video, so you'll need this link. Definitely watch it.

Greatest Episode of Full House

0:10 – 0:25: I wonder how the Olsen twins feel that their younger sister is now the new Hollywood It girl. Are they jealous? Are they supportive? Did they advise her to go into this business? I also wonder how they feel about murdering Heath Ledger. Wait, I’m kidding about that. I think.

0:28 – 0:38: This kid’s original move is to throw peas and onions at Stephanie’s neck. Remember that for later, when the kid ups his game 100,000x.

0:45 – 0:59: Given what’s on TV nowadays, it’s incredible to think that Gia seemed so slutty on this show.

1:45 – 1:55: For reasons that escape me, the laugh track still exists on shows today. I always hated the laugh track. But I DID ridiculously enjoy whenever they played that “OOOHHH” recording when something scandalous happened. I don’t think TV shows have the “OOOHHH” thing anymore, which is a real shame. “Saved By The Bell” was the king of that, they used at least one “OOOHHH” per episode. But what really took the cake is when they added this dude who would say “BUS-TED!” when everyone else went “OOOHHH.” It always slayed me to imagine 6 people in a sound studio, as a producer says “You five people, you’re gonna go ‘OOOOHH’ and then you, you’re the ‘BUS-TED’ guy, the whole thing really sits on your shoulders.”

1:57 – 2:00: I like how polite these kids are. Even though everyone wants to make out, no one starts until Stephanie gets there so Bobby doesn’t have to sit there alone, not making out. I thought that was nice.

2:15 – 2:26: I was not getting invited to a lot of parties like this in middle school. Or ever. I guess come to think of it, this party would be way too risqué for me even now.

2:35 – 2:44: Bobby ain’t fuckin’ around here, Steph.

3:10: “Steph, this is not a talking party.” That might be my single favorite line from any show, ever. Next time some girl talks to me at a party, I’m dropping that line.

3:20 – 3:40: “Don’t you like me?” “Then what’s the problem?” “Then why don’t we kiss while you figure it out!” Damn, dude, Bobby’s swag is on a million right now. I don’t want to break up a good time here, but what are the odds Bobby went on to roofie someone in college? 3:1? 5:2? I could probably be talked into even lower.

3:56 – 4:03: “How long are we supposed to do this?” “Until everyone else stops!!” I also plan to steal this line. Bobby is a child genius. Doogie should be ashamed. I also note that all the other kids gave Steph and Bobby the prime spot for making out, the couch. There’s literally two kids making out on the floor in the back corner. It seems kind of rude for everyone to go out of their way to make Steph comfortable, and then for her to bail like this.

4:32 – 4:37: Marla Sokoloff delivers the line “I’m really sorry Steph” like Stephanie just was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

4:45 – 4:55: Whenever I watch something where a character depends on a land line, I get all confused. It’s amazing how many movies and shows make absolutely no sense once you watch with the perspective that cell phones exist. It’s pretty much ruined the “character shows up for dinner date, sits at restaurant alone for 3 hours because the other person flaked” scene that I must have seen 300 times.

5:40 – 5:50: Okay, I get that it’s just a show, but “Laryngitis Bob Saget” sounds nothing like Candace Cameron. Come on Steph, it’s dumb moves like this that eventually made you into a meth addict. Although I guess that set the stage for history’s coolest intervention, so maybe it was all worth it.

5:51: I just saw Bobby is playing a handheld video game. I like that Bobby thought, “Well, I’ll probably be making out all party long, but just in case, I need a backup plan. Video games!” Bobby = my idol.

6:16: Bobby is the first one out the door. Nice move, Bobby. One thing I don’t get about this – do they all live within walking distance? How are all the kids going to get home? Stephanie obviously doesn’t live within walking distance, or she wouldn’t have needed to call Bob Saget. In case you’re wondering, I perform this rigorous logical analysis of every 1990s TV show. I am a lot of fun to be around.

Tune in next time for the greatest episode of “Family Matters” – I’m agonizing right now over which episode that is - there’s so many good candidates.

Jimmy Kimmel - Christmas Presents Part II

The sequel is on par with Godfather, Part II. The girl with the deodorant at 1:25 and the kid who gets the potato at 3:25 are so awesome. Those kids are being raised the right way. And to the girl at 3:16, believe in yourself. Age ain't nuthin' but a number.

Let's Go To The Mall!

Growing up, my local mall* was a lot like yours, except mine was prominently featured in “Jackie Brown” and also was the largest mall in the entire western hemisphere. The “Del Amo Fashion Center” held this title until I got to middle school, when some stupid mall in Canada (Edmonton?) built an environmental travesty/indoor water park that connected to their mall, thus surpassing my beloved local mall’s square footage. As a child, despite having an annual income of $0.00, I could scarcely think of anything more exhilarating than a trip to the Del Amo mall. The mall was this unending world of possibilities – it seemed to me the complex housed any product anyone could ever dream of wanting. Like if I could somehow physically step into Amazon.com while eating a hot dog on a stick. The Del Amo mall even had two completely separate multiplex movie theaters. Two different movie theaters! In one mall! The hedonism boggles the mind.

(*There was another mall near my high school, but no one ever buys anything there, so I don’t count that place. After Christmas I stopped in the Banana Republic – the sales clerk was so shocked to see a “customer” that she tripped while trying to greet me. The entire place must be a front for money laundering).

As you obviously know, no one goes to the mall anymore, for reasons I fully appreciate and agree with. Things are so bad for malls that Sbarro filed for bankruptcy. I stopped by Del Amo mall in January, and it looked awful. I saw boarded-up storefronts, signs that hadn’t been replaced in 20 years, and the same old beige-and-maroon patterned floor – I started to wonder if I had entered a time capsule.

Over the years, “Mallrats” has established this image of kids at the mall as slackers with nothing to do and nowhere to go, so hey, might as well hang out at the mall. While I like that movie, I want to forcefully assert that this is total nonsense. I used to be really, genuinely fired up to go to the mall, and so were most of my friends. If someone’s mom was driving to Del Amo, nobody ever passed on that opportunity.

It’s not that I am idiotically hoping indoor malls will make a comeback – it’s clearly good for society that Sbarro’s reign of inedible, disgusting, wasn’t-even-good-when-it-first-came-out-of-the-oven pizza/terror is coming to an end. But I had so many good times that I thought it would be nice to look back to better days, and my favorite spots at the mall.

Hat Kiosk – Oh man, there were so many hats! All in one place! I especially enjoyed the black LA Dodgers caps that Asian guys started wearing in their mid-90s effort to disown colors completely. I never had one, mostly because I look terrible in hats. But I was nevertheless excited by this kiosk.

Movie Theaters – Did I mention there were two?

Cinnabon – There were also two of these. I preferred the one in the main corridor because everyone would eye you with jealously when you bought one. The Cinnabon by the Marshall’s and Sam Goody just didn’t have the same glamour. Kind of like when Spago expanded out of Beverly Hills.

GameStop – To prevent kids from standing around playing the demo games, GameStop had a perfect solution. Every demo machine was always broken. GameStop is managed by business wunderkinds.

Things Remembered – I didn’t actually go in here, but I did want to share my super-awesome idea for a secondhand gift exchange for engraved items from Things Remembered. So if you have a candy box that reads, “To Lisa - I love you”, someone else dating a Lisa can buy it from you for 25 cents on the dollar. Payment declines the weirder your name is. This could be the best idea I ever had.

Poster Store – Poster store, I have no idea what you were called, but damn if you didn’t have a whole lot of posters. I was a particular sucker for Ken Griffey, Jr. posters when he was a Seattle Mariner. At age 11, the only difference to me between a Griffey poster and an original Matisse was that the Matisse looked like total ass. As an aside, basketball announcers always say “posterized” when someone gets dunked on, but it’s nearly impossible to find a poster where that’s actually the case. Whenever an announcer screams, “THAT’S GONNA BE ON A POSTER!” I yell back at my inanimate television, “I AM SKEPTICAL OF THAT OUTCOME!!”

The Sharper Image – How did this store stay in business for so long? Someone once gave me a $50 gift certificate to the Sharper Image. I couldn’t find anyone who would buy it from me for $35.

Sweet Factory – I finished every trip to the mall with a stop here. The variety of candy was staggering, there was a whole wall devoted to sour punch, sour straw and sour bands. I always denied to my mom that I was eating candy at the mall, but the red and green sour punch stuck in between my teeth was not super helpful to my case.

Farewell, mall. The memories are forever.

A Little Gross, But Still Important

Steve sent this along today, and even though it's kind of disgusting (1:07), I had to share for a couple reasons:

1. Love this kid's persistence. He's going to crush the GMAT one day.
2. He really does rock this out starting at 0:19.
3. But the obvious reason Steve sent this - this looks jarringly like me 15 years ago. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that I can't play the drums (even in Rock Band, I sort of suck on the drums), I would be seriously wondering if this was some awful memory I blacked out from my youth.

Anyways, enjoy watching Baby Eric gut his way through an epic performance.

A Trip To The Chinese Market

Whenever I’m back in LA, at some point I end up with my parents at Chinese supermarkets. The Chinese supermarket experience is magical, and honestly, it’s better than Disneyland.  People have been afraid to say that, but not me. I’m not scared of you, Disneyland. Anyhow, a photo tour for the uninformed:

 Look at how pretty her lips are, must be from drinking a LOT of instant coffee.

This is an Australian king crab, but it reminded me of the boxes of blue crabs they sometimes have. As a kid/last year, I loved poking them with tongs and seeing which crab jumped the highest. Someone got all upset with my “animal cruelty” at which point I tried to make something up about how crabs have exoskeletons, so they don’t have any pain receptors. I should have told the truth which was, “Poking crabs is a hilarious good time.”

My favorite kind of fiesta. The Danish kind.

 Don’t eat the non-edible beef blood, it’s not good. Stick to the edible blood.

 The Cordyceps Fungus isn’t even one of the 10 most expensive fungi in the store.

I immediately bought 14 of these. My favorite thing about this might be the label at the top – “Communicate Everywhere”, evidently marketing the pearl earpick as a substitute to satellite phones.

 I never know what this means.

Regular supermarkets maybe sell like one footstool. The Chinese market invariably has its own footstool section. Is it wrong that I chuckle when I see this? I think it’s probably okay.

When I was little, my friend Ali had a pet turtle. It cost $110 from the pet store. My dad couldn’t believe Ali got his parents to pay roughly $250/lb. for a turtle when the going rate at the time was only $7.99/lb. 

Twitter, Expanded

In the ever-so-slight time gap in entries on the blog, I sometimes (rarely) would have the genesis of an interesting idea, but I was far too lazy to write 500 words. So, on Hemanshu’s advice, I started Tweeting (@ericswisdom) instead – maybe I couldn’t write 500 words, but surely I could muster the effort to write 12.

I didn’t understand Twitter at all when it debuted, choosing instead to mock people for their mindless self-absorption, and predicting that Twitter would die a rapid death.

That was perhaps the most glaring Andy-Rooney-hates-on-Kurt-Cobain “I don’t get you kids” moment of my life. (I think I just revealed myself to be 47 years old.) Eventually I conceded, and started working my own “prose” down to 140 characters. Most of what I tweeted about was pie, and my efforts to defeat the cupcake movement on a grassroots level, eventually leading to cupcake shops beings replaced nationwide with pie shops. That seems to be happening, so I’ve lost some of the energy that was driving my tweeting. Anyways, now that I’m theoretically writing this blog again, I thought it might be fun to expand on some tweets that didn’t get fully explored. Here’s the first three that caught my eye:

296 days ago: “If Obama had any sense, he would announce he was lowering his salary to one dollar. Americans would eat that nonsense like candy omnomnom”

I still think Obama should do this. His presidential salary is negligible when you think about his expected career earnings from books and speaking engagements. Why not do this, turnaround-CEO-style, and say, “Obviously this is a small and symbolic contribution, but sacrifice starts at the top. And if we all can sacrifice just a little bit…blah blah blah.” It would be political gold! I don’t understand why this hasn’t happened yet.

My dad thinks there should be a charity where you just give more money to the US government. Like voluntary increased taxation. He says that’s the neediest entity right now, so we should give money there. I told him traditional charities were always going to be more popular, to which he said, “Oh I see. Because that money is tax-deductible.” So then I started wondering whether voluntary taxes would themselves be tax-deductible. A couple seconds later my head literally exploded and there was a big mess on the floor.

276 days ago: “What did people do before the creation of the paper sleeve that goes outside the coffee cup? Nobody knows.” “My theory: only women, whose hands are less sensitive to heat, drank coffee on-the-go. Nobel Prize committee, I await your call.”

I surveyed my old coworkers, and everyone agreed that women can hold much hotter objects than men. Something can be scalding hot, and women just grab it like it’s nothing. I don’t even think they’re showing off, they just hardly notice heat. If you ask a woman about this, she’ll invariably say, “That’s because women have a higher pain tolerance than men.” If she’s extra fun, she will add, “It’s because we give birth.” I’m not 100% sure about that, but there’s no point arguing – once ladies bring up giving birth, you’ve reached the end of the conversation.

258 days ago: “Julia Roberts is such an entitled bitch at the end of Ocean’s 11 – angry bc a guy would leave her for $163 million. $163 million, come on!”

To refresh your memory on Ocean’s Eleven – Clooney and gang steal ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-THREE MILLION DOLLARS from Andy Garcia. Numerically, that looks like this: $163,000,000.00. Clooney asks Garcia if he would dump Julia Roberts if Clooney gave him information that led to getting the money back. Garcia says yes, Julia Roberts sees this on closed-circuit TV, becomes super furious and immediately dumps Garcia.

First of all, what if Garcia just said that to Clooney to get information, but he really had no intention whatsoever of dumping Julia Roberts? The dude just lost $163 million, I think he’s entitled to use some “unconventional” means to try to get the money back. But Julia doesn’t even consider this, she just immediately goes apeshit in her cold, distant way. Secondly, even if Garcia actually meant that he would dump her, we’re talking about $163 million dollars. I understand it’s hard to put a price on love, but it seems awfully arrogant to assume that your price is greater than $163 million dollars. If someone hinted at breaking up with me for $163 million dollars, I’d like to think I’d at least be willing to have a conversation about it. Would Clooney choose her over $163 million dollars? She has absolutely no idea! The scene is supposed to expose Garcia’s character for being phony, greedy and evil, but to me, it just reveals that Julia Roberts is spoiled and entitled. I hate Julia Roberts. Wait, I mean her character. I hate her character.

Facebook Timeline

Usually when Facebook unveils a new feature, I get all grumpy with my ever-decreasing “privacy,” which I am hell-bent on protecting for no conceivable reason. I always agree whenever someone says “I don’t like how much Facebook knows about me,” but that’s impossibly stupid, because I provided all the information in the first place. But last week, I switched to Facebook Timeline, and I must say that have no complaints, it is tremendous. I probably spent a good hour stalking myself for a change, and it was great fun seeing my weight and skin tone vacillate over the years. (2008 was my fattest year.) Seeing everything presented chronologically almost made me wish I had posted more on Facebook and subjected people to more inane status updates.

Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t have anything on me pre-2004, other than my birth. So I got to thinking about other life milestones Facebook Timeline isn’t capturing. In the spirit of Christmas, I thought about when I first learned conclusively (spoiler alert!) that Santa Claus was an utter and complete lie.

3 Years Old: Getting fat from a daily diet of refried beans and nachos, oblivious to Santa even though he has been giving me gifts for a couple years now. Not only am I oblivious to Santa, I’m also probably oblivious to the gifts. Pass me some more nachos.

3 ½ Years Old: Full understanding of Santa Claus. Super freaking pumped about it. I was a pretty good kid, so not worried about coal at all.

4 Years Old: Santa gets me a globe. I am concerned that my letter got lost in the mail. I can’t be mad at Santa, so I instead blame our mailman and secretly plot his demise.

4 ½ Years Old: I start to gain some minor understanding of how many homes and children exist in the world. Don’t have precise numbers, but I know it’s a lot.

5 Years Old: I’m getting mad suspicious about Santa. How does this guy eat so many cookies? I LOVE cookies, but even when I’m really really hungry I can at eat at MOST like 14 cookies. How can one dude eat at least 1,000,000 cookies? Something does not add up, and by this age, I’m getting real damn good at addition. My friend says I must not love cookies enough, but that’s preposterous, nobody loves cookies more than me.

5 ½ Years Old: I continue to search high and low for credible explanations, but none are forthcoming. I plan deep undercover investigation for Christmas.

6 Years Old: Oh, I see. Santa has my mom’s handwriting. Check.

I wonder how immigrant parents spread the word about what they’re supposed to do in these kinds of situations. The one I wondered the most about was the tooth fairy; how did my parents learn about that? I must have just excitedly blabbered about how I would spend the dollar I was getting once my tooth finally fell out. I bet my parents then had to call other parents asking, “Uhhh, so…‘tooth fairy’? You’re saying our children believe a magical being flies around at night and collects teeth? Why does it go under the pillow? That is not clean, so we will need to wash the sheets afterwards. $1 feels like too much money!” Truth be told, I never even believed in the tooth fairy – I just wanted a dollar. That whole story never made sense, what are the tooth fairy’s motivations? Why does she want all these teeth, it’s totally gross. I just tried reading the tooth fairy entry on Wikipedia, and I didn’t get any good answers.

Anyways, Facebook Timeline has done a good job capturing some milestones, but there’s a lot missing. More milestones to come. Maybe. We all know how bad I am about updating this.

I Strongly Dislike Subway Sandwiches

For the life of me, I cannot understand why people like to eat at Subway. I get that it seems relatively cheap thanks to their $5 footlong sales campaign, but I seem to be constantly surrounded by people who actually LIKE eating there. Not for the savings, they think the sandwiches are tasty. I always say I don’t want to be another guy who blogs that “everything everywhere always fucking sucks”, but Subway really does suck.

Myth #1: Subway bread is great and freshly baked.

Reality: No! It tastes like crap! If you bought a loaf of Subway bread at a supermarket, or a deli, you would be angry at the lack of quality control! The bread, while freshly baked, is flimsy and insubstantial, and utterly devoid of any character or flavor. The “lengthened” bread tastes about as bad as the bread at Blimpie, only the constant marketing of “fresh baked” seems to have fooled people. You would think since they’re supposedly baking bread around the clock they could give you warm bread, but instead you just get this cold, sad pocket of garbage to hold the other garbage in the sandwich.

Myth #2: Subway meat and cheese is great.

Reality: Actually, I just made up this myth. Nobody believes the Subway filling is good, even Subway supporters. They use almost comically low-quality meats and cheeses. What’s sadder than seeing the Subway guy pick up your individual paper carton of pre-separated meat (because god forbid you get even one gram of extra meat), watching him peel off the separating piece of wax paper, and then dumping the contents of said paper carton onto your overly long bread? When you see how little meat there is relative to the bread, you start getting super-psyched-up for all the empty bites of bread, bell peppers and jalapenos you’re about to enjoy in only a matter of minutes. The only thing that might be sadder than the meat is the 3 small triangular pieces of cheese that may not have been acceptable at your second-grade cafeteria, depending on how nice of a school you went to.

Myth #3: Subway is great because you can get unlimited vegetable toppings.

Reality: Hey here’s a genius idea I just thought of: BUY A SALAD! How about that?!? In no other circumstance would you eat a sandwich that was 85% comprised of shredded lettuce from a bag, sliced olives, bell peppers, mushy tomatoes, jalapenos, banana peppers and onions. And yet somehow people who go to Subway think this is a good idea, even though (1) they never eat sandwiches like that anywhere else and (2) they would never make that sort of sandwich for themselves. If you mixed the Subway vegetables into a salad, everyone would say, “whoa, that’s a disgusting salad”. But dump it all in a foot of bread, and suddenly this is a great idea.

Myth #4: Sure Subway doesn’t taste all that good, but it’s so cheap!

Reality: Yes, you can get moderately full at Subway for $5 before tax. But you could get VERY full eating seven Cup of Noodles for even less money. It’s all about what you get for the $5, not the fact that it’s $5. And what you’re getting is garbage. People seem to be under the impression, “what a great deal! A FOOTLONG sandwich for $5!” But the amount of meat and cheese (setting aside the quality for a second) you get in a footlong sandwich is only as much as any deli would serve in a sandwich half as big. The trick Subway has mastered is baking this long, thin bread (almost like they took regular, acceptable bread, and then just stretched it from both ends, making the inside of the bread more hollow) and sort of playing with geometry to make it look like you’re not getting screwed on meat and cheese. It’s no accident Quizno’s unveiled their “Torpedo” sandwiches, which are even thinner – they saw what Subway was succeeding with, and took it one step further. Apparently a lot of people don’t mind eating a crappy sandwich, provided it’s a really long sandwich! (Feel free to insert your own highly appropriate follow-up joke here).

Myth #5: Subway is great because it’s nutritious!

Reality: I suppose many of the sandwiches are less unhealthy than other fast food options, but if this is a big priority, the answer is not to eat at Subway, it’s just to eat less fast food. Quizno’s first big wave of expansion occurred when I was in middle school. (Sidebar, my school was called an “intermediate school”, and I used this term for years on the east coast before finally giving up because people thought maybe I went to a remedial school for low-IQ children. I always thought my school was called an intermediate school because the other middle school in the district started with a “P”, and conceivably could have been abbreviated “PMS”, which was apparently not acceptable.) In middle school, after eating Quizno’s for the first time, I thought “oh man, Subway is SCREWED.” I don’t think Quizno’s is great or anything, but the comparison to Subway is a complete joke. Yet as the years have gone by, people continue to prefer Subway’s untoasted, flimsy, meatless “weight-loss” concoction, and I just can’t understand.

Anyways, don’t ask me to go to Subway with you. I guess that’s the only conclusion here.

Ridiculous Pricing: Ralph Lauren Black Label

On a massive sale for $308 through Gilt Groupe is this head-turning 96% cashmere sweater.

They say fashion should make a statement. What's great about this extraordinarily long-sleeved sweater is that it makes a real statement to the world. Specifically, it says "I would rather look like this than have $308." Once people see it and then realize how poorly you manage your money, everyone will want to be your friend!

My Search For An NFL Team

Over the last few years, I have become increasingly apathetic about the NFL. As a LA-area product, I don’t have a natural geography-based team to root for, and I’m not tied enough to any of the places I’ve lived since then to adopt those teams. Yet somehow, I remained a big NFL fan, as well versed in the league as any rabid talk-show-calling colored-face-painting personally-customized-jersey-wearing fan around.

But I can feel the early symptoms of fan-decline in my bones. I cannot watch two games back to back anymore. I find fantasy football less and less fun each season, to the point where I am contemplating retiring from fantasy football at the end of this season. My head feels like it’s going to explode from the endless inane commentary from the league’s exalted talking heads. The signs are all around me – football is my new baseball. Dying. Gleefully rooting for anyone to beat the Patriots in 2007 masked some of thesymptoms, but this season’s storyline-less season has brought me to a crossroads: I need to start rooting for an NFL team to continue to care about all of this.

A few of you might be wondering, why do you need an NFL team? Can’t you just stop watching the NFL? The short answer is no. The long answer is yes, I could, except I would be completely marginalized as an American sports fan. It would be analogous to telling people I am a huge fan of classic movies, except I don’t like The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Raging Bull and Gone With the Wind. Or that I love competitive reality television but dislike Real World/Road Rules Challenge. So here I am, a willing, eager, knowledgeable NFL fan, in search of a team. But who should I choose? Normally this would call for a ranking or a reverse ranking, because this is what people do when they write about the NFL. But I will avoid that! Because I am different and interesting!

New England, Oakland, NY Giants, NY Jets, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minnesota, Green Bay

No to all of these teams because the fanbase has too clear an identity, and you can’t just hop on and pretend you’re one of them. New England – I passionately dislike Boston plus there’s the spector of the we-might-be-closet-racists thing. Never been to jail and would never wear a costume not on Halloween, so Oakland is out. Don’t like the culture of being a NY fan. Cowboys fans are either from Texas or complete posers. I’m not fat enough to root for the Bears. Actually used to like Philly when they had Randall Cunningham, but later I learned that Philly fans are just vile people. Vikings fans are all bonded from their ’98 NFC Championship Game loss – it so permeates their fanbase that How I Met Your Mother even made fun of it for like 4 minutes. Since I don’t share that despair, can’t be one of them. And I have never met a Packers fan who was not from Wisconsin.

Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit

These teams also have a specific culture, but I needed to separate them because their specific culture revolves around being horrendous at football. I’m not going to voluntarily waterboard myself.

Washington

Really, what’s to like here?

Jacksonville, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Indianapolis

I don’t think you can say you’re a real fan of a team if you don’t go to games, or at least want to go to games. I’m not even certain they’ve seen Asian people in Jacksonville, so things might go horribly. But on the flip side, everyone would be worried about my karate skills.

Houston, Arizona, Carolina, Tampa, Seattle, St. Louis

What’s attractive here is that these teams all have very little fan identity. I call these the “Blank Slate” teams. If you’re a fan of a Blank Slate team, my inclusion of your team may be offensive. You may feel a deep sense of team and fanbase identity. But this is factually incorrect. Nobody knows what you guys are like, and if I decided to tell everyone tomorrow that I was a lifelong fan of a Blank Slate team, nobody would have any way to determine if I was legitimate. “Yeah, you know what? Eric always sort of seemed like a Seahawks fan…it makes sense, he has that whole, uh, you know, um, Seahawky, uh, thing about him, you know?”

Miami, Baltimore, Denver, San Diego, San Francisco, New Orleans, Atlanta

The Top 7, in some order, unless I go the Blank Slate route. Good ownership groups, reasonably flexible fan identities (maybe not Baltimore – New Orleans had that culture of losing thing, but they’re in transition), acceptable-to-excellent cities to visit and acceptable-to-excellent uniforms (Ultimately, this matters more than fans care to admit. Another reason nobody roots for the Browns).

I’m going to do some more in-depth research on these 7 teams/fanbases and come to some kind of conclusion which I’ll post later. Insight and recommendations are encouraged and appreciated.

Answer Fail

Courtesy of Sujit: The white kid's reaction when he finds out he's wrong is priceless. Though...is he really wrong?

Hey, Jamaica! Watch out for Number Twelve turn. Scary, jaah?

'Nuff people say, you know they can't be-lieve, Ja-mai-ca, we have a bob-sled team.

Last night, I finished watching the Nuggets-Mavs game, and was tidying up around the apartment, getting ready to sleep. It was 1:45 am, going to bed was the obvious move. But of nowhere, TBS throws a wrench in my plans - they're airing "Cool Runnings", the 1993 classic "retelling" of the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team.

"Cool Runnings" has "D2" status for me - if it's on, it's virtually impossible not to watch. The movie went until 3:30 am last night, but somehow I mustered up the inner strength to turn off the TV after the Jamaicans made it into the Olympics with their qualifying run of 59.46 seconds. Even then, it was nearly 3 am, and I am completely spent today. No regrets whatsoever.

Hey, Jamaica! Watch out for Number Twelve turn. Scary, jaah???

I visited Jamaica in 2005, and you can only imagine my extreme disappointment in learning no one cared at all about "Cool Runnings" or the bobsled team. I always figured the movie took a ton of artistic license, but I assumed that the country would whore out and sell bobsled-related memorabilia to dumb tourists like myself. I searched the whole time for a miniature bobsled, to no avail. I only really found Bob Marley t-shirts and large bags of weed.

As an aside, I'm pretty sure Jamaicans play up Bob Marley for tourists. A guy drove us in a van to the waterfalls, and played Bob Marley music the whole way there. I was the last one out of the van, and noticed he was getting ready to switch to a Jagged Edge CD. Upon returning to the van, he quickly fumbled to stop his Babyface CD, and we listened to Bob Marley the whole way back to the resort. I'm telling you, this whole Bob Marley thing is a conspiracy to dupe white college kids.

Come on Jamaica...say something!

A few other things to note:

1) Leon, the actor who plays bobsled driver Derice Bannock, is the lead or co-lead actor to three of the 15 most rewatchable cable movies. He plays the school security guard in the preposterous Tupac Shakur basketball movie "Above The Rim", he plays Derice, AND he plays the legendary David Ruffin in "The Temptations" ("y'all ain't NUTHIN without David Ruffin!!" I could honestly probably write a 10,000 words entry about the Temptations miniseries, but since no one wants to read that, I'll probably just directly e-mail that to Sara.) If you enjoy, either intentionally or unintentionally, any of these three movies, it is a safe assumption that we can be friends.

You see Junior? Well, let me tell you what I see. I see pride! I see power! I see a bad-ass mother who don't take no crap off of nobody!

2) The scene where Yul Brenner learns that he can't live in Buckingham Palace because the Queen lives there, but is inspired by the kind words of Junior, who then uncrumples the picture of Buckingham Palace and places it back on the nightstand, should have brought Oscar nominations (at the very least) to both Malik Yoba and Rawle D. Lewis. There is no justice in this world.

3) Doug E. Doug should have had a better career. Among people with the same first name as last name, he has to rank #1, right? I don't know anyone who didn't enjoy his comedic relief turn as Sanka, the greatest pushcart driver in all of Jamaica. Now he does one-episode guest roles on Law & Order: SVU. Again, no justice.

Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time! COOL RUNNINGS!!

Get Ready...

I was surprised to see how many people reacted to the previous post with "write about Millionaire Matchmaker!" Since there's so much enthusiasm for this show, rest assured, a severely overly analytical discussion of it will be coming soon.

Obama. Biden. Me Looking Stupid. Ray's Hell-Burger. Photos. Wow.

Haven’t been blogging as much lately. I had some ideas, but they weren’t really all that, plus it’s the NBA playoffs, so it’s hard to fight the lethargy and post something. I almost posted about Bravo’s “Millionaire Matchmaker”, I almost wrote the next “Asian Adventures” feature, and I have some new “Ridiculous Pricing” in the works. But really, none of them were all that noteworthy.


Something noteworthy happened today though. Today, I had lunch with Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Well, sort of. I’m going to call it that, anyways.

Randomly, my co-workers and I decided to get lunch today at Ray’s Hell-Burger. Those of you who have had the privilege of eating there will surely attest to it being among the top 3 burgers you’ve had in your life, if not the absolute best. We noticed some extra security measures, were forced to park further away – but it didn’t seem like enough security for the President of the United States, so we were looking around for someone else – who was here? Hilary Clinton? Was someone eating in the back room? I placed my order, and suddenly there was a rush of 35 photographers as the restaurant burst into spontaneous applause. Obama and Biden, just two “regular guys”, eating cheeseburgers, with a slew of photographers and cameramen chronicling their every move, surely to be used soon to fill the vast emptiness of 24-hour cable “news”.

After a quick handshake with the two of them I discussed with Joe Biden what he was going to get on his burger. He asked what I recommended, and I pushed hard for him to get the mushrooms, which as any Ray’s patron knows, are positively delicious. Biden clearly either doesn’t like mushrooms or doesn’t like Asians, because he reacted to my mushroom recommendation as if I had just recommended the bubonic plague. He politely mumbled “uh-huh” and drifted off into space. Oh well, botox-face. More mushrooms for me.

The whole situation was extremely confusing for my feeble mind, what with all the commotion and the two dozen Secret Service agents in and outside the restaurant. I had no idea where to walk or stand, and as you’ll see from the pictures and video, I look either like a confused, intimidated child, or a frat boy about to pound a Guinness (it’s a root beer by the way). I have a much bigger appreciation now for celebrities, who have to always be on their guard and try to not ever look stupid. In the pictures I’ve found of myself online from today, I look stupid in every single one. If you’re about to crack “that’s because you always look stupid”, well screw you. I never liked you anyways.

We tried to sit down at one table, but a Secret Service agent was holding that table for Obama and Biden. I debated pointing him to the rules of the restaurant, which CLEARLY indicate you cannot take a table until AFTER you have ordered, but the guy was carrying an enormous handgun. Otherwise, though, I totally would have stepped to him. Totally.

We ended up taking the table right across from that one, allowing us to take some sweet pictures where we didn’t even have to bother Obama and Biden. A Secret Service agent stood against the wall next to us as we ate. He explained to us that he had been in the restaurant the previous night to set up – it occurred to me then that I didn’t get frisked. My boss says that’s because there’s some more sophisticated metal sweeping technology in use. I still could have thrown my shoe, though. Another coworker of mine said something I also thought was true – I thought the background people in these photo ops were pre-screened, and were more like “extras”. I’m actually a little more worried for the President’s safety than I was previously, but that being said, the Secret Service did a great job. And they were really cool and easy to talk to, as opposed to your average traffic cop with 1/1,000,000th the responsibility but a million times more attitude. If there was anything negative about them, I would say that their suits were all nicer than what I wear – not sure if that’s the best use of my taxes.

Anyhow, enough rambling. Pictures and video below.