I Love It When I'm Right

A few years ago, after several hours of reading this site, I vowed to myself that I was going to protest this ridiculous organization (which I'm strangely afraid to name, as they have this nasty habit of getting medieval on the asses of those who cross them) by refusing to consume any media featuring any of their "celebrity" adherents. So: Travolta--out. Kirstie Alley--out. Beck--sorry. Jenna Elfman--never liked "Dharma and Greg" anyway. Leah Remini--ditto for "King of Queens". Jason Lee--good thing I never started watching "My Name Is Earl"; I've heard it's good, and frankly I'm already losing ONE cherished show, as you'll see below; I don't think I could stand two.

And of course, the big one: Tom Cruise. I was never sure whether he or Travolta was the one I loathed more; well, now I think I can say for sure that Cruise has taken a healthy lead.

I knew about this video, of course--it's all over the Intarwebz like stink on a monkey--but I hadn't watched it. Well, now I have, and I can say with authority:

That is one crazy, crazy dude.

Having listened to nearly ten minutes of his jargon-laced yammering, I can say I am as solid as ever in my stance: no more Tom Cruise movies will pass my eyeballs, ever again. My optic nerves shall remain unsullied by "War of the Worlds"; though I find bad NASCAR movies impossible to resist, the clunky dialogue and glaring inaccuracies of "Days of Thunder" will be subject to my snark no more. Every dollar I keep out of Cruise's pockets is another dollar which will never pass into the coffers of his chosen "religion", which was founded as a moneymaking scheme by a failing sci-fi writer.

I also, however, just learned something that makes me very sad indeed; apparently my media boycott now includes "The Simpsons", since the voice of Bart, Nancy Cartwright, is one of Them. I'm gonna have to think long and hard about this one; I mean, it's one thing to never watch "A Few Good Men" again, or to never see a "Mission: Impossible" movie...but "The Simpsons"??? I am seriously not sure whether I can give that up (although, if they're trying to alienate me, that whole "Homer-as-Kurt-Cobain" thing last night was a good start)...

But moving back to the category of Really Won't Miss Watching Them Anyway: Laura Prepon and Christopher Masterson, Donna and Hyde from "That 70's Show"; Danny Masterson, the oldest brother from "Malcolm in the Middle"; Doug E. Fresh, for cryin' out loud....oh, and Greta Van Susteren, which...yeah, that explains a lot.

We are talking here about a religion that CHARLES MANSON rejected as "too crazy". What does THAT tell you???

Arrgh.

I know it's fashionable to bash the traditional media for not being connected to the "new media"--by which they mean, electronic and viral media--and far be it from me to jump on the bandwagon...

...but man, they're gonna have to do better than this (seen on tonight's chyron on Fox News Chicago (WFLD) 10:00 newscast):

(something something) "...Joining the 'Blagosphere'".

If the story had been about Illinois politics, I could see it as an intentional, albeit hackneyed, pun (for my out-of-state friends, our governor's name is Blagojevich, and he's commonly referred to (among many, many less-flattering names) as "Blago", pronounced "bloggo", hence "Blago-sphere", ha ha freakin' ha)...

...but the story had absolutely NOTHING to do with Illinois. The story was about student journalists in Texas who were partnering with Fox News to deliver "new-media" content regarding the primaries and the 2008 election. The word "Illinois" was not mentioned even once during the story.

All of which leads me to these inescapable conclusions: not only does the guy in charge of creating the chyron text for the 10 PM newscast not know how to spell "blog", but he hasn't seen it out of the punny, old-media context to realize that "blagosphere" is not the correct spelling of the term; furthermore, either the individual doing the proofreading for the chyron guy fell down on the job (excusable, I guess) or he/she doesn't know the proper spelling of the term EITHER (just completely, utterly SCARY.)

Sometimes it's nearly impossible NOT to take a ride on the bandwagon.

Something That Makes Me Very Happy Indeed...

MEERKATS!!!

I loooooove me some Meerkat Manor--and FINALLY, the new season starts tonight.

(damn. those were some BIG-ass meerkats. sorry 'bout that. blogger seems to think that when I type 200%, I mean 200 POINT. Or 200 PICA, or 200 GINORMOUS UNITS. Not so much.)