Grid Effect

This will probably be our last links post of the week and we’ll try to get to both our Survivor and Office recaps either later tonight or tomorrow at some point. I don’t know if either will happen because we have billing tomorrow, it’s a bitch like that when it falls on a Friday.

I have never heard of this show until about two months ago and now I can’t escape discussion/rumors about it, but Jon & Kate Plus 8 returns memorial day weekend. Apparently this series is popular because Kate is an unruly bitch to Jon, which is entertaining to masochists and sadists the world over. Personally, if I wanted to watch some wretched woman completely emasculate her husband for no apparent reason, I’d hang out with my married/”seriously” dating friends.

Some writer for The Sun wants to know how a noted Baltimore restaurant is going to factor into the upcoming season of Mad Men, as I guess some of the producers were inquiring about it. Well, if you remembered the minute details of the show, you would know that in the “Golden Violin“, when Ken Cosgrove asked Sal to explain how he and his wife met, she responded in kind by informing him that they grew up in Baltimore together. So if I had to guess, this should be the setting for a Sal flashback. Don’t get me wrong, Don could end up on another sojourn that leads him to charm city since being that focused on Sal would be unusual for the series (not that Bryan Batt doesn’t deserve it), but it doesn’t seem like an exotic enough location after the trip out west.

We mentioned this on the fantasy football website, but it has crossover appeal: the HBO NFL mini-camp documentary is returning in 2009, with the Cincinnati Bengals. I understand many who read this site might not get the significance of that, but really it’s the closest HBO can get to Cops in the NFL. We imagine it will be pretty tame, but presumably the team isn’t filled with attention whores trying too hard for camera time like last year’s monstrosity with the Cowboys. Maybe it’s might intense disdain for the Star as an Eagles fan, but that was unbearable.

It really is surprising more people aren't watching this show.

Being interviewed about his series Chuck, Josh Schwartz claims the show isn’t expensive or cheap to produce. I hate to break to you, OC creator, but when assessing whether or not you’re going to be renewed it will beconsidered one or the other. Even with the paltry ratings, you’re kind of sitting pretty because, as mentioned before, everything on NBC gets paltry ratings. And they have to throw something on the air, so hey, why not the show with the cult fanbase? Actually, call the Chuck fan base a cult is kind of an insult to cults. I mean, I think thirty-eight people in Heaven’s gate killed themselves. Are we really that confident Chuck can amass that kind of Nielsen?

Speaking of which, both NBC series’ Chuck and the downward spiral known as Heroes registered lower ratings than average for their series finales. I guess this would be news if all of NBC’s series didn’t utterly fail in the Nielsen’s, but they do so it really doesn’t matter. It’s a shame we haven’t figured out a more sophisticated barometer to determine who watches what more than finding people desperate enough for money that they welcome some ratings box into their house that monitors what they have on at all times for very limited compensation. But we haven’t, and now everyone is under the impression that Two and A Half Men is a better comedy than 30 Rock because more people watch it. Which is full-proof logic, if you ask me.

In anticipation for tonight’s Survivor episode, it warrants mentioning that Tyler has gone on record as calling Sierra, “Whiny, dumb, weak and blindly ignorant“. Seems fair, I mean, he did get to know her under completely normal circumstances where nothing can skew your perception of someone. I totally understand ridiculing someone in public and holding a lifetime grudge because of a couple weeks spent in an isolated, exotic locale together.

If you’re like me and always willing to give Wire alums recent projects a chance, then you’d be happy to know that Clark Peters (Lester Freamon) is set to play Nelson Mandela in an upcoming special for TV viewers in England. Of course, if you’re like me then you don’t live in England, much less anywhere in Europe, so forget I said anything. Also, in the linked article they say Freamon is based on David Simon, which isn’t true, and that David Simon is a former police detective, which also isn’t true. So there is a good chance this Nelson Mandela special doesn’t really exist, either.

And finally, my alma mater, The Ohio State University, conducted a survey that discovered conservatives are more susceptible to believing that Stephen Colbert isn’t being satirical on his nightly talk show, The Colbert Report. This study is released just in time to continue the never-ending shitstorm of bad press releases for the republican party. It’s a good thing OSU went out of their way to do this too, here we were all wondering what different political parties thought of Stephen Colbert, and now we can finally get to sleep tonight. Of course, I’m sure the study was skewed to reach a set of desired results, but that doesn’t make this look any better.

That’s it for today, look for our Survivor recap tonight and our Office recap tomorrow afternoon.

We didn’t watch Hard Knocks last night. Well, we tried to, we got about fifteen minutes into it and our computer started to draw more and more of our attention to the point we weren’t paying any attention to the documentary series. We had high hopes for this one, but with the Cowboys, it’s almost like we know the people involved to a point that anything they do that is generally away from the public eye either doesn’t surprise us or feels forced. The Chiefs are an organization that usually toils away in anonymity. We might get on the bandwagon later, but for last night at least we were happy to be off of it.

Also, it feels like this is as good of a time as any to mention that we are writing over here now as well. I’m not sure how large the crossover audience is for a television blog to a fantasy football blog, but this shameless plug is worth the effort regardless.

A few news items to kick off the morning.

Some guy that was rejected on The Bachelorette will be the new bachelor for The Bachelor. Oh boy! I can’t wait to see how he reacts with the shoe being on the other foot, they’ve probably only done this a couple dozen times now. One good piece of news from this story is that there are so few people willing to do these shows (or at least this franchise) they have to keep dipping into the same pool. Or else they think a recognizable face will help bring in an audience. Whatever, we are feeling optimistic today.
Mad Men: still down a million viewers from the premiere. I don’t know why this is still reported on given that we already covered it after the second episode, but there it is. Either the New York Post was late in covering the non-phenomenon that is sinking ratings after a premiere, or they were completely unaware of it two and a half weeks ago. Bang up job, NY Post.

We haven’t watched The Apprentice in a couple seasons, and we probably watched if for four more seasons than any intelligent person would have, but with Dennis Rodman scheduled to be on the next Celebrity Apprentice, we’ll probably make this appointment television. Finally, The Dancing With The Stars concept (that is, throwing C-listers into a random competition that they have no background in, and watching the minions flock to their TV’s to feel superior), offers something enjoyable for Grid Effect.

If he doesn't show up looking like something out of "Demolition Man", we're going to be very disappointed.

Jermaine Clement, who plays a dimwitted version of himself on Flight of The Conchords, got hitched this past week; crushing the dreams of progressive twenty-something women all throughout the burrows of Brooklyn and Manhattan. ‘Tis a sad day, for the tragically conforming non-conformist women of the tri-state area. Also, we need to stop with all the marriage announcements on this website.

Italy, with all their gorgeous coastlines, delicious food and spirits, history and nightlife, has seemed to forget how much natural entertainment they have in their country. What’s my evidence? They’ve taken to protesting American hospital dramas, most notably ER and Grey’s Anatomy. One, who the fuck watches these shows for realism? I once went out with a girl that consisted of me watching an episode of ER so long as she watched an episode of The Sopranos. In short, the portrayal of a hospital in ER was closer to that of a nightclub than a medical facility. I swear to God, at one point they were listening to some Bob Marley knock off and a couple of them were dancing around.

And two, the complaint from one protester went, “These programs are teaching viewers inaccurate views on medicine”. Um, I hate to be the one to inform him, but this makes his career much more valuable in his country and the world over. If no one knows what they are talking about and you are an expert in it, especially something as vital as health care, then you are virtually indispensable. Sit back and enjoy it, and quit concerning yourself with Katherine Hiegl performing surgery in a bikini on some absurd ABC melodrama.

Might watch Hard Knocks at lunch. Jury’s still out.

It’s a good thing they ended with a preseason game, because this was boring the shit out of me for the first 40 minutes. It wasn’t for a lack of personalities but rather poor execution. We just got regurgitated story about the hardships of NFL players. I could be alone in this but I doubt it: I can have sympathy for a professional athlete, but not over being at training camp for a few weeks in order to prepare to earn millions of dollars. So, in other words, let me take back most everything I said in my first post about this series.

There were a few decent moments in last night’s installment. Most notably someone lamenting the fact that undrafted wide receiver Wes Philips, has always been unfairly compared to Wes Welker. I think it goes without saying that undersized, white receivers from Texas Tech with the first name Wes will always be compared to Wes Welker, from now until the end of time. That is a lot of similarites abnormal to the NFL. We will say this about him, though, Wes Welker would have never fumbled that punt return. See, he’s already combating stereotypes!

The team seems to be selling Pacman’s mindset and ability a little too much. Sure, he could be the next Deion Sanders like he claims, but he could also still be Pacman Jones. No one doubts his football prowess, he was the 6th overall pick for a reason. Thing is though, even with the frequent attendance at strip clubs around the country, Pacman looked rusty in their pre-season game. One would think titty bars would be a supreme motivator, but one would be wrong. Still, it’s not his training camp performance anyone is worried about, its his performance on a Sunday night after a big win against a division rival: can he stay out of illegal and immoral trouble? Jury’s still out on that one.

Hopefully, for everyone's safety, invitations like this are a thing of the past.

From one angst ridden player to another: Tank Johnson loves playing football, and clearly loves that people love that he plays football. But even more than that he loves purchasing, collecting, and I’m sure trading firearms. Its really not his fault though. When you are granted the nickname “Tank”, I think these things tend to happen.

From angst to vanity, Owens also seems admired by everyone on his team, almost to a nauseating degree. I guess that’s what happens when you make a tearful plea to the media to relent on the criticism of a teammate. Speaking of which, here is an exchange between him and Three Six Mafia, if you are not up on the music scene these days, they are the songwriters of such classics as “2-Way Freak” and “Sippin’ on Some Syrup”. In short, their conversation is far more entertaining than this episode.

Not really much to say about last night. I think the intent was for us to laugh, cry and potentially write a decent follow up the following morning, but we’re not doing any of the three. One thing we took away from the episode: Sometimes I wonder if when I reference movie scenes I sound ridiculous or long-winded. After watching Tony Romo awkwardly explain the “Good game, Norm” scene from Major League while his coach or whatever tried to think of a reason to walk away, I now know my narration is impeccable. Comparatively speaking at least.

Also, i already feel better about having Felix Jones as one of my backup running backs for fantasy football. Since anyone who has ever watched a season of football knows Marion Barber is going down early this season with some catastrophic knee injury because they traded Julius Jones, I like having the rookie backup after that debut. I’m pretty sure all of this shit is staged just so ESPN will have something to over-analyze and speculate on for the week in between games. Like it makes more than a negligible difference who you line up at running back.

We hate to go out on a self-indulgent note about our fantasy team, but that’s pretty much it. We’ll try to post something later today to make up for it.

Just from the get go we can safely assume that as much as we might hate to admit it, this Cowboys season is going to kill the Chiefs efforts last year, and we enjoyed the Chiefs season. Both on the field and in front of the HBO cameras we expect the Cowboys to thoroughly dominate what the Chiefs did. There are just so many more personalities and ridiculous characters for a documentary series than the Chiefs had last year.

Since this was mostly introductory, we’re going to cover this person by person instead of the standard paragraph form. It’s lazy, but this is a documentary about football players, alright? It shouldn’t require me to exceed my standard lackluster efforts. Just a quick disclaimer in that we hate the fucking Cowboys, we don’t understand why everyone romanticizes a random NFL franchise, but they do and that is why we hate them.

Terrell Owens: I’m pretty certain Owens could set a Children’s Hospital on fire and everyone on the team would still gush about what a great receiver he is. After Jones was done salivating over him being one of the five best players he’s ever paid, I thought a restraining order might be necessary. From calling himself “too sexy” to selling t-shirts that read “I love me some me”, it is clear that Owens either isn’t aware he’s a narcissist, doesn’t know what one is or doesn’t care at all. I’m guessing it’s all three.

Still, it was great watching Pacman Jones get torched by Owens…he’s so dreamy, I can’t help it.

Tony Romo: If a good ol’ boy can be from Wisconsin, then it is Tony Romo. We’ll be honest, when he first stepped in for Drew Bledsoe a couple years ago, we were skeptical. He was hyped before even starting a game, and why would a kid from Eastern Illinois University be such a surefire NFL quarterback? Needless to say he has exceeded our expectations, but has a lot of weight on his shoulders after the last two playoff exits (especially last years). On a personal level, Romo seems like one of the cooler players in the league, and it was refreshing to see a professional athlete who enjoys professional athletics. Most of them act so put upon, but Romo goes out of his way to teach the game to kids from his old neighborhood during his off-season. At least in between excursions to tropical locations with his girlfriend. We’re starting to sound like what we despise, so we’ll stop now.

Throwing that last second interception still haunts him.

Pacman Jones: It’s funny, I don’t recall him saying a word but remember seeing him on camera for at least ten minutes. Either he was catching multiple punts, going (unsuccessfully) head-to-head with Terrell Owens or dumping buckets of water on rookies heads, but he seemed to do it all unremorsefully. I’m not expecting a full-fledged admission of guilt and recklessness, but a man is in a wheelchair and he is at least partly to blame. Some recognition over how lucky he is for the opportunity to be on a playing field with the chance to earn millions of dollars would have been swell, but I should know better by now. I know he hasn’t been convicted of anything, but this guy has a Tony Montana like rap sheet, and were applying where there’s smoke there’s fire to this instance.

Martellus Bennett: The rookie tight end had some choice lines to open the episode and looks to be the face of this years crop of rookies with first round pick Felix Jones holding out early in the episode. He seems to actually have something to say, which is rare for football players. We think we might have used this quote before, but it was extremely clever and epitomizes the occasional wit that is lacking in today’s modern professional athlete. The quote went, “During the day we play baseball and talk about women, at night we go out with women and talk about baseball”. We have no idea who said this actually (DiMaggio or some other Yankee), but we have high hopes for Bennett in this regard on a hard edited two minutes of airtime. Obviously the league is in dire need of personality, and a backup rookie tight end is just the person to bring it.

As far as his on-field talents are concerned, we never watched Texas A&M because they haven’t been relevant in twenty years, so we have no idea how effective he’ll be or why they even needed a tight end in the second round (they already have four).

Jerry Jones: While he didn’t do anything outwardly abrasive or offensive, and this could just be our bias kicking in, but he strikes us as a true scumbag. Like one of dem ol’ fashion scumbags, know-what-I-mean? Just his schpiel about how they caught Pacman right when he is probably done terrorizing the nation really left a bad impression on us. But he’s committed to winning? That’s true, but it seems to be at all costs. I mean, listening to him talk about how, “The Cowboys are important” was self-involved enough to realize this guy has no perspective, little humanity and only a vague semblance of a soul. Also, if you’re going to be so committed to winning, it’s probably imperative that you win a playoff game once a decade.

There are several other bit players, including the seemingly annual for every team except the Cardinals receiver controversy with Sam Hurd, Antonio Bryant & the upstart from Canada (forgot his name) in the wake of Terry Glenn’s release (who has had the stranger pro career after leaving Ohio State, David Boston or Terry Glenn?). We didn’t even mention Jason Witten, who while a top five tight end in the league, has to be feeling like Jack Taylor with the second round pick.

And he was barely a blip on the radar. I don’t recall Marion Barber getting on screen, Wade Phillips had limited airtime that portrayed him as more of a fan than a coach, and we hardly saw anyone on defense other than Roy Williams. Basically, the only thing the Chiefs camp had last year that it seems the Cowboys won’t is ungodly attractive wives (though she is a girlfriend, it warrants mentioning that Jessica Simpson won’t be on camera, she’s gorgeous, but the whole Texas floozy vibe doesn’t do much for us). Namely, the spouses of Tony Gonzalez and Brodie Croyle. I mean, Michelle Witten was fine, but I’m pretty sure if it meant I got to bed Kelli Croyle, I could find it in me to lift a car over my head. October Gonzalez is no exception.

Good start to a good season of television and football. We have olympic basketball to carry us through the rest of the slow summer days, but we’re chomping at the bit waiting for college football to pick up, then the NFL after that, and Hard Knocks is an ideal way to assist us through these dog days.