The Looking Glass

I've been on 'hiatus'

2005-04-28T14:31:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been more than a month since I last blogged here, and you'd think a lot would have happened in between that time. But eh, not so much.

Couples are still running crazy around the world in "The Amazing Race" and those poor people are still "Lost" on that island.

But there has been a few new TV shows to talk about. My latest appeal has been in yet another spy show ala "Alias" (in fact it follows "Alias" on Wednesday nights) is the appropriately named "Eyes", starring Tim Daly. (Remember him when he was just a goofball on that comedy show "Wings" on NBC?) Daly plays a witty but goofy (see, he just can't get away from it) detective. In the first episode he apparently has money problems for his private investigation firm because of an impending lawsuit. But when you really look around the set with the fancy technology, sleek glass offices, and Gucci-wearing associates, you get an idea where the millions went Tim. The pilot episode had some interesting twists and turns but the last few episodes have been weak on surprises and suspense. Still, Daly does a nice job of playing the fool who ends up on top almost every time.

Speaking of new shows, I enjoy the Food Network but have been bummed that some of my favorite stars haven't had new shoes for awhile, such as Jamie Oliver of the Naked Chef and Florence Tyler. They've been busy promoting new cookbooks or opening new restaurants. But now comes Dave Lieberman, a young hot shot personal chef in Manhattan who's going to teach us how to make simple and affordable meals. Of course he does it from his uber-fancy kitchen. But hey, I love watching him shop around New York.

And of course, baseball season has started which is probably the biggest culprit for my reduction in blogging. There's not much to say about TV viewing when it's simply a Saturday afternoon on my sofa watching the San Francisco Giants age before my eyes and struggle with closing a game. It's going to be a long summer.

Politics, religion and TV

2005-03-23T23:32:00.000-08:00

Tonight I had the treat of watching "The West Wing" after having to skip it a few weeks because of American Idol. But because of some graphics person (probably fired now) who put up the wrong numbers for the call-in vote after Tuesday's night show, the results show typically on Wednesday had to be a "redo" so that people could vote again. Oh. My. The controversy. Oh well, I didn't need to watch a whole hour of teens singing again. So I watched West Wing instead, where the votes really matter.

I missed the twists and turns and witty banter of the West Wing, and what I liked about tonight's episode, focusing on Republican candidate Alan Alda wrapping up the nomination but getting into his first controversy about religion. You know those right-wing conservatives, they think the rule the ballot boxes and the church pews all in one. In the end, liberal sounding actor Alan Alda really came out in the Republican character that he plays. He's a softer, nicer George W. Bush.

It'll be interesting to see how the future of this show goes. The producers may feel that they'll make the Republican win so that we'll have eight years of Republicans on TV after eight years of a Democrat. But please, after suffering real eight years of a Republican in the White House, do we really need to be reminded about how a Republican can screw up a country on TV? I don't think so.

So my bet is that Jimmy Smits will get the starring role and will be elected as the first Hispanic President. Now that'll pick up a lot of viewers in California and Texas. You heard it hear first. I called it. It'll be President Santos for eight years, or until NBC cancels the series.

Sooner or later, I'd be talking about Bush

2005-03-22T19:38:00.000-08:00

Billy Bush, that is, the host of Access Hollywood. Just wanted to say, Why is this guy on TV? He started off as a reporter just a few years ago and in just that short time he's no the co-host? How can that be? He's not that cute, he's short, and he's the biggest celebrity ass-kisser I've ever seen. I think it's because he's dating the sister of Jennifer Lopez. Or maybe people think he's related to the political Bush (I think he might be). But I can't stand hearing him on TV. This morning I woke up to hear him deliver an exclusive interview with Jennifer Anniston on the Today Show. And with this big scoop, he spent most of his time asking questions that were phrased in a way to make the media look bad for harping on Anniston as she goes through her separation from Brad Pitt. After listening to the exclusive interview, I don't think I learned anything about Anniston's situation, other than I still hate all Bushes.

Comcast is Satan, part deux

2005-03-20T21:09:00.000-08:00

More evidence that Comcast is the devil, this weekend they upgraded their system to make it more protected against viruses. It became so protected that most of the Bay Area couldn't access their own accounts! Including me, thus my rant.

The frustration, as I pointed out in my earlier rant, Comcast is Satan, is that when you call technical support for help, you don't get any support at all. All you get is the assumption that you're some dumb person who doesn't know how to plug your cable into your computer or modem. The burden is always on the customer, that something must be wrong on your end. But as the last two instances have shown, Comcast was the broken party each time. Apparently their upgrade weren't able to recognize most of the IP addresses of clients in the Bay Area. You'd think they would have people testing that before launching such a major upgrade. And then the frustration of having to arrange for a person to come and fix it is maddening. Luckily, with so many people complaining, Comcast had to send a tech out to fix it. Which eventually it did. Still, the DEVIL. Ugh.

The Ocean Is Pretty, but This Ain't No Andes

2005-03-15T23:05:00.000-08:00

My favorite team on "The Amazing Race," the two blondes who grew up together and spoke Spanish with flavor, got eliminated tonight because they don't know how to follow a map. Even though by a miracle they were able to catch up, they still finished last, and it was not a non-elimination round. I think they would have noticed that when the clue said to go up the Andes mountains in Argentina and all they saw was the coast line, that they would have stopped earlier than two hours! Sigh, another TAR team lost to poor directions.

But another team emerging as my favorite are the two brothers, who seem to really have fun in what they do. So they're my favorite now and they had a nice finish near the top of the pack.

Romber, the Survivor media whores, continued their conspiring, and of course other teams followed them like sheep when they couldn't finish the eating challenge. (C'mon, you eat all sorts of junk on Survivor and you can't eat four pounds of meat? Geesh.) You could see that Rob and Amber were proud of themselves for pulling the wool over the other teams and still finishing in the middle of the pack. Rob, I wouldn't be so proud of being a snake, if I were you.

Argentina is really beautiful. I'm enjoying these early rounds in Latin America.

Big Stage Jitters

2005-03-15T21:40:00.000-08:00

So tonight was the big night for "American Idol" with the 12 finalists (sans Mario Vasquez) performing on the big stage. And Judge Randy "The Dawg" was not happy. Nobody could get him excited. He had something up his butt or something.

I have to say, with Mario gone, it doesn't seem as exciting. I think he probably would have been the American Idol. Now, it's too early to tell who will emerge the winner. For tonight, I say Constantine Constantine was my favorite. I loved how his voice sounded, and of course he looked fantastic in his leather pants. Always a plus with me. Another guy who looked good, Anthony Fedorov. Who knew he was so built for a guy that's often compared to Clay Aiken. And I love his sound, although it doesn't always excite the crowds. But I like em.

Again, nothing exciting with the girls although everyone's falling for Nadia Turner. So far, not me. She's OK, but she's no Tamyra Gray.

I think I see a hit...

2005-03-14T23:18:00.000-08:00

The freshman NBC TV show "Medium" is turning out to be one of my favorite shows. It's innovative, surprising and well written. I'm not a big fan of Patricia Arquette (or any of the Arquette family of actors, actually), but the show is incredibly engaging.

It's about this suburban mom in Pheonix who realizes that the dreams that she has are actually messages from the dead. She uses her skills to help the Pheonix district attorney's office solve murders.

What I like about the show is that there's always a twist or turn that you never would have guessed. The first few episodes had to deal with a straight forward murder, with Arquette's dreams eventually solving the case. Tonight's episode was a dream about two boys running along a train. No death. No murder. Just two kids running, and then one falling down and missing the chance to cross the track before the train came and blocked the kid from his brother. So what's so exciting about that?

That's the genius of the show. As it progress, the pieces come together one by one. The dream is revealed as a connection to the story of a psychologist that Arquette meets at a friend's party. Then the dream is really a scene from an upcoming movie. Well, turns out the movie was written by the boy who fell when he was chasing the train. Turns out the boy is the brother of the psychologist who thought his brother had been kidnapped and murdered all these years.

Wow.

Every week the show never fails to surprise me. And I like being surprised. I also like the actor who plays the husband, Jake Weber, although he is starting to get a bit bitchy about his wife always waking up in the middle of the night with dreams. And I don't like the idea that almost all of her three young daughters are showing signs that they also have the "gift." Makes it creepy when the little kids have dreams of murderers.

Still, this is one show that pushes the boundaries of the imagination. It definitely keeps me glued to the set, like that's so hard.

What? A mall in Orange County?!

2005-03-10T21:34:00.000-08:00

It was only a matter of time before "The O.C." featured an entire show at the mall. OK, well, not the entire show, but pretty much. I kept watching tonight's episode and kept thinking of what movie talked about kids being stuck in the mall? Someone, help! I guess I should be glad that I spared myself of recalling such a movie. I'm sure it was a block buster. Enough reminiscing about the 80s.

Despite the premise of the mall, I still enjoy watching this show. Granted, there's a certain amount of eye candy, but I am a big fan of the witty dialogue between the main characters, especially the teenagers because they deliver the lines with such authenticity that it's hilarious. But this is the sophomore year of this show, and there's a lot of expectations, trying to see how much they can keep up with the incredible success of its first year. Unfortunately, I have to say the writers have been failing. What with the stupid story about Kaleb's illegitimate, unknown daughter who becomes the new love interest of Ryan, and the most recently horrendous storyline of Marissa, the pretty popular girl, playing with her early lesbianism. How believeable is that? In just three episodes the cracks of her lesbianism are already showing. Don't they know that most kids who come out at that age must really be gay, or else why would they put themselves through the humiliation of growing up with the stigma of gay. Sure, we're in the 00 (is that what we're calling this decade?), but kids are still mean.

So as a way to continue the downfall in the stupid storylines, looks like a new blackmailer is in town and apparently he has some racy tapes of Julie Cooper doing porn when she was young and broke. (And a VHS version to boot! What? The production company couldn't re-release it in DVD format? Not that I'm an expert on porn and all, but really. VHS is so not the big sellers.) And after a boring storyline of Peter Gallagher's character revisiting his first love, they introduce a love interest for his wife, Kelly Rowan. OK, so at least it's pretty-over-40 Billy Campbell of one of my favorite canceled shows, Once and Again, about those over 40 lovers, but still, previews for next week looks like his character is going to turn ugly. Boo, I don't like seeing Billy mean. (Remember him as the ex-husband of Jennifer Lopez in that abuse movie. Oh, wait, another movie I didn't see. I'm good with missing bad movies.)

I just hope "The O.C." doesn't fall into the trap of predictable storylines. Please writers, keep up the witty banter and enough with the drama.

Side note: Wow, the preview for the new Stars Wars Pre-quel looks cool. I just wished I watched the earlier two movies. Now to watch this final installment, I'll have to rent the first two movies. Oh heck. I'll just wait until George Lucas does a marathon night at a Marin theater 50 years from now.

Tuesday Marathon..from Idol to Queer Eye

2005-03-08T23:55:00.000-08:00

Tuesday nights are turning out to be a marathon of television for me. I hope my design teachers don't read this and then they'll know I'm up late Tuesday nights working on my assignments because I wasted most of the evening watching my favorite shows.

First off, American Idol. Some girls sang. Enuff said.

Then, the Amazing Race. This week we get the backstabbing of Survivor spilling onto my favorite show with the help of Amber and Rob. Mostly Rob, who lies, cheats, and bribes the locals to get ahead. And it works because his team ended up first. But it really spoiled the beginning of the show having to see these awful tricks of Survivor on my favorite show. I always enjoyed this show because there weren't all the politics of the other stupid reality shows. This was a simple premise, follow the clues, hustle and finish first. Now Rob is poisoning things. We. Must. Vote. Him. Off.

Other teams picked up the pace, and I enjoyed watching the blonde girls because the team member, I think it's Debbie, speaks Spanish really well and it's so great to see a team communicate well with the locals. The teams went from Peru to Chile, so the Spanish continued to be the language of choice. The brothers failed badly (and seeing the clips for next week, looks like they're self-destructing) and finished last, but they were so sweet. They really hustled at the end but felt so bad when they beat out the other blonde girl teams (not the Spanish-speaking ones, but the one with the headbands and a member named Heidi). One of the brothers got all emotional about it all, having to play the bad guys to eliminate a team they liked. Oh well, at least I still get to watch the boys. I get confused with too many blonde girls.

Then we top the evening with "Queer Eye" and this week's straight guy works for the minor league for the Yankees in Staten Island. What? Steinbrenner wouldn't let someone from the majors participate on the show? Hmm, what's up with that? Still, it was fun to see the baseball references. Please, when is the season starting? (Actually, it starts in about three weeks. I am so stoked! Oh, wow, 70s flashback.) This Queer Eye episode was mixed. The girlfriend wasn't very impressed, nor was she enjoyable. The haircut for the straight guy seemed plain. And Ted actually didn't come up with a gourmet dish for the straight guy to make. All he made was bruschetta. (I did learn that I've been pronouncing it wrong all these years.) Still, it was a fun episode and the straight guy seemed really cool.

Can you believe I still have more shows to recap? But it's on tape because there's more homework to do!

Dump 2 equals 12 on 'Idol'

2005-03-07T23:19:00.000-08:00

Is this the last week for "boys' night" and "girls' night"? Looks like it. If I'm counting right, American Idol is getting close to the final 12 with just 8 guys performing to start off this week of singing and bitching among Paula and Simon. But first, my conspiracy theory.

Interesting to hear the comments from Simon. He's really pushing some guys and really nailing others. He's so obvious about who he's really rooting for. Case in point, rocker Bo Bice. He came out tonight and sang a so-so song (say that fast 10 times) and the judges raved about it, even though his voice is standard and he looks a lot like a character from Enterprise. I'm not a big fan of Bo, but you can tell that Simon is, pumping him up and Paula saying the show won't be the same if he's not in the top 12. A side note, he said that he promised to sing the song for his uncle. I say enough with letting relatives pick your songs! This is a competition, not request night. Competitors have lost because they made the mistake of singing their mother's favorite song. Let the professionals pick the songs.

Back to the conspiracy theory, Simon really found anything bad to say about Anthony Fedorov, who has a rich voice albeit a geek factor working against him. You can tell that Fedorov has been deemed the next Clay Aiken, but since Simon wasn't a big fan of Clay, you can see he doesn't want any Aiken clone on his record label. So he criticized Anthony's performance tonight by saying he doesn't have the image to sing Latin songs. I think he did great but Simon thinks he can't wriggle like Marc Anthony or Enrique Iglesias. It's not like they're singing Latin songs every week. Although I wouldn't mind because I think Latin is hot.

Mario Vasquez delivered a nice performance, going for a ballad this week. But I have to say his voice can be borderline screechy. But I'm sure he'll get through to the top 12. Constantine Maroulis, the other rocker, did a Sting song and he didn't sound good. But he performed well. My problem is I can't seem to get past his double chin. Constantine, don't look down! Keep your chin up, buddy, and you'll go far.

And finally, Anwar Robinson. Wow, what a great voice. And he was singing one of my all-time favorite songs, What a Wonderful World. He's a classic. But the song really started off bad. Which shows the sound in the auditorium must be different than what we're hearing at home because all the judges raved about the singing when you could clearly tell the beginning started off a bit off key. But he pulled it off by creating interesting interpretations and making the song his own. He has a powerful voice and I hope to watch him more every week.

Guys I'd like to see get the buh-bye: Scott Savol, the thug, who sang a song he sang in the preliminary rounds, Sugar Pie, Honey Bun. Yeah, go home and eat some pastries. This is your week. And Nikko Smith, the pseudo Bobby Brown, you can't win on just the final high note. Hopefully America will agree.

Weekend of food and home

2005-03-06T23:14:00.000-08:00

Seems like there's not much to watch on the weekends. I can't wait for baseball season to begin, then it'll be baseball day and night, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But until then, I find out why my weekends are so boring when I'm at home watching nothing but "Trading Spaces" and the Food Network.

This weekend was a special "Trading Spaces," so-called Through the Roof where the entire cast comes on board and the homeowners choose their dream team. It was interesting how one team got along really well and the designers were all in sync, design-wise, and the other team (which happens to have Doug Wilson) had some real drama that really showed the tense relationships that sometimes never get shown beyond host Paige Davidson's perkiness. Still, it was fun TV. I like watching the home shows even though I live in a studio and Trading Spaces will never come to do a room in my apartment because my studio is the only room!

If I'm not watching Trading Spaces and its many offsprings (such as "Trading Spaces: Family," love the host, Joe Farrell) and related shows (like While You Were Out, never got into it until new host Evan Farmer took over), I'm tuned into the Food Network. Unfortunately, many of the Food Network shows are reruns and I've seen the Barefoot Contessa making that same texas lime chicken for the 10th time. I don't know why they're not producing more new shows. And I really miss the Naked Chef, aka Jamie Oliver. He was my favorite on the network and apparently he's not doing any more shows for them. Don't know if he got too big for them or they just didn't want to give him more money. Either way, I wish they'll bring him back. It's not the same without his London accent. And his shows were always produced so well, with that whole BBC touch to it.

Instead I get Iron Chef America. This week's episode pitted Iron Chef Marumoto against this chef from an Italian restaurant. It was such a lopsided battle. (The main ingredient was scallop, yum.) The challenger only ended up making two dishes (how embarrasing for him!) versus the Iron Chef's five! I like the original Iron Chef programs from Japan. There were more energy in the commentating. But I have to say that Iron Chef America has more tasty looking creations. But I never make anything they create. Mostly because I can't stand foie gras and I don't have truffles ready at hand.

The weekend was so beautiful, I really should have gotten out more. I did go out to run errands but have to admit I spent an equal amount of time watching TV. I just wish the weekend got topped off with a fresh episode of Desperate Housewives, but ABC was showing some Oprah Winfrey special. Ugh. Until next week.

What happened to Must See TV?

2005-03-03T23:23:00.000-08:00

It's Thursday night and there's nothing to watch. Why is everything on reruns? Is it summer? Remember when you were growing up and summer meant reruns, then you looked forward to the fall and your favorite shows returning. Remember how the networks would have these cheesy promos and you saw your favorite stars acting all weird on commercials? Now that's something I really miss.

Tonight I caught up with Lost, which I had to watch on tape because of my class on Wednesday nights. Lost is such an interesting show, and I love that it's filmed in Hawaii. But since I'm from Hawaii, I see the background and think to myself, hey guys, you're on the North Shore of Oahu, just head south for 45 minutes and you'll be in Honolulu! But I can't, because they're "lost." I loved tonight's episode, again because of the odd coincidences and twist of fate that they storytellers have intertwined with the characters. This week's episode focused on the back story for Hurley, the chubby guy who we now find out was a lotto winner. Geez. I always played the lotto and I never win anything. Why is it the people who look like losers end up winner? Ok, no dig on Hurley, but did you think he was a millionaire when you first saw him. Oh, and of course during the interesting revealing of secrets, the show gets interrupted by an Amber alert. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not some single children hater, I see the necessity of the Amber alert. But how does the Amber alert work if you broadcast to people who are at home sitting on their couch and NOT on the road looking for a missing child? Seems like they should just have the Amber alert for the radio for people driving. And leave our TV programming alone!

Queer Eye on Queer Eye

2005-03-02T09:37:00.000-08:00

OK, so you're probably thinking I'm some reality TV freak. Far from it. Just so happens that two of my favorite shows on Tuesday nights are reality TV shows: The Amazing Race and Queer Eye for The Straight Guy on Bravo.

I think Queer Eye is ground-breaking television because of the message it delivers about gay people helping others and not being afraid to work together with the straight world. Unfortunately, I think the show is suffering from burnout and may have lost some of its viewers. I hope not because I want it to stick around for awhile, mostly because I enjoy Thom the designer (who's fantastic, both in designing and funny commentaries) and who can get tired of eye candy Kyan (although his Dalai Lama-wannabe act gets kind of annoying at times).

Last night's episode I dubbed "waterworks" because the straight guy, Alex of Manhattan who wants to break into acting, kept crying throughout the show. At times I thought it was sweet, but most times I thought, god man, suck it up, you're on national television. Sure, it's cable and the viewership is declining, but really, man, slow down the waterworks! Still, I liked that the straight guy was very appreciative of the Fab Five's work. I've been getting sick of the straight guys coming on the show, bearing to stand a week surrounded by gay guys, just for the new designer wardrobe and flat screen TV. Oh wait, I'd probably do that if they had a show where straight guys were giving out free stuff to gay guys. Where's casting for that?!

By the way, I've come to realize that it's very hard to recap my favorite TV shows and watch it at the same time! This blogging stuff is a lot of work, and it's cutting into my TV time. I may have to be selective of my review of shows.

Amazing TV for a rainy Tuesday night

2005-03-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Yes, there is a TV god. My cable came back just in time for the greatest show around, "The Amazing Race," (aka TAR). Tonight was the premiere of the seventh season, I think? I've watched every season but Iím not such a diehard that I've memorized the seasons. I just know I like watching the teams trekking around the globe and bitching about each other. Yes, good TV.

There's something about the pulsing beat of the theme song that gets me going, like I'm in the race. I actually talk about joining the race, but I don't drive stick, I don't swim really well, I don't ride a bike, and I like to eat three times a day. So maybe I'll just watch from my couch.

So what's the deal with Amber and Rob, aka The Survivors-reality whores? Don't they know how to get into their car? I mean, pull any switch to pop the trunk. Maybe they were on the island too long. And I don't think they've realized they're on a race by the way they're strolling along. Guys, you don't get voted off. You lose when you arrive last, it's not a hard concept!

OK, so I still can't figure out where they're flying out from since I missed the first minute because of my cable. Ah, someone just said Santa Monica, so they must be in Los Angeles heading to LAX. OK, the female roommates almost got into a car accident and they have to switch. I've never seen that in TAR history, changing wheels at the beginning of the race, and on the Santa Monica freeway. Not a good sign for these girls.

It's always hard in the beginning to come up with nicknames for all the teams. But some of them are trying hard to come up with names for each other. The two gay boys, who I think will be hilarious, are calling one team hillbillies. I'm still not sure who they're referring to, but I think the older couple should be called Team Dog Gone It because that's what the women kept saying about eight times before they even arrived at the airport.

I think the twin brothers are cute, but their orange headbands are going to get annoying after awhile, I think. And I bet it'll get really smelly after they hit spots like Africa or India.

OK, 25 minutes into the game and the former POW has begun telling his tale of his experience in the war. I think he was trying to get some sympathy from the other team, who was partly impressed but not enough to let them have an advantage.

First stop is Lima, Peru. I love the idea of Latin America, one part of the world that I haven't visited much, actually never. Oooh, several teams who speak Spanish. The girl with the Hispanic mother is going to have an advantage with many countries speaking Spanish, it seems. They're already in the lead and all the other teams look lost in a strange world. Maybe they should have joined "The Amazing Race Around Countries that only speak English."

Wait, is that a lesbian team? I think that's a first for TAR. Wow, last season there were no gay teams and now they're three. Maybe they'll get married if they stop in Canada. Anyway, the two girls who kissed each other are pretty hot. I wonder if they're really gay or just fancy editing by the producers. We'll have to wait and see.

It's really hard in the beginning to distinguish the teams. Why are there so many blondes? I can't tell them apart. Oh, and they're already having airport delays. That's part of the game of traveling, kids.

The first detour of the game they have to rope a llama or carry a basket filled with stuff about two miles. I wonder if any of the llamas will spit at the teams? Yes, a spit. I thought the pseudo Lesbian girls were the team to beat, but now they're pressured with the detour task. There's always one team member who has a breakdown early, and I think Bianca is having a problem. Please don't let Rob and Amber finish first with this task.

Wow, the people of Peru are so colorful. I really like their attire, but looks like it would be so warm wearing that. But at least they're colorful.

Now I know who they're talking about when they say the hillbillies. It's the two chubby friends. And in case you missed it, the editors have kindly picked a country-banjo diddy to play in the background. Classy stuff.

Wow, the pseudo lesbians Bianca and Debbie finished first. They're now again the team to beat, despite the mini meltdown. They just won $10,000 each, that's better than a free trip! By the way, beautiful church for the first pit stop.

So the last team to arrive is the hillbillies, Brian and Chuck. Aww, and they're crying. Do we need subtitles for that? What's up with that Mr. Editor? Despite calling themselves hicks, they seemed like they would have been fun to watch for the season, but instead we get the former POW and the beauty queen. So the eye candy stays in the game.

Well, that's it for another two-hour season premiere. My money now is on the pseudo lesbians and the mother and son team. Although you never can count out the alpha males, in this season that would be the twin brothers. The race is on!

Comcast is Satan

2005-03-01T23:56:00.000-08:00

So I start a blog about too much television and the first night I get home to watch TV and my cable goes out! Yep, and I get the lucky pleasure to talk to the cable company, which for me in San Francisco is Comcast. Isn't it funny how everytime you call the cable company about the cable being out, they first ask whether the wire connected to your tv is loose? If you have such advanced technology, wouldn't you be able to tell whether you're delivering a signal or not? Why is it always the customer's fault?

I get so frustrated just dealing with the cable company. And they have a stupid rule where if you're the only one with no cable, then it might be an isolated case and they'll have to wait until the next day to send someone out. But if it's an "outtage" for the neighborhood, then they can send someone out to fix it. So I waited and prayed that everyone else around me were suffering as I missed the second installment of American Idol.

And don't you hate it when they do come to look at the cable, that they warn you that they'll charge you for the visit if it turns out to be your fault. Again, where's the service? They just never attempt to make sure you feel satisfied that they're trying to fix the problem. Instead, they put all the burden on you, both in blame and financially. I hate cable. But they know they've got me. Bastards!

Blog me

2005-03-01T12:53:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of my blog life. And I freely admit that my graphic design instructor forced me into it.

I'm not sure how often I'll post and I can't make any claims about how interesting, thought-provoking, controversial, New York Times-attention-grabbing nor hilarious it will be. I guess you'll tell me, whoever you are who happened to find the time to read my little blog.

So, what to write about. Like most blogs, I plan to write about anything that comes to my mind. But since my life evolves around television, which I watch pretty much every night at home and on the weekends because I have no social life, I decided I'll write about my favorite programs, mostly because I totally never agree with any of the reviewers out there who seem to pound on my quality television viewing. Thus, the name: toomuchtelevision. Because, yeah, I watch too much television. (I would have called this blog toomuchTV, but that name was already taken, so apparently, I'm not the only one.)

I'm also going to use this blog to vent, rant, and cleanse myself of all the bitterness trapped in me from my daily life living in a big city. Don't get me wrong, I love living in a big city, and I realize that I "chose" to live in the city. But that still doesn't mean I can rant about the guy on the bus who invaded my personal space by breathing down my neck or the clerk at the store who didn't want to touch my hand when giving me my change. Believe me, there will be more juicier examples than these.

And since it's all from my perspective, thus the name "The Looking Glass." But I ain't no Alice.