SHANTERTAINMENT

One Week In and I'm Sick of Peyton Manning Already

Sure, the Manning Bowl didn't help. But neither did the at least four commercials featuring Peyton that aired over and over and over yesterday. I don't mind the DTV one as much as the sprint one, but really in combination, they all are just too much. I mean, I love Peyton, but he's not exactly MJ in the charisma department, you know?

Some other things I noticed yesterday:

36: the age where you are officially a geezer. Trent Green's age was all the announcers could talk about during the first half of the Chiefs/Bengals game, let alone the second half. At least it spared us another feature on Carson Palmer's knee. Are there seriously so few stories in the world of football that we need to see the exact same feature on every channel?

And this regulation that the stations have to stop showing a game promptly at 3:15 no matter what is happening so that the other station can have it's exclusive is crazy. You put three hours into a game and then have to stop watching at half time if the network doesn't have the doubleheader? If that happens with a game I care about there will be hell to pay.

Pink?? What target demographic is NBC trying to get to with a Pink theme song? It's cheesy and she's cheesy. She's just the wrong choice.

Welcome!

I guess we have a hockey team in town -- and after seeing our newest player on the news I may have to start paying attention to it. Welcome, Martin Havlat. (He's a star or someting -- I swear!)

Now I Get To Call Her a Whore

Before I launch into my diatribe, I should say that I loved the Grey's finale. I was on the edge of my seat and thought all the music, pacing, acting and everything was awesome. That doesn't mean I love what the characters did...

Meredith and McDreamy - What a difference a month makes. Four weeks ago I would have been ecstatic about the re-pairing of McDreamy and Mere. But the last few episodes, and I'm sure the addition of McVet, have made me rethink this. Now, instead of happiness, I feel anger. Instead of thinking of Derek as a good man in a bad circumstance, I see him as a whiny brat who didn't want Meredith until someone else had her. His outburst last week combined with his childish attitude during the two part finale makes me angry -- he was the one that was married! And suddenly the way he and Meredith are carrying on...it's just sort of embarrassing. Suddenly their selfishness is so evident -- leaving tbeir dates (wife!) downstairs to go have sex is so smarmy. And Meredith. Well I have a little more sympathy for her, after all she's been pining for McDreamy for the entire year. So of course she would go for it at that moment. But hopefully she noticed how tawdry the whole thing was. Meredith and Derek used to have sympathy -- she's not a homewrecker! she didn't know he was married! his wife cheated with his best friend! But now their being willfully deceitful and I don't like it one bit. Plus Finn! So cute! Though as Meredith did say at one point -- you can't help who you fall in love with.

Oh -- and I'm not buying the "putting Doc to sleep as a metaphor for our love" story at all.

Christina and Burke - I'm having bad flashbacks to that a-hole red headed doctor on ER who got his arm chopped off and had to re-find his identity as a surgeon. Please don't be that story! Also, I've never been a Christina fan and now it's just worse. I hope I'm not supposed to be as forgiving as Burke is. She wasn't just a bad girlfriend and doctor, she's a bad person and I don't like her.

George - Finally manning up and admitting some fault in the whole Meredith business. Good for him!

Izzy and Denny - Her screeching was getting out of hand. And so was the crazy. But I'm glad this cockamamie story brought the team back together and showed some redemption for Alex. And his eventual, are-they-seriously-drawing-this-out-so-long death as actually pretty subtle and affecting compared to the rest of their scenes. I mean, I'm glad Denny is gone, but it was sort of sad once he was dead, you know?

The Prom - Interesting move, but they kind of pulled it off. I'm sure that the goal was to get McDreamy, McVet and Mere in formalwear, but I don't mind.

Do It To Me One More Time, Luther

I only watch the end of the NCAA tournament so that I can get teary at the celebration, hugging of parents, and of course, the "One Moment Like This" or whatever it is Luther Vandross montage. I'm just wondering why they always have to use that song. It seems like they could find something a lot more manly, yet equally as sentimental, if they tried just a little harder. It's seriously one step above Kelly Clarkson and Whitney Houston for cheese factor. CBS and Greg Gumbel don't exactly exude cool, I get that, but this song hasn't been cool since they introduced it, and yet they stick with it. Just because something is tradition doesn't make it great.

Bad Blogger!

I've had guests in town and as a result have ingested absolutely 0 pop culture and a total of 1,498 beers in the last five days. So I've little to say. I did however watch the Hawkeyes roll to the top of the Big Ten tournament. Here's hoping this Hawk personality shows up on Friday, at what the kids are calling "the dance."

Kwan You Believe This Crap?

Am I the only person who thinks Michelle Kwan was irresponsible for going to the olympics in the first place? She stole Emily Hughes' spot with the promise she'd be ready to compete. Then she goes through the hooplah, walks the opening ceremonies, graces a few more magazine spreads etc. before she decides her boo-boo hurts pretty bad after all. Selfish, irresponsible and short-sighted. So why is everyone talking about the sad nature of her swan song? Let her go the way of Coulier. That's right -- may Skating with Celebrities be her next stop. (Hey, its better than going the way of Oksana.)

She's Positively Unamerican!

When I was but a wee girl of nine years old, in the summer of 1984, we moved to a new neighborhood. I didn't know anyone in that neighborhood and summer vacations are long. Luckily I found solace in three things -- Days of our Lives, Another World and Santa Barbara. I went through that summer looking forward to my 12:30 - 3:30 block of pure joy. Until one day, I turned on the television and didn't find Salem. Instead I found Bob Costas and a glimmering swimming pool in sunny Los Angeles. "oh dear" I thought, "these 'olympics' I've been hearing about will be pre-empting my soaps today. thank goodness they'll be back tomorrow."

Now I can laugh at my naivete, but in the summer of 1984 it was no laughing matter. Day after day after day after day I woke up hoping that those damn olympics were over. And finally they were -- only a few days before I had to go back to school.

So when I tell you that I HATE THE OLYMPICS, please believe that it comes from the heart, much in the same way that I hate the words "Iran" and "Contra," though I'm not quite sure what they mean.

Since '84 I've given the Olympics a chance -- Keri Strug tugged at my heartstrings, I'm not made of stone. But for every moment like that, there are 45 of Costas telling the story of someone born poor and alone, who will die poor and alone, in a country far from here, which will shun him if he loses and let him live the life of a king if he wins. Right when you get teary eyed you'll remember that you're supposed to root for him to lose because you are American. And you'd rather some 19 year old who never worked a day in their life get the medal, so they can go do more Visa commercials and maybe -- just maybe -- read the Letterman top ten list.

I'll be watching Arrested Development tonight and catching up on Netflix for the next few weeks.

(This post is dedicated to the memory of Cruz and Eden.)

Ben Roethlisberger is No Tom Brady

I mean that in the best possible way. But he has to get a stylist if he's going to be doing the talk show circuit. The baggy khaki suit he wore on Letterman last night was unforgiveable. And it wasn't until Letterman was shaving his beard that I remembered he wasn't so good looking under there. He was way nicer than Tom Brady, though. God I hate that guy. Anyway, this rambling post is just an excuse to post this photo of drunk ben roethlisberger reportedly after the Indy game. Ah youth...sometimes the young don't waste it.

Super Bowl

I wasn't rooting for anyone in particular in this super bowl game...I actually like both teams and was just hoping for a great game. That said, I thought the officiating was awful and the Seahawks got robbed. I would have liked to see if the Steelers still would have won if the refs hadn't gotten in the way. (They in effect took away two Seattle touchdowns that should not have been taken away with bad calls.)

Oh my God was Halftime painful. I know that making Rolling Stones are old jokes are cliche, but it is because those guys are so freaking old! They are so non-relevant. And to have all of the history of Detroit and good music -- old and new -- they should have worked in some other, better performers.

As for commercials, I didn't see all of them, of course, but I consistently enjoyed the commercial where all the players practiced "I'm going to Disney World." I thought it was cute. I love Kermit so that one worked for me. I liked the two Clydesdales commercials and the monkey commercials.

What was Harrison Ford doing in the "Oh the places you'll go" intro? Cute idea, but I think it would have been better with all old players, no Indiana Jones with an earring. He thought he was reading Hamlet or something.

Finally -- Tom Brady. I personally don't think he should have been there. I don't think any current players who didn't make the super bowl should have a role but to sit at home and cry. It should have been someone old and respected. So not only was he there, but he shows up in a velvet smoking jacket like he's James Bond or something? What a douche bag.