1 Happy St

- I can't believe that girl whose father died 2 days before her audition got voted off. What a shame. And believe it or not, I liked that Daniel kid with the attitude, so I was sorry to see him go too. His text-speech made me LOL. Oh well. BLNT.

- Yeah I watched Idol too. My DVR was working overtime last night.

- I should probably keep some things to myself.

- Wow, so another stellar episode of Lost. I was pleased with Juliet's backstory with Goodwin; I thought that was long overdue. It's funny because my favorite characters on the show I think are people who weren't even part of Season 1 (at least not prominently). Juliet is good, Desmond is great, and Ben is always terrific. If not for Sayid and the occasional Sawyer scene (where has he been this season?), the Season 1 crew would be getting dominated.

- Claire got another 20 seconds of screen time. Does anybody else feel like they glossed over the whole Charlie dying thing? If Claire was truly in love with him, wouldn't she still be grieving at least a little bit? Instead she's going about her business like it never happened. Poor Charlie. I think it's pretty clear at this point that Claire is going down soon. They've been hinting at it for a couple weeks now. I guess I'll miss her, but I definitely won't miss her saying "give me back my bay-bay" any more. Hey silver lining.

- That Ben is diabolical. This paragraph will be lame (I guess they all have been), but I wanted an excuse to type the word 'diabolical'. It's such a great word. So is he telling the truth to Locke about Penny's dad? I say yes even though Ben is looking more and more like a creepy myspace guy. His line to Juliet when he brought her to Goodwin's rotting corpse - "take all the time you need" - was brilliant. And diabolical. Still loving that word.

- Questions still to ponder - who is Ben's spy on the ship? Who does Juliet look like that would make her attractive to Ben? Who opened the door on the ship that allowed Sayid, Desmond, and the Indian dude from "Short Circuit" to escape? Are Daniel/Charlotte good guys or bad guys? Or for that matter, is Penny's dad a good guy? 'Til next time......

Tell me you all watched that trainwreck "The Moment of Truth" last night. This woman was on there and admitted in front of her husband of 2 years, her parents, and her siblings that she was still in love with her ex-boyfriend on her wedding day. Then she admitted that if her ex-boyfriend were to ask her to get back together, she’d dump her husband right then and there. Finally she admitted that she had cheated on her husband since they’ve been married. All of this of course was a shock to the poor schmo of a husband who was sitting there with a "holy sh## my life is over, why would she bring me here and sit me down next to her mom and dad on national television and admit all this in front of the whole world" look on his face.

Here’s the part I don’t get. The show acknowledges that these people are asked a series of questions before the taping (I think they said 50) while hooked up to a lie detector. This means THAT THEY KNOW WHAT’S COMING, at least to some degree. This woman obviously had quite a few things to hide from her family and husband. So why in the hell would she still go on the show?

I see only two possible reasons:
1. She wanted her husband to find out. Of course this means that this woman is a huge "B" because it would be a lot easier on the poor schmo to tell him his life is over in the privacy of his own home rather than airing it out in front of 10 million people.
2. This is all an elaborate setup by the show’s producers, and none of the contestants are real.

Either way, I feel dirty after watching it. And this marks the 2nd time I’ve mentioned it since it first aired. I'm not sure what any of this means, but after this and Temptation Island, I think Mark Walberg may be Satan.

***LOST SPOILER ALERT***

***NO, FOR REAL. I'VE GOT LOST SPOILERS COMING***

***YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED YET, SO WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS? GO AWAY. THIS IS FOR ALL OF US WHO WATCHED IT LIVE (OR AT LEAST PARTIALLY LIVE) LAST NIGHT***

***OKAY, FINALLY THEY'RE GONE***

So what'd you think? Did you know that Sayid's boss in the flash-forward was going to be Ben? I'll be honest, I wasn't thinking it, but when I heard his voice for the first time, I said out loud "that sounds like Ben." What a fantastic episode though. I love the episodes where my first reaction after it's over is something like "wait, I don't get it". But then I think about it for a minute and it clicks. That happened last night.

Some questions I'm left to ponder this morning:
- Who is Minkowski really? I'm beginning to think he's Ben's mole on the freighter.
- What was Daniel's experiment all about, and why were the clocks no longer synchronized?
- Was Sayid's flash-forward in the same timeframe as Hurley and Jack's flash-forwards?
- Who is R.G.?

A question that was driving me crazy that I finally went and looked up and got the answer:
- Why does that Miles guy look so familiar? What's he been in? It turns out he was Junior's crazy friend in the nuthouse from the last season of The Sopranos. Ah hah!

- Who was in the coffin during Jack's flash-forward? [the most logical answer to this question that I've been able to come up with is Ben. Maybe Michael.]

- Who was Kate going home to? [I suspect Sawyer]

- Did Charlie really die? [to me that sounds like a dumb question, but people I've spoken with believe that he survived the grenade and the drowning]

- Who stayed behind at the island while the others were being rescued? [and by "the others", I don't mean "The Others"]

- Is Kate pregnant?

- How did Charlie get the Sharpie marker to work when his hand was wet? [okay I'm not really wondering this, but you have to admit that writing on something that's wet with a marker is really hard]

That is all for now. I'm sure before we get answers to the questions above, 4 or 5 new questions will emerge. I guess that's the beauty of the show. Enjoy.

Did you watch "The Moment of Truth" last night?

I think the show itself has the right idea, although some of the questions caused Jill and I to look at each other with "how would you answer that question" faces. Maybe it's one of those shows that you don't watch with your wife. Aside from that though it still made me laugh a couple times.

The only problem I have with it (and this seems to be a common theme with "game shows" now) is that it was about 6 minutes of actual programming crunched into 60 minutes. I had the same complaint with "Are you smarter" last year and I don't think I've watched that show since. Why do the producers do that? They drag the show on so much with dramatic music and frustrating pauses for no real reason to the point where I end up turning the channel. I'll never understand why they do that.

My grade: B-12

Yep, my arbitrary grading system is now on a vitamin scale. Or is that a warplane?

Side note: please don't make fun of the blog title. I realize it looks like one of those generic titles that you'd see in a newspaper review. But I'm kinda proud of it in a "making fun of generic newspaper headlines" kind of way. Okay that is all for now.

Quick edit to my original post: My friend Brian just emailed me with his thoughts on the show. Take it away Brian:

Absolutely retarded. I knew most of the answers to those first 6 questions anyway. Oh, lemme guess, they're freaking true. It's not that big a deal. The hard ones are when you have to talk about your wife and sh##. I would hate to see what the $500,000 question would be. They took a lie detecter test before the show, I don't get it, they should be strapped to one live on TV. Have you ever hit a car and not left a note? Hells yeah, I do it all the time. It's called bump and roll parallel parking, does that count? If I say no, does my anxiety shoot through the roof and I am told that I am lying anyway, or do I say yes, and tell America that I am a douche? If your kid comes out and asks if you gambled away his college fund, we already know what the answer is. What's the point? And how are they going to ask the really good questions on network television? Like, do you look at your poo when you are done in the bathroom? Have you ever pleasured yourself at work? In your adult years, have you ever had an accident in your pants? Are there special movies of you posted on the internet? Have you ever put anything in your butt?

Have you ever done anything to make your wife not trust you? What kind of b.s. is that? Do they mean going to a strip club without her knowledge or cheating on her? Those are two completely different things that warrent different punishments. And now America thinks your a douche. Then that poor schmuk walked away with nothing!!!! What a bum. Stupid piece of crap show.

Probably going to keep watching it though.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I love snow days! I'm at home with the boys today because Ann Arbor got about 14 inches of snow. We're watching a show on Nick right now called Yo Gabba Gabba. If you haven't seen it, let me just tell you that it is the greatest childrens' show EVER!!!!! I think this show is created by the same people that brought us Charlie The Unicorn. Oh, and it gave me a chance to use our ever popular "ridiculous afro" label again!

Have a look...

Hi everyone! Greg here. Remember me? I trust Brian has kept everyone up to date on my bio-dome project. It's been an amazing experience. The last bio-domers left the place a total wreck. I was thinking about calling in a favor from Ty Pennington. He still owes me from getting him off sugar.

What is it with that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition show, anyway? Every time I watch it, I feel like I've been emotionally raped. I finally had to stop watching all together because no 7 year old boy wants to see his dad bawling over interior design.

I still don't understand the show. Every episode is basically Ty telling people, "I know nothing is going to bring your dad and your husband back...but maybe this flat panel TV will help."

The worst ones are the ones about sick kids. "As you all sit in this brand new house waiting for little Timmy to finally kick off, you can at least sit in the comfort of your new indoor hot tub!"

Another thing that bothers me is how they do these theme rooms for the kids. They act like they know the kids so well and then they pick one little nugget and that's the kid's identity, as if being into skateboarding means I want to sleep teetering on top of a half pipe in my effing room. "Well I really got to know Betsy in the minute and a half it took us to walk her out to the limo and I noticed that she was wearing shoes when outside.... so her whole room is going to be floored with recycled sneakers and her night stands are going to be shaped like Mary Janes."

There is something especially creepy about how they just destroy all the houses too, as if the old house has no memories. "Do you know what will make the hurt of your mom dying go away? An army of blue shirted immigrants destroying the house she used to take such painstaking care of... And here's a video clip to watch at Disney World of all these strangers taking chainsaws to the couch where mom and dad conceived dead Billy."

If they do anything to preserve the old house, it usually comes off as a little forced and awkward. "Tina, I know you've had it the worst when you found out that your dad was killed in Iraq and then you set your family's house on fire while burning a candle in his memory, so yours was my secret room... check out all those new picture frames! I made them myself from the charred remains of your home!"

Frigging Ty Pennington.

At any rate, the bio-dome project is just about finishing up so I should be around a little more often. Thanks for holding down the fort, Brian!