First nominee: Quote of the Year
“[Michael Jackson] is like Saddam Hussein. He hasn’t done anything in 10 years, and suddenly we’re attacking him again.”
-Bill Maher, on The Tonight Show
Category: words mean things (Page 87 of 223)
As much as I hate to say “I told you so,” I predicted the so-called “shocking twist” at the end of Joe Millionaire a while ago. (Regrettably I didn’t write it in a post for take-it-to-court proof. But you trust me, right?) I did mention Evan and now-we-know-it’s Zora getting $1 million to my friend Wendy, to which she responded, “A million dollars doesn’t go all that far these days.”
A much better twist would have been to reveal that all the women were actually millionaires, and knew Evan’s “secret” from the beginning. This would have thrown funny new light on the “what’s your middle name?” and “I had a dream you were two people” episodes. Or, knowing Fox, they could have offered Evan $1 million, but only if he never saw Zora again. Talk about good television.
One thing I did write about is that I liked Zora from the beginning, and I stand by my feeling that she’s too good for him. But she’s such a sweetheart, if she gets $500K out of the deal, that’s OK. She can use part of it to iron out her hair from the finale – she looked like she had a deranged poodle on her head.
One reality show down, 237 to go.
Orange Alert Quote of the Week
I was talking with my friend Michele, who lives out in the boonies around Verona, about how Wisconsin is a great place to live right now, since it’s an unlikely target for terrorist attack.
“Terrorist attack?” she said. “I can’t even get cable.”
Funniest Men’s Magazine Headline of the Month
HAVE YOU HAD SEX WITH COLIN FARRELL YET?
–Details, Jan/Feb 2003
Outrage overload. I can relate. I’m exhausted. Wake me up when it’s over.
Words mean things
“One of the most nationalistic things Americans do is reserve the word ‘nationalism’ (which implies something sinister and potentially homicidal) for other nations, while holding on to ‘patriotism’ (which is invariably seen as noble and good) for ourselves.”
-Barbara Ehrenreich, The Progressive, February 2003
Like many things these days, this is funny. (I think I’m about orange.) But it also gives me a tinge of fear. How long before any questioning at all is a punishable offense?
The women-vs.-men dynamic of “Survivor: Amazon” is interesting, but probably not enough to make me watch any more than the opening episode last night. I skipped the last two Survivors altogether, and nothing I saw last night has elevated it above the tidal-wave-like glut of reality TV right now.
Since it’s hard to keep 16 strangers straight in the beginning, Kevin and I spent most of the time making up nicknames for the contestants: Boob Girl, Asian Popeye, and Crazy Scary Nipple Man were among the castaways who made an impression, although not necessarily a favorable one.
Wake me up when it’s over.
“We’ve got to recognize that when we march into Iraq, we’re setting up the card tables in front of every university in the Arab world, the Islamic world, to recruit for al-Qaida. Why don’t we just go set up the card tables ourselves, right now? Sign them up to commit suicide. And you never hear anybody talking about this. It would be helpful if there were someone telling the president, well, yes, there is this danger from Iraq, but there’s almost a certitude of inflaming the world against us if we intervene.
“And on the war, I think my numbers would be a lot higher if I were out there beating the drum for this war. In fact, I don’t think it, I know it. But I can’t be for the war. I can’t find a reason to be for this war. I’ve looked, and I can’t, so I?m not. The people who are backing this war are more interested in their own ideology than what’s good for the country. It’s not about America. Which is scary.”
Chris Matthews making sense? I must be hallucinating.