Monday, February 17, 2014

Perfect for Presidents' Day: THE HOUSE OF CARDS

Some random thoughts today. If I’m not coherent and there are a lot of spelling errors it’s only because I’ve had very little sleep this weekend. Binging on HOUSE OF CARDS. Fortunately, I still have some chapters to go.


I may just pull an all-nighter and then look for a rib joint that’s open at dawn. The best ones always are.

Lots of my middle-aged pals would love to have sex with Claire Underwood. I would love her to be my agent.

If I have withdrawals after finishing this season of HOUSE OF CARDS, I can always watch MITT.

Charlie Sheen is engaged to a porn star. What does she see in him?

Shirley Temple Black was a former U.S. Ambassador. Why aren’t flags at half-mast for her?

Thanks to everybody for taking advantage of my book offer this weekend. It was kinda bizarre being in the Amazon top ten ahead of Tina Fey but behind Mindy Kalin. Three people returned the book I see. How much does someone have to truly hate a book that cost $0.99 to want to return it?

Now that pitchers and catchers have reported I find myself reading endless stories about workouts. I must be really starved for baseball. Or have no life.

Happy Chinese New Year. I understand this is the year of the Whores.

There’s a channel on Sirius/XM called “Love.” It’s the all “Beauty & the Beast” station. Every song sounds exactly like “Beauty & the Beast.”

Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera are both doing a spectacular job filling in for Bob Costas. Not an easy role to fill. It’s always a pleasure to watch true pros. If only I really cared about the Winter Olympics. According to the ratings, I’m not the only one.

Bob is scheduled to return tonight. He may wear glasses. If you enjoy Bob Costas conjunctivitis updates don’t make fun of me for reading articles about pitchers throwing off practice mounds. Welcome back, Bob. Keep taking the drops and stay off your eyes the next few days.

For some reason, my wife’s server believes that any email she receives from me is junk.

More Americans would relate to the Winter Olympics if one of the events was snow shoveling.

As my friend Howard Hoffman observed, every Olympic hockey game is another NHL All-Star game.

By the way, Howard is now live from 4-6 pm EST every day on GREAT BIG RADIO.  He's as good or better now than he was when he was rocking on 77/WABC.   Check him out.  It may bring back memories of a thing called "radio."

Now with Global Warming, if the groundhog sees his own shadow New England gets buried.  

Just bought the new iPhone 5S. For the first four days, every time I turned it on it wanted another password. Why it needs the password to my storage locker is beyond me.

Congratulations to everyone at GOOD LUCK CHARLIE, which finished its hugely successful four-year run on the Disney Channel last night. The writing was always a cut above. Each episode will only be rerun another 6,000 times so if you missed any, better catch up now.

There is a plan to adapt PUSHING DAISIES for Broadway. It’ll be the anti-SWEENEY TODD.

I hear THE LEGO MOVIE is really good. How soon until a porno company comes out with the ERECTOR SET MOVIE?

Hopefully, after tonight, radio stations will stop playing Presidents’ Day music and go back to regular programming.

Someone told me AMERICAN IDOL is back on. Is that true?

Happy Birthday tomorrow to my lovely wife, Debby. How come I’m the only one who gets older?

Here in Los Angeles a major freeway is under re-construction and causing huge traffic problems. So it really IS like the President is here. Hope you’re having a happy, traffic-free holiday.

18 comments :

Scoohtre Sxhetman said...

You binge-watchers, with your card games and zombie thrones...all I know is this is a No Mail Holiday, no good for a shut-in like me who's fresh out of binge...(mutters, rolls over, goes back to sleep).

Igor said...

Bob Costas has every skill a great sportscaster needs, except one - Knowing when to shut the **** up.

Seriously.

Sometimes, the best commentary comes from the images themselves, combined with the simple sounds from the crowd.

Oh, and when he did his commentary two years ago about what Gabby Douglas' gold medal in gymnastics means to young black girls... That was painful. It's not that a white guy is incapable of opining meaningfully on such things, but what he said would have fit perfectly as a "Naked Gun" parody of a white guy saying stupid things about a black athlete... It was cotton candy, presented as though he were sharing with us mere mortals his personal discovery of the Higgs boson.

I don't know most sports well enough to know if he does well when he comments about what a certain sporting moment means to that particular sport. But when he offers his views as to what a certain sporting moment means to anything outside of sports... Well, I just wish he wouldn't.

Doug said...

Pushing Daisies on Broadway? Sounds like a good idea, especially since two of the stars from the show are musical vets. I'd need to dig around to be sure, but I think that all of the main actors can sing. It would be nice to give them one last chance to play those characters. They could try to add Raul Esperanza to the mix. They were setting him up to be Chenoweth's love interest, before the writer's strike and net work stupidity killed the show.

Hamid said...

THE LEGO MOVIE is indeed fantastic. I'd be interested to read your review of it.

Hamid said...

This isn't a spoiler - a hilarious bit in LEGO is when it's revealed Batman likes to make goth rock music in his spare time which he sings in a staccato rhythm. The lyrics had me in stitches. "Darkness! No parents! Super rich! Kinda makes it better!"

Emmett Flatus said...

Have Costas and his pompous pontifications really been missed?

Joe Freeman said...

I agree that Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera did a great job in relief of Bob Costas. I'd be just as happy if they continued, given the way Costas has chosen to to study at the Joe Buck School of Snarkiness.

BTW, was I the only one to notice that the airline must have lost Meredith's skirt the other day?

Cap'n Bob said...

Anent returns: Some jerks buy things, use them, and return them either because they are cheap or have no moral center. Don't assume it's a reflection on how much they enjoyed your book.

Anonymous said...

Yes, American Idol is back. And after a one year vacation (there was no way I was going to watch Mariah Carey preen and then they added Nicki Minaj) I decided to try it. Harry Connick is a riot and is perfect for the part. And it looks like they have some decent singers this year instead of forcing a girl to win.

Pam aka sisterzip

Rob said...

"Good Luck Charlie" is the "Frasier" of Disney Channel sitcoms. The writing was good and the actors had great chemistry. Thank you for endorsing it. I hope those producers get to do another show.

Anonymous said...

The three people who returned it bought it by accident, they meant to get the Mindy Kalin book.

Jeffro said...

Speak for yourself, Ken. Given one or the other, I'd watch Olympic Hockey instead of House of Cards with no hesitation. It's the only Olympic sport worth watching, Summer Games included. Even if it were college/juniors players in the games instead of NHL pros (and if the NHL has their way, that would be the case in 2018). And unlike NHL All Star games (which are still the best all star games to watch of all the pro sports, even though I much rather prefer to see a real regular season or playoff game over anything else), their is plenty of physical checking like there is in the NHL (and no fights), especially whenever Canada, Russia, and the USA play each other. I'm surprised you haven't commented on the Russia-USA game this past Saturday, which has been replayed at least 3 times since then. Although it's just a preliminary game that meant nothing other then determine seeding in the playoff/medal rounds, and although it ended in a shootout (I'm not a fan of them, but if they have to be, I like the IIHF format better than the NHL shootout format), it was probably though most entertaining game to watch since the Miracle On Ice in 1980.

Meh, maybe its a generational thing. Had you grown-up in the era where California has three NHL teams, I'd bet you'd be more of a fan. Considering that California is one of the few places outside of New England (and certain other pockets in the Northeastern US), Michigan, and Minnesota where youth hockey is generating a good crop of college/juniors destined for the pros, that might be the case. I guess that just means you really are too old (besides the knowledge of certain porn actresses who are skeeved-out by the prospect of doing guys your age).

Cheerio,
Jeffro

Pseudonym said...

I'm curious to know how HOUSE OF CARDS compares to the UK shows (including TO PLAY THE KING and THE FINAL CUT), and also to the books.

Travis said...

Friday Question:

My dad and I have somewhat different tastes in entertainment. He doesn't watch hardly any comedies. There is one hugely successful network sitcom that he doesn't watch, but he sees it advertised. He might have watched an episode, but not to my knowledge. Anyway, there is an element of the show that he doesn't like because of religious reasons. However, I (having actually watched the show) know that it is a good, mostly clean show. I tried to explain this to him, but he cannot get past this aspect of the show. What do you think of this?

cadavra said...

Well, if it's the Year of the Whores, then no wonder Charlie Sheen is getting married!

R's Woman said...

Hey Ken,

If you or your readers can in any way get live Winter Olympic feeds (from outside the US), then you will truly love these Games. I am lucky to get these in my side of the world (the Caribbean actually!).

For me, the Winter Olympics are more exciting, and their events generally require more skill, than the Summer Games.

Igor is correct - the images and sounds on the ground alone are stunning and thrilling... The packaged, dramatization, recap of the games that NBC puts together is nauseating.

PS Happy Birthday to your wife - good women never age

Lorimartian said...

Hi Ken,

Happy birthday to you and your sweetheart. You mentioned in a previous post that you can't see 3D. Neither can I due to a chidhood accident that left me blind in one eye. It never fazed me, although I avoided playing any sport that involved a bat/racket and/or a fast moving flying object. Now, I worry constantly about my sight and the unknowns that might eventually take it away...but I digress. I'm interested to know why you can't see 3D and if you feel that you're missing something. I would have liked to have seen "Life of Pi" in 3D. (Apart from having the time, if this question is too personal, I understand if you don't want to respond.) Thanks for writing this blog. It gives me and many others a lot of enjoyment.

Patricia

ishkabibble said...

So if I checked out the book through Amazon Prime, which lets me read one participating book per month free, and then returned it when I finished, does that show up as a "return" for you? I do get a little note that I returned the book. It's not because I didn't like it! It's because you can only have one free book checked out at a time, and I finished yours!

Anyway, I wonder if that's what's happening.