So Maggie mentioned Mythbusters in her last post and I wanted to expand on the excellence of the show because if you just get a brief description it sounds kind of lame. I was in Berlin over the past few months and I could only watch shows that I downloaded with my RSS/Bittorrent FauxTiFaux and MythBusters didn’t make the cut. I only have so much bandwith/hard disk space! I did catch an episode on TV in Berlin, but it was all “lectured” in Deutsch, which is a terrible practice I might post about later. Now I’m back in the good old U.S. of A for a two week vacation so I set aside several hours every day for quality time with the real TiFaux, which dutifully recorded MythBusters every week while I was gone. After gorging on 5 episodes in a row I’m a bigger fan than I ever was.

The premise of the show is nice and simple. They test out urban legends and myths. The topics range from stories your dumbass co-worker might forward you to bona fide urban legends like killing people by dropping a penny from the Empire State Building. That one required shooting one of the hosts in the ass with a penny.

And speaking of hosts, are there two more lovable nerds on television than Jamie and Adam? They somehow manage to combine an extreme breadth of knowledge with complete idiocy. Adam (who bears a striking resemblance to Bizarro Jack Bauer)

once cut his lip by bringing it too close to an open vacuum cleaner motor while showing off for the camera. His impressions of walrus-mustached co-host Jamie

are consitently hilarious even though he never gets a laugh out of his target. Jamie is clearly the smarter one, and he’s a hell of a good shot with a paintball gun but without Adam around to make fun of him the show would be all business except for the rare occasion when Jamie whips out a dry one-liner. (Adam: “We only got two inches of penetration from that arrow” Jamie:”Well, I usually prefer a little more than that”)

But the business is not exactly boring. Often the myths they choose are busted within minutes because most of the crap people believe doesn’t hold up to the smallest amount of scrutiny, so rather than end the show early they decide to recreate the effects of the myth, preferably using large amounts of explosives. When they proved that shooting a gun on a plane would not cause explosive decompression (which required a visit to an airplane graveyard and some serious airplane renovations) they figured out what would cause explosive decompression (Answer: EXPLOSIVES).

Anyone who took a few science classes in high school will notice that the show tends to gloss over flaws in their experiments, but lately they’ve been increasing the science content of the show (always preceded by a graphic “Warning: Science Content) which I’ve really appreciated although it sometimes makes their elaborate experiments unnecessary. After spending 30 minutes of the show kicking helium-filled footballs, they told us that f=ma. Oh yeah. If the ball is lighter and you kick it just as hard, it actually goes slower. But if they had started with that we wouldn’t have the pleasure of watching Adam take hits off the helium tank and explain that he usually stops when his lips turn blue.

Watch this show Tifauxites!

Here are some things. I have not really tried to make them funny. This could be the manifestation of my shock over the Project Runway finale, or it could be a symptom of some sort of horrible brain disease that only Dr. House can diagnose. “How did she act before the accident?” “She seemed grumpier than usual, but other than that –” “Grumpier? Aha! Get out the brain saw, Cameron.”

• The live-action Simpsons opening is pretty cool. I know, we’re way late on this one. See above brain-fungus excuse.
• This morning I woke up an hour before the alarm, tormented by the thought that Veronica Mars had come back with new episodes last night and the DVR had failed to record it. It turns out they just keep moving the new episodes later (which means the George Michael and Maeby episode is now March 29, and new episodes return next week). I don’t like this trend one bit. What have they got to hide?
• The Onion AV Club Blog knows their shit. They’ve said everything that needs to be said about Black.White. And in the process they name-check Zach Morris, which makes them official Friends of TiFaux.
• Do you watch MythBusters on the Discovery Channel? Man… it’s awesome. It’s like a science show (think Bill Nye or 3-2-1 Contact) for adults. Also caters to the “Let’s crash things!” impulse we all share (admit it).
• The Office is not new tonight, but if you’ve never seen it, this is a good one to start. 9:30 PM, NBC. It’s Diversity Day!
• And Heather Havrilesky, my favoritest TV writer, weighs in on Runway.

And now to cherish my final moments before the madness and delusion and uncontrollable vomiting sets in, which I’m sure will be the next set of symptoms up on the differential diagnosis whiteboard. Can they save me?

Holy crap!  Zulema’s gay!

I mean, I still don’t really enjoy her (like, at all), but it just sheds some light on her character.

Shrug.