Know the enemy, right?

Okay, so apparently Carson from Queer Eye was a judge at the Miss Universe Pageant and the lunatic fringe at WorldNetDaily is none too pleased.  The headline touted ""NBC struts 'gay' jokes all over Miss Universe: Queer Eye' star Carson Kressley provides homosexual commentary."

And the lead reads:

With some of the world's most beautiful women on display at tonight's Miss Universe Pageant in Los Angeles, viewers of the NBC broadcast were exposed to a celebration of homosexuality with continuous "gay" jokes and innuendo. 

And the story goes on to systematically list every marginally funny crack Carson made.

Oh, and in case you weren't paying attention, Miss Puerto Rico won.  And then collapsed. 

(source)

Previously: Yeah, it was so long ago, I don't really remember it, either. But I bet it was all kinds of awesome.

We open on another shopping montage– could it be more golf clubs? another asymmetrical bathing suit/ straight jacket for heidi? Ah, no, it looks as though Jason is about to be the proud recipient of some custom made dog tags, courtesy of one LC. Dog tags. DOG tags. No obvious jokes here. No sir.

The MTV think tank is back from that two week "sabbatical" to Juno Springs and has titled this episode "Somebody always has to cry." Please let it be heidi. Please let it be heidi.

The kids go shopping for a christmas tree then do a couples- only tree decorating session. (Sorry, audrina. Maybe if you could have Taken It To The Next Level we might have invited you). (issue #79: I don't mean to be a crazy stalker here– okay, yeah I do– but jason's birthday is January 11th. So why did it happen before New Years? Is this like Fraggle Rock, where you get to pick what day your birthday is every year?) "My mom never lets us decorate our tree," LC comments. (issue #80: Okay, LC Sr, what are you, a communist? Would that be the same woman who had palm trees air lifted into your backyard on the series premiere episode of Laguna? Shocking. No christmas tree ornaments for you! and NO WIRE HANGARS… EVER).  Heidi makes the episode-title comment, and, when questioned, further elaborates "I always cry at our christmas! I never get the present I want, Holly gets all the attention…" (Issue #81: wait, your sister HOLLY gets the attention at christmas? Do you also get upset when your brother valentino gets a little extra rah-rah around mid-February?).

Heidi, LC, and LC's headband go to lunch. LC name drops some purse she wants, and Heidi is all but holding a tape recorder up in order to report back to Jason to get it for her. Discreet. Really. I cannot wait for the day Jason askes Heidi to design LC's engagement ring. LC asks Heidi what she wants and she responds "A poopy." This makes sense. It's probably hard to create a bowel movement when you don't actually eat solid food. Lc pushes further and Heidi stops gnawing on her own tongue long enough to enunciate "a puppy." Oooh, gotcha. (Issue #82: Also, what a great idea. Let's put the responsibility for one of God's creatures in Heidi's hands. Maybe we should start you small– maybe a grow-a-frog this year, or one of those tamagachis we all had in 8th grade. Actually, how about we just buy you a copy of The Sims and you can see how long you can keep a virtual human alive, okay?)  

At "The Grove" in LA, Heidi wears tassled ugg-ish boots and tries to slow dance with her cammo-clad boyfriend in front of a fountain. (issue #83: Cammo, Bfb? Really? What front lines are you on?) There's much cuddling and exclaiming over fake snow. I wish audrina were here. If only she'd achieved next level-dom with OtherBrad. Sigh. It's going to be a long, cold winter.

Back at the ranch, it's present opening time. Jason unveils his dog tags and LC chirps "I designed them!" (issue #84: Best 19k you've ever spent, eh, Mr Conrad?). Heidi gets BfB something thugged out as well, and LC and Jason declare that they'll be getting BfB a tattoo for christmas. (Issue #85: Why is it that the richest kids always have to act like they're prison inmates?) LC gets the aforementioned bag, and Heidi gets what appears to be a stuffed taco bell dog. She can barely conceal her disappointment. Then BfB produces a box with air holes that contains Heidi's Poopy and she's so stunned and happy and almost human that I almost like her. Again. Damn you, MTV.

Jason manages to coax LC into a romantic parking garage where, at midnight (or so MTV tells us, but it could be 4pm on May 27th for all I trust these tv bastards), he stumbles out of the car holding a cigarette and shoves his tongue down LC's throat. Happy new year, indeed.

Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch, as suspected, won't return to SNL next season. Will be interesting to see who steps up. According to our poll, Amy should do Weekend Update herself. 

Tim Gunn has a podcast. It's like a director's commentary for each episode. I always feel like we only see 10% of what he really wants to say on the show. With the podcast you can get up to around 90% (he self-censors a little). I'm not sure I'll keep listening, but for you subway commuters out there, it might be nice.

Remember that show called Nobody's Watching that I warned you not to watch online? Well, NBC bought the hype and picked up the show for "webisodes" even though nearly 2/3 of all viewers don't make it past the first 10 minutes. What about Lonelygirl15? 484,124 people have watched this video:

When is NBC going to give her a production deal?

Also, I'm really glad there was no YouTube when I was 16. Poor Daniel. 

I haven't had electricity pretty much all week. And that sucked. Missed Project Runway, all that Lost I'm catching up on, Rock Star. It was a sad, sad time.

So I don't really have anything to say, seeing as I've been living in the 19th century recently, but I'll try with a little NBC-focused fall-season news.

NBC is going to offer the first episodes of Studio 60 and Kidnapped on Netflix, which I think is odd and unlikely to work, unless you're already a TV/Aaron Sorkin addict. Even in those cases, are you really going to want to rent a DVD of shows you can see on the air a couple weeks later? I don't see why people would do this.

However, clips of the fall shows online? That makes more sense. I'm not sure if I'm joking or not, but HEROES — my future new favorite show. Unless it sucks. But it won't. Because it's going to be awesome. Unless it isn't.

Heroes on YouTube (which NBC won't let me embed). 

News nuggets to get you through your mid-morning slump.

• Just like Navy: NCIS and CSI: Miami, apparently someone is watching The Bachelor.  The omnipresent reality show will be returning for its ninth season, this time set in Rome.  The bachelor in question is a Bronson Pinchot-looking mofo who is apparently also a real life prince, albeit a convoluded, half-assed royal.
• The reality show no one asked for is on its way and it promises to be a bigger train wreck than anyone anticipated.  Rob and Amber, runner-up and winner of Survivor: All-Stars, will put their fledgling marriage before the cameras as (get this) the couple move to Las Vegas so Rob can try his hand at professional gambling.  And so he can gamble away her millions.
• What the heck is going on with that guy on Project Runway's neck, anyway? Apparently it's kind of sweet.  Well, mostly crazy, but a little sprinkling of sweet too.  For those who couldn't see it up close, season 3 designer Jeffrey Sebelia has the name of his son, Harrison Detroit, on his neck.  Below it, in latin, is the phrase "the love of my life."
• Speaking of the Runway, have you heard the scandal about Keith?  Apparently, he's been accused of plagiarizing sketches in his portfolio.  The portfolio he used to get on the show.  See the sketches here.
• ABC is making lots of promises after screwing up two of its big hits.  Creative control of Desperate Housewives will be going back to creator Marc Cherry after a widely criticized second season.  And Lost won't be tugging at the heartstrings of its viewers by surprising us with reruns all the time.  This next season, it will have six episodes in a row in the fall, take a break and then return to continue out the season repeat-free.
• Kirsten Dunst is dating Andy Samberg from SNL.  Hon, you may as well join a convent because no one's going to match up to Jake.

Recap:

Dan writes:

To start off the episode, Kenny is trying to calm Tina down over the fact that their team is at the top of everyone's list to be sent into exile.  Much lip service and ballyhoo is made of the fact that they are devoted teammates and they will work hard to stay out of exile.  At this point, the Foreshadowing Police come around with billy clubs and beat everyone about the head.

Coral complains to the ridiculously buff and ridiculously shirtless Evan about how they haven't been coming in first lately.  He seems to be half paying attention, because he is communing with his freeweights at the time.  Later, he confides to the camera that he hasn't told her (or anyone else) about his "athletic hernia."  In fact, just to prove how athletic his hernia is, he gives us a good look at the purple bulge on his pelvis.  His junk is blurred and it's all very disgusting. 

The crew gets a message from their itty-bitty future machine and Casey reads (!) that they must wear bathing suits.  Flash forward to the challenge where TJ explains that the challenge involves swimming in a tank of sharks to retrieve pieces of a puzzle.  The team that retrieves the pieces and completes the puzzle the fastest wins.

Wes and Casey go first and things begin as usual.  Wes loudly boasts about how qualified he is to do this mission and how he's obviously going to win.  But he never does and the duo is disqualified for going over the allotted time.  In fact, 5 teams are disqualified for the same infraction including Coral/Evan, Tina/Kenny and Katie/Eric, who don't even make it that far at all, what with Katie's smokers' lung and refusal to finish.  Needless to say, Eric is none too pleased.

Shane/Linette emerge as the victors for the second time in a row and, throwing the audience a curveball, choose Katie/Eric to go into exile.  They say the word "fair" about a hundred times in their speech, but everyone pretty much gets that they had it coming.

At deliberations, Tina and Kenny pretty much read the tea leaves and the teams go around, all voting for them.  Tina votes for Wes/Casey before Kenny, in some sort of oddball show of integrity/stupidity, votes for himself.  This causes Tina to flip the eff out and storm off the set, before being nudged back on camera by producers.

The ensuing shouting match does not speak highly of team unity (bringing everything full circle). 

Cristin's two cents:

Due to technical difficulties, Cristin was unable to watch Fresh Meat this week.  Instead of her commentary, here's a picture of New York Mets third baseman David Wright.

Dan's two cents:

I have to say, I'm not really that sad to see Katie/Eric go into exile.  Eric just seems like that big guy who never realizes he's not Chris Farley.  And Katie's funny because she's always drunk, but everyone's always drunk, so that doesn't really distinguish her so much.  As far as Tina/Kenny go, I kind of like Tina, but her blow-up about Kenny's vote was a bit ridiculous.  Getting that upset over it seems a bit much.

The Scoreboard:

Teams:
Cristin's Blue Iguanas: Katie/Eric; Johanna/Jesse; Tonya/Johnnie; Theo/Chanda; Shane/Linette
Dan's Green Monkeys: Coral/Evan; Melinda/Ryan; Tina/Kenny; Darrell/Aviv; Derrick/Diem

Dan's old total:31

Dan's new total: 33

There seems to be a recent advertising trend lately wherein men are reasserting their masculinity by eating lots of dead animal flesh.  I guess it's always been a pretty macho thing to flagrantly eat a lot of meat, eschewing the lovely plant kingdom, but I've been noticing it more and more lately.

First off there's Burger King's ad for the Texas Double Whopper, which gives me the shits just thinking about it.

The gist of this commercial is that some schlumpy guy is sitting in a fancy restaurant, eating a meager, protein-deficient portion and suddenly spearheads a revolution of similarly-emmasculated men.  Curiously, the men choose to express their masculinity through song.  References to "chick food" abound as they thrust lots of burgers to the sky.  And they break things. 

The next commercial is entitled "Restore Your Manhood" and involves a guy buying "chick food."  You know, tofu, leafy green vegetables, pickled ovaries.  Whatever.  The guy's at the check-out when the guy behind him puts down a divider and proceeds to put an entire cow on the conveyor belt.

So what does the man do?  Of course he drives straight out of the supermarket, into his Hummer dealer where he drives off the lot with a brand-new gas-guzzler.  It's just really disgusting on a variety of levels.  I heard Ralph Nader watched and exploded.  (And no one cared.)

The last instance of this I've found (although I'm sure there's more out there) is for Nutrisystem for Men, featuring celebrity pitchman Dan Marino.  The commercial starts out by asking "Are you sick of feeling fat and tired?"  To which, I immediately respond "Yes!"

It's a pretty typical weight-loss commercial, with old pictures of chunky people smiling with heaping plates of barbecue and the person, present-day standing next to them, relatively svelte and wearing a fetching turtleneck.  The commercial isn't quite as meat-centric as the others, but definitely emphasizes "eating like a man" as well as the sexual benefits of the healthier lifestyle.  There are some incredibly awkward, incredibly staged testimonials of nerdy guys throwing around a basketball saying "My sex life's great!"

The whole timing of this trend is what I find a little perplexing.  I'd understand it more if it were an immediate response to the post-Queer Eye man.  In a response to the Ryan Seacrest metrosexual.  I'd even understand it if it were part of the whole election year, NASCAR Dad phenomenon where vaguely southern men are reasserting their male pride and power in response to "the feminists" and "the gays" and everything else that isn't covered in a thick film of testosterone.

However, it all seems to be coming out of nowhere and, as a result, it just seems stupider. 

Oh well, at least it's not as disgustingly irresponsible as Taco Bell's fourth meal schtick. 

Apparently we're all feeling a little lethargic around here. This could be, perhaps, because the world is slowly cooking us. So now for some me-time. Today I checked in with myself about all that awesome TV I was going to catch up on this summer. I'm surprised (but I really shouldn't be) that I've done so well.

• I'm smack in the middle of the second season of Lost, and have become a raving lunatic about this show. It's not the type of thing I usually like, seeing as it's all tease, all the time, but they pulled together such an appealing group of people, I'm hooked. Like crazy. Like deranged let's-watch-8-in-one-day, that'll-be-fun crazy.
• Fireflly. I don't think there's enough exclamation points and "really, really, really"s in the world to express my deep, fanatical love for this show.
• Once I realized that Deadwood really was a TV show, and not just a 12-hour-long movie, I enjoyed it very much. I remain wary of the out-of-place and stagey soliloquies, but the twisty-turny Al Swearengen politics and Timothy Olyphant's stoic Moustache of Truth and Justice are always watchable.

At least when it's a million degrees here I don't have to wear an 8-piece suit. Also, we bathe. 

Changes and alterations to the list:

• I gave up on Undeclared. I think I was probably expecting too much of it. None of the characters rang true for me, and it felt mean and awkward rather than hilarious. This opinion makes me so uncool, I can barely stand to look at myself.
• Have rented Battlestar Galactica. Critics seem to like it, but I have never met an actual person who watches it. Also, if you could combine Battlestar Galactica and Deadwood, you would get Firefly… and that's close enough for me.
• Sports Night, Wonderfalls, Jeeves and Wooster — still to come, I hope. Though I have to finish Lost and maybe season 2 of Deadwood first.
• There are too many seasons of Six Feet Under to catch up on now. I'm sorry. I'm trying to stick to things that have two-or-fewer seasons, so I don't get myself into any ugly, friendship-ruining Buffy-type situations. Maybe some other summer.

It sounds like I'm watching TV all the time, but I'm really not. (Except for that one day.) I'm also reading this book, which sounds like a certain other show, but is its own thing and such a good book it's painful to put down.