Extreme Makeover: Hate Edition
Okay, I'm going to get into trouble over this, becuase Most Patient Wife loves the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

But I hate it. I've always hated it. I think it's a show based on people's sob stories, and even though the guys who produce the show try to give off some humanitarian vibe, it's nothing more than a ratings thing. (And a blatant product placement deal for Sears.)

If they just came out and said "We're doing this for the ratings", I'd have less of a problem. But no; it's all a bunch of smug checkbook charity, and wowzers I just can't stand it.

And then last week, when it came to light that the producers of the show are looking for specific types of sob stories...look for yourself; it's at The Smoking Gun.

So basically, we just may hear the uber-obnoxious Ty Penington screaming through his bullhorn:

ATTENTION JOHNSON FAMILY!!! Sorry that your pathetic plight wasn't sympathetic enough. You're going to have to live in squalor while we spend an ungodly amount of money on the SMITH FAMILY down the block! Sure, we could easily fix up both of your houses if we wanted, but then this wouldn't be...EXTREEEEEEEEEEEME MAKEOVER: HOME EDITION!


Some people may call me heartless because I don't want to watch this show; I think it's heartless to help people who are in dire straits just so you can make money. It's not about helping the family -- it's all about media and manipulation. I think it's ugly and almost evil.

Something To Ponder
On this Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.......[1,2,3,4,5,6]

Start your conspiracy theories ... now!

And Another Thing....
Just because Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover say it's racism, that doesn't make it so.

Suuuure It's Racism
Let's say you're a security guy who is on duty at the US Capital building and you see this lady walking through the gate or whatever portal you're guarding:

You ask her for I.D., and she doesn't have any, and when you say that maybe she'd better stop because you're a security guy and it's your job make sure no one goes in without I.D.

She doesn't stop. So, you (as you're trained to do) physically get in her way. And she smacks you.

After a few phone calls are made, it turns out that she's a member of Congress. And she's mad.

See, the real reason you stopped her was because she's a black woman. Not that she's a scary-looking person breezing through security, refusing to show I.D. and smacking security officers.

Nope, it's because she's black.

And I bet there are some folks who will say I'm a racist just for writing about this.

I'll admit to a a certain bias against people with that kind of hair and eyes that scare the life outta me.

Folks, she spent time making her hair look like that. If security hadn't stopped her, I'm pretty sure that the Fab Five would have!

Sheesh, lady. You're a Congresswoman...you have people whose job it is to make you look good. People who could take you somewhere and have someone do a hair intervention or something. I'll bet there's a Great Clips somewhere in your district!

Stuff I Don't Care About
I read a lot. Books, magazines, newspapers, websites -- you name it, I read it. And I read often, fast and I retain a lot of what I read. And most of it, I'm afraid to say, is a bunch of crap.

Theodore Sturgeon's famous law can be invoked here: "Ninety percent of everything is crud." Most of the time, people substitute different words at the end of the sentence, but he said crud.

And I have to agree. Why, here's just a few things that I've read recently that registers on the Crud-O-Meter:

Ryan Seacrest is dating Teri Hatcher.

Matt Leblanc is getting a divorce.

Some guy made a life-sized statue of Britney Spears naked and giving birth on a bear-skin rug (on all fours, with rump raised high in the air). From what I've been told, it's anatomically correct. Which I have to say, is just plain yucky.

Kevin Garnett says that he wants the Minnesota Timberwolves to build a better basketball team so he can have the experience of playing with a championship team. I don't blame him, but I also don't really care.

Courtney Love is selling off parts of Cobain's music legacy. Dont know much about it, don't much care. But I read the article anyway.

Liza Minelli is back in the news, for whatever reason. I was so bored with her thirty years ago, and I suspect most people feel the same way.

Jessica Simpson has signed with a new record label.

Why do I read this stuff? There's a lot more that I didn't list here, but this is the crud I just picked at random.

I gotta get a hobby or something.

Coming Soon To A TV Near You: Incredible Amazing Adventures of Normal Guy!
Stan Lee, the guy who was behind a lot of my favorite comics --- Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, The X-men, Hulk, The Avengers, Iron Man, to name a few -- is teaming up with the Sci-Fi Channel to fight the never-ending battle against low ratings with a new 'reality' show:
Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

If you've ever tied a towel around your neck and pretended to fly off to fight the bag guys, or imagined that your car was the Batmobile, you might want to give this show a try.

Me, I'm keeping my secret identity a secret.

200 Cigarettes
I don't smoke.

Well, not much anyway. I figure I've smoked about 200 cigarettes in my life -- most of them were clove cigarettes. I also gave pipe smoking a try, and I have to admit that I'll smoke a couple of cigars in the course of a year.

My wife doesn't smoke. She hates smoking. I don't like it much either, but sometimes I just want one.

Every couple of months, I get strong cravings for a smoke. That's what has been going on in the past few days. I dream of smoking. I can taste it...

I never smoke more than one or two cigarettes at a time, and I rarely give into these cravings.

But man...I want a cigarette so bad right now!

What's that about?

T R O U B L E
If you've gotten some bizarre e-mail from my yahoo account since March 25th -- Saturday morning -- I apologize.

It seems that someone has figured out my password and changed it. I can't access that account, and Yahoo can't reset my password.

This bugs me to no end, but if you're on the receiving end of SPAM or e-mail porn, it's going to bug you even more.

I am really sorry.

I've also lost my address book, so I'm hoping that people who get the funky e-mail come here and check out the blog so they can know that I am not behind any crap that shows up in their e-mail.

I've set up a Gmail account already, and please get in touch with me there:

mikesawin AT gmail DOT com

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Proud Papa
MercurialGirl had a good day at her latest speech meet yesterday: she placed fourth in the poetry category. This is no mean feat: poetry is perhaps the toughest section.

I was in speech for grades 7-12, and then I went on to judge speech for many years, and poetry seems to draw kids who can really speak well. It's hard to judge, too.

This is MercurialGirl's second year in speech. She's still learning the ropes: how meets work, the mechanics of a good performance -- that sort of thing.

She's also learning that there is a certain way to "act" at a meet, and that's important too. Her inability (or unwillingness) to "stay within the lines" has always been a struggle for MecurialGirl; she wants to do everything her own way, and being in speech is a good way for her to learn that a little conformity isn't a bad thing.

I haven't seen her speech. I didn't see last year's speech either. She doesn't want me to see her perform yet. That day will come, I suppose. Most Patient Wife and I are veteran performers, and I think MercurialGirl wants to do it on her own without any help from the 'rents.

But I'm happy that she's doing so well. The kid's a natural storyteller, and a bit of a ham as well. (Sort of like one of her parents, but I'll let you guess which one.)

This Tuesday will be a day of reckoning of sorts: I'm judging at an afternoon meet and I'll see her interacting with her team and I may even have the time to catch her performance. The question is this: if I do watch her, can I be a dad instead of a judge? Should I?

Here Comes The Judge
I haven't judged a speech meet in a couple of years, and I'm really looking forward it. It's remarkable to me that speech hasn't changed all that much since I was in school. The students all look the same as they ever did, at least to me.

The speeches are always a little familiar -- which is good, because then as a judge I can focus on the performance and not the content.

The coaches are still nervous, and the judges still hope they don't have to judge the final round-- it's the difference between a four-hour day and an six-hour one. The folks who compile the statistics in the Tab Room (short for 'tabulation') act like they all had just quit smoking a day previously.

The kids all still gather in the lunch room of the school and wait for the announcements of the final round, which always come out on large pieces of paper that are about three feet by two feet -- and the ones called to finals are written in marker. Everyone waits for someone to come out of the tab room and tape the paper to the wall. Then the screaming starts -- kids yelling and happy either for themselves of their friends who made into the final round.

Some of the rules of have changed -- there is a lot more "acting out" of speeches and less "interpreting" of them. It was a fine line back in my day, and the line is completely gone today. Believe it or not, it makes the judge's job a lot easier.

One harder aspect of judging is scoring. There are perhaps 15 categories -- different types of speeches. Poetry may have so many contestants that there are five sections of performers -- one judge and 5-8 speakers per section.

You rate each performer in two ways: with a rank and a percentile. The expectation is that the person you rank first should get a 100% as well. The speaker's standings are based on the percentile. Most judges like to keep things nice and orderly, so they just give the 100% to their first-ranked speaker.

But I've never done that. There are lots of times that I gave someone a first rank and then a 98 or 97. For me, the 100% goes to a performance that is pretty much flawless -- especially late in the season, when the speakers have been to several meets.

My reluctance to give a 100% has ruffled a few feathers.

In fact, I once ran into someone who said that I ruined a meet for him because he didn't win the first place medal. In every round (including mine), he took first. But I only gave him a 98%, and that cost him the meet.

A judge has to keep a "critique sheet" on every performer -- notes on the judge's impression of the speech, the speaker and the performance. The speaker gets this back at the end of each round, so they can see if they need to adjust their performance at all before the next round. This guy taped my critique sheet to his bedroom wall and left it there for several years.

He was good at speaking. But in my round, in that performance, he didn't perform at 100%. He was the best speaker in the room, but I didn't think he deserved that 100%.

When I was working at a local radio station, he was on staff there as well. And while I didn't remember him in the least, he still had a mad-on for me. This was a full six years after the speech meet in question. He was livid that I didn't automatically award him a 100% even after all that time. He had gone on to judge meets himself, and he always; gave the first-rank speaker a 100%. He yelled at me: "That's just what you do!"

Of course, he was equally mad that I didn't remember him. After all, I ruined his life. Never mind that he eventually went to the state tournament and did well. Never mind that he steamrolled over everyone in his conference. My 98% was a blemish on him, and he waited for years to tell me just how much my stingy percentile damaged him.

He was a spooky guy. The last I heard, he was bouncing around the AM radio dial in Minnesota. Hopefully, he's forgotten all about me, but I dread the thought that he'll be at Tuesday's meet, waiting to pounce. "There he is! There's the judge who doesn't always give 100%! He kept me from speech glory back in high school!"

Maybe I should rent a Kevlar vest or something.