For the most part, my blog is place where I poke fun at popular tv and talk about the funny stuff my kids do. Why? Because it's not something that's going to offend people. Maybe some people are offended that I think "one f" Jef is a few consonants short of a full name on the Bachelorette, but I can handle people mocking my choice in television programs to watch. I try to shy away from giving my opinions of the president, educational policy, or social issues. I avoid these issues because there is no good way to have a logical debate with anyone about these things over the internet. Look, you're all smart people. You have be, you read my blog, right? You've all formed decisions based on the information at hand on who to vote for, what laws are just and which laws are just stupid, and what resources we should or should not be using. And you know what? You're all wrong. Just ask someone. Thing is, you're all completely right as well. Just ask the guy on the other side of the street. It's maddening the way people feel like everyone has to act or think or believe the exact same things as everyone else. Do I believe in God? I want to believe in God. I think the world would be a better place if there was a God, and therefore I believe in him. Plus, I am comforted by the idea that my existence doesn't end when my body dies. I also think the world would be a better place if Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, and a remote island in the South Pacific that has yet to be discovered has dinosaurs living on it exist, therefore I prefer to believe in them as well. Am I right? Sure, watch the Discovery Channel tonight. Am I wrong? Absolutely. Watch the Science Network tomorrow night.
But I am going to tackle one social issue: Gay Marriage. Actually, I cringe to use the term "Gay Marriage." Let's just say Marriage. If you listen to Rush Limbaugh and the like these days, it would seem that the institution of marriage is under attack. Marriage itself means many different things to many different people, so to try to define it in one way for all of mankind is incredibly pigheaded. According to wikipedia, some early forms of marriage were created to secure exclusive "sexual access" rights for a man to his spouse in order to confirm his paternity of offspring. Some people get married for religious reasons. Some people get married for financial reasons. Some people get married to allow them or their spouse to stay in the country. Yet, if you asked someone on the street what marriage means to them, it'd probably have something to do with loving another person.
I also cringe when people who are anti-marriage say "I don't understand why you got married, it's just a piece of paper." Not to me it's not, and I tend to believe that anyone who got married views it as more than a piece of paper to themselves as well. You anti-marriage people are absolutely right that you can love someone without getting married, but for you to try to pass judgement on what marriage means to anyone other than yourself is just plain arrogant.
I didn't propose to ensure my access to heaven. I didn't propose for a tax benefit, and it certainly wasn't out of a need to establish some sort of "sexual monopoly." Not to me it's not, and I got married because I love Rachel, and because I wanted some sort of ceremony to confirm this commitment I was happily making...and that's what the ring on my finger symbolizes to me. It doesn't symbolize any sort of ownership or control or anything along those lines. It symbolizes the fact that I've made a commitment to my wife that I intend to keep for as long as possible. And that's what it means to a whole lot of people around the world....even (gasp) GAY people!
Now I'm not speaking for all people, and I certainly don't mean to speak for the homosexual community, but I'm guessing that the issue with gay marriage isn't that Conservatives don't want gay people to be allowed to see a loved one in a hospital or be allowed to file their taxes jointly. I suspect that for most homosexual people that have expressed a desire to get married, these aren't their reasons either. So, then, why object to it? Religion - the whole "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" garbage. You know what else the Bible says? It says that that women should submit to their husbands, who in turn should provide for their wives. You don't see a bunch people talking about how women with successful careers that aren't fixing their husband sandwiches every time he asks for one are attacking the institution of marriage. My college degree wouldn't suddenly be cheapened if Oregon State decided to give a stand of Old Growth Douglas Fir trees honorary degrees, and my driver's license wouldn't be less valid if an exceptional Chimpanzee passed the driver's test at the DMV, so why would my marriage be devalued if a couple of guys decided to tie the knot?
Another thing that I remember from my experience getting married is Father John expressly saying that our marriage was between three people - Rachel, myself, and God. If that's the case, why is Rush Limbaugh or anyone else trying to barge his way into the marriage of two women in Vermont? I'm hesitant to applaud the President for saying something that seems so blatantly obvious to me. My first reaction really was "why hasn't he (or any other president) done this sooner?" I don't think this was a decision he just now came to. I'll bet he supported gay marriage four years ago too, but couldn't publicly because he wanted to make sure he got elected before taking a stand on this. A great many people are going to base their vote for President solely on this one issue, which is absolutely terrifying to me. "So what if this guy wants to sell the Dakotas to Canada? The other guy wants to let gay people get MARRIED!" I could go on an on about partisan politics and the general public's inabilty to allow our elected officials to compromise on even the smallest of issues, but that's another blog.
If I were President (and thank the stars I never will be), I'd try to establish marriage as an agreement between two (or more) people to share their lives together. If you decide to split up and can't figure out how to divvy up the stuff, it's all liquidated and split 50/50. Of course I'd fail, because the other party would have to block my proposal on the grounds that they didn't come up with it themselves. Crap, looks like I'm getting into that other blog after all.......
One last thing. I apologize if I offended anyone. If I did offend you, please let me know why. I'm not going to be offended in the least if you disagree with me. I just ask that you be level headed about your response. If it's not, I'm going to delete it and pretend I never saw it.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Bachelorette Week 2
Welcome back for round two! Who's ready to see Egg Boy tote that thing around in a Baby Bjorn on a group date? Just me? OK then, let's get to it!
We start with a montage of teasers, including Emily saying "The man I'm supposed to be with is in this room." Remember, this is the THIRD man she's supposed to be with, and while that's not exactly her fault, it is worth noting.
Emily meets some local women at the park who are more that willing to take Ricki to soccer practice if it means that they get a few seconds on TV. I also like the voiceover from the newscast that says "Dozens of men" will be competing for Emily, which makes it sound like there's 96 men parading around Charlotte with the goal of getting into Emily's pants. This actually may be true......
Chris greets the dudes and Ryan gets the first solo date. Multiple people told me this week that Ryan has "stupid" hair, but it just looks like it's purposefully messy to me. Kalon's not pleased, but then again he's a douche, so who cares? Cut to twenty dudes in board shorts awkwardly hanging around a pool pretending to like each other. Ryan dressed up for the date in a tight v-neck t-shirt. Classy. Emily says the only thing she knows about Ryan is that he's good looking, but then again so was Brad.....apparently it's a bad thing to be attractive.
Emily's date is to bake cookies for Ricki's soccer practice. I remember this from her stint on Brad's season...she likes to make the dude feel like parenting is the biggest bummer in the world. You don't get to have fun ever, you just have to do everything for your kid at all times. Ryan says "this is exactly like real life, isn't it?" Yes, Ryan, yes it is. You have to cook and stuff in real life. Emily then takes the cookies to soccer practice, but then basically tells Ryan he's not worthy to meet the daughter yet (probably a good move) and then leaves him in the car like a basset hound while she makes the kids think she cooked all by herself. She then thanks Ryan for being "cool" and tells him he's got to watch kids at Chuck E Cheese. Ryan tries to play it cool, but you know he's pissed. Emily then awkwardly says "I'm kidding." She cannot sell a joke.
Time for dinner! Ryan opts for the suit with no tie...the "cool guy" look I guess....while Emily goes with the one sleeve dress, which always reminds me of those under armor shirts that basketball dudes wear to keep their shooting arm warm, yet also show off their biceps on the other side. I think both looks are stupid. They show up at the restaurant, and it looks like a bunch of people showed up to yell "MOVE THAT BUS"...oh wait...wrong show. Emily says that "when something happens in Charlotte, everyone shows up." This is not true, have you seen attendance figures at Bobcats games? Yeesh. People show up in Charlotte when ABC either pays them to, or markets the hell out of the fact that you can maybe see yourself on a nationally televised broadcast.
Ryan is an extremely confident guy in his speech, but he doesn't do a whole lot of looking her in the eyes while he's giving his answers. It's strange. Emily says "I want some guy to come in and be the boss...but obviously I'd be in charge." Ryan astutely answers "a smart man would understand that." It's a good date, but I'm not sensing the real chemistry here. Ryan goes for the "You look amazing, but you looked even hotter in the kitchen" line. It's a strange remark in that it could be taken as slightly chauvinistic in a "I'd like you better if you were cooking me a sandwich" kind of way, but she seems to like it. Also, she did look pretty good in that dress, so he's full of crap. He gets the rose, and then they go into some weird Southern conversation that involves a lot of "Shoooooot girrrlll, C'mon with it then!" and "Honey if you want a chase, Imma run like you wouldn't believe!" comments. Where did that come from? Then it's time to dance in the middle of a bunch of strangers with iPhones. What a horrible first date scenario. Ryan pulls it off well though.
Group date time! No egg in sight...boo! They're at a performing arts studio....and the Muppets are involved! Tony is so excited to see Piggy and Kermit that he cusses on national television, then goes into a pretty good Kermit impression. The dudes split up into groups, some are singing, some are dancing, and some are doing stand up comedy. Massive Head Wound Charlie is terrified. So terrified in fact that he has to go talk to Emily about it. Emily understands, and then says "I'll be honest, I wouldn't even know you had a disability." Charlie responds by saying "well yeah, I'm totally confident, but I also have a lot of insecurities." Translation: I may look confident, but I really don't have any." He gets lumped into the singing group.
Back from commercial, and we get a mildly amusing "Kermit is flirting with Emily, and Piggy is PISSED." Time to start the music and light the lights. Let's get things started on the Muppet/Bachelorette Show tonight. Emily stands still and shakes her hips, but that doesn't stop Stevie from talking about how great the energy is she's giving off. Also, Stevie wears some really awful hats. If Kalon wasn't on the show, he'd be a shoe-in for biggest douche on the show. Then we get some truly awful stand up comedy, and Jef getting to act like he's too cool to propose to Miss Piggy, but knowing Emily was there gave him the strength to get through it. Awful. More awful? ABC making Charlie get up on stage and talk by himself after he said how nervous he was to do it. Fortunately, Emily was there to help him through it, and he gives perhaps the most generic impersonal response ever. Of course, everyone is thrilled that he was able to get through it. Emily makes a comment that she feels "like a proud mama" because Charlie got through that. I'd say this is not a good sign for Charlie's chances. Maybe he can play on Ricki's soccer team later.
Time for Emily sing with Kermit! Emily says "she knows someone else who wants to sing with them...her daughter Ricki!" Apparently, nobody told Ricki that she was excited to sing, because she spent the whole time clinging to mommy and staring at Kermit like he was an alien. Pretty normal reaction for a six year old actually.
Time for the after party. Guess what? Everyone thinks Emily either looks "beautiful," "amazing," "stunning," and/or "gorgeous." Chris gets the first one-on-one time, and in a strange twist, Emily thinks Chris is "gorgeous." Wasn't expecting that....not the least bit because Chris is no George Clooney. Jef, still trying to play up his aloof persona, gets called out by Emily. He's smart enough to recognize that he might've overplayed it, and comes back with a "I feel nervous around you too!" What Emily sees in this dude is still beyond me.
Stevie is slow dancing with Emily, and for whatever reason, Charlie thinks it's "hilarious" and runs to tell his bro's that they gotta check it out. Nobody seems to be as interested as Chuck was, but they go along anyways. Kalon tries to play the "I'm above this, I don't want to hang out with them, I want to hang out with Emily." Kalon gets his time with Emily, but gets interrupted by Aaron. Kalon kinda says "I understand, but give me two more minutes and she's all yours." Entirely reasonable request, but Aaron is trying to establish Alpha dog status and says "I don't have two minutes." Um, yeah you do. These after parties go all night. Stevie then goes on the offensive against Kalon and says "I don't like you dude." Kalon says "I wouldn't like me if I were you either, bro." This'll be fun to watch. I'd talk more about this, but Emily just gave the rose to Jef and my head exploded.
Joe's severely underdressed for his date, but he too thinks Emily is "stunning." Time for our first plane ride! Where are we going you ask? To the White House of West Virginia! Some place called The Grienbrier. It looks like some place you only go if you have about thirty bazillion dollars. Back at the house, Kalon says something about Doug putting "being a dad" on hold to go on TV. Doug, of course, takes offense to this, but then says "I gave up every dream I ever had at twenty years old on hold to become a dad." Am I the only one who thinks that he just reinforced Kalon's statement? He then tries to say that his son, who is probably in fifth grade, told him he needs to get out of the house more and try new things." I think the conversation probably went something like this.
Doug: What would you think if I went on The Bachelorette son?
Doug Jr.: So you'd be on TV? That'd be AWESOME!!!
Doug: Well yeah, bu-
Doug Jr.: My friends would think I was so cool if my dad was on TV....dad you HAVE TO DO THIS!
Doug: Sweet.
Back in West Virginia, Joe is bombing the interview portion of the date. Emily asks where he sees himself in five years. He says "happy." She asks what that means. He says "having no regrets." He then says some mumbo jumbo about going anywhere Emily asks him to go and doing whatever she wants. Emily says "why do you say that? What does that mean to you?" Joe says "umm...err...what does that mean to you?" Classic move by someone who has no conviction in their responses. Emily breaks down and realizes that, while Joe is a cool guy, there's no future here. Joe's kinda blindsided by this and gets up and walks away, but he's super bitter. I gotta say Emily is showing a little bit of maturity here....I like that she sent him home despite the fact that he didn't do anything wrong. She realized it wasn't there, and sent him home. Joe suffers one final insult to his ego as he's sent off in the limo to a fireworks display that ABC probably thought was going to be for a happy couple on a balcony. Strangely, ABC doesn't show us Joe's reaction as he's driving off. My guess is this is because he kinda slammed Emily, and ABC is not about to let the princess they moved their entire operation across the country for get insulted on national television. Hopefully they at least put his departing comments online.
Cocktail time! The guys give the generic "Joe going home raises the stakes....it's REAL now" response, and it's time to go. Arie thinks Emily looks "beautiful." Emily asks him about his home (Scottsdale) and what it's like. She says she's never been there, and Arie seems surprised. Is Scottsdale a popular tourist attraction? Have a majority of people been to Scottsdale? I'll say no. Tony needs his time, and goes to interrupt Ryan's time. Unfortunately, Ryan wrote Emily a novel and Tony is stuck listening to Emily read what Ryan wrote. Just awful timing, but Tony is right - there's no way he could leave. He had to just endure it. Of course then ABC goes to commercial, so we have to wait....
...we come back, and Emily's still reading. Oof. I'm not as big a fan of Ryan anymore, and not just because he delayed Tony's chances of winning. He just looked so proud of his lame note written in third grade handwriting on very unromantic notebook paper. It wasn't his best moment, and Emily acknowledged that by saying that he should've picked a better time (and she's right.) Tony gets to talk about his son, but I'm just not that sure that Emily is that into him yet.
Kalon, being the self absorbed doofus he is, thinks the other guys don't like him because he said Doug put being a dad on hold. I'm pretty sure it was the helicopter and the intense "I quite possibly could be a serial killer" vibe he gives off. Kalon continues his self imposed war with the other dudes by saying "my conversation with Emily could've gone a little better, but it's better than hanging out with these guys, right?" Then again, it worked for Courtney with Ben last season, so maybe he's onto something. Then again, Courtney and Ben didn't even make it to the "After the final rose" ceremony without Ben cheating on her, so who knows. He gets a rose though, so he'll be back to piss dudes off next week.
A bunch of other dudes get roses (including Tony!), but it comes down to DJ Stevie BadHat, Aaron the Jeremy Piven lookalike, and some guy I have no recollection of. DJ Stevie gets the rose, mostly because they need someone to antagonize Kalon for the next few weeks. Kyle (dude I couldn't remember) goes on about how he had a once in a lifetime chance and he didn't even open up, and that he should've taken it more seriously. He then implies that he just had his heart broken. Not sure how that happens if you didn't open up. Whatever.
Tune in next week, when Tony misses his son and apparently takes flack from the other guys for it! Who says there's less drama with dudes?
We start with a montage of teasers, including Emily saying "The man I'm supposed to be with is in this room." Remember, this is the THIRD man she's supposed to be with, and while that's not exactly her fault, it is worth noting.
Emily meets some local women at the park who are more that willing to take Ricki to soccer practice if it means that they get a few seconds on TV. I also like the voiceover from the newscast that says "Dozens of men" will be competing for Emily, which makes it sound like there's 96 men parading around Charlotte with the goal of getting into Emily's pants. This actually may be true......
Chris greets the dudes and Ryan gets the first solo date. Multiple people told me this week that Ryan has "stupid" hair, but it just looks like it's purposefully messy to me. Kalon's not pleased, but then again he's a douche, so who cares? Cut to twenty dudes in board shorts awkwardly hanging around a pool pretending to like each other. Ryan dressed up for the date in a tight v-neck t-shirt. Classy. Emily says the only thing she knows about Ryan is that he's good looking, but then again so was Brad.....apparently it's a bad thing to be attractive.
Emily's date is to bake cookies for Ricki's soccer practice. I remember this from her stint on Brad's season...she likes to make the dude feel like parenting is the biggest bummer in the world. You don't get to have fun ever, you just have to do everything for your kid at all times. Ryan says "this is exactly like real life, isn't it?" Yes, Ryan, yes it is. You have to cook and stuff in real life. Emily then takes the cookies to soccer practice, but then basically tells Ryan he's not worthy to meet the daughter yet (probably a good move) and then leaves him in the car like a basset hound while she makes the kids think she cooked all by herself. She then thanks Ryan for being "cool" and tells him he's got to watch kids at Chuck E Cheese. Ryan tries to play it cool, but you know he's pissed. Emily then awkwardly says "I'm kidding." She cannot sell a joke.
Time for dinner! Ryan opts for the suit with no tie...the "cool guy" look I guess....while Emily goes with the one sleeve dress, which always reminds me of those under armor shirts that basketball dudes wear to keep their shooting arm warm, yet also show off their biceps on the other side. I think both looks are stupid. They show up at the restaurant, and it looks like a bunch of people showed up to yell "MOVE THAT BUS"...oh wait...wrong show. Emily says that "when something happens in Charlotte, everyone shows up." This is not true, have you seen attendance figures at Bobcats games? Yeesh. People show up in Charlotte when ABC either pays them to, or markets the hell out of the fact that you can maybe see yourself on a nationally televised broadcast.
Ryan is an extremely confident guy in his speech, but he doesn't do a whole lot of looking her in the eyes while he's giving his answers. It's strange. Emily says "I want some guy to come in and be the boss...but obviously I'd be in charge." Ryan astutely answers "a smart man would understand that." It's a good date, but I'm not sensing the real chemistry here. Ryan goes for the "You look amazing, but you looked even hotter in the kitchen" line. It's a strange remark in that it could be taken as slightly chauvinistic in a "I'd like you better if you were cooking me a sandwich" kind of way, but she seems to like it. Also, she did look pretty good in that dress, so he's full of crap. He gets the rose, and then they go into some weird Southern conversation that involves a lot of "Shoooooot girrrlll, C'mon with it then!" and "Honey if you want a chase, Imma run like you wouldn't believe!" comments. Where did that come from? Then it's time to dance in the middle of a bunch of strangers with iPhones. What a horrible first date scenario. Ryan pulls it off well though.
Group date time! No egg in sight...boo! They're at a performing arts studio....and the Muppets are involved! Tony is so excited to see Piggy and Kermit that he cusses on national television, then goes into a pretty good Kermit impression. The dudes split up into groups, some are singing, some are dancing, and some are doing stand up comedy. Massive Head Wound Charlie is terrified. So terrified in fact that he has to go talk to Emily about it. Emily understands, and then says "I'll be honest, I wouldn't even know you had a disability." Charlie responds by saying "well yeah, I'm totally confident, but I also have a lot of insecurities." Translation: I may look confident, but I really don't have any." He gets lumped into the singing group.
Back from commercial, and we get a mildly amusing "Kermit is flirting with Emily, and Piggy is PISSED." Time to start the music and light the lights. Let's get things started on the Muppet/Bachelorette Show tonight. Emily stands still and shakes her hips, but that doesn't stop Stevie from talking about how great the energy is she's giving off. Also, Stevie wears some really awful hats. If Kalon wasn't on the show, he'd be a shoe-in for biggest douche on the show. Then we get some truly awful stand up comedy, and Jef getting to act like he's too cool to propose to Miss Piggy, but knowing Emily was there gave him the strength to get through it. Awful. More awful? ABC making Charlie get up on stage and talk by himself after he said how nervous he was to do it. Fortunately, Emily was there to help him through it, and he gives perhaps the most generic impersonal response ever. Of course, everyone is thrilled that he was able to get through it. Emily makes a comment that she feels "like a proud mama" because Charlie got through that. I'd say this is not a good sign for Charlie's chances. Maybe he can play on Ricki's soccer team later.
Time for Emily sing with Kermit! Emily says "she knows someone else who wants to sing with them...her daughter Ricki!" Apparently, nobody told Ricki that she was excited to sing, because she spent the whole time clinging to mommy and staring at Kermit like he was an alien. Pretty normal reaction for a six year old actually.
Time for the after party. Guess what? Everyone thinks Emily either looks "beautiful," "amazing," "stunning," and/or "gorgeous." Chris gets the first one-on-one time, and in a strange twist, Emily thinks Chris is "gorgeous." Wasn't expecting that....not the least bit because Chris is no George Clooney. Jef, still trying to play up his aloof persona, gets called out by Emily. He's smart enough to recognize that he might've overplayed it, and comes back with a "I feel nervous around you too!" What Emily sees in this dude is still beyond me.
Stevie is slow dancing with Emily, and for whatever reason, Charlie thinks it's "hilarious" and runs to tell his bro's that they gotta check it out. Nobody seems to be as interested as Chuck was, but they go along anyways. Kalon tries to play the "I'm above this, I don't want to hang out with them, I want to hang out with Emily." Kalon gets his time with Emily, but gets interrupted by Aaron. Kalon kinda says "I understand, but give me two more minutes and she's all yours." Entirely reasonable request, but Aaron is trying to establish Alpha dog status and says "I don't have two minutes." Um, yeah you do. These after parties go all night. Stevie then goes on the offensive against Kalon and says "I don't like you dude." Kalon says "I wouldn't like me if I were you either, bro." This'll be fun to watch. I'd talk more about this, but Emily just gave the rose to Jef and my head exploded.
Joe's severely underdressed for his date, but he too thinks Emily is "stunning." Time for our first plane ride! Where are we going you ask? To the White House of West Virginia! Some place called The Grienbrier. It looks like some place you only go if you have about thirty bazillion dollars. Back at the house, Kalon says something about Doug putting "being a dad" on hold to go on TV. Doug, of course, takes offense to this, but then says "I gave up every dream I ever had at twenty years old on hold to become a dad." Am I the only one who thinks that he just reinforced Kalon's statement? He then tries to say that his son, who is probably in fifth grade, told him he needs to get out of the house more and try new things." I think the conversation probably went something like this.
Doug: What would you think if I went on The Bachelorette son?
Doug Jr.: So you'd be on TV? That'd be AWESOME!!!
Doug: Well yeah, bu-
Doug Jr.: My friends would think I was so cool if my dad was on TV....dad you HAVE TO DO THIS!
Doug: Sweet.
Back in West Virginia, Joe is bombing the interview portion of the date. Emily asks where he sees himself in five years. He says "happy." She asks what that means. He says "having no regrets." He then says some mumbo jumbo about going anywhere Emily asks him to go and doing whatever she wants. Emily says "why do you say that? What does that mean to you?" Joe says "umm...err...what does that mean to you?" Classic move by someone who has no conviction in their responses. Emily breaks down and realizes that, while Joe is a cool guy, there's no future here. Joe's kinda blindsided by this and gets up and walks away, but he's super bitter. I gotta say Emily is showing a little bit of maturity here....I like that she sent him home despite the fact that he didn't do anything wrong. She realized it wasn't there, and sent him home. Joe suffers one final insult to his ego as he's sent off in the limo to a fireworks display that ABC probably thought was going to be for a happy couple on a balcony. Strangely, ABC doesn't show us Joe's reaction as he's driving off. My guess is this is because he kinda slammed Emily, and ABC is not about to let the princess they moved their entire operation across the country for get insulted on national television. Hopefully they at least put his departing comments online.
Cocktail time! The guys give the generic "Joe going home raises the stakes....it's REAL now" response, and it's time to go. Arie thinks Emily looks "beautiful." Emily asks him about his home (Scottsdale) and what it's like. She says she's never been there, and Arie seems surprised. Is Scottsdale a popular tourist attraction? Have a majority of people been to Scottsdale? I'll say no. Tony needs his time, and goes to interrupt Ryan's time. Unfortunately, Ryan wrote Emily a novel and Tony is stuck listening to Emily read what Ryan wrote. Just awful timing, but Tony is right - there's no way he could leave. He had to just endure it. Of course then ABC goes to commercial, so we have to wait....
...we come back, and Emily's still reading. Oof. I'm not as big a fan of Ryan anymore, and not just because he delayed Tony's chances of winning. He just looked so proud of his lame note written in third grade handwriting on very unromantic notebook paper. It wasn't his best moment, and Emily acknowledged that by saying that he should've picked a better time (and she's right.) Tony gets to talk about his son, but I'm just not that sure that Emily is that into him yet.
Kalon, being the self absorbed doofus he is, thinks the other guys don't like him because he said Doug put being a dad on hold. I'm pretty sure it was the helicopter and the intense "I quite possibly could be a serial killer" vibe he gives off. Kalon continues his self imposed war with the other dudes by saying "my conversation with Emily could've gone a little better, but it's better than hanging out with these guys, right?" Then again, it worked for Courtney with Ben last season, so maybe he's onto something. Then again, Courtney and Ben didn't even make it to the "After the final rose" ceremony without Ben cheating on her, so who knows. He gets a rose though, so he'll be back to piss dudes off next week.
A bunch of other dudes get roses (including Tony!), but it comes down to DJ Stevie BadHat, Aaron the Jeremy Piven lookalike, and some guy I have no recollection of. DJ Stevie gets the rose, mostly because they need someone to antagonize Kalon for the next few weeks. Kyle (dude I couldn't remember) goes on about how he had a once in a lifetime chance and he didn't even open up, and that he should've taken it more seriously. He then implies that he just had his heart broken. Not sure how that happens if you didn't open up. Whatever.
Tune in next week, when Tony misses his son and apparently takes flack from the other guys for it! Who says there's less drama with dudes?
Monday, May 14, 2012
Bachelorette Week 1 - Meet the Dudes
Welcome back everyone! The run for the roses begins anew tonight! While this day always is exciting for a tv junkie like me, it's doubly exciting this season because a guy I lived in the dorms with in college is competing! So I'm rooting for Tony to.....well I'm not sure I want him to win, because winning seems to come with a built in set of issues. I guess I'm rooting for him to stay on long enough to get to see some of the world and maybe generate a little bit of a name for himself that may help him financially in the future. I guess I want him to get whatever it is that he wants out of this experience. If that's marrying Emily, well then more power to him. Although I don't see Emily moving to Oregon (see her brief engagement to Brad) and Tony doesn't strike me as the type of guy who's going to move to North Carolina, but we'll see. The relocation issue could come up a lot this season, as a brief scan of the competitors shows quite a few international imports.
Time to kick off the season! Let's start with the standard cute intro of Emily with Ricki playing at the park. They're swinging and feeding ducks and then Ricki lets some balloons go and some environmental nuts just called ABC to complain about how the ducks are going to choke on those when the helium runs out. Now we get to see the bedtime routine, which involves brushing Ricki's teeth and sending her to sleep in a bed big enough for Shaq and Dwight Howard to share. That's insane.
We also get a recap of her tragic story, although she's changed it from "the plane never made it" to "nobody made it." Well there is one person who made it....Emily. How much money does she have? No way she makes enough money to drive that car and buy that bed and live in that house and ride those horses as an event planner at a children's hospital. All her money probably comes from her late fiance's family, who is huge in NASCAR. Be forewarned contestants, you're not just marrying Emily, you're marrying one of the royal families of auto racing. Good luck with that.
Chris Harrison gives us the rundown that this season's going to be different, and that he hopes that the third time is the charm for Emily. As if her life hasn't been tragic enough, can you imagine getting engaged 3 times and never making it to the altar?
Bring on the dudes. Tony's in the first batch of guys introduced, and I think comes off pretty well. So as not to show bias, I'll defer to Rachel on her assessment. Her take is that "well he's definitely the front runner out of those guys. Also, Jef is really weird." Agreed. I wonder if his parents named him Jeff and he dropped the other f to be "quirky." He also said that he likes being underestimated, and it seems that he goes out of his way to ensure that he is underestimated by looking like he came back from the 50's with Marty McFly in the Delorean. I would not want Jef around my seven year old daughter, and I don't think Emily will either. I like the fact that she's not going to be basing this decision solely on who she has fun with or who she thinks is a hottie - she also has to factor in if the guy is daddy material. Advantage: Tony.
Cue Emily getting ready with her daughter who is wearing mommy's shoes and wants to put on her makeup. Emily shows up looking all fancy. She's also a completely different person getting out of the limo this time than she was on Brad's season of The Bachelor. Much more confident and outgoing. I cringed a little when Chris asked her about her late fiance and she says something about her daughter reminding her "of what she doesn't have," but she saves it by saying something about how it's "cool" when her daughter does something that reminds her of her daddy.
Time for the guys to meet Emily. Always love the way the guys decide to present themselves. Doing little dances, getting down on one knee and saying corny love cliches, going in for a double hug, or my personal favorite, the hug and step back to eye her like livestock and saying "wow, you are gorgeous." A surprising number of guys went with some variation of the livestock auction intro. Props to the Brazilian that says "nice to meet you, gorgeous" in Portuguese, followed by Emily saying "gracias." Yeesh. One guy says that "the fact that you are a single mother is the most attractive thing about you." I'm guessing the "single" part is the attractive part. He tries to explain that it shows she's independent and responsible and blah blah blah, but you can be those things without being a mother. Tony goes for the glass slipper that he hopes fits. Either ABC gave him a shoe that fits, or he's done a lot of research on Emily on the Internet. She seems to like him, so I think he's safe tonight based on that. Perhaps a first impression rose candidate? One guys says "my close friends call me Wolf." Yeesh. Jef opts for the Lindzi approach but swaps out a horse for a skateboard and then awkwardly chucks it as he walks up. Yep. I hate Jef. Randy tries to play off the girl who had her grandma introduce her last season by dressing as an old woman and introducing himself. It wasn't well thought out. Neither was egg boy. Prop guy never wins. Remember dude with the mask? He didn't last long. If egg guy really brings that thing with him on dates he's doomed. If I have a second favorite, it's Ryan, the dude with the well thought out note that said "you are beautiful" on one side and "I'm so nervous" on the other side. Kalon, the guy who says "he's got a little money in his pocket" showed up in a helicopter and says "sorry I made you wait for me, but I promise I'm worth it" to Emily, then proceeds to establish himself as this season's super douche by saying "I saw you guys from up there having a little party...where's the bar?" I'd say he's the next Bentley, but even Bentley didn't try to point out his superiority to the other guys. Bentley just pointed it out to the TV audience. Kalon reminds me of the guy who once told me outside the Headline Cafe in Corvallis that we were "almost wearing the same shirt, just that his cost three times as much as my outlet mall knockoff." I didn't like that guy either.
Bring on the cocktail party! Emily remarks that this is nothing like her normal life. You're kidding, she's not being hit on by 25 drunk guys every day? Sheesh. One guy brought bobbleheads in his and Emily's likenesses. Seems dorky, but thought it worked.
Emily thinks Jef is "cool" and "makes her feel like a dork." I have no faith in her choice in men. Jef is a tool. Doug had his son write Emily a letter...good move. Emily loved it. First impression rose brings out the bitch in the guys....I loved the comment "if you show up in a helicopter and you DON'T get the first impression rose....what does that say?" Helicopter guy says "he absolutely minds" when Sean comes to interrupt, which is what every other guy wishes they could say. Had he just said that and then got up, no problem....but he makes Emily excuse him before he moves. Bad move, and Mr. Green Shirt jumps all over him. Helicopter man is going to get punched if he doesn't watch it. Guy who has son with excellent writing skills gets the first impression rose....good job putting the focus on his kid. Tony didn't get any airtime at all during the cocktail party....guess they had a pretty mundane conversation. Tony says it'd be "devastating" if he got sent home, but the Tony I knew in college would definitely not have been devastated. But it does make for a good sound bite, and cameras have a way of making people say what they know people want to hear. This includes guys like Kalon who know they can stand out by making arrogant statements and the guys who probably dont' really care at all about the helicopter, yet when that red light is on will never miss an opportunity to make a helicopter related jab.
Rose Ceremony! Emily gives the standard "I was nervous that you guys wouldn't be into me" speech, even though there's no way ABC would ever put a guy on without knowing he's attracted to Emily. They moved the show all the way across the country for her, you think they're going to put her in a Bentley/Ashley situation? No way. Tony gets the second to last rose....and yes I gave an audible "whoo!" and a fist pump. Egg boy gets the last rose, because ABC likes to keep the quirks around for a few episodes so that everyone can go "why did she keep him around?" Guy with six kids goes home, says 'chances aren't good' at his age with his basketball team roster of children that he'll find love again. Apparently going on national television with a 4% chance of landing the girl that every guy is gunning for constitutes a "decent" chance in his book. The guy is clearly desperate and lonely. I feel slightly bad for him.
All in all a pretty mundane episode. I look forward to the guys starting to act like a bunch of catty women and bashing helicopter guy's every move. The scenes from the season montage shows some pretty ugly criers amongst the guys, and also that one guy refers to her daughter as "baggage." I'll be interested to hear if that's what he actually said, or if the guys twisted his words. Did he just say she had "baggage?" Because that's a pretty innocuous statement - we all have baggage, and I think just about all of us can agree that someone who's been engaged twice, had her first love die in a plane crash and has been on two reality television shows does qualify as someone with "baggage."
Time to kick off the season! Let's start with the standard cute intro of Emily with Ricki playing at the park. They're swinging and feeding ducks and then Ricki lets some balloons go and some environmental nuts just called ABC to complain about how the ducks are going to choke on those when the helium runs out. Now we get to see the bedtime routine, which involves brushing Ricki's teeth and sending her to sleep in a bed big enough for Shaq and Dwight Howard to share. That's insane.
We also get a recap of her tragic story, although she's changed it from "the plane never made it" to "nobody made it." Well there is one person who made it....Emily. How much money does she have? No way she makes enough money to drive that car and buy that bed and live in that house and ride those horses as an event planner at a children's hospital. All her money probably comes from her late fiance's family, who is huge in NASCAR. Be forewarned contestants, you're not just marrying Emily, you're marrying one of the royal families of auto racing. Good luck with that.
Chris Harrison gives us the rundown that this season's going to be different, and that he hopes that the third time is the charm for Emily. As if her life hasn't been tragic enough, can you imagine getting engaged 3 times and never making it to the altar?
Bring on the dudes. Tony's in the first batch of guys introduced, and I think comes off pretty well. So as not to show bias, I'll defer to Rachel on her assessment. Her take is that "well he's definitely the front runner out of those guys. Also, Jef is really weird." Agreed. I wonder if his parents named him Jeff and he dropped the other f to be "quirky." He also said that he likes being underestimated, and it seems that he goes out of his way to ensure that he is underestimated by looking like he came back from the 50's with Marty McFly in the Delorean. I would not want Jef around my seven year old daughter, and I don't think Emily will either. I like the fact that she's not going to be basing this decision solely on who she has fun with or who she thinks is a hottie - she also has to factor in if the guy is daddy material. Advantage: Tony.
Cue Emily getting ready with her daughter who is wearing mommy's shoes and wants to put on her makeup. Emily shows up looking all fancy. She's also a completely different person getting out of the limo this time than she was on Brad's season of The Bachelor. Much more confident and outgoing. I cringed a little when Chris asked her about her late fiance and she says something about her daughter reminding her "of what she doesn't have," but she saves it by saying something about how it's "cool" when her daughter does something that reminds her of her daddy.
Time for the guys to meet Emily. Always love the way the guys decide to present themselves. Doing little dances, getting down on one knee and saying corny love cliches, going in for a double hug, or my personal favorite, the hug and step back to eye her like livestock and saying "wow, you are gorgeous." A surprising number of guys went with some variation of the livestock auction intro. Props to the Brazilian that says "nice to meet you, gorgeous" in Portuguese, followed by Emily saying "gracias." Yeesh. One guy says that "the fact that you are a single mother is the most attractive thing about you." I'm guessing the "single" part is the attractive part. He tries to explain that it shows she's independent and responsible and blah blah blah, but you can be those things without being a mother. Tony goes for the glass slipper that he hopes fits. Either ABC gave him a shoe that fits, or he's done a lot of research on Emily on the Internet. She seems to like him, so I think he's safe tonight based on that. Perhaps a first impression rose candidate? One guys says "my close friends call me Wolf." Yeesh. Jef opts for the Lindzi approach but swaps out a horse for a skateboard and then awkwardly chucks it as he walks up. Yep. I hate Jef. Randy tries to play off the girl who had her grandma introduce her last season by dressing as an old woman and introducing himself. It wasn't well thought out. Neither was egg boy. Prop guy never wins. Remember dude with the mask? He didn't last long. If egg guy really brings that thing with him on dates he's doomed. If I have a second favorite, it's Ryan, the dude with the well thought out note that said "you are beautiful" on one side and "I'm so nervous" on the other side. Kalon, the guy who says "he's got a little money in his pocket" showed up in a helicopter and says "sorry I made you wait for me, but I promise I'm worth it" to Emily, then proceeds to establish himself as this season's super douche by saying "I saw you guys from up there having a little party...where's the bar?" I'd say he's the next Bentley, but even Bentley didn't try to point out his superiority to the other guys. Bentley just pointed it out to the TV audience. Kalon reminds me of the guy who once told me outside the Headline Cafe in Corvallis that we were "almost wearing the same shirt, just that his cost three times as much as my outlet mall knockoff." I didn't like that guy either.
Bring on the cocktail party! Emily remarks that this is nothing like her normal life. You're kidding, she's not being hit on by 25 drunk guys every day? Sheesh. One guy brought bobbleheads in his and Emily's likenesses. Seems dorky, but thought it worked.
Emily thinks Jef is "cool" and "makes her feel like a dork." I have no faith in her choice in men. Jef is a tool. Doug had his son write Emily a letter...good move. Emily loved it. First impression rose brings out the bitch in the guys....I loved the comment "if you show up in a helicopter and you DON'T get the first impression rose....what does that say?" Helicopter guy says "he absolutely minds" when Sean comes to interrupt, which is what every other guy wishes they could say. Had he just said that and then got up, no problem....but he makes Emily excuse him before he moves. Bad move, and Mr. Green Shirt jumps all over him. Helicopter man is going to get punched if he doesn't watch it. Guy who has son with excellent writing skills gets the first impression rose....good job putting the focus on his kid. Tony didn't get any airtime at all during the cocktail party....guess they had a pretty mundane conversation. Tony says it'd be "devastating" if he got sent home, but the Tony I knew in college would definitely not have been devastated. But it does make for a good sound bite, and cameras have a way of making people say what they know people want to hear. This includes guys like Kalon who know they can stand out by making arrogant statements and the guys who probably dont' really care at all about the helicopter, yet when that red light is on will never miss an opportunity to make a helicopter related jab.
Rose Ceremony! Emily gives the standard "I was nervous that you guys wouldn't be into me" speech, even though there's no way ABC would ever put a guy on without knowing he's attracted to Emily. They moved the show all the way across the country for her, you think they're going to put her in a Bentley/Ashley situation? No way. Tony gets the second to last rose....and yes I gave an audible "whoo!" and a fist pump. Egg boy gets the last rose, because ABC likes to keep the quirks around for a few episodes so that everyone can go "why did she keep him around?" Guy with six kids goes home, says 'chances aren't good' at his age with his basketball team roster of children that he'll find love again. Apparently going on national television with a 4% chance of landing the girl that every guy is gunning for constitutes a "decent" chance in his book. The guy is clearly desperate and lonely. I feel slightly bad for him.
All in all a pretty mundane episode. I look forward to the guys starting to act like a bunch of catty women and bashing helicopter guy's every move. The scenes from the season montage shows some pretty ugly criers amongst the guys, and also that one guy refers to her daughter as "baggage." I'll be interested to hear if that's what he actually said, or if the guys twisted his words. Did he just say she had "baggage?" Because that's a pretty innocuous statement - we all have baggage, and I think just about all of us can agree that someone who's been engaged twice, had her first love die in a plane crash and has been on two reality television shows does qualify as someone with "baggage."
Thursday, May 3, 2012
How Watching Jonah Play Basketball Made Me Lose Weight
One thing I swore I'd never do was count calories. I always thought that it was no way to live to limit yourself on food. Besides, I thought, it doesn't matter how much I eat, I just need to exercise enough to maintain a healthy weight. When I said this, I probably weighed about 215 lbs, which is not terribly pudgy for someone of my size. Fast forward to 2012, and I'm hovering around the 250 mark. That is terribly pudgy.
Jonah's started playing basketball at the Boys and Girls Club. It's just a skills camp of sorts, but I can already tell that I'm going to annoy the hell out of him with my suggestions and comments. It's like a constant struggle with me not to jump onto the court and start giving him extra instruction. I can already tell we're going to have more than a few shouting matches which end with him saying "I got it Dad!" and storming off. The other issue with this is that basketball is probably the sport I know the most about, and at times I feel like I know more than his coaches. Not surprising, given that his coaches are a bunch of college kids that are probably doing this for credits or something. I wasn't that interested in passing my knowledge onto the next generation at that point either. This led me to an obvious conclusion: At some point, I'm going to start coaching my son's teams.
I'm going to have to, because I'm going to want to make sure he learns to play the way I think he should. If I let someone else coach him, what if they waste too much practice time scrimmaging instead of teaching, or don't teach the kids how to read a defender on a screen? If that happens, then I'm going to want to take Jonah to the park or something later on and practice with him some more, and then he's going to get burnt out on basketball, blame me, and start hanging out with skateboarders who wear skinny jeans and huff paint from aerosol cans. Better to just coach him. It's more efficient.
While going down this thought path, I had a terrible vision of myself trying to teach a team about a fast break, but having to stop halfway down the court to catch my breath because I was so pudgy and out of shape. It was this vision that made me decide to count calories for the first time in my life. I realized that I just didn't have the time to exercise as much or as often as I'd like to. There's no point in my day where I can justify playing basketball for two hours. If Jocelyn isn't up at 5:30 when my alarm clock goes off, there's no way I'm going to hop on the elliptical and risk waking her up. Plus, even if she didn't wake up, I'd still have to workout, shower, make lunch, get both the kids up, change a diaper, get them dressed, make Jonah the chocolate milk he can't start his day without, load up the car and get them to daycare by 7:30 in order to make it to work on time. It's just not really feasible to me to work out in the mornings. Evenings are out too. Pick the kids up after work, play with them, Rachel gets home at 7:15, eat dinner, get the kids to bed and now it's 8:30 or 9 pm. Then I get to spend about half an hour with my wife before she goes to sleep and I'm not going to start working out then. And I'm not sure how other people with young children do it, but I don't particularly feel good about saying "I'm going to the gym for a few hours to play ball honey, have fun with the kids!" I need to save my "bye honey, have fun with the kids" times for the really big things, like a weekend trip to a Beaver football game in Seattle. Also, weekends are virtually the only time that all four of us get to spend any extended time together, and I don't want to mess with that any more than I have to.
Which leads me to my dilemma. Spending time with my family is the most important thing to me right now. However, if I don't start taking better care of my body, does that decrease the quality of our time together, or perhaps cut short the time I get to spend with my grandchildren 30 years down the road because I'm dead? It sounds a little ridiculous I know, but there's only one thing that really, truly scares me, and that's dying before I'm ready to go, and I spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about it.
All of this was a long way of getting around to saying "I've started counting calories." I've been doing it for two weeks now, and I'm down 5.3 lbs, so it works. The last time I seriously tried to lose weight, it took me 40 days to get down 5 lbs, which tells you how "serious" I was about losing it. I downloaded the MyFitnessPal app for my iPod, which is great in that it gives you a calorie goal for the day, then keeps track of how many you take in and how many you burn through exercise. The hardest part about this is that I spend most of every day in some level of hunger, but I'm managing. I'm learning to treat my body like my gas tank - I don't have to top it off every time it's not completely full. My stomach isn't used to this way of thinking yet, but it's learning. I've always been an instant gratification kind of guy: I'm hungry now, therefore I will eat a maple bar and deal with the consequences later. Conversely, weight loss is a slow, difficult process that you're not going to see a payoff on for months or years. It's not really how I'm wired. But, having a daily calorie goal is something that I can sort of relate to. I don't need to weigh myself every day and watch tenths of a pound drop off. Instead, I can say "I want to eat pizza tonight, and I want to eat a lot of it. In order to make my calorie goal, I need to burn X amount of calories working out today. Now I've got a tangible thing that I can achieve right now. Someone asked my wife the other day why she exercises so much. She said "because I like to eat." I couldn't agree more. So far, the results have been promising. It goes to show you that you really shouldn't knock anything until you've tried it at least once.
If anyone else has used the MyFitnessPal app, I'd be interested to hear what your experience was like with it.
Jonah's started playing basketball at the Boys and Girls Club. It's just a skills camp of sorts, but I can already tell that I'm going to annoy the hell out of him with my suggestions and comments. It's like a constant struggle with me not to jump onto the court and start giving him extra instruction. I can already tell we're going to have more than a few shouting matches which end with him saying "I got it Dad!" and storming off. The other issue with this is that basketball is probably the sport I know the most about, and at times I feel like I know more than his coaches. Not surprising, given that his coaches are a bunch of college kids that are probably doing this for credits or something. I wasn't that interested in passing my knowledge onto the next generation at that point either. This led me to an obvious conclusion: At some point, I'm going to start coaching my son's teams.
I'm going to have to, because I'm going to want to make sure he learns to play the way I think he should. If I let someone else coach him, what if they waste too much practice time scrimmaging instead of teaching, or don't teach the kids how to read a defender on a screen? If that happens, then I'm going to want to take Jonah to the park or something later on and practice with him some more, and then he's going to get burnt out on basketball, blame me, and start hanging out with skateboarders who wear skinny jeans and huff paint from aerosol cans. Better to just coach him. It's more efficient.
While going down this thought path, I had a terrible vision of myself trying to teach a team about a fast break, but having to stop halfway down the court to catch my breath because I was so pudgy and out of shape. It was this vision that made me decide to count calories for the first time in my life. I realized that I just didn't have the time to exercise as much or as often as I'd like to. There's no point in my day where I can justify playing basketball for two hours. If Jocelyn isn't up at 5:30 when my alarm clock goes off, there's no way I'm going to hop on the elliptical and risk waking her up. Plus, even if she didn't wake up, I'd still have to workout, shower, make lunch, get both the kids up, change a diaper, get them dressed, make Jonah the chocolate milk he can't start his day without, load up the car and get them to daycare by 7:30 in order to make it to work on time. It's just not really feasible to me to work out in the mornings. Evenings are out too. Pick the kids up after work, play with them, Rachel gets home at 7:15, eat dinner, get the kids to bed and now it's 8:30 or 9 pm. Then I get to spend about half an hour with my wife before she goes to sleep and I'm not going to start working out then. And I'm not sure how other people with young children do it, but I don't particularly feel good about saying "I'm going to the gym for a few hours to play ball honey, have fun with the kids!" I need to save my "bye honey, have fun with the kids" times for the really big things, like a weekend trip to a Beaver football game in Seattle. Also, weekends are virtually the only time that all four of us get to spend any extended time together, and I don't want to mess with that any more than I have to.
Which leads me to my dilemma. Spending time with my family is the most important thing to me right now. However, if I don't start taking better care of my body, does that decrease the quality of our time together, or perhaps cut short the time I get to spend with my grandchildren 30 years down the road because I'm dead? It sounds a little ridiculous I know, but there's only one thing that really, truly scares me, and that's dying before I'm ready to go, and I spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about it.
All of this was a long way of getting around to saying "I've started counting calories." I've been doing it for two weeks now, and I'm down 5.3 lbs, so it works. The last time I seriously tried to lose weight, it took me 40 days to get down 5 lbs, which tells you how "serious" I was about losing it. I downloaded the MyFitnessPal app for my iPod, which is great in that it gives you a calorie goal for the day, then keeps track of how many you take in and how many you burn through exercise. The hardest part about this is that I spend most of every day in some level of hunger, but I'm managing. I'm learning to treat my body like my gas tank - I don't have to top it off every time it's not completely full. My stomach isn't used to this way of thinking yet, but it's learning. I've always been an instant gratification kind of guy: I'm hungry now, therefore I will eat a maple bar and deal with the consequences later. Conversely, weight loss is a slow, difficult process that you're not going to see a payoff on for months or years. It's not really how I'm wired. But, having a daily calorie goal is something that I can sort of relate to. I don't need to weigh myself every day and watch tenths of a pound drop off. Instead, I can say "I want to eat pizza tonight, and I want to eat a lot of it. In order to make my calorie goal, I need to burn X amount of calories working out today. Now I've got a tangible thing that I can achieve right now. Someone asked my wife the other day why she exercises so much. She said "because I like to eat." I couldn't agree more. So far, the results have been promising. It goes to show you that you really shouldn't knock anything until you've tried it at least once.
If anyone else has used the MyFitnessPal app, I'd be interested to hear what your experience was like with it.
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