While Steve goes London blogging, I'm coming from a less exotic locale -- New Jersey. This after spending the past couple of days in Boston. But hey, I'm traveling somewhere like most other people this holiday, right?

Thanksgiving was very low-key and quiet, which is just fine by me. The family all converged on my brother's place in Boston for the typical turkey/football/decompressing that's normal at this time of year. The only wrinkle to this was early morning travel travails since I took a 6:45 a.m. flight out of Atlanta -- meaning waking up waaaay too early to catch a cab (too early to take my chances with MARTA) and being up reasonably late the night before. One thing that I think helped things move along well at the airport (other than checking in about 5 a.m.) is that Delta really ramped up the use of self-serve check-in kiosks at Hartsfield. One desk person can probably handle about four kiosks at once, and only if they need to help check in bags. It makes those lines move nice and fast.

Late night choices
Sometimes I amaze myself. There was this cool movie on Starz. My nightly slice of ridiculous cheese(cake). And yet I opt to watch this most ridiculous episode ever made (the fact that I knew that when I first saw it when I was 10 shows it's that bad). But, I can't turn away, especially when it includes almost every character on the show and somehow showcases Barbecue's most ridiculous Boston accent that would've been better served on this skit.

Chicken Little was right! News at 11!
Hearing all the anti-media rants from the outside and all the lamenting and hand-wringing on the inside can drive many people away from journalism (and at times, I've thought about leaving because of all the Chicken Little talk). So it's good to see someone trying to look at the criticism from a couple of perspectives. Matt Welch takes a number of authors to task about their sometimes ivory tower look at how bad the field has become. Sure there's change that needs to happen, but after a while, constantly negative talk and unproductive praise will do much long-term harm.

It's biased because it doesn't agree with me
Many times people will get upset at "the media" for not covering something near and dear to them properly. Sometimes, it's a matter of laziness, sometimes it's a lack of talent, many times it's a lack of understanding that few will get unless you're really immersed in its culture. As much as we try to be experts on everything, we can't.

With that said, being a lifelong wrestling fan, it was encouraging to see a decent article in SI a while back about the recent problems at WWE, but then it got way trumped by this article for ESPN magazine and a Web sidebar about the Hart family. I almost found it hard to believe that a major publication could treat such an issue like it would any other serious story (sports or not). Of course, the author has a lot of experience in the field, having written a book on Vince McMahon. But sometimes, it's all of matter of treating the subject like another person, another human and things will play themselves out.

On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal tried its hand at comparing video game systems maybe a year too late (or just on time for confused parents to shop), and well I guess it may work for the core readers, it seems way too simplistic and unhelpful for someone with an even a little knowledge of the systems at hand.

Well, there were plenty of complaints after the annual Victoria's Secret Lingerie Show. I tried watching bits and pieces of it but just couldn't get into it. I suppose they wanted to show it was a "real" TV show with the assorted musical acts and skits. It's a bit disconcerting when you're expecting Heidi Klum and you get Phil Collins, Chris Elliott and Jason Sehorn (yet no Angie Harmon). Besides that, I'm trying to figure out if most of the models are not allowed to smile, have a real glimmer in their eye or cheeks that aren't just bone. Watching a bunch of expressionless Eurobots actually detracts from whatever bizarro outfits they're showing. You really can't excited watching it and you almost want to feel sorry for them. The regular TV ads and the ubiquitous catalogs seem to have a better effect in creating a fantasy. Seeing the reality is actually disturbing.

While I don't think I caught a minute of it until tonight, I saw the end of The Bachelor pretty much to size up the looks of the lucky woman caught in the headlights of six weeks of dating in front of a national TV audience. She looked attractive enough, but I never saw anything else to know or care if the personality is there. Didn't really matter to me. What did matter is the somewhat comical talk about finding your soul mate after six weeks of taping this stuff. In this environment, it's practically impossible, but hey it makes for good entertainment, I suppose. (Hell, I watch Elimidate although that takes out a lot of the pretenses of shows like this, which may be why I like it.)

Back to the original point about The Bachelor is that the guy "dates" 25 women over the course of six weeks to find his future bride. I don't think I've gone out on 25 dates, never mind 25 different women, in my lifetime, so a lot of this just flies over my head.

But regarding dating, most of my single friends will complain about it at one point in time or another, and I suppose I do that a lot as well. However, I've kinda kept quiet lately because I think I'm having plenty of trouble distinguishing between friends hanging out and actual dating. I've never been really good at meeting someone and then just asking them out, it's not really how I operate. Instead, I've been good (or at least I think so) at cultivating friendships with women who I may or may not be interested in romantically. I suppose it proves Billy Crystal's statement in "When Harry Met Sally" that men and women can't be friends because the sex part gets in the way (well to an extent anyway).

I keep on wondering to myself where the friendship part ends and the "relationship" part begins with a couple of them. In one case, I think I've figured out that line, and I can proceed accordingly. However, in another case, I still keep on trying to figure out where each of us stands (and have been for quite a while), and I suppose I'm too much of a chicken to proceed further at this point (one major extenuating circumstance keeps on slapping me in the face and preventing me from doing so). I guess if I got a definitive answer, everything would be easy. But for now I'm not, and I have to wonder if either of us would call our time together a "date" or just a couple of friends hanging out.

Honestly, the answer should be much easier than this, and maybe I'm making too much of a production in my head about this, but oh well. Then again, I feel a lot more comfortable doing things together with someone if I know them reasonably well as opposed to the stiffness that comes about trying to meet new people in a traditional date setting. A sense of familiarity can do wonders for a social life even if that same sense of comfort actually hinders it.

As if I needed more reason to watch Ed, this happens as the Sports Night invasion continues to hit Must-See TV. Good to see her getting into a decent show again.

I've been wondering where our goofy Brit had been since we don't usually watch any of the International shows. He's back with a perfect assignment in previewing the next James Bond movie. Wonder if good old Richard could get a role on the next film. He'd fit in oh so nicely.

There was always a lot of negative talk surrounding Keith Olbermann's departure from ESPN more than five years ago, and most of it painted KO as a spoiled, egotistical guy who felt above most of his colleagues. Yet another "tortured genius" who did great work at the expense of his co-workers. That's why it's very intriguing to see him apologize for his actions, and you've got to wonder if he's actually grown up. It's an interesting read, especially since you don't expect people to write things like this until much later in life.

Reel alternatives
The next installment of Harry Potter came out this weekend, and instead I went to see Far From Heaven, primarily because I was more intrigued with it than all that Hufflepuff (although that's next on the list).

I really enjoyed the movie, and oddly enough it looks like a movie that might eventually show up on the curriculum of some modern U.S. history classes I took in college from the way it handles race relations and attitudes towards homosexuals in the 1950s. The film reminds me a lot of Pleasantville, in that in tries to bust the conventions of the "perfect" world of white, upper middle class, suburban life in the late '50s. While Pleasantville busted them in a more humorous way (since it was taking a sitcom angle), Far From Heaven tackled the issues in a meatier, more serious and often depressing way. The bright colors of the fashions of the day and the fall foliage in New England served as an amazing contrast to the darkness hidden within.

Julianne Moore was stellar in her role as a June Cleaver who becomes tormented for being a progressive (by '50s standards) thinker. And yet she's not even that progressive (especially with looking for medical help for her husband's homosexuality), it's just that she tries to treat all people as people. But, back then, and even to a lesser extent today, it was hard to treat people not like you with any respect (maybe because of fear, ignorance, etc.). Oddly enough, it's not just whites, either. The friends and acquaintances of Dennis Haysbert's character showed the same animosity towards Moore's character when they show up at a "colored" restaurant.

Fair? Balanced? Freudian slip? You decide!

And you are an aging coach who hasn't been on the sidelines in years ...
The Grizzlies should be a much better team than they are, but you've got to wonder if plucking Hubie Brown off the TNT broadcast table will work. Wonder how some of the players will feel hearing, "And you are Pau Gasol ..."

As usual, I'm negligent in my blogging. Just a lot of things going on. For instance, TRASH Regionals at Emory went over very very well. It was fun playing tournament director for the day, although I have to thank the Emory folks for getting everything set up well ahead of time, making my job easier once I got there. It was great to see the questions go over well, and I was even able to show Alyson a little bit of my little crazy world. Not to mention that she was a very solid reader in her first time out, even bettering some of the usual moderators I encounter.

Now that regionals are over with, it's now time to think about Trashmasters -- which could almost be called the Granddaddy of them All (or at least most of the competitors there, relatively speaking). Time to write more packets (and make the donuts, I guess).

Tick, tick, tick
I'm not going to go into snark mode like the good people at Television Without Pity, but I'll tackle this week's 24 in whatever way possible. It's odd to think that I can find it both gripping and unintentionally hilarious at the same time. They started moving the Jack angle reasonably well, and actually pacing in "real time" for the most part -- it took him most of the hour at one place to figure out what the next move will be -- and it's a doozy. The timing of the arc with the wedding also worked out well, only introducing it in the last 20 minutes and making the most of the time the show focused on it (outside of the sister bonding stuff). You have to wonder what life would be like if Palmer was really our president -- it would be hell on the press, based on how the one reporter was treated at the end of the show (oh, by the way, how the hell did a reporter find his way into the president's command headquarters in BFN that quickly?).

However, I'm wondering how necessary it is to have Kim and that weird arc with the abusive dad, other than making Jack sweat even more as he wards off terrorists and worries about his kid at the same time. The whole thing seems tacked on, although I won't complain about the unintentional Charlie's Angels/Baywatch moments with Kim running away from creepy yuppy wife beater. It also seems like an excuse to cast as many blondes and other beautiful people as possible.

It's taken a while but you can finally search through every Sports Illustrated cover ever produced. It still runs a bit slow, but it's really cool, and I'm sure there will be plenty of wallpapers coming out of this.

The politics of dancing ...
It's definitely been an interesting Election Day, especially sitting in a somewhat neutral frame of mind these days. I can stay stuff like that when I lean Republican, vote Democrat and lose twice -- although I had no real favorite in either the Georgia Senate or governor's race. Personally, the touch screen voting stuff was pretty cool, although I still had to go through about 5-6 steps before actually voting (mostly concerning checking IDs and putting my name on the rolls). Maybe I'll have more analysis later. However, one note, it's amusing to see James Traficant get a decent percentage of the vote, running from jail.

Since you've been out ...
I've been working on regionals questions all week, thus my absence from the blog world. (What a way to spend vacation time -- but I also did a bunch of errands and appointments as well.) However, here are some thoughts, observations, etc.

-- The death of Jam Master Jay is stunning, especially when you consider how long Run-DMC had been around, and the fact that they never had a type of image that might encourage violence, unlike Tupac or Biggie. I guess I can say I was able to see them in concert, even if it was a slightly long-winded performance (primarily from Rev. Run) during Music Midtown last year.

-- Allen Barra has a good explanation for the low World Series ratings. I really wanted to be interested in it, but I missed a bunch of games on the weekends because of other commitments (surprisingly, I had a life, if just briefly) and after working on a lot of this stuff during the day, I often don't have that passion late at night when the games actually took place. Plus, the Yankees were out, and that hurt things for me. Barra has it right that after being excited to see other teams from other areas, we now have treated baseball like college football where we only care about teams around us and if they're gone, we don't care. The best World Series now will have to involve teams from disparate parts of the map to grab attention from both coasts, the middle of the country, etc. Of course, if we put a sign "Watch the Yankees lose" I think we'll get the best ratings in a while, based on the way people talk.

-- The season premiere of 24 was a lot like the rest of last season -- often beyond belief, well-acted and very exhilarating. Sure, it's hokey at times, and like Dwight said, when you hear the line, "I'm gonna need a hacksaw," you know things have to be interesting. I liken this show to a really long movie, which is probably the best way to approach it (although if you miss one, there are still ways to catch up and not be left behind). I still need to get the boxed set of last year's run.

-- I did see a couple of movies during the week as well. I was impressed with Bowling for Columbine, as it was funny and hard-hitting at the same time. I've always enjoyed Michael Moore's movies, although I don't really agree with his politics although I tended to agree with him regarding guns and gun control (or at least the way he sort of approached the subjec). One thing that struck me here, though, is that he didn't do as much of the gotcha-humiliation act on lackies that he likes to pull off in his works. That always disturbed me that he would completely stomp on underlings, who are the types of people Moore supposedly champions, to make a point while trying to reach an executive he really wants to skewer. It was kept to a minimum this time around, and he let the other willing people paint the picture. By the way, the animated Brief History of the United States is an absolute hoot, and a good way to figure out some of his points.

-- Being a Seinfeld fan, I felt like I really needed to see Comedian, and I wasn't disappointed. It was very intriguing to see Jerry cultivate a completely new stand-up act, which really sounds a lot like his old stuff (delivery, topics, etc.). And Jerry talking with other comics about the craft makes for some great watching, especially those who watch(ed) a lot of stand-up over the years, whether at clubs or on TV. I didn't mind the movie also looking at a guy on the up-and-up in Orny Adams, since you did want to see the other side of the business. (For despite Jerry's redoing an act, he's still Jerry Seinfeld). Adams is a funny guy, but he's such a prick. You have to wonder if he knows that when he sees himself on screen. It looked like the movie was made on the cheap, but I think that was sort of the point. What was more annoying was some of the bad sound/music mixing. I want to hear Jerry's act, his conversations with other comics, etc. I like the music being played, but many times it overpowered the dialogue (which is hard to hear because of the few microphones involved, etc.). I sometimes felt like I could use closed captioning or subtitles to guide me along.

The host of Hollywood Squares 2020 -- Tiffany!
I procrastinated way too long so I missed out on a chance at an appointment to try out for Pyramid, which was being held at a nearby mall. So I tried doing things the hard way -- getting your name drawn and going on stage to play a small mock game with other people in the audience (set up just outside of Sears). Get six of six, you win an audition spot. Oddly enough, the last of the tapings is this Monday, so the top person from the audition would be flown out to L.A. today, so maybe it was good that I didn't get anywhere close to the stage.

The local TV and radio celebs playing the game were actually decent at it, which was fun to watch. However, the weird thing about this tryout, compared to other game show tryouts is that there were lots of people wanting to see Donny Osmond, and care little about the game. Thus, after he did his appearance, most of the crowd left (and much of this crowd appeared to have been there long before the 10 a.m. start time). And given he was a teen idol however long ago, it's scary to think some of these folks still holding on after all these years. Just strange.

Maybe next time I'll know to register really early for a tryout.