Not my practice blog, by Scott Knaster

Spelling Bee

Attention, sports fans: it's National Spelling Bee time again! ESPN will show the final rounds tomorrow (Thursday) from 10 to noon and from 1 to 3:30 EDT.

Here's something I wrote last year about spelling bees, taxicabs, and memories.

Have fun watching, and good luck, spellers!

Lost

Tonight is the season finale of the TV show Lost. I liked this show a lot when it first appeared. It carried a whiff of surreality, featuring such goodies as a jet engine gone wild, a polar bear, a former paraplegic who could suddenly walk, and an unseen monster that occasionally terrorized the castaways. But then, some months ago, things began to slow down. Like the island where the castaways are marooned, the show has been reluctant to give up its secrets. We'll see what happens tonight.

Hitchhiker's cognitive dissonance

Recently I saw and enjoyed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. Although it wasn't the incredible revelation that the original radio play, BBC TV series, and books were -- and how could it be? -- it was fun. I liked that the filmmakers seemed to be respectful of Douglas Adams and the original works. For example, the lovely banjo-tinged theme from the BBC series turns up a few minutes into the movie.

A few days later, I read on my friend CJ's blog that the TV theme was actually a song called Journey of the Sorcerer by none other than The Eagles. I figured she meant the theme was based on an Eagles song, or was similar to an Eagles song, but a quick trip to sample the song at the iTunes Music Store revealed that the HHG theme was exactly the original Eagles song.

Immediately, I suffered major cognitive dissonance, for two reasons:

1. I like the Eagles just fine. And I like Hitchhiker's Guide a lot. But I like them in entirely different regions of my brain. I just never thought of them together. The Hitchhiker's Guide is cosmic and self-deprecating. The Eagles are pretentious and definitely non-cosmic.


2. This is such an awesome, juicy triviality that it seemed impossible that I, a member of the Trivia Bowl Hall of Fame, was unaware of it.

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."
-- Sir Arthur Eddington

Strange Love

I must admit that I watched and enjoyed the last season of The Surreal Life on VH1, a reality show that tosses 6 has-been or never-quite-were celebrities together in a house for awhile and films the results. This past season featured the bizarre romance between clock-wearing rapper Flava Flav and actress/former Mrs. Sylvester Stallone Brigitte Neilsen. Now I see that Flav and Brig have been given their own reality show, Strange Love. Enough already.

Johnny Carson, 1925-2005

I'll let Andy Ihnatko speak for me:

With Carson's passing, an entire generation of young adults have suddenly become Old. There's an entire generation behind us that never saw "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." We will try — with embarrassing and dithering enthusiasm — to explain to them what it was like and we'll fail. Completely. No doubt part of that's because our childhoods are so deeply infused with memories of Carson and his show. The first time my parents and I were in the same room laughing at the same thing, we were watching The Tonight Show. That's some powerful mojo, and it's a memory shared by nearly everybody born before 1980.

Stolen from here.

Kids say the darnedest things

I was watching TV last night with my 10-year-old daughter Devi. A commercial for some cool toy came on. Halfway through it, Devi announced "Things in commercials are never as cool in real life".

I was so proud.

The Daily Show is good

This article points out that viewers of The Daily Show "are more likely to know the issue positions and backgrounds of presidential candidates than people who do not watch late-night comedy". The Daily Show, which I have praised here before, seems to be highly misunderstood by a lot of folks. This is in large part to host Jon Stewart's repeated description of the show as "fake news". Regular viewers know he's being sarcastic, but others don't. The Daily Show is actually one of the few places on mainstream TV where lying, spinning, and deception are exposed for all to see, but a lot of people, especially those stuck on network news, don't seem to have that figured out yet. Maybe the "fake news" meme is a little misdirection to keep the corporate cannons from being trained on Stewart.

Music in TV commercials

If you've ever watched a TV commercial, heard the music, and wondered if it was a "real" song, What's That Called? is the place to go. Handy!

LikeTelevision

LikeTelevision is a site filled with downloads of old TV shows, movies, and even commercials. There are a few free samples here, but mostly you'll pay $5 per download, or you can join for $15 a month and get all you want. In the free section, check out the awesome Johnny Carson sampler, featuring Johnny as Ronald Reagan playing Family Feud against Queen Elizabeth.

Ken Jennings on Jeopardy

Kottke has some unconfirmed news on when KenJen's record Jeopardy streak will end. The page is spoiler-protected.