Sunday television - a guide to flipping channels

Sunday afternoons are usually reserved for football. However, when your team isn't playing, sometimes it can be hard to stay focused on the games your local CBS and FOX affiliates are giving you. That's what happens when you don't have the Dish Network.

This is the exact scenario I found myself in yesterday. With the Eagles on a bye week, my rooting interest in football took a week off as well. That left me with a lax attitude toward football in general (not to mention that since the Phillies are in the World Series, football really hasn't taken hold yet). So while I had every intention in the world to watch football on my couch yesterday, my remote began to wonder.

It didn't help that FOX gave me the Gians/49ers game, while CBS gave me the titanic Steelers/Bengals battle. It's amazing I didn't turn off the television completely and go outside to enjoy the day. But I'm a warrior and I battled through that horrible, brief thought. On the flip side, I'll share what kept me inside...



My first stray from the football games occurred when I found Angelie Jolie on TNT in Lara Croft: Cradle of Life. The second installment of the possibly successful franchise (I really have no idea) had the guy who played Caesar from HBO's Rome as the bad guy, as well as a well coiffed Gerard Butler, pre 300. But let's be honest, I'm not watching for those two guys - I'm watching for Jolie and her outfit changes.

Sadly, if you remember LC: CoL, other than the fantastic intro (Jolie in her skintight silver diving suit) the rest of her outfits don't hold up. She wears safari gear a lot, and a bunch of Japanese robes. This is not the Lara Croft I signed up for. Anyway, it begrudgingly made the remote control loop, but not much time was spent with it every time I flipped to it. I did find, in researching this story, that you can apparently watch the entire movie on youtube. Start here if you care to.

What did get a lot of my attention (after watching botched field goals and interceptions in the Giants game for a few minutes) was the MSU/Minnesota women's volleyball game on ESPN 2. Women's volleyball is rarely televised, so this was a treat. The other treat was #17 on MSU's squad: Vanessa King, a 6 foot junior, flying around and taking out Minnesota's attack. I'm not sure I've ever seen a 6 foot redheaded lady before.

One channel up from ESPN 2, Comcast countered football with darts. If you've never seen darts before, you're not missing much. It made my rotation however, because of the announcer; not the two guys doing darts commentary (how far have you fallen when you have to give play-by-play for darts), but the guy at the actual venue, screaming the results to the crowds (yes crowds) on hand to witness two guys that make bowlers look cool throw pointy sticks at cork. The traditional darts' announcer (it's true, I've watched darts before) like an extra from a Guy Ritchie movie who enjoys gargling glass. It's really quite uncanny. I know it's difficult to truly hear it from this video, but it's worth it.



(Unrelated - do you see that crowd. Sure, "honey, I'm going out to watch Darts," is a great excuse to tell your wife to go out and booze up, but still.

The top of the hour rolled around by this point, giving me a whole slew of new shows to flip through, including the movie Pitch Black (not going there too much) a dog show (2 hours?) and an episode of Family Feud (can we collectively vote to destroy all versions of the Karn-hosted Feud? Thanks.) I also thought I got lucky hitting AMC and seeing the In-Laws was on, but quickly realized it wasn't the classic with Arkin and Falk, but the remake with Brooks and Douglas. See the Karn sentiments to see what I think about this travesty.

It wasn't all bad though. Sci-fi gave me Sasquatch Mountain, a tour de force starring a bunch of people who more than likely have starred in sci-fi original movies and Lance Henriksen. Who doesn't love Sasquatch? Here's the trailer. I have no idea why they chose to shoot this entire movie with a blue gel on the camera, but I went with it (at least the first 6 minutes)...



And here's, quite unbelievably, a panel at the Los Angeles Comic Convention, discussing the movie, Sasquatch Mountain (aka Devil on the Mountain):



I can't sit through more than 45 seconds of this (I really just feel embarrassed for everyone involved) but honestly, why introduce your biggest star (Lance Henricksen - also the guy everyone at the convention is there to see) first? Save the big reaction for the end, right? It's also shocking that this is part 1 of 3! I can't do it. I want to. I really do want to watch all 3 parts, I just know I can't.

Luckily, I didn't have to watch the blue-tinted Bigfoot very much, since I next stumbled upon the return of the greatest sport involving trampolines and attitude.

I'm of course talking about Slamball.

Rather than stupidly attempt to explain the awesomeness that is Slamball, I instead give you this:



To top it all off, we got a playoff game, announced by none other than Gus Johnson and Tom Tolbert. So excited by this duo, I immediately scrounged the web in hopes of finding any footage with these two announcing - and I came up with this. I did enjoy (while not 100% understanding) Tolbert's exclamation of, "Give that man a steak dinner!" Thankfully, that is on the video.

Regardless of the awfulness of these choices, it still gave me plenty of fodder to pass the time. What's worse is that I don't feel I wasted my time whatsoever. And that's the problem - when I can be entertained by this stuff, there's no hope for me being productive in life whatsoever.