What the Hell?

This is simply amazing. Realize that when they go up at the net, they're actively using both feet and FAKING spikes with one foot and hitting it with the other. I'm still stunned that human beings can even do this.

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.

Betty White: Return of the Queen

Last night on CBS, Betty Motherfucking White was back doing what she was put on this earth to do.

Letting Knight & McLeod double team her in a broom closet?

Nope. As stimulating a mental image as that may be, I'm talking Password.

Million Dollar Password to be precise.

Like the Stones once sang, I had no expectations. I sat down for an evening of TV last night, figuring I'd flip around until Game 4 of the Lakers/Celtics started at 9 (don't get me started on that particular NBA idiocy, or the 347 Hancock commercials they show every game). I initially thought I had hit the jackpot when I saw one of the Top 3 high-stakes beach volleyball movies ever made was playing on MY PHL17, the Howell/Horton/Kozak cinematic behemoth, Side Out. The frisky yet obtainable Kozak was in the middle of a particularly impressive 2-year run which also included Parenthood, Arachnophobia, and Necessary Roughness (co-starring again with Side Out's acting prodigy Kathy Ireland).

But as many characters in the Airplane! movies said, that's not important right now..

Many a summer weekday morning were spent watching The Queen of Game Shows ply her trade on all the Password permutations, though the Convy years stick out most in my mind.

But this was like turning on the NHL Finals and seeing Gretzky or Montana lace them up one more time. Well, to be more precise, Gretzky if he had a little twinkle in his eye that indicated he knew every dirty joke you know and another hundred you don't. Or if Montana were hot - in a drunk Betty Crocker kinda way.

That was the beauty of Betty White. She had the perfect combination of sweet and sinful. I picture her with a pan of fresh-baked cookies in one hand and a pair of handcuffs in the other.

The way she wielded her rapier wit on Password (or any of a hundred other game shows), there was no doubt that she could hold her own in any dive bar, stag party, or juke joint. Her zingers were surface-clean, but there were layers. Dirty, innuendo-soaked layers rife with horny traveling salesmen and randy farmer's daughters.

After watching last night's MDP, she may have lost something off her fastball, but she still paints the corners with the best of 'em.

She flirted with Regis. Her reply to Regis saying she was an "old pro", is that he was half right. And she ordered a vodka rocks at one point.

She also had several awesome in-game moments, the last of which might be one of my favorite moments in television history.

1. You can see this in the YouTube preview below, but the way she says "Hello" kills me.
2. The password was "paws".
   1. She was receiving (the clues) from the contestant.
   2. 1st Clue: "dog"
   3. 1st Guess: "tail"
   4. 2nd Clue: "feet"
   5. 2nd Guess? "Pedicure"
3. The password was "balloon"
   1. The first 3 clues were "air", "helium", and "party".
   2. She responded as any 86-year old woman would: "Rave"

I had problems transcribing it without giggling. The fact that she knows what a rave is, much less have it in the forefront of her brain when those clues were presented, shows that she's a party girl of the first order.

I did have a few quibbles with the Million Dollar Password format:

1. Too lenient with the "close" guesses. "walnut" was an acceptable substitute for "nut"? I think not.
2. Too lenient with penalizing bad clues. "Boyfriend" should not be an acceptable clue for "girlfriend".
3. Ugh, enough Regis. Besides being tired of his shtick, he only did the condescending Dick Clark 25K Pyramid "suggest the perfect clue after the contestant has lost" once. Grow a pair, Reeg.
4. I miss the Super Password! gimmick where all the words were clues to another word, and whoever guessed that won the round.
5. The money round is similar to Millionaire, in that you keep moving up levels of money, but you can lose the money you won if you go too far and fail.
   1. After each successful level, you have to decide whether you want to continue playing and risk the money or as Betty so eloquently put it "take the money and run like a thief". Though if the cameras weren't on, I'm sure she would've worked something in about Puerto Ricans. Betty White *hates* Puerto Ricans.
   2. The producers decided to pop a hole in the tension balloon by showing the contestant the first 5 (of a potential 6) words in the next-to-last ($250K) round. Both times the contestants took the $100K they had won, and I can't blame them, since the $250K words did look tough. But that's making it too easy on the contestants.
6. The less-hot of the 2 contestants won each time. We need to get David Stern in charge of this show and reverse that trend.
7. The Babazoni guy's eyes scared me. They bugged out like he was a lecherous cartoon wolf.

Anyway, it was a delightful surprise to see Betty White back where she belongs. Actually where she belongs is in a time-machine to become my aunt who would sneak me sips of beer and countless Charles Nelson Reilly stories. Or maybe as a wise but libidinous English teacher who would introduce me to the ways of Keats and languid love-making.

Some streaming video goodness:

Betty takes over briefly from the master (Gene Rayburn) during Match Game.
Stroke that skinny mike, you minx.

A promo for her on MDP:

The full MDP episode from CBS' site (with ads, FYI):

Lake Placid - "If I had a dick, this is where I'd tell you to suck it"

And to put the perfect cherry on top of this ice cream sundae of awesomeness, here's what a minimal amount of Googling for Betty White info led me to. Prepare your souls for the long, dark tea-times they're about to experience:

Elton & Betty White (not what you think) (at all) (really)

Cline