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February 26, 2006

At Least "Dancing with the Stars" and the Olympics are Over. Damn You "American Idol."

By: The Dude on the Right
I know I always promise that new stuff is coming soon, so I won't promise anymore, just say I'm working on it.  In the meantime I wanted to get something new posted, so for tonight I hope you'll just be okay with this blog entry.  I'm trying to get it done before the finale of "Dancing With the Stars" and the Olympics Closing Ceremonies, which, thankfully, are the end to much of my diversion lately.

From my last blog, you know that I developed a thing for Cassie Johnson of the USA Women's Curling Team.  Sadly they got eliminated from any medal contention, and I didn't even get a chance to catch another match due to some traveling.  For my stalking, I'll just have to remember to set the one, TiVo'd match on "Do Not Ever Delete Until I Tell you So you TiVo Machine."  Sadly, I won't be able to offer her a job, because I didn't win the Powerball jackpot, although there is still a chance right now on the Mega Million's side.  Maybe I'll still be able to offer Cassie a job.  All I know is that I'm happy the Olympics are done, because, well, the United States folks, other than a few, didn't come off too well.  I could go into it, but why?  It's over, done, and even with the winners we will mostly remember a few stories, like the snowboarder dudette who lost the gold medal, the skier dude who should now forever remain nameless, and the speed skater dudes who had such potential to be world class, but, well, lost that when they opened their mouths, and they even won gold medals.  Oh well, it's over, and so almost is another show...

That show, "Dancing With the Stars," where Lisa Rinna got screwed.  Nothing against you, Jerry Rice, but she was so much better.  I probably won't watch the entire show, especially since it's two hours long and up against the Olympic closing ceremony.  Right now I just want to see if Drew or Stacy win.  My vote is for Drew, even though Stacy is smokin' hot, because Stacy had a lot of previous dance experience, and Drew was only in 98 Degrees.

As far as new stuff coming to the website, tomorrow should bring a new podcast of "Stu and The Dude's Weekend Wrap-Up," and I'm putting the finishing touches on our next episode of "Stu & The Dude Reviewin' the Movies for You!", that being a review of "Curious George."  If all goes well, that should be posted tomorrow night as well, at worst, hopefully, on Tuesday.  I've also got a ton of movie previews I'm typing up, still need to write a review of "Date Movie" even though Stu and I discussed it at length during one of our podcasts.  I'm also looking to get back to some concert reviewin' in mid-March, so hopefully that will work out as well.

Well, "Dancing With the Stars" is coming on soon, so I'll wrap this up.  Thankfully my TV viewing gets almost back to normal next week, but dammit, "American Idol" people, I'm finding it really hard to keep with people for three nights.  I've got too many other shows to watch.  Damn.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Posted by Rightdude at 7:24 PM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2006

Women's Curling, It's Fantastic!

By: The Dude on the Right
As I was on the phone with my accountant, Dewey, of the firm Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe, I started telling Dewey how I was getting sucked into the Olympic coverage of Curling.  Yea, that's right, the Olympic sport where they slide this big boulder rock things down the ice, kinda like shuffleboard without the stick, and use brooms to help direct/speed-up/slow-down the rock, hoping to either bounce the opposing teams rocks out of the way, or get your rock in either a blocking position or in a position to score.  Stu Gotz was in the office at the time and immediately started to bust my balls, professing how he was totally into the Women's Speed Skating, with the women in those skin-tight outfits, while there I was, watching dudes slide a stone.  Dewey, of course, heard this, and started busting my balls as well, but then, after hanging up the phone on Dewey in mid-insult, I reminded Stu that he loved the movie "Curious George."  With that, he backed down a tad.

Anyway, as for my fascination with curling, it really began with the Winter Olympic coverage four years ago.  Me, I'm the kind of guy who can just sit in front of the TV on a Sunday afternoon and watch a full round of golf, so why not be fascinated with curling? This year, though, I was reading the paper yesterday and saw they had coverage of the men's curling on CNBC.  I changed the channel and quickly became totally fascinated by the audio of the event that will hopefully make it into a podcast next week.  Yup, I was sucked in.  But then came the woman's event today, with the Team USA dudettes playing the dudettes of Denmark.  As the audio still intrigued me, suddenly I was in love, as I am a sucker for a dudette with blondish hair, blue eyes, and a killer smile, staring down a big ol' rock and yelling/telling her teammates where it really needs to end up .  My next person to stalk, I mean, to admire from afar, is team skip, Cassie Johnson.  I'll just say I was mesmerized, and totally  disappointed when that last rock hit some debris thing on the ice that misdirected it ever so slightly so that the Denmark dudettes won the round.

Sadly, the Team USA curling dudettes might be eliminated pretty soon, they aren't doing too well it seems, and that makes me sad.  I believe my last chance to catch them might be this coming Monday, but there's always a chance they can go on a curling tear and I'll be there every step of the way.   As far as Stu, go ahead and stalk, I mean, admire from afar, those dudette speed skaters.  Me, I've always had a thing for the girl next door look, and Cassie has that.  And her sister is cute, too, but she's engaged.  Cassie has a degree in graphic design and I'd love to offer her a job to help us with Stu & The Dude Reviewin' the Movies for You!  It's just too bad I couldn't offer her any money, and I'd probably be slapped with a sexual harrasment lawsuit.  Oh well, I guess I'll just stalk, I mean, admire her from afar, and hope the team does go on a curling tear.  Good luck ladies!  And Cassie, if by some miracle I win the $365 million Powerball this weekend, there might be a job offer coming your way.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Posted by Rightdude at 8:19 PM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2006

Confused About the Olympics, and Some Advice for NBC.

By: The Dude on the Right
I’m getting really confused with the coverage of the XX Winter Olympics. First, I talked a little bit about this in our last podcast, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on exactly where the Olympics are being held. First, if you go to www.olympic.org, they call it the "Torino 2006" games. Fine, they’re a world body, and probably go with the language of the host nation, that being Italian because, well, the Olympics are being held in Italy. The thing is that Torino is an Italian pronunciation, and even on the web site, in their English translation, they call them the "Turin Winter Games." That at my local paper, and every other television station say they are in Turin.  But NBC, who is broadcasting the Winter Olympics, are sticking with "Torino," prompting one posting on a bulletin board I occasionally read wondering why, if NBC is content on calling Turin, well, Turino, for this kind of news, why aren’t they calling Rome, well, Roma, or Florence, umm, Fiorenza. I know that the famous shroud is in Turin, and wonder if NBC, if there is ever new news about the Shroud of Turin, well, if they will know call it the Shroud of Turino? I’m so confused.

And that’s not only thing confusing me about the Winter Olympics. The other has to do with the wacky news coverage, especially on the NBC stations. I haven’t been able to pay attention to the ABC or CBS coverage, at least when it comes to my local news, to see if how/when/who they are spoiling the suspense of who/when/how won a medal, but on both my local NBC newscast and the national NBC newscast here in Chicago, this day being Sunday, they both had coverage of the Winter Olympics. The easy story was Michelle Kwan’s dropping out, but then, wanting to at least give some real news about what was going on, told their viewers that if they didn’t want to "see" anything about the results as of the time of the newscast, to turn away from the screen (don’t forget, the actual events happened over 12 hours ago, so the nightly broadcast is a tape of what already happened), and that the audio wouldn’t give away anything, but I couldn’t help but watch and figure out that Apolo Anton Ohno must have screwed up because he wasn’t on the medal board NBC flashed on the screen. Then, of course, I just went to the NBC website and found out for myself.

With their coverage, I think this is where NBC is really dropping the ball. Instead of trying to "hide" the results with bad "we have spoilers, turn away if you don’t want to know," they should just go all out and say things like "On tonight’s coverage, you get to see how Apolo Anton Ohno didn’t get a medal, how the U.S. skiers, including the controversial Bode Miller, didn’t get a medal, but thank God for Shaun White and Danny Kass, a couple of snowboarders who knew how to get the job done, getting the Gold and Silver respectively. We’ve got a slim chance at getting a medal in the Luge, but you might just want to see if the "Babe Ruth of Luge," Georg Hackl of Germany, can pull it off. After all, they’re going down that course at speeds over 70 miles per hour at times." In all honesty, those are the only reasons I’m watching the NBC coverage of the Winter Olympics tonight, but my problem is that the conclusion to last week’s "Grey’s Anatomy" conflicts with the Olympic coverage. I knew I should have ordered that Comcast DVR. Guess I’ll be stuck with year's old technology and VCR "Grey’s Anatomy" and TIVO the Olympics, or maybe just the opposite. Damn, I hate T.V.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Posted by Rightdude at 8:28 PM | Comments (0)