Sign Of The Dog

So, Monday night's House featured a deaf patient, which is pretty much irrelevant except that it brings up all kinds of questions about being/going deaf like "how hard is it to learn sign language?" and "what would it be like to be born deaf and never hear anything at all, ever?" and teh most important, "how exactly does a dog assist a deaf person?" You may be a bit confused by that last statement, but I assure you it happens. i know this because my local Post Office has a sign saying that no dogs are allowed inside, except for those "assisting blind or deaf persons." I am fairly familiar with how dogs assist the blind by leading them around obstacles and keeping them out fo traffic situations, but I am not familiar with how they go about assisting the deaf. But the first time I see a dog asking the telling for stamps or signing the postage rates to his disabled owner I promise to let you know.

Healthy Dose Of Humor

I thought I liked the Healthy Choice commercial with Julia Louis Dreyfus. And then I saw the one with her and Jane Lynch. And now I'm just wishing Seinfeld were still on.

Faux-ercise

I am really enjoying the ads for the Ab Rocker, which is this spring loaded backrest that makes sit ups easier. The obvious appeal comes in the form of the device itself, which makes sit ups look fun because they are basically no longer exercise - its just like reclining a lazyboy over and over. Wheee. But I am also really loving the clips of people struggling to do regular sit ups - they are so terrible! These people make doing crunches look like trying to carry a 1,000 lb pack up the sheer face of a cliff. They struggle and struggle and barely get their heads off the floor - it's completely awesome. I mean, sit ups are hardly the most fun of activities, but they are not hard - multiple reps might be hard, but unless you are an invalid just doing one or two crunches is not exactly running a marathon. But this ad really pushes the whole "oh, sit ups are soooooooooooo hard, see these people can barely do them, but with the ab rocker they are so easy - you can suddenly do hundreds!" And of course, we all know that if it's easy, it ain't working. Of course, in terms of mental health and self esteem it might be awesome - hey look, I did a thousand crunches on my ab rocker! So whaat if I'm still all flabby because the thing basically pushes me up?

I Don't Like This Show, Not That I've Ever Really Watched It**

I am not a big fan of NCIS. I will watch all of the other procedural shows - the Law and Order series, the CSI series (although not Miami so much cause Caruso blows), but I just can’t get behind NCIS. I have only seen it all the way through once, with snippets of other episodes, and it just seems dull, with lame characters, bad dialogue, and cases that are boring and either obvious to the watcher, or the cast just instantly solves it five minutes from the end with no explanation as to how. But the thing that bothers me the most is the way they have chosen to stage the autopsy scenes. First of all, they are always standing over a body that has its chest flaps wide open and having long discussions about evidence or whatnot. This seems a little gratuitous, but hey it’s and autopsy, whatever. What’s is not forgivable, however, is that instead of just covering the lower half of the corpse with a sheet like virtually every other show does, they just hav a bright light shining on the genital area, ostensibly so bright that the naughty bits are visible. This is a really stupid decision for two reasons. First, it completely doesn’t work. Yeah, there is a light obscuring the area, but not enough to disguise the fact that these corpses are going to make a Ken doll look well endowed. And secondly, the director/producer/person in charge of this brilliant decision seem to have forgotten that whole concept that bright lights draw your attention. So basically every time one of these scenes is on, which is a lot, and they are LOOOOOONG, I spend the whole time staring at the lit section and wondering where all the bits are and why they can’t just be covered like on every other show so I can focus on the plot (whatever plot there is). Very distracting and irritating.
On a similar note of criticizing shows that I really have never watched, I caught a few bits of two separate JAG episodes the other day and I have some questions. In the first, one of the characters received a fax accidentally that held the itinerary of a visiting dignitary. It was sent to the wrong number by someone I assume was planning to kill this person, and when the killer showed up to get it, she just handed it over tra la la. Now, I have heard all kinds of good things about this show when it was on, so I’m wondering if it was always this stupid or was this just an off episode. Because honestly, a highly secure military office probably would not just hand over what was obviously privileged information even if it had gotten it erroneously. These are lawyers - wouldn’t they have shredded it immediately and assumed that whoever was supposed to get it would be able to get another copy? And how did the killer even figure out a) what wrong number he typed and b) where that was? Bad. The other clip I saw was from the very end of an episode, and it featured the main guy in a shoot out in alley with some gang bangers. Now, isn’t he a military lawyer? Why is he involved in a civilian gun fight? I would like to know how the plot there in that one.

*By the way, Laird, I totally wrote and posted this before we even talked. So weird.


**update 6/15/9: after my beloved auntie told me NCIS was actually very good, I decided to give it another chance and actually watch a whole episode whie also paying attention. I am now completely obsessed and watch it everyday.

In The Mood To Redecorate?

This week I got a catalog in the mail for Crow’s Nest Trading Co. Here is the cover:


All I can say is Wow. That is quite a chair. $1300 almost seems like a bargain for something that special. For those of you who don’t know me, let me assure you that there is nothing even remotely resembling this in my home, or in the home of anyone I know. So basically I’m wondering what the hell I did that got me onto this mailing list. Oh, and by the way, they also sell clothes, yay!