TV Tidbits 84 - More Bear Grylls & Tim's Take is Back

Hmm... I'm not sure how excited I am at the prospect of Bear's new show. While I do love me some Bear, it's also the super extreme (and, for me anyway, totally impossible) situations that make Man vs. Wild fun. Watching Bear try to escape from a sinking car? Certainly useful. Ever since Baywatch pointed out the dangers of sinking vessels, I've been only too keenly aware of the possibility of slowly drowning to death with no Hoff in sight. (I really need to buy myself one of those doohikees that helps bust through your window...) But it's oddly less entertaining watching someone try and escape from a situation I might actually have to participate in myself one day... Adds a smidge more drama and discomfort to the endeavor. Plus, what are the odds Bear will ever have to show us how to escape an apartment fire or a shark attack while naked?! Slim-to-none. That really makes the show less fun.

[From EW.com] Man vs. Wild host Bear Grylls will headline a second

series for Discovery, the network has announced: the six-episode Worst

Case Scenario, debuting this spring. According to the press release,

Grylls will rely solely on the advice and instruction of experts to show

viewers that with the proper knowledge (and ability not to panic),

anyone can survive the potentially life-threatening situations they may

encounter in “everyday life.” These scenarios include:

• escaping a high-rise apartment fire

• fending off a shark attack

• escaping out of a sinking car

• getting yourself out of a frozen lake

• handling a car when its brakes give out while driving down a hill

• preventing a mountain lion attack

• falling down a flight of stairs — unharmed

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Also from EW.com, here's a fairly candid Q&A with Tim Gunn on Project Runway's drab season 6:

Tim Gunn: Before we start this interview, I have to tell you that I know you all didn’t like season 6. Was it L.A. or the absence of Michael and Nina or…?
EW: Both, along with less-than-stellar designers and boring challenges. Though, the truth is, everyone was going to be hypercritical because the show was being reinvented on a new network and in a new city.
Gunn: Yes, I know that’s how people feel. People are sometimes reticent to share their thoughts with me but you can tell. It’s been awful to disappoint people.

EW: Let’s be honest. Did you hate last season?
Gunn: Well, we all need to be truth tellers about it. My response is so filled with selfish dimensions – having to leave my own apartment and camp out in a strange place for 5 weeks, piling into a van to go to Mood which would take up to an hour one way. I have so many feelings about season 6. This has nothing to do with the individuals Carol Hannah, Althea, or Irina, but I was disappointed that our three finalists were three women in their 20s.

EW: To me, that felt like Lifetime was pushing the show to choose someone in its demographic.
Gunn: Had Lifetime really had a hand in it, Gordana would have been among them. She’s more the Lifetime demographic-she’s a woman in her early 40s. I would have been eager to see her at Bryant Park too.

EW: If you could go back, what would you have done differently?
Gunn: Upon reflection I think it was not advisable to have that season be in L.A. And I missed Nina and Michael. I engage with the designers in anticipation of what Nina and Michael will say and I know them well. It’s hard when it’s Heidi and 3 guest designers.

EW: Yeah, the judges last season seemed random and perhaps not always in their right minds, like when they sent Ra’mon home.
Gunn: It’s a big responsibility. I don’t know how Heidi, Nina, and Michael can judge the work of the designers based on one run-through of that show. But that’s how it’s done. I didn’t do a blog for season 6 but I’m doing it for season 7. No one hears me talk about the final outcome. In terms of Ra’mon, guess who bought that losing piece at auction? I have it and I know how truly ridiculous it is. It’s two pieces of neoprene. There isn’t even a stich anywhere. It’s held together with pins.

EW: I also didn’t love the contestants. Irina was a decent enough designer, but she was so unlikable. Of course, that may have been in the editing…
Gunn: The editing certainly shows less than what I see. It’s very considerate of them and doesn’t manipulate things to create a situation that isn’t. That’s why there wasn’t a lot of effervescence in season 6. If we really had a creative hand in stirring things up we certainly could have. But new network, new producers. At some point last season I became aware – with a startling amount of both anxiety and adrenaline – that I was the only one present who knew what happened when. No one else knew anything about the rhythm and cadence of the work room, trips to Mode, anything.

EW: There wasn’t even one producer brought over?
Gunn: Trust that there was a lot of seduction going on but the gauntlet was thrown.

EW: Anything scandalous happen this season that you can share?
Gunn: A few of the designers throw me under the bus and say “I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Tim Gunn.” During judging I am always standing in the back of the room not saying anything. But Heidi said, “I wish I had a red phone so I could call Tim Gunn and ask him.” And I said “I wish I had a red phone so I could call you!”

EW: Do you ever want to tip off the judges to backstage drama during the runway show?
Gunn: No, I don’t want the designers to think that I leak things. There are times when Heidi really wants to know what’s going on behind the scenes. I always say, “I’m sorry, Heidi. Church and state.”

EW: Let’s talk about this season’s contestants. Ping is definitely one of the more eccentric contestants and her first outfit was crazy. Was guest judge Nicole Richie on crack when she said it was one of her favorites?
Gunn: I love and adore you for saying that. That took her out of the bottom. I have to tell you about the auditions and Ping. She’s a really innovative designer but the bulk of what we saw was hand knits. I told her there’s no time for hand-knitting on the show. I asked how she would translate her vision and she gave a very good response. But the truth is, those items would have been much more believable had they been colored yarns.

EW: Do you cringe when a contestant, like Anna Marie Lynett, talks so pretentiously about being an “artist”?
Gunn: Yes. Yes, I do. I wasn’t at auditions last season but I was for season 7 and that was one of my roles in the auditions – to beat back at the producers when they’re seduced by personality. My role was to make certain who moved forward had the fashion credentials.

EW: I really hope Anthony has credentials because he is such a love of a character. He’s this season’s Chris March.
Gunn: He really is who he is. We didn’t make him up.

EW: When will you start shooting season 8?
Gunn: I don’t know! I’m desperate to know. I keep thinking surely Heidi knows.

EW: Do you think the show will ever go back to Los Angeles?
Gunn: The plan has been to alternate – one year in New York, one year in Los Angeles. I don’t know that we’ll ever go back to LA. though. Even though season 6 is behind us, people still have a good deal of venom about it.

EW: Any chance season 8 will go to London or somewhere equally fabulous?
Gunn: That would be nice. But even though it’s a new network and it’s season 7, we still don’t have money.

And just like the man mentioned, Tim's Take really IS back! I'm definitely not as into PR these days as I was when it first started, but I do enjoy reading Tim's thoughts as I munch on my ham sandwich during lunch. :o)

Stream Netflix on Your Wii!

Robert and I were JUST talking about the pros and cons of a Roku player not 3 days ago! My Netflix account has been on hold since November because, with all the TV I don't want to watch, we never had time to actually watch the movies I was paying for. But! Then Robert sent me this:

NEW YORK (AP) -- It's a triple crown for Netflix. Beginning in the spring, the Wii will become the last of the three current video game consoles to get instant viewing of Netflix movies and TV shows over the Internet.

Wii owners who have a broadband connection and a Netflix subscription that costs at least $9 a month will be able to watch those programs with no extra charge.

Netflix coming soon to the Nintendo Wii.

Nintendo Co. and Netflix Inc., which wouldn't give an exact launch date for the service, were set to announce the deal on Wednesday.

To watch flicks through the gaming system, Wii users will need a special "instant-streaming" disc that Netflix will mail out in the spring. They will then be able to use the Wii's motion controller to navigate through their Netflix account and pick what they want to watch. This setup is similar to the way Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 currently streams Netflix programs.

Owners of Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 can also stream Netflix, but the service is only available to Xbox Live "Gold" members, who pay $50 a year mainly to play games online.

The Wii is a great catch for Netflix because it gives it access to the living rooms of millions of potential new subscribers. It is easily the most popular gaming console in the U.S. with 26 million sold in the country through December, according to Nintendo.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has long said his company's goal is to offer movie streaming on as many devices as possible, including all three gaming consoles. Letting subscribers watch movies over the Internet is an increasingly important service for Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, Calif., even though the company says it expects to keep renting DVDs for another couple of decades.

Part of the reason for that is because it'll take some time for movies to become available for streaming. The company has about 17,000 movies and TV shows available for Internet watching, compared with more than 100,000 DVD titles it rents out.

In another sign of its commitment to streaming, Netflix said last week it will delay sending out Warner Bros.' latest movies by nearly a month so it can get rights to show its subscribers more movies over the Internet.

In addition to the three gaming systems, Netflix streaming is already available on devices such as the Roku digital video player, along with some Blu-ray players and Internet-connected TV sets. It's also available on computers.

But consoles represent an important entry point into millions of homes because so many people already own them. And offering service through the systems will likely also prompt existing Netflix subscribers who haven't tried streaming over the Internet to do so.

Hastings called the Nintendo deal a "big step forward" in advancing its streaming service.

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, said the company's first priority is always gaming, but it also wants to "continue to surprise our customers" by offering other activities.

Granted, I won't be able to stream the more obscure titles I like to rent but still - NICE! And handy.

Waffles & Burnt Penis

Yes, you read that correctly. And no, it's not a spin-off of Chicken & Waffles. I found two equally interesting but completely unrelated bits of information that I wanted to share and figured that title was as good as any. Short and sweet, right?

First up is an article from yesterday's EW.com PopWatch about Channing Tatum. Now, I do not particularly care for the Tatum; he's too beefy and blank to be a Hot Man and I've never actually seen any of the movies he's been in. But this particular article included the words "burnt penis" and "strippers" in the title so I had take a look! C'mon! You can read the full article here but this is the excerpt detailing the penile mishap:

I’ve heard about some serious but ultimately nonfatal movie injuries in my day, including Sylvester Stallone having to spend nine days in a hospital after filming his Rocky IV fight with Dolph Lundgren because the pericardial sac around his heart was swelling. This one tops that.

While shooting the epic battle film The Eagle of the Ninth in the Scottish Highlands last October, Channing Tatum burnt his penis. Why is this making news now? Because he recounts his ordeal in a current Details cover story titled Channing Tatum is Proud of His Package. Playing a soldier of Rome’s Ninth Legion, he had to wade in freezing water in a wetsuit. “The only way to keep warm was by pouring a mix of boiling water and river water down your suit,” he says. “We were finally done shooting for the day, and one of the crew guys asks if I want to warm up before I go. I’m like, Nah, I’m good. And then I thought, Why not? Thing is, he’d forgotten to dilute the kettle water. So he poured scalding water down my suit. And I was trying to pull the suit away from my body to somehow get away from the boiling water, and the more I pulled the suit away, the lower the water went. It just went straight down and pretty much burned the skin off the head of my d—.”



The closest hospital was an hour away. During the trip, the pain was unbearable. “I said to the driver, who was ex-special-forces Marines, ‘You might have to knock me out, because I don’t know if I can take the pain. Just grab something and hit me on the back of my head,’” he recalls. Morphine was administered at the hospital. “I had five guys looking at my shriveled, burned penis,” Tatum tells Details proudly. He also takes out his iPhone and shows the magazine’s writer pictures of his wounded member — which is now fully recovered.

I always enjoy me a candid man so while the story isn't enough to earn the Chan Man a spot on my Hot Men list, it does endear him to me just a smidgen more than before. Though, if I ever do wind up seeing one of his movies, his burnt member will be on my mind...

[Just as an aside, the first thing Robert did when I told him this story last night was say "Wow, he really did have burnt dick on his hand." For some reason, we really enjoy the Deuce Bigalow canon and in the 2nd film, the best, best scene is this one (watch from 6:40 - 7:13 to get the joke)]:

The second item up for discussion is the Web site Wafflelizer. Have you ever wondered if you could waffle-ize a hamburger or a S'more? Me neither. But, apparently, there's a huge group of people out there that are oddly obsessed with all things waffle and this site is dedicated to answering the age-old question "Will it waffle?" Definitely worth a gander. Not only do they tell you if it will waffle but they provide detailed photos and recipes so that you, too, can waffle-ize it in your own home. What more could you ask for?!

Movie Morsels 58: Avatar

*** WARNING! ***

If you haven't yet seen Avatar and don't want to have something that's pretty obvious from the first half-hour of the movie onward spoiled for you, run away now!











Okay. This is actually something that will probably only be of interest to Robert and Biji since we had a conversation on this very topic as we exited the theater. Though, after reading this article, I guess it was a hot topic for all viewers of the movie. You know what "it" is - the scene in the film where Jake and Neytiri, uh, mate for life before Eywa. As you recall, the scene is both vague but awkward. Had James Cameron had his original idea brought to life, however, it might've been just a wee bit more squirm-inducing. Or romantic, I guess, depending on if you're into that kind of thing.

[From EW.com] Fox released James Cameron’s original Avatar script online and despite the ambiguous intimacy we saw in the movie, it turns out Neytiri and Jake’s “tendrils INTERTWINE with gentle undulations.” Whoa! In the U.S. theatrical release, the pair only kiss a little (weak!) before the camera zooms out, and the next thing you know they’re on the ground, totally spent. It’s unclear why this wouldn’t have been included, but my guess is that it might imply that tendril-intertwining is what happens when the Na’vi have sex, which, I guess, by definition would mean they also had sex with the trees and the six-legged panther/dogs and the flying peacock lizards and anything else that ruffled their tendrils, and that might have been confusing and maybe made the whole thing less PG-13. Who knows? You can read the deleted section of the scene [below].

CAMERON’S ORIGINAL SCRIPT

He puts his face close to hers. She rubs her cheek against his. He kisses her on the mouth. They explore each other. Then she pulls back, eyes sparkling.

NEYTIRI: Kissing is very good. But we have something better.

She pulls him down until they are kneeling, facing each other on the faintly glowing moss.

Neytiri takes the end of her queue and raises it. Jake does the same, with trembling anticipation. The tendrils at the ends move with a life of their own, straining to be joined.

MACRO SHOT — The tendrils INTERTWINE with gentle undulations.

JAKE rocks with the direct contact between his nervous system and hers. The ultimate intimacy.

They come together into a kiss and sink down on the bed of moss, and ripples of light spread out around them.

THE WILLOWS sway, without wind, and the night is alive with pulsing energy as we DISSOLVE TO –

LATER. She is collapsed across his chest. Spent. He strokes her face tenderly.

I have to say, Robert, Biji and I all had the same idea about the whole Na'vi sex thing and agreed that, while the whole tendril-entwining thing made the most sense, it also basically implied that the Na'vi essentially rape the Ikran when 'bonding' with it. Which sort of puts a negative spin on things. Then again, as one commenter put it, "This is a science fiction STORY. It doesn’t have to fit northern hemisphere values."

I am, at the very least, glad that my friends and I were not the only ones spending too much time dissecting an alien sex scene...

A Little Garfunkel, A Few Heroic Pets

I feel a little reluctant to post yet another story/article about dogs because, as my sister so helpfully pointed out last weekend, dog posts have overtaken hot men posts on the blog. The horror!!!! I don't know what's happened to me... Or why my hot men haven't been more in the news of late. So just know that a hot men post is in the works.* Or very soon will be. I can't give you guys the wrong idea of what's important now can I?

While I wait for hot inspiration to strike, however, I will share a somewhat ramble-y story with you. The dog park where we usually take Garfunkel has been closed the past few weeks due to inclement weather so Robert has taken to walking the Funk around the neighborhood. A while back he met up with two other Meadowbrookers that had black Labs that play (off leash) together in a little grassy area in the complex. So Robert's become friends with the two dog owners and they often text Robert to let him know they're meeting up or they wave from the sidewalk below our patio and Garfunkel's resulting pig squeals alert us that it's his playtime. The last couple outings, however, Garfunkel has taken to chasing after a cat and not coming back when called. His two little friends seem to do just fine with outside distractions but Garfunkel cannot seem to let a cat... or a passerby... saunter pass without tearing off to molest it. Kimmie's dad and Trooper's mom both agree that Garfunkel has way more energy than their respective pets - even though they're all roughly the same age - and Robert's very disheartened at Garfunkel's behavior. He works with the Funk on recall a lot but when push comes to shove and the dog's distracted, he's just not going to do it. Garfunkel is so good at other commands and, honestly, he really isn't a hyperactive dog (he loooooves snoozing on our bed at all hours of the day). We just can't seem to curb him of his chasing instinct.

Robert and I were talking about it (again) last night after a particularly disastrous play date and I told him about Ricochet, a dog I'd read about on one of my puppy blogs. Ricki was raised from birth to be a service dog - seriously, there is video on her site of her owner starting to train her before she could open her eyes - but as she matured she became more and more interested in hunting birds and other prey. That, of course, put the kibosh on her service dog career; Ricki is now a SURFice dog, surfing for particular charities and/or specific disabled athletes. What's my point here? Well, that some dogs really do have Achilles heels that may prevent them from doing certain tasks. If a woman who started training her dog at 13-days-old can't break her dog of its hunting habit, we certainly aren't going to have any success with Garfunkel!!! Now, I'm not saying that with more (aggressive) training Garfunkel won't learn to come back 9 instead of 7 times out of 10. I'm merely saying that it's possible that his hunting/chasing drive is stronger than other dogs' and he may never, ever learn to come back EVERY single time he's called. Or maybe I'm delusional and full of crap. Who knows?

The other point to my story is to link to this story in USA Today about heroic pets, of which Ricki is one. See? It's all come full circle, people. Or almost, anyway.


* Sam Worthington is my new boyfriend so most likely he'll be the subject of any upcoming posts. Now, I normally don't like jumping on the current hot man bandwagon - I loved Ewan and Christian WAY before anyone else, dang it! - but his hotness cannot be denied. I toyed with making him my boyfriend after Terminator: Salvation but waited to see if his hotness would endure. Seeing as it was the best thing about Avatar for me (though I did like other things about the movie and the movie as a whole... calm down, Biji and Robert), I'd say it has. Whew!

Oh, Dug.

"I was hiding under your porch because I love you."

Just looking at this makes me smile. :o)

Each Hour Per DAY? Eek.

Thank you all for the wonderful birthday wishes. :o) I will definitely post more on the day's events a bit later on but for now I just wanted to share this article from the L.A. Times:

Watching television for hour upon hour obviously isn't the best way to spend leisure time -- inactivity has been linked to obesity and heart disease. But a new study quantifies TV viewing's effect on risk of death.

Researchers found that each hour a day spent watching TV was linked with an 18% greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, an 11% greater risk of all causes of death, and a 9% increased risk of death from cancer.

The study, released Monday in Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Assn., looked at health data among 8,800 men and women older than 25 who were part of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study. Participants recorded their television viewing hours for a week, and researchers separated the results by amount of viewing: those who watched less than two hours of TV a day, those who watched two to four hours a day, and those who watched more than four hours a day.

The subjects also had oral glucose tolerance tests to determine blood sugar and gave blood samples to establish cholesterol levels at the beginning of the study. People with a history of cardiovascular disease were not included. In a follow up about six years later, 87 people had died due to cardiovascular disease and 125 of cancer.

Researchers found a strong connection between TV hours and death from cardiovascular disease, not just among the overweight and obese, but among people who had a healthy weight and exercised.

People who watched more than four hours a day showed an 80% greater risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 46% higher risk of all causes of death compared with those who watched fewer than two hours a day, suggesting that being sedentary could have general deleterious effects. The numbers were the same after the researchers controlled for smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, an unhealthy diet and leisure-time exercise.

"What we showed was that irrespective of a person's exercise level, sitting for four or more hours watching television was linked to a significant increase in risk of death compared to watching lower amounts of TV," said Dr. David Dunstan, lead author of the study and professor and head of the Physical Activity Laboratory at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Victoria, Australia. "The message here is that in addition to promoting regular exercise, we also need to promote avoiding long periods of sitting, such as spending long hours in front of the computer screen."

To him, the results weren't unexpected. "When we're in that sitting posture, we're not using our muscles, and we know from extensive evidence that muscle contractions are important for the body's regulatory processes, such as the ability to break down glucose and use it as energy." That can cause insulin resistance, which can trigger a spike in blood sugar levels, possibly leading to type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Prediman K. Shah, director of the cardiology division of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, agreed. He pointed out that muscles become deconditioned when not used, triggering harmful physiological changes. "If your activity is slowing down, you metabolize cholesterol less and synthesize it more," he said.

Even sporadic exercisers who sit for long periods need to increase their daily activity.

"The physical activity we do over a 24-hour period is important," says Dr. Gerald F. Fletcher, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., and a spokesman for the American Heart Assn.

That means taking the stairs instead of the elevator, gardening, walking the dog . . .

"For couch potatoes, sitting on your duff is hazardous to your health," Shah said. "The bottom line is keep moving."

This very much does not bode well for me. There were 3 hours of Chuck to watch this week alone! I'm so screwed.

My New One Year "Anniversary"

The Daily Show: Just When WAS It a Simpler Time?

This was on last night's episode and I HAD to share. Had to. Just watch as "John Oliver searches for the simple time in American history that Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly want to return to."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Even Better Than the Real Thing
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Robert saw this with me and we both knew - it was going on the blog. It's too perfect not to!

TV Tidbits 83 - Man vs. Wild

Woohoo! A new season of Man vs. Wild starts tomorrow night - and the premiere episode looks like a doozy! Dude gives himself an enema while on a raft! CRAZY!!!

You can't - and probably don't want to - see that on any show! :o)

Bear also doffs his top while enjoying some fish eye... Yum. For the shirtless Bear, I mean. Not the fish eye.