Hmmm... guess you can only eggspect sew muck frm ‘The Most Trusted Name
in News.’
:::
“I don't think the purpose of government is to control the people, it's
to respond to their will.”
— White House Press Sec. Tony Snow
Oh, right! He was talking about
Iraq, not the US government... Besides misleading and manipulation isn't quite
the same thing as control.
Floyd ‘Odysseus’ Landis
Well, this year's Tour de France is over, and I doubt that many people who were
hoping for an American podium placement were expecting the kind of plot twists
this year's race provided.
At the prologue, I'm willing to bet that Hincapie
and maybe even Julich were bigger favorites than Landis, and that's not saying
much, because there was no resounding favorite. July 22 and 23, the broadcasters
chirped poetically about ‘an American in Paris’ for the eighth straight year
— something that was looking a bit unlikely even three stages before the
grand finale. The twists and turns were more than enough to keep me watching.
Still, there was something soporific about the OLN coverage this year. Maybe
they've all been working together too long, and sometimes the tone of Roll,
and especially Trautwig was just too soothing. To make matters worse, Paul
Sherwin and Phil Liggett were way too obvious in how they would pass
their banter back and forth. Example: Phil would pose a question to Paul, who
would answer; then Phil would come back and expound on the matter, sounding
like a seasoned expert. I guess the idea is that Phil is just standing in for
some random member of the audience, who wants to know. Too bad they don't read
real viewer e-mail. That might be more interesting.
Phil is the color commentator
who tries to call the final sprints like an excited football
(soccer?)
announcer,
and
Paul
is
Mr.
arcane
facts
and big
picture. The two of them utter some pretty funny (and recognizable) phrases
from the announcer booth, and it turns out the cycling world has responded
with the
idea of PnP
Bingo.
It's
a great idea — fill cards with a random selection of famous Phil and Paul
phrases, and hand them out to the players. Each player crosses off a phrase
whenever one of the announcers utter them, preferably while nursing a pint
or sipping a fine French
wine... Hey, it might just help ward off the nods.
Somewhere toward the middle of this year's coverage,
it seemed that Al Trautwig stopped reading web addresses on-air. He had a nasty
habit of referring to the slash (/) character as backslash (\) — a
common, and fairly annoying malapropism. Maybe Al has been straightened
out by now... Either way, thankfully, I won't have to hear Bob Roll say ‘toor–day–France’ again
for another year — it makes me cringe every time.
:::
Warren played at a little club called Society last night. They
cooked.
:::
Diplomacy... whatever.
I don't have a lot to say about the ugly situation in Lebanon right now. I
was thoroughly disgusted to read on Sunday that the US was rushing deliveries
of ‘precision guided bombs’ to Israel, even as they made noises
about a diplomatic mission for Rice. My bet is that the bombardment and combat
continue for another
two to four weeks, at least.
It's also repulsive that Bush talks about ‘protecting human life’ in
the form of embryos, while blithely writing off hundreds thousands
of civilian casualties.
:::
Well, at least it's a paycheck, I guess.
:::
HeadOn: Apply directly to the forehead (repeat 3x)...
Looks
like the same company also markets ActivOn and FreedHem hemorrhoid cream. All
of them are applied directly to where the pain is, and their favorite announcer
trick is repeating their annoying catchphrase three times in rapid succession.
I'm not sure if I actually saw an Enzyte commercial right after a HeadOn commercial,
but I suddenly imagined what the commercial would sound like if those guys came
out with a ‘male enhancement’ [wink-wink] product — HardOn: apply directly to
the penis (repeat 3x)...
