Joy for Three-Day Weekends! Plus, take a moment to reflect on Martin Luther King, and the dream that America’s race relations will work out someday.
TV viewing: Thursday night – I watched WB’s hilarious “Beauty and the Geek 2” last night – season premiere. Premise: the social experimentation of pairing academically brainless beauties with socially inept geeks in a competition. Each would then learn to overcome their personal weaknesses and get over stereotypical ideas. This season, there’s more ethnic and racial diversity – an African-American beauty; an East Asian Rubic’s Cube geek; a South Asian MIT grad; some Jewish geeks; and the (stereo)typical blonde bimbos. The geeks are geekier. But, I think the commentary on MSNBC captures the appeal of the show – on the one hand, one wonders if the cast is exagerrating their eccentricities for the camera (this is the reality tv age, after all), but there’s enough good humor and a touch of sensitivity to make it a little authentic (and more watchable than “The Bachelor” or a lot of other crappy reality shows). of course, what this really means is that the quality of my tv viewing has really gone down.
Nice analysis on MSNBC of Thursday night’s “Dancing with the Stars.” I just hope that enough people will harp on the lousy music such that ABC will be forced to do something about it. Oh, and too bad to Tatum O’Neal – she got booted out of the competition on Friday, since she didn’t get enough votes.
Slate’s Sara Dickerman comments on the NY Times’ Macaroni and Cheese recipe (which I agree with her – it is strange to see that it has been the most e-mailed article according to NY Times’ statistics). Dickerman’s of the view that one needs the liquid ingredient to make good macaroni and cheese, as opposed to Moskin’s rather dry but easy bake recipe. It’s not like I tried the recipes either (I don’t cook), but I liked the writing of NY Times’ Julia Moskins, so I liked the accompanying article. And, it’s good that someone like Dickerman tried the recipes and can report how they really turned out.
Figure skating on tv this weekend – and the question on what to do with Michelle Kwan. I feel bad for the competitors who are just trying to chase their own dreams and just not sure whether Kwan will figure in or not. And, as usual, the men’s figure skating get no respect (not that they deserve too much, since they aren’t as up to snuff). Oh well…
Oh, and football too. I make no predictions, but well, let’s see what the Colts can do.