Month: August 2006

SSW mentioned this fall’s 4-way apartheid Survivor: Cook Islands today. City officials are appropriately outraged, but the question ithat occurs to me is whether there were this many Asians applying for the previous 12 seasons? Amazing Race has 2 Asian teams this year, apparently also to address the reality of the situation. The only Asian American to win a reality show was Dorothy Hui in Anderson Cooper’s The Mole 2 – the Next Betrayal.

The subway nerds ride the entire system in 24 hours 2 minutes. One of them is a U.Mich law student. More people would consider doing it if there were more restrooms than the measly 70 rooms out of 469 stations currently available. Maybe the people fighting over the above-ground street furniture could also do the subways and save everyone a lot of aggrevation.

Umm, yeah, sorry, the official announcement’s out: Pluto is the (Dwarf) Planet.  Not a planet (or at least of the major ones of our solar system).  Lots of corresponding videos on the story too – loved how CNN has as its space correspondent Miles O’Brien on the story (CNN.com has video where O’Brien talks to Hayden Planetarium’s own Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the topic of Pluto’s demotion – which Tyson had got on the bandwagon long ago).  As crazy as it sounds, the Trekkie in me would say – “Ohmigod, Miles O’Brien?” – which I’m sure this non-fictitious O’Brien has to put up with from Star Trek fans.  But, come on, Star Trek’s Chief Miles O’Brien was a great guy!  And, I’m sure he liked Pluto… or would like Pluto, anyway.
The gimmick of this upcoming season’s “Survivor” – wherein team’s are initially set by race/ethnicity (that is, before the presumed merger, where one tribe is made to determine the ultimate winner) – well, it just gives me pause.  A long pause.

Ah – “Scrubs.” As a tv show, it makes me both laugh and cry. So sweet and fantastic.

Caught most of the re-airing of the season premiere of “Prison Break” on FOX. Looks like Wentworth Miller’s Michael Scofield has an opposition that actually is on his level of cleverness. Michael’s love interest, the prison doc Sarah is left in a rather bemused mood (well, who can blame her?). His brother Lincoln’s ex-girlfriend/lawyer… well, let’s just say… poor Veronica.

An article on the man behind Elmo. Cool:

Mr. Clash, a six-foot-tall African-American puppeteer, created that bright-red Muppet monster from “Sesame Street.” You know, the one with the falsetto and constant laugh. Although Mr. Clash, 45, has been Elmo’s constant companion for 20 years, he has not been nearly as identifiable as most celebrities. So a common reaction from some black adults — children ignore him and talk directly to Elmo — is “Elmo is a brother!” Mr. Clash said.

“It’s pertinent,’’ Mr. Clash said of his racial identity, during an interview in his small Sesame Workshop office near Lincoln Center in Manhattan. He has just started promoting his book, “My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught Me About Life, Love, and Laughing Out Loud” (Broadway Books). It goes on sale Sept. 5. [….]

Elmo was born in 1983, Mr. Clash writes. Mr. Clash was a Muppeteer in training when a “Sesame Street” colleague tossed him “a shapeless, soft bundle of red” — the show wanted a red monster — and challenged him to come up with a voice for the thing.

“His voice couldn’t be too primitive,” Mr. Clash recalled the other day. “He wasn’t as articulate at first. I’d used that falsetto voice in my characters before. When he gave me the puppet, I knew that was the voice.”

There is now a veritable Elmo empire, with dolls, puppets, videos and books, among many other products. [….]

Comic strip follow up: So, Mary Worth got mad at her stalker and slams the door on him. Yeah, that’s right.