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I should have mentioned this previously, but I’ll post this now — the passing of Don Adams, a.k.a. Maxwell Smart of the “Get Smart” tv show. Check out the NY Times obit, or the Associated Press article. I didn’t realize that he did the voice of Inspector Gadget, although that makes sense, since that was his voice all right. (yeah, I watched Inspector Gadget when I was a kid).

The Museum of the Chinese in the Americas is going to expand. Cool.

“Veronica Mars” Season 2 starts tonight. The question is, when Veronica opens her door, already anticipating who it is, who will be it? Hmm.

I was out cold today because I caught P-‘s cold. Woke up with a splitting headache, so I took the day off and spent most of the day couched out and watching random things on TV, which turned out to be Discovery Channel.

On to the recaps… Amazing Race: Family Edition looks like it’s a very different Amazing Race. It looks like they are going to spend a lot of time in the U.S. That’s perfectly fine — many parts of the U.S. might as well be another country. They could barely figure how to get onto the Brooklyn Bridge, and they started the race under its shadow. Then, they were sent to the Delaware River in New Jersey, and then Amish country. I also think that 4 person teams allow for interesting activities that require more musclepower than 2 person teams. The buggy task was one clever task where a 2 adult, 2 child team had an advantage over a 4 adult team.

That brings up the continual gripe about the lack of minority participants in the Amazing Race. The only minority team, the Black family (that’s their last name, I’m not making it up) was eliminated by a very small margin. Where’s the Hispanic team? Where’s the Asian team?

On the other tuner, I watched Commander in Chief, ABC’s new series about a woman U.S. Vice President that assumes the presidency unexpectantly. A number of opinion writers in Slate and the Washington Post have mentioned, and I agree — why are our TV presidents so much better than our real ones? This is a series to watch.

FC’s the real Amazing Race fan, so I’d rather let him comment on it. But, I’m watching the 1st episode of this season, and it’s kind of annoying (I mean, families of four? And, where are the other people of color? Only one African-American family? Come on, Asians go around the world too!). nice start though – going from the park under Brooklyn Bridge and getting to Soho and racing to 92nd St/Lexington — a nice spin around NYC as a first leg. Let’s see who gets knocked out first.

P caught a cold on Thursday, and she’s still suffering from it today. However, today was the Atlantic Antic, the annual Brooklyn street fair. P- and I plowed through paella, chorizo, conch fritters, beef brisket, and Sex in the City-sized cupcakes, and Virgin Island rum cake. Also picked up a Circulon Dutch Oven for only $10.00. Availed of the $10 Chinese massage stand which has become a fixture at these street fairs — these guys tend to be good, because he picked up right away that I had overstressed my hands and shoulders on my Korean layout marathon. All in all very nice.

Saw Corpse Bride on Saturday. Neat stop-action movie; however, I didn’t walk away with a catchy theme I still have with The Nightmare before Christmas.

Finally put together the Ikea dresser that we had bought 2 weeks ago. It took me about 3 hours to get it together, but it is neat.

Desparate Housewives is quickly going into this bizzare Twin Peaks mode where a lot of people start dying. At least it isn’t like Lost, where they revisit the reverse speaking bit-character from Fire Walk With Me.

Amazing Race 8 starts on Tuesday. Let’s see how family teams of four can manage without needing counseling…

Thanks to the handy-dandy VCR, I’ve taped “Everybody Hates Chris,” so I’ll get to watch the show that the pro tv critics (and according to preliminary ratings, all other viewers) loved or were eager to try out. Eventually, anyway(Imagine if I had TiVo?)… Heavens knows, I’m a little behind on viewing things and reading things, and writing things…

But, I did get to watch the new “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.” It’s Martha, for gosh sake, so it’s very tasteful (as opposed to the usual pomposity of Donald Trump). Martha seemed very mellowed out (I suppose prison time does that, not to mention house arrest and the ankle bracelet to keep track of oneself). I thought the first episode played up the whole Martha brand very well – Martha built her company, made mad money, and is a true corporate big shot (I’d rather buy Martha or Oprah approved water over Trump bottled water, I shall say; Oprah Winfrey’s bigger than Martha or Trump, I might add – although, I’m sure she wouldn’t just pick any lousy Apprentice and would take the higher road of teaching the universe). Martha’s Apprentice contestants are already sickeningly obnoxious – one guy was such a jerk. To me, though, the weirdest thing was that the contestants were so white. Only one Asian female. Huh? Martha, I could have sworn the corporate world is getting to be/trying to be more diverse. And, yeah, Martha handwriting a letter of consolation to the fired contestant is a bit of a, well, hokey-pokey thing if you asked me. Like, don’t you have an assistant to just type it up for you, Martha? As Newsday’s tv critic Verne Gay (who didn’t really like the new Martha show all that much) observes:

And there lies the key problem with “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart,” which is otherwise better looking than the original.

There is no fear in this show or any of the doom, shame, ignominy or flat-out reprobation that comes with getting one’s head handed to one by the Donald. This show’s light (his is dark.) This one’s happy (his threatening.) Martha laughs (he scowls.)

Without fear, there is no danger and without danger, no drama. And drama, along with that magnificent cheeseball, Donald Trump, is what makes the original “Apprentice” work so well.

The contestants are good — sharp, obnoxious and terribly blonde for the most part. But where is an African-American contestant? Just wondering.

Yeah, sure, you almost miss the stereotypical Angry Person of Color. Too many obnoxious white folks don’t make “a good thing” (and, yeah, I’ll borrow that Martha-ism).

Hurricane Rita coverage.

Alma Mater Young Alumni organization held a wine tasting event on Thursday night, at the Burgundy Wine Company in the vicinity of the Flatiron Building. I like this kind of stuff – for a decent price, you get to sample stuff. I’m not a wine drinker, but I figure if I like it, I like it. Red wines and white wines were available; the two red wines I tried – I liked them – they were “earthy” (as the purveyor said) and fruity (I’m no expert, but that’s the word I’m picking); the whites were a little more dry for me, so I’m more partial to the reds (I liked the color and smell too). TV food shows capture the food sense; I haven’t been appreciative of how wines get taught on the tv food shows. Ah, well.

I’m in an Asian Standard Time zone; I got suckered into helping a Korean group with a printing job. They farmed out the job to a high school student, which by itself is not a problem, but the student tried to lay out 56 pages using Photoshop and set the resolution to 72 dpi. Ouch. I spent the last 48 hours (2 micro-all nighters) whipping it into shape and getting it to the printer. At least I’m getting paid for it. Now that I’m trying to go to sleep, I can’t. Probably a walking zombie again tomorrow morning….