I love C-Span

Man I love C-Span. My radio alarm clock is set to C-Span, so that every morning I get to wake up to the sound of people politely disagreeing with each other, giving speeches, or -- my favorite -- calling in to "Washington Journal."

The ratio of insanos to normals that call in to Washington Journal is approximately 12 to 1, which is why I love and look forward to hearing that show every day. It doesn't matter what topic is being discussed, who is on the show, nothing-- Americans who badly need to refill their meds call in to discuss whatever the voices in their head want to talk about, and they do it at length.

Highlights include: Painfully long pauses; bitter, spitting rants; prolonged "uhhhh" sounds; blaring feedback from people who have their television on in the same room, hoping to hear themselves call in; and some of the best conspiracy theories I've ever heard in my life.

Why I Don't Own a TV

A jerk friend of mine just noted that it looked like I tried to hit the "I don't have a TV because I'm too cultured" red button that's supposedly some kind of hip-ass blogger secret handshake.

Allow me to clarify.

Many years ago, we had free cable. Then one day, the guys downstairs cancelled their cable, and suddenly the "free" cable we had been enjoying went away. Outrage!! We weren't about to start paying for cable, so we just broke out the rabbit ears and settled in to watch the one station that could make it all the way to our pathetic, ancient TV -- Fox 5.

6 months ago, that TV died while my roommate was watching baseball.

So eff you. I'm not cool, i'm just lazy and poor.

Hurricane Reality TV Show

Hurricane!!! AAAAGHHH!!!!

It's funny how isolated you are when you don't own a television. It means that you miss out on what half the fricking people around you are talking about...whether it be "Who Wants to Marry a Real World," or "White Guys in Suits Scream at Each Other," or the new reality show, "Hurricane!!"

Apparently, there's been a ton of hype about "Hurricane!!", because when i mentioned to a co-worker yesterday that I hadn't heard of it, she was like "are you an idiot? Hurricane is tomorrow!!" Then she went to go "stock up on supplies," beer or snacks or whatever I guess. But people seem excited about it.

My knee hurts.

I Love Eggs

There's been a lot of anti-Eggs hate literature out there over the years, so I just wanted to go on the record as being objectively pro-Eggs. (NOTE: I know, it's not logically possible to be "objectively" pro-something. But such is the nature of our political discourse lately; it now somehow makes sense to infer that no outside forces influenced my decision to love eggs. It just happened that way.) Omelettes are great. The over-easy egg: great. Frittatas, the egg's answer to meatloaf: great.

And let's not forget foods that aren't egg-based, but are merely enhanced by the power of eggs. Bacon, for example. And you can't even have caesar salad without both egg in the salad, and egg yolks in the dressing itself (NOTE TO J: you were right, i checked with Tamburri this weekend. It is egg yolks, not egg whites. This fact does not, however, make you the boss of me.).

Honestly, I don't understand what all this anti-egg hysteria is about, but I'm not going to be intimidated. I will continue to enjoy whatever eggs I please: Chicken, salmon, orangutan, whatever. Yeah.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

That flamboyant pirate Jack Sparrow (the ever tongue-in-cheek Johnny Depp) owes his soul to the infamous undead pirate Davy Jones and must save it by locating the chest that holds the dead man's broken heart, which will set Jack free. The engaged Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann need to get Jack's compass, which points to a large treasure, into the hands of a corrupt British trader in order to save themselves from a jail sentence for aiding in Jack's escape. The ensuing two-and-a-half-hour extravaganza entangles the three protagonists' lives again and offers everything from a grand bar brawl to a three-way sword fight on a spinning wheel to the attack of a ship-swallowing Kraken. Whereas the original Pirates was a surprisingly good cinematic rendering of a theme-park attraction, Gore Verbinski's sequel feels like an overly long, if impressively dazzling, roller-coaster ride that sets up part three. It's saved by its leads (particularly Depp), Davy Jones's creepy-looking fish-man crewmates, and a sense of grandeur befitting its high-seas hijinks.

THE DISC: While there is plenty of Pirates propaganda — scenes from the premiere at Disneyland, promotion of the revamped Pirates ride, congratulatory production profiles — the extras also reveal the mounting frustrations, tension, dangers, and difficulties in creating an epic that encompassed 1,000 people and several months of filming in remote locations, with a script that had barely been finished by the start of production. The Pirates films may be fun to watch, but they're a logistical nightmare to create.