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They Thought We’d Never Notice

September 2, 2011 By

Has anyone seen that commerical for tooth whitening where the woman gets invited to Vegas and they’re going to be there in 2 hours? I have a bunch of issues with this commercial:

First, where in the heck do they live that’s only 2 hours from Vegas? If you leave Las Vegas and drive for 2 hours (assuming there’s no traffic and you can do the speed limit), you end up in the middle of nowhere. There are a few smaller towns about 90 minutes away (Kingman, Laughlin, Mesquite) but I don’t get the sense that they’re the kind of towns that girls who live there go, “Woo hoo! Vegas road trip!”

They’re seen driving over the new Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge not once, but twice. Really?

Then there’s the sign that says Las Vegas City Limits. It’s in the middle of the desert, which leads me to believe that it’s the sign you see when you enter Vegas from either US-95 or I-15 coming from the north. For those not in the know, the actual city limits of Las Vegas are in the middle of the city – the southern edge of the city being Sahara Avenue. Everyone who’s ever been to Vegas knows that all the good parts of the Strip are SOUTH of Sahara. So where exactly is the Strip? It’s in unincorporated Clark County. I did a paper on this for a Nevada history class, but that’s another post for another day. What I’m trying to say is, if you are traveling into Las Vegas from the south, like these women apparently are since they crossed the bridge over the Hoover Dam not once, but twice, then you’ll see the city limit sign after you’ve been driving through populated areas for a while.

The only thing I can conclude from this commercial is that these women live in Boulder City and have absolutely no sense of direction, which is why what would normally be a 20 minute drive took them 2 hours. Apparently they left on this road trip, headed south, went over the bridge into Arizona, realized their mistake, turned around and went over the bridge again, majorly overshot the city by taking I-93/95/515 north through the Spaghetti Bowl, ended up on US-95 or I-15 way north of town, turned around again, headed south and finally found all the bright shiny lights.

Or maybe they’re smarter than we thought and took the “scenic” route so those whitening strips would have time to do the job. Then they could pick up that hottie they see the minute they get to Vegas, who is also obviously lost because after 8 years of living here, I have yet to see a single tourist who looks that good and that well put together yet appears to be here alone.

I think that pretty much explains it. Though I’m still not quite sure why it appears that they are driving over the bridge in the same direction both times.

Don’t you love it when there are obvious inaccuracies in movies, tv shows, and commercials when it comes to certain locations?

As a side note, I have to give credit to the people in charge of the original Las Vegas version of CSI. I’ve seen a few episodes when one of their investigations is featured on the news (on the show) and they show our actual newscasters from our local CBS affiliate. It’s not a show I watch regularly, but I give them kudos for getting it right.

Filed Under: Funny, TV

Olympic Fever

February 18, 2010 By

I have to admit – I’m not typically a sports fan. Even being from Massachusetts, aka Red Sox Nation, I did not watch the World Series when the Sox won, or the Super Bowl when the Patriots won. I know, I should totally turn in my Masshole card, right?

But now it’s Olympics time. I don’t know what it is about the Olympics that makes me want to watch sporting events on tv. I don’t watch X-Games or any of the figure skating competitions that eventually qualify athletes for the games, but as soon as a sporting competition calls itself THE OLYMPICS, I’m all over it. Suddenly, I can’t get enough. I’ve been staying up way too late to watch the games – I should totally get a gold medal for still being able to work in my sleep deprived state.

I’ve been watching more events this time around than usual. Most of the time I will watch the figure skating, but not anything else. I have a soft spot in my heart for figure skating. In my first two years of high school, we had an ice rink and a figure skating club at school. I joined, and learned a few things, but I wasn’t very good. It’s still my favorite sport to watch, probably because I know how hard it is to do even the simplest jumps and spins.

And national pride! Boy does that ever come out during the Olympics. Watching the USA win gold has me on my sofa, doing a fist pump in the air and chanting, “USA! USA! USA!” along with the crowds on tv. But really, I’m rooting for all the athletes. I think there’s a level of sportsmanship in the Olympics that you don’t see with professional sports. When a competitor falls or misses their mark, the concern shows on the faces of all the other athletes. They sincerely congratulate each other on a job well done. The Olympic spirit is there, and it’s what makes the games worth watching, which I will be doing tonight, and for the next week as the games continue.

I got so bitten by the Olympic bug that I went and downloaded “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus. Don’t hate me.

Filed Under: TV

Open Letter to HGTV

September 11, 2009 By

Dear HGTV,

I have been a huge fan ever since I realized that you had a whole channel dedicated to home decorating and design. Even as a teenager, I preferred house and home magazines to fashion and gossip, so this new channel was right up my alley.

Over the years, shows came and went, got more sophisticated, and more variety was introduced to viewers. I really enjoyed that period in the mid-90s when you had a few British decorating shows in your lineup. My favorite shows are those that feature organizing (get more out of your space) and budget decorating (get more out of your money). I like seeing the actual makeover process on any program, because I think viewers can get the most out of it and gather ideas along with processes to spif up their own homes.

Then came the real estate shows. House Hunters was boring until you started going to other cities besides LA. Even then, I didn’t watch it much until you went overseas. House Hunters International allows me (and others, I’m sure) to live vicariously through others and shop for homes in locales that we only dream of visiting, never mind living in.

My First Place was a show I liked when it first aired. Again, it was the makeover and budget part of it that I liked. When it turned into another version of House Hunters, I got bored. Property Virgins is yet another incarnation, but with a less likeable host (bring back Suzanne Whang). And don’t even get me started on The Property Shop. I can barely stand to watch the commercials for that show, never mind the show itself, because I just don’t like Tatiana. Now, if you were to show the inner workings of a design firm, let me know. That one I’d be interested in watching.

My point is this: the real estate stronghold on your prime time programming is getting boring. No, not getting – it got old a long time ago. I do understand that in these hard economic times, you are looking at your production costs as much as possible. I’m sure it is much less expensive to point a camera in the face of someone who is already going through the process of buying a home than it is to pay for all the labor and materials involved in making over someone’s space. I get that. But for those of us who are staying put, who want to enjoy the space they live in, what do we get to watch?

Before you go and tell me that there are decorating shows on at other times, let me tell you this: I am writing this post from my desk at work, during my lunch break. Many other people reading it are also at work, just like you at HGTV are. Prime time is pretty much the only time I watch tv, though I have been making an exception for Design Star.

Back to my main point. I think you need to bring back more shows that are based on decorating – actually doing something to the inside of your home, and showing the process. Budget decor and organizing shows, both of which show how to get more out of what you already have as I mentioned above, would be very timely with the economy being what it is. From perusing the HGTV message boards, I know that I am not the only one who is tired of all the real estate shows. That being said, there are some real estate shows that are helpful. I like Real Estate Intervention, and Design to Sell and Get It Sold are both useful even to those of us not trying to sell a home. What these 3 shows have in common is useful information. Showing people wandering around trying to figure out what home to buy is not useful. We need the most bang for our cable TV buck, so give us some eye candy along with useful information.

Please consider what your viewers want. Many probably still watch all the real estate because they watch HGTV out of habit, not because they actually want this. Read your message boards – don’t make us start an email campaign to get what we want. I long for the day when I can once again watch decorating and design shows on HGTV.

Sincerely,
A longtime viewer

Filed Under: TV

Everyone’s Waiting

February 14, 2009 By

Mister and I watched the rest of Six Feet Under last night. If you’ll remember, I bought it for him for his birthday, and we’ve been watching it in bits and pieces ever since. We stayed up way too late to finish watching the series, because the final season was just so riveting that there was no way we could go to bed without finding out what happened. *Warning: if you haven’t seen the show, there are some spoilers in this post. I don’t think I can say what I need to by being cryptic about what happens on the show.*

I did have some tears rolling down my cheeks during the last, oh, 3 episodes or so. It’s hard not to shed some tears when you see characters that you’ve gotten to know showing their grief in such a raw and unhindered way. About halfway through the final episode, it occurred to me that the characters weren’t just mourning the loss of a loved one. They did that in the very first episode of the first season, when the family patriarch died, and got on quite a bit better than they did here. In this one, they weren’t just mourning Nate. They were mourning the loss of their lives as they knew them. In that episode, every single character was standing on the edge of a major life change. Claire is on the edge of something great – with her art and with Ted. David and Keith are parents. Brenda is about to have a baby. Ruth is starting to embrace the freedom she has in no longer being required to be a homemaker. Rico is taking his family forward by starting his own business. Every single person is on the edge of their own personal greatness, but they spend most of the episode mourning the familiar, the way their lives used to be.

That’s the way major life changes are. There is usually so much good wrapped up in them, but it’s stressful at the same time. We do mourn what we used to have and the way things used to be, even though we know things will be better. That’s the way I’ve felt lately. I’ve been incredibly weepy, stressed, and not as jovial as I usually am. I know things are changing, they already have due to circumstances beyond my control. I’m sure my husband feels the same way, but without as many tears and emotional outbursts as I’ve had, because he’s better at controlling that sort of thing than I am. Right now we’re at a point where there will be some major changes, but we don’t know what just yet. We need to decide which road to take from here. My husband says life always seems harder when you’re going through a growth period, and that’s where we are at. We’re just waiting to see what direction life will take us in. That part isn’t quite clear yet, but what is clear is that we are in this together – lifting each other up, supporting each other, and having no shortage of hugs and tenderness to help us get through this.

Filed Under: Deep Thoughts, TV

Monday Miscellany

November 12, 2007 By

The Beeb

Boyfriend has been spending a lot of time with his new girlfriend, Beeb. How strange it is to find a native Californian, with no concept of a holiday like we have in New England, eating weird foods like sushi and avocado, and yet he has such a fine appreciation for Jolly Olde England. His only caveat about watching it so much is that he is tempted more and more to just sell everything and move there. Now, I’ve been to the UK – 3 times, in fact. I love it there – LOVE it. And I don’t think I would hesitate too much if that ever became a reality. I’d just end up overthinking it – the logistics of moving overseas, the logistics of being American in a foreign country, etc. And that sort of overthinking would stress me out to no end. But it would be a good kind of stress. So, (insert British accent here) dear Boyfriend, keep spending time with Beeb, sweetie darling.

The Post Office

The post office, like all government offices, was closed today for Veteran’s Day. When I have to work, as does everyone I know, on these so-called “floater” holidays (aka bank holidays, aka if you’re lucky you get one or two of these off per year in addition to the big holidays), we tend to forget that things like the post office are closed. I had my latest mix CD to mail out for the exchange, and considering what a procrastinator I can be, I wanted to mail these out the minute I was done with them rather than let them languish in my car for a month. So after work I stopped in at the post office, and for a second I was relieved that it wasn’t crowded. Until I realized that the main post office in all of Las Vegas would never be that deserted unless it was closed. Have no fear, they have an automated postage machine that’s available 24 hours. It’s like an actual clerk without the human. I had 11 packages and no complicated questions, and I was paying with a debit or credit card, so I figured that this would be easy. Until it decides that each individual package is a separate transaction. After swiping my card, entering my pin, and taking a receipt 4 times, I decided to just buy the stamps, since I knew exactly how much they were. This nifty machine lets you buy stamps in any denomination you want. I needed 7 more stamps for $1.14 each. BUT this silly little machine only has the ability to do 5 at a time. Two more transactions later and I was done. I took my 6 receipts, stuck my postage on the packages, and dumped them in the parcel drop. Phew! Next time the post office decides to take one of their bi-weekly holidays, I’ll plan ahead and NOT TRY TO MAIL SOMETHING.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Boyfriend decided after dinner that he wanted dessert. Since we haven’t been shopping yet, we didn’t have anything dessert-like in the house. Boyfriend was asking for cookies, so I went to the store to get the rest of the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, since as far as cookies go, they are the easiest as far as I’m concerned. Now, I do realize that we’ve been trying to eat healthier by shopping at non-crap stores like Trader Joe’s, there’s only one recipe I was considering for chocolate chip cookies: the recipe found on the back of a Butter Flavor Crisco can. Oh yeah, not just lard – butter flavored lard! I just hope the darn things last until I get home from work tomorrow.

Delta Airlines & Orbitz

Waaaay back in February, I booked a ticket to Southwest Florida International Airport so that I can spend time with my sister and my newest niece, Mia, for Thanksgiving. I did my homework and instead of choosing the absolute cheapest flight I found, I took my sister’s schedule into consideration and picked a flight that would arrive and leave at times that were convenient for her, so no late night arrivals or early morning departures. In fact, I’m not even coming or going during Mia’s nap time. I was also watching the connection times. There is no such thing as a non-stop flight from Las Vegas to Ft Myers, so I knew I’d have a connection. On such a busy traveling weekend, I did not want a tight connection, so I picked an itinerary with a 3 hour connection in Atlanta. Not my first choice of airports, but whatever. 3 hours should allow for a delay and still get my on my connection.

Back in June, I got an email from Orbitz telling me that the airline has made a change to my itinerary. I looked over the email, and the new itinerary and old one were exactly the same, so I did nothing, as advised by Orbitz if all was acceptable. Well, today I decided to log into Orbitz to check things over, and there was a change – a big one. They changed not just the time of my flight, but my entire flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta, leaving me with – get this – a 34 minute connection. Totally unacceptable, even if I was connecting in a teeny tiny 1-room airport during the slowest of travel times. So I called Delta India, spent 20 minutes explaining to the guy why a 34 minute connection was unacceptable and I wanted to be back on the original flight I booked, put up with him as he tried to fly me out of Vegas on Wednesday night (to make my connection Wednesday morning in Atlanta), put up with him as he changed my Atlanta to Fort Myers flight, then finally got it right by putting me back on my original flight. Grrr. He emailed me a new copy of the itinerary, and I have a printout of the original flight change email, “new” itinerary, and the email from Delta India with my old new itinerary. I’m not checking any luggage, and I don’t plan on getting all pissed off, I just want to get to Ft Myers. I’ll get there early and with plenty of smiles to make sure I get on the flights I booked. Something tells me I’ll be ok getting to Florida, since most people don’t all fly on the same day going to their Thanksgiving destination. However, they all absolutely must fly home on that Sunday, so something tells me I’ll have issues while connecting in Cincinnati on my way home. I’ll let you know.

So that’s all for now. Time to start composing my post for Tuesday, in which I reveal my latest mix exchange CD.

Filed Under: Food, Grrr, Travels, TV