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Summer 2006
Want Something
Praised or, well..."slashed"...? Send a note, and
we'll add it to the list!
Slash : To the latest victim of fair salesmanship.
Nobody knows who will win Rock Star Supernova as of the time I
write this. In fact, four people are likely to win. Buying a ticket now is
foolhardy because with five people still in the running, there's only a
20% chance your personal favorite will win...And yet to hear host Brooke
Burke tell it, the tickets for Supernova's New Years Eve show are already
sold out! Think about it. Who buys a ticket with only a 20% chance of
actually using it? The answer is one letter, and one word: E...bay.
Think I'm kidding? A casual search for "Supernova New Years Eve"
called up not one, but two separate auctions, each offering a pair of
tickets for an opening bid of $300. No bids have yet to be given...of
course, since nobody knows whether their favorite singer has even won yet.
What really surprises me though, is the foresight these auctioneers lack.
Don't they realize that with 20% chance of their favorite singer winning,
they also have around 20% chance of ever reselling the tickets? Think
about it...and good luck.
Slash : To Fanboys who seem to be shoehorning a
Nirvana song into every episode of Rock
Star: Supernova. Okay; so last year we had INXS play a lot of
their hits each week. That made sense, because, duh, they're INXS.
Supernova has no hits to its credit yet, so that means looking to other
bands. That's fair enough...and yet their band members come from Metallica,
Guns 'n' Roses, and Motley Crue. They have yet to play a single hit from
all three of those bands, which is just plain weird. One may ask what band
they are picking the most songs from, and the answer may surprise you...if
not annoy you, if you're not a fanboy. At least one Nirvana single is sung
every week. I'm no hater of Nirvana but could we show a little variety
please? It's almost like they're choosing bands whose songs are strictly
up to the interpretation. Did Dilana sing "Lithium" better, or
did Lucas? That's up to the fanboys to decide. For now I'm still wondering
what's with all the constant Nirvana. Enough.
 DOT
: To a reality TV judge who has what Simon Cowell would seem incapable of:
humility. On the hit FOX
summer series, So You Think You Can Dance, executive producer Nigel Lythgoe
(who is also a judge) has a tendency to be brutally honest, while not
being crude about it. Then on June 28th he rather
cattily asked one female dancer if she had seen Tim Burton's Corpse
Bride. What set this comment apart from the rest is how most times his
comments are mean yet instructive at the same time. The fact is that with
this unproductive comment, Nigel was out of line...and on the following evening, he
admitting so...and
apologized. In his own words, judges can be brutally frank at times, but
they wish to always leave the dancers with helpful advice that
they can use to improve their dancing career in the long run. Obviously, a
comparison to a corpse does not fit in that category. Mind you; he could
have taken the Simon Cowell approach, and ignored his cattiness
completely. Yet in confessing as much, Nigel showed a lot of humility and
class. It's a sad fact of life that when reality TV looks for an English
gentleman for American TV, they often overlook the "gentleman"
part. Nigel showed such class that night.
Slash : To The Coca-Cola Company, and their totally
annoying cinema commercials. Okay; so they want us to go to the lobby and
buy their soda products along with our popcorn. Do they have to use such sub moronically idiotic
commercials to do so? There's the Sprite commercial that warns you of
upcoming "Sub-lymon-al advertising" [groan!], where
a fat guy painted yellow and another fat guy painted green crash into
some dork. I'm guessing "we're" supposed to be represented by
the dork? Gee, thanks, Coca-cola; 'preciate it! Yet what about that other
commercial where some chick dressed like a French poodle tells us that
Dasani is so fresh and clean and Ooo-la-la? Like we're supposed to take
the advice of "fresh water" from a species that happily drinks
from the toilet? These commercials are enough for us to flock to Pepsi. Enough.
Slash :  To
Big Brother 7 (US edition), for promising an "all
star" edition that has all the signs of actually being a
"We'll Do ANYTHING To Give Kaysar A Third Try Edition." Okay; so
ladies like Kaysar. He lost. TWICE. Let. It. Go! Yet we're supposedly
promised an all-star edition, and there are about 10 other people I'd love
to see get their second chance at the million. Kaysar already got his
second chance and blew it. If these "all stars" agree to return,
only to have to play second fiddle to Kaysar getting the million "or
else," well, that just isn't fair, ladies. Of course; seeing as how
last season was unanimously received as one of their worst ever, we could
see "America's Choice" be the smart choice, and have at
least two people from each prior season. Then again; when the five
candidates chosen from season six just happen to be 80% of Kaysar's old
alliance, it would appear someone wants this to be a Kaysar-intense game,
right out of the gate. I have no complaints if Kaysar wins fair and
square, but come on; giving him his own "training
wheels" via his former alliance of James, Howie, and
Janelle, is going too far. After all; if he's as nice as ladies
like to think he is, can he not create a new alliance, and win the game fair and square? Cross your fingers, because if this is just going
to be "Big Brother 6 Part 2," man, this summer's Big Brother is
going to totally suck.
DOT
: To Disney World for finally "upgrading" a
formerly intended "limited edition" toy into the
"Standard" souvenir it now is. Last year, in honor of the final
Star Wars movie ever (or so we keep being told it was), Disney World sold
specially made Mickey Mouse plush toys, dressed as Jedi. As you would
expect. these toys sold out almost as soon as they hit the store shelf at
Disney's Star Tours ride. Seeing a golden opportunity go up in smoke was
not lost to those of us here at Techtite.com (where we even wrote a "Slash"
about it at the time), but fortunately for all of us, it wasn't lost to
Disney's top brass, either. Upon our recent trip to this year's Star Wars
Weekends, we were pleased to see that every bin that used to house those
stupid infernal Ewok toys was now filled with tons upon tons of Jedi
Mickey, who is now, we must assume, the ride's mascot. As he should've
been from the beginning, we say. Bravo!
DOT
: To the amusing "interactive" web site
promotions for at least two CBS shows, in honor of their May sweeps
episodes. CSI: NY
had an episode that ended with Stella trying to discover what her boyfriend
was hiding online, only to type in a web site address, look at the
monitor off-screen, and gasp, "Oh my gosh!" at what she saw.
Curious fans could type in the web site name as she did, "aresanob.com," and
see a mock web site of what she saw, followed by a sneak peek at the next episode.
Equally cool was CSI 's interactive "search
the clues" challenge, which hinted at what mystery our favorite
detectives would be solving in the season finale. The page even made your
mouse pointer into a magnifying glass that actually enlarged the screen as
it passed under it. I don't know how much these web sites promoted the
shows, since in order to know they were there you would have to have
already been watching the series. They were presumably meant as a
"thank you" to the series' diehard fans, and if that's the case:
hey, you're very welcome!
Slash : To those totally annoying Sprint commercials.
Are they trying to give their business to Verison or something? One
commercial has this guy sing "Seven...P...Mmmmm!" like it's such
a big deal that they give a good rate at 7 PM. If I had a Sprint phone I'd
use it to call this singer at 7 PM, just to insist he shut the heck up.
Then there's the cheesy commercial where they spin a "compliment
wheel" to see what compliment to use today for Sprint's cellular
plan. Heh-heh; the wheel always seems to fall on "That's
phenomenal...!" If only we could say the same for these
annoying commercials.
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