More Brilliance From Current InfoMania: Cougar Convention

I laughed. Then thought about the fact that most of these people are able to vote in our national elections.

Giving Cougars a Bad Name

Some observations about this pod:


1. Nothing wrong with the whole Cougar lifestyle -- if that's what you're into --- but these d-bags and the unfortunate women they roped into the clip give it a bad name.

2. The 'director' looks like the runt cousin of David Faustino

3. What do you call the dudes who acquiesce or succumb to cougars? In this particular clip, I think Wikipedia gets part of it right:

"it hunts species as small as insects and rodents"

Question: What is the Saddest Thing About Lou Dobbs' Dye Job?

Image Source: MSNBC.com

A few weeks ago while channel surfing in some hotel during a business trip I was stopped short by a close up shot of Lou Dobbs on CNN. I don't watch much of Lou Dobbs Tonight because I don't have much patience for self-important grandstanding. So maybe this dye job he is sporting isn't news to folks, but it jolted me a bit. I remember Lou being pretty gray up top ~7 years ago when he was doing CNN's Moneyline News Hour and launching Space.com.



Image Source: CNN

So to see him with a rejuvenated thatch of red hair was a surprise.

After processing the shock, I thought to myself that this is generally sad, but I'm not sure what exactly is the saddest part:

- Is it a national "news" figure so vain and insecure that he feels compelled to dye his hair and is perhaps deluded enough to think people don't notice that he is dyeing his hair?

- Or is it the likelihood that if he didn't dye his hair an even smaller share of the American "news" viewing public would tune into his program because, for a depressingly large percentage of people, surface appearances trump content quality when determining which channel to watch.

What Will People Think of Today's TV in 2037? Consider "Alice" in 1977 for Perspective

While doing some random channel surfing a few days ago I stopped for a few minutes of Alice, the Linda Lavin and Vic Tayback vehicle about a hardscrabble yet lovable lout [Mel] who runs his Phoenix diner with the same gruff bravado he used to run his kitchen in the Navy.

I vaguely remember laughing along with the Mel, Alice and Flo hijinks as the show went into syndication in the mid / late 80s. But then I wasn't approaching my youthful TV watching in those days with an especially enlightened or critical mind and, besides, 'times were different'. But, wow, seeing this show in 2007 and realizing it was a big, national hit for 10 years makes you realize just how much times have changed in 30 years. Some of the lines from the episode that I stumbled upon recently, Mel's Cup, were stunningly dated when heard in today's world. For example, when it is realized that the ladies of the diner have misplaced Mel's cherished boxing cup, they express real fear that Mel is going to physically harm them. They were talking matter-of-factly about the chances of Mel putting a real beating on them for this transgression. Whoa. Surely some of the comedy here was exaggeration, yadda yadda yadda, but still, can you imagine that kind of storyline today? Not quite.

Note: clip above is just of the Season 1 intro, as I could not find any clips from the actual "Mel's Cup" episode itself.