The 62nd Annual Emmy Awards

* We really hate the red carpet pre-award shows. For one, it is a too-long opportunity for all of those fake, sniveling "Access Hollywood"-style sound-bite interviews where everyone's a fan of everyone else and we're all just so happy to be here. The world would be a better place if Billy Bush had to be digging ditches somewhere. Of that we're sure. But more repellant are those "fashion police" elements of the red carpet shows were know-it-all nobodies show us which dress was a hit and which dress was a miss. We don't know much about fashion, but we're willing to give the benefit of the doubt to designers who make their living, you know, designing rather than some snarky talking head hired for the day by "The Insider." The whole thing feels like high school where the pretty, popular girls are called sluts out of jealousy.

* Jimmy Fallon is funny. Great "Glee" inspired open, but we hate that the Emmys use this bit to continue to breathe life into the celebrity of Kate Gosselin. She's another one who, like Billy Bush, has made our lives a little less pleasant by being on TV.

* We're sick of Betty White. Please go back to the pop culture punchline obscurity from which you came. It was fun, but it's over.

* Jon Hamm should be a bigger star than he is.

* A singing Hugo Hurley Reyes!

* John Hodgman, the guy who's doing the deadpan commentary of the winners as they walk to the stage (he was the PC in the "I'm a Mac" TV spots), isn't nearly as funny as he thinks he is.

* Why does everything have to involve Twitter nowadays? #Enoughtweeting

* We like Sofia Vergara, but we're getting tired of the dumb sexpot Latina routine.

* Love this bit where we get to see and hear the nominated directors and writers talking.

* Stephen Colbert is a genius without question. But the guy is always on, always in character, always doing his schtick. It can be exhausting to watch.

* We do feel kind of uncool for not watching "Glee." But we can't watch every show that gets good buzz.

* How very meta to allow the viewers a glimpse into the Emmy TV control room and hear the director counting us down after the commercial breaks.

* Does anyone really enjoy the painful award show banter between two actors who (in some cases) probably never met before? If it works (see: Arnett, Will and his sex poem), then use it. But if it's not working, why not cut it? Why force us to sit through it? The producers have to know when something is funny or not. Don't they?

* The taped bit about "Modern Family" meeting with a clueless TV executive is funny. And it's probably happens something like this more often than not when a show is struggling.

* George Clooney. Give the guy credit - he'll do anything for a laugh sometimes.

* Jim Parsons seems like a watered-down version of his weirdo "Big Bang Theory" character Sheldon. We can't see him doing anything after the show ends. He's just too Sheldon.

* We are fans of Neil Patrick Harris. He can do anything. But we've recently grown rather weary of his misogynist, promiscuous Barney character on "How I Met Your Mother." If anyone else had been playing him, we'd have started hating him long ago.

* Lea Michele. A future ex-Mrs. Cheese Fry.

* "Nurse Jackie" is not a comedy. We call foul.

* We can't decide who is less appropriate to be featured at the Emmys, which is ostensibly a forum in which we celebrate actual skill and talent: Kate Gosselin or Kim Kardashian. Kim needs to join Billy Bush in the ditch digging. She could use a honest day's work.

* We do like Will Arnett. But he's a little bit scary, too, isn't he?

* Bravo's "Top Chef" beats out CBS' "The Amazing Race" for best reality show. The Emmys more and more have become an advertisement for cable programming. At some point, the networks are going to stop paying millions for the rights to air the Emmy show.

* More Emmy love for AMC's "Mad Men." We tried to watch it when it first debuted a few years ago. We lasted maybe four episodes before giving up - it's well done, sure, but it's also very somber. Everyone on the show is so miserable. We don't know anyone who actually watches it on a regular basis.

* "Lost" isn't going to get any Emmy respect, is it?

* We do like "The Good Wife," but think Archie Panjabi's Kalinda is probably the show's least rounded character.

* And now please welcome to the stage... actors you've never heard of who are starring in a new show on NBC you won't see for another four weeks! Not cool to use an award show to sell your new shows, especially if doing so means you're forcing new faces on us. We want TV stars, not nobodies. We won't watch "Undercover" out of spite.

* Highlight of the show so far: Jimmy Fallon's goodbye songs to "24," "Law & Order," and "Lost." Genius.

* We may just about be over Tina Fey.

* It's not very engaging when the winners just read a list of names. Honestly, what would happen if you didn't thank your team of attorneys?

* Ricky Jervais is sublime in situations like this. There's a danger to him. You don't know what he's going to say. And the sharpest of knives come out while he keeps that beatific grin on his face.

* We used to watch "The Daily Show," which just won best variety show for the 8th year in a row. We loved it. But it became a chore. If you don't keep up in the TiVo, that stack of unwatched "Daily Show" episodes becomes just as bad as the term paper from 10 grade that's due next Monday.

* "What is The Event" on NBC? A show they hope desperately will become the next "Lost" but will likely end up being the next "Flashforward."

* Maybe we're cynical, but we don't think it's a coincidence that the Emmys decided to honor one of the world's biggest movie stars, George Clooney, a guy who hasn't been on TV in ten years. We call it a ratings ploy, pure and simple. As good a guy as he is, Emmy voters are notoriously enamored of movie stars.

* All of the movies and miniseries nominees are from HBO (with a few token PBS titles). Remember when the networks made movies-of-the-week? They were still doing a few as recently as the early 1990s.

* We do not get January Jones. Seriously.

* The "In Memoriam" segments, as on the Oscars, always devolves into some kind of weird applause referendum. Who'll get the biggest cheer? Clap for your favorites!

* We didn't know Caroline McWilliams, the sassy executive assistant on "Benson," died. Sad.

* Enough with the Emmys for HBO's "Temple Grandin."

* No shock here: "Mad Men" wins again for best drama. Yawn. One thing about Emmys - once they find a winner, they tend to go back to the same well many many times. "Frasier" won about 15 years in a row it seemed.

* "Modern Family" wins best comedy. It is a pretty funny show, so we can't complain.

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Times when we do not want to talk to strangers

* Entering or leaving the grocery store

* Sitting in coach on an airplane

* Pumping gas

* Waiting at a traffic light

* Using an ATM

* Crossing the street

* Riding in an elevator

* Waiting to see the doctor

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"And the actual retail price is..."

The Cheese Fry remembers well as a boy watching one contestant rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from CBS' weekday game show "Press Your Luck." (We miss you, Peter Tomarken.) The guy's incredible, unending, no-Whammy spins chewed up so much time that CBS had to stop the show and pick it up again the next day. Our elementary-school mind was effectively blown. Only later, thanks to the hard-hitting journalism of 1980s TV Guide, did we learn that the contestant had found a mechanical glitch in the "Press Your Luck" big board that allowed him to avoid the Whammy.

Esquire last month exceeded TV Guide by exploring in detail how one contestant gamed the mother lode of game shows - "The Price is Right" - and became that very rare species: the Double-Showcase Winner. We'd heard something about this when it happened, but we didn't understand the drama involved behind the scenes. The producers were sure the contestant had somehow cheated when in fact he'd done something perhaps far more pathetic: he'd learned the prices of every prize put up for bid.

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Thoughts on "The Good Wife"

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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Knee-jerk review: "The Kids Are All Right"

1. It's been a while since we've seen an independent movie in a theater. When they're good, they're very, very good.

2. This one falls squarely into the Silver Lake/Westside subgenre of indie dramas, the ones that feature upper middle-class Los Angeles characters (there's also a subgenre featuring affluent, navel-gazing East Coasters) who live in amazing houses, discuss trendy topics like locavore foods, own their own hip little restaurants, and spend a lot of time agonizing over problems that are only problems for those who don't have to worry about paying the bills.

3. Bonus points for one character's rant against that very same hollow, smug, save-the-world vibe that makes liberals feel so good about themselves.

4. It's essentially a five-person drama. And each of the five characters get some very strong moments - funny lines, emotional breakdowns, etc. This is what they mean when they say you need to create a part that will attract an actor. Who wouldn't want to play all five of these parts?

5. We're proud of Annette Bening for allowing herself to look her age without resorting to botox or surgery. You go, girl.

6. You don't often see movies that examine this closely the mundane everyday joys, tensions, and grudges of a marriage. We can't even think of the last one we saw. The closest thing is probably the Taylors on NBC's "Friday Night Lights." Usually marriage is a backdrop for a string of jokes and one-liners (usually about how horrible marriage is) or a device used to increase the stakes and give the hero (usually a man) Something to Lose.

7. We knew something bad was going to happen when Nic decided to use the bathroom. We just didn't know how it was going to play out.

8. "No lines."

9. We don't think Julianne Moore has ever been this cute.

10. There are no easy answers here regarding how a sperm donor might or might not get involved in his the lives of his biological "children." Yes, he helps change these two kids for the better . But he also causes a lot of problems. And as well-intentioned as he might be, you agree with Annette Bening when she tells him off towards the end of the movie.

11. Most refreshing of all, that the parents here are a lesbian couple is barely a factor.

12. It'll surely be in 2010's top ten lists come December.

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"You can get with this or you can get with that"

Another memorable commercial that was in heavy rotation during the NBA playoffs. The Cheese Fry is likely far outside the 20-something demo for the Kia Soul, but that doesn't mean we didn't like the spot.

We're not sure what's more disturbing - the hamsters driving a washing machine or the hamsters trying and failing to drive a cardboard box. What were these ad guys smoking? And where can we get some?

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Knee-jerk review: "Inception"

1. The Cheese Fry hasn't seen a movie since December, and this is the one we pick?

2. The way Warner Bros. - and most critics, who are collectively in love with filmmaker Christopher Nolan - has been positioning the movie, only smart and sophisticated audiences will appreciate it. Which seems to us a rather ingenious way to defuse any negative reaction. If you don't like, you must be dumb.

3. I guess we're dumb. Because we didn't like it.

4. We were growing restless and dissatisfied towards the end (those repeated shots of the van falling were starting to get unintentionally funny to us) when it inexplicably became a James Bond movie. Random and pointless, existing solely, it seems, to be able to blow stuff up.

5. But then that final ambiguous shot was the last straw. You'll know the one. We suffer through all of this confusion, double-talk, and mind-games for more than two hours and you can't even give us a simple resolution? Screw you, too, Nolan.

6. We loved Memento and The Prestige, but Nolan undeniably became a cinematic "genius" darling based on The Dark Knight, a cleverly plotted and visually striking movie but also too long, too jammed full of needless plot, and suffering from a clunky ending. You'll find the same problems here. (The Dark Knight was also a movie that people loved to love, imagining that appreciating the film made them sophisticated and discerning.)

7. We don't get Ellen Page. Sorry. (And why is she pitch-person for Cisco. There has to be a good reason, right?)

8. There's a lot to be explained here about the "rules" of the dream thieving. And this movie does about as well it can in setting everything up in the first 30 minutes. Exposition is never easy, but it goes down fairly smooth here.

9. You know who we do get? Tom Hardy. He plays a fairly minor character but steals every scene he's in. This guy needs more parts, immediately.

10. We hear DiCaprio's the one who insisted on more of backstory for his character. And we have to admit, certain elements of this worked quite well for us. Wanting to see your kids' faces again? We can understand that.

11. Begrudging bonus points for the twist involving DiCaprio's previous experience with "inception." We liked that.

12. What's with not putting up a title card until after the movie's over? We recall first seeing that with Danny DeVito's terrible, unwatchable Hoffa back in the 1990s. Here you get the Warner Bros. sheild, the Legendary Pictures logo, then the movie just starts... and after the final fade out (see #5 above), then we finally get "INCEPTION." What's that all about? LIke so much of this movie, it feels arrogant.

13. Really, what is the point aside from playing with the audience?

14. We're told going into limbo will scramble your brain, but several people emerge from limbo with brains intact. That kind of nagging plot confusion bugs us.

15. The whole thing just feels smug and condescending. It didn't at first. It starts strong and we thought we were going to like it. But then... it just gets so tedious.

16. The hallway fight you see on the TV spots where everyone crawling on the walls - that is pretty cool.

17. We're still not sure if we get Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But we did love 500 Days of Summer.

18. It'll make a lot of money. And only encourage Nolan.

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Top seven quotes: "Hell's Kitchen"

1. "Yes, chef." - The ubiquitous, reflex reply to any and all statements, questions, insults, accusations, recriminations, and attacks directed to the exhausted contestants by Chef Ramsay. We say this all the time in the Cheese Fry's kitchen - it makes us feel like the few lame dishes we make are actually something special. If you were going to turn this show into a drinking game, "yes, chef" would be the phrase to use to do a shot. You'd be buzzed before the first commercial.

2. "It's raw!" - Usually preceded by Chef Ramsay asking one of the contestants to examine the raw meat in question up close ("C'mon, touch it!") and followed by the hurling of the raw meat in question into the nearest trash can, plate and all. One of the more curious aspects of "Hell's Kitchen" is the way seemingly experienced, competent, confident cooks can shrivel so utterly and completely during the infamous "dinner service" segment of each show. This particularly odd since it seems that only a cursory examination of the meat would tell the cook it needs more time on the stove. The Cheese Fry has long been interested in finding out exactly what make the show's "dinner service" so seemingly impossible. Is it that the diners all sit down at once en masse? Is it that the kitchens are understaffed? Is it that the menus are complicated? Is it that it's hard to have total strangers work together as a team? Are real kitchens this chaotic and stressed-out?

3. "You donkey!" - Chef Ramsay certainly isn't afraid of letting loose a horrific insult right to a contestant's face. "You cow!" would be a close second, always reserved for the women contestants. Calling someone a "donkey" ranks among his more memorable choices. It seems on one hand so quaint and harmless (it's one of the few words Fox doesn't have to bleep), yet on the other hand so unusual and specific. We've been called many things... but never a donkey.

4. "And now the continuation of 'Hell's Kitchen'" - So says the announcer at the top of each show. We love the way each episode picks up exactly where the last one left off (Chef Ramsay dismissing the remaining contestants moments after kicking one of off the show), giving the show a distinctive vibe. These are all just seamless chapters in one long book.

5. "Oh dear." - When you're dealing with a volcanic personality and expect shouts and screams, sometimes it's all the more chilling when instead you get a muted, muttered statement. That's what the quiet "oh dear" is for Chef Ramsay. Part disappointment, part bewilderment, part disgust, he usually utters this moments after receiving a poorly prepared entree from a confident contestant who's sure it's perfect.

6. "Why should you stay in 'Hell's Kitchen'?" - The question Chef Ramsay asks each contestant up for elimination, which invariably leads to pathetic begging and shameless pleading that rarely offers anything more useful that "I want this" or "I know I can do better."

7. "Gimme your jacket." - This show's version of "The tribe has spoken." Goodbye and so long.

8. "It's cooked perfectly." - This Ramsay fake-out happens in every show, so it can be something of a sport to try and predict when it will happen and to whom. Here's how it works: Ramsay will receive an entree, look it over, then shout out in apparent anger the contestant's name. The contestant snaps their head around, "Yes, chef?" (see #1 above). Expecting to hear news of nuclear armageddon or the murder of a litter of puppies. Ramsay instead says, "These scallops... are cooked perfectly!" The contestant smiles and we see a quick confessional cutaway that shows the contestant puffing up in pride at, well, doing his/her job the way it was intended.

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To letterbox or not to letterbox

Trying to see a movie on television in the same format as it appeared in theaters has always been a challenge. Do not say the words "pan and scan" to us. But with the advent of widescreen HDTVs the problem seems to have gotten worse. The Cheese Fry's newest pet peeve is to tune into to some B-level cable channel (we're looking at you, Lifetime and FX) and see what is clearly a square image (and decidedly not in HD) purposely stretched horizontally to fill the rectangular widescreen TV frame. It's insulting. Do they think all us simpletons with our fancy Costco TV sets care about is that our whole TV is filled? Do they not think we can see that things on the edge of the frame of stretched and pulled?

When trying to explain this dilemma to newbies, it's not always easy. Full disclosure: we're not always 100% clear on how it all works, either.

Thankfully, a site called AspectRatioPolice has put together a nice primer on the problem with fitting rectangular movie frames into squarish TV boxes.

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Wizard of Westwood

The Cheese Fry has worked at UCLA for quite some time now. UCLA loves them some John Wooden (who died earlier this month at age 99). His name and face are plastered all over campus. We could pretend to know all about his legendary coaching exploits, but the truth is that despite his amazing accomplishments, he's mostly just a name to us from the dusty pages of NCAA history.

That said, the guy was something of a poet when it came to pithy self-help quotes. He wasn't a bestselling author for no reason.

Consider:

* I'd rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent.
* You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
* Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.
* It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
* The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.
* Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
* Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
* You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.
* Never mistake activity for achievement.
* It isn't what you do, but how you do it.
* If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?
* Failure is not fatal, but failure to change may be.

And our personal favorite:

* Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Genius.

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Comedy out of certain, you know, situations

We hold these comedic truths to be self-evident:
* "Better Off Ted" would be a huge hit in a fairer, more just world. We saw it once and was really impressed. Never tuned in again, though. See our point?
* "How I Met Your Mother" is amusing mostly for its often clever non-linear storytelling that often doubles back on itself or cuts away for asides, flashbacks, and fantasies. Despite his unending accolades, Neil Patrick Harris is not the MVP of this show. It's Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan.
* "Two and Half Men" is hilarious, but so consumed with raunch and sleaze that we want to take a shower after watching it.
* "The Middle," with its lower-middle-class, "Roseanne"-style, just-scraping-by sensibility, was refreshing the first couple of times we saw it. But then it just became glum and depressing. If we want to worry about money problems, we'll open up our checkbook.
* "Community" is apparently really hitting its creative stride. So says the buzz. We'll take its word for it. But we do love us some Joel McHale (plug: watch "The Soup" on E!).
* "The Big Bang Theory" does the stale three-camera, live-before-a-studio-audience structure of set-up, punchline, bigger-punchline better than anyone. When it's good, it's very good. When it's not, it's very stale.
* "The New Adventures of Old Christine" was just canceled and it's not hard to see why. It was very solid, but just not particularly new. No pun intended.
* "Parks and Recreation" is one we haven't seen and, frankly, don't plan to. What are we, paid TV critics? We have a life, people. But we do love us some Amy Poehler.
* "30 Rock" is like medicine. It's so very very good for you. But we can't seem to look forward to it. Maybe it's that smug, you-probably-won't-get-this-joke attitude?
* "The Office" is now something of an elder statesmen, which is just strange. It's not as good as it used to be, but it can still be brilliant. What an ensemble of weirdo characters. That includes you, too, Jim and Pam. Normal people would have quit that insane job long ago.
* "Modern Family" is often hilarious, but what makes it satisfying is its pro-family sweetness. It's a feel-good comedy for the whole family. Yes, ABC, you can use that quote in your ads. There's a little Phil in the Cheese Fry. So says Mrs. Cheese Fry.
* "Cougartown" is the best sitcom on the air today. Period. Take it to the bank. Fade to black. The gags come so fast, we can't always keep up. Thank you, DVR "rewind" button. Surreal and sublime. Will you marry us, Busy Phillips?

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Play it again, iTunes

Twenty songs we never get tired of hearing.

1 Bananarama, "I Heard a Rumor"
2 Mazzy Star, "Fade into You"
3 Jade, "Don't Walk Away"
4 Neneh Cherry, "Buffalo Stance"
5 Pink, "U + Ur Hand"
6 The Cars, "Drive"
7 Glass Tiger, "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)"
8 Sly Fox, "Let's Go All the Way"
9 Lady Antebellum, "Need You Now"
10 Van Halen, "Panama"
11 Beyonce, "Crazy in Love"
12 Maroon 5, "Wake Up Call"
13 Jay-Z, "Show Me What You Got"
14 Carolina Liar, "Show Me What I'm Looking For"
15 Nickelback, "Photograph"
16 Trick Pony, "On a Night Like This"
17 Kelly Clarkson, "I Do Not Hook Up"
18 Dido, "Thank You"
19 Carolyn Dawn Johnson, "I Don't Want You to Go"
20 O.A.R., "Shattered (Turn the Car Around)"

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Fade in on: main titles

Christian Annyas, whoever she/he may be, is our kind of obsessive-compulsive collector. Christian's website meticulously catalogs screenshots of feature film main and end titles. It's a fascinating nostalgic trip not only through film history, but also through design/typographic history. This is just the kind of pointless hobby the Cheese Fry would have likely undertaken when he was in elementary school.

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Shredding is fun

Courtesy a Wired magazine shout-out, SSI makes industrial-sized shredders. You know how your home shredder doesn't like staples? Not much of a problem for SSI. They post videos demonstrating the titanic horsepower of their machines, which includes shredding a car and a dozen or so bowling balls. Grrr.

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Our new favorite commercial

When we see this commercial, we have to stop and watch it. Sublime.

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"You lie!"

We're not political pundits (though the job sure does look easy enough) here at the Cheese Fry offices in beautiful downtown North Hollywood. But it seems to us that Washington has gotten a lot more rancorous in its petty partisanship. We certainly hope this isn't a case of some lame, crotchety "things were better in the old days" sensibility, but it could be.

From where we see it, this whole things seems to have gotten it's start with the Republican witch hunt of Bill Clinton. For a variety of reasons that far smarter people have filled books with, the right-wing hated Clinton and everything he stood for. But it wasn't enough to hate him. Clinton was vilified. And so we got a years-long investigation by Ken Starr that changed focus and direction as needed to find a scandal, any scandal, to stick to Clinton. The president is certainly a man of many errors and omissions - all Lewinsky-related decisions made by him are shocking at best and shameful at worst - as most presidents are. But few presidents ever had to contend with so rabid and relentless an attack from the opposition. That he was ultimately impeached for lying in a deposition, to us, hardly counts as a "high crime or misdemeanor." That he was accused of this Congress made for some very thick irony. You needed hip waders to get through the river of moral hypocrisy and phony sanctimony flowing down the Capitol hallways.

And then George W. Bush got elected. Which put the shoe on the other foot. You won't get any argument from us about the criminal, reprehensible decision Bush made to invade Iraq on the basis of lies and double-speak. But just as Clinton was demonized by the right, so too was Bush demonized by the left (although with a lot less fervor and organization - there simply is no Rush Limbaugh for the Democratic side of things, try as Al Franken did). Bush's simple-minded ways and aw-shucks personality were a particular source of ridicule, which in some ways proved the right's point - if you're not an Ivy League grad with a string of fancy degrees, then you're beneath contempt. The idea of treating the office of the president with respect and dignity was but a distant memory of some golden era that ended with the 1992 victory of Clinton.

Now we're come full circle with Barack Obama replacing Bush. The Republicans, sore losers in so many ways, have predictably brought out the knives to slice and dice the president as often as possible. Add to this parisan mix the powderkeg racial issue and you've got some real open hatred. It's not enough to oppose Obama's policies. No, you need to claim he's not even a U.S. citizen or spread rumors that he's a Muslim sleeper agent or suggest that he's a communist in a world where there's really only two countries left that are truly Communist-run. (Most of these folks wouldn't know communist doctrine if you gave them a copy of Das Capital.)

The Cheese Fry was particularly appalled by Joe Wilson's shout of "You lie" during the president's first State of the Union, treating a solemn event as some kind of South Carolina pep rally. Was Wilson shamed or sanctioned? Nope. He was a hero of the Republican party for daring to speak out. (We experienced a shocking moment of self-awareness when we realized that we probably wouldn't have been so outraged had someone shouted "You lie!" to Bush from the floor of Congress. Might we be just as hypocritical? Might we be part of the problem? In a word, yep.)

In other words, things seem to be getting worse.

It seems clear that national politics has become a zero-sum game. I can't win if you win. Also know as, the only way I win is to be sure you lose. Compromise is now a dirty word and merrily blocking bills and votes has become a part of the Congressional job description. What's called a "dirty trick" by the minority is a "reasonable procedure" by the majority. The names and parties may change, but the offending behavior remains the same.

We place some of the blame on the economy. When people lose jobs and worry about their future, they're quick to get riled up and look for someone to blame. An aloof, African-American president who talks in flowery sentences and is so unlike the vast majority of Americans (which we think is, like, a good thing) is one place to start.

But we think the real culprit is the partisan media.

In the days of Kennedy and Carter and Reagan, you were stuck with the local newspaper and the three networks. You didn't hear the fringe criticisms and the conspiracy theories and the wack jobs and the rumors. You got the dry facts and maybe a few clips of protesters in the streets. When Walter Cronkite dared to speak out against Vietnam, it was a watershed moment that even LBJ could see.

My how things have changed in a world full of websites and radio stations and cable networks. If you have an opinion, we have a forum just for you. Objective journalists need not apply.

The big bully is, of course, the right-wing loudmouths. Rush Limbaugh often seems to have a stranglehold on his listeners, every opinion taken as fact, every misstatement and exagerration assumed to be gospel. Glenn Beck is a new member of this movement, hooting and hollering from his Fox News soap box, but becoming a force to be reckoned with. But let's not just cast aspersions on Fox News and right-wing AM talk radio. The media partisanship works both ways. The Cheese Fry loves to hate Fox News which so shamelessly slants every single story, but then one day we watched some MSNBC programming with a critical eye. One could argue that Keith Olbermann is just as much a bully as Beck or Limbaugh, mixing opinion with news, making no effort to conceal his agenda. There's a smug arrogance to Olbermann that is identical to Limbaugh: "If you don't know I'm right, you're stupid." At least Jon Stewart is up-front about his show being comedy first, news second.

This is apparently a growing problem in our fractured, niche media marketplace, where everyone can tune into someone who talks and thinks just like they do. This "echo chamber" effect keeps opposing views out and serves to reinforce partisan thinking. It's practically a form of brainwashing, cementing extreme opinion and casting every political question in an us-versus-them frame. It's why CNN, which continues to so quaintly cling to impartial, objective reporting, is struggling in the ratings. No one's interested in that. They want to get riled up and hear what dirty deeds the other side has done today. This unending inflaming of the people isn't helping. It's hurting.

And we'e not sure we can all change the channel.

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The Cheese Fry Hot 8 (Lost edition)

1. Dr. Juliet Burke
2. Penny Widmore
3. Sun Kwon
4. Kate Austen
5. Nikki Fernandez
6. Charlotte Lewis
7. Alex Rousseau
8. Ilana

No, we're not Claire Littleton fans. Sorry.

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"Surf dudes with attitude... kinda groovy..."

We're way behind in posting odds and ends we consider blog-worthy. This clip is a prime example. It's several months old, but still oh-so-sweet.



"Saved by the Bell" may have been the bigger hit, but true TNBC connoisseurs like us know that its Saturday morning companion "California Dreams" was the far better show. (Editor's note: the truly best show that ever graced TNBC? The late great "Running the Halls.") Both "Saved" and "Dreams" were equally implausible, white-bread corny, and punctuated by those mindless cheers and whoops from the teeny-bopper studio audience. And both clearly offered a ridiculously tame, G-rated take on the realities of high school, surely formed by soulless focus groups and 40-year-old executive millionaires. But there was something edgy about "California Dreams." Maybe it was the ethnically-diverse cast. Maybe it was the somewhat realistic depiction of a struggling garage band. Maybe it was the supercute Heidi Lenhart. Maybe it was just the fact that the show didn't stoop so low as to offer a cartoon character as grating and insulting as Screech. Whatever the reason, lounging around on a Saturday morning in the haclyon early 90s, sometimes nursing a hangover, sometimes just trying to plan out the weekend... this was television manna.

Thank you, Jimmy Fallon. You get us.

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12 people we hate at the grocery store

1. The person wearing a bluetooth headset. (Full disclosure: we pretty much hate this person wherever we see them.)
2. The deli counter worker who refuses to stop slicing meat and come over to help us, even though we know she sees us. Can that meat really not wait 2 minutes, honey?
3. The old lady who parks her cart in the middle of the aisle, creating gridlock in the bread aisle as she tried to price compare the wheat and the honey-wheat.
4. The hippie-looking dude out front with a clipboard asking us if we're registered to vote.
5. The group of workers on their break who sit on the curb out front and smoke. Can't they do that in the back of the store in the alley? Why do we have to look at them look at us as we walk up to the door?
6. The smelly homeless guy in line behind you who's buying granola bars and beer.
7. Whoever's in charge of the decision to not open more check-out lines despite the throng of people jamming the front of the store in that confusing jumble of carts that makes it impossible for you to find the end of any one line.
8. Anyone who's oblivious to your need to get past them.
9. Self-involved, small-minded people having a conversation on their cell phone while the poor cashier is trying to conduct with them pertinent check-out business. He's trying to get her to sign the receipt or find out what kind of bag she wants, but she can't hear him because she's too busy talking to someone about her loser weekend plans or what her poor, hapless boyfriend's up to. Meanwhile, you're there staring at the clock wondering when this level of hell will come to an end. Have you ever fantasized about taking that phone and hurling it across the store? No? Just us? Try it sometime.
10. Kids running up and down the aisles. Where are your parents?
11. People who claim that they left their reward card at home. Do they really expect us to believe that crap? Have you ever left your rewards card at home? Put it in your wallet or on your key ring, genius. Either that or stop the lying.
12. The worker who has no idea where to find what is it you're seeking. Better yet, doesn't even know what it is you're talking about when you describe what it is you're seeking.

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The tribe has spoken, and they're all too bitter to be honest

The Cheese Fry loves him some "Survivor," having breathlessly witnessed just about every episode since its debut in the halcyon summer days of 2000. Past Cheese Fry posts have been devoted to the arcane details of the show. We maintain that much of its appeal lies in the way the show's premise so cleverly sets up an impossible social situation. The people you vote out on your march to the million-dollar prize are the same people who in the end decide whether you will get that million-dollar prize. That is, the people you stabbed in the back must now be convinced to award you the money. If there's not dozens of sociology and psychology dissertations on the ever-shifting relationships and moral dilemmas of this pressure-cooker situation, there sure ought to be.

We're always amused by the inability for the contestants on the show to grasp the simple fact that the only way to advance in the game is to, you know, lie and cheat and wheedle. Everyone does it. Surely these people are familiar with how the show works. Right? If you try and pull an Honest Abe and never tell a lie, you'll likely find yourself unable to open your mouth. Even those contestants who like to pretend they won with honor and integrity, in fact, did no such thing. They lied and cheated and wheedled. But they did it with charm and charisma. The other folks never even felt that knife going into their back. And that really is the key. More on that later.

It never fails that when the "jury" (the so-called group of outcast contestants who stand in final judgment of the last two or three players to determine who gets the money) gets a chance to speak in the show's last tribal council, invariably several of them suffer from an extreme case of poor-loser-itis with a side dish of shameless hypocrisy. They're shocked (shocked!) at the deceit and treachery that surrounded them, disgusted (disgusted!) by the collective decision that so heartlessly voted them out, and insulted (insulted!) at how cavalierly they were double-crossed and blindsided. The outrage is laughable. Someone has to lose, after all. They just can't believe that the someone is them.

What isn't so laughable, however, is a recent trend of jurors voting with emotion rather than reason. Twice now, the player to completely dominate the game - Russell Hanz - failed to get a single jury vote. Russell is undoubtedly a polarizing figure. Some viewers love him, others loathe him. The Cheese Fry is 100% on Team Hanz. No one has played "Survivor" with this kind of unapologetic scorched-earth strategy and gotten away with it. If you dare to cross Russell or even suggest you're not in complete and total agreement with his plan, chances are good he will conspire to get you voted off immediately if not sooner. That the other players didn't recognize this remains a mystery. Those who saw what a threat he truly was often came to that conclusion too late.

And yet the two juries looked over at Russell and were so hurt and bitter by the way he used and abused them, even though he so clearly manipulated and controlled every aspect of the game "from day one" (such an overused phrase in the world of "Survivor"), they chose to give the final grand prize to someone whose only game strategy was just to sort of hang around (including the insufferably smug and proudly lazy Sandra - blech). Both times Russell lost, the jury got it wrong. They know how the game is played. They just refuse to acknowledge it with their votes.

That said, the Cheese Fry is willing to stipulate that there is indeed a "social game" aspect to "Survivor." There's a right way and a wrong way to backstab. You do it, as we mentioned earlier, with charm and a smile. You let the other players save face where possible. You pretend to like them. Russell seems incapable of this sort of play. He likes to bully and growl and humiliate. As much as viewers seem to like Russell thanks no doubt to clever editing, it seems clear now that the people who actually lived with Russell found him to be utterly loathsome.

But he had his chance. At the final tribal council, some past winners have used that forum to beg for forgiveness for their game-play sins. That's the perfect time to apologize for the deceit, to remind the jury they only did what they had to do to win the game, to insist they hate themselves for the choices they made, to express regret and uncertainty. In other words, it's where you tell your biggest lie of all. But Russell in the "Heroes vs. Villains" finale remained stubbornly defiant and surprisingly clueless. Unable to read the jury or grasp the social element of the game, he apologized for nothing. We think he could have maybe swayed them with just a spoonful of humility, even if we would argue that even without humility he deserved to win the money. But the jurors are people and people get things wrong. So instead of a million dollars, Russell instead got from the jury a collective middle finger.

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