The burden of being Tom Garrett extends beyond my profound lack of social interaction, incompetence at parallel parking, and maintenance of an inexplicably-large retro video game collection (although it occurs to me that the former and the latter points may be hopelessly intertwined).
You see, I am nearly incapable of suffering fools. I feel compelled to fight a lifelong war against stupidity, even to my own detriment, and even if the stupidity is unquestionably well-intentioned. A picture posted by our local CBS affiliate on Facebook provided a helpful example of this peculiarity of mine. The image was a promotional design crafted by the Salvation Army (a very worthy cause) that included a slogan that irritated and perplexed me.
Here it is:
Ok, so, let’s talk about the problem with this.
The slogan says, “This is one bucket you don’t want to miss,” or, as I prefer to read it, “This is one bucket you don’t want to miss.”
There are two issues right off the bat. One, it’s not readily apparent that this is a reference to basketball. The Harlem Globetrotters logo is fairly small, tucked away in the lower-right corner. Being a sports geek, I assume a basketball connection when I see “buckets,” but I don’t think most people would. Still, this is a minor concern compared to the other issue.
The slogan is based on a false (or at least illogical) premise. Namely, that there is a kind of “bucket” that one would want to miss.
The slogan is saying, implicitly, “There may be some buckets you want to miss, but not this one, because it’s for charity! Missing this bucket would mean that your money wouldn’t get to the Salvation Army!”
As opposed to what? Missing another kind of bucket that costs your team points during a basketball game? Not missing that bucket is the object of the sport.
Stupid.
I’ve wasted enough time on this, and the fact that the imbecile who came up with the slogan probably makes two-to-three times my annual income is certainly little comfort. But I’m happy I could provide you, my adoring public, with yet another glimpse into the dark chasm of my soul, and my undiagnosed autism.
And, of course, this all naturally reminded me of this:
It is nearly December, and, in these virtual pages, SitCombat makes a return that I can only assume will be triumphant. A combination of some downtime for the shows, plus a week in which I didn’t write an article thanks to my political yammering, leads to this: “Dark matches” or not, The Office has won two in a row for the first time since . . . well, maybe ever.
When last we “met,” I discussed the 
That’s why I think it’s important to evaluate what happened in last week’s election with the benefit of rational perspective. It may be possible that the election results were neither the end of the country as we know it, as many at Fox News seemed to intimate, nor were they something to be compared to Ronald Reagan’s 525-13 
So, thanks to that 
Of course, all is not lost for the “other” NBC show. The Office showed great promise early on in its final season, and the fact that this is the end may ultimately be as “freeing” as I had hoped several weeks back.
The Axis of Ego 
SitCombat: 12/6/12
We get a bonus episode of The League tonight, so I have four shows to review.
This was SitCombat for December 6, 2012:
–
30 Rock (NBC) – “My Whole Life is Thunder”
Tonight’s Episode: Jenna is none-too-pleased when she finds out that Liz got married so close to her own wedding, Jack deals with his ongoing mother-related issues, and Tracy tries to cheer Kenneth up after his break-up with Hazel.
Good Stuff: “You got married?!? To what?” . . . “Hathanobody” . . . “I’m 42, Cerie.” “I don’t know what that is” . . . 80 Under 80 . . . “Backslash ‘Garbage File?!?’” . . . “She insists on traveling on Pearl Harbor Day to, and I quote, ‘show the Emperor we’re not afraid’”. . . “Do you have any idea where she is, little boy?” . . . “I told the black guy – no Brady stuff!” . . . Liz’s picture in the program . . . Jack’s three appropriate subjects of paintings: (1) horses, (2) ships with sails, (3) men holding up swords while staring off into the distance . . . “Apex Technical School puts students first…(turns to camera) and the perfect time to enroll is NOW!” . . . I loved that all the women at the Women in Media banquet went to the bathroom together and can’t figure out A/V equipment . . . “It’s all right! The lack of oxygen is making me orgasm!” . . . I think killing off Jack’s mom was the right call. It gave the character closure, and I think it was the right time to wrap things up from Elaine Stritch’s perspective . . . “Jenna! I mean…Liz” . . . “Where else but real life would a millionaire movie star care so much about a Hillbilly janitor that he would spend two days trying to cheer him up?” . . . Frank’s “APPROPRIATE” hat . . . “The man who, in 1984, wore a tuxedo so well that he broke up the Go-Go’s” . . . Reverend Gimp was definitely voiced by Lorne Michaels.
Non-good Stuff: The Jenna “Abusive / crazy male from my past doing something outrageous to me” lines are getting a little “mad-libby” . . . The Oprah stuff doesn’t really resonate with me.
Line of the Night: “Someone’s looking lovely today! . . . What a burn. I could have meant someone else…although I didn’t. She’s radient!” – Kenneth, trying to be mean (and failing)
Overall: Good show. I loved a lot of the little things, like Dot Com’s line about Apex Technical. I think ending the Mrs. Donaghy storyline is appropriate at this point in Elaine Stritch’s life, not to mention the increasingly-limited life of the show itself. There weren’t as many huge laughs as last week, though. This was a good, solid, all-around episode with lots of fun cameos, but the highs weren’t as high as the best shows that the 30 Rock writers create, possibly because a character, you know, died on the show.
GRADE: B
Continue reading →
Share this: