Sephy’s Platzish

I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t seen the antics of Jamie and Adam on Discovery’s extremely popular program Mythbusters (by the way, if you didn’t know, the show is actually made by Beyond Productions Pty. Ltd., an Australian company with branches around the world). Usually, they can be the definitive source on whether something is true or not. However, they’re not perfect, and they know it.

The episode that Discovery showed tonight at 8PM central - repeated at 11PM tonight and probably sometime soon - featured them trying to beat a speed camera. Now, they aren’t something that we have many of here, yet. They were featured on a story on ABC News just tonight as well with the installation of the first cameras on a freeway in Arizona.

While there are a lot of privacy issues behind these cameras, what they were testing was, whether you could beat the camera. They used a bit of straight road - the drag strip at Sears Point raceway, with a length of around 1/4 mile (0.4km or so). It was good distance for the cars they tested, but for all they tried, they couldn’t beat the camera. Well, Jamie did beat it - by having a flipping license plate, but that doesn’t count.

However, here’s where they’re wrong. The folks on BBC2’s Top Gear (a great show that sadly isn’t on in the States) tried to beat the camera in the first series of the revamped show. They had slightly different results. The BBC have put the videos up on YouTube, but have disallowed embedding, so I have to give you links to all three segments (don’t worry, though, they’re short).

Segment 1 - Honda Civic Type R; top speed, 146mph (235km/h)

Segment 2 - Mercedes CL55 AMG; top speed, 155mph (249km/h)

Segment 3 - TVR Tuscan S; top speed, 170+mph (274km/h)

Needless to say, with more than 2 miles of track to use (on a disused airfield), they were able to flex the cars to their top speeds, but only one car failed to be caught by the cameras. Which one? You’ll have to watch.

I never watch tennis, except for two weeks during January, when over the last couple of years, I’ve watched bits and pieces of the Australian Open, including some of the marathon matches that occurred last weekend, when the play lasted all the way until well past 11AM my time - 4AM in Melbourne. They stayed live through that whole time, some 16 hours.

I wouldn’t want to have to pay their satellite bills for that day, I have to say!

However, there was one thing that I noticed in the coverage that went on in the middle of the night here - the commentators knew when to talk and when not to talk. For some reason, TV commentary of sport here, and overseas - I’ve seen plenty of it to know something about that - has commentators who must like the sound of their own voice. It’s not like radio where you have to describe everything. The commentators - Cliff Drysdale and Darren Cahill - let the pictures and the sound on the court do the talking. In fact, there were times when they’d go three or four minutes without commentary!

If you look over the history of TV commentators, you’ll see that the early ones had this knack - folks like Pat Summerall, Ray Scott, and also Harry Caray. It seems, though, that as the commentators had more toys to play with - telestrators, bizarre tools like the glowing hockey puck and Draft Track, and other bits and bobs - they started to feel this need to explain just about everything to the viewer - even the stuff we’d seen time and time again.

Of course, it’s not only the chatty character of commentators that can be annoying, I’ve noticed that during the college football season, if you watched a game on ESPN and then watched a game on CBS, you’d have two completely different experiences. I always could hear the bands in the background on CBS, but on ESPN, they would have their outside mics set so low that you could barely hear them. Part of a college game is the atmosphere, of which the band is a part of it and adds that extra bit of excitement to the game that you otherwise wouldn’t have during a pro game.

I’m not saying that the commentators should be eliminated from the broadcast altogether, but it would be nice if they would let the pictures do the talking more than they currently do. Considering that on my TV right now is that darn shopping channel selling knives, I wonder if the sport commentators have something to sell, aside from the sport itself?

They might just get me to watch their broadcasts this year with the changes that will be announced tomorrow, according to USA Today’s Michael Hiestand.

The biggest change is the removal of Mr. “I tell you what” Wallace from the commentary booth to the infield studio, to a role where I think he will fit perfectly - an analyst that comes on from time to time, because, honestly, he’s good for a soundbite or two, but not a full race of commentary.

He’ll be joined in the studio by Allen Bestwick - by far the most experienced NASCAR journalist/TV host on the panel, as the full-time host of the Countdown programs on race day. He is going to do the job of two people - Brent Musberger (who only stood at the end of pit road and didn’t speak afterwards in the race) and Suzy Kolber, who can now focus 100% on her Monday Night Football job once more. In fact, here is Brent doing his job at Homestead in November:

Bestwick has hosted the studio show in the past, and has shown that he can get the best of other commentators on the set - putting him in there for the full race should be a good thing, and it will also mark a minor event - I believe that this will be the first time that two women will be patrolling pit road during a race on a regular basis, with Shannon Spake filling in Bestwick’s role in the pits.

Up in the booth, Wallace is being replaced by Dale Jarrett, who, as any fan will know, is the son of former ESPN and CBS commentator Ned Jarrett. In fact, his family is a media family with Glenn being used as a pit reporter from time to time on various networks through the years, and Dale doing some dabbling in the booth last year as a fill in for Wallace when he went on holidays in the spring.

The last change is one that should go a long way to making ESPN’s return to the daily racing news scene by picking up the co-host of the Speed Report - Nicole Manske - who is apparently a cheesehead; born in Wausau, but grew up in Danica Patrick’s hometown of Roscoe, IL - and even was on the cheerleading squad with Danica. Nice!

Jeez, the stuff you can learn on Wikipedia!

Anyone want to take bets on how long her bio page on SpeedTV.com lasts?

Thanks to Marc for the tipoff on the story!

This is one of the great things about life in the US, which people around the world might not realize - each TV station has their own newscasts throughout the day - starting as early as 5AM and ending as late as 11PM, with upwards of 8 hours of newscasts interspersed in there. The fight over ratings are usually epic ones - and lately have been dominated by two stations - the NBC affiliate and the ABC affiliate - who is known for putting their bleeding logo over every show on their channel - it’s not like we don’t know that if we’re watching ABC, we’re watching channel 12!

Because of this, all four of the local stations that have news on have determined that there are two things that should, nay, must lead every newscast - the Packers and the weather. Some days only one thing leads the news, others - especially over the last couple of days - both do.

For example, the NBC affiliate here (WTMJ) has the rights to the preseason games for the team, and have given themselves the moniker “Your official Packers Station” - they have been breaking into programming during the week to show press conferences. Normally, only selected clips of these conferences would be seen during the sports, but viewers of “Days of Our Lives” on Wednesday received a message that their show was being timeshifted so that they could air a press conference.

Yesterday, both them and the Fox affiliate (WITI) aired another press conference, and between the two of them, I’d venture to guess that about a full 1/3rd of news airtime has been consumed by Packers news - never mind that in the city there have been four murders this week (all in one day), plenty of fires (including one that caused over half-a-million dollars of damage to a ski resort),  and a whole lot of “hard” news that, in a more reasonable world, would get more coverage than about thirty seconds during an “in other news” segment.

The latest fascination for the stations over the last couple of days has been the extremely cold weather - around here, we get below the 0 mark (Fahrenheit) a couple of times a year - and without fail, they’ll have a reporter out there saying that we shouldn’t go out unless we have to. I have to say that I went out in the weather today - the car’s thermometer said it was -8°F (-22°C - it lets you switch from US to Metric ) outside, and really, it wasn’t that bad if you weren’t out there for very long and with a large building protecting you from the wind.

If you’re curious, the radio isn’t much better - the main radio station in the area (also WTMJ) is the main station for the Packers’ radio network, so they have had programming originating from Green Bay over the week, and if they do wind up winning, they’ll have crews heading straight for Phoenix to set up for broadcasts over the next two weeks.

That being said, at least there are times on the radio where you can get away from the sports talk - other stations, and even news talkshows, so it isn’t terribly bad. Of course, there is the option on the TV of switching on other shows on the Pay TV and ignoring the local TV news - which my attitude towards over the last week might just be the only thing colder than the outdoor temperature.

As someone once said about our media - “If the Packers are playing, Chicago could fall off the face of the earth and the first story would still be about the Packers.” I contend that you could add in if there is a chance of an inch or two of snow - because when snow is forecast, there will be someone at a salt pile, and another reporter at a truck stop, showing you how dangerous everything is outside.

They’ll also go to every length to ruin your viewing enjoyment if you’re watching a program in widescreen during severe weather - for some reason only the PBS affiliate (known for being an innovator in HDTV technology) understands that people watching a show in widescreen don’t want it ruined by someone chopping the picture to bits - heck, they even show programming on their analog channels that is in HD or widescreen in its native format, so the picture isn’t re-edited just so it “fits to your TV screen”.

However, that is a rant for another day.

I had the TV on tonight and I managed to catch a movie that wasn’t terribly bad - and it had some nice and funny moments.

However, since I did watch it on TV, there won’t be any screenshots of the movie. If I knew it was on, I probably wouldn’t watch it, but I started watching it and I got sucked in. The movie is Bubble Boy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Jimmy, the boy in the bubble and Marley Shelton as the first “outsider” he meets and who he falls in love with.

I didn’t pay attention to the beginning, but the point is that Jimmy’s been forced to live in a bubble because he had no immune system, and he has grown up in the bubble, being taught by his mother, who is quite the “purist” when it comes to religion and insularity (for example saying that any woman outside of the house is a whore and he’d die if he would touch her).

When Chloe is introduced, she is seen washing her car in her driveway, in quite a provocative way; Jimmy feels the need to wash his window (just as a cover to watch her - and I can’t say that I blame him ). Eventually, as what would happen with us blokes after a certain point, there comes some excitement. Of course, his “pure” mother has apparently sheltered him from anything related to the reproductive system, so he screams. What’s her solution to the problem? Say the Pledge of Allegiance - it apparently works for his father, and it does work for him (and thinking about it, it probably would work for anyone)…

Eventually, Chloe does decide to meet Jimmy and she finds out that he’s no different to any other person, just that he’s in a bubble. Then, she comes over and wants to get into the bubble with him - he declined the offer, and then he finds out that she is going to a dance with Mark, who is a complete jackass, constantly making jokes about Jimmy being a charity case and that Chloe only liked him out of sympathy.

After not meeting for what would be a couple of years, Chloe comes over and says that she’s getting married in the period of a couple of days in Niagara Falls - literally the other side of the country from where they are at the moment.

Here is where the great parts of the movie begin - Jimmy takes the initiative to assert his feelings to Chloe. Of course, he’s stuck in the bubble, but he creates his own suit, complete with ventilator and arm and leg extensions. The first stop for him is the front yard - where he steps in dog crap, which he finds quite a thrill!

He gets to the bus station and is told that the amount of money he has would get him all the way to the end of the curb, and definitely not to Niagara Falls. Luckily, he gets picked up by a bus that has this amazing ability to back up on queue, and find targets it wants. The occupants of the bus, all called Todd and Lorraine, followers of the amazing Gil and a theology that they’re not exactly certain of are on their way to Vegas. Somehow Jimmy susses them out as a cult and is promptly booted out of the bus. They would come around again and again, as it turns out, Jimmy is the mystical all-powerful person who will prevent them from going to Planets PX41 and PX42.

As he continues his trek across the country, he encounters a whole host of characters including a motorcyclist who has a mere less-than-moped for his current travel who brings Jimmy to Vegas and gets him to gamble and gives him a great lesson - don’t have any regrets. This lesson would definitely come to fruition at the end of the film.

When his parents catch wind of him going off on his quest, they start in chase, and catch up to him in the desert east of Las Vegas, causing him to jump onto a train filled with freaks who travel with a doctor; Doctor Phreak - played by Vern Troyer who Jimmy’s Mom eventually takes a bit of caring to, until it’s time to meet Jimmy once again, at which point he’s shuffled out of the stolen truck they were using and out onto the street, bolted into his car seat.

Jimmy then frees himself from the travelling circus and gets a ride in a combination ice cream/curry van which goes bust when they hit a cow and the proprietor has to honor his religion and treat the fallen cow with the utmost respect. He gets to Illinois and a taxi is there and the fare to Niagara Falls is $500 and a packet of Depends underwear. Luckily there’s a parlor across the street with the money on offer. He wins a mud wrestling competition and goes on his way with Pappy, who after a night of driving, dies.

At this point, he had only a short distance to go, but made a call to Chloe’s phone and got Mark, who reminds him of the charity case bologna causing Jimmy to lose hope and call Dr. Phreak. He goes to take a can of soda or possibly beer, and is allowed to because, I mean, why would the robber care if some kid in a bubble took a can of somethig from the refrigerated case?

He’s put back into the truck with his mom and dad and while she’s off to go to the bathroom, his dad reminds him of what home was like, and he bolts off towards Niagara Falls once more. He’s picked up by Pippy - Pappy’s brother and is flown almost into the falls but the straight vertical flight is too much for him.

All in all, the movie ends with the happy ending we all would expect, including an intriguing revelation about Jimmy’s immune system - one which if it were me, I’d have been quite angry with my mom, but for Jimmy, he shows amazing compassion.

If you get a chance to see Bubble Boy, it’s good for an hour-and-a-half of distraction and is a happy movie to watch. The only lingering question is what happened to the Todds and Lorraines? The last time we saw them, they were in Illinois getting tricked by the freaks that they were mutating. It would have been excellent if they had the cult come back and find Jimmy out of the bubble and rejoice in the news…oh well.