My apologies, folks. I started writing this post two weeks ago and I just didn’t have a chance to finish it. Two weeks ago Howard Stern and his crew went on vacation (again). This was the week of President’s Day. I was shocked – what was the reason for the vacation THIS time?!

It is absolutely amazing how much these guys go on vacation! It’s funny because Howard Stern used to be a show that was about people trying to make it in the real world. Now it’s a show where the crew has every Friday off – how many folks in the working world get that? Not many… Now it’s a show where the staff has some 8 weeks of vacation each year (if not more). How many people have THAT luxury at their job?

Listen, I understand that Howard and the gang have earned these perks at this point in their legendary careers. But when they ask me to pay thirteen bucks each month to listen to a show that has 10 minute commercial breaks (mostly filled with smutty commercials) when he advertised the satellite service as being “commercial free” during his last year on terrestrial radio (check the tapes), I sort of expected more. I understand the need for commercials on satellite talk radio since they have more listeners than the music channels – fine, no problems there. But why do the commercial breaks have to be ten minutes (or more!) long?

But I digress…

What WAS the reason for the vacation two weeks ago? Did the crew celebrate President’s Day for an entire week? Seriously, does anyone know what the deal was with this vacation?

Why is it such a big story that Will Ferrell’s latest movie is a huge bomb? This guy is one of the biggest “no talents” in recent history. How can anyone find a guy funny who plays the same shtick in every movie? All he does is overly exaggerate every few words in each sentence or play the role of someone who is just bewildered at the obvious.

Not only has he not made a good movie since Anchorman (in which HE was so-so at best, but the rest of the crew was alright), but he hasn’t played a new character since he was a cheerleader on Saturday Night Live. Speaking of which, the article linked above makes a good point in that Ferrell hasn’t invited Cheri Oteri to star in one of his movies yet.

Seems like now would be a good time, huh you dummy?

The current season of Lost is turning out to be pretty decent. This is definitely not the same show that started in September 2004 and I think that is rather obvious to anyone who has watched every episode. As one of my roommates said the other day, the first season of Lost has to be considered one of the best seasons of any television series ever – it was that good. Since then we’ve had the survivors from the tail end of the plane each come to the other side of the island and each die (except Bernard), a half-look into the history of the island that left more questions than anything else, and a freighter somewhere out in the ocean that is sending people onto the island. Anyway, Lost is still a decent show to watch and it has quickly become “must see TV” on Thursday nights.

I’ve also started watching The Biggest Loser on NBC. Sometimes I wonder what the deal is with the people on this show. You have folks who are literally given a golden opportunity to change their lives and some of them complain and DARE to go off of the diet? See, this is the problem with putting major weight loss on a national television network – they have to bring in a few people who may have inherently weak character to create drama for the viewers. I would rather just watch the entire starting cast stay with the workout program and lose as much weight as possible. This whole being voted off thing is weird.

One of the bad results from this setup is what we saw last week. I forget the name of the guy, but he and his ex-wife are/were part of a team with three younger people. Well, it’s obvious to anyone watching that the younger folks have made a conscious decision to vote off the two older people whenever the opportunity comes up. And for the one guy who is in that younger group, I’m sure he knows that he’s going to be cut off when it comes down to just the two girls and him.

This added dramatic element is something that, as a viewer, I’m really not interested in watching. In fact, I’ve taken to DVRing the show so I can fast forward through the overly dramatic parts.

Smallville was back for a while and now it’s gone again. What’s the deal? I hope that we just had a one week hiatus and not a long-term vacation. For what it’s worth, the story between Clark and Lex has to pick up and begin to be something more than a teenage-level bitch fight every few weeks. I mean, how long can Clark be Superboy and continue giving up opportunities to put Lex in his place? We need something more from this show and I have a feeling that it’s on the way.

That’s been the extent of my television viewing over the last few weeks. I’ve been avoiding the political coverage on the news channels because it is completely boring at this point. All of the wrestling shows are a bore (with the exception of Jeff Hardy wrestling once in a while on RAW). There’s not been much good to watch on the regular channels these days. Maybe the end of the writer’s strike will bring some fresh shows to the boob tube!