Friday, June 5, 2009

The Listener/ race/ funny

June 3 The Listener: I saw The Listener pilot today. It was good. I've been looking forward to this show for a whoIe year since I read about it last June. I did read a article in the Edmonton Journal about it today. It said it had stock characters like a "bad- guy- who- is- a- cop."

I then thought about my writing. There is a character who later turns out to be a cop. I am reminded of Angel where in the 2nd of the series, Angel meets this woman Kate. Later it's revealed she's a cop. Now back to Listener. Toby Logan is a paramedic who can hear people's thoughts. He then hears this woman cry for help in his head.

He and his EMT partner Oz sees a car that's upside down. They run over and help a woman out. Toby sees in his head that a man had kidnapped her son. Later Toby does some investigating like talking to the woman, but she wouldn't say anything. The kidnapper threatened to kill her son if she went to the police.

Later it turns out the guy who kidnapped her son is a cop. That cop had accidentally shot his partner, and the woman Anna witnessed it. There was this one part that was kind of funny.

Cut to Anna in the car. A shady Guy enters.

Guy: Hi. Are you Anna?
A: Yeah.
G: Do you have the $200?
A: Yeah.
Me: What is this? A drug deal?
G: What kind of a gun do you want?

Oh yeah. It's good to protect yourself. That reminds me of an ep of Tru Calling where Tru's brother Harrison buys a gun from a guy in an alley.

Anna follows the bad cop to his house. Bad cop takes Anna and the son hostage. Toby finds the bad cop's address. He then gets into a convo with a neighbor and hears his thoughts. T then knows that the bad cop is at the cabin. Toby goes over there, and he calls the cops.

Later T hits bad cop over the head. Anna and her son are running in the woods. Bad cop chases after them, and T chases them too. A and her son are at a dead end when they're at a cliff. Bad cop appears and T comes and tries to talk him out of killing them to keep them silent. Then Bad cop lunges at A and son, Bad cop falls off cliff.

Funny: The other day I was watching the MTV Movie Awards. Twilight won most of the awards and Slumdog Millionare didn't win any. Yeah well, Slumdog won nearly everything at the Oscars.

The funny thing is that they did a tribute to the actor Ben Stiller. It then showed a clip of him. It then triggered this memory in me. I remember how they did a parody of how he was in the boy band Backstreet Boys, but he got kicked out because he wasn't talented. Guys, I found the 5 min. video clip. They got the real Backstreet Boys dissing him. They got a fake producer who is played by an actor calling them the "Backstreet Bastards." lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDd-VPmGEl0

June 4 Race: I was thinking about race today. If an Asian person came up to me and asked: "Are you Chinese?" That would be okay. If someone from another race ask that right out of the blue, then it's not really polite. Race and religion are taboo subjects. I remember one time I was working at the $1 store. This young white guy enters and asks where the candy is.

He buys it from me. Then:

Guy: Are you Chinese?
Me: Yeah.
I was thinking: "And why are you asking about my ethnicity?"
Guy: Ni hao.
Me: Ni hao.
(It means "hello" in Mandarin.)
Guy: How do you say "How are you?" in Chinese?
Me: Ni hao ma.
Guy: Ni hao ma.

Well that was good to ask if I'm Chinese before he starts talking to me in it. Unlike that other time at the $1 Store, this old white guy enters and says: "On yong" to me. That means "hello" in Korean. I know this because it's used as a joke on the TV show Arrested Development.

I remember a couple of years, these 2 high school girls got on the bus. One of them stepped on my shoe and apologized. They sat beside me and we started talking. I guess 5 min. into the conversation, one of them asks: "I hope you don't mind my asking, but what are you exactly? Like Chinese-" Me: "Yeah, Chinese." I'm not offended, I know she was curious.

I'm even going to bring up the girl in a religion that doesn't allow her to talk to boys. If you were going to try to find the girl, and ask an East Indian girl that, she would probably be offended. She would probably say: "No, and don't go thinking just because of my race I'm in a restrictive religion."

Funny and Angry: On twop.com, I wrote this little rant on "TV Moments that Angry up the Blood" thread.

This doesn't totally angry up my blood, but it does annoy me. It's way back in 2001 on Malcolm in the Middle. Hal makes this huge painting in the entire episode. The next day in class, I was talking to my friend Leslie about it.

Me: The episode was funny and all, but the only thing I didn't like about it was that they didn't show how the painting actually looked like.
Leslie: Oh yeah, I hated that too!We laughed.

I don't care if the painting is ugly, but I would like to see how it looked like. It's like they were building something up in the entire episode, without any follow through.

Then I'm going to bring up that Jamie Kennedy Experiment sketch again. I posted this up a long time ago, but there is something else that annoys me about it. It's where they play the trick on these 2 guys who are judges of a TV talent show (and the audience). The 2 guys thought Jamie wouldn't hear their comments on the show, and they said all these mean comments dissing Jamie. Then Jamie comes back on stage, and then hears all the mean comments when it airs on the big TV behind him. The 2 guys act like they're so embarassed that Jamie heard it.

I would like to add that I found the talent show to be really fake. In talent shows, the judges are people who have talent. These are just 2 guys they pulled off the street. In shows like "American Idol" they have music producers and artists do the judging. They should have picked 2 guys with some talent background. These are 2 regular guys giving opinions. It seemed more like a focus group.

Another thing that was fake about the show, was that the judges make the comments when the contestants are back stage. In all the TV talent shows out there, the judges always make their comments to the contestants so they have to hear it. I feel like the guys should have picked on something is up with this show. But that's just my opinion.

Joke: Then I checked on the thread "Unintentionally Funny Moments." Here's one:

"Last month there was a promo for the local news broadcast that was unintentionally funny. First promo was about the arrest of a mother for having a sexual relationship with the 17yo exchange student that was living with the family. This was followed by 'And then, what to get your mom for Mothers Day.'"

It was then followed with someone saying:
"Ah, so it WAS a good idea to get my Mom a 17-year old for Mother's Day!"

lol. Then here's another one:

"Dr. Phil did a show on parents and their kids who don't get along. First up was a dad and daughter.
Daughter: He's always calling me a liar!
Dad: That's not true!"

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