Random TV Love- Top Gear

I love Top Gear. Anyone know it? It's a show out of Britain about cars. I can't think of one thing about the premise that would entice me to watch. And yet...I love it. I love it so much that I DVR it and watch it at leisure.

It has three hosts who all seem to like each other a lot and hate each other a lot- in a way that some guys can do. They are ruthlessly mean to each other, mock each other and set each other up for disasters whenever possible. Sort of like Jackass, but with vehicles and a smooth British accent.

They do straight up reviews of cars, but mostly they are far above any normal person's budget. They get one-of-a-kind cars and cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and drive them around the track. They check out a lot of just merely expensive cars, Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari, Jaguar and such. That's OK, I listen, sometimes they're pretty interesting.

But the pure genius is in all the other crap that they do.

They have celebrities come and race around a track in a 'reasonably priced car'. They do an interview (always very random) and then watch the timed race lap and then they place them on a leader board. They get big names in, and sometimes folks I've never heard of, but they're still fun to watch.

The three hosts are frequently sent on challenges involving cars. Things like, go to America and purchase a car in Miami for less than $1000, drive it to New Orleans. They raced across London at rush hour using a car, boat, bike and public transportation to see what was fastest. Modify RVs and race them around a track smashing into each other along the way.

As a girl who's owned her car for almost 10 years, and it was used when I bought it, I am the last to claim any interest in awesome car shows. But this one, oh yeah.

If you have BBC America, you should check it out. The new season starts Monday!

Fun, Crazy Weekend

Sorry I haven't posted- A friend came in from out of town this last weekend. We spent three days running around like nuts and having a blast. We tooled around the Berkshires and wandered the little shops and galleries in Lenox, visited the only winery in Western Massachusetts and took the back roads everywhere. We went to the movies, played mini-golf, shopped and hid in the air conditioning a lot.

Ruth is a crazy woman who is also the most down to earth and upstanding human around. What an awesome combination. We always have a blast and I miss her like crazycakes when shes gone. Good thing we chat on IM about four hours a day. Good use of my time, yes?

Also, I am watching I Survived A Japanese Gameshow right now. I'm so going to television hell in a handbasket. It's the heat, it makes my brain incapable of watching the Masterpiece Theater I DVR'd.

Continuity, People, Continuity

I work from home a lot. I often have the TV on for both entertainment and simple background noise. I'm not extremely picky about what is on (and often I just put on music) but I have some standards.

On a typical morning I might watch the 9 AM showing of a repeat of Monk on USA and the Gilmore Girls on ABC Family around 11 AM.

I mention these two shows in particular because I feel like they illustrate a prime example of one of my small annoyances, the random nature of daytime repeat television. Episodes of Monk are followed by Walker, Texas Ranger. Ugh. Really? Not for me. And after Gilmore Girls, Full House. Yikes. Do these audiences in any way overlap? What would compel the schedulers to choose these shows to follow one another? Drives me bonkers.

I can't tell you how many times I've been working and after a few minutes look up disoriented to realize that my background noise involves a bar fight in Texas or a dilemma about a game of spin-the-bottle.

I know, really, the burdens I carry are unbelievable....