Smackdown

Leno, Ratings Toxin

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/leno-ratings-study-lead-i_n_422669.html

TJ/ Speaking of toxic. Had the worst dinner date ever tonight. Met what I thought was a cool female. Over the course of the hour, I lost interest so quick. Couldn’t extract myself soon enough.

@ManchuCandidate: Pick up the tab, and walk.

@Dodgerblue: Eff that. Women should pay their own way.

@ManchuCandidate: I’m no Leno fan, but he can’t be blamed for two stupid decisions by NBC execs: (1) Guaranteeing Conan the Tonight Show five years in advance, and (2) putting Leno at 10 p.m. to keep him from jumping to ABC or Fox.

The well-publicized fears (leading to a near-defection by, I think, a Boston affiliate) were that any 10 p.m. talk show would be disaster for local news, no matter how well Leno had been doing at 11:35. Leno was, and is, cheaper for NBC to produce and make a profit, but a prime-time talk-show is a terrible lead-in for news.

Why? Presuming you even stick around for the monologue, there’s nothing driving the audience to stay for the whole show — not like a drama, which you get a tidy climax at 10:58. (And even a prime-time newsmagazine can pitch its last item throughout the show.)

Meanwhile, speaking of NBC Pinheads, I’m reminded of Dave’s shtick when the network was bought: taking a camera crew to barge in at GE headquarters, and being turned away at the door. If I have my timing right, this was a year or two before Michael Moore made his reputation pulling the same move on GM.

@ManchuCandidate: Fixup? match.com? Your parents? (shudder).

@blogenfreude:
Just someone I met a while ago. Timing for a date sucked till now. I realize now that it was the universe telling me that it was all wrong.

I think my parents learned to not set me up. I bailed out of a couple really bad parent inspired dates using what I call the “Personality Jackass” bomb (I was younger and less suave then, now I’ll use a less moronic way of getting out of it.) Since then, my parents fear of family shame.

Shame > Getting stupid son married.

Well, that’s interesting — I just received a nice email from Barbara Boxer!

Not that I’ve ever asked to receive nice emails from Barbara Boxer. I still receive nice emails from the Obama campaign, but I paid for those. And sure, Barbara Boxer may have borrowed my address from the Obama campaign, but her message came from her senate.gov account.

There’s probably some publicity-worthy FEC fun to have with this, but I’m too lazy to pursue it.

@mellbell:
I like that, but I get confused.

1) I screwed up one relationship because I was considered cheap. I inadvertently dodged a major bullet (she wanted a man of means and status–wouldn’t have lasted long as I have limited means and don’t care for the latter.)
2) A bad date ended when I offered to pay and I insulted my date who insisted on going dutch. We argued because she didn’t want to “owe” me–I didn’t care. She literally forced me to let her pay her half. I paid mine and that was that.

After that, I just paid. In this situation, Credit cards are wonderful things.

“You’re too dumb to come to the party.” That’s always been my philosophy.

@blogenfreude: Y’know, I just found out that a friend of mine met her fiance on match.com. All this time I assumed that she met him through her martial arts classes or something. It’s amazing to me that most of my friends met their SO through an online dating service.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: “Please be advised that http://www.indianaffairs.gov” is not an online dating site, as I said on FB earlier today.

Funny online dating stuff: two of our friends who already knew each other were matched up by one of the services. They thought that was too funny and didn’t go out. Also, the same woman in that couple was paired with someone who was also an upper class New Englander living in a rural area in New Mexico using their expensive liberal arts education to eke out a living trying to be creative and uplift The People. I understand they spent the weekend trying to outdo each other in being insufferably holy about how poor they now were.

@mellbell, manchu: Me: “Is this a ‘date date’ or are we paying our own way?”

Future Mrs RML: “It’s a ‘date date'” and we’ll pay our own way.”

We went to a movie, and went for coffee where we saw The Art Babe and My Oldest Friend in the World. Future Mrs RML noted how AB, who had been quite indifferent about my past attention, was very interested in me that night. That was about 16 years ago and we’ve been together since then.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: I find it tragic. Kids want to hear, “I met your father in Manchuria after the Japanese thought they’d killed him when they crucified him in the jungle and our plane crashed after taking flak. . . and we fought our way to the coast with nothing but our bare hands and my knitting needle,” or something, something more interesting than, “I typed in ‘Humongous Breasts’ and ‘Black Nipples’ and up came a picture of yur mah.”

@mellbell: No, I mean that if you’re going to bail out mid-date, it’s only fair to get the check. Kind of like folding a hand after you see the flop.

This is why its so much less awkward if you have already fucked before the first date, rather than waiting until after.

@Dodgerblue: Ha.