Why I hate CSI:Miami

This Youtube clip compiling an amazing number of instances of David Caruso's patented "one-liner while putting on sunglasses" is a good distillation.

To be fair to the Miami version, I don't actually like any of the many CSI variants. The only one I've ever actually seen at any length, though, is CSI:Miami. And it was atrocious. Beautiful, lush cinematography that looks absolutely glorious in HD combined with incredibly cliched storylines, laughable casting choices and pathetically bad acting.

No sir, I didn't like it.

Mythbusters Cranks the Awesome up to 11

Video of the Mythbusters team smashing a steel plate into a car at 700 miles per hour.

Just in case the probably-faked Italian meter-maid humping video from earlier didn't do it for you.

CBS reads my blog... or my mind...

So I finished up watching last week's How I Met Your Mother on the web this morning and the ad selection this time around was much better. Rather than a 50-something selling me Viagra they had the hilarious set of ads of Neil Patrick Harris using his "former fake doctor" bona fides to sell me "prescription strength Old Spice -- without a prescription."

Using ads targeted to the same demographic as the show during which they air? Featuring the actor who performs the breakout character of the show? Much better.

I love those ads.

The episode, btw, was one of the best ever. And that's saying something.

"See you guys later, I've got to take a huge New Jersey."

I'm not that old, I swear...

So this morning I finally got around to watching last week's How I Met Your Mother. So far, it is hysterical. It's a whole episode about the rank prejudice that young New Yorkers have against New Jersey. Many of the jokes I and my friends have in fact made ourselves. Genius.

But here's the odd thing. I'm watching it on CBS's website, since I had a scheduling conflict and couldn't DVR it. On the website you get fewer ads but you can't skip them. So what was the ad? Viagra.

A show about 20-30 somethings that is designed to most appeal to 20-30 somethings serves up an ad for erectile dysfunction.

I remember the first time I saw a beer ad with a song I had actually bought. I realized that I had hit the age (not 21, btw) at which beer companies felt it was worth paying attention to what I like. But am I really at the age when ad companies feel I might be interested in Viagra?

I'd note that the guy in the ad was in his 50's at least. I'd bet good money that the over 50 audience for How I Met Your Mother could fit comfortably in my apartment. And the over 50 web audience could fit comfortably in my refrigerator. Which is not a full-size fridge.

Come with me if you want to live...

"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" has been a pleasant surprise. Here was a show that I felt sure would suck based on the very vague initial promotional spots. I would probably have never even tried it except that Fox cleverly held back the strike-shortened first season to air in the doldrums of the strike when there was literally no new scripted television on air at all.

With nothing to watch, I gave it a shot and found it was actually pretty good. I mean, here's a show that seems to be an obvious cash-in on a franchise that was looking pretty tired after the last movie. In addition, it features cast members from such notable dramatic successes as "Beverly Hills 90210" (fn1), "Judging Amy"(fn2) and "John from Cincinnati".(fn3)

To say I had low expectations would be overstating things quite a bit: I had less than no expectations. But the show does some pretty interesting things with what is, when used right, a pretty snappy premise.

At any rate, it was my pleasant surprise of the season. I actually had pretty high expectations coming into this season and thus far it has met them.

The only serious issue I'm facing is that I now have 3 overlapping shows that I enjoy on Mondays. This one, "Chuck" and "How I Met Your Mother".

I haven't yet watched the premiere of "Chuck" but I enjoyed last season so I'm hoping it's still good. "How I Met Your Mother" is one of the funniest shows ever and if you're not watching it you are cheating yourself.

The premise is a guy in the future telling his kids about his time in NYC back in the now. Theoretically it's the long story of how he met his wife, the future-kids' mother, but mostly it's just about being in your mid-20's to early 30's in NYC.

And it is awesome. I say this as someone spending his mid-20's to early 30's in NYC. It's basically me with better writers.

fn1) Brian Austin Green. Did you know the 'Austin' was made up because there was already a Brian Green in the SAG? Now you do! (fn4)

fn2) The guy who played her assistant whose name I am not going to look up. I'm also going to skate over the fact that Judging Amy was a guilty pleasure of mine for a long time.

fn3) The guy who played the doctor. Now, to be fair, he was also Jack McCall, the man who shot Wild Bill in the excellent "Deadwood", but still.

fn4) I recently read my first David Foster Wallace piece. It was an essay about a cruise he took. I enjoyed it and have been rocking the footnotes more and more since reading it.

Public Notice: Heroes is possibly the worst show on television

The show Heroes was interesting during its first season but ended kind of weakly.

The second season was almost unwatchably bad. The only reason it gets the "almost" qualifier in there was because of the interesting first season.

The third season was actually promoted prior to its start with the phrase "if you gave up on last season, you need to try it again..." which was somewhat heartening because it at least showed some recognition on the part of the producers of the show about how bad it had gotten.

But still, I was very trepidatious going into this season. No great eagerness to jump in. I finally got around to watching the special 2-hour premiere last night. The show is unwatchable. It's lost the "almost". I will be adjusting my dvr accordingly.