Thanks to the miracle of Netflix, I’ve been discovering new TV shows on a monthly basis. And thanks to the cruelty of the short-sighted networks, which tend to cancel a new show after four episodes if it doesn’t get at least 10 million viewers, I’ve been thrown into a bitter funk when every new, promising series is cut short. Of course, most of these shows are a couple years old, so I’m a little late to the petulant party, but the loss of shows like “Freaks & Geeks” and “Arrested Development” pains me all the same.
The latest show that I’ve fallen in love with is “Wonderfalls,” which lasted all of four episodes on FOX back in 2004. The show is about slacker gift shop clerk at Niagra Falls — played by the charmingly sarcastic Caroline Dhavernas — who suddenly finds that animal figurines and stuffed animals are talking to her, offering cryptic, one-line instructions about what she should do.
Visually stunning, brilliantly acted, and extremely witty, “Wonderfalls” is on a par with “Weeds” and “Six Feet Under” as one of my favorite shows of the past couple years. It baffles me that some other network didn’t pick it up. Even if FOX and the other networks are ready to throw in the towel after week one (presumably eating all of the costs of producing the full order of 13-episodes), surely another network like F/X could still use it to fill their programming holes, right?
Anyway, be sure to rent the DVDs (it’s not on iTunes), or check out some of the short clips on YouTube. Here’s the unaired pilot (which doesn’t have the totally kick ass theme song, but you still get the idea):
Alright, you know how a few days ago I posted that despite all my best efforts, my blog is best known for a post about the laxative effects of maltitol? Well, the greater irony is that today, just before watching “Notes on a Scandel,” Ana and I picked up a couple bags of sugar-free candies sweetened with — you guessed it — maltitol. (We’re making a go of Atkins again, and despite some excellent early weight-loss, the movie-theater candy craving hasn’t quite gone away yet.)
Suffice it to say, I’m retarded for even agreeing to peruse the CVS candy aisle, much less absent-mindedly consuming a full bag of sugar-free Twizzlers. I’m now doubled over in pain, running back and forth to the bathroom, and unable to sleep. Ugh.
Blogging may be great for sharing my picks and thoughfully reflecting on my latest unheathly obsession, but when it comes to teaching me the error of my ways — eh, not so good.
Or is there any way to sweet-talk Verizon and Apple into playing nice and making the iPhone available to non-Cingular customers? Time to start a petition.
If you haven’t checked out the iPhone yet, you must immediately go to the Apple website and kill a half hour watching demos of all its features. Prepare to have your mind blown. I haven’t suffered from such immediate, aggressive techno-lust since — well, the Wii.
But honestly, I don’t think it’s just me being overly gadget happy; these are actually the two coolest gizmos to hit the market in years. Of course, the actual iPhones won’t actually hit the market until June, so until them, I’m going to have to fill the void in my life with a cutout, papercraft iPhone (pictured below) — which I plan to wrap about my Wii controller.
I finally discovered the Murphy’s law of blogging: If you create a personal weblog, update semi-regularly for close to three years, and pour your heart and soul (or at least, your best late-night top-ten lists), the one thing your blog will be known for is a two-year-old post about how the artificial sweetener Maltitol causes massive diarrhea.
Despite my best attempts to mine such topics at the hunt for Nintendo Wiis, the great “Hair Watch” of the 2004 Presidential campaign, or the shiny future of cat toys, it’s the Maltitol post that people keep stumbling on. Normally a post will get one, two comments, tops. Yet somehow the Maltitol one has accumulated 25, most of them stories about other people with similar stories — the evils of Russell Stover jelly beans, nights spent in bathrooms, business meetings disrupted by massive abdominal growling, etc, etc. Even a few have emailed me directly, such as Lisa D., who wrote a couple days ago:
Dear Ted:
I love your blog on Maltitol: A Sweetener and a Laxative in One. Wow! I had the nightmare trip of my life when I was stuck in the Canary Islands and then Madrid just trying to get home before dying of the flu epidemic that killed the Pope. Except I wasn’t vomiting, I was having explosive diarrhea. With total dehydration, the hotel doctor gave me a shot of ?? after which I slept for 20 hours, then I took a bunch of medication. The trip home with all the security zones at the airport (and the bathroom elsewhere) — well, I wished I had bought diapers I was so nervous. I didn’t eat or drink anything for 18 hours just trying to make it back. After getting home I realized the ‘healthy’ bars given to me by my gut specialist (!) were full of maltitol syrup.
Just wanted to let you know and thank you because your blog is the one I’m going to point people to and I’m not logged into Word Press so I couldn’t leave a reply.
Thanks. Lisa D.
So, there you have it. TurkeyMonkey has become a support group for the gastrointestinally abused, artificially sweetened, and Hershey squirted. Welcome to the party.
About TurkeyMonkey
TurkeyMonkey is a blog devoted to Ted Mann’s thoughts on water sports, refined sugar, and, naturally, anything to do with monkeys. Why TurkeyMonkey? Well, for starters, SpiderPig was already taken.
Last Thursday I attended my first TweetUp at Tortilla Press in Collingswood. It was a great event and has, among other things, inspired me to bring more Twitter goodness into other areas of my online life -- including, for starters, this long-neglected blog. As you can see, I've launched a new WordPress theme by the [...] […]
You might see some Wikipedia articles appearing in your Google News searches. Cue aghast reactions. Really, though, it's not that big of a deal. Internet users gain their info from a variety of sources - never from just one - unlike the way traditional newspapers fed their news content to their readers. Besides I passed biology [...] […]
To anyone who doubts the importance of Facebook in the web economy these days, that headline alone should be reason enough to make you a believer. According to Compete in the last month alone, traffic to Facebook.com grew 8 percent, reaching 82.9 million unique visitors. As TechCrunch points out, it's almost beside the point to compare [...] […]
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We've been working long and hard for several months now on what we're calling our "hyperlocal project." Yes, indeedy, more town-centric citizen journalist goodness. Trust us, it'll be awesome. More on that in the weeks to come. In the mean time, we're still polishing up the site, and one bit of spit shine that would really [...] […]
This article courtesy of MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press. Cheers! PHILADELPHIA - Convicted former news anchor Larry Mendte has filed a defamation suit against The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News and several of their columnists. Mendte says he was defamed in coverage of what he calls a "romantic" relationship with co-anchor Alyci […]
Go go creative commons and go go licensing fees. MediaShift takes a look at iffy fair use rules and the wobbly future of news copyright on the Web through the epic toils of AP's legal staff. I've always tried to follow the fair-use-doesn't-exist rule. The Copyright Act stipulations take too long to translate and are a little [...] […]
Did you know there's a newspaper (or a few) per continent including Antarctica? Or how about the lyrics to "The Washington Post March" (born and raised in Fairfax, Va. and even I didn't know that!) Check out this list of nine things you probably didn't know about the news. My favorite: "You've probably heard the New York [. […]
Done as of yesterday. "The Bulletin retained its predecessor’s famous slogan, 'In Philadelphia Nearly Everybody Reads the Bulletin'..." via RIP Philadelphia Bulletin | Newspaper Death Watch. Check out the Bulletin's website here. Will they make something of it? Doesn't look promising... [Editor's note: Updated 1:15 p.m.] […]
Check out the new toy being deliverd this month to the private Caribbean island of Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Unlimited. For $25,000 you can rent Branson's underwater airplane for a week. ''Unlike all conventional submersibles which use ballast to sink in the water, the DeepFlight submersibles uses downward ‘lift’ on the wings to fly down t […]
- Was watching the playoffs this weekend with friends when that old Philly vs. New York saw reared its ugly head: Philly and South Jersey feeling second rate when ever it compares itself, or whenever we're compared to New York. What a croc. But in that vein, its worth pointing out something we've got that New York [...] […]
- I think the Day 8 season premier last night of '24' found Jack Bauer using a Nexus One cell phone. Did anyone else spy the familiar silver-ringed camera lens on the back of his mobile while he was talking to CTU when the helicopter exploded? Maybe Jack was trying to reach Google's customer [...] […]
- A new season of '24' brings Jack back for 2 hours Sunday night (and 2 more on Monday) to set the stage for the season. If you wanna be like Jack, while you're ducking and reloading and running from place to place to place, you'll need a good watch. After all, in Bauer time, [...] […]
- Oh, this isn't good. Going straight into consumer caution mode here: Nexus One may have a rampant hardware defect. And Google is providing woeful customer service, according to reports in most all media - blogosphere, techpress, mainstream press. And Nexus One has the highest costs of any subsidized phone. Strange that Google claims this phone 'r […]
- Reports are growing that right out of the box, the Nexus One is having issues. First issue is that people can't get them out of the box: Mobile phone users are complaining that Google isn't shipping fast enough. And people who received one, they're having real trouble getting support. Google's response to these issues: You have to [...] […]
We're taking down the Christmas tree today and right about now I wish I had studied my differential calculus a bit more. Wonder if I could do that with my washing machine. […]
-Listen closely and ... pffffft ... you can hear air coming out of the new Nexus One smartphone from Google. Great Gods, when it was released for sale Tuesday afternoon, the Earth didn't quake, clouds didn't part and angels didn't sing. You only heard Google touting it. To cut through 2009's relentless hype and verbiage surrounding this [ […]
- The controversial Google Phone was publicly approved by the FCC today. Thanks to all the GadgBloggers who have been wrestling mightily with this for some time, but the expected game changer of a Data Only phone is not present here. Not yet, anyhow. Here's some pictures courtesy of engadget. Images purport that this mobile has 3D [...] […]
Just about tech blog in the U.S. is currently bitching about yesterday's news that AT&T will NOT be supporting many of the newest features on the iPhone 3G, like MMS and tethering. Instead of echoing their gripes, I'd instead like to kindly point you to a petition to get Ma Bell to please, please join the [...] […]
Thanks to the miracle of Netflix, I’ve been discovering new TV shows on a monthly basis. And thanks to the cruelty of the short-sighted networks, which tend to cancel a new show after four episodes if it doesn’t get at least 10 million viewers, I’ve been thrown into a bitter funk when every new, promising series is cut short. Of course, most of these shows are a couple years old, so I’m a little late to the petulant party, but the loss of shows like “Freaks & Geeks” and “Arrested Development” pains me all the same.
