1/13/05: Finally Finis

It's become quite clear that the Geography Photo Quiz is a hit.  Maybe not an out-of-the-gate box office smash like the GISG, but a nice winter sleeper that seems to have generated some solid buzz. If we accept that this game is here to stay, we probably also need to accept that "The Geography Photo Quiz" is simply not a good enough name to support a game of this stature. So we need a new name. I have a few ideas, like "Whereizzit" and "Wheredat." You can go ahead and suggest something better. For now, we'll go with "Wheredat." Thanks to Damn Brit for submitting today's European-flavored entry.  Take a look at the picture at right and tell me, whydoncha: Wheredat? Best part is, I don't know myself.  So I get to play, too.

You asked for a pic of hostboy, and I deliver.  Here's me and him after production today (I'm on the right).  It was a long and grueling day. That's why I look so fat and ugly. Also, I guess I should add here that I do feel a little bit bad harshing on Hostboy so much here on the ol' website. He's actually a nice person, but through his incompetence and weirdness he creates an insurmountable wall of crapola which in turn brings us all down.  So I must unleash a little punishment here.  Sorry, friend.

His ISO reels* could fetch thousands on eBay.

I can't tell you how delighted I am to be done with this run of shows. Tomorrow I can start returning phone calls and answering emails and doing laundry and being a regular person again. Only thing that sucks is our whole team has to meet with the company president at 9:30am.  I would have liked to come in around noon. But at least I'm not making rock videos.**

I haven't bashed Bush in awhile (you can read into that whatever you want), so let me just point out this li'l news item.  My favorite line is this next one, which becomes especially curious when you realize it directly followed an acknowledgement by the administration that there ain't no weapons.

"Based on what we know today, the president would have taken the same action because this is about protecting the American people," said Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

Did the next reporter to raise his hand at least have the nerve to ask, "Um, OK, then, I see...wait...protecting us from what, exactly?"

They probably would have gotten a response like, "The president believes in protecting us from all threats, real and imagined. Certainly there was no threat today.  But how do we know that there might not be a threat tomorrow? Are you willing to take that chance? Our president is not going to wait until the threat is real to start protecting us from it, because by then it might very well be too late."

And the press would have scratched their collective head and gone, "Um, yeah, I guess he's got a point." 

Department of the Obvious: Lenny Wilkens is not long for NY.

* That's "TV Talk" for a tape recorded on a VTR dedicated to the output of a particular source, like say the camera that is always covering Randy Moss during a Monday Night Football game. In Hostboy's case, the ISO reels contain every last one of  his outtakes in all their moronic glory. They are side-splittingly funny. At one point (actually at several points), he screwed up a simple line about 14 straight times, the same way each time. So it would be:

Hostboy (to camera): Welcome back.  I've got my fish draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my escarole.
Me: Stop tape. Hostboy, you've got that backwards.  It's "I've got my escarole draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my fish."
Hostboy (to me): Copy that. Let's rock.
Me: OK.
Hostboy (to camera): Welcome back.  I've got my fish draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my escarole.
Me: Stop tape. Hostboy, you've still got that backwards.  It's "I've got my escarole draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my fish."  OK?
Hostboy (to me): Yep, I did it again, didn't I? I knew it.  My bad. Let's roll.  I've got it.
Me: OK.
Hostboy (to camera): Welcome back.  I've got my fish draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my escarole.

Multiply that by ten times and you get some astonished and frustrated crew members.

** This is a reference to a joke by a standup comedian from the early 90s (which, we have already established, were really still part of the late 80s). I don't remember now if I even saw the joke or it was told to me second-hand, but it's one of my favorites.  It goes something like this.

"I was watching MTV the other day and they had an interview with Richard Marx on. He was talking from the set of his new video.  He said, 'You know, I love making music more than anything.  But videos -- making videos is the worst job in the world.' Yeah, I can just picture the guy working in the donut factory, pulling down the lever over and over all day - pull, squish, pull, squish, pull, squish -- saying to himself, 'Man, this sucks.  But at least I'm not making rock videos.'"

That's a good way to remind yourself that things ain't so bad.