Top Ten Reasons I Heart Kid Genius Week on Jeopardy

Jeopardy has always been my favorite game show.  I watched it growing up with my Dad and now that I’m backing living in the retirement home (aka my parents house) I’ve started watching it regularly again.  I don’t wanna brag or anything, but I’m pretty freaking awesome at TV or any other pop culture category.  This makes my Dad who paid for my very expensive Master’s Degree extremely proud…or sad…I’m not really sure, I keep forgetting to ask if those tears he cries are ones of joy or disappointment…I’m gonna go with joy.  Without a doubt though, my  favorite week on Jeopardy is Kid Genius Week.  The real name of the week is “Kid Week,” but let’s get real.  It’s a whole week of 10 year-old prodigies, so it’s a little more than just “Kid Week.”  You’re probably wondering why I prefer this week to others such as Tournament of Champions or College Week, so let’s take a look at why I heart Kid Genius Week oh so much.

1. I know all the answers.  It’s awesome.  It makes me feel like the smartest person ever.
2. Yelling at the 10 year-olds on TV when they miss a question is surprisingly fun.  For example, who wouldn’t want to yell at their TV “Hah! You dumb bastard.  World War II ended in 1945 NOT 1944.  Who’s the prodigy now, bitch?”
3. It’s the one Tournament on Jeopardy I could actually win.  I have this elaborate plan to tell the producers I have Jack Syndrome and that even though I look like I’m in my 20′s, I’m actually 9.  It’s a no fail plan really.
4. Most of the kids on the show may be prodigies, but they’re also socially awkward and watching socially awkward kids tell their Jeopardy stories is hilarious.  Always great to hear that little Penny’s best friend is her imaginary friend shaped like a piano.
5. Sometimes Alex Trebek gets annoyed with the kids.  You can kind of tell he’s actually not too fond of the concept.
6. For the first time, I’m smarter than all of the contestants and when you’re unemployed – you’ll take whatever validation you can get.
7. The questions are ridiculously easy.
8. Did I mention I know ALL the answers???
9. It’s nice break from the usual pompous asses who compete on the show.
10. Seriously, I know ALL the answers.  I would freaking sweep that tournament if I was allowed to compete on it.  I’m talking like “And our returning champion Krissy, with an astounding 2 day total of $800,000.”  It would be incredible.

Top Ten Reasons I Heart Tivo

In honor of me re-hooking up my Tivo box this past week, I thought I’d dedicate this week’s Top Ten to the greatest invention ever…Tivo.  Now let me present to you the Top Ten Reasons I Heart Tivo:

1. After suffering through watching commercials for the past 3 Tivoless months, I discovered about 98% of commericals are highly annoying.  Thanks to my gorgeous little Tivo though, I can now go back to fast-forwarding through all those awful things.
2. Tivo finds shows for me that I otherwise would’ve never known are still on the air.  For example, did anyone else know that The Patty Duke Show airs on some random channel called WHC?  I had no idea that channel even existed.
3. My Tivo playlist guarantees that I will always have something to watch on TV.  This comes in handy when you’re unemployed.
4. The pause function allows me to pick up the phone when someone calls during one of my favorite shows.  It’s also good when watching TV with the parental units and you have to keep pausing to explain that, yes even though the actors on Gossip Girl look like they’re 25, they are playing high-schoolers.
5. Tivo lets me watch and record multiple shows at once.  This brilliant function lets me watch twice the amount of TV and also saves me from having to watch some shows on my computer.
6. With the rewind function, I can actually go back and try to figure out what the hell just happened on Lost or my soap.
7. 90210 reruns at the touch of a button – enough said.
8. Tivo is sweet enough to make recommendations for other shows I might like to watch.  It’s wrong about 88% of the time…but still, it’s a nice gesture.
9. I hate that prime-time starts at 7:00 in Mountain/Central time.  This does not make sense to me…prime-time should start at 8:00!!  But now that I have Tivo back in my life, this doesn’t bother me as much.
10. Once you go Tivo, you can never go back.  Trust me – I tried…and those are 3 commercial-filled months of my life I can never get back.

Top Ten Reasons You Should Watch a Soap Opera

There are many reasons why you should start watching a soap opera.  I started watching my soap, All My Children, at the ripe old age of 12 and have been watching for almost 15 years now.  My soap has gotten me through some tough times, mostly times of unemployment when I have disgusting amounts of free time on my hands.  Let’s face it – soaps were basically created for the unemployed and middle-aged housewives to kill time during the middle of the day.  That’s partly why I love my soap so much, but time killing is only one of the reasons.  So without further ado – I present to you my Top Ten Reasons to watch a soap opera:

1. They’re like telenovelas – cept in English so I can actually understand them.
2. Soaps are pretty much the only decent thing to watch on TV between the hours of noon and 4:00.
3. There’s a new episode on every day – which means no horrible reruns to deal with.
4. Soap operas have this unspoken rule to not cast ugly people, so there’s an abundance of hot people on each show.  Case in point – Josh Duhamel got his start on All My Children.
5. Speaking of hot guys – soaps make a point of having the hot young studs take off their shirts at least once a week to show off their sexy washboard abs.
6. And speaking of washboard abs – soaps also try to include a lot of steamy hot sex scenes as well.  This is to appease the middle-aged housewives (they need a little sex in their lives).
7. Death means nothing in the world of soap operas – almost everyone comes back from the dead at least once.  On my soap we saw the character of Jesse Hubbard as a ghost – multiple times – yet he still somehow surfaced alive and well in Pine Valley last year.
8. The characters’ lives are so ridiculous it makes you feel better about your own life.
9. Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome or, as we soap fans like to call it, SORAS.  This means that little 12 year old Timmy can go away to camp for a week and come back a smoking hot 20-something year old guy.  Now if that isn’t just brilliant – I don’t know what is.
10. If you don’t start watching soap operas they will die.  True story.  Soap ratings have been steadily declining for years now and many of our favorites (including mine) are on life support at this point.  This means if more people don’t start watching – the networks will start cancelling the soaps (Guiding Light just got axed last month).  So please start watching one today – preferably All My Children – because without AMC my unemployment would suck even more than it already does.