Life With One Channel, Part Three

My room mate and I have been complaining about only having one television channel for quite some time. If you've read either of the two previous posts about living with only one channel of television, you know that the local NBC affiliate: WITN is quite possibly the worst television channel known to man (and quite possibly women, but the jury is out on the NFL Network).

Soap operas for men.

Recently though, we've noticed a disturbing trend in the morning programing that has somehow escaped our notice until just now. No, it is not the trend that morning television is terrible. Everybody already knows that. What we've noticed is that everyone, and I mean everyone, involved in morning shows on NBC is a fucking alcoholic.

The only coffee they drink is from Dublin.

Seriously though. Every day on the Today Show and whatever show Kathy Lee and Hoda Kotb are on, the hosts get their drink on. By hook or by crook. Here are some choice pieces of alcohol related shenanigans that we've seen in the past month or two.

The most common way that NBC television hosts get their drink on involves the cooking portion of the Today Show. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Surely the cook doesn't provide alcoholic beverages with every meal that they cook." Well they don't.

Well, maybe this guy. How many glasses of wine do you need?

They cook nearly every single meal with some sort of alcohol based marinade, sauce, or just as a main flavor ingredient. One day it's Bananas Foster with dark rum, the next day it's Porter Steak Bits Stew cooked with a couple of beers as the the broth portion. Then it's Chicken Marsala with actual wine. Do you see a pattern here?

But it's not just that the guest chefs love to cook with booze, I'm pretty sure that the hosts encourage it. And they make a big deal about the fact that the recipes use wine or beer, joking (not really) about drinking while cooking. Honestly, I think that they pick the recipes, and if you want to cook on the Today Show you better bring your breathalyzer.

"Welcome back to NBC Studios. You know the drill."

Here are some lines that we've overheard from the various talking heads regarding their all but admitted alcoholism. How NBC hasn't fired Matt Lauer for bonging a beer while interviewing Obama is beyond me. (Disclaimer: Matt Lauer has not to our knowledge ever actually consumed a beer in that fashion while interviewing the president.)

When cooking that Chicken Marsala, Ann Curry asked the chef if he was using real Marsala wine, to which he replied "Of course". She proceeded to grab the entire bottle from him and I quote, say "Well, it's 12:00 somewhere." Ha, ha. Al Roker chuckles in the corner.

Must have been a really rough day. Already.

12:00 somewhere? What the hell is wrong with you lady? You don't even have the decency to say that it's 5:00 somewhere? (Small aside: unless it is actually on the hour, it is not 5:00 somewhere, it is 5:23 somewhere, etc. Thanks time zones.)

Unless you live in Arizona or Indiana, heathens.

Then, when Kathy Lee and Hoda show up for the start of their program, they usually have some sort of beverage sitting on the table that they sip on during their airtime. Every once in a while it's even something that you would consider drinking early in the morning. Like coffee, or orange juice. But most of the time it's a glass of red wine or a bottle of Guinness.

Really? I don't care if you have been up since 3:00 in the morning for hair and make-up, it's still 7:00 in the real world. You might as well brush your teeth with some whiskey or something, get that morning started right.

And who doesn't want this role model?

Well, that morning there was nothing in their coffee mugs/beer steins, and the Today Show had just gotten done cooking some sort of alcohol laden dish and the ladies must have been feeling a little bit left out.

So Kathy turns to Hoda and says, "Nothing to drink this morning, but hope springs eternal." Now, I'm all in favor of poetic expression, and am not a teetotaler, but these people really should at least keep their demons in the closet to be exposed at a later date, preferably on the national stage, much to their embarrassment.

Oh yeah, we went there.

But seriously, NBC really should sit down with Kathy, Hoda, Al and the other people and have a serious discussion about the appropriate decorum for the workplace. A nationally televised workplace at that.

The only kind of intervention that could stop them.

*Update*

Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News apparently recently called out Kathy Lee and Hoda while on air around mid-day. His quote was something along these lines: "If you've watched the morning programing, you know by this point that Kathy Lee and Hoda are usually hammered by now." To which the girls responded that they "haven't even had anything to drink today, yet."

He's not buying it.

And apparently some of the awesome products that they endorse on the show are also centered around getting your drink on. My room mate and I must have missed the first airing of the TV remote equipped with a beer opener.

Combines two of my favorite things: copious buttons and unlabeled beverages.

Guess what? It doesn't stop there. What happens if perhaps you're somewhere where you don't have access to your booze-remote and still need to open a tasty beverage? Bring along the Beer-Bot T-shirt. Now all you need to do is always wear this shirt instead of simply having a bottle opener on your key chain.

Beer-Bot obviously a Bender rip-off. Oh well.

Ballin' is a Habit Part 1

Most people who know my room mate and me know that from time to time we've dabbled in a sport or two. The purpose of this blog post is to share a few amusing stories from our time on the court/field. Sometimes we're playing well, sometimes...not so much.

As a bit of background information, in high school I played football while my room mate played tennis, and we each look like somebody who would play those sports. But over the years we've spent in college and just being guys who like sports, we've played soccer, rugby, lacrosse, frisbee, golf, basketball, racket-ball, softball, bad-mitten, volleyball, shuffleboard, boce ball, bowling, competitive eating, darts, running, swimming, paintball, martial arts...you get the point.

Ironically, this may be the only sport we've never played.

The point is that we're both pretty athletic and willing to try new sports, but certainly not professional grade athletes. We can hold our own in the average pick up game. I'm going to try and mix up the stories so that there aren't two basketball stories back to back, or two tales of woe in a row, etc.

I'm going to start off chronicling the most extreme sports challenge that we've both accepted: the Krispy Kreme Challenge. Now, for anyone reading this who doesn't know what the KKC is, or perhaps thinks they know what it is but are actually mistaken, I'll give you the run down on what might be both one of the most difficult and most unique sporting events known to man.

Outside of base-jumping/ironing that is.

Begun in 2004 at that illustrious bastion of academic and athletic prowess that is North Carolina State University, the Krispy Kreme Challenge is two parts race and one part competitive eating. Competitors begin at the Bell Tower, run two miles to the local Krispy Kreme, consume a dozen glazed doughnuts, and then run back to the start. Proceeds go to the North Carolina Children's Hospital and the event grows in size every year. Last year had a limit of 6,000 participants and received television coverage from local news, ESPN and newspapers around the nation. Over the years it has spawned several imitators, none of which stack up to the original.

Just to summarize, that is roughly 2,400 calories (what the FDA lists as a full day's eating) and four miles of running. All in under an hour. Not too bad you say? The record is 24 minutes and 31 seconds, held by Auburn Staples. That equals two sub six minute miles, twelve rings of dough and sugar in a few minutes and then two more sub six minute miles on a very full stomach. Not to mention if you're not a front runner, you have to dodge piles of displaced stomach contents.

All too often competitors end up like this on the way back.

My room mate has completed it once and I've finished it twice, but barely failed to cross the finish line in under an hour the first time. There are many different methods of training and competing that people utilize, but the most important part is to be sure you can pound down a dozen doughnuts and then waddle back to campus. Trust me.

This athlete uses the Michael Phelps Diet.

The first time I tried it I was just coming off a run conditioning class and had run a 10k the month before, and thought I was good at eating but the doughnuts really stumped me. The next time I competed I wasn't in running shape, but I was definitely ready for the eating. I finished twenty minutes faster and didn't even have to run too fast on the way back, even cockily accepting another doughnut from a bystander halfway back.

How I felt on the way back.

While I was in my undergrad, I played a lot of intramural sports. One of those was flag football. I have a love hate relationship with flag football. On the one hand, it is football and a competitive sport, both of which I love more than Hitler hates that Hannah Montana was canceled after only three seasons.

"How will I find out if Hannah and Oliver ever hook up?"

On the other hand, it is flag football which means there are silly rules, lack of contact and the ubiquitous shitty intramural referees.

The role model of choice for intramural referees.

I often played with other people in my scholarship program, which was a mixed bag. I liked most of them, but every time I played on a team with them a small piece of my soul died, so I was always sure to play on a dorm team in an attempt to salvage my love of the game. Crushing defeats, lack of practice, crushing defeats, not living up to potential and sometimes even forfeiting due to lack of team mates was a regular occurrence with them. Did I mention the crushing defeats?

Each year we won our first game handily, usually like 30-0, boosting our hopes and dreams for a successful season. And then we promptly proceeded to free fall down into the depths of defeat. Once, we lost a flag football game 74-0.

No, that's not a typo. We lost 74-0.

We were down 52-0 at half time, and so we asked the referee when he was going to call it on the mercy rule. He said that he couldn't call it until the third quarter was over because, and I quote "You guys could make a comeback."

Maybe if we had T-Mac on our team making it rain.

And the sport was basketball. And we were only down by four scores instead of seven. And if the referee would call any fouls.

Seriously? Who the fuck thinks that we could make a comeback from being down by more points at halftime than an average team scores in an entire game? And the other team was getting the ball first in the second half.

Icebox is not impressed with the odds.

Alright, enough failure. Back to winning. And winning big. And winning without class, style or grace. Which is the best way to win. Or is the only way to win? I'm often confused about what constitutes sportsmanship. So I just look to my role model.

Pictured: one step above the taunting we've dished out.

Although my room mate and I aren't the best at basketball, we aren't terrible. We have some games where we're just on. And sometimes we're just physically better than our opponents, like that time we played 2v2 against these two random 7th graders. If you think I'm just saying that, feel free to corroborate my story. Not only did we play them, but we beat them.

This was one of those times. It was a 2v2 half court game against two sophomores who both weighed in at an impressive 5'4" and 140 lbs or so. I'm 6'1", 230 lbs, give or take a half an inch and a few pounds. My room mate is 5'12" and about 165 lbs. Needless to say we were their physical superiors in a game where size (height especially) is important.

Not that big of a difference, but it certainly helps.

We played them once, and it was a fairly close game despite our height advantage. I think that the final score was like 10-7 or something. Since it was a close game, and not particularly physical, we decided to run it back. This time it wasn't so close. Final score was 10-4. Convincingly.

I might have mentioned in a previous post that my room mate dreams of being able to dunk a basketball. During our rout of the wee folk, I got down on one knee and placed my hands in the classic "boost up" position, calling out "Come on, dunk it!".

The wee folk were not amused.

Now one of the kids was a bit pissed. I guess he fancied himself a bit of a baller, and didn't exactly enjoy my room mate and myself not only beating him and his friend, but mocking them as well. He demands a rematch, which of course we give him since we've been mopping the court with them. He starts to play hard, setting picks, driving to the basket, really hustling out there. To no avail. Final score was 10-6.

Update:

Months later we were at the gym, playing some pick up basketball and one of the people on the other team was the angry little guy. We weren't sure if he remembered us or not. But he certainly did. I had the ball and was about to go up for a layup when my room mate yells "Look out!". Angry wee man packs the shit out of my shot. He remembered that day, and it had obviously been rankling in his heart.

"Vengeance shall be mine!"