Now, let’s lighten the mood, shall we?

One of the coolest things about our upcoming move to a new apartment is the fact that we will have digital cable, and thus will be able to get TiVo. I don’t get a lot of time in front of the TV (not that this is a bad thing), but the time I do have is currently pretty miserable. There are about three shows I like to watch and I can’t ever seem to catch them when their on.

One of these is the Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters”. The show is now in its third season and shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, the show is growing, literally. Since the show began, the cast has continued to grow.

Now I had pretty solid opinions of the show’s creators (Adam and Jamie) back in season one. But with the “build team” added to the mix, I realized the “favorite MythBuster pool” had gotten much deeper.

If you have a favorite MythBuster (you can read their bios here, if your not sure) post a comment and let me know. To avoid skewing the results, I recommend you post your comment before reading my opinions below.

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Obviously, being one of the show creators earns Adam Savage bonus points. Adam strikes me as the “loose cannon”. The guy who has good ideas, but maybe not the best execution. The kind of guy you invite to a party because you know he’ll do something crazy. I like Adam for his sense of humor and his wackiness, but he can be a real cry baby sometimes.
(Adam B+)

Again, being an original cast member, Jaime Hyneman has an advantage. Jamie is the polar opposite of Adam. He’s remarkably stoic and painfully precise. Jamie is the guy you’d call if your clothes washer quit working. You know he’d figure out the problem and he wouldn’t embarrass you about your pink bunny boxer shorts that gummed up the machine. Jamie does have a sense of humor, just not a very good one. Still, I admire the fact that Jamie takes his job seriously. That gives him an edge over Adam, in my book.
(Jamie A-)

Now on to the “build team”.

Grant Imahara strikes me as a bit of an appendage on the show. I can see how they might have wanted to even out the guy/girl ratio on the build team, but Grant just doesn’t seem to have the personality to be a MythBuster. He seems more like your run-of-the-mill MIT grad student. I’m sure he’s brilliant, but does he have style? I just don’t see it.
(Grant D)

Since my wife thinks that Tory Belleci is “hawt”, you might think that jealousy would taint my judgment of his myth busting prowess. But I am above such petty emotions. Tory is great fun to watch, mostly because he’s reckless. It’s kind of like watching Funniest Home Videos. You know the kid is going hit the dad in twig-n-berries eventually, so you keep watching to find out how. Tory tries to be serious with his projects, but inevitably, he either hurts himself or catches something on fire. (And don’t get me started on his bicycle antics on the car-pole-vault episode.) But, the same thing that makes Tory fun to watch makes him a poor MythBuster. I don’t want to see Funniest Home Videos. I want to see MythBusters. And besides… He’s a ugly punk who’d make a terrible husband for my wife.
(Tory B-)

I’m sure that my long-time readers can guess how I would feel about a San Francisco, vegetarian artist. But let’s be fair. Kari Byron really is one of the more solid contributors to the show. She is very creative and capable when it comes to building some of the stranger myth busting contraptions and she clearly takes pride in her work. I also give her credit for her willingness to get her hands dirty from time to time. But I just can’t get over her incessant blithering whenever animal products show up on the set. I’m not saying I would jump with glee if I had to man-handle a pig carcass. I’m just saying Kari needs to get over it. Stuff dies… then we eat it. Get used to it. (However, I must admit that Kari is babe-ilicious. See the silver body paint episode. Rowwwrr! Oh! Is my wife reading this?! I LOVE YOU, HONEYYY!)
(Kari C+)

Speaking of my wife, let me tell you a little about how awesome she is. She is one of the only people I know who can enjoy her femininity (i.e. purse shopping and pink nail polish) but she also loves football, hockey, and NASCAR. I am the luckiest man alive. I have huge respect for a girl who can be a girl and still enjoy guy stuff. I think that’s why Scottie Chapman is my favorite MythBuster. Scottie is a good looking girl, but her resume includes horse training, building race cars and testing video games! Scottie is a punk princess in the best way. What makes her a great MythBuster is the fact that she has fun, stays safe, and seriously blows stuff up. When it’s time to do something dangerous like cut metal with fire, she’s dead serious. But give her a machine gun and a dead pig and she’s gonna make sausage with a smile!
(Scottie A)

In all fairness, Scottie only barely edges out Jamie in my book because, to be totally honest, she’s a lot better looking that he is.

It took me a while to figure out the riots that are tearing France apart. I read a few news blurbs trying to discover the reason behind the civil unrest, but all that was reported was that a couple of “youths” were “accidentally” killed by police. That just didn’t register with me.

That was until I finally found this piece which gives us a peak at the truth behind the riots. The “poor suburbs of Paris were set ablaze” by North African Muslim immigrants.

France has long been courting the Islamic community and welcoming any immigration that might “diversify” France. Now, according to Paris’ police union, the mostly Muslim “ghettos” around Paris are in a state of “civil war”. I am not making this up! The violence has spread to other cities with large Muslim populations and, if you can believe what you read on the internet (yeah, I know), there is currently an influx of illicit money and guns into France with the purpose of arming this “unrest”.

Why is it that mainstream media continues to call this “civil unrest” and the perpetrators “youths”? How can they continue to insist that all this “unrest” was caused when “two youths jumped over the wall of an electrical substation and died, thinking they were being pursued by the police”?! Can someone explain to me the difference between the “unrest” in Paris and the “war” in Chechnya? Could some on clear up the distinction between French “youths” and Iraqi “terrorists”? Yyyeah. That’d be great.

This should come as no surprise to anyone level headed enough to see the modern democratic party for what it is. Still, the hypocrisy of the left has reached new lows in recent weeks.

Maryland’s first black lieutenant governor, Michael Steele, has fallen under increasingly ugly attacks from the black democrats in his state. Steele is running for the US Senate and he represents an increasing trend in conservative Republican minorities. This trend is stealing minority votes from the liberal Democratic party, something Democrats can ill afford. Desperate times… so they say.

Lt. Gov. Steele has been pelted with Oreo cookies (implying that he is “white on the inside”). He has been caricatured as black singing minstrel on liberal web sites, and even faced gross racial slurs that, if uttered by a WASP like me, would result in riots in the streets.

But, what-ho? Do you mean it was not some calloused white hate-monger hurling these opprobrious epithets? Nope. It was members of his own race such as former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume. In justifying his bigotry, Mr. Mfume said, “There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names.” By that argument I could say that Kweisi Mfume, by virtue of his African name, is obviously a nigger. But I wouldn’t say something like that because I’m better than that. (Apparently, Mr. Mfume is not.)

According to Maryland State Senator Lisa Glidden, also a… person of African descent, “Party trumps race.” Frankly that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a very long time. (Well, no, it’s not. Keep reading. It gets worse.)

Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said, “Because he is a conservative, he is different than most public blacks, and he is different than most people in our community. His politics are not in the best interest of the masses of black people.”

So that must been that Ted Kennedy, the whitest cracker in the Democratic party, knows more about what blacks need than the quite black Mr. Steele. And according to Mr. Kennedy and his Democratic party, blacks need more handouts from the government to make sure they don’t get a real education, leading to a real job, leading to real housing and real opportunity for advancement. Forcing blacks to rely on federal welfare keeps them in federal slave camps… oops! I mean federal housing projects… where they can continue to attend the worst schools in the nation and be taught by the most underpaid and bitter teachers the important lessons in life, which are, of course, vote Democrat and use condoms. Why just think how the world would fall apart if those kids found out the truth and became Republicans!!