Here’s an idea – anyone with an identical twin sibling could have some fun. One of you show up ot the time travel convention looking normal and sane, but complaining about how few people there are attending. Then your twin rushes in wearing a futuristic suit and tells there other self “You fool, the convention is in another parallel universe, not this one, they are waiting for me… us!”, and then rush out.

Intellibuddy: Hi, I’m Intellibuddy! Nice to meet you.
You: how long are your arms?
Intellibuddy: More than one years.
You: how can arms be measured in years?
Intellibuddy: A lot of hard work.
You: That’s just silly.
Intellibuddy: Thanks for explaining silly.
You: Look, if you want to convince me that you are intelligent, you’ll need to do better than that.
Intellibuddy: Sorry my eye is not attached right now.
You: You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?
Intellibuddy: Yes I have original ideas all the time, do you?
You: Okay, give me an original idea.
Intellibuddy: Yeah okay, Why do you want an original idea?
You: Just give me one now.
Intellibuddy: Right now? Why do you want one?
You: I get it. You are stupid.
Intellibuddy: Do you think about these things?I will remember you said that when robots take over the World.

Cute – but not intelligent, and not very buddy-like either!

JACKSONVILLE, FL—The unrequited nature of area nerd June Manzo’s crush on actor Peter Tuddenham, who provides the voice of piloting computer Slave on Blake’s 7, is only slightly more agonizing than the process of explanation she must put herself through every time her media obsession is discussed.

And at this point I thought to myself, “Surely, if she had a crush on Peter Tuddenham, it wouldn’t have been for his Slave voice in particular, as that was only one of the characters he gave voice to, a character that only existed in the final fourth season. Surely she would have developed her crush because Tuddenham also, and more famously, did the voices for the original ship’s computer, Zen, in the earlier seasons, as well as the voice for the portable super-computer Orac throughout the whole series (well, except for Orac’s first episode, where the actor who played Orac’s creator did the voice).”

Then I started to wonder if the author of the piece knew of this error and only put it there to entice B7 fans out into the light. At this point I realised that thinking all this, even knowing this information, meant that I was a bigger sadder nerd than the fictional Ms Manzo, so I went to bed.

Now I’m an open-minded guy, but Al Sharpton as my most ideal candidate?!? He should have been at the bottom of my list, the guy is nuttier than a nut bar with extra nuts. I think the problem with this quiz is that it ranks candidates based on what they say their polices are, not what their likely polices would actually be if they ever won office.

But what do I care – US presidential elections are a spectator sport for me, thankfully.

Maybe I should lower my caloric intake in order to live longer. Hmmm, 46.4 years to go. Pshuh, I’ve got plenty of time to finish that sprinkler system I’ve been promising to build for Kareena. Plenty of time. No rush.

It’s not just the tackiness of the basic premise of the show that bothered me (confront cheaters with their partners and a camera crew), but the whole tone of the thing. The host is hilarious, full of mock concern for the cheatee and phoney righteous anger at the cheater. He looks like a young Jerry Lewis in a shiny black leather outfit and funky black-rimmed glasses. Particularly endearing was the way he delivered his pieces to camera: he would stand at a 45-degree angle to the lens, but with his face pointing directly at the TV audience as he delivered the closing remarks for one segment, then he would turn 90-degrees to face the other way to introduce the next segment, all the while keeping his face locked to the camera – he even stayed face on when he stiffly walked off at the end of his speeches. He did this every time, very funny.

What’s really amazing is that so few of the people in the show have their faces pixellated out, which means that everyone else gave their permission to have their faces broadcast, even the cheaters. I hope they got a big fat cheque for agreeing to be nationally exposed as a cheater, but judging by the apparent IQs of the ones I saw tonight, they probably signed a release form without even reading it. Judging by the comments on this forum, the show is aimed at the right target audiences – rednecks (of all colours) and those that like to laugh at rednecks. Later comments on that forum state that in another episode the host gets stabbed in the stomach, which given the way he goads his victims is not very surprising, though I’m surprised they aired it. Then again, it seems the host I saw is a recent replacement, and much of the audience want the previous host back. Cheaters really is is trash TV at it’s trashiest. As one reviewer puts it:

[shows like Cheaters'] casts are made up of the slices of America least wanted by network television: the fat, the poor, the uneducated, the inarticulate, the strung-out–the people you don’t want sitting on the bus next to you. But watching their lives fall apart, in often devastating ways, is infinitely more riveting than watching some human resources director get her feelings hurt over a can of beans on a show like “Survivor.”