TV and Radio

There is a war waging on late night television here. It is an ice cream war. Stephen Colbert started by getting the chance to design his own Ben and Jerry's flavor. We gave it a go the other week as it was $1 off in the local supermarket (still $4, but hey you've got to treat yourself now and again). It was decent and I think I favored the caramel swirl a bit more than the waffle pieces; it is though, long gone. We're yet to try the flavor by Jimmy Fallon (his late-night TV competition-cum-ice cream nemesis), but our alliance lies more naturally with Colbert, mainly because he is on an hour earlier at 11.30pm and we (well, normally, I, since K has usually passed out by then) usually catch his half hour of amusing satire. Staying up until 1.30am to watch Fallon does seem a bit much, even if you don't have a job to go to the next day.

Last weekend was the season premier of Celebrity Apprentice. As you may well know, the "boss" of this nonsense is Donald Trump (no relation to former Somerset off spinner Harvey). Obviously Alan Sugar is bad enough, but I feel like the BBC and the "celebrities" involved have the decency to sod off after one program. Not so here, 18 contestants are set to battle it out for, what I'm sure, will feel like forever. On the two hour premier they were to design sandwiches and sell them for a lot of money. The men didn't do all that well, but one of them (that hosts a program about motorbikes) had a friend that donated $300,000, so they won pretty easily. Simple as that. In the boardroom, when Casandra from Wayne's World treated the competition with the contempt that it deserved, saying she wasn't too bothered if she was brought back into the boardroom, the music changed and the sense of trying to turn something very innocuous into major drama was trying very hard to be played out. Trump of Orange gave her a stern talking to and she tried her best to look like she took him seriously. I'm not too keen to see how the guy that was second on Pop Idol a few years ago and the old Incredible Hulk fare in the next weeks, so that's it for me. Sorry the Trump family.

Finally, I've been a bit slow to try our local radio here in Columbus. The alternative station is called CD101 and can be found on 102.5 FM--confusing eh? I found out that they have a show called Independent Playground on Sunday and Thursday nights where only bands from independent labels get played. I gave it a go and there were some good choices; sadly, though, I couldn't tell you who these people were as there was no DJ telling the listeners what he or she had just played. I did later find out that they list each track online as it is played, but I kind of find it hard to believe that everyone in central Ohio was listening online and I was the only one listening on an actual radio. Could be wrong, though.