Inside the Mind of Suz

I was all giddy for TV this week, but I’m not as busy or excited as I thought I’d be!

Tuesday was pretty blah. I didn’t watch anything until 9 PM when Making the Band came on. My conflict for the night was at 10PM when the Rachel Zoe project and Law & Order: SVU came on. Not to mention that 10 PM is my workout timeslot for that day. So I had my DVD recorder set for SVU while my computer capped Rachel Zoe. Problem solved.

Yesterday I watched NOTHING! There was absolutely nothing on that I wanted to see. I’m not sure if that’s because shows I wanted to see weren’t back on TV yet or if that’s my “dead night”, but I was away from the TV.

Tonight, the only thing I’ll be watching is Ugly Betty. Then I’ll watch some college football and do my strength training workout. When Kath & Kim premieres in 2 weeks, I will absolutely be watching that. It looks hilarious! But because it airs at 8:30, that’ll be a show I record and watch at 9, after Ugly Betty goes off.

On Friday, I think I’ll stick with “What Not To Wear” until “The Starter Wife” starts on USA. I love me some Debra Messing, so no way I’m missing that. Friday has been a dead night for a long time. I kind of long for the old days of TGIF. Y’all know what I mean! Shows like “Family Matters”, “Sabrina the Teenage Witch”, “Perfect Strangers”, “Boy Meets World”, “Step by Step” and those classic ABC shows. Ahhh, the good ol’ days!

Yay! The new TV season is upon us!

I get to sort out what I will and won’t be watching.

8:00 PM – Dancing with the Stars
I don’t know why, but I absolutely love Kim Kardashian. This is one of those things that I can’t explain, but wish I could. She’s just so fabulous and I love her E! reality show. I’m watching to see if homegirl’s got any moves! Actually, I’ll probably DVR it and watch later. I eat dinner late-ish!

9:00 PM – Two & A Half Men
I’ll take a break from DWTS to watch “Two & A Half Men”. The best sitcom on TV, I’ve loved it since episode one. Great writing and great cast!

10:00 PM – The Hills (duh)
The season’s been airing for a month or so now, so I’m already have it on my tv viewing schedule. Actually, to be fair, I probably will probably DVR the show and watch it at 11:30. I tend to go for my late-night run around 9:30-9:45. So by the time I’m done, The Hills would definitely be off.

Yea, I said it. I like Tim Tebow. Sometimes you just can’t explain why you like people, and this may be one of those times. To top it off, I’m an Ohio State football fan. I should hate Tim Tebow, right? Wrong.

Let me tell you exactly why I like this guy. He seemingly is breaking the mold for how we expect high profile college football players to conduct themselves on and off the field. This guy is genuine, caring, humble and well-grounded, and talented; the whole package. I know! I couldn’t believe it either!

At first you think it’s all an act and that eventually he’s going to screw up and turn up being just another football player that you don’t expect that much of. After all our pessimistic society has taught us to believe that if something is too good to be true, it usually is. Not the case with Tim Tebow, who graces the cover of the September 2008 issue of Men’s Fitness Magazine.

To demonstrate why I admire this kid, check out this quote from a recent NY Times interview:

“If people don’t believe it, that’s fine. There’s always going to be naysayers, people that are going to say it’s fake. But that’s fine, because you can’t control everybody. But I can control what I do, my attitude, how I approach the situation.

How I approach the situation is I want to do everything in my power that football gives me to influence as many people as I can for the good, because that’s going to mean so much more when it’s all said and done than just playing football and winning championships.”

He spends his free time looking out for other people. He visits underprivileged children, hospitals, and prisons. He goes on mission trips. He takes his Christian faith extremley seriously. He made history as the 1st sophomore Heisman Trophy winner. And even though he has been known to rock a pair of Crocs from time to time, I still like him. He’s a great representative for not only NCAA athletics, but for the youth of this country. I wish more high profile kids were like him. He makes college football look sooo good.

After having to wait a full year for Time Warner to do the right thing and add the Big Ten Network, it appears they’re trying to screw subscribers out of another channel they should have.

TW has a contract with Columbus’ local CW affiliate, WWHO-TV that is apparently going to expire on October 2nd. I discovered this while watching my daily late night dose of South Park on the network.

WWHO-TV is alleging that Time Warner has refused to negotiate a contract extension and that if they don’t get the job done in time, the CW will be dropped from Time Warner’s lineup of tv channels. That’s just 2 weeks away!

I don’t know about anyone else, but I view the CW as an essential basic network much like NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX. You know, the ones you should be able to get even without cable. So it strikes me as odd that Time Warner thinks so little of its paying customers in that respect.

I watch so few things on the CW, that I probably won’t be all that affected, but it sucks for those people who watch a lot of the network. Competitors are offering credits and other deals for TW customers looking to switch companies.

I think it’s really shitty of this big, bad cable company to continue to jerk people’s chains like this. Cable tv costs too much for them to be pulling this kind of crap. Very disappointed in Time Warner cable his year. Can’t treat customers like that an expect to stay in business. The threat of hoards of Ohioans jumping ship if the Big Ten Network wasn’t added scared the big wigs at Time Warner enough to get the deal done. I don’t know the power of the CW viewers, but if they can organize, TW may find itself in hot water once again!

Part 2 of Season 12 of South Park debuts October 8th at 10 PM (ET) on Comedy Central.

Writers and networks kill me with this whole “Part 2 of Season ____” crap. Just call it what it is: Season 13. If there is more than a 4 week break in between episodes — especially for cartoons — it’s a new season.

I’m simply humoring the peeps over at Comedy Central (where’s my rimshot?) by referring to it as the 2nd half of Season 12. We all know what it really is.

In any case, I’m very excited as South Park is one of my favorite shows! Yay for fall!

Since I’ve finished Cool Running’s 9 week Couch to 5k program, I’ve been repeating Week 9 for a month or so now. It’s been fine, and I’ve made another mix because of it.

But as my stamina increases, from training, I feel like I need to continue to challenge myself. The way I’ve thought of doing that is by increasing the running segments in future C25k podcasts.

I don’t claim to be a personal trainer or know anything about the science behind the Couch to 5k running plan, but I don’t see why continuing to add 2 or 3 more minutes to the run each week won’t lead to further progress. So that’s what I’m going to do!

This move shouldn’t signal that I am going to start training for a 10k. I haven’t made that decision yet. I will say that that if I lived in a climate that didn’t have a real winter, I probably would continue training and set the 10k as a goal. I’m not a fan of running outside in the cold and I don’t do treadmills. (I have to be going somewhere when I run). So, in all honesty, I’ll probably close the book on this year’s running workouts around late November. Is that enough time to train for and run a 10k? Don’t know.

I just like to be challenged! Part of the draw of the c25k program was that there was an ultimate goal (running of 5k) that I was working towards with increased running each week. Since I’ve finished the original plan, I don’t feel I’m being as challenged as much. It’s time to step it up! So, keep an eye on the site for when I come share my next podcast. I don’t know how I’m going to label it or which genre I’ll be going with, but I have until Monday. Stay tuned!

Keeping on my recent trend of posting when I find out some of my reality tv show faves return with new seasons, I have an update on my E! obsession, The Girls Next Door.

GND will be back for its 5th (Can you believe it? 5!!) season in 2 1/2 weeks. So tune in at 10 PM (ET) on Sunday, October 5th for more of Hef, Holly, Bridget and Kendra.

That’s going to be a good weekend for me since Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team returns the night before on CMT. Good thing I just bought some more popcorn!

Stop what? Stop producing shows that suck me in and make me want to watch every week!

They first got me with the “It Factor” way back when. Remember that show? Then, more recently, “Work Out”. Next came “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List” (which just won its second Emmy!). Now, I feel myself getting sucked into the Rachel Zoe Project. I was procrastinating doing a workout this evening and flipping channels. I stopped on Bravo and started watching and I loved what I saw! *bangs head*

I never got into Project Runway like a lot of my friends, so at least I resisted that, but come on! It’s like they are fine tuned into the types of programs I enjoy watching. And I’m avoiding Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style because I have a sneaky suspicion that I’d love that show as well.

It never ends!

Oh yea, and an hour after the show went off, I did stay true to my fitness regimen and did a weight training workout. Gotta keep it tight!

Here’s a video of Rachel on the Today Show last week, to promote the series premiere of her show:

Considering I live in Ohio and not Texas, I didn’t figure to be as affected by Hurricane Ike as I have been.

We had Hurricane strength wind gusts (not constant, just gusts) that hit 75 mph yesterday. They wreaked havoc all over Ohio, and especially central Ohio.

Trees went down, taking power lines with them. Traffic lights were out, causing nightmares for drivers. Schools were closed, as well as gas stations, grocery stores, and other businesses. 6 lives were lost as a result of yesterday’s high winds.

The awnings on our house barely held on, even though they collapsed. I went outside to document it with my camera and the wind knocked me over. No, seriously. I was on my ass! Our neighbor’s tree completely snapped and it fell on our fence, crushing it. Better the fence, than our house! And unlike a lot of the area, we still have power. The phone service is out, but we don’t really use ours that much.

The governor has even gone so far as to declare a state of emergency across Ohio.

And again, we aren’t Texas, so I know we got nowhere near the damage those down there did. It’s a rare thing for the midwest to get hit like this by weakening hurricanes. Very rare. We usually only get some rain. Hurricane Ike really took all of us behind the woodshed in one way or another.

For his single “What Them Girls Like” Featuring Chris Brown and Sean Garrett. I love the pop-up thought bubbles as well as Chris Breezy’s goofy facial expressions and on-point dancing. Fun hip hop video. I don’t need it to be groundbreaking, just hold my attention for a couple of minutes. Well done, Luda. Well done.

http://www.kissmyblackass.org/wp-content/uploads/ludacris-what-them-girls-like.flv