Court shows

The main thing I realized on my two days off from work, laying in front of the television with a crippling fever, is that daytime television really sucks these days.

Take for instance the amazing amount of court shows there are nowadays. Judge Alex, a fake The People’s Court, several people doing their best Judge Judy impression, a new Divorce Court. Jeez. Isn’t there a whole channel now devoted to nothing but real court cases? Isn’t that enough? If you need to see that much court, then commit a crime or go to law school. Chances are, if you are parked in front of a television when these shows are on, you haven’t the motivation to do either. 

The proliferation of court shows must end. You heard it here first.

And even The PIR, or Price is Right to you laymen, is terrible now. Drew Carey is so soft spoken and about as charismatic as my remote is. He couldn’t hold Bob Barker’s microphone.

What happened to the good old days, where you could watch the Family Feud with Ray Combs, TPIR with Bob Barker and The People’s Court with Judge Wapner, Rusty the Bailiff and Doug Llewelyn? 

Ray committed suicide, Bob retired and Doug, well, only God knows where Doug is. 

Sadly, daytime television isn’t even worth skipping school for anymore. Hey, maybe that was the point? 

I’m back

After a tough bout with the flu, and with only a residual sweatiness and stuffy nose, I have returned to my desk at the Herald. Hopefully I can bring the pain on a few stories today to get back in the groove.

While I fish around, take a look at this clip from Maury, which I watched a lot of over the past two days.

The flu

 

You may or may not have noticed that I have not updated in a while. I have a very good explanation.

Sunday morning I woke up with a headache and pains in my legs. As the day progressed, I felt worse and worse

Around 6 p.m., I faced facts — I had the flu. Not only do I have to flu. I have the super flu. My temperature has hovered around 101-103 for two days. My eyes are set on constant water mode, my sinuses feel like they are stuffed with cotton gauze and I can’t stop coughing or sneezing.

This is the worst I’ve ever felt.

Hopefully it will go away soon and I can get back to work. Until then, save yourselves. You don’t want this! Go get the flu shot.

Bank fees

After a morning’s worth of hassle over my bank charging me more than $250 in fees even though I had the money in my checking account to cover charges, I have decided I am going to pursue a story on whether the fees have gotten out of hand. 

 

The short version of my own debacle is as follows. Like my car insurance company suggests, I set my payment up on an automatic draft. I know that the payment is due on the 19th of each month, so I took $200 out of my other checking account (at another bank, because I am seriously getting outdone with my old bank, which I have been doing business with since I was a teenager) to cover the cost. When I deposited this money, the teller said I would not be charged any fees since I got the money in before 2 p.m. and the fees had yet to be charged.

 

But even though I got my money in early on Tuesday, it still wasn’t good enough. My bank still saw it fit to charge me the $32 fee on the insurance payment. And to make matters worse, it withdrew the insurance check first, which meant each transaction I made in the past two days were also in the negative.

 

Contrary to what some may believe, a reporter at a small newspaper does not get rich. So as a person with limited means, I really need the $266 they charged me, whereas the bank (one of the largest in the area) probably can live without my money.

 

I want to know your horror stories. What do you think about banks and fees? Do you trust your banker? 

 

For some background, I found a couple stories for you to peruse:

 

Bank fees are more outrageous than ever. 

Avoid ‘gotcha’ banking fees.

Ridin’ that train

For some reason, for the past few weeks I’ve had a strong urge to go to Raleigh and board an Amtrak train for a weekend getaway. I can’t really explain it. It may have something to do with my viewing of 3:10 to Yuma the other day.

Anyway, I’ve never really taken a long train ride. I have been on trains at Tweetsie and Dollywood, and just a few months ago I went up to New Hill to ride the New Hope Valley train.  And I love riding the subways in big cities (the coolest one I’ve been on is the suburban trains in Chicago) when I visit. But never anything over a few miles.

I’ve been researching vacations lately that involve the Amtrak system. It seems pretty reasonable, actually. At least cheaper than an airplane, and part of the fun is in the experience. From Raleigh you can get virtually anywhere, from Boston to New York to Miami and Orlando, for probably half the price of a plane ticket.

I’m just a little hesitant because, one time, my dad and I took a bus to New York City to watch a Yankees game. The time in NYC was great, but the bus ride was awful. I’m guessing that a train is much more confortable, though.

Do any of you have any train trip stories you’d like to share? What was it like? Was it worth it, or should I just splurge on a plane ticket?

We did it baby!

I’m so proud of Uno, the little beagle that shocked the dog world last night by winning the Westminster Kennel Club’s dog show.

He received a standing ovation when he won while letting out howls only a beagle could make. I almost cried. Uno will most certainly be the hit of the talk show circuit for days to come. I can’t wait.

3:10 to Yuma

I usually don’t like westerns. My dad always made me watch them and I always found them boring. But last night, I decided to give a new one a try, and boy am I glad I did.

 

Actually, 3:10 to Yuma is not a new western at all. It is a remake of the 1957 film by the same name starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. I haven’t see the original, but the remake stars the dreamy Russell Crow and Christian Bale (Batman). OK, I say dreamy because that’s the best way to get your girlfriend to want to watch it.

The movie was excellent. Most of the time westerns have bored me to tears, but I would rank this one up there with Unforgiven as the best one I’ve ever seen.

I highly recommend it. 

Beagle is top dog

Uno the Beagle 

My colleague, Chelsea Kellner, just alerted me to some wonderful news! Uno, a 15-inch beagle, won the hound prize at the Westminster Kennel Club’s annual dog show and is well on his way to becoming the first beagle ever to win the Best in Show prize.

I am a huge beagle fan. Growing up, I had a beagle named Jake, which I saved pennies for a year as a four year-old to buy. Jake was my best friend from 5 until 19, when he got ran over in my driveway.

Then, as a sophomore in college, I bought Roscoe, a short-legged beagle, from a breeder near Harper’s Crossroads. His markings were that of a perfect beagle. He looked just like the ones you see on the dog show. He was born with a hernia, so I got him for a discount. He was sort of my roommate through college. But when I finally got out and moved back home for a while, he too got ran over in my driveway.

Anyway, one of these days I will own a huge estate far enough in the woods that I can own a bunch of beagles and weimaraners (my second-favorite dog breed) and not worry about them getting hit by cars. Nothing but deep howls that only a beagle can make all night long.

Kudos and good luck to Uno. It’s about time a real dog won that show, instead of the little yippy dogs or poodles that always seem to win. I will be watching tonight, as the best in show is given out.

The Greatest Show on Earth

On Sunday, my girlfriend Joellen and I took four little girls to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus at the RBC Center. We came back a little frazzled and a lot lighter in the wallet. Here are some of the highlights.

By the way, our Community Editor, Jamie Stamm, also went this weekend, and has a much better blog about it than I do here

Bello

The headliner of this year’s tour is a clown named Bello, although “he isn’t a clown” according to Joellen’s daughter. He is the host.
She was right. He wasn’t a clown at all. Clowns are funny. By the end of this show,  I just wanted to kill him. Yes, he did some cool high-altitude stuff, but for the most part he was just annoying.

The dog and pony shows

The girls liked the horses most of all. Yes, there are elephants and tigers and goats and trapeze artists that do amazing stuff, but they liked the one animal they can see everyday in their backyard (They have three horses of their own.)
But that’s understandable, I guess, because Joellen and I liked the dog show best. It was really cool. All these poodles and pekinese and cocker spaniels doing the most amazing tricks, from walking backwards on two legs to dancing with one another. That alone was worth the price of admission, had it been a lot longer. The girls weren’t impressed, though, which prompted a couple of “I got to go to the bathroom” calls.

PETA protesters 

Yes, PETA was there, just as you pull into the parking lot of the RBC Center. OK, I get it. It probably is cruel to beat those tigers and elephants into submission just so they can stand on one foot and entertain a bunch of kids for 3 hours.
But do you really have to protest the circus? Isn’t there much more injustice to protest in this world? I’m sure that more than one of the kids going into the big top didn’t exactly have the best family life. In fact, I’ll bet there were a few who get beat at home (judging by the lady who sat in front of us, who slapped her son in the face during the circus, I know of at least one. That was so messed up. Talk about bad parenting,) or don’t have enough food to eat. Why not let them have the sanctity of three hours of fun even if it is at a pachyderm’s expense?
And is it even worth it? As we pulled in, all the girls started laughing at the one protester who had an elephant costume on. Then one of them said “Jonathan, why is she wearing an elephant suit?” I had no answer.
Lighten up, America. We have bigger fish to fry.

Being young

(I don’t know these kids in this picture, by the way. I got it from a google search.)
There really is something special about the circus – if you are four. I still remember going to it when I little and getting a bunch of cotton candy and light-up spinny things. And the girls seemed to really love it.But when you get older, you realize that those cotton candy cost $12. Yes, $12. The light-up spinny things – $14 and up. Of course, we had to get the “and up” version. And all those lights just make it harder to see which girl hit the other or which one is trying to eat something off the ground.
Speaking of prices, the circus itself is not really a bad deal when compared to other tickets I have bought to events at the RBC. I once paid $100 for a nosebleed seat to a State Carolina game, only to see the Heels lose. And I paid like $50 to see Jimmy Buffett from the top row in February a couple of years ago. Not a good time. Cheeseburger in Paradise loses some of its flair when you have your coat on.
For $23 we got some great seats right down close to the action, and we got there early enough to take in the “pregame” festivities, where the girls got to put on costumes, see clowns up close and even get a free clown nose. I got one myself. They get you with all the food and toys that are available almost everywhere and you feel like a loser if you don’t by them because the vendors hound the kids to death.
It is definitely not for the grown-ups. At one point during the tiger show, I leaned over and asked Joellen, “You think the tiger is thinking, ‘Why the hell did I just roll over for this guy? What is the purpose of this?’” She laughed, then responded, “I’ve been asking myself the same thing the whole day.”
I guess that sums it up. As a kid, you don’t question the circus. You just know that there are spinny light-up things and loud noises and animals and clowns and lots of fun. When you become an adult, that magic is gone, and you find yourself thinking about work during the elephant tamer’s show, which both of us did a couple of times Sunday.
Oh to be young again…But the circus is still pretty cool when you take kids. I think I saw where it is going to be in Raleigh through the 16th and is also making stops in Greensboro and Fayetteville. I recommend it.

Dale Jr.’s new drink

 

Yeah, I’ll admit it. I’m a race fan. I can’t help it, really. I earned my bona fides as a seven-year old tagging along with my dad to races in North Wilkesboro and Rockingham.

And as any race fan would know, Saturday’s Bud Shootout marks the opening of Speedweeks in Daytona, and a new era for my favorite driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., as he starts a new career with Hendrick Motorsports behind the wheel of the AMP Energy/National Guard Chevy.

Friday night I noticed that my local grocery store had my favorite driver’s new drink on special, and since I had never had it, I thought I would buy some. Maybe, just maybe, Iwould like it just as much as Junior’s old drink – Budweiser.

Boy was I wrong. This crap tasted just like Mountain Dew that has been sitting out in a glass on a counter for two days. It was disgusting, and I got no energy boost from it. Only nausea.

I’ll pull for Jr. on the track this year, but I’ll probably just stick with his old sponsor while I’m doing it.