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first off, happy Memorial Day! please take a moment to remember all of those people in the armed forces who have fought and died for our freedoms in this country…

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yes, i intentially put 2 equal signs in the title… it’s a programming thing.

so i’ve watched quite a bit of discovery channel lately, and man there are some good shows on there… iris found a show called man vs wild, which is a show about a former british special armed forces guy showing the viewer how to survive in various dangerous environments… some of the things he does are probably too physical for a lot of us, but he has a lot of useful information that one should probably carry around just in case. the thing that kills me about the show is the presence of his camera crew… i mean, just think about it… there’s no way those camera guys are out there struggling as hard as Bear (the host), and it must kill him when he’s struggling out in the jungle or something, and his crew is just a few feet away chillin’ in a nice tent… i mean, i’m not sure if it really is that way, but it would seem like that to me… great show nonetheless, and is shown off-season from most networks, so it won’t eat all the space in the DVR…

another show i’ve taken a liking to is deadliest catch… man, life out in the bering sea is crazy!! i didn’t realize there was so much to crab fishing, and it’s a very gritty look at the entire job… i think a lot of it has to do with the real humanity of the ships’ captains… there is a real human element, and it shows in those captains’ faces.

come to think of it, i suppose those have become replacements for me for monster garage and american chopper… i know american chopper moved to another channel, but i don’t think it’s as good now that they have a fancy shop and paul jr. is better at time managing the bike builds… not to mention that they have a full warehouse full of people to work on bikes… i guess it just seems that they show less bike building than before, and more of the extra fluff…

i’ve always been interested in those kinda nerdy shows, thanks in part to my dad who made me watch a bunch of PBS shows like Nova and National Geographic…

any other good shows to watch??

-m

i’ve been a fan of the CART and IRL for quite some time now… i don’t quite remember how i got into it tho… i think it was one of those weekends in high school where i didn’t have a competition to go to and all of my friends were out doing something (i didn’t have a car in high school), so i watched some racing on tv and have been since then.

the sucky thing is that ABC doesn’t show as much of it anymore… i think it’s cuz they took over the NBA stuff from NBC, so their weekends started to fill…

some people would find watching cars go in a quasi-circle for miles quite boring… i do sometimes too (NASCAR?? not for me), but what really draws me to IRL/CART is the entire mixture of physics, technology, and strategy… i love hearing the drivers, commentators, and pit crews talk about downforces, throttle, fuel efficiencies, pit strategies, etc… it’s just a good mix of really nerdy stuff!!

i particularly love watching the Indy 500 cuz it’s such a hallowed race, that all the racers go all out… it’s like the race that means all or nothing to a season, when it really is just another race. but the pomp and history does make it exciting!!

i would say this year’s Indy 500 was good, but maybe not as great as it could’ve been if rain hadn’t been involved… and it certainly didn’t have a finish like last year’s… the first half of the race saw lots of action, but the amount of yellow flags really slowed the race down… i think there was a crash on every other re-start… then, it started to rain! that was another bummer cuz it held the race up for almost 3 hours, tho i do appreciate that the folks over there were able to dry the track and get them going again…

it’s just too bad that another bout of rain ultimately caused the race to end early as well =(

i was personally rooting for danica patrick and i thought she legitimately had a chance to win… she was in 3rd after the first rain delay, which was a good sign, and i think had there been no rain, she could have been up there to give herself a chance to win… and of course, i was rooting for michael andretti… man that guy is due!! his kid, marco, is pretty exciting too, but michael needs to get one before him… i mean, marco is only 20!

prior to the first red flag, tony kanaan (tk) was racing sooo well… too bad someone hit him a few laps into the restart, and he had to drop all the way back and work his way back up… checkered flag when to dario franchitti, who also raced exceptionally well and i liked his strategy of working his way up from the middle of the pack…

i still feel a bit cheated tho as there was still about a quarter of the race to go, and i think there would have been some nice action in the later laps (barring any yellows of course!)… hopefully next year’s Indy 500 won’t be plagued by rain, and we can have a full race with few yellows =)

-m