Okay...I really do have a bunch of possibly funny quips to make about A:MS, and like I've said, I'm actually enjoying watching the show, but it just keeps on being either I'm in the proper mood where I can write something like that but I'm in the midst of something else and don't have time to do it then OR I have time to do it and that's just not where my head's at then, you know? Not to apologize, because I'm pretty sure I'm the only person watching this show anyway so what do you care, just explaining. But let me tell you one little thing that happened last week that really made me think this might be more interesting than it looked like it might be at the beginning, in hopes of getting someone else to start watching the Martha with me. The immensely, almost unbelievably, hateable asshole of the proceedings, Jim, has from the beginning been pushing this strategic vision of the game, undermining and eliminating people he felt were a danger to him etc., and it kinda seemed like maybe the young idiot of the show (by the way, most of my opinion that he's an idiot stems from things I've found out about him that haven't been on the air, I'll try to share those soon) who was team leader this week was following that lead a bit in his picks to bring into the boardroom. Really, his picks didn't make sense in any context, but he definitely wasn't picking the people who had much to do with the team failing. Instead he chose the woman who everyone's hated from the first week for some reason I haven't quite been able to figure out... she (Dawn) just got labeled as a bummer who's dragging the team down right out of the box and everyone's sticking with that even though to me she seems like maybe the only normal and rational human being in the bunch. Which is probably it right there, the high-powered type-A freakshows that usually populate these shows (as well as our real-life boardrooms) fear and despise what I think of as normal people when they notice them at all. You have questions and concerns about this half-baked notion we just pulled out of our over-caffeinated sleep-deprived asses during our five minute "brainstorming" session? Why are you being so negative? You are a cancer on The Team! So he picked her and some other woman who has so far made no impression on me at all and the rest of the team, including the hyperplastic Florida t.v. news personality who had repeatedly said all episode that she guaranteed their team was going to win and if they didn't she should be fired, were off the hook. So they got sent back out of the conference room (not the board room, oh no, on The Apprentice, Martha-style it's the conference room), but Martha did not feel right. So she had her receptionist call the folks who thought they'd escaped back from the suite and had everyone come back in together. Dismissing the leader's picks by saying that he was very young and had no idea what the hell he was doing, she turned on Sean, the newsposeur, with a friendly vengeance. Her main gripe (other than the fact that Sean was in charge of sales and didn't like the wedding cake they were trying to sell and didn't really hide that opinion very well from the prospective customers and so they didn't sell a single cake) was that Sean had said that in her business there was this phrase, "fake it til you make it". And we do not fake things at MSL, thank you very much. And then Sean really fucked up. Instead of just admitting that the place she learned that phrase was in A.A. (obviously, right?) she said "Oh, well that's just something we say in television." The fact that she was addressing the star of a network television program who has been a popular television personality for 12 years should have already been apparent, I'd think, but since it was not Martha helpfully clued her in. And then sent her packing. And right there's the twist that I think may make this show interesting - unlike Trump, who really doesn't a shit or get personally invested in this sideshow, knowing he's not really hiring anybody and that this is just a way to keep his name in the public eye, Martha doesn't just walk through ANYthing she puts her name on. She is really going to try to pick someone who she would hire to work for her company, even though it's all for show. And that pushes this crap ever so slightly toward actual reality, and therefore potentially more interesting and not just some game with preening jerkwads trying to become a breakout personality. Best of all, after they left she even said that she thought Sean was just here to try to further her television career, and then cut her down even further by offering the opinion that she doesn't even think she knows much about television news. God help me, I do love Martha Stewart, at least at a distance (she would of course be a nightmare pain in the ass if you really had to deal with her, I'm sure). So come on, watch the show this Wednesday. Also, time permitting tomorrow I'll try to throw a few links to some other contestant info I've come across, it turns out I've left that research on my computer at work.

OH, and I also have a bonus opinion of mine, unrelated to A:MS, that I've been thinking about today. I've long agreed with the widespread opinion that the New York Times is the best paper in the country, even though I've always had some problems with it, but recently I've felt that it's been slipping and this functionally retarded t.v. critic they've got, and the Geraldo mess she got them into (and more importantly their steadfast refusal to apologize for or retract the obvious lie she wrote about his actions, though now they finally have) is the last straw for me. Or maybe all this Judy Miller crap was the last straw... in any case: The Washington Post is the best newspaper in the country, and the NYT is maybe third or fourth (as I'm pretty sure the L.A. Times is probably better than them now too, or at least they're tied... the Chicago Tribune I only read on occasion, so I can't make an informed opinion on their ranking). And if New York readers would also like coverage of local news, read the Daily News, too (really, if you make under $150,000 and/or care about anything outside Manhattan that's always been the case). Screw the Times. I have spoken. Now to sleep.