Nina’s Top Ten Failed TV Show Ideas

As I prepared a spreadsheet of the new fall shows I’d be programming into my three TiVos (don’t judge me), I found some interesting shows that didn’t make the fall line-up. Did the networks make a mistake? You decide.

10. Made Off With Your $ – A new reality show centered around convicted Ponzi scheme scammer, Bernie Madoff (pronounced Made-Off) as he adjusts to going from the penthouse to the big house. The pilot revolved around Bernie and a misunderstanding with his new cellmate; a big black guy called M.T. (Meat Tenderizer.) – (MTV)

9.  Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pregnancy Test – Judd Apatow brings his unique brand of humor to the small screen. Stacy has two one night stands within days of each other. When both the responsible Tom and the party boy Chad decide to move in with her until they can figure out who the daddy is, hilarity ensues. (ABC)

8. More Bootay To Love – Motivated by complaints that dating shows ignore the overweight and minorities, FOX decided to mix things up with a Bachelor-style reality show pairing up overweight black couples.

7. Where in the World Is Michael Jackson? – Yet another reality show (hey, they’re cheap) obsessed with celebrity. This time, a dead one. All this controversy over where The Gloved One will be buried has sparked a group of ghost-hunter style adventurers to track down the corpse once and for all.(The CW)

6. So You Think You Can Whittle? -  The search for America’s Favorite Whittler begins! A panel of expert judges scour the country to see who can really handle their wood!

5. Sex - Knowing what sells and in a desperate attempt to garner controversy-driven ratings, NBC airs the closest thing to pornography that the FCC will let them get away with. No plot, just constant love scenes back-to-back… and front-to-t0… and…

4. Big Brother: West Virginia – Twelve people in one house constantly followed by cameras. Eight teeth between them. One major twist – the people who hook up are not related! (CBS)

3. America’s Got Talent – Washed up has-been “celebrities” like David Hasslehoff and Sharon Osbourne serve as judges to the millions of Americans who think balancing plates on your head and whistling the National Anthem through your nose makes you talented. …. Oh… wait. (NBC)

2. Touched by An Uncle – CBS, hoping to cash in on the popularity of Law and Order: SVU, came up with their own crime-fighting unit dedicated to children sex crimes.

1. Are You Smarter Than Sarah Palin? - Every episode, every week, the answer is yes.

Have an idea for a top ten? Email it to nina@blogitoutb.com

Nina’s Top Ten Questions on My Mind

1o. Why are there no black people on The Bachelor/Bachelorette? Does ABC assume that people wouldn’t tune in to see 25 black men or women vie for the attention of another? Are there not enough desperate black people trying to get famous find love to participate? VH1 seems to have no problem finding them for Flavor of Love and I Love New York.

9. What is the big deal with this Susan Boyle? So? A fat and ugly woman can sing. There are millions of those singing their fat ugly hearts out in churches across the country every Sunday.

 

8. How do you clean a dishwasher?

7. Where the hell did I put that $25 iTunes gift card?

6. Why are the best tasting foods (pizza, chocolate, burgers, fries, pie) the worst for you? Why isn’t there an all-hot wings diet?

5. Speaking of which… isn’t everything better with bacon?

4. Does my ass make these jeans look big?

3. Did the south just get together and collectively decide they were going to be sucky drivers? Is this their way of getting us Yankees to go back home?

2. Is it a blessing or a curse that the new Best Buy is literally three minutes from my house?

Which leads to…

1. Why wasn’t I born independently wealthy?

What questions are on your mind this week?

Have a Top Ten suggestion? Send it to nina@blogitoutb.com and you may see it here one week.

Nina’s Top Ten Signs You Have No Home Training

Get out your pen and paper. It’s quiz time!

10) You’re invited to a dinner party. It’s the day of the party and you have no idea if children are invited. You call and call the host, but get a busy signal. Do you…

A – Call a sitter just in case and show up without your children.

B – Show up with your children and apologize if it seems to be a problem.

C – Show up with your children without apologizing. After all, if they didn’t want children in attendance they should have specified.

9) You have some kind of event at your home that requires gifts (baby shower, bridal shower, birthday/housewarming party, etc.) Do you…

A – Thank people in attendance as you open their gifts, and then mail personal thank you cards within one week of event.

B – Thank people in attendance as you open their gifts, and shoot a thank you e-mail to anyone that sent a gift, but didn’t attend.

C – Gratitude is for suckers.

8 ) You’re in the self check-out lane at your local market, ringing items up, when you realize you don’t want some of the items. Do you…

A – Finish ringing up your purchases, and then take each unwanted item back to it’s proper place within the store.

B – Inform the check-out attendant that you don’t want the items and give them to him/her.

C – Leave them on the conveyor belt for the next person to deal with.

7) You’re invited to a social gathering at someone’s home. You offer to bring something, but the host says it’s not necessary. Do you…

A – Show up with something (a bottle of wine, plate of cookies, flower bouquet) anyway.

B – Show up empty-handed, but offer to help clear the table/wash dishes after dinner.

C – Show up empty-handed.

6) Your neighbor is taking her kids to see the latest big-budget animation flick. She offers to take your kid as well. Do you…

A – Assume nothing and offer up money for your child’s ticket and possible concession stand wants.

B – Assume the ticket is paid for and send your child with money for anything they might want from the concession stand.

C – Just let your kid go with no offer to pay for anything.

5) You find a ten-dollar bill wrapped in a receipt in the parking lot of your kid’s school. Do you…

A – Turn it in to the office. Maybe the secretary can make an announcement.

B – Ask some people in the immediate area. If no one claims it, keep it.

C – Finders keepers, losers…  are out ten bucks!

4) You have your sister’s kid at the mall the week before Christmas. Santa is there taking pics and the line is really short. It’s the kid’s first Christmas. Do you…

A – Keep on walkin’.

B – Call your sister and ask if she’d mind you having the pictures taken.

C – Get in line without calling your sister, get the pictures taken, and hop in one of ‘em to boot!

3) You’re at a dinner party when you drop a messy hors d’ oeuvre on the floor. No one sees. Do you…

A – Pick it up, tell the host you did it, and offer to clean it up.

B – Tell the host that “someone” did it.

C – Say nothing, and kick it under the sofa careful not to get any on your shoe.

2) You’re leaving a store with your child and putting him/her into their car seat when you notice they have something from the store and you didn’t pay for it. You’re running late to your next appointment. Do you…

A – Go back in the store to pay for the item or return it with apologies.

B – Leave without going back into the store, but you return later with the item to either pay for it or apologize.

C – Leave.

1) You’re at your boyfriend’s parent’s house for the first time. Everyone is sitting around the living room chatting over coffee when you feel a major fart coming on. You could leave the room, but the movement might unleash the dragon. Do you…

A – Hold it in even though you risk blowing out your belly button.

B – Risk leaving the room. It’s rude to fart in front of others, but if it escapes while you’re trying to do the right thing, well… that’s not your fault, right?

C – You let it rip and then glare at the dog.

Tally up!

Give yourself 3pts for every A answer, 2pts for every B answer, and 1 pt. for every C answer.  Add up your points.

1-15 points – You’re like, one step above a felon. How do you look at yourself in the mirror. Wait. Is that even your mirror?

16-24 points – You suspect. I can be your friend, but you might not be welcome in my house.

25-30 points – Your mama raised you right! Who’s your mama? Martha Stewart?

If you have an idea for future Top Ten topic, send it to me at nina@blogitoutb.com. You may see it here one Wednesday. Also, if you have some bad behavior venting to get off your chest, head over to How Rude Are You and let loose!

Nina’s Top Ten Most Embarrassing Situations

Some of these are general, and some are specific incidents that pertain to me. All are downright cringe-worthy.

10. Denied!

When you try to pay for something with your credit/debit card, and it’s declined. Then you have to do that, “I don’t understand. I know there’s money available/in the account,” speech. And no one around believes you. They should! It’s not like you were trying to pass a check. Anyone that presents a credit/debit card truly believes that it will be accepted. No one chooses to put themselves through that experience on purpose, right?

This hasn’t happened to me in years. Why? Because I don’t play that shit. I always check my bank balance before leaving the house to shop. Always. Don’t use credit cards anymore. I spent a lot of my 20′s being embarrassed due to poor money management skills and shitty luck. Also, I’m not tryna have that shit happen with my kids around.

“Mommy, I thought we were getting groceries.”

“Not today, baby. We don’t really need to eat.”

9. Out of the mouths of babes

Speaking of children… when your kid says something they shouldn’t… in public… loudly.

Standing in the cereal aisle. “Mommy, did you just fart?”

A few years ago, Kal and Donny were checking out of Best Buy. He was purchasing a few video games.

“Does Mommy know you’re buying all this stuff?”

What’s worse is when they repeat something they’ve heard around the house in public.

“Mommy, you know how Daddy is always saying he’s gonna backhand you?”

(Donny does threaten this, but he’s totally joking. I think.)

The last time this happened, Kali made me sound really bad. We were going to my parents’ house for my nephew’s first birthday party. Due to procrastination, we ended up at Walmart down the road from their house an hour before the party buying his presents. We picked out some clothes and some kind of toy. Kali, way too excited, kept picking up things she would like. She handed me a pink Care Bear and I told her no, we’d already gotten Elijah enough things. When we got to the party, she told my stepmother, “I wanted to get a bear for Elijah, but my mother said we’d already bought him enough.”

Now, that’s what I said, but when she said it, it made me sound like a cheap-ass auntie!

8. Bodily fluids rearing their heads at inappropriate times.

I remember being a kid and traveling on the train to and from school with some neighborhood kids that I hated. One girl in particular was a big ole bitch. She was a tomboy and really mean. She was awful to me and highly intimidating.

One day, we were on the train and I had a runny nose. I was standing in front of her holding on to the pole while she, and some of our friends, sat. It was hard to be a part of the conversation because looking down did nothing to stop the snot flow and I had to keep sniffing. Then, I felt a river of snot making it’s way down my nostril and I couldn’t stop it. It was like the whole thing happened in slow motion.

It was a like a big fat raindrop and it landed right on mean girl’s shoe. And she noticed. And she said something so that those hadn’t noticed, would. She was a cunt like that.

“You just gonna leave that there on my shoe?”

God, I hated that bitch.

7. Snarting

Snarting – When you sneeze and fart at the same time.

The only thing worse than snarting is…

6. Sharting

Sharting - When you go to fart, but end up… well, you know.

5. What’s That Smell?

Speaking of shit…

There once was a girl that had to poop really badly, but she couldn’t do so without having something to read. Butt clenched tightly, she scrambled to find something, anything, that she could take with her to the bathroom. She finally found a TV Guide and rushed to do her business.

Hours later, her husband came home and complained that the bathroom still smelled of poo. A vigorous search revealed that in her haste, Poo Girl, had managed to get some poo on the lip of the sink.

I swear, it’s not me.

4. When are you due… be do be do…  *whistle*

Never, ever, enquire about a woman’s pregnancy unless you are 100% positive she is pregnant. And by that I mean, you can see the baby emerging from her vagina. Other than that, keep your mouth shut!

Once, when Kali was like 2, we took her to The Picture People to have her portrait taken. While we waited for our turn, one of the young girls working asked me, “Do you know what you’re having?”

I thought she meant did I know which package we were going to buy or which background we wanted to use. So, I said, “Not yet, we’re still deciding.” It wasn’t until I saw the look of confusion, then mortification, on her face, and the complete look of horror on her co-worker’s face did I realize what she meant. We all just kinda pretended it hadn’t happened.

For the record, I was sitting on a stool and my sweatshirt puffed out making me look bigger than I was. But it was still freakin’ embarrassing.

3. Remember that time… wait. What? That wasn’t you?

Don’t you hate when you start telling a story in which you’re reminiscing with someone, and you’re talking to the wrong someone? Well, that’s particularly messed up when it’s your significant other/spouse.

And even six more shades of wrong when it’s something that suggests that you were a totally different person.

“Honey, remember when we got caught having sex in the back of my car?”

“Um, no.”

“Sure you do. We were out by that old field and it was raining…”

“No.”

“Come on! And then the cops showed up and your foot was hanging out the window and he shined his flashlight right on your ankle tattoo.. and wait… you don’t have an ankle tattoo.”

2. Hi, don’t I know you?

That isn’t just a really bad pick-up line.

Nothing makes you look like more of a tool than striking up a conversation with someone thinking they’re someone else.

And the number one embarrassing situation?

1. One word:

Queefs.

What embarrassing stories can you share that fit into one of the categories above? What about another situation?

Have an idea for a Nina’s Top Ten? Send your suggestion to nina@blogitoutb.com and you just may see it here one Wednesday with a special shout-out to you and your brilliance… made even more brilliant by own.

Nina’s Top Ten Signs That She Watches Too Much TV

10. While waiting at a red light, Donny asked me if I’d seen the hair-do of a woman that had just driven by.

“No. I missed it.”

Silence.

“Wait. Did you just reach for a TiVo remote to rewind real life?”

I did.

9. True Story: A few weeks ago, while in class, my ear clogged up and everything sounded far away. Then I started hearing some weird staticy sound – like someone tuning a radio.

I briefly wondered if I was a Cylon.

8. Name any day, any hour, and I can name at least three shows coming on at that time. Test me.

7. I know the halls of County General like the back of my hand.

6. I have a soft-spoken white woman do all of my life narrations a la Desperate Housewives. So what if only I can hear her.

5. I end all arguments with, “The tribe has spoken.”

4. Richard is paid to watch TV, and yet I still watch more than he does.

3. I’m a member of an elite squad known as the special victims’ unit.

2. The only thing keeping me from committing murder is Gil Grissom.

1. In times of great indecision I find myself wondering, “WWJBD?”

What would Jack Bauer do?

Nina’s Top Ten Reasons Donny Will Go White Boy Crazy

You all know that Donny is my long-suffering, infinitely patient, Saint-like husband. Well, I am convinced that all white boys have a crazy gene that lies dormant – usually until their wives get pregnant. Seeing as how I’ve made it through my pregnancy with our son Jack, I can only assume he’s waiting until Jack is weaned from the breast before killing me in my sleep. I’m nursing Jack until he’s 12. Just sayin’.

Top Ten Reasons Donny Will Go White Boy Crazy

10. I always, always, always, leave the butter out.

9. The other day he returned from the store and asked…

“I thought you were going to vacuum while I was gone?”

“I was, but I didn’t know how to turn it on.”

8. Speaking of vacuums… a few years ago..

Nina: How do you turn this thing on? I’m stepping on the little button.

Donny: You have to flip the switch on the handle.

Nina: Since when?

Donny: Since always. You’re thinking of the old vacuum.

Nina: Oh. When did we get this new one?

Donny: Two years ago.

7. An actual conversation….

“My Mom sent you another friend request on Facebook.”

“I know. I’m trying to decide if I’m gonna accept it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just feel funny. She e-mailed me to say she really likes my blogs and all I could think about was the time I wrote about your balls falling out of your boxer shorts.”

6. I’m allergic to filling the gas tank. I will drive home on fumes before stopping for gas, but let me get in the car to find the tank on E and I lose my shit.

5. I don’t remember the last time I shaved my legs.

4. I tell him that my blind, dead, Grandfather drives faster than him.

3. I’m a better Halo 3 player than he is, and I make sure he knows it!

2. Donny has to live with the knowledge that there are several celebs — including Jason Behr — that I would sleep with in a heartbeat. And while many couples have lists, if he tried to act on his, I’d cut the aforementioned balls off.

1. Most men worry about being replaced with a vibrator. Donny? A TiVo remote.

For real though…

Have an idea for a Top Ten list you’d like me to cover? Send it to nina@blogitoutb.com. Check out Nina’s Top Ten Moments of Battlestar Galactica here.

Nina’s Top Ten Moments of Battlestar Galactica

Until Rescue Me returns, I have an opening in my Wednesday entertainment blog. This is good news for you because that means that today you get two, yes two, Nina’s Top Ten blogs! And since this is supposed to be a TV blog, I’ve decided to follow that theme. (Later today: Top Ten Reasons Donny Will Go White Boy Crazy.)

Warning: This list contains spoilers so do not read, or watch the clips, unless you’ve seen every episode of Battlestar Galactica including the series finale.

In no particular order, I give you the…

Top Ten Moments of Battlestar Galactica

10. The Adama Manuever – Most of the fleet has decided to settle on the planet New Caprica under the leadership of their new president, Gaius Baltar. When the Cylons, the evil robots that look human bent on destroying mankind, show up, Baltar has no choice but to surrender, and Admiral Bill Adama has no choice but to leave his people. When he returns, what follows is hands-down one of the best scenes on television.

He launches two drones, and when the Cylons send their ships after them (thinking they’re Galactica, and the battlestar Pegasus), Adama jumps the battlestar right on their heads. He then launches the viper fighter planes, and jumps out of the planet’s atmosphere. If the clip doesn’t work, click here.

9. “So That’s It. We’re Cylons.” – After hearing pieces of, “All Along the Watchtower,” in their heads for days, the final four cylons are revealed when the song leads them all to the same place at the same. Almost immediately after, Starbuck returns from the dead. If the clip doesn’t work, click here.

8. Hey, I Know That Song! – Starbuck remembers that her father taught her to play, “All Along the Watchtower,” when she was a child. It just happens to be the song that switched on the final four cylons. Goosebumps!

7. Eye Contact – Moments after finding out he’s a cylon, Anders takes to his viper for his first battle with the Cylon raiders. Just when a raider has him dead to rights, he makes “eye contact” with the patroling red light of the raider. A super close-up of Anders’ eye reveals the slightest “glitch” which prompts the cylons to back-off.

6. The Cylons Were Created By Man – The opening scene to the mini-series that launched the show blew me away. It summed up where we were quickly, and it jumped right into action.

5. “Where Have You Taken Us, Kara?” – The final jump that leads Galactica, and her people, to their new home.

4. “She Will Not Fail Us If We Do Not Fail Her.” – In order to save Hera, Galactica and crew embark on their last mission;  jumping dead center of the cylon colony. The moment they jump in, all hell breaks loose. “You sunk my battleship! Sike!”

Honorable Mention from the clip above: Rebel centurions working with the human assault team to attack the cylon colony. Also, there’s neck-snapping in that clip. You gotta love neck-snapping!

3. “You know, I know about farming.” – In the final minutes of the series finale, Gaius shows a moment of heartbreaking humanity. Thanks to, what I think were, wonderfully woven flashbacks, we know that line was filled with all the guilt he has carried through four seasons and even beyond considering Gaius’ treatment of his father. Also, when the scene opens he looks right sexy.

Honorable mention from clip above: Adama speaks to Laura, who he has just buried, about their cabin he will build, and presumably die in.

2. Some Really Great Speeches:

- Adama’s speech at the end of the mini-series – he pledges to lead the fleet to Earth.

- Lee’s speech at the end of Baltar’s trial – he talks about the sins committed since they were forced to run for their lives.

- Roslin’s speech to the rebel cylons – she tells them that when Adama pulls through the mutiny, he will remember who stood with him, and who ran. “Who do you want to be? Who do you want to be?!”

1. Finally, any scene that contained my new favorite word:

There are so many more scenes that I could list; Roslin’s swearing in, Lee rescues Tyrol, Seelix, Cally, and Baltar on the algae planet, Admiral Cain’s end, Ander’s goodbye, the occupation of New Caprica, more of the final battle, the reveal of the final cylon, the return of the final cylon…. but, I’ll leave some for you!

If you’d like me to cover a top ten list, feel free to email a subject to nina@blogitoutb.com