Why I'm Over "Jon and Kate Plus 8"

Used to be, I really enjoyed this little show about a family with eight kids, whose mom and dad were visibly struggling to raise their unwieldy brood as they bickered (usually lovingly) back and forth.

How times have changed.

Now the mom and dad are separated (and look to be headed for divorce), while the kids are doing so much insanely fun stuff, it's amazing they have time to sleep and eat. On last night's first new episode, the kids took mom Kate to Duff Goldman's Charm City Cakes--a real life Willy Wonka's factory, if you substitute cake for chocolate--to celebrate her birthday. Then Kate took older daughter Mady (one of their twins) to San Diego for a mother-daughter outing while Jon stayed home with the kids.

=sigh=

I'm sorry. I just don't relate to this family any more. Instead of the charming foibles and frustrations of oversized-family life, we see the Gosselins ensconced in an extremely spacious home on 24 acres; we see Kate on book tours and speaking engagements (here and there, anyway); and we see each parent alone on a couch, speaking to the camera in tones ever more glum and downcast.

Heck, I might not have liked how Kate treated Jon--she was pretty nasty to him several times on the show--but I'm liking both of them a lot less these days. That isn't really a judgment on either Jon or Kate... it's more that I am not enjoying the time I spend in their video presence.

Now that I have a daughter of my own, I can begin to appreciate how wearing it can be to parent a baby. All things considered, I would rather be part of my world than spend time being a part of the Gosselins' extended video family.

Deadliest Warrior

Hey folks,

A good friend turned us on to a show on Spike TV called "Deadliest Warrior." A bunch of you probably already know about or even follow the show but in case you don't, it is the bomb.

The premise is simple: two fighters from different backgrounds, cultures and so on are matched up, their lethality is evaluated, and a computer simulation is run 1000 times to determine who would win.

Match ups to date include Shaolin Monk vs. Maori warrior, William "Braveheart" Wallace vs. Shaka Zulu, Soviet Spetsnaz vs. Green Beret... you get the idea.

Kat and I were spellbound watching the first two matchups above last night. There's a team of three--a biomedical engineer, a computer programmer and a medical doctor--who work with experts on the combat styles and techniques of various groups. Each side is judged on its five most common or deadly weapons; the experts tend to talk a lot of trash to each other, which is really funny.

Spike has carved out a niche for itself with high testosterone shows that practically bleed macho--but this one is, like Kat said, "Mythbusters for the really violent."

Anyway, the season finale matchup is IRA vs. Taliban. We can't wait!

Rating: A+