Three-and-a-half weeks in a Chevy Malibu…

This past summer the brainiacs at GM announced a massive hybrid battery recall on their entire fleet of Saturn Green Line Hybrid vehicles and a few of their other branded hybrids as well. Now, that seems like an easy enough fix, right? Make some new batteries (22,500 to be exact) plop them into the hybrids in question and you’re good to go.

Well, GM being the bloated, gas-guzzling dinosaur-of-a-car company that they are, it was anything but easy. We put our names on a replacement battery waiting list at our old Saturn dealer back in August — we had to switch to a new GM-certified repair shop when our beloved Galpin Saturn closed — and just now had the issue repaired. Yep, I said, August, as in, four months ago!

Initially, the wait was fine, I mean, the car ran great and we didn’t have any problems to speak of, so, we were cool sitting on the waiting list at Galpin. But when the “check engine light” began to flash every time we started the car, we began to worry. And when the “service hybrid system” light came on and the entire hybrid system stopped working while driving to the mall one day, well, we knew it was time to take the Chenbot to the doctor.

What we didn’t know was that it would take three-and-a-half weeks to get our car back. The guy at the new dealership told me to remove: “everything of value out of the car”, so, I guess I shoulda known we were in for a long haul, but, almost a month without our car? Come on!

Sure, we had a rental car (the dreaded, oldie-magnet Malibu mentioned above) and it was totally paid for, but, seriously GM, how long does it take to whip up a new batch of 22,500 hybrid batteries?

The answer of course, is, FOREVER. According to what I’ve read online, we are actually one of the lucky ones as some people have been waiting even longer for a battery. And many drivers of older Saturn hybrids (the recall dates back to any 2007 models) don’t even get a rental car, so, they’re like, doubly screwed!

And the worse thing is that there has been virtually no news coverage of this latest GM blunder-fest anywhere…not even a local news blurb. I’m sure nobody cares about Saturns anymore, but, wow, where’s crazy old Ralph Nader when you really need him, man?

Anyway, we are finally back in our beautiful Vue and it seems to be running fine, but, before I go, I just wanted to run some numbers by you. Between the cost of our rental car ($950) and the replacement battery ($1050) GM paid out over $2000 last month, just for us. Multiply that figure by every car involved in the recall and GM will have spent a staggering $45 million dollars on this mess.

Now, if they were just another lame, backwards-thinking car company with one foot in the grave, that would be one thing, but, GM, with its long, rich history of incompetence and mismanagement, received over $52 billion of tax-payer funded dollars in the recent bailout. That’s right, amigos, we paid $52 billion for GM’s mistakes, and, hot on the heels of that epic failure, they screw up again with this costly hybrid battery recall? Insanity!

So, hang in their fellow Saturn hybrid owners, your day (and battery) will come…you know, eventually. And as for you, GM, well, you can suck it. Big time! Seriously, I kinda hate you guys…

End of summer blues…

Some people say it’s the way the days grow ever shorter, or the subtle chill in the air at night, but for the past twelve seasons, there is one sure-fire way to know that summer has ended in our house…and that’s when “Big Brother” airs it’s season finale. And seeing as that happened on Wednesday, well, I’d say the summer of 2010 is officially over.

So, goodbye road trips, plane trips and warm summer days at the beach, but most of all…goodbye to the positively radiant Chenbot.

Seriously, did any of you see Julie Chen in action this season? Chenbot was looking fine, yo. Motherhood clearly agrees with her circuitry. Wow…

Anyway…now that the show is over and all the sunny, summer distractions are slowly winding down outside, maybe, just maybe, I’ll get back to blogging again on a regular basis. Hooray!

“Merry Swiftmas” to all…

As you know, Christine and I are crazy Christmas music geeks with KOST 103.5 playing non-stop in the casa and XM Radio’s handful of holiday-themed channels pre-programmed in the Chenbot. And though we usually pick up a couple of new songs and CD’s here and there every year, it is very rare that a song strikes a chord like the one we just heard tonight.

Recorded by Avril Lavigne’s former musical director and lead guitarist, Evan Taubenfeld, “Merry Swiftmas” is a sweet, goofy ode to 2009’s cutie of the year, Taylor Swift. And not only is it funny as hell, but it’s also a genuinely catchy song with some great hooks. And best of all, it is now available on iTunes, so, yay!

Check out Taubenfeld’s new “Swiftmas” video below and if it doesn’t have you reaching into your pocket for 99 cents, well, maybe you just don’t love Christmas as much as you thought you did…

End of the road for Saturn…

You’ve probably already heard the sad news by now, but despite a valiant effort by the Penske Automotive Group it looks like our beloved Saturn Motors has finally reached the end of the road. Is it weird that Christine and I were almost in tears when we heard the news? Maybe, but who cares. We loved and will continue to love every single Saturn we’ve ever leased or owned…

And as the very proud owners of a 2004 Saturn Ion named Mr. Sark and a 2009 Hybrid Vue we recently christened,  Chenbot, we can very safely say that Saturn was the coolest, most forward-thinking car company ever.

Long live the great and mighty spirit of Saturn Motors!

Simon Baker is “Not Forgotten” by Emmy voters!

I know, I know…more shameless self-promotion. But, hey, having the lead actor from your first movie nab an Best Actor Emmy nomination never hurt anyone, and if Simon Baker’s nomination for “The Mentalist” gets even one more person to buy a “Not Forgotten” DVD when it comes out on October 6th, well, then, thank you very much, Emmy voters!

The rest of the nominees — with the exception of the animated “Family Guy” scoring a rare nod in the Best Comedy Series category — were pretty much business as usual. I swear to God, if I hear some of those same old names announced again I think I might just stop watching TV altogether. Yikes…

That said, I was glad to see the very deserving “Big Love” finally score a Drama Series nod, and it was cool to see “Flight of the Conchords” nominations all over the place, who woulda guessed that one? And even though we stopped watching “Breaking Bad” out of solidarity with a friend of ours last season, it was very cool to see the show in the top slot for the first time and even cooler to see Aaron Paul score a nomination for Supporting Actor, Drama. Rock on, Mr. Paul!

We have not seen “Grey Gardens” yet, but, I hear it’s very good and was happy for Drew Barrymore and the rest of the cast for their scads of nominations as well. Oh, and speaking of TV movies, Sigourney Weaver rocked in Lifetime’s “Prayers For Bobby”, so was very pleased to see both her and the film score nominations.

Was mostly pleased with the writing nods as well, especially the nomination for “Lost” scribes Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for their amazing work on the season finale, “The Incident”. And am always happy to see Michael Emerson nominated for playing creepy-ass Ben, but was very disappointed that more of his “Lost” castmates didn’t make the cut. I mean, hello, Elizabeth Mitchell’s “death” scene in “The Incident” episode was some of the finest acting the show has ever seen…seriously, blondie got robbed!

And though I was sad to see “The American Mall” shut out of the Original Music and Lyrics nominations in favor of two songs from award shows (!) I gotta say, the hilarious “Motherlover” song from “SNL” is sure to take home the gold. That shit was hilarious!

And finally, we were very sad to see “ER” almost totally shut out in it’s last season, County General deserved better, yo. And though Christine and I were both seriously bummed that the totally cinematic “Southland” failed to score a single nod for it’s very deserving writers and cast, we’ll take comfort in the Best Actress nomination for Christina Applegate for “Samantha Who?”.

I know it’s canceled (stupid ABC!) but “Samantha” was one of our favorite shows of late…fantastic writing, hilarious cast, and very sweet to boot! If you haven’t seen this show, you must run out to rent the DVD’s when they come out. Seriously, you will never stop smiling.

Love to hear what shows you guys are rooting for, so, check out the complete list of Emmy nominees here and comment away! Oh yeah, and just for the record, the Chenbot was cruelly snubbed again for Best Reality Show host! Crazy, huh? But Padma Lakshmi did score a nod in the same category for “Top Chef”, so that definitely lessened the blow…

“Big Brother” starts tonight!

At first, Christine and I were just excited to see the pregnant Chenbot’s, um…Chenbump. But now, after totally nerding out and reading way too much about the show online just now, we are literally counting the hours till the 8:00PM debut of “Big Brother 11” tonight on CBS!

I don’t know about you guys, but, summer in our house is not complete without loads of snarky, half-naked hotties duking it out in a cool house full of cameras! And while this year’s crop of houseguests look pretty much like any other season, there are two key twists that might shake things up a bit.

One: the house will be divided into traditional high school cliques, geeks, brains, jocks, what have you. And two: there will be a 13th mystery houseguest who may (or may not) be recycled from a previous season. Awesome!! And recycling a houseguest is apparently just the beginning this year!

Jumping on the marketing bandwagon, the “BB 11” producers have decided to “go green” this season with loads of eco-friendly touches sprinkled throughout the house. Of course, once the “Big Brother” slop starts flying, who really cares where the power comes from, just keep those cameras rolling, baby!

Either way, kudos to “Big Brother” for rocking some pretty cool eco-friendly decor this year — I love that wall of recycled bottles, cans and cardboard and stuff below — and, as always, all hail the Chenbot!

Earthquake night on “Big Brother”

Just finished watching tonight’s episode of “Big Brother” and all I can say is…wow. Not only did we get to see the houseguest’s stunned reactions to the earthquake we had down here on Tuesday, but we also got to see one of the strangest Head of Household competitions ever.

And for some totally wrong-headed reason the producers decided to end tonight’s episode with an earthquake-themed HOH competition.

Yep, you heard me, two days after the Los Angeles area was shaken by a 5.4 magnitude tremblor, “Big Brother” staged a mock earthquake as part of one of their competitions. Wow, man…that takes balls!

I’m sure they figured: “Hey, nobody died, it’s cool to have a little earthquake-tastic fun, right?” But man, talk about bad taste. After this week’s eviction — I won’t spoil it for you by telling you who got the boot — the houseguests lined up on the ledge of a two-story building facade in the backyard.

The rules were simple, whoever stays put on the ledge wins this week’s Head of Household. For you non-BB fans, that’s means you are immune from going home and actually in charge of nominating two people for eviction during your one week reign as HOH.

So, after the housequests took their places on the ledge, the entire facade began to slowly rotate forward, forcing them to hold on tight or risk falling off into the padded plastic mats below.

And then, the real shocker came when our beloved Chenbot — who I’m sure had nothing to do with this tasteless ratings ploy — uttered these immortal words: “You all felt the earthquake the other day, houseguests? Well, you should know, when there are earthquakes, there are always aftershocks!”

And then, to our horror, the building facade began to violently shake as sawdust rained down upon the startled housequests. I swear to God, Christine and I just paused the Tivo and stared at one another: “Um…are they really doing this?”

I mean, sure, no one died in Chino Hills, hell, nothing major even broke or crumbled, but still…an earthquake-themed HOH so soon after a real earthquake? Really?? What’s next, flaming wildfire competitions? Yikes…

And to make matters even worse, they ended the show without showing us the result of the competition! Which means we have to wait till freaking Sunday to see who won HOH! Argh!!

For shame, Chenbot, for shame…

The Chenbot is not amused…

By now you’ve probably all seen this year’s list of Emmy nominees — if you haven’t, you can download the full list of nominees here — overall, this year’s crop was a pretty decent bunch. Glad to see smaller basic cable shows like “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” swing a few major nominations, but at our house, the news was all about who was not nominated.

And no, I’m not talking about the extremely talented cast and crew of “The Riches” or the writers of “Lost”, but rather, the elegant Chinese robot that is “Big Brother” host Julie “Chenbot” Chen.

With the announcement earlier this year that the TV Academy was adding a Best Reality Host category, we thought for sure our beloved Chenbot was a lock for a nomination. Of course, we expected to hear the names, Jeff Probst, Heidi Klum, and even cheesy old Ryan Seacrest…but what no one expected was to hear the next two names on the list: Howie Mandel and Tom Bergeron?!

Are you kidding me? Have you seen their shows? The best things on both “Deal Or No Deal” and “Dancing with the Stars” have absolutely nothing to do with those two ham-fisted windbags! I mean, really, take them out of the equation and the shows are just as good, or, you know…bad…without them.

But “Big Brother” without the Chenbot is just a bunch of crazy, white trash drunkards trapped in a house with cameras. Now, I’m not saying I wouldn’t watch that show too, but a huge part of what makes “Big Brother” so awesomely watchable is that cool, shiny-haired Chenbot!

So…any way you look at it, our girl got straight-up robbed this week, yo!

I guess our only consolation is that the tenth season — yeah I said tenth, you got a problem with that Emmy voters?! — of “Big Brother” started last week, so that gives us all summer long to enjoy the strangely lifelike beauty of our favorite Chinese robot! And better yet, the show airs three nights a week…yah!

Emmy or not, long live the Chenbot!

The Chenbot Revealed…

While searching for some cool pics of Julie Chen for the next post, came across this pair of amazingly bad pictures and simply had to share them with you.

Non-fans of “Big Brother” — and they are legion, especially on the picket lines right now — might not appreciate these warts-and-all pictures of Ms. Chen, but any true fan will tell you that the Chenbot is never seen in public without every hair on her shiny plastic head in place. Until now…

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Apparently, these screencaps are from a “Big Brother: All Star” gag reel put together by the crew at the end-of-season rap party. I have no clue what she’s saying, but the sight of a hot Asian robot in curlers is just hilarious to me…even if she is married to the mad robot king of CBS himself, Les Moonves.

Ah, well, nobody’s perfect…rock on Chenbot!

I, Chenbot

Having just wrapped up its eighth, and arguably best, season on CBS this week, it is with a pair of heavy-hearts that Christine and I bid farewell to “Big Brother” and its slinky, gloriously robotic host Julie “The Chenbot” Chen!

A staple of our summer Tivo viewing since the show first started in 2000, we have been fans of Julie Chen’s strange, otherworldly charms for years. I wish I could say I came up with her cool nickname, but someone far wittier than I coined the term Chenbot a few years back and it stuck.

Remarkably, Ms. Chen herself has come to embrace the term as her own in the past couple of years, which proves that even hot Asian robots have a sense of humor. So, good on you, Chenbot!

Anyway, Christine and I recently discovered a hilarious website dedicated to all things Chenbot with some awesome mash-up video clips of her iconic catch phrase: “But first…” and even a surprisingly wide array of logo merchandise — including the tote bag pictured below and Chenbot thong underwear! Whoa!

You guys have to see this stuff to believe it…amazing! And even non-fans of the show — which is just about everybody, except for “BB” loyalists James, Tim and Wendy — will enjoy the video clips on the site. They’re pretty damn funny.

Check them out at: hhtp://www.tvgasm.com/chenbot/ and until next summer when “Big Brother” rules our Tivo once more…all hail the Chenbot!