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One of my co-workers is trying to place her grandkid in a martial art, and asking another one of my co-workers (a 4th degree black belt in Karate who looks like Benjamin Franklin) which martial art is the best and this and that. Eavesdropping on them, it’s a bit painful to hear Ben explain that my co-worker’s 6 year old grandkid is just going to waste a contract’s worth of payments messing around in a dojo daycare. Charmingly, the woman doesn’t get it.

“Is Hapkido a good one?”
 ”Uh yea… it’s good but what you’ve really got to-”
“Oh never mind, it starts at 6:00 instead of 6:30″

This is the most recent of my interactions with people who have grand aspirations for their kids. I had dinner with one of Wai’s friends who is shopping her 5 year old around private school programs, taking tests to determine whether or not the kid is gifted. Guess not.

I mean, I DO understand the mentality, but at what point do the parents give up and just admit their kid is normal? She kept insisting that the kid was an early reader, but I was too nice to retort that apparently reading early isn’t correlated with being gifted. If it were my kid, I’d just beat smarts into them the Asian way and then let the schools sort it out.

Even though The Simpsons made fun of the Grammys in the 90’s, I never held them in a low regard on that spectrum of the hundred or so award shows out there.  I guess with G4TV awards being the worst, and the Top Gear awards being the best, the Grammys were right there in the middle.

Tonight was the first time I watched them, and it was an assault on my ears, eyes, and mind.  Besides having the Black Eyed Peas on singing the worst song of the year, they tried their best to modernize their show with gimmicky technology.

For that godawful Black Eyed Peas number about weekdays, or whatever, the Grammys asked users to submit YouTube videos that would be displayed on live network tv (!!!) in the background of the performace.  And by displayed, I mean shoved into background out of focus for about half a second between flashing images of the band’s name.  PSYCHE!  I guess even CBS doesn’t want to see your YouTubes.

They then tried their hand at 3-d technology during a Michael Jackson tribute with Usher and 4 other singers I’ve never heard of.  The type of 3d technology which employs the same red/green goggles that I had on a Ninja Turtles coloring book when I was 5.  Not only did the black tie audience look ridiculous in cardboard and plastic green and red glasses, they chose the worst song of Michael Jackson’s postmortem movie: This Is It to sing.  Some song about saving the planet.  Michael Jackson was a nutbag.

Featuring a melodramatic portrayal of big logging (?) and a hyper-romanticized view of nature, the musicial number took your face and bashed it in with GCI about on par with Quake III.  There is what appears to be an awkward rubber robot whale Free Willying over NOTHING into a some kind of clear gel; I think it’s suppose to be water but I’m not sure.

(By the way I saw This is It yesteday, and the producer, Kenny Ortega, is a sniveling dog.  He patronizes Michael Jackson at every chance he gets and his only skill is riding coat tails.  I swear to God, in one scene he says “Michael, if you’d like…” at least 4 or 5 hundred times.  Anybody who uses someone’s name that many times is a bitch.  He must have started on the movie seconds after hearing of The King Of Pop’s death.

Also, I shit you not, the end credits are done in Windows Movie Maker.)

Anyway, I declared the Grammy’s the worst reality show on TV when they had online voting during a Bon Jovi set for the next song in a pathetic attempt to drive users to the CBS website.  Which I went to, because Bon Jovi is awesome, but found out that their website is down.  I should just be thankful that nobody who matters at CBS has ever heard of Twitter.

The Grammys is a grand example of why the music industry is dying.  Besides the country numbers which sounded like every other country number ever, all the acts and winners were Top 40 crap that a boardroom full of execs pumped out over cigars and putting cigars out in struggling artists eyes.   It’s 2 hours of the fucking radio, with an award every now and then.

You know how I know it’s crap?  ”I’m On A Boat” lost.

Saw the doc recently.  He says that I should be getting more sleep, more like 8-9 hours instead of the 7-8 I’m used to, along with cutting out the caffeine, not working out late at night, and not drinking at night.  Ouch.

So that’s exactly what I’ve been doing the past two weeks.  Going to be at 10:30 instead of 12:30 along with all that other stuff.  Here’s my review:

+ Waking up is no longer the worst thing in the world.  I don’t want to wake up still, but it doesn’t feel like I was hit by a bus when I do.
+ It’s not so hard once you get in the habit.  Weekends completely destroy you though, and Sunday nights are very tough to get to sleep.
+ I probably have more overall energy, although about 3-4pm I’m totally ready for nap.
+ My workouts are probably better, but I’ve been sick a bit this week so it’s hard to tell.
+ Saturday nights when I stay up late I’m actually MORE awake, because I don’t have sleep debt AND I have to wake up early Saturdays anyway.

- When you realize you only get about 4 hours from when you get home (6pm) to when you gotta get ready for bed (10pm) you feel like killing yourself.
- I was told no heavy reading, so my reading time has taken another huge hit.

= Overall, the positives far outweight the negatives.  The lost time to sleep does seem to make everything else better.  When I want to party, I can party harder.