Deal or No Deal
Deal or No Deal might be the stupidest TV show ever created, though I might be just as stupid for watching it.  To be fair, I've only seen it a couple times and I don't fully understand the concept, but I was thoroughly disappointed by what I saw.  How can Howie Mandel, with all his fashionably bald, soul-patchy coolness fail to impress?  Easy; make a game of chance into a primetime network TV show.  And most times, the "chances" are less than flipping a coin and getting heads.  At least Wheel of Fortune requires the ability to spell.  They could easily cut an hour-long show down into about five seconds.  "Will you will a million dollars?  *flip*  Nope."  One thing that stands out about the contestants is their incredibly selfish, pigheaded greed.  I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course.  Several times throughout the show, the contestant is offered a sum of money to leave the show, oftentimes rejecting that offer in the hopes of winning the million dollar grand prize.  The episode I watched had a woman reject five or six separate offers for over $250,000, then tearfully explain how a million dollars would help her family get out of debt, pay the mortgage, and support the kids.  The offers kept going up until they hovered just under half a million, as the woman continued to shut off her critical thinking skills and follow her foolhardy greed.  I found myself wanting to actually jump through the TV and smack the woman in the face, in the hopes that I could convince her to use a tiny part of her brain to think about the situation for two seconds and realize that half a million now is infinitely better than the less-than-50% chance of one million later.  She ended up accepting the next offer, which was lower though still over $400,000, and finding out that if she had continued playing the game, she would've won the million dollars.  If I was on the show, I'd probably accept the first offer that popped up, likely in the range of $5000, making me perhaps the worst possible contestant, though also $5000 richer.  Easiest $5000 ever. #entertainment

K-Rock died (2)
Last week, I was surprised to find out that the radio station 92.3 K-Rock in New York City died, or more accurately, it switched to a top-40 station.  This came just over three years since the station (and many others around the country) switched to Free FM, and then switched back after about 18 months.  This most recent switch was equally as unexpected and unwelcome, and it's really thrown a wrench into my morning commute.  I used to listen to a talk show that kept me entertained just long enough for my 30-minute commute.  But now I'm forced to look for other music on the radio, and it just once again hammers home the point that I don't like "accepting" whatever is broadcast.  I'd rather have a choice, and that choice isn't radio.  For the moment, I've allowed myself to settle on NPR, though I'm morally obligated to financially support it, and I'm not sure that I want to be "a supporter of NPR" a.k.a. "a card-carrying liberal".  In the future I see myself getting more into audiobooks and podcasts and anything else that can occupy my time in nice little 15- or 30-minute intervals. #entertainment

Mother of invention (1)
They say necessity is the mother of invention, but I would argue that laziness is an important factor too.  Do we really need TV remotes that change channels by sending infrared signals through the air, or do we just not feel like getting up?  Do we really need those Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners to vacuum our floors, or do we just not feel like doing it ourselves?  (On a side note, I would argue that many of the inventions that involve robotics are essentially centered around laziness and some guy in a lab saying, "I don't feel like doing this.  Maybe I can design a robot to do it for me.") 

Another mother of invention turns out to be sports and leisure.  I noticed this as I was on a ski lift going up a mountain in Vermont this past weekend.  Huge machines that looked like scorpions were carving snow with their "tails" to make a giant half-pipe.  It was immediately evident that these machines were designed and created exclusively for this purpose, so that skiers and snowboarders could spend their winter weekends doing tricks and avoiding catastrophic head injuries. 

I guess it just amazes me that entire industries are formed and countless dollars are spent in the advancement of science and technology, often for questionable gain.  But I don't mind; the half-pipe keeps all the dirty teenagers busy so they take up less space on the rest of the mountain.  It's a win-win. #technology