Friday, January 05, 2007

Thoughts For 2007 About Game Shows, Walmart and Panici



Happy 2007 everybody and welcome to another year of fun and games here at NWOW!

It didn’t take long for me to make a buffoon of myself this year!.. I was at a New Years Party Sunday Night…. watching Dick Clark, and in an attempt to be hip pointed out the musical talent with comments such as… “Which one of those guys is Panici?”. and paraphrasing A Christmas Story - “Panici.. It Must Be Italian!” At that point one of the party guests attempted to avoid any further embarrassment by bellowing out… “Hey Nate.. I think you misread the graphics… the group is actually called Panic! At the Disco.. Dumbass.. Not panici…It’s an exclamation point… not an I!

Good to get the New Year off to such a great start!

Last week we presented Pumpstradamus and his annual predictions.. However, THE best prediction last year here at NWOW came by me early in the year when I called it that Dave Price would take over as host as “The Price Is Right”. Its not official yet.. but those in the know say an announcement could be forthcoming shortly.

So without much further ado… here are 3 Game Show Predictions for the New Year…

1. The long early morning hours at “The Today Show” will take its toll on Meredith Viera, and she will step down as host of Millionaire and be replaced by - Regis

2. I thought Rosie would be a good choice for Millionaire too, but her little tiff with that nut Donald Trump and Trump’s obsession with his ratings superiority over similar Apprentice reality shows got me thinking… Rosie will host her own reality show….. And the show will get higher ratings than Donald Trump’s Apprentice!

3. And here is a real longshot… A new name will become part of a game show - Michael Airington who does an incredibly uncanny impression of Paul Lynde good enough that he does a one man Paul Lynde show.. - hey since you can't have the real one.. why not this guy? Maybe he’ll hook up with the new Spanish version - The Mexico City Squares.

There are other things that I see happening in 2007...

New Years Weekend was probably the best local football weekend in recent memory… Rutgers won its first bowl and both The Giants and Jets made the playoffs. The only disturbing aspect of the Giant win was when a buddy who was watching the game with me informed me that he had just bought himself a new TV at ugh.. Walmart. I’ll get to that in just a minute.

You don’t have to be a psychic to realize that 2 events are going to cause headaches not only in 2007 but for years to come. The first is the Supreme Court's puzzling decision to allow Eminent Domain and the 2nd is Former President Clinton's signing of an import export treaty with China that seems to have backfired.

When it comes to developers - the old saying now takes on a new meaning.. If you cant beat 'em.. beat 'em harder. I see that Edison mayor Jun Choi will mark his one year anniversary in office with a recall petition launched by a developer who is also an attorney! Politicians are growing increasingly tired of developers swallowing up innocent people's homes through eminent domain only to see developers get incredibly rich. The politicians do get political donations to help win elections - but then they have to deal with the headaches caused by these eminent domain developers.

This lawyer/developer is an interesting character by the way.. He once sued a law school that booted out his client… saying that the school knew, or should have known in advance that his client was not smart enough to make it through the difficult curriculum! Reminds me of the old joke.. What do you call the guy who finishes last in his graduating class at Med School? - Doctor!

This lawyer/developer is using a different tactic. If a Mayor like Choi doesn’t like what the developer wants to do - just smack him in the head with a recall petition.. that is until the people vote into office a person who will allow the developer to get what he wants. Choi has already shown some guts by fighting a proposal to open yet another Walmart.. this time in Edison.. just a 10 minute drive from the hideous one that is currently in Piscataway.

Walmart is another one that grinds my gears. ..I was bored the other day and actually accidentally watched PBS.. They had a documentary on about Walmart.. so I figured .. hey this should be pretty interesting.. especially if its critical of this horrific monstrosity of a store..

After watching the very entertaining documentary… here is my idea.. just like food products have nutritional information.. I think all Wal Mart products should have manufacturing information posted on the outside of each box... And that information should state the following - where the product was manufactured.. and the salaries of the workers who assembled the product. When Clinton signed his treaty with China.. did anyone realize that most of the stuff would be sent here and not much would be sent there?. According to this PBS show, the raw materials are exported to China, and cheap labor builds the stuff that graces the aisles of Wal-mart!

Lets say you have an American business... Coincidentally,..they used an American TV manufacturer as an example. And this is so ironic since my buddy got his TV at Walmart - Anyway, here is what happened to the American TV manufacturer… The price of his raw supplies suddenly shoot up.... and the American TV manufacturer told Wal Mart that he would have to raise his prices. Wal Mart then tells 'em tough noogies.... because they have connections with Asian exporters who will still do the same job at the original lower price. What does that do to American businesses? And what does that say about Wal Mart?

I have another idea.. besides including the information on each box.. I think that all the Wal Mart workers' name tags should include info about how much health coverage the mighty Wal Mart empire is providing for them. Then we can compare that poor harried cashier to the info on the big shot PR flack who smiled through the interview talking about what the Disney-esque Wonderful World of Walmart…

I betcha a lot of American companies would jump at the opportunity to manufacture such a label... and twice as many Asian companies would do the same job for half the price.



We’re done with the weekly football picks.. We finished at -13 (same record as Expert Picker Joel Magaraci in the Ledger) and Pumpstradamus was 10-6-1. This week we present a new gimmick for 2007 - The Video of the Week. This week in memory of President Ford.. Here is a clip from an old Channel 4 Newscast involving a seldom discussed news story involving former President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat….

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It didn’t take long for me to make a buffoon of myself this year

That goes for me too! How in the world could I have predicted Saddam Hussein would go to the gallows a mere one day before the new year?? Harrumph!

Anonymous said...

This lawyer/developer once sued a law school... saying that the school knew, or should have known in advance that his client was not smart enough to make it through the difficult curriculum!

For some reason, that reminds me of Richard Gere's quote in the movie Primal Fear: "In law school, my professor told me two things. "First: from this day forward, when your mother tells you she loves you, get a second opinion. And two: If you want justice, go to a whorehouse; if you wanna get screwed, go to court."