Annoying Celebs

I have to pipe up - Jim Carrey is incredibly annoying on talk shows. He's good at the type of slapstick, over-the-top humor he does, but he is a scene-stealing pest of a guest on talk shows.

Howie and I saw him on Jay Leno last night and just cringed at his behavior, especially when he kept drawing attention to himself when it was Amanda Bynes' turn to be interviewed. I'd never seen this actress before, but I felt badly for her time with Jay being sabotaged by that ham. She seemed annoyed, despite saying she was a fan of his (we noticed she said "was" and snickered that it might indeed be past tense after this guest appearance by his side).

We half expected Carrey to walk out on the stage while Tim McGraw was singing. It's hard to say whether Jay was amused or embarassed by Carrey. We're both just so turned off by Carrey; he strikes us as an immature, attention-starved brat when we see him in interviews. When he did a couple of more toned-down bits on the show, he was pretty funny. It's just that big humor that really turns us off.

Second-hand smoke produces a prodigy?

Howie and I saw one of the recent anti-smoking ads on TV last night. It's an ad depicting a dad sitting in a chair watching TV while his son plays on the floor nearby. Dad's puffing away on a ciggy and the room is hazy with smoke. On the floor next to him, his baby is playing with alphabet blocks.

As the voiceover recites the many dangers of second-hand smoke to children, the babe spells out these words with his blocks: bronchitis, asthma, sudden infant death syndrome.

I said to Howie, "So.....Is this saying second hand smoke makes your children really intelligent?"

Howie said, "If I were the kid, I'd just crawl out of the room."

"Yeah," I said, "if that baby has the manual dexterity to find those letters and spell out those words, surely he can crawl out there!"

Sometimes those ads are only moderately effective, you know? Guess you can't win 'em all.

To be fair, the other anti-smoking ad airing around here is good: The droplet-spattered windshield and the intermittent swipes of the windshield wipers tell us it's raining; mommy's got the minivan windows shut due to the weather. She's smoking as she drives, and the van is filled with smoke. Baby baby sits strapped in a carseat behind her, crying. She continues crying as the voiceover ensues. Toward the end, the screen goes dark and some text comes up. We hear the baby cry some more, then cough.

We always comment on that ad's effectiveness when we see it.

That reminds me...I see parents who conscientiously only smoke outside so they don't expose their kids to smoke. I even know mothers who quit smoking, cold-turkey mind you, while pregnant. That's no easy feat! Once they'd given birth and finished breastfeeding, though, they picked those cigarettes right back up.

They did so because they wanted to, because they like smoking, not because they couldn't help themselves. They admit it.

I think it admirable that these folks want to protect their kids from the harmful effects of nicotine. But, second-hand smoke arguments aside, I have to ask: Do you think they'll be any better off with you dying young from lung cancer?

You'd do anything to feed your kids if they were hungry or needed medical care, right? Well, this is every bit as important, folks.

Get help. Just do it.

You're next...

I've heard this before, in a much longer and ineffective version. When I received it today in my e-mail, I knew I had to share:

When I was younger, I hated going to weddings. After the
wedding and during the reception, my aunts and the
grandmotherly types would come up to me and poke me in the
ribs, cackling, "You're next."

Finally they stopped, when I started doing the same to
them at funerals!