RECOVERY BLOG: Some discoveries made while I was in hospital…

I made a number of discoveries while in the hospital…

1) Whidden Hospital in Everett has some of the nicest staff on the planet. All of the nurses and doctors who treated me were absolutely fantastic!

2) Whidden Hospital also has the WORST TV on the planet – they’re on DirectTV, and the channels are all messed up, and for the first time realized there really ISN’T anything worth watching…most of the time the TV was on either CNN, The Weather Channel (with NO Local feed, which was really SUCKY) and Fox News Channel…which was probably why I was bored and miserable whenever Kim wasn’t around…

3) Drew Carey positively SUCKS as the new host of The Price Is Right – he has NONE of Bob Barker’s finesse and walks around the set thinking he’s the funniest thing since sliced bread…and he’s just NOT…i’m really surprised the ratings haven’t taken a nosedive since he took over…but then again, having seen him on this season of Family Feud, i’m not sure John O’Hurley would have been much better…and he was at the top of the list until Drew pushed his way in…

4) There is this ….thing…on in the afternoons here called "Merv Griffin’s Crosswords". WHY IS THIS INANE SHOW EVEN ON THE AIR? It’s a scaled down, celebrity free version of another older show "CrossWits" crossed with "Scrabble", and is just plain AWFUL. And the host – can’t even remember his name – is the WORST game show host since Merv just pulled a guy from the studio audience – Mike somebody – to host his TV version of "Monopoly" back in the late 80s…Merv went to his grave with THIS as his last contribution to game shows? Yuck….

5) Speaking of game show hosts, have you noticed that we’re getting devoid of decent ones these days? Alex Trebek, Pat Sajak, Chuck Woolery – they’re the last of the old guard. Bob Barker, Jim Lange, Bob Eubanks, Jack Narz, Geoff Edwards, and Tom Kennedy are all retired, Marc Summers has moved on from game shows (unless they’re for Food Network), and Gene Rayburn (the BEST game show host EVER), Bill Cullen, Allen Ludden,  Bert Convy…they’ve all been in the Mark Goodson wing of heaven for a while. This new crop of hosts of late haven’t been that good, though Mark Wahlberg isn’t too bad, and I actually liked George Gray on the daily version of Weakest Link a few years back. But Corbin Bernsen? Patrick Duffy? Donny Osmond? COME ON…At least the teaming of John Anderson and John Henson is working on Wipeout, but then again, it’s not really a game show, it’s a Reality Competition show…in all honesty the one person who has always had potential is J.D. Roth, who started out as a teenage host back in the 80s on the Fox Kids show FunHouse and who will be hosting Ashton Kutcher’s new game show this fall on ABC, Opportunity Knocks. I’ll check it out just to see J.D. do his thing, because he’s always been good at it…

More odds and ends as the week progresses….