Sons and daughters

I was watching Wheel of Fortune tonight (shut up – my five-year old likes it) when one of the contestants referred to her “three children by birth” and her “three children by marriage”.

It really creeps me out when people refer to their children’s spouses as “their children”. It’s just not right. I don’t call The Wife’s parents “mom” and “dad” and she doesn’t refer to my parents as “her parents” either.

I have no problem being labeled a son-in-law – that’s my proper position in The Wife’s family. Calling me their son would be randomly labeling me as something that I am not. Using that logic, they might as well stop using my real name and just call me Dave. Or Gopher. It would make just as much sense.

If my in-laws were to start calling me “son”, would I then need to start introducing The Wife as my sister? And what about the children? Are they my children or my niece and nephew? Pretty soon we’re all turning into Evelyn from Chinatown. It’s just an unacceptable situation.

Free Spin

I can believe how much Wheel of Fortune has changed since I was a kid. Of course, none of these changes are for the better:

• Now they do all sorts of instant bonus toss-up puzzles that don’t involve spinning the wheel and guessing letters – you know, the whole freaking concept behind the show.
• They’ve managed to make the categories even less meaningful. Now they have categories like “Foods mentioned in a book Pat read”, “Overheard on a bus” and “Stuff and things”.
• There’s no more landing on a simple $500 space. Every space on the wheel is something special, like the eBay™ mystery gift certificate space sponsored by Levitra®. But it might actually be a “Bankrupt” when you flip it over. Or they might slice off a hand on an alternate Thursday.
• Now they give you R, S, T, N, L and E before you do the final puzzle. And they let you guess four more letters, so you’ve got more than a third of the alphabet out of the way before you start guessing. Fortunately, people are still incredibly stupid and cannot guess correctly when presented with puzzles like “CHEESE_URGER”.
• I miss really old school Wheel where you had to use your winnings to buy stuff from the spinning room after each round.
• Vanna is now completely useless since the old turn-style letters have been replaced with LCD monitors. She doesn’t even bother to touch most of them anymore when “flipping” them. It’s kind of sad, but I guess she’s still collecting a paycheck.

The Boy is also really big into The Price is Right and Deal or No Deal. Right now his major life goals are to be the President of the United States and win the Showcase Showdown. I guess it could be worse.

Reports of a raucous caucus

Regardless of which candidate you may have been backing, I think Tuesday night was a great night for Texas. Nearly 2.8 million people showed up for the Democratic primary and another 1.2 million punched their cards (metaphorically) on the Republican side. I actually had to wait in line when I went to vote – the first time that’s happened to me in twelve years of voting.

One of CNN’s talking heads, Jeffrey Toobin (whose background in trial law apparently makes him some sort of political analyst), had some scathing remarks for Texans, saying that they should “be ashamed” for having both primaries and district conventions on the Democratic side and making people show up to vote twice on the same day. It was a prime example of what sadly passes for analysis on television these days – inflammatory remarks made simply for the sake of having something to talk about.

Fortunately, the next speaker was able to point out that the Dems are using district conventions to help build up awareness and unity within the party, something they desperately need to do in this state if they ever want to regain a semblance of relevance. There’s no doubt that most districts weren’t prepared for the huge crowds that showed up and some people had a very long night, but that’s a great problem for Texas Democrats to have.

It seems to me that Texans should be lauded, not chided, for encouraging voters to participate in elections both privately through primaries and openly though caucuses if they so choose. I’ll admit that the system is unique and a bit funky, but I don’t think its anything to be ashamed about. So shut the hell up, Jeffrey Toobin.