Remember the first Superbowl commercial for Garmin GPS? It didn’t run for very long. It originally aired during the Superbowl of 2007, in the second quarter. It featured a man driving down the road looking at a map which kept opening up all over the car. Next you saw a “Maposaurus” monster, and the man grabbed his gps and turned into a superhero to fight the map. Throughout the video we were subjected to horrible music. I thought the whole commercial made no sense. You didn’t really know what the commercial was promoting until the last couple of seconds when the Garmin logo was shown.

They repeated their effort, with slight improvement, in the 2008 Superbowl. This year’s ad showed a car being driven through the streets of Paris by an unknown driver. The music was slightly better this year. When the car stopped Napoleon stepped out, arriving at a battle, and a pony was brought out. Once again we didn’t know this was a Garmin commercial until the end. While mildly amusing, this commercial made no more sense than the last one.

You’d think with all of the money that it costs to make a Superbowl ad that they’d make a good one, or at least one that made sense.

What is happening to all of my favorite tv shows? I read recently that Jessie Martin, the actor who plays Ed Green, is leaving the series Law and Order. He’s been on the series since 1999. The article I read mentioned he will be portraying Marvin Gaye in the movie Sexual Healing which is due out in 2009 and will costar James Gandolfini. I guess there’s a little hope, as Martin temporarily left the show once before to star in the film Rent. Did we ever find out what happened to the character of Dennis Farina?

I enjoy watching home improvement shows. One of my favorite shows is Curb Appeal. I love the DIY network, I could watch it for hours. My husband teases me about this, and often calls me Val Vila. He thinks it’s funny that I like to watch this stuff. I keep telling him it’s a terrific source for ideas. I think he makes fun of me for watching it because he thinks I’m going to ask him to do stuff like they do on the show and that if he bugs me enough I’ll stop watching it. He’s not what we like to call ambitious about projects around the house. In fact, if he hears a phrase like Danze faucets he might go running out the door. Do you like to watch home improvement shows? Which ones?

Oh hello! (That was in my Mrs Doubtfire voice.) I read an announcement that Robin Williams will be guest starring on Law and Order Special Victims Unit. He’ll be appearing in the show’s 200th episode, which has yet to be filmed and will air on April 29, 2008. The episode will be entitled Authority. According to the SVU spokeswoman Pam Golum, the character Robin Williams will be portraying is “an engineer whose life has gone terribly wrong and who faces serious repercussions”. We love all three of the Law and Order shows, but SVU is our favorite. We’re really looking forward to this one because we both think Robin Williams is a terrific actor.

I’m curious to know. When it comes to theater seating, where you prefer to sit when you go to the movies? If you could sit anywhere in a theater that you wanted, where would it be? We’re probably going to the movies tomorrow night with my twelve year old. My son loves to sit in the front row. He doesn’t understand that we’re just not comfortable there. Hubby and I don’t enjoy sitting so close and having to keep out necks tilted back so we can see the whole screen. I myself prefer the middle section of the theater on the aisle. I can hear pretty well there and I can see the entire screen comfortably. Tell me your favorite spot and why.

We’ve heard about this one for years, since almost immediately after the television series was canceled. Most of you remember the X Files, don’t you? I sure do. I spent one night a week in front of the tv watching that show from 1993 to 2002. David Duchovny played FBI agent Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson played FBI agent Dana Scully. This week Chris Carter, the creator of the X Files series, released a little information. The movie, which Carter directed, is due out on July 25, 2008. The name of the title has not been announced, also much of the plot remains a secret. Carter did say the movie takes place in present day, and tries to pick up from where the series left off when it ended  in 2002.

A while back on my Cats and Coupons blog I wrote about how Progressive auto insurance was going to be providing pet injury coverage for free to their auto insurance customers. Today while I was tivoing through my soaps I saw two new Progressive commercials. Both are set in what I believe is supposed to be a “megastore” setting. They’re very bright and white, I didn’t care for the coloring. The first commercial mentioned their safe driver discount. The second commercial mentioned the free pet injury coverage now featured in their auto insurance policies. If they were smart they’d place the pet injury coverage commercial right in the middle of a dog show. I bet the dog show viewers would jump right over to Progressive like they were on a trampoline.

Today I heard that a spin off of one of my old favorites, Beverly Hills 90210, had been announced. Now I thought that meant spin off as in one or more of the characters was starting a new show with the old character. But that’s not what’s happening here. In this case the title Beverly Hills 90210 Revisited might be more appropriate. Once again viewers will be presented with a show that will focus on The Mills family, a family with two teenagers who moves from the Midwest to Beverly Hills, and their new teenage friends. The show has not been given a title as of yet.

Well what with the writer’s strike and everything I somehow totally missed the news that one of my favorite shows, The Dead Zone, has been cancelled by USA Network. I watched every episode but one of that show, and it was on for six seasons. I found the story interesting, and I never got the impression it was super high budget. I’m almost afraid to think of what they’ll replace it with, probably yet another reality show, maybe about all the stars in drug rehab or some such junk. I hope somehow Anthony Michael Hall can a deal to close up the loose ends with a tv movie or mini series or something.