My MJ Memorial Blog 31M People Watched.. WOW.. Robin Williams Self Destructs, Great American Road Trip Apparently Not So Great

Oh have I have neglected my blog as of late. I've been a little busy. Let's face it anyways, there isn't too much to write about. Summer TV has been kind of lagging a bit.

This is unbelievable, but according to Nielsen 31 M people watched the MJ Memorial. It was kind of hard to miss as it dominated just about all the major channels. What kind of amazes me more is that it was on in the middle of the day. Don't these people have jobs? Yeah, I know.. pot meet kettle. But I WAS working while I was watching. I'm lucky like that. I had commented on my Facebook that I don't ever remember, in my lifetime, such a memorial for a "celebrity" in either music or movies that had such an elaborate and public memorial with the acception of Presidents and of course Princess Diana and the Pope. In total 19 networks carried the memorial vs between 7 and 8 that carried the Presidents' , Princess Di and Pope funerals. However, that 31M number does fall short of Reagan (35M) and Princess Di (33M) viewers. But those are just the U.S numbers. BBC estimated that 1B people worldwide watched (they estimated 2.5B for Princess Di). In Germany , according to THR's live Feed, 20M or a 1/4 of the population watched it (obviously it was on during their evening viewing hours).

I did watch most of it. I honestly forgot it was on as I had the movie 'The Beach' with Leonardo DiCaprio playing as I was working and forgot the time. I missed the first 45 minutes, I believe. From what I watched, my favorite eulogy came from Brooke Shields. Watching her was like watching just a regular person talking about another regular person, if you know what I mean. It kind of gave you a glimpse of MJ as just a regular guy. Of course the most heart wrenching portion came at the end when his daughter spoke.

The MJ memorial also sparked a lot of debate amongst my Facebook friends about why we were paying so much attention on MJ. I can see their point. I mean there was never such a memorial for the likes of Elvis. I wonder if it is because we are just in a media obsessed era, or if MJ just had a much further reach than Elvis. I will say, however, that it is now getting ridiculous. While cooking and doing some other chores I happened to have the TV on ET and Inside Edition. Since the day he died that is ALL they have talked about on their shows. Every day they analyze and disect every minor detail of everything. It's actually bordering on obsessive and is kind of getting nauseating.

Well.. okay so enough already about MJ. I've said my little piece. It is really sad, however, but life goes on.. and so does TV.

I DVR'd Great American Road Trip but haven't watched it yet. Didn't do so well in the ratings. Big surprise. It seems not much is this summer season. That will all change, however, when the ultimate summer favorite 'Big Brother' returns. Very excited about that! 'Dating in the Dark' is coming soon and I will watch that to see just how ridiculous it gets and to laugh at it, of course.

This is pretty cool. One of my favorite comedians, Robin Williams, will be doing a solo stand up show for HBO this December called 'Weapons of Self Destruction'. Yeah! The man is hysterical! Can't wait!

Well all, I must go. I have a lot of DVR to watch including Saving Grace, Hawthorne, SYTYCD, America's Got Talent, The Cleaner ( I started watching and like it, so I've added it to my DVR season pass). I have to watch all of it before I leave on my trip Sunday , otherwise my DVR will fill up too fast and won't record.EEK! Fortunately for me my mom and I like most of the same shows and so we'll watch them together while I'm visiting. She too has two DVR's! Could our love for TV be genetic (and our obsession with the DVR for that matter)? Maybe. I should ask my brother ( a geneticist) to look for such a gene. Maybe he can get published with that study! I know that finding a cure for cancer and other genetic type disease is more important, but it would be interesting don't you think?