Pill Taking

There are commercials on TV that tell people how difficult it is to remember to take pills. But, honestly, how hard is it?

First example: a new birth-control product called NuvaRing [http://www.nuvaring.com/]. The commercial tells us that birth control pills are great, but that having to take the pill every day just ties women down! Is daily pill-taking that much of a chore?

Second example: Sally Field appears on a commercial for Boniva [http://www.boniva.com/], a medication for post-menopausal osteoporosis. She tells viewers that some people she knows have to "set aside time" once a week to take their osteoporosis medicine. Apparently, you do have to take osteoporosis medicines under certain conditions; but still, it does seem funny to think that taking a pill once a week is too much of an imposition.

Obviously, these must be new medical advances, but the marketing rests on the idea that swallowing once a day is too much work, or taking a pill once a week is too difficult. Americans are just far too busy for all this pill-taking....

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association

On Monday night, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association gave out their awards for film and television work, the Golden Globes. But who are the Hollywood Foreign Press - and why do people care about who the HFPA thinks made the best movies and TV shows?

According to their website [http://www.hfpa.org/], the Association is made up of Los Angeles-based journalists from foriegn (i.e., non-United States) publications. Basically, it's a club. Maybe sixty-five years ago, a bunch of these foreign journalists were hanging around in some Los Angeles lounge or hotel bar smoking cigars and having drinks. After a few cognacs or whiskeys, or whatever, they think, "hmmm, let's give out movie awards. what a great idea!" Now, these journalists get together and throw a huge party once a year where they give out awards, and tell *the Academy* who should get the Oscars.

Doesn't this seem strange? The HFPA attracts so much attention and wields so much influence. But, it's just a journalists club. What makes them experts? They're not giving out journalism awards; and they're not necessarily entertainment reporters. It would be as if the staff of the Des Moines Register decided to give out the Golden Corn Ears.

Maybe a group of American journalists abroad should form a club and give out awards right before the Cannes Film Festival. There could be an American Expatriate Press Association that would give out Golden Apples (as in New York City being the Big Apple, and many American news sources are based in NYC).

Television Reruns

Tis the season ..... for reruns. It seems like every channel you turn to has nothing but reruns .... unless you want to see a new game show.

November is a "sweeps" month (February, May, and July are also sweeps months). Ratings for a sweeps period will determine the advertising rates for the local ads throughout the year, so the networks usually roll out the "extra-special" episodes during those times.

Apparently, putting on extra-special episodes is exhausting for the networks, because November has been followed by nothing but reruns on TV. One might think that a show that ran new episodes while everyone else was running reruns might continue getting high ratings. Of course, all the reruns gives people a chance to catch-up on their reading, do some shopping for the holidays, or take-up new hobbies.