TV Review: Tom Thumb in the Land of the Giants (1999)

While on vacation, I was introduced to a show on TLC called "Little People: Big World" I have come to learn that it is quite popular and everybody but me is acquainted with it. I have to tell you, this show is incredible! It mixes all the best parts of reality tv, drama, road trips, fantasy and sci-fi! TLC was playing a marathon, so I got a good dose of the show... I am hooked!

To catch you up if you haven't seen the show, this is a family promulgated by two midges - their first two kids are twins, one normal size, and one adorable. They also have two more regular size children.... making for all kinds of hilarious hi jinks!

There are so many special moments contained in the few episodes I watched, I don't know where to start! The family takes a trip to Sedona to view the red-rocks, and the mother wanted to take a picture of the family. Mom backs out on a ledge to get everyone in and... wooosh! a hawk swooped down and snatched poor mommy off the rock and carried her to its nest far atop a majestic outcrop! How dramatic! Not to worry, her adorable soccer-playing son coaxed a passing eagle to land and fly him up to the hawk's perch to rescue her!

If you have seen the show, the father has some leg problems and his lack of mobility and constant pain are truly heartbreaking. But all that gloom just melts away when you witness Dad take some balloons from a clown at a birthday party and float off into the sunset! Cursing and spitting while his teeny-tiny crutches fall back to earth... The normal size son was quick on the job, and anticipating such a development - had brought his BB gun. A few well-placed shots brought Poppa gently back to earth (legs a-danglin').

Like I said before - there is so much to this show, a short column does it no justice. I could go on and on about the time Father tried to take his car keys back from his son and was thwarted by the old move of holding his forehead and keeping him at arm's length while his chubby little arms swung away in frustration.... Or the time "Adorable" went to a magical land full of people JUST LIKE HIM!!! OMG!! HOW CUTE!! They called it a LPC (Little People Convention) but I swear it looked like Las Vegas. He managed to get his first kiss in an elevator at Circus Circus... I am glad I wasn't waiting there when the door opened! I would have sprayed my Long Island Iced Tea all over the adorable little lovebirds!

You should check out this wonderful show! and here's hoping they don't run into any critters on that farm of theirs!

SOUTH KOREA TO GIVE 1 MILLION IPHONES TO HELP POVERTY STRICKEN NEIGHBOR NORTH KOREA

Today marks a historic event in history. It has been 15 years since the leaders of North Korea and South Korea have sat down to discuss anything. Today it has been reported that since the leader of North Korea Kim Jung-Il loves him some ipod, the South Koreans have decided to donate 1 million iphones to help the starving Northerners.


update: The Americans, who insisted on being present for the meeting, suggested that a free movie be included on all phones. What movie you ask?
TEAM AMERICA!!!


Sorry the rest of the story should go to Tai-Pan as I know very little about North and South Korean relations.

Sprint Takes Advantage of Retards Looking For Love

I came across this heartwarming tale of a downy looking for love....

Price for 'premium' text messages? $10,000

Sean Clark pays extra each month for his cell phone service so his daughter Amanda can enjoy unlimited, no-charge text messaging. So the Bothell, Wash. man was stunned when his Sprint bill for September showed with nearly $10,000 in text message charges.
"When I opened the bill, it was just pure shock," he said. "There were pages and pages and pages of things on there."
He called Sprint immediately looking for an explanation. Clark knew ringtones and Web-based downloads could get expensive, so he had turned off Web access from Amanda's phone. He also knew that Amanda, a developmentally disabled 18-year-old, liked to send text messages so he "protected himself" by signing up for unlimited messaging. The bill for his family plan was normally a couple of hundred dollars per month.
Initially, a Sprint customer service agent agreed with Clark’s guess that he was a victim of fraud. But a bit of research revealed that he was instead the victim third-party providers who offer services on Sprint's network. And he quickly learned that not all text messages are equal.
Amanda had signed up for a series of so-called "premium" text message services. Premium texts cost typically $1-$2 each and are not covered by monthly bundling plans.
It's hard to imagine one teenager running up $10,000 in text charges in a month -- until you consider the services she used. Amanda had signed up for text-chatting services, lured by ads promising romantic dialogs with "cool guys." With each message costing $1-$2 a pop, such chats can easily cost hundreds of dollars a day.
Clark asked his daughter about the services, and then found the advertisements which had led her to sign up. He discovered a pile of magazines aimed at teen-age girls in his daughter’s room, all crowded with advertisements full of smiling teen-age boys bearing headlines like "Hook a hottie.""She had no understanding of the repercussions,” Clark said. “… My conversations with the phone company customer service lines have been laughable."
Clark asked Sprint to waive the charges, saying he hadn't authorized them; the company countered by offering to cut his bill by 50 percent.

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/10/sean-clark-pays.html#posts