With Wimbledon underway and the Olympic Trials picking up speed, my wife and I have been watching a lot of sports on NBC this week. And the most breathless, repetitive story throughout has been the “marvel” of 41-year-old swimmer Dara Torres. 41. It is impossible for an NBC sportscaster to mention Dara Torres (41) without stating that she is 41. 41.

It is impressive that she’s competing in the Olympics at the age of 41, and in fact is swimming at her peak, setting personal best and in some cases record times. But it would be nice if they could just once mention her name and her success without, at least 3 times per sentence, also emphasizing her age. Yes, she’s 41! 41!!! OMG she’s 41!!!!!!11!!41!!!!111one!!!forty-one!

We get it. She’s also a great swimmer, regardless of her age. Enough already!

41.

Update November 18, 2007: I withdrew this post a few weeks ago, after receiving an email from CafePress notifying me that they had received a cease and desist notice from NBC/Universal’s lawyers regarding the huge number of CafePress shops that were selling products that infringed upon NBC’s intellectual property rights to every word uttered in an episode of The Office — or for that matter, every thought that has ever passed through the minds of the show’s writers. Or something like that. At any rate, CafePress had already summarily removed all “Schrute Farms Beets” items from my store. I don’t blame them; it’s just lame that NBC is taking this approach. Of course, that’s partly because NBC is selling their own Schrute Farms Beets shirts, which naturally are more accurate to the one Dwight wore in the episode. (Mine wasn’t quite homemade-looking enough.) So if you’re looking for a Schrute Farms Beets shirt, by all means buy the official product. But if, on the other hand, you are interested in one of my other stupid original designs (the sliver of hope of which is what inspired me to reinstate this post), read on. Read more »

Product placement is as old as TV itself, and if anything it’s less insidious now than it was in the early days of television. But it seems to be coming back in a big way, and while I’m over my initial offense at seeing my favorite shows turn into “advertainment,” I still find it incredibly distracting, even when it’s funny.

Case in point, in last night’s episode of The Office, Kevin got some rare screen time and proceeded to giddily demonstrate the awesome power of the company’s shredder. Note I called it a “shredder,” not a “paper shredder,” because as Kevin demonstrated, it can shred not only a fistful of paper at once, but also such surprising objects as CDs and (OK, this joke was a little too broad) credit cards.

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