Like Jean Grey

We here at Six Lines would like to apologize for any delay you might have noticed in this blog over the past few months. Some of our other business ventures hit hard times over the summer and we were forced to dedicate all of our resources elsewhere. Those of you affected the most - specifically those of you looking for the Six Lines kangaroo prevention kit - please know that we are attempting to expand our services beyond the greater Des Moines area. Our strategy intended for the cheap storage costs of Iowa to counterbalance the jetfuel costs of America/Australia commerce, but, come on, summer gas prices, am I right?

The best apology, though, cannot be said in words. Rather, it must be provided in the form of an Emmy liveblog. Unfortunately, all of our regular staffers missed the Emmys, but freelance writer Erik Ballston wants us to tell you that he "nailed them." He also wants us to publish his liveblog ex post facto, which we can't legally do until our lawyers are available for contracting and Latin translating. We can, however, review his findings as if they were an academic study in the autumn issue of International Relations. Yet because that would be super-boring and too abstract to attract the audience we need to attract the funds we desperately need, we're instead just reviewing it as we would any freelance submission - by giving it to an intern.

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Hey, so Erik Ballston watched the Emmys. He sat down with food and stuff and people were like "Who are you wearing?" - not to him, cuz he was just watching it at home on his television - to celebs and stuff. Erik doesn't mention what kind of TV he has, but I assume it's an upper-end, non-high-def set. He's a freelance writer who's contacted a nearly defunct company for work, so no way can he afford the good stuff. No man in their right mind would watch this year's Emmys without some picture quality, though. The 59th annual Emmys are all about quality pictures. Hmm Erik doesn't mention what anniversary of the Emmys this is, like I just did (59). The lack of a detail as important as that in a liveblog is discouraging. It's not hard to see why Erik isn't finding the kind of work he'd like to.

Right around 6 PM the show starts. Erik says Seacrest is "in his element," which he then compares to an element in the halogen family... Do we have an aspiring Dennis Miller on our hands? Unfortunately Erik lacks the relevance and, dare I say it, coherence of Miller. Not that Miller's any more than a name anymore. His passive aggressive "posit a political opinion, then laugh as if any other opinion would be absurd" method is frustrating and non-productive, kind of like Ballston's review of Ray Romano's Emmy intro. An excerpt: "Romano, in a second, reminds us about the kind of old-fashioned silliness missing from today's complex programming. This is funny. This is silly. This is America. Giggle." I'm not going to lie, Ballston encouraged me to actually google Romano's intro. What a mistake that was. I haven't seen anything that insipid since walking in on my in-laws having a talk on the fine points of being annoying and living nextdoor.

Wait a second, why did Ballston start watching the show at 6? Gods, he lives in Mountain Time. Thank the lords of Kobol there isn't anything in affirmative action law about hiring oxygen-deprived hillfolk. The rest of this crap might as well be scanned through. Uhh Rainn Wilson comes on stage, leaves. Old guy talks about the West. Middle-aged guy wins. Girls wear low-cut shirts... and more low-cut shirts then for the rest of the liveblog. Ugh, Freelance writers need to realize that sometimes you just gotta crack one out to get your mind back on the paper at hand. This paragraph alone is costing me over 2 boxes of tissue.

The Sopranos wins. Erik says, "I hope you enjoved (sic) my liveblog as much I've enjoyed the Soprano family over the past few seasons. Meadow's rack is awesome. Bada bing." Hmm. Overall, this stuff is decent for the local AA chapter's monthly newsletter, but I'd rather die of cirrhosis than read it again.

That is how you do Dennis Miller.

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Thanks in advance for accepting our apology. To reemphasize our commitment once more before leaving you again, we'd like to announce here and now a new Six Lines product. If the experiences of this summer and the Emmys taught us anything, it is that investing in television is a no-miss opportunity. Thus, with the expectation that it will be bought as a midseason replacement, we present to you Midnight the Detective - a gritty, detective documusical in no need of a theme song. The theme, citizens, is already upon us.