Oops.

That’s a word I like to say while watching one of my new favorite shows, Discovery Channel’s “Destroyed in Seconds.” The show is pretty much made for people like me; it shows seemingly ordinary situations devolving into spectacular failures of monumental proportions. And any time they can show a gigantic explosion, they make sure to. Therefore, I tune in whenever I can.

But the fun thing is how many of these disasters could have been easily prevented by simple adjustments or minor forethought. That plane crash? They forgot to undo a nylon strap attached to the rudder. That fireworks factory that exploded into glorious flames? An employee forgot to put out their cigarette.

Some of the incidents are definitely random, uncontrollable, or just plain bad luck. But too many moments of mass destruction come from simple human carelessness, and it only makes the show that much more entertaining.

Oh, did I underestimate the power of the explosives I put in that old boat that we were going to blow up and sink as we sat on its deck?

My bad.

Yeah, that’s right. I said it. SportsCenter is a terrible show. I used to absolutely love it. In fact, that old theme song still takes me back to summertime as a kid, sleeping in and watching baseball highlights in the late morning before doing anything and everything I could think of for the rest of the day (likely playing home run derby in my friend Mak’s backyard, cranking tennis balls over a pile of firewood that made for one hell of an outfield wall).

But these days? The show is 40% flying graphics and 50% fluff/worthless analysis and commentary. It used to be a half hour show (an hour on mondays to cover the weekend), but a little while back they switched it to an hour format every day. Ostensibly, this was so they could fit in some more quality material and be able to include clips from all the games instead of just a few. But they’re not filling that extra half hour with any more real content.

Two days ago, I tuned in to check out highlights from the Phillies game. I subscribe to MLB audio and can listen to the radio broadcast of any major league game. But being on the West coast, I don’t get too much exposure to my beloved baseball team, and I like to catch all the video clips I can. That day, Philly hit four home runs in the game, and I thought I’d take a gander at the highlights. I sat and watched the full hour and got through all the talk about NCAA basketball (which I don’t care about) only to realize that I was not going to see any Phillies highlights. I had left the room occasionally, but only during commercial breaks, and only for a short time, since SC breaks tend to be brief. But somehow I missed the one thing I wanted to see. It had to have been on at some point, right?

No matter. The next day, the Phils beat the Mets for the 9th straight game and Chase Utley tied a league record by being beaned by a pitch three times (plus he got hit in the back with a bad throw during an attempted double play). Gee, I thought to myself, that’s pretty funny. I’d like to see the highlights, and hear what clever thing the SC anchors must have to say about it.

They showed the double play error, but nothing else. They barely mentioned that he had been hit by multiple pitches. Oh, and had I blinked, I might have missed the entire clip segment altogether. But can you blame them, really? They had to rush through all baseball highlights so they could devote 20 of 60 minutes to NCAA women’s basketball this time. To top it off, I saw a teaser for a later highlight between the Blue Jays and the A’s (neither team is one I care about, for the record). It said that the Jays played “home run derby” against the A’s. Gee, I thought again, I’d sure like to check out that clip! It came on later, and they started at the end of the game and didn’t show any Jays homers. They didn’t even mention how many homers they hit during the game! What the hell?

It’s true I’m not much of a basketball fan, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it. I am still happy to watch basketball highlights, anyway. But is it so much to ask to have a clip from a game that doesn’t end so fast that you didn’t even realize it started? I’m still registering their first witty comment before the next game highlight has begun, and this is from an hour-long show.

SportsCenter: you could be so much more. I used to love you. But now you’re far too flashy and ADD for your own good. I will not be going out of my way to watch you any time soon. I hope someday we can be friends again.

Next time you’re watching Bear Grylls take on mother nature, grab some brews and invite your friends over, because you’re in for a wonderful hour-long drinking game.

The rules are simple. You have to drink any time one of 4 things happens:

1) He says anything is “deadly,” “lethal,” “fatal,” or anything of the sort. You’d be amazed how often he stresses the possibility of impending doom.
2) He spouts off a fact or anecdote of dubious origin. How many times in each episode does he say: “last year, two campers came here for a weekend and died of thirst in 6 hours. Their bodies were found a week later as skeletons being eaten by maggots with 2-inch fangs.” Any time he tells one of these urban legend-like “factual” stories, it’s drinky time.
3) He eats something disgusting. Admit it: you pretty much watch the show and count the seconds until he bites the head off of some poor, revolting live animal. There’s no shame in admitting it. This works for drinking nasty shit, too.
4) He takes his clothes off. Bear seems to like getting naked whenever possible. If this happens, you should probably chug an entire brew.

Another fun way to play is to assign different people to drink for each rule, although I prefer to just get everyone to do it for all of ‘em.

Now turn the TV on to the Discovery Channel and hit up that Man Vs. Wild marathon… It’s gonna be a long night.