Pardon our absence last week, but we were on vacation along with, apparently, every other nerd in the world down at Comic-Con. We have a lot of local reality contestants to catch up with! First and foremost, the dread "Pirate Master" was cancelled by CBS, although they will be putting up the remaining episodes on their Web site. So far we haven't felt compelled to actually watch those. We'll probably wait until the final episode......

On "America's Got Talent," Oakland schoolteacher Michael Strelo-Smith (check out his Web site and tell us just what the hell that thing in the upper left hand corner is) had a cold during his second performance, but sang anyway. Whether it was the cold, or his rather boring presentation, we can't say, but the judges deemed it not good enough, and he didn't make it to the Top 20. But Kashif and Boy Shakira......

Last week's holiday meant nothing but reruns for most of the reality TV shows, save "Pirate Master," unfortunately. But we did realize there is another local competing on another reality show we've forgot to mention. That show is "On the Lot," and the local is director Mateen Kemet from Oakland. Now, "On the Lot" is a show with a lot of problems. It probably would have been cancelled a long time ago, but since......

Santa Cruz's Shauna Noland had a new partner on "So You Think You Can Dance," and he must have been a lucky charm as they did not need to "dance for their lives" this week. We're thrilled. On "Pirate Master" Nessa continued her flirting with fellow pirates who were open to it. Sean and Jupiter were not, and deemed her conniving, vowing to have her cast adrift at the next...casting adrift ceremony? During the treasure......

On "America's Got Talent" a local dance troupe called Hot Pink Feathers failed to impress the judges with their Carnaval-inspired gyrations. See the YouTube clip above for a sample. Santa Cruz dancer Shauna Noland was voted into the bottom three on "So You Think You Can Dance," but "danced for her life" and was kept around for another week by the judges. For some reason, our TiVo forgot to record "American Inventor" last week......

There were a lot of locals in the world of reality TV this week! "America's Got Talent" included an audition from an East Bay music teacher named Michael Strelo-Smith. He had an OK voice, but he was kind of boring. He swears he can sing anything and everything, but so far we are unimpressed. "Last Comic Standing" continued its trend of finding comedians who have been around for years, and presenting them as new......

Previously on "Pirate Master" the show sucked, but we continued to watch hoping to spot local contestant Nessa. And she was nowhere to be seen. This time around, she showed up right away, dissing John, the exotic scientist dancer who was cast adrift last episode. Not much happened during the first 20 minutes or so, which just gave us more time to get completely annoyed by Captain Joe Don and how he wears his......

The big reality shows have ended their TV seasons, which means we're left with the really crappy summer reality TV fare. And since reality TV tends to set the bar pretty low to begin with, you know the stuff they shove at us during he summer has to be really prime. Like "Pirate Master" for instance! This show screams executive pitch: "It's 'Survivor' meets Pirates of the Caribbean!" But being that we're only (semi)......