'Conveyor Belt of Love' sounds ridiculous

I love this job because just about every week I get a news release about a new reality show that sounds dumber than everything we have already seen.

Coming to ABC on Jan. 4 is the "Conveyor Belt of Love" which sounds like it was dreamed up by writers on "The Simpsons."

Yes, "Conveyor Belt of Love" is the title - so far. It could be changed because columnists like me are making fun of it.

Imported from Europe, "Conveyor Belt of Love" is a reality competition based on speed dating.

A panel of five single women will sit in judgment as 30 hunky single guys roll by on a conveyor belt.

Each dude has 60 seconds to make an impression. Some do it with words. Some do it with eye contact. Some just strip off their shirts.

If a woman is interested, her pick will step off the belt. He will wait as the rest of the guys go by. If another man seems like a better catch, the woman can swap her previous pick.

Just imagine the rejection. ABC says it's hilarious.

If two or more of the women are interested in the same fellow, the man gets to choose which woman he prefers. Ooh, more rejection. At the end of the show, the women and men pair off on dates.

If the one-night stand is a hit, then ABC will order more episodes.

IDOL TIME: "American Idol" winner Ruben Studdard is set to perform at a free event Friday at Without Walls International Church in Tampa.

Also appearing will be gospel singers Delores "Mom" Winans and Marvin Winans Jr.

They will be featured in a musical play "A Home for Christmas" at 7 p.m. The church is at 2511 N. Grady Ave.

Studdard won "American Idol" in 2003. Winans Jr., of the Grammy-winning Winans gospel music dynasty, wrote the play. It tells the Christmas story through the experience of a homeless man who is reunited with his family.

Winans, who lives in Tampa and was nominated for a Stellar Award earlier this year for his best-selling CD "Image of a Man," co-stars in the play alongside his grandmother, Delores.

MORE EMMYS: A Palm Harbor company, VideoArt Productions, Inc., was among the recent regional Emmy winners in the Suncoast Chapter of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Art Dryce, VideoArt president, says it was the second year the production house has been nominated for the series "Inside the Rays" that airs on Sun Sports and Fox Sports Florida.

The program that won was "Inside the Rays: The Durham Bulls."

Established in 1982, VideoArt Productions has produced more than 450 television program episodes, hundreds of sports and news features, and more than 1,000 television commercials.

CHRISTMAS CLASSIC: "Christmas in Connecticut" at 8 tonight on TCM is a 1945 romantic comedy starring Barbara Stanwyck as a popular lifestyle journalist who has faked her homemaking skills and risks being exposed during a frantic holiday adventure.