It’s begun. All the fall shows are starting up again. It’s an exciting time for the avid TV viewer as we have a lot of good premieres to look forward to. We’ve already gotten three exceptional premieres from Fringe, The Office and It’s Always Sunny. And this week we’ve got others like House and Dollhouse.
I’m definitely going to try and catch as much of these premieres as I can. What are you anxious for?
Hey all, I’ve been fairly busy the past week or so with extra work, which is why I haven’t updated this thing or ranted about some inane topic that you probably don’t care about. So, I thought I would just give some twitter-like blurbs about various things throughout the past week.
– Patrick Swayze died. Add this to the list of reasons why ’09 sucks.
– Kanye West decided that he wasn’t douchey enough and humiliated Taylor Swift during her award speech. But hey, that’s what the voice of a douchey generation does.
– I made it to level 30 in WoW. I hope I can get caught up to the newest expansion so I won’t feel so left behind when Cataclysm changes everything.
– Social networks continued to be social.
– The diet coke of Facebook was released. It reminded me of what I liked about the older iterations, namely the simplicity.
– I didn’t see any movies in the theater.
– I started watching This American Life, the tv show.
– I thought about working on my comic, but got distracted with the internet instead.
And there you have it. I’ve been busy.
Via The Consumerist:
Enter Merchantfraud, a group of well-intentioned but foolish outlaws who advocate having customers ask them for stickers identifying the companies as violators, then sticking them on offenders’ storefronts.
I agree with the author of this article to an extent. Calling business establishments robbers and thieves is a bit over the top, but at the same time I am a little bit miffed that stores can get away with this. I remember coming across this problem in a bar a few years back. I had just ordered a drink and was about to pay with my card when the bartender told me that I would have to spend at least $20 before she could ring it up. Since I had already consumed about half of the drink already, there really wasn’t any way I could go out and seek out an ATM somewhere, of which there wasn’t one to be found (I know because I looked later that night and it was blocks away). So, naturally I drank $20 worth of booze and got way more blitzed than I planed. This would have been a different story if this were the Hopleaf, but I digress.
Point being, it kind of blows to find that stores can get away with this, especially if it’s “prohibited” by the credit card companies themselves. But I don’t think I care enough to go around defacing store-fronts with stickers.
With the exception of security updates and the occasional ZOMG THIS IS BROKEN NEEDZ FIXIN patch, I’m not all that big on upgrading my softwares. A big part of me thinks, “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?” Unfortunately, that’s not how the computer industry works and in no time flat I’m running out of date software and getting prompts left and right to update my OS or face certain terror. It’s almost like they hired H.P. Lovecraft to write these warnings. I’ve most recently felt the push to upgrade with the newest version of the Mac OS, Snow Leopard. I dismissed the update off the bat, citing no real need to update. In fact, my software still works fine and my laptop still runs like a dream.
And then I heard that Snow Leopard was $30, and that you could upgrade straight from Tiger (the version I have). My first thought was, “Wha-?” But then it kind of clicked for me. What if this was a way to encourage people like me to take the plunge and upgrade? I mean, $30 to Apple is better than nothing, right? Apple isn’t really known to try to reach out to the non-fanboys like myself, but this update almost seems like a peace offering of some kind. “Hey, we’d like your business. Here ya go.”
Of course, I could just be under-thinking this.
A most special holiday is approaching (hint: it rhymes with ‘sly firthday’) and I thought I would share my wishlist with you guys, since I know y’all want to buy me nice things! I’ve had this Amazon wishlist set up for years and went through it a bit last night to get rid of old listings and items I’ve gotten over the years. Kind of a strange trip down memory lane. “Oh yeah, I wanted that once!” or “Why did I ever want THAT?”
Anyway, enough about my weirdness. Let’s recap my wishlist!
1. Apple OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard
I don’t need to have the most up to date things, but being behind by two OS versions is kind of ridiculous. The Chromium builds don’t work, and a few other programs that I’d like to use won’t install because my OS is as old “as the dinosaurs.”
2. Bones: The Complete First Season
I like this show, and would love to have it be a part of my collection.
3. Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
Read the first book and I’m interested to see where the story goes. There’s also that movie coming out in the not-to-distant future so I’d like to be caught up before that releases to the general public.
4. Six Feet Under: The Complete First Season
Perhaps the best and worst summer of my life was spent watching the entire Six Feet Under series. I’m very interested in re-watching this in the near future.
Yep. So, that’s pretty much it. I’ve reached a new blogging low. Join us next week when I ask for spare change.
Season 1 and 2 of House M.D. were great and kept me on the edge of my seat. There was just the right balance of procedural and character development to make it perhaps the best doctor show of it’s time. And then seasons 3-5 happened and what we got was essentially a parody of itself and some rather infuriating plot arcs. Big things would happen, only to be cancelled out later for the sake of keeping the “hit” formula alive. Well, this preview makes me think that that will be changing in the new season.
All I can say is, “About damn time!”
A major flaw that a lot of these procedural shows have is that eventually they get boring. The well of ideas gets tapped out, if you will. For whatever reason, the characters become stale and we just stop caring. One way that shows can prevent this is by breaking from the formula and evolving, something that the premium cable shows do very well. Here’s hoping that this show can find a new set of legs this season and give us a deeper look into the characters we’ve all drifted away from.
I heard a bit ago that Thom Yorke of Radiohead has given up on creating complete albums, citing “death to the band” as a major reason for the decision. He went on to complain that the creative process is just too painful for a full-length album and that they are better served by just making singles from now on. As someone who struggles to be creative day in and day out and who is diligent despite the void, all I have to say to that is, “SOMEBODY CALL THE GOD DAMN WAAAAHMBULANCE!”
Every OTHER band can make albums without too much trouble, so what’s the big deal here? Furthermore, what about everyone else in the creative field who has to continually produce content for the public? What if THEY reduced their workload just because they didn’t want to “hurt themselves?” Would their audience stand for that? Probably not.
I’m calling shenanigans on this. Thom York is just a lazy bastard. I don’t care if his music is good or not. I can’t respect someone who whines about their lavish career, which nets them millions in a year, when others in the same field work even harder and get hardly the same recognition.
Fucking shit or get off the pot, dude.
From Techgeist:
You know what happens to authorized machines? They get reformatted and break over time. Yet the people who sell is software and digital media expect that when we need to reinstall Windows on our only computer so that we can get work done and meet deadlines, we’re thinking “oh, of course I have to go through EVERY PROGRAM I HAVE INSTALLED AND DEAUTHORIZE IT.” Screw that.
I feel bad for anybody who bought music back in the itunes DRM days, because there’s not really much you can do with the music unless you unauthorize / reauthorize or go through the pain of breaking the DRM through other means. But to stop buying from the itunes store because you disagree with policies that they disclosed early on and have since fixed (for the most part) seems a little rash.
I’m not really trying to defend Apple or their store here, but I would like to point out that keeping up to date with these companies’ policies is critical as a consumer and if you don’t agree with what they do, don’t patronize them. Case in point, I didn’t agree with the whole DRM thing, so I patronized Amazon. I don’t agree with Apple’s way of handling apps, so I bought an Android phone.
Not really going anywhere with this rather than just airing some initial thoughts from reading this article.
From The Consumerist:
Sorry, kids, but humor has no place in a cover letter, and unfunny humor has no place anywhere.
Don’t depend on a spell checker – print your resume out and look it over, read it out loud to yourself, and have another person look at it for you.
So far my most egregious mistake on a resume has been of the grammatical nature, something that I hope never changes. But if I want to be realistic about things, I’d have to say that this could very well happen to me. Even worse, sometimes I feel inclined to throw some humor into my resume to make it lighter or just DO SOMETHING new and fresh with it. After reading this article though, I know better.
Still, the joke about the wallpaper was hilarious. I actually giggled like an idiot.
Have you seen True Blood? Have you seen Weeds? How about Dexter? Hung? Sopranos? Dead Like Me? Six Feet Under? Really, have you had the pleasure of watching anything on the premium channels? Unless you’ve been living under or rock or lack an internet connection, you probably have. Chances are, you’ve raved about at least one of these shows to your friends. Makes sense. Want to know why? These shows all share one thing in common: they know how to create damn good stories. Can you say that about regular cable?
Let’s do some comparison between shows on the premium networks and your basic cable.
Hit or Miss Factor
On your basic cable channels (including ABC, NBC, and CBS) there’s a higher chance of “miss” versus “hit.” Granted, these channels produce a lot more content than the premium channels, but most of them are just garbage. NBC and TNT are great examples of this as they surround their flagship shows with forgettable tripe. Really, what show was worth staying to see after Chuck on Mondays? Heroes? Maybe back in season one. How about The Office? Does anyone recall what shows surrounded that hit?
With TNT, were ANY of their “originals” any good? It seems like every week they put out ads for some new, bland show that rocks a tired premise. HawthoRNe? Gimme a break. I think we had enough of the nurse with a heart of gold story line. ER, anyone? A few shows had some promise, but then faded due to lack of viewership, which brings up an issue I talked about awhile back with the way that TNT advertises their shows versus USA. Point being that these channels flop way more often than they succeed.
And then there’s TBS. The only show worth watching on that channel is the syndicated episodes of The Office and Family Guy that they air.
With the premium channels, the chance for hit or miss is skewed more toward hit as they put more “oomf” into their marketing and have much better storylines in general. It’s almost worth the infrequency of new shows when each season of their flagship shows are continually solid and entertaining. Dexter’s second season, although not my favorite, is still leaps and bounds superior to a lot of the regular cable fare.
Freedom of Subject Matter
The basic cable networks are limited out of the gate in what they can put into their shows in terms of adult content and graphic violence. If you know me at all, you’ll know that those are the two things I’m a huge fan of. I like that my shows are gritty, and I like it when my favorite television characters swear like real adults do. I like when two characters cut the flirtatious bullshit and get to the sex. Witty, flirtatious dialogue and camera suggestion are all that the basic cable channels have (to protect THE CHILDREN) which oftentimes leads to some HORRIBLE exchanges.
GUY: Hey there.
GIRL: Hey.
GUY: Are you a thief? Because you stole my heart!
GIRL: I have an apartment.
Next Day
GUY: OH YEAH!!!!
Granted, the more successful basic cable shows can work around these limits and still produce engaging content (see: anything Joss Whedon does). But oftentimes I find myself wishing that the characters in a show weren’t so damn bound to the rules of basic cable. With premium channels, anything goes. Kind of liberating, ain’t it?
Story Arcs
Premium cable shows have the benefit of having a better handle on their story arcs than that of their regular cable counterparts. You ever find yourself wishing that something more significant would happen to the characters of The Office ala Jim’s transfer? Ever wish that someone in Heroes would JUST FREAKIN’ DIE ALREADY? *cough*claire*cough*sylar*cough*peter*cough* Again, the point is that a majority of these regular cable shows need to keep going if they’re successful, so any major changes that get rid of favorite characters or dramatically alters the formula just can’t happen. It’s not really the writer’s fault for this, since it’s a mandate from above, but it really hurts the show’s ability to grow and evolve with the characters. The only shows that I know of that can escape this issue are the procedurals, which aren’t necessarily about the characters themselves.
Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on the matter. Agree? Disagree?
