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Putting the Rant Pants On

ORDER! ORDER! HE made the internets stupid!

ORDER! ORDER! HE made the internets stupid!

It’s been too long since I’ve updated this blog, internets, but I don’t really plan on apologizing for that today. Instead, I’m going to don the rant pants and do some serious bitching. Here’s the short version: Facebook is stupid, twitter isn’t worth squat, and Hulu is about to get one less user. Whew. Now onto the long version.

Facebook is still hard to use. They’ve added a new feature where you can have a live feed roll down the page in “real time,” except it’s not real time. As a fairly adept internet user, I’ve usually got a minimum of four tabs open, one for each service and then random site hopping. If you are on another tab, the facebook timeline doesn’t update. You have to actually go back and make sure the site is the focus before it will do anything. You can tell that the idea of the “live feed” came from the Friendfeed guys, but it looks and feels like the Facebook guys are the ones who implemented it. Granted, the Friendfeed guys ARE the Facebook guys now so I’ll rephrase: Good idea, shitty implementation.

They’ve also removed cities from networks. So I guess the only networks I *can* have are schools or jobs? I question the usefulness of networks now, especially now that friend lists are becoming a big deal. Also, what good are networks in a twitter-ized environment anyway?

I heard somewhere that Twitter was worth billions. I kind of wish *I* had thought of a service with poor uptime and a shitty API so I could be worth billions too. Oh yeah, they’re coming out with lists, a feature that every other service has had for some time now. Hell, even twitter clients have list-like features.

You’ll remember a blog post I made awhile back bitching about users who couldn’t be bothered to pay the small fees from Pandora. Yeah, those people are still tight asses, but there’s some news that might make this “pay for online content” debate a little bit more complicated. Hulu is expected to charge for their content by 2010. I think this is a fairly retarded decision, considering the fact that the service isn’t out of it’s infancy yet (my opinion). Also, for a service like hulu to start charging, it needs to change the way it’s delivering it’s content. First of all, to me, pay for online content means zero advertising. It also means the service (like the article says) needs to extend beyond the website and extend *reliably*. Also, this eight day delay between episode air date and hulu release would have to stop. In fact, I would say that Hulu should just release the episode as soon as it airs.

Now, there was mention that there could be a tiered pricing scheme, which would make this into a less-sucky idea. But I’m going to put it out there that there won’t be much to the free tier. Sorry, but at this point, I see no reason to move to Hulu from Cable, or to even pay for both. Cable sucks, but at least it’s reliable and it won’t buffer if your connection isn’t as stellar.

Ugh.

On Crossovers (Hint: They’re Bad)

The short answer: Crossovers in television are bad news.

The lengthier answer: Crossovers in television are generally bad news.

I was directed to an article about the future season of Fox’s flagship series BONES and how they were considering a crossover from LIE TO ME, another procedural detective show. After reading the article, I thought about it for all of a minute and came to the conclusion you see above. Seriously, there’s a reason why we don’t get many crossovers in this day and age of television: they DON’T WORK. First, the writers from one show would need to co-ordinate with the writers from the other show and they would need to come up with a logical explanation for why the two heroes would meet. And then you would have to deal with the problem that arises that the two shows share the same universe. What this does, from a logical standpoint, is require that future crossovers happen and that Brennan and Lightman eventually become a team.

Really, who wouldn’t want to see Lightman and Brennan solve cases? Brennan could accuse the bad guys and Lightman could call their bluffs. You could probably cut the show down to a half an hour, since their team-up would be quite epic. And hey, Booth could shack up with Lightman’s spunky protege and calamity could ensue!

Oh, what am I talking about. This shit is retarded. Fox, don’t do it. The end.

You’d Think They Would Know Better

Woke up today to the news that the courts in california upheld Prop 8. I must say that I’m surprised and extremely disappointed by this turn of events. I understand that this decision doesn’t reflect the beliefs of everyone there, but it certainly reveals what the majority believes. Didn’t think I could want to live anywhere less than I do California. Seriously.

And then the other bit of newsI heard was that they might be making a new Buffy movie without Joss Whedon, you know, like the first one. You would think that they would try to get the involvement of the guy who turned a bland premise into an engaging show! Anyway, I could complain about this and California all day today, but I should really keep an eye out for my stop.

You’d think they would know better.