The fall is one of my favorite seasons of the year, in large part because it’s when football season begins. And with football, unfortunately, comes football advertising. Even with a DVR, you’re going to be exposed.
And this weekend, I officially became completely freaking tired of John Mellencamp’s “This is Our Country” song. Didn’t this guy call other performers sell-outs for doing this sort of corporate ankle-grab back in the day?
There’s a lot of critical things you can say about this show, but this guy sums it up pretty nicely. I’ll save my own snark for the actual funeral.
Sorkin and friends will argue that NBC has done something wrong, or that the audience isn’t smart enough. Alas, in this case, neither is true. ‘Studio 60′—as I wrote on August 7th after viewing the pilot—is just a bad show. There’s nothing wrong with the acting, directing, or dialogue writing. But the premise is faulty. No one cares whether a bunch of over caffeinated, well off yuppies, some with expensive drug habits, put on a weekly comedy sketch show from Los Angeles.
Even worse: no one cares whether or not the people from the Bartlett White House puts on a comedy show. That’s what ‘Studio 60′ is, essentially: the “West Wing” annual talent show. There’s so much earnestness involved in this endeavour, you start to think that nuclear war will be declared if the ‘Studio 60′ staff doesn’t air some joke—usually one we don’t hear anyway. The whole thing just feels weighted down and frankly, not entertaining.
UPDATE: Technorati says Rank: 1,483,141 (0 links from 0 sites)
Now THAT’S insignificance!
Camille Paglia is one of the most clear-thinking and clear-spoken people on the left side of the political spectrum. I may not be consistently in agreement, but I’ve been a fan of her style and wit for years.
On Art:
As a longtime fan of talk radio, I’m very worried about the low opinion that conservative hosts and callers have of the American artist. Art is portrayed as a scam, a rip-off and snow job pushed by snobbish elites.
I was warning about this for years in my Salon column. I was virtually alone on the pro-art side in criticizing the Brooklyn Museum’s 1999 “Sensation” exhibit for its needless provocations, which I foresaw would damage support for arts funding at the local level nationwide. Now the cold reality seems to be sinking in.
But I was still amazed at all those servile TV reviewers who raved about the recent four-hour Ken Burns PBS documentary about Andy Warhol. What a tedious, pretentious program — with its funereal music and preening, jargon-spouting talking heads. Shows like that do incalculable damage to the reputation of the fine arts in the U.S.
On the Foley scandal:
I completely disagree that the Foley case has helped the Democrats. There’s been so much fudging of the polling data, which long before the Foley case already indicated that many Republicans nationwide were turned off by the direction of their party and were planning to sit home on Election Day. It’s a boldfaced lie that the Foley case caused this. Bedrock Republicans have been dismayed by the Bush administration’s overspending and by its inaction on illegal immigration, among other things. These trends were already quite visible before the Democrats inserted themselves into the Republicans’ slow drift away from the polls. So what they’ve done, in this rabid orchestration of the Foley case, is to risk energizing the Republican base again. Are they mad, or just dumb? They’ve handed the Republicans a reason to go to the polls — to register their contempt for Democrats!
On the difference between the parties:
The Democrats’ portrayal of Republicans as fat cats out of touch with ordinary Americans just doesn’t fly anymore, and they should drop it. I think the center of the Republican Party really is small-businessmen and very practical people who correctly see that it’s job creation and wealth creation that sustain an economy — not government intervention and government control, that suffocating nanny-state mentality. The Democrats are in some sort of time warp in always proposing a government solution to every problem. It’s like Hillary’s philosophy that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, does it? Or does it take a strong family and not the village?
What’s broadened the appeal of conservatism in recent years is that Republicans stress individualism — individual effort and personal responsibility. They’re really the liberty party now — I thought my party was! It used to seem as if the Republicans were authoritarians and the Democrats were for free speech and for the freedom to live your own life and pursue happiness. But the Democrats have wandered away from their own foundational principles.
The Democrats have to start fresh and throw out the entire party superstructure. I was bitterly disappointed after voting for Ralph Nader that he didn’t devote himself to helping build a strong third party in this country. When the American economy was still manufacturing based, the trade unions were viable, and the Democrats stayed close to their working-class roots. But now the Northeastern Democrats, with their fancy law degrees and cocktail parties, have simply become peddlers of condescending bromides about “the people.”
Finally, SNL in its original form. Best-of sets always leave something out.
Universal has just officially announced the DVD release of Saturday Night Live 1975-1976: The Complete First Season for 12/5! The 8-disc set (SRP $69.98) will include all 24 90-minute episodes complete with their original hosts and all the original musical guests. You also get a 32-page book of liner notes and rare case photos.
I remember being too young to be allowed watch these when they were originally boradcast and sneaking downstairs to see them whenever I could.
In other DVD news, Ark II is coming out in a couple of weeks. Consider the barrel scraped.
Watch the funny video.
Bill Harris blogs about car shopping:
“What is the MSRP on this car?” I asked.
“Well, the MSRP doesn’t matter, because it’s a used car,” she says.
“Okay, but what would the MSRP be for this car?”
“I don’t know,” she said. Warning flag number two goes up. This is a Toyota dealership and they won’t tell me the MSRP of a car.
“Let me tell you, then,” I said. “The MSRP on this car is $23,105. So can you tell me why a used car costs almost four thousand dollars more than the same car new?”
“Well, we know that’s a crazy price,” she said. “Crazy. We didn’t put that price on there.”
“So what price did you put on there?” I asked.
“No price,” she said. “Tell me what you would pay.”
Now reading: Story - Robert McKee
In the CD player: MP4 - Michael Penn
In the PSP: Loco Roco
Just bought: a copy of Totally MAD
It’s so cool that there’s an entire page on Fox News’ website devoted to celebrity legal problems. They even have them sorted by offence: Drug and Alcohol, Assault, and “Other.”
My favorite headline: “Naomi Campbell Accused of Attacking Maid in Fit Over Jeans”
In answer to your unasked question, no, they mean just by talking on the cell phone.
Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said: “This is a good study, but I don’t think it tackles the issue.
“If you’re using your phone for four hours a day, presumably it is out of your pocket for longer.
“That raises a big question: how is it that testicular damage is supposed to occur?”
Dr Pacey, who is honorary secretary of the British Fertility Society, added: “If you are holding it up to your head to speak a lot, it makes no sense that it is having a direct effect on your testes.”
Another round in the endless battle between correlation and causation.
Or at least that’s Lik-Sang’s story.
Sony’s known for aggressively pursuing “grey market” importers who resell their products to other parts of the world. In particular, they went after Hong-Kong based Lik-Sang for selling PlayStation Portable (PSP) systems to Europe during the months-long gap between the Japanese and European releases of the system.
Sony ultimately won, and Lik-Sang has shut down its operations, giving one last parting shot to Sony.
Furthermore, Sony have failed to disclose to the London High Court that not only the world wide gaming community in more than 100 countries relied on Lik-Sang for their gaming needs, but also Sony Europe’s very own top directors repeatedly got their Sony PSP hard or software imports in nicely packed Lik-Sang parcels with free Lik-Sang Mugs or Lik-Sang Badge Holders, starting just two days after Japan’s official release, as early as 14th of December 2004 (more than nine months earlier than the legal action). The list of PSP related Sony Europe orders reads like the who’s who of the videogames industry, and includes Ray Maguire (Managing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Alan Duncan (UK Marketing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Chris Sorrell (Creative Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Rob Parkin (Development Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited), just to name a few.
EDIT: Sony gets snippy.
Sony responded, “The purchasing of PSP consoles by SCE employees would be for investigatory purposes. We would also like to express our surprise at a company releasing personal information about its consumers, as this is contrary to data protection principles around the world.”
Ah, they were doing research. That excuse always works.
Seven-Eleven doesn’t do a heck of a lot of things right, but at least there’s a lot of them and they have decently priced fountain drinks. The 99 cents that will get you a 44oz Super Big Gulp at Seven-Eleven is just a down payment on a smaller drink at a drive-through fast food joint.
Sodas are a profit center, for Seven-Eleven and for fast food restaurants in general, because margins are sky-high compared to other items. Syrup, water, ice, and cups are all cheap, especially in bulk. The soda fountain is a well established profit center.
So why, given that it is easy money, does Seven-Eleven take such a half-assed attitude about serving drinks? About a third of the time, the store will be out of syrup, cups, lids, or (like today) straws. Either management is messing with the supply line for fountain supplies by trying to cut it too close (is the “just in time” fad still going on?) or management is not making it clear enough that when people want to hand you money, you GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY.
There’s a reason I’d never drive past a QuickTrip to get to a Seven-Eleven.
An intriguing theory from National Review Online: What if famously bombastic conservative radio personality Michael Savage is no more than a persona?
As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, Savage is a top contributor to Brown’s campaign against conservative state senator Chuck Poochigian. His gift of $5,600, the maximum allowable under state law, was merited, Savage told the Chronicle after being outed. Why? Because “You have to make choices in an imperfect world.”
Undoubtedly so, but that’s hardly the red-faced extremist talking that Savage plays on the radio. So what explains the generosity?
There is much about him that would suggest, not an ideologue at all, but simply a performer. Then again, sometimes you get the feeling that a refugee from Air America (the failed experiment in liberal talk radio) has been writing scripts for him based on a lefty’s cartoon mental picture of a ranting right-wing caveman.
This isn’t necessarily the smking gun NRO thinks it is. Savage makes a great show of rejecting Republican orthodoxy. If you’ve ever listened to him, he’s oddly compelling. His emphasis is on the personal rather than the theoretical. Bitter and over-the-top as a rule, he speaks in absolutes and extremes. If it’s all a conscious appeal to the alienated on the right, it’s a fairly convincing one.
I park in an open-air downtown lot that’s reserved for the people who work in my building. Every space in the lot that’s ours has a number corresponding to our parking tags and the word RESERVED painted on it. However, it also has a box for self-parkers to deposit money into slots corresponding to the spaces. Above the box, there is a sign, at eye level, that says the lot is reserved every weekday from 6am to 6pm.
So naturally, people park in the lot all the time, and I never know whether someone will be in my space (which seems to be a particularly inviting one) when I get back from lunch. I think the lot company enjoys selling the spaces twice and therefore makes only token gestures to enforce the space reservations.
So today, I’m back from lunch and I see an older couple putting money in the box. As I walk past them, I take a mental note of how close the sign is to the man’s face.
18 inches.
From Joystiq:
UK gay magazine Attitude in their latest issue has the first video game advertisement specifically targeted at the gay market. The advertisement is for Sony’s karaoke title Singstar: Anthems . . .
Showtunes from sweaty, shirtless firemen.
Follow the link to see the ad.
