Recently in media Category
my roommate gave me crap for somewhat glibly saying that i don’t like watching tv shows wherein crimes are solved. that’s, perhaps, a bit too general. i’m just tired of murder. i frankly don’t care who killed who in what grotesque ripped-from-the-headlines manner. i got burnt out on it when my parents watched ‘murder, she wrote’ faithfully for years, and nobody lifted a finger to help the poor denizens of cabot cove, maine (angela lansbury fucking did it, duh!). and while in the 80’s, we had super cars, motorcycles, helicopters and the like to build powerful drama around, now someone basically has to die. there’s a reason i can count non-reality tv shows i watch on one hand, but the numbers are even more damning.
so, sitting around and hypocritically watching a terrible movie on a blustery sunday afternoon, i took a look at yahoo’s tv listings, and counted the shows in which someone dies. i didn’t differentiate, mainly because i really didn’t want to read about transvestite hooker serial killers any more than i wanted to watch them.
on network television, based on the assumption that one person a week dies on each hourlong crime drama (and i’ve groused through enough episodes of ‘law and order’ at my parents’ house to know that that’s probably a little light), we’ve got 23 deaths per week. assuming twenty-six episodes per season, that’s 598 dead bodies. based on readily googleable statistics, that means that the good citizens of tv land account for 3.5% of the murders in the united states every year. of course, we all know that despite the fact that the plots for these shows are hastily plagiarized from the bold-printiest parts of the herald and most salaciously alliterated portions of channel 7’s worst teasers, these people don’t live in the real world, they live in tv land.
so let’s do some more math. so, if there were 29 people listed in the cast of a recent episode of one of these quality programs, and we can consider that to be reasonably indicative, and there are 81 hours of prime time programming per week between the four channels, that makes the population of tv land is somewhere around 49,000 people. for the sake of simplicity, we won’t bother to weed out things that obviously aren’t real, like animated shows and presidential debates. that works out to 1.2 out of every one hundred people in tv land is fucking murdered. compared to 5.7 out of every 100000 in the us in 2006. if that wasn’t bad enough consider what percentage of the population in the tv is a cop, lawyer, judge, or let’s not forget, forensic investigator. hard-bitten, gruff ones, but with a sensitive, caring, dare i say it, sexy side. nevertheless, these people aren’t getting the job done, and that’s just fucking embarrassing. and now i hear that even the people they do catch wind up breaking out of prison. repeatedly, no less. it’s a disgrace.
so, it’s not merely that i don’t like shows that involve the solving of crimes, it’s that i am sick and tired of the crime rampant in the television, it is an embarrassment, and it has to stop.
vote for me for mayor of the tv.
it was a rude surprise to me last night to find that the daily show was indefinitely in reruns thanks to the dumb writers’ strike. up until then, i’d seen it as a mixed bag. sure, it might affect good tv, but it had the potential to rekindle the creative spirit behind truly bad tv. where are the ‘boot camps’, whither ‘temptation island’? admittedly, i probably should have watched ‘kid nation’ and ‘pirate master’ to sate that cultural masochistic desire, but i’ve been busy. enough dancing and singing, i wanted beautiful people attacking each other.
but on the other hand, i’m not willing to miss jon stewart (and maybe bill maher, too?) for it.
the la times has a convenient matrix to keep you informed as to the status of your favorite shows.
before yet another red sox playoff game completely melts my brain, i suppose i'd better get a few lucid thoughts out.
number one. hooray, panther is coming! by all accounts, they've yet again managed to make it faster, and it sounds like even moreso than jaguar did. i think it's very telling that mac users expect their operating system to get faster, and windows users consider an upgrade a success if it doesn't degrade performance too badly. as an added bonus, the new version of ical is a huge improvement. i even updated the rpi hockey calendar, to which you can subscribe here.
number two. california. ugh. so, according to cnn's results, it appears that the nefarious republican scheme to undo the results of a fair election has worked perfectly. it took 4.4 million votes to recall davis. it only took 3.7 to elect the Governator, which, incidentally, is barely more than the number of votes against the recall. and that was the plan. it's easy to get people to say 'i'm unhappy', as was shown here, and that's all this was. i said it before, i don't necessarily have anything against schwarzenegger; policy-wise, as republicans go, there are many, many worse (at least until this week). but if he really wanted to earn the trust of the people of california, he shoulda had the balls to try and win a real election.
number three: color me disappointed in the oakland a's' reaction after the red sox' dramatic victory monday night. since we've been relishing every replay of it since, i honestly don't see what the objection to derek lowe's gesture after striking out the last batter was. and ramirez' home run trot was a: warranted and b: not atypical, really. but the real winner was their gm, billy beane's remark about how they coulda pulled it out with an additional $50m on their payroll, a reference to the red sox' relative salaries. not only does he overlook his good fortune in getting a windfall of great young pitchers (ergo, essentially free) all at the same time, but he devalues his own players who tried so mightily and failed. dumbass.
number four: al franken's new book is brilliant. highly recommended for anbody who likes a well-researched anti-hypocrite rant, or just a good laugh at the expense of more than a few idiots.
number five: r.e.m. is still amazing. they sound great live, and though i haven't been a huge fan of their last two albums, the older parts of their repertoire sound as good as ever. and better yet, not only do they play them live (a lot of them, no less), but they seem to enjoy the hell out of doing so.
surely others have noticed taco bell's latest commercials:
we'll leave it at that; i mean, really, this is just too easy, right?
now, if only i could get Brak's 'i love beans' song out of my head.
20:05--so, lacking something better to do, and lacking common sense, i'm watching o'reilly factor on fox news. now, i'd watched fox news scarcely enough as it is, much less the much-reviled o'reilly himself. and i had no idea what i was missing! it's much more amusing than i'd been led to believe--in the first five minutes of his show, he reminded me of no one so much as j. jonah jameson. it was practically like this: "Hillary Clinton: Menace or Threat?"; all that was missing was the cigar. Hehehe. With a straight face, he's deriding her for refusing to answer questions on the grounds of privacy, while talking plenty about zipper-gate, just as if the latter wasn't an offensive intrusion into private issues in and of itself. to call that disingenuous is to be far too kind, but that's been done to death, and of course better by others, and this isn't about the clintons. it's fascinating how the entire discussion seemed to express a palpable fear of her running for office in 2008 when she just announced she had no intention of running (or is this tape-delayed?).
20:19--now he takes an ostentatiously reasonable point of view on the gay episcopal bishop; this both surprises me pleasantly and underscores something else that's become very evident in the past half-hour of watching this channel. when they think they're being kind to us poor liberals, they say so; about three times. when they bring in their cannon-fodder moderate or liberal, they trumpet their 'fair and balanced' approach and proceed not to let him get a word in edgewise. when they go in and out of commercials, they tout how much america chooses them, and trusts them. it's a fascinating parallel to the government policy of "if you say it enough, it becomes true." it's also interesting how the assumption of religion is made in their discussions, and how casually he mentions how his own beliefs inform his judgment. and you know, that's fine; there's lots of people who probably want that in a news anchor. there probably aren't enough atheists to warrant our own channel, and i'm pretty sure this ain't it. on the other hand, it would be interesting to see how this point of view plays out on issues that are more contentious.
20:29--his guest goes on about how neighbors watched out for each other and moms stayed home back in the good old days. hehehe... this of course feeds into the huge hysteria left over from last summer with kids that get absconded with. that's by no means a partisan issue, but the nostalgia for june cleaver, on the other hand, is hardly a mainstream opinion.
20:34--the whole jayson blair thing; interesting. i'm usually not one to advocate diversity for diversity's sake (i had a good letter to the poly once upon a time trashing the hyperactive use of the d-word at the time, for those who don't believe me).
i hate people on an equal opportunity basis. that said, from what i've heard and read thus far, it seems to me that mr. blair got by less because of his skin color than he did because he was a charismatic ass-kisser. it's been said that fox routinely plays up this kind of angle to bait their audience, but i don't (and won't) watch enough to know for sure (otoh, this sure supports that theory).
20:47--political correctness. now, this really irks me. political correctness nauseates 99% of everyone, with the exception of the helen lovejoys that propagate it. the problem is, people like o'reilly use this to tar all liberals with the same brush; as if shit like this isn't the responsibility of just a few uppity aging hippies, instead the actions of the teeming masses who want to save the trees and raise taxes and keep religion out of our schools. it's the fault of liberals, not of just a few asshole liberals. he so much as said that he'd expect something like [in this case, annoyance with offensive sports team names] in Boston or New York. and then there's the real kicker: "if i were an Indian, i wouldn't be offended" yeah, uh, okay.
20:54 "you're spending too much time on those left-wing websites. try thinking for yourself sometime". maybe that's me. maybe i do read websites that have a liberal bent (OTOH, i do listen to obnoxiously conservative morning radio; i think it keeps me balanced somewhat), but i'm not sure that by extension, i don't think for myself. likewise, i don't think that just because someone might watch fox news and o'reilly, that automatically makes them knee-jerk conservatives. at the same time, when someone watches those shows and walks out in lock-step, bad-mouthing the french, then yeah, i don't think they're necessarily applying the critical thinking skills that they were evolved or endowed with.
as captain sheridan said, "understanding is a three-edged sword: your side, their side and the truth." in addition to our grave responsibility of voting for our public servants, we have the corollary responsibility of doing so in an informed way, which is much more work than heading to some musty elementary school gymnasium once a year or once every two years. it requires the synthesis of disparate sources of information, and the questioning of each of them. what disturbs the shit out of me is not the existence of bill o'reilly and the like. what disturbs me is that in this age of more and more information being available, people are being less and less diligent at that second task. worse, with the fcc greenlighting consolidation of all kinds, we're nearing a point where the majority of america's eyeballs are going to be choosing the form of the destructor for all of us, and at that point, we'll all be effectively stuck with the stay-puft marshmallow man.
as for o'reilly, it'd be cool to see him take on a liberal with teeth. i wish i'd seen him with al franken. i think jon stewart would be a brilliant opponent (and let's face it, there are simply not enough superlatives to do jon stewart justice these days). i think it would be cool to see marilyn manson debate him. or bill maher. hell, we all know what i'm really saying, which is that we damn well need a liberal, hell, a moderate version of this jackass. and then there could be a grudge match, maybe with tables, ladders, and chairs, maybe pudding... at least then there'd be a fight.
ok, we all know that the amount of times i stick my foot in my mouth increases with the square of the length of the rant...
hahaha... damn that sherry palmer. the most evil person on tv, and yet on the last episode of 24 for this season, she finds a way to redeem herself. but hey, i still think she's evil, and will continue to hold her responsible for things that go wrong on a daily basis. you should try it some time, it's very useful. it's all her fault, trust me.
but anyway, last night's episode was very much about redemption. between sherry's not abandoning jack, and putting herself in mortal danger, she definitely earned some forgiveness. but she still can't be trusted. and mike, poor mike. mike tried to do the right thing in the end, attempting to help out the president, and calling attention to the newly acquired evidence, but it's important not to let him off the hook--remember what he helped do to poor lynne? not good. palmer didn't even know about that--when he finds out, firing will be too good for him!
as for the end, i rather liked it. i'm not sure i expect the next season to start off from 8-9am on the same day. jack and the rest of ctu are going to have to get some sleep sometime... and besides, i wouldn't rule out the possibility that palmer may die... after all, they wouldn't slip him the flesh-eating bacteria or whatever, if they didn't think it was going to kill him. it might happen. but anyway, regardless of where they pick it up, there are already leftover plot threads to pick up. who are the other bad guys, and whom do they work for? is the vice president in cahoots, and has palmer's magnanimity in victory left him unscathed? and how long will it take nina myers to escape? hehe...
of course, the show has suffered some, plausibility-wise in some ways this season, but one can only make so many 'believable' real-world type of plots and have them be exciting. i think they do an admirable job balancing realism with suspense. if i wanted something more everyday/realistic, i'd watch 'law and order' or some other video sedative. i look at it this way; the show's pretty much like a tom clancy novel. the first season was 'red october' or 'clear and present danger' and this season was closer to 'patriot games' or 'the sum of all fears'. not as tight, not as believable, but still a damn good time, and a damned sight better than the rest of the shit on tv.
Who among us knew that James Van der Beek's line in jay & silent bob strike back would foretell a plot point on his show later on? "the creek". hahaha... that ending was so full of corny goodness, i totally have a warm squishy feeling from it. i have to say, as with most other plot threads of the show in the past two years, everything happened so coincidentally and conveniently that if one were predisposed to hate the show, one could have a field day doing so. but not me... even without the aid of my good friend, Harpoon IPA. i greatly enjoyed the finale (did anyone notice the Harpoon poster in Pacey's restaurant? An aside: Even though the show was filmed in North Carolina, they did a damn fine job with depicting a town in coastal Massachusetts, because, trust me, i grew up in Capeside, practically. That weird looking bridge with the two towers? a dead ringer for a railroad bridge in Buzzards Bay, 5 miles from my house. The marshes, the streams (er, creeks), the ocean, seriously remind me of Plymouth, and with good reason. It was convincing, oddly enough, and maybe that's part of what kept me watching. Now, their depiction of Boston, on the other hand, well... let's leave it be.).
where was i? oh, yeah, i was kinda concerned that they were headed full-steam into afterschool special territory, but it was a relief to find pacey and jen laughing at her impending death. unrealistic, maybe, but very true to their characters... and yes, i'm of the opinion that it's good that joey wound up with pacey--if she and dawson were together, they'd both be so workaholic and lame that they would drift apart from everybody else and they'd be no fun whatsoever at the inevitable reunion special. as for complaints, well, i kinda wonder what happened to the new Mr. Mrs. Leery, seeing as how, right after their wedding, we see Dawson's mom without him, quite a lot. Hmm... and oddly enough, speaking of Dawson there wasn't that much of he of the mighty eyebrows in the last episode of his show; it seemed that he actually got the least to do. But that's okay. It was still good. Although considering the importance given to characters such as Andy and Audrey and others, i guess we never did get any kind of closure on them. The latter, i guess, i could understand, but Andy had a very legitimate pretense to have come back, so it's kinda strange... Oh well. Sigh... now i need a new cheesy show to get addicted to! Any recommendations?
And congratulations to Heather for guessing right on both counts... i am humbled and impressed by the excellent prediction skills displayed.
so, after what, six, seven years, dawson's creek is finally coming to an end. it has long been what can best be termed a guilty pleasure, i suppose. i started watching it aided by a six-pack of cider jack, but alas, i just don't drink as frequently as i used to. i have to say, the show's kinda gone downhill in recent years. pretty much ever since they went to college. it's had its moments, but usually they wind up lifting plot points from movies both recent and vintage (at least they freely admit at this point that they're cloning wall street with pacey's stock-trader job). but nevertheless, i still do try to tune in to see what horrible fate has befallen pacey or jen this week, and what joey and dawson are kvetching about. i have to say, the plots used to be a little more even in terms of who gets shat upon in a given week, but now it's seemed pretty lopsided upon pacey. only recently has jen had any ...thing good happen to her, and now grams has to pay the price. bastards!
anyway, the finale is promised to be pretty good stuff--the original writer is supposed to return, and some people are supposed to marry, and someone is going to die, all 10 years in the future. so, i suggest that a pool be started. who gets married, and who buys the creek, um, i mean farm?
so, i've got $5 on poor old pacey to die, and $5 saying jen and her current boy will marry. anyone want a piece of that?
i don't steal music, by and large. i try before i buy, but generally, i own 95% of the thousands of songs in my iTunes playlist. but the latest round of RIAA lawsuits (against two RPI students, among others) are tempting me to start doing so. i had no idea how ridiculous the latest ones were until i read larry's excellent aggregation of information about the whole thing. one of these defendants actually did this for a class, it would seem. and all this cost them $97 billion. Fuck that; obviously they've had to come up with new revenue streams to make up for the relative lack of people ready to plunk down $20 for a cd these days. it's just fucking disgusting.
this is one of the better top whatever lists of music i've seen, pretty much ever. of course, i'm only saying this because i agree with so much of it. of course, it was sponsored by the ever-wonderful newbury comics, so if i'm not careful, it might make me go buy a cd or two that i suddenly realized i should probably have. golly, i wonder if that was intentional? bastards!!
in the meantime, where did i put limewire...?
