Coming this fall to a network near you
Ultimate Survivor:
The popular show returns this fall, with an all new location, new challenges and new rules.
Ultimate Survivor Sahara, the tribe has to make it across the desert by an means possible. New rules include losers can either be forced to find their own way home after they`re ejected or consumed by members of the opposing team. That`s right for the first time, live on national television, cannibalism. Only on CBS.
Your new Friends:
With no new episodes of Friends and all their side projects failing faster than professional baseball`s drug test, NBC brings you a new touching reality series, Finding new friends. NBC executives pull the sorriest excuse for human beings that have written in after the cancellation of Friends, send a crack team over to their house, destroy their televisions, their livelihoods and what remain of their self-respect and then turn them out into the street and have a camera crew follow them as they try to make real life friends.
The Gulag:
Leading the way with reality programming this fall, Fox presents The Gulag, partially based on Stephen King`s The Running Man and Alexander Solzhenitsyn`s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, this show portrays prison life through the eyes of our greed, money-hungry, ratings-whores executives. From prison rapes to shot escapees, nothing will be too raw and disgusting for us to show.
Stay tuned for more of what to expect on your fall television line-up, including Who wants a pre-frontal lobotomy and For a $5 Rock.
this weekend was riverstages which i didn`t attend because it was a CCE Clear Channel Entertainment event.
I live in Music City, USA. and this summer promises more big name shows than you can shake a stick at and it appears, even if i can afford i`m going to be letting a lot of them go by.
like i said before i find Clear Channel morally reprehensible and as long as i`m able to, i`ll avoid any dealings with them. meaning any show coming to Starwood amphitheatre this summer including Ozzfest, Dave Matthews Band and Prince, i`ll not be attending.
this anti-Clear Channel tirade is not about Howard Stern, well not entirely. i personally don`t like Stern, but there are functional station tuners on my radio. this is about a continued commercialisation of radio, the music industry, radio stations and government in a cosy relationship deciding what`s best for me listen to or for me to hear. i believe every business has a right to make a profit, i don`t object to that, i object to unfair business practices and i think Clear Channel epitomises that. they are rich and powerful and believe they can do whatever pleases them.
i disagree and i`m showing my disagreement in the strongest way possible, as a consumer. yes, they will continue to exist but they will just have to do so without my dollars. i`m sure there are other people who share the sentiment, eventually there will be enough for them to get the general idea.
i hope.
i generally watch four hours of tv a week. i`m very specific about my tv watching, Alias on a Sunday, Gilmore Girls on a Tuesday, Smallville and Angel on a Wednesday.
last night the wife who is a disaster flick fan got me to give up alias for nbc`s 10.5. what a waste, a lot of good talent for a poorly written, poorly edited piece of dreck.
i had the whole plot outlined in 15 minutes including the nuclear detonations. that why i generally don`t watch much tv, it`s too predictable. even the commercials are predictable. the other thing last night was the constant commercials for friends, my god, talk about milking the cow.
i don`t give a shit. never liked friends. i know some people that would think that my last utterance was sacrilege, but it`s true, i`ve never found it particularly funny, it`s never moved me. i`ve never found that level of self-absorption even mildly amusing. if i want light and frivolous fantasy, i watch charmed, that at least is a little more believable.
where does the good writing go? i know television is the lowest common denominator, but it`s getting a point where between the level of stupidity between scripted and `unscripted` television is completely blurred and once something appeals to the masses everyone seems eager to fall over themselves to copy it.
there is a short story, i can remember by Roald Dahl, the Great Automatic Grammatizator [don`t be lazy, go look it up], which describes a computer that writes novels, i think that day has come, especially to television tired, formulaic, detritus.
i`m a big music fan with diverse tastes, but i can`t stand modern R&B. I grew up on Marvin Gaye and the Motown sound, so all this crap now masquerading as music, just makes me wince. i am not a prude, not by anyone`s stretch of the imagination, but what passes for R&B today, disgusts me. i don`t need to have everything explained to me, the same way i don`t need to see the print of your labia through your clothing, it just lacks subtlety.
listen to Marvin, Teddy, Barry, sure they`re talking about sex, but it doesn`t have to be blatantly in your face. Go back even further to the jazz standards, it`s still subtle. I was listening to the Lady Ella`s Isn`t this a lovely day, it`s about staying in with your lover on a rain day, structured and beautiful without ever being nasty. even Grace Jones, showed more discretion in her one hit than any of the current crop of R&B posers.
this phenomenon isn`t limited to R&B, it seems wide spread over musical genres, from calypso to rock, people don`t write anymore. or is it that people no longer read, so the subtlety of word play is lost on them?
or as Sparrow said when confronted by accusations of lewdness “Kill them dead, is the vice in dey own head”
i like driving. i particularly like driving manual cars. not that i don`t love the joys of cruise control and not having to balance the clutch sometimes, but i`d rather give those up that a manual gear shift.
i think my love for driving came from my mother. she had an original 1000 mini, manual shift and drove it like a racing driver. down shifting, drafting busses, all the tricks i know now, i learned sitting next to my mother in the mini.
one of the things we used to do and i still do now is adventure driving. the concept worked well in trinidad, because it`s only so big and the principle was the road had to come out somewhere. on a larger scale it helps me find alternate routes and couple with an unfailing sense of direction i`ve found it very useful when i move somewhere new.
how it`s done, basically, is you pick a street and follow your instinct that it will take you where it needs too. it`s sort of like dirk gently`s theory about following a car as stated here.
“
A few turnings later and I was thoroughly lost. There is a school of thought which says that you should consult a map on these occasions, but to such people I merely say, `Ha! What if you have no map to consult? What if you have a map but it`s of the Dordogne?` My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it`s going and follow it. I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere that I needed to be. So what do you say to that?”
from douglas adams` long dark tea time of the soul
well, it works for me. but i`m the person my closest friends have intimated that has sold my soul for parking spaces and a sense of direction. i get parking spaces close to, if not directly in front of where i want to be and i don`t get lost. so adventure driving or picking a road and following it to see where it will take you in proximity to where you wanted to be in the first place works for me.
damn i`ve lost my initial train of thought.
some time later
i remember, i remember.
a loaf of bread, a container of milk and a stick of butter. i remember.
well that too, but i remembered my train of thought and original point of my post.
i`ve never been a huge fan of american iron. i like sports cars, i would be thrilled to drive them at least once but i don`t actually want to own one, particularly an american made sports car. that`s right, no corvettes, no camaros, no mustangs. and there is good reason, the transmission. most american cars come with automatic transmission and even if it comes with manual transmission the gear ratio, stinks.
i was completely appalled to park next to an audi tt and peep in the window to see an automatic transmission. that`s just wrong. i think there should be a law, you want to drive a sports car, you should know how to handle a clutch.
i am a big guy, the two seater sports coupe doesn`t do anything for me, primarily cause i can`t fit in them. when i was younger, thinner, much more flexible and thinking about buying my first car, i tried out a madza miata and i thought i was going to hurt myself clambering in and out of that thing. my mid-life crisis cars would either be the subura impreza wrx rally tuned suspension and six speed gear box or a bmw m5.
give me a sedan or wagon, with a good transmission and some good broad, low profile tires i`m heaven. i like the neon it`s small but it responds well, it has nice pickup; if the ac isn`t running and it doesn`t suck gas. if i had to change one thing on it, it would the tires, the narrow, 13″ tires just irk me, those should be outlawed too.
time to get on the road again.
out of sight, out of mind, seems par for the course with me and the people i call friends. well not all of them, i`m realising i can count the true friends on the fingers of one hand.
for all the rest it`s about what i can do for them, whether it`s fixing their computers or helping them with a problem or just sitting there listening to them. i don`t mind any of this, it`s what friendship is about, right?
but when do it become to much?
there are people that will see me online and not say a word to me for weeks, but the nanosecond they have a problem, the message window pops open and in some cases without even a howdy, they launch into whatever problem ails them. aside from it being rude, i feel so used.
is it wrong for me to complain about my so called friends?
i`ve called them on it, but no one seems to take me seriously. i mean, there are people who will send four million forwards, but will never take the time to send me an email saying, `hi, how are you?` or reply to an email i sent.
i keep swearing up and down that this is the last year, i`m cutting people lose, but i never do. i`m always there when they need help or a shoulder to cry on. the big sap that i am. this is why people take advantage of me.
at least i`ve learned to say no.
i think not.
of the two places we got when we were looking the one we`re at now, has lawn and outdoor maintenance as part of the package. i, for one, am eternally grateful.
i am not a particularly lazy sod, but i do firmly believe that certain tasks are the domain of professionals or at least people who enjoy these tasks. i know i can cut my own grass and wash my own car and i`m sure there are people that own a computer and believe they can design a newsletter too. i mean just because you have the tools, it doesn`t automatically bequeath you with the ability to do the job well.
i am one of those people that is willing to pay someone to do certain jobs for me. although, because i`m willing to pay someone to a job that i`m at least capable of doing, i expect it done well, but i`m not going to hang about and tell you how to do your job, it`s one of the things i hate, so i wouldn`t subject anyone to that behaviour.
the name of my journal is actually based on a joke about my personal work ethic and star signs. my birthday is august 23, making me a virgo on the cusp of leo. according to lore, the virgo portion of the sign makes me a perfectionist, which is my line of work i think is a necessity. the leo side of the lore means i like things done my way. so, one wiseacre who worked with me branded me a perfectionist with a god complex. it`s what in some circumstances `difficult` to work with.
strangely, the standards that apply to my work and my co-workers tend to be more relaxed with people that i give my money to for one reason or another. i think it`s because if the anal retentive, detail oriented monster ever got loose in public, i`d be truly insufferable and be on the receiving end of the dreaded asshole tax.
anyone who`s ever worked freelance, is familiar with the asshole tax, it`s a fee tacked on to the base a job, calculated on the volume of trouble you expect the client to be. you can tell most of the time from the first meeting, you know what you`re in for, so you mark up the job, so that at the end of the day, you get paid for all the extra stress and heartache.
regular transmission will resume momentarily. in the mean time go check out more geeky goodness at the joy of tech
last weekend i was fortunate enough to see once upon a time in the west and both kill bill movies. i`ve been a long time fan of sergio leone and have managed to borrow all the man with no name westerns from the library.
in terms of just sheer film making once upon a time in the west is a work of genius. the opening 13 minutes of the film have very little dialogue, no score and features once of the best opening lines in any western.
interestingly, although both once upon a time in the west and kill bill are revenge flicks, kill bill is more an onanistic endeavour on the part of tarentino. i`m not saying i didn`t like the film, but seeing both these movies on the same weekend show up the weakness of kill bill, particularly volume 1.
this weekend i watched a fistful of dollars which is an homage to akira kurosawa`s yojimbo, which was later redone as last man standing with bruce willis.
the leone westerns made clint eastwood a star and redefined the genre. in looking at these movies recently i realise that many directors have borrowed liberally.
do yourself a favour, experience these movies for yourself.
as a corollary to my last post i thought i`d deal with warning labels. we`ve all seen this forward about the instructions on labels:
On a Sears hairdryer — Do not use while sleeping.
On a bag of Fritos — You could be a winner! No purchase necessary.
Details inside.
On a bar of Dial soap — “Directions: Use like regular soap.”
On some Swanson frozen dinners — “Serving suggestion: Defrost.
On Tesco`s Tiramisu dessert (printed on bottom) — “Do not turn upside
down.”
On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding — “Product will be hot after heating.”
On packaging for a Rowenta iron — “Do not iron clothes on body.”
On Boot`s Children Cough Medicine — “Do not drive a car or operate
machinery after taking this medication.”
On Nytol Sleep Aid — “Warning: May cause drowsiness.”
On most brands of Christmas lights — “For indoor or outdoor use only.”
On a Japanese food processor — “Not to be used for the other use.”
On Sainsbury`s peanuts — “Warning: contains nuts.”
On an American Airlines packet of nuts — “Instructions: Open packet,
eat nuts.”
On a child`s Superman costume — “Wearing of this garment does not
enable you to fly.”
On a Swedish chainsaw — “Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands
or genitals.”
and a new classic:
Levitra — “If erection lasts longer than four hours consult a medical professional.”
the thing is that as funny as this seems, those are real and there are other stories and other warning labels on everything. i see three major problems with this trend, a lack of personal responsibility, the death of common sense and the continuation of some lineage that we`d be better off without.
i humbly suggest passive eugenics. eugenics is the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding. now the thing about passive eugenics is we don`t actually have to do anything other than let nature take it`s course. if you`re not bright enough to know that you don`t get into the bathtub with an electrical appliance then you don`t live to reproduce. i think it would make the world a better place. remove all the warning labels and let all the darwin award contenders go for the prize. i`m sure the planet would be a better place for it.
