Category Archives: Culture

TV is dead

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TV is changing.  We are all in the denial phase, but the way we used to watch it is really gone .  I saw this article today about somebody saying TV is about to have it’s “iPod moment”.  That’s the moment where we stop caring about the stream of cable/satellite programming and just download what you want to see.  At our place it’s already happened.  For us, TV shows don’t come on as we watch, instead we know when they have been recorded on the PVR, and that’s when we plan to watch them.  There’s no sense of the TV schedule that I used to have as a kid.  I used to just “know” when the stuff I wanted to see was on and turn on the TV.  If I missed it, well too bad.  Now I have no fricking idea when a show is actually aired, usually.  After I set up the timer on the PVR I’m done with the program guide.

We so rarely watch live TV that Nikki and I never know about new shows until somebody we know starts talking about them.  We watch everything pre-recorded and so we skip ahead through the commercials and the network teasers without knowing what’s coming up.  That’s the big problem with the new model.  If I can’t find new content I will start to watch less over time (and have already).  How will they tell me about new shows in a world where the program guide is internet-sized?  I think maybe web-style marketing could help a lot.  Blogs and YouTube could easily tell me about new shows that I might want to watch.  But that wouldn’t work so well for non-web savvy folks.  Then there’s the commercial ad problem.  Nikki and I skip over almost every ad they show.  That’s bad for advertisers, for sure.  Technology will probably step in here at some point.  One thing our Bell PVR does to make us try to watch the ads is it randomly changes the length of time the “skip ahead” and “skip back” buttons work on.  Sometimes you can skip a regular commercial block with three clicks, sometimes it’s four.  Often you overshoot and have to go back.  It’s very clever since it makes you sit through some of those precious commercial seconds just out of frustration.  I would expect to see more of this kind of technology in the future, hacks that make you sit through the commercials so the advertisers will continue to support the shows.  It still won’t stop the hard core geeks from finding a way around watching, but for most of us it will be just fine.

I have noted this before, but it’s coming closer now, methinks.  That’s a rather wordy ramble, sorry folks.  Anybody happen to agree with this?

NMKY

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There’s just no way to explain this video, but I’ll try.

It’s unspeakably bad singing, in Finnish, with a chorus line of men simpering in workout attire circa 1975, covering the Village People, and somehow (as one YouTube commenter mentioned) making the Village People look like Metallica.

Enjoy.

Dog Day Morning

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Not too surprisingly I have a soft spot for dogs.  There’s nothing quite like the loyalty and love you get from a dog.  So, I saw a couple of articles today about dogs and thought I would share them.  First is an animal cruelty officer in Toronto who apparently saw a Rottweiler locked in a car on a hot day and arrested the animal’s owner.  He handcuffed the guy to his car, and I guess the bystanders got a little out of hand and started to lay a beating on the jerk.  This is not a problem, as far as I can see.  The problem is that the animal cruelty officer is suspended because of the incident.  Fittingly enough, he has been spending his free time visiting the Rottweiler at the vet’s office to see how he is recovering.  Personally, I think the guy deserved to get roughed up a little bit for leaving his dog in the car to the point that the dog may have brain damage.

Then I read an article about the dog soldiers in Iraq, it’s inspiring and had me almost choked up here at work (I’m such a frigging softy).  There are a lot of dogs in service there, 2000 in the entire forces, with demand for more all of the time.  They obviously are excellent at non-lethal crowd control, but of course they are most prized for their sniffers and bomb detection.  Naturally since they are leading patrols, they get hurt a lot, but are given first-rate medical care.

“They are cared for as well as any soldier,” insists Senior Airman Ronald A. Harden, a dog handler in Iraq.

A good read, sniff, sniff.

And, finally since I can’t bear to leave things on even a slightly sad note, here’s a nice puppy chaser from Wilson.  Have a look at this video and tell me that isn’t the frigging best puppy, hands down.

Figwit

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Let me just start by saying this: Admittedly, I have very little work to do today, just follow along with me here.

I was idly surfing along, clicktranced for a minute or twenty, and thought I would do some research and write a little follow-up piece to the Flight of the Conchords post I wrote. Nik and I absolutely love these guys. We have been subjecting the Wilocks to it as well and they responded well enough. You should start watching their show, absolutely the best new TV I have bothered to watch in a while. Anyway there I was, just sort of cruising along, I found their pathetically out of date official web site, and on there they have linked to a few unofficial fan sites. It was by clicking through some of them that I found out the following incredibly useless information:

– Bret McKenzie (one of the Conchords) was in the Lord of the Rings:The Fellowship of the Ring as an extra.
– He played an elf, seen for literally one second in the council of Elrond scene.
– His on screen presence was apparently so smouldering he inspired a huge cult following of smitten women.
– They named him Figwit (Frodo is great…who is that?)
– Figwit has a lot of hits if you search for it on Google.
– It became such a phenomenon that Peter Jackson (the director) decided to give Figwit a couple of lines in the final movie of the trilogy.

So, there you go. Don’t ask me why I bothered to tell you about it, but it did just help make some time pass before lunch. The only real piece of actual news I have in this whole post is the potentially sad news that the Flight of the Conchords may not be renewed for a second season.  Here’s hoping they give Figwit another go.

The Internet is a strange place, folks.

Van Halen, fixed at last

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People can be classified into two groups, you are either a Roth or a Hagar.  Despite the fact that there has been years of Hagar, not all of them bad, I have always felt most comfortable as a Roth.  So it is with great satisfaction that I bring you this news:  Van Halen will be touring with David Lee Roth this fall.  Nikki won’t be pleased, she’s a true-blue Hagar.  You might think that the Roth-Hagar split would put stress on our marriage.  You would be right, I still bear the scars from our first attempt to “discuss” this matter.

I secretly think Nikki just likes Sammy Hagar because of his benchmark 80’s hair that everyone wanted at the time.

In any case, now that (maybe) David Lee Roth will actually reunite with the band, the original line-up is (almost) intact.  (Apparently that other guy in the band, the bassist, whassisname, won’t be playing)

All is right in the universe.  Just don’t ask Nikki.

Bacon Salt

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I can hear my arteries groaning already.  Bacon flavoured salt, you may as well just snort it directly, it’s probably no less addictive.

It’s just one of those ideas a couple of guys came up with, and you can read some of their story on their blog, too.   Apparently this has the support of some vegetarians, too.  So, go ahead and buy some for yourself online.

Remember, salt is what helps to maintain that ruddy, manly glow of high blood pressure, so stock up now!