Slow news day?

Map: Thief took towels

The television channel is dead

This is hardly new, and I don't really watch TV, even when we did have directv I hardly used it. But what I have seen developing is kind of sad.

First there was the television, then there was the television channel, like ABC or CBS, then there was cable, then there was the premium channel, like HBO and Showtime, and as TV began to cough it's last feeble breaths there came the niche channels, catering to wafer thin segments of the population. Some of the programming on these channels was was good, some of it was very good. Wow, TV was good? Tell me more gramps.

Then something awful happened, driven by filthy lucre as many awful things are, these niche channels started slipping in programming completely unrelated to their niche.

What used to be a few fine alternatives to PBS has devolved into a knuckledragging race to the bottom, line. No surprise that the ad dollars orbit these shows like flies on sherbert, but there seems to be no limits to what these channels will lay claim to.

Let's see, what does poker have to do with travelling? My first thought, nothing. Don't tell that to the suits at the Travel Channel though.
Silly me, I guess you could play poker on vacation or perhaps engage in a quick 5 card draw with the kids on the way home from the mall. Oh I see, it's a poker tour.

What about the austere gentleman in the room, the History Channel? Every time I ever flipped through this channel they always seemed to be showing Modern Marvels. Wait, I thought this was sposed to be history...like, the past? Or maybe I need to think outside the box, yeah.

The biggest offender in my opinion is The Learning Channel, oh wait now it's just TLC, lovely re-branding there. You may not know it, but there used to be serious educational programming on this channel, I know, I'm showing my age here, trust me. Now you can tune in to such enlightening fare as I Eat 33,000 Calories a Day or Joined at the Head (I didn't just make that up either), or that show with the macho dickhead motorcycle builders. Jesus Christ TLC, you make the Weekly World News look like Harper's.

Admittedly, I almost feel for these guys. What would you do if you were tasked with trying to siphon away viewers from Dog the Bounty Hunter?

Children of Men

One easy way to judge a film is to see if you want to see it again shortly thereafter. That's how I feel about Children of Men. Now, I do have some gripes, the end comes much too suddenly, so much so that I wondered if the file was somehow corrupted (yes, I downloaded it). The cinematography is at times stunning, especially the single extended takes, which have the effect of drawing you into the action, almost as if you are holding your breath waiting for the camera to cut away. I also thought it also had just enough social commentary without being too heavy or preachy or absurd (see Idiocracy) i.e. the ruling police state is called Homeland Security, one detainee is briefly shown in the infamous hooded Abu Ghraib pose. Also it's a movie that demands you pay attention from the first frame cause it's not going to spell anything out for you. Not like Dune or anything (I recall they handed out dictionaries at screenings). Obviously this is one reason I'd like to watch it again...or maybe I'm just slow that way.

Wait, what?

My brother, Jeremy, gave me his old camera a few years back for Christmas. Very generous of him, I think we can all agree.

I'd recently noticed some problems with it and snooping around the web, I found out that Canon issued a sort of silent recall, not calling it a recall, but agreeing to accept these defective cameras for repair.

Pleasant surprise number 1, after all this is a 4 or 5 year old camera.

They even paid for shipping to the repair facility. Pleasant surprise number 2. So I ship in just the camera itself, no batteries or cards.

After about a month of waiting I received an email yesterday stating it was shipped out and I should look for a package. I was surprised to find FedEx at my door around noon with said package. Well, that was fast.

Well what they did was send me a brand new (refurbished) camera package, plus a memory card. Pleasant surprise? Hardly.

Frankly, I was stunned. I have never been treated this generously by any company regarding their products, and I didn't have to even speak to anyone, I just shot off an email. Hopefully this little blog will show up on someone else's google search for defective Canon s230.

Sure, I understand it costs them less to give me a new one than to actually repair my old one, but they didn't even try to weasel out of it!

I have some hope for us humans, we might be able to work it all out.

Random thoughts Jan 24th edition

Praying man 'tis














I thought that a fine name for a Journey tribute band would be Smellawine.

Even better if that was the singer's name and the band went by the moniker Cheap Perfume.





I was at a thrift store today, Salvation Army if you must ask, and the checkout gal's name was Sarah, I like to check these things, I appreciate that everyone is an individual and I want to acknowledge that they aren't faceless automatons. Nice enough name that, Sarah. Most unfortunate convention at the Salvation Army though, your last name appears above your first name, so Joe Smith reads as

Smith
Joe

Poor girl, her last name is Hefty.

Neil Hefti is well known for composing the theme to the TV show Batman.

Biplane much older than previously thought.

This is really amazing, considering the development of airplane technology and ways in which scientific progress and development mimics Darwinian evolution. I'm sure this has been covered before but I'm a bear of very little brain.

Don't' you ever, EVER make fun of my driving again

Now I have a damn good reason to drive as I do. I wonder if it only applies to Canadians?

We are Canada's Mexicans

Sometimes Ted can get on my nerves but I thought this was accurate.

Idiocracy

Overall a great social spoof of the logical extension of America's slide towards junk culture and corporate influence in culture and government. Probably would have made a much better short film as the plot only exists to foist scene after scene of absurd cultural mostrosities. i.e. the number one movie attraction is called Ass, which is a closeup of, yeah, an human male ass, which occasionally farts. Or this memorable line, where a character is trying to pronounce rehabilitation..."What are you trying to read that word for? Are you a fag?" I don't think Mike Judge, for all his talents, should have gone the writing alone but it still stands up as a sharp, but not vicious attack on our consumerist culture.

Bathrooms and You

Just an observation, and I've not been in many female bathrooms but I can read building schematics. Females always get one stall per pot with a door, correct me if I'm wrong. Males get stalls too but also get urinals. Personally I find these things foul and perhaps this has something to do with my point here. The thing is, these urinals can be augmented with a wide array of accessories to avoid the inconvenient truth that you are standing mere inches from another man with your twig in the wind. Some of these barriers are more generous then others, some seem merely a hint, providing some of us wired that way the opportunity for cruising. The question I have ultimately is why no stalls for the urinals? What makes standing exempt from the barest common decency of privacy during elimination? I guess you can blame some of it on a sort of overtly masculine homophobic reaction, like sports players slapping each other on the ass. "We are so not gay, let me prove it to the world with a firm open palm slap on the ass!" Alternatively why arent't we all sitting there cheek to cheek...ahem.
I mean if I'm forced to stand next to some stranger why not just dispense with the whole charade. Imagine the quality conversations you could have with complete strangers between grunts, pants around your ankles.

Oh, Stephen...

“You know I play a complete idiot?”

good little movie

I just finished a good movie that came out a few years ago, and I'm not talking about the day after tomorrow which I plowed through this afternoon, That was a ragged piece of rat dung. I can't explain it but sometimes I make myself watch movies I hope will be good. Anyway, I'd been wanting to catch this movie, which I had forgotten the title to, but found it recently, it's called Primer. It was made in Dallas a few years ago for a pittance, and it's a damn fine movie, or story rather. It's a typical time travel mind fuck sort of flick but I think their creativity is worth mentioning. I wish someone would make a 50 million dollar 2 hour version.

Also I watched Word Play this morning (can you tell how I spend my days off?), and it was very well done, nothing too surprising about people that do crosswords, made me think that I should be much better than I am at crosswords and that Bill Clinton is possibly the most maligned person on the planet.

Quiet since I'm not at work today.

If you're wondering where I had coffee today, well it was here. Lovely to have 2 new coffee shops so close to home.

Hey, you vegetarians?

Suck it

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance

Never Surrender

And the cost of terrorism is breathless news coverage of anything remotely, possibly, maybe an attack?

please?

433 articles and counting, from as far away as the UK and South Africa, and even ESPN

oh, here's
a good one, remember this was just 10 blocks on congress ave, ONE street.

And you thought those veggieburgers were made by liberals...

Morningstar, owned by kellogg. Boca owned by Kraft aka Altria group.


update:
So it looks like Gardenburger is independent.

Blessed art thou

where's brad?

Never, ever trust an orange cat.

chomp

post toasties

http://indexed.blogspot.com/




hmmmm errrrrr

"You know what? There's just something inescapably bland about Hummer's slogan: 'Like Nothing Else.' It doesn't really capture the macho essence of the company's singular vehicles. If you ask me, they'd have been better to go with something more to the point like, 'See, You *Can* Be More of an Asshole.'"

--Scott Feschuk, NATIONAL POST, September 2, 2003


tip to william gibson