The bastards have cancelled ‘Jericho’ too.
Just when I was really getting into it.
‘Everybody Loves Fucking Raymond’ gets renewed for 23 years and they gang-probe us on this.
Well, I hope all their walls come a-tumblin’ down.
(Moments later: Then there’s this response from the fans. It’s in a response to a line used in the last episode based on this true story.)
The bastards have cancelled ‘Veronica Mars’ too.
‘According to Fucking Jim’ gets renewed for 23 years and they gang-probe us on this.
Well, they can kiss Mars.
I was very much looking forward to the season finale of Heros and I wasn’t disappointed. When the main story ended I actually said ‘No!’ Then ‘Wow.’
It was no Corner Gas season finale, but it was close.
Plus the teaser for next season was spot on. Didn’t get one of those with Corner Gas.
I just saw it on DVD and laughed my head off. Loved it. Not nearly as outrageous as I thought it was going to be, but maybe that’s just me and my sensibilities.
Anneli recommended it and that was a good sign, but I half expected to be cringing mentally and emotionally half the time. I did, but in a good way.
If you haven’t seen it, and aren’t easily offended, see it. There’s a dozen laugh out loud hilarious bits, most tied to the fact that the Americans Borat is with are being wickedly satirized just by being themselves and reacting to Borat just being ‘himself’.
Borat: not just another petty farce.
30 Grams Per Week
The Toronto Star has been publishing their weekly TV magazine for decades; Star Week. Up until recently the daily TV listings were presented in narrow columns, maybe five or six to a page. New TV series often had a brief synopsis of the episode’s highlights or the plot, usually with an ‘N’ in brackets to indicate a new episode. Movies usually had a one or two person cast list, the production year, and maybe the genre. There was usually useful information along with the bare listings. It was helpful.
Suddenly they changed to a tabular format with no room for descriptions or synopses. I am not a married-to-the-past traditionalist in any way (ask anybody) and I usually take things like this on a case by case basis. This time, the old way was better.
25 Grams Per Week
A week or two after they made the change they had the gall to tell us in a short article on an inside page of the Saturday Star that people had expressed the opinion that they preferred the tabular format. (Well, nobody asked me. Harumph.) As before they have a section for daytime listing that vary only slightly from day to day, but now they only have a single page for weekday primetime, with almost no detail, then at the back, late night weekdays. Often all we know about a movie in a particular timeslot is that it is a movie, because it just says ‘Movie’, especially in the late night listings. After a few weeks - responding to kudos, I’m sure - they added a sort-of highlights box with synopses of that night’s popular shows’ episodes, maybe Gray’s Anatomy, House or Heros, but forget the others. It’s better now though.
No, it’s cheaper. In more ways than one. The new format reminds me of nothing other than those free regional ad-driven TV magazines you used to find all over the place that had no room for details because of all the ads. This isn’t quite that bad, but you can see the resemblance. It isn’t better; it’s a rip-off, a cop-out and a fuck-up. It’s an increase in the chocolate ration.
Why the title of this post? It’s a reference to Orwell’s 1984, and Winston Smith’s task of trying to rewrite history by spinning the fact that the chocolate ration went up from 30 grams per week in 1983 to 25 grams per week in 1984.
‘Nuff said?
Okay, so I have this totally legal, ethical and moral copy of Microsoft Encarta 2001. It has a reasonably good encyclopaedia, a reasonably good dictionary (non-etymological, but that’s okay since I know where all words come from anyway), and a reasonably good atlas.
I like the package because the encyclopaedia helps me cheat at Final Jeopardy (as if I really needed to) and when I’m watching some ‘true crime’ show, I can use the atlas to look up the little town in Kansas where the atrocious crime occured.
Here’s the thing of it. After I got my new (old) computer, I did what I did before which was to create image files of the four critical CDs that came with the Encarta package and mount them as virtual SCSI drives using one of a couple of packages I have that can do that. There were issues with the encyclopaedia but I resolved them. However, the atlas issues (the image file would mount but the system kept telling me to insert the correct CD) seemed insoluble.
Turns out that when I installed the atlas the first time, the drive letter for the virtual drive was added to the atlas’ registry entry and it wouldn’t recognize the new one when I remounted it with a new (automatically assigned) drive letter.
After a moment of inspiration, I started searching the registry for the atlas entry, saw the old drive letter, changed it to the new one, and, as you’ve probably guessed by now, it worked. And it gives me something to look out for in similar situations in the future, if there is one.
That’s why I don’t like Macs. No similar challenges. Plus they scare me.
Examples of True Mac Experiences:
“I’m not questioning your word, Dave, but it’s just not possible. I’m not capable of being wrong.”
“Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.”
There ya go.
Many will not miss him.
Well, the bastards have cancelled ‘Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip’.
But imdb tells us that ” ‘Gollum’ Technology To Be Used for Tintin Movies”. Three features shot back to back by Spielberg and Jackson. When I was a kid we used to get something called Children’s Digest which serialized the Tintin stories and I loved them. Other than the jokes, Tintin was my favourite part. And yes, I pronounce the name as the English metal twice, not in the fabulously pretentious nasalized ‘French’ way. Too chichi for a kid from Georgetown.
The glass is half full.
” Loved Heroes. Can’t wait for the season finale next week. “Boom”, indeed!
09:15 PM May 14, 2007″
Indeed!
Want to generate near-real but faux quotes from real movies using a word or phrase you input?
Try this for a laugh.
The phrase ‘naked cheerleaders’ was mine.
I also tried ‘dirty underpants’ and got this. “Gort! Klaatu barada dirty underpants!” Guess what movie that was from.
Now choose your own word or phrase.
(Try using dirty words…it’s funnier!)