Waiters Who Are Nauseated By Food [via] The Dana Carvey show had a lot of later-big name comedic names.
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Tags: dana-carvey, stephen-colbert, steve-carell
Via Waxy I found this page that has hunted down the myspace profiles of some of the contestants that have been on American Idol so far this season. Some of the contestants have already edited their profiles and such to remove incriminating and potentially disqualifying evidence. I have to say that this season has been quite boring so far. I’ve actually gotten up and left the room because it just felt like they were rehashing the same tricks and poor performances that we’ve seen countless times before.
Update: Round #2!
Tags: american-idol, myspace
Stephen Colbert decided to put Jon Stewart On Notice. Here’s the video from Monday’s Colbert Report about the aftermath of that statement. Very funny.
Tags: colbert-report, jon-stewart, on-notice, stephen-colbert, video
Via Waxy for this particular link I’ve been watching the pilot episode for Aaron Sorkin’s new show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (more Wikiality information can be found here). He’s the creator of The West Wing (I posted about it here). I’m not sure how long the video will stay online and there’s even a rumour that it’s been intentionally leaked on YouTube to garner attention and buzz leading up to the fall season (YouTube and NBC have a joint agreement). It looks to be a show worth watching if the pilot is any indication. It has quite the cast – Timothy Busfield, Matthew Perry, Judd Hirsch, Amanda Peet, Bradley Whitford. Mondays at 10 it’s scheduled to air. That would conflict with CSI: Miami here but it’s rare that I’ll watch that show unless I’m playing the drinking game. Also from the Wikipedia article it says that it will cost $2.5 to $3 million per episode to make. That’s probably close to what it cost to create The West Wing.
Anyway, check out the video if you have the chance. I’ll be looking forward to Mondays at 10 starting in September.
Tags: aaron-sorkin, amanda-peet, bradley-whitford, csi-miami, judd-hirsch, matthew-perry, nbc, studio-60-on-the-sunset-strip, Television, the-west-wing, timothy-busfield, youtube
Stephen Colbert did a very amusing “The Word” segment on Tuesday about Wikipedia. You can see it here on YouTube while it’s still online. He discusses how with Wikipedia you can build truth and reality through consensus as opposed to facts. He edited his own page and encouraged people to edit the page on elephants saying how the population has tripled in Africa over the last six months. It was a very humourous discussion which prompted quite a few pages to be locked down and protected because the SysOps on Wikipedia didn’t want vandalism. I believe the pages are still protected because if there’s one thing that The Nation can do it’s follow their leader.
Anil had a great article on Wikipedia entitled “Antipedia” the other day and it provided some excellent reference links for further reading on what the future of Wikipedia could be and a discussion on what it has become. I’ve bookmarked them for later reading when I get some free time (should happen any day now right?).
I think Wikipedia is a great community achievement. Considering how frequently I link to it from here I use it quite frequently but I would not use it as a definitive reference. I’ve had this discussion with Marcy too because a lot of her students tend to use Wikipedia in their research, usually as the sole source for their research. That’s not a good practice; high school students need to know how to do proper research – visiting an actual library, reading the books, taking notes. Using Google alone to do your research is not really researching. There’s a lot of skill involved in researching and I hope that that is a skill that doesn’t get lost in the coming years.
Tags: colbert-nation, colbert-report, elephants, research, stephen-colbert, wikiality, wikipedia
What better person to offer advice on Jeopardy! than the man who dominated it for such a long period of time (remember all of the posts), Ken Jennings? His blog is very interesting to read by-the-by though domain names with a dash in them tend to be rather awkward.
Tags: advice, Jeopardy!, ken-jennings
Mr. Dressup is going off the air in September. It’s truly the end of an era in Canadian children’s television. I grew up watching Mr. Dressup. It’ll be a sad day when the last show airs although Ernie Coombs (Mr. Dressup himself) passed away in 2001 and there haven’t been any new episodes since 1996.
The gentle pace of the show is falling out of favour with Canadian children and ratings have been in decline, said Jeff Keay, CBC’s head of media relations.
The show does in fact have a gentle pace though I never thought of that phrase in association with the show until I read it in that article. I wonder if they will bring the show out on DVD; there’s so much to learn from the children’s shows from when I was growing up.
I had the theme song from Today’s Special in my head in the weekend. I always liked that show. Other favourites (in the public broadcasting scene) were 3-2-1 Contact, Square One, Mr. Wizard, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and Reading Rainbow. All of these shows played an important part in shaping who I am today.
Tags: 3-2-1-contact, casey, CBC, children's-television, ernie-coombs, finnegan, mr.-dressup, mr.-wizard, pbs, public-television, reading-rainbow, square-one, today's-special, where-in-the-world-is-carmen-sandiego?
On Thursday night we had a special treat; NBC was showing The Office in marathon format. Four back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes. Boy that show is funny. There are so many parallels to real-life office environments (though they extend it into the satirical stratosphere) that you laugh because you’ve experienced something similar to what they’re showing.
I still haven’t watched the original BBC series and I’ve heard that it’s even funnier than the American version. I should rent that on DVD sometime.
Dwight (from the American show) has his own blog though unfortunately there is no RSS feed. Boo to that. I don’t understand why big companies can’t “get it” that allowing people to read the content through feedreaders will lead to a larger audience and better brand loyalty.
It’s interesting how you find the cast of Grey’s Anatomy spread across so many other shows and movies. We were just watching You’ve Got Mail and discovered that George’s girlfriend on the show, Dr. Torres, was the cashier at the grocery store in the Thanksgiving scene. Ellen Pompeo has been in Friends and Old School among other things. Sandra Oh and Kate Walsh were both in Under the Tuscan Sun as a couple believe it or not. Also Sandra Oh had a big part in Sideways which I think is where her career really started to take off. Before the television show though you wouldn’t have thought twice about the people seen on the screen but once you’ve seen them all together you start noticing their past roles. The same thing happened for me after The Lord of the Rings came out; you’d see all of the old Viggo Mortensen roles on tv; of course the networks weren’t stupid and saw it as a chance to show these movies they’d bought the rights to but otherwise wouldn’t be able to get people to watch.
This is my observation for the day.
Tags: ellen-pompeo, grey's-anatomy, kate-walsh, Movies, sandra-oh, Television, the-lord-of-the-rings, under-the-tuscan-sun, viggo-mortensen
It seems that NBC has finally clued into how potentially lucrative it can be to have your videos online being watched and shared by fans. Remember the Natalie Portman gangsta rap? Well the original YouTube link that I had was pulled due to copyright violations. Now via A VC I discover that NBC has a set of pages to view these videos that have been so popular. The description at the top is interesting:
Now, instead of searching the web for “borrowed” NBC highlights, you can go to the source! We’ve taken your viral favorites and gathered them into one convenient location. Watch. React. Tell a friend.
I like their use of the term “borrowed NBC highlights”. This is a step in the right direction but they’re not going to stop the flood. You can’t really share the video; you can only point your friends to the same page. In this day and age that just won’t cut it sharing-wise.
Here’s the “official” video for the Natalie Portman gangsta rap. I too prefer the YouTube controls.
Tags: gangsta-rap, natalie-portman, nbc, youtube
I was looking at some of my stats this evening and noticed that my post about “Alumni in high places” has not seen any traffic since a couple of weeks ago. I went to the GoogleTalk blog post and noticed that my post is no longer in the list of sites linking to that post. Now I was a little bit critical about the Google Desktop Search in my post but I don’t really understand why the entire link would be removed. I’ve been more critical in other posts (that’s why I don’t expect to see a link from Jeff Ltd. anytime soon). I’m not sure what the point is of censoring pingbacks like this. Even so I’m not going to lose any sleep over this; I just thought it was worth mentioning.
Tags: censorship, ctv, google-talk, jeff-ltd., pingbacks
CTV carries a lot of the shows that we watch on television each week. Every so often they put commercials on advertising one of their made-for-TV movies or special W5 investigation. This week they started hyping their new show Jeff Ltd. They had a “sneak preview” this Wednesday right after American Idol. I could tell from the commercials that I would instantly dislike the show but I decided to give it a try in any case.
I lasted not even 2 minutes. The opening monologue was so tired, so unfunny that I couldn’t stand to watch any longer. I couldn’t believe that CTV would try to air this kind of show.
When I first saw the commercials my first thought was “Hmm, this is almost identical to Curb Your Enthusiasm except with an uglier man.” They were obviously trying to copy the premise of that show except they made the main character even more egotistical and arrogant than Larry David can be. I guess CTV figured that the percentage of Canadians (because this is strictly a Canadian show as far as I can tell) that have seen Curb Your Enthusiasm is rather low since it’s only on DVD or The Movie Network in which case they can copy all they like.
It really seems like they’ve tried too hard in this case. They’ve filmed 13 episodes but I really hope that they don’t bother picking up the show for a full season. I don’t think I could stand to watch the commercials for it.
Tags: canadian-shows, ctv, curb-your-enthusiasm, jeff-ltd., larry-david, Television
There’s a grassroots campaign to get Richard Dean Anderson on the Hollywood Walk of Fame [via]. I have to say though that the “official” website linked in the article there really isn’t an official one. There’s a big disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying that no one has authorized the site.
For some reason I always like to bop my head to the Fidelity Investments commercial that’s on television these days. I can’t remember exactly which fund they’re advertising which I guess means that the ad isn’t terribly effective though I will always remember that it’s an ad for Fidelity. It has some really catchy music so I can’t help but groove to it.
Tags: advertising, commercials, dancing, fidelity, Music, Television
I’d been waiting all evening for The Daily Show’s reaction to this story. It was just too easy a target, too ripe a plum, too good a shot to pass up. It was well worth the wait.
Advice for parents: “Don’t let your children go hunting with Dick Cheney. He’ll shoot them in the face.”
A re-enactment of what happened: Duck hunt.
They then had their “Vice Presidential Firearms Mishap Expert” Rob Corddry on talking about how Dick Cheney was reacting to all of this. He stands by his decision.
Then everything went black because The Comedy Network (which airs The Daily Show up here in Canada) decided to go to commercial. I guess they have a skeleton crew on this late and don’t even bother to notice whether or not the show they’re carrying the feed for is still on-air or off. Marvelous work there at The Comedy Network.
Tags: dick-cheney, duck-hunt, harry-whittington, jon-stewart, quails, shot, the-comedy-network, the-daily-show
I know it’s old news but the facts compiled at Chuck Norris Facts are awesome. Ninja awesome. Now you can get any fact put on your own t-shirt.
Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
Tags: chuck-norris, chuck-norris-facts, divide-by-zero, ninja, t-shirt, Television
MacGyver (praised here) is going to be in a Super Bowl ad this Sunday [via]. You can watch it here. Since we can’t watch the ads here in Canada (Global’s licensing of the feed means that they put in their own ads) our only option is to watch them online or catch them on tv when they eventually make it to massmarket which for some of the one-off ones will be never. I’ll have to look at the other ads on that site later. In the meantime go Mac!
Tags: ads, canada, commercials, football, global, macgyver, nfl, richard-dean-anderson, super-bowl, Television, tv
There are a couple of shows that Global carries that we watch. They’ve been advertising the fact that their main evening news program (in Ontario at least) is moving from 5:30 to 6. The commercial shows how hard-hitting their news can be and how it’ll bring some really useful information to its viewers. The thing that I remember most about Global’s evening news is that they were so proud of how early they carried it. It used to start at 5 and bring you the news first compared to the other networks. “You’ll hear it here first” is what they used to say. Now with even their national broadcast pushed back to 6:30 in Ontario, how much of a lead are they really going to have anymore over the other networks? Also with the prevalence of news sources on cable and online, does it really matter which news program is first? If I have timeshifting I could watch the National very early in the evening from the East Coast. There is rarely any news that is that pressing that I can’t wait until later in the evening or the next morning to learn about. I just don’t understand the emphasis on being the first. I’d be more concerned about being the best newscast.
Update (Sunday February 5th @ 10:10 PM): I just read James Koole’s post about the new Global redesign and he mentions that First National will now be on at 5:30 instead of 6:30. I think my point still stands about the fact that no matter when your newscast is airing, we live in a news world that offers new information on a constant basis. You have to move beyond just being the first to bring the news in the evening to being the best newscast period.
Tags: CBC, first, global, globaltv, kevin-newman, leslie-roberts, news, Television, the-national
I saw these Law & Order: SVU valentines via Boing Boing just now. They’re pretty funny and if they shipped to Canada I might consider purchasing some. They’re $10 plus $5 shipping.
The “I ‘Huang’ to be with you” one is kind of lame-sounding but I like the “Guilty! of being my valentine” and “In the criminal justice system, you’re especially gorgeous.” It’s too bad they use Stephanie March instead of Diane Neal for that last one.
Tags: boing-boing, diane-neal, law-and-order, stephanie-march, svu, svutines, valentines-day
We just finished watching The Life and Death of Peter Sellers starring Geoffrey Rush. It’s a great film though it can be difficult to watch people self-destruct in the way that Peter Sellers seems to have done. I first heard about this movie when we were watching the Emmys this past fall and this movie kept on winning all of the awards for television film. It’s an HBO film and that network impresses me each time I see some of their work. They do some of the finest productions on television, bar none.
Anyway so we’ve been meaning to watch this film and our local videostore had it in tonight so I rented it. It’s easy to see why Geoffrey Rush won the Emmy; he’s superb in the main role and on top of that he plays all of the other roles at some point in the film as well. I found the writing to be really quite good and the attention to detail was extraordinary.
It’s highly recommended by me.
Tags: emmys, film, geoffrey-rush, hbo, life-and-death-of-peter-sellers, Movies, peter-sellers, Television
More Colbert news. He’s claiming victory in Monday’s election. From here [via]:
TORONTO (CP) – Disheartened about the Conservative win in Monday’s election, or delighted? Either way, American comedian Stephen Colbert says he’s behind Canada’s step to the right.
“I fixed Canada!” Colbert exclaimed Wednesday night on his show, The Colbert Report (pronounced RAY-pore), which airs Monday to Thursday. Colbert noted that his show debuted in Canada on Nov. 7, and featured a message, replayed on Wednesday’s show, to Canadians: “I am Stephen Colbert. I have balls. If you’re lucky, they might just rub off on you.”
“Well, it looks like my balls rubbed all over Canada,” Colbert noted triumphantly as a photo of Prime Minister-designate Stephen Harper and a Canadian flag appeared behind him. “Because they just elected a new prime minister, Stephen Harper, an American-loving, health-care-dismantling Bush wannabe.”
“I fixed Canada in 77 days!” he exclaimed as balloons fell from above and a band played a jaunty tune.
The Colbert Report, a satire of personality-driven pundit shows like The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, is a spinoff from the award-winning Daily Show, considered one of the hippest shows on the airwaves.
Colbert portrays a right-wing host prone to fits of utter and hilarious buffoonery on the Colbert Report.
Hilarious buffoonery. That’s one way to put it. The Onion AV Club interview is quite revealing. I’m glad we have people like him on tv. Now the problem is staying up late enough to watch the show.
Tags: canada, colbert-report, daily-show, election, news, satire, stephen-colbert, Television, tv
CBC Arts: ‘West Wing’ cancelled by network
This is the last season for the West Wing. Marcy and I have been watching each week this season and we were really enjoying it. The writing seemed to be really great and it was definitely topical to current affairs. I guess we’ll have to go back to the “glory seasons” and watch them at some point to get caught up on the backstory. It’s not really a surprising move on NBC’s part. The show hasn’t done well in the ratings and traditionally a Sunday night slot is death to most shows. Exceptions are obviously Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and The Simpsons.
Tags: nbc, Television, the-west-wing, tv
Nestle’s Coffeemate
My rating: 0 out of 5
One of the oddest commercials on television these days (as far as I’m concerned) is one for Nestle’s Coffeemate. It features Josee Chouinard, former figure skater (and frequent tumbler in competition), interviewing these two guys about this product. I’m sure people have seen this product before – it’s a nondairy creamer for coffee. I’ve never tried it. But the way these guys carry on they make it seem like it’s a lifesaver. And who are they? They show their names each time but I’ve never remembered them for long enough to actually see if they’re people I should know. My impression is that they’re advertising/marketing guys for Nestle’s and if that’s the case why should I believe you? Are you going to say that the product is not worth using?
They have one shot of the two guys drinking their coffee (including some Coffeemate I’m sure) and they’re laughing it up. We have coffee here at the office and I’ve never seen anyone act that way. It’s all too contrived but the worst part is that at the end they have a disclaimer “this is an unscripted commercial”. It seems ridiculous because the whole thing seems staged/contrived if not scripted and what’s the difference in the end?
I think this is a really terrible set of commercials and I’m hoping (but not believing) that this will be the end of them.
I haven’t been able to watch The Daily Show that much but fortunately I can often find the funnier clips online. Usually Boing Boing will point to On Lisa Rein’s Radar and this has taken place today. Last night Jon attacked Wal-Mart for their new policy of compassion and caring about the American (and likely Canadian) workers. It’s a pretty funny segment. I’m no big fan of Wal-Mart’s corporate practices so it’s nice to see them taken to task for their shameful policies in the workplace.
I only wish I could stay up late enough to watch the show on tv.
When I first clicked on this story I thought it was a contestant on Fear Factor, not a viewer. Reading it more carefully I find it a bit ridiculous that they’re trying to get compensation for enduring an episode and becoming ill. It just sounds worse than the fast food lawsuits that were attempted in the U.S. If this goes anywhere I’ll be very surprised.
Well the Ken Jennings era on Jeopardy! is indeed over. It wasn’t that much of a surprise and even if I didn’t have the heads-up that last night was the last episode, the television stations sure did let the cat out of the bag. CTV had a preview of their nightly news before Jeopardy! came on and they had a small clip of the final Final Jeopardy! results for Ken.
It was interesting watching the show knowing the eventual result. Of course there will be conspiracy theories that Ken wanted to lose but I wouldn’t give that much credence. It was curious that Alex asked Ken if he was going to quit his job as a computer programmer (he says no). I think it’s just coincidental though. I bet that Alex feels like a good friend has left though; him and Ken seemed to get along really well.
I agree with Anil that Sony TV (and their lawyers) was being very shortsighted by asking Jason to take down the audio clips from last night’s episode.
I looked at the Wikipedia article on Ken this morning and it’s very thorough! They list every single game, his total (per day and cumulative) and his opponents. The person who beat Ken, Nancy Zerg, has her own page now too.
From this news article:
Zerg needed an unusual display of Jennings fallibility to stay in the game. He twice answered wrong on Daily Double questions, which give contestants a chance to make a big wager and increase their lead.
Maybe that’s why he paused, ever so slightly, when asked in an interview Tuesday whether he had lost or been beaten. He then graciously gave Zerg credit.
“I would have dwelt on it if I missed something that I knew or didn’t phrase it in the form of a question,” said Jennings, a computer software engineer from Salt Lake City. “It was a big relief to me that I lost to someone who played a better game than me.”
Zerg, a former actress who lives in Ventura, Calif., psyched herself up before the game by repeating to herself: “Someone’s got to beat him sometime, it might as well be me.”
Hanging out backstage with fellow contestants, she saw some Jennings opponents had essentially lost before the game. She heard one person say that it looked like he was playing for second, and another just wishing not to be humiliated.
“I heard another one say, `It’s no great sin to lose to Ken Jennings,’ and they went in and lost Ken Jennings,” she said. “I thought, `That’s no way to play the game.”‘
…
Jennings said he’d been thinking about walking away after some future milestone — 100 wins, perhaps, or $3 million or $4 million in winnings. He said there were about a dozen games where one reply made the difference between winning and losing.
“The fact that they had all fallen my way was beginning to worry me,” he said, “because at some point the law of averages was going to kick in.”
He wasn’t prepared for how much he’d miss the daily competition, though.
“It didn’t really hit me that was going to be the hard part,” he said. “I thought the hard part would be the loss.”
I think I might take a break from watching Jeopardy! but we’ll see if that has any hold. Ken is writing a book and he’ll be back for next year’s Tournament of Champions so we’ll meet again then.
Jason has a copy of the audio for Final Jeopardy! the day Ken loses (supposedly tomorrow). I’m always amazed at how Jason gets these tidbits of information. You can read Jason’s post for the final answer much discussed here and elsewhere.
I was watching A&E last night and they had a commercial for this week’s featured Biography – Ken Jennings on Wednesday. They preempted the biography of Scott Peterson to show Ken. This leads me to believe that tomorrow is indeed the last day for Ken. It’ll be a heartwarming episode.
On Sunday Marcy and I watched American Dreams. We don’t usually watch it but it’s a show that Marcy has enjoyed in the past and so we just started watching. It was their Christmas special I guess because Thanksgiving is this week. It was brought to us “without commercial interruption” by Ford. I guess technically that statement is true.
The annoying thing about the episode (centering around an MIA son coming home in time for Christmas) is that Ford was an integral part of the episode. The televisions in the store were showing Ford commercials from the 1960s, the bus had a poster for the Mustang on the side. And at the end of the episode the returning son got a new Mustang (1967 version). How naturally this ties in with the new Ford Mustang which has design essences of that 1960s version.
After the episode was done there were between 5 and 8 minutes left and Ford filled this with an extended “commercial” for the new Mustang. It featured a soldier coming home from Iraq (likely) or Afghanistan. His mom and brother come to meet him at the airport but his dad, lacking some emotional connection with his son, does not. The dad finally shows up having completed some “errands” for his wife. The father and son have an awkward conversation and we learn that the dad also served his country in war, likely in Vietnam. The dad has a Ford Cobra and the two reminisce and talk about the car. Then it’s revealed that the dad has bought a brand new Mustang for his son. The son seems pretty happy and who wouldn’t be? Getting a new Ford vehicle makes all of that fighting in Iraq worthwhile! All of the horrors? All of the fighting? Melting away as we speak because now I get to drive this bad boy around town. What a boon!
Pardon the cynicism but Ford’s advertising this fall has really irritated me. I’ll write more about this later.
Fila Brazillia is one of my favourite duos in music. Period. Their discography is one of my most prized musical possessions. I routinely listen to some of their older albums. I listen often to their recent release, Jump Leads primarily because I can’t find where I put the album and also because I was underwhelmed with its sound. It didn’t sound as polished as previous releases; it didn’t have that flow and 4 or 5 really great songs. Before I left Kitchener I bought a few CDs at the local record shop downtown and two of the CDs that I bought were this year’s releases from Fila Brazillia – “The Life and Times of Phoebus Brumal” and “Twentythree Dicks and Twentythree Records”. The latter is a series of cuts that didn’t make it onto the former. There are some really high-quality tracks on these two albums. “Boca Raton” on “The Life and Times…” is a favourite at the moment. This album sounds more industrial and less jazzy than Fila efforts. There is a lot of synthesizer work which makes it sound like an instrumental New Order album in some ways.
A Fila Brazillia song was featured in CSI: Miami last night. A track from Jump Leads but I can’t recall the name. It’s been a while since I listened to it.
Wikipedia’s music entries are growing more complete. I’m impressed! Their entry on Ambient Music is quite thorough. Potentially a replacement for Allmusic? We’ll see.
This happened this morning:
- I got up
- I turned on the monitor and read a few of my updated blogs
- Among the blogs I read was Accordion Guy’s, specifically his post about the new Hardee’s burger
- Breakfast Television was on for traffic reports
- They start talking about the new Hardee’s burger
- They use the same jokes about Super Size Me that Joey used
It was kind of strange. I guess they could have read CNN’s story and come up with the same introduction but it seemed rather coincidental to me. It was like I was watching someone reading Joey’s blog. I guess it shouldn’t be too surprised if people in other media read Joey’s blog; after all he’s been in the Globe and Mail several times now.
Moral of the story? Hardee’s is trying to kill people.
Jeopardy! takes a two week break to bring us the College Tournament so no more Ken until near the end of the month. It was on while we were getting ready for dinner and I was feeding the cats during the revealing of Final Jeopardy! questions. I’ll let adm summarize [via]:
Tonight was round 1 of the Jeopardy College Tournament. One of the contestants, Kermin, a comp-sci/engineering student from Carnegie Mellon University, had a commanding lead (well over $10K) going into Final Jeopardy.
His final wager had Alex Trebek scratching his head, but Kermin was clearly sending a message to fellow computer nerds. His wager:
$1337
In leetspeak, 1337 translates to “leet” or “elite.”
As soon as Alex announced his wager I chuckled. I wonder how long he was planning that little stunt. He was a pretty impressive contestant and I’m looking forward to seeing him compete again. Hopefully he comes up with some equally geeky for his next appearance!
It’s been a while since I discussed Jeopardy’s permanent champion, Ken Jennings (here’s a list of my posts on the topic). I still watch Jeopardy when I can and sure enough Ken’s still on the show. Jason has some information on when his final show will air – there’s a break for the college tournament for the next two weeks so it’ll either be the beginning of the last week of this month or the beginning of next month (really the same week).
Watching Ken everyday though I’ve found that he seems weary and tired. It has to be taxing to perform at such a high intellectual level during the tapings. They don’t even announce anymore how long he’s been champion but apparently this is his 70th show and he loses after the 74th. I’m going to try my best to watch these last few shows. It’ll be interesting to see if Ken gets interviews after he loses. I would imagine he will because then he’d be free to discuss everything. Truly he’s a very gifted man. I’m in awe of his talent.
Last night Marcy and I watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” I hadn’t seen it in a long long time and I think Marcy had only read the book.
My favourite (though saddest) segment is when they’re out trick-or-treating and at every house Charlie Brown looks into his bag and says “I got a rock”.
Kid Koala (who I haven’t listened to in too long) used this particular voice clip in his superb mix tape, “Scratchcratchratchatch“. A definite classic that I should listen to again.
I just need to get some headphones for work. I have ~$200 worth of CDs purchased over the weekend to listen to.
An addendum to my last post.
Last night Marcy and I were rebels. We stayed up late to watch The Daily Show. It felt good – we missed Jon’s comedic banter. As a result though we’re both feeling pretty tired this morning. Fortunately I have my supply of stimulants right beside me. That should get me through the morning at least.
I just saw an ad for the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 on DVD and video. That might be something that I’d watch again, possibly even purchase. I wonder if Michael Moore will get the film on tv before the election. That would be quite the feat.
So last night I drove to Whitby (as I mentioned) and then back again this morning. I’m tired but it’s worth it to see Marcy for the evening. I had a couple of errands to run before I left town, namely try to find a copy of The Crucible for Marcy to show her Grade 11 class. I haven’t seen the movie or read the book but we have the movie until next Wednesday so perhaps I’ll watch it before then.
Traffic wasn’t too bad seeing as I left a bit later than last Friday. Leaving a little past the main rush home made a huge difference and I barely had any slowdown at all going through Toronto. I left earlier this morning than I have in the past (before 7) and it didn’t make a huge difference in the time it took me to get back here. The only advantage really is that I get to work earlier and seeing as the deadline looms once again I suppose that isn’t such a bad thing. Traffic was slow in “the usual spots” (more on that term at a later date) but generally ok. One thing that really doesn’t agree with me eyes is when a pickup truck has something sticking off the back like a ladder or something. For some reason it seems like it’s going to hit my eye. I can’t really explain it and it doesn’t make much sense but there you go.
When I got to Marcy’s house it seemed like no one was home. I tried ringing the doorbell a couple of times but all of the lights were off inside so I figured that I’d just wait until someone showed up. Marcy was home; she had just fallen asleep. She’s been feeling sick this week and I think she might have a throat infection or something. I had some homemade pizza and chili for dinner (tasted great!) and watched tv for a little bit.
We watched the series premiere of CSI: NY. For a first episode, I’d give it a passing grade but I wasn’t overwhelmed by the episode. The story seemed to fall apart near the end. We did see a new magical technology introduced however – the triangulation modelling application. Now the principles behind this are sound (for once) but I highly doubt that it’s that easy to match up landmarks in a photo using software. Perhaps I’m just ignorant of the software that crime labs have available to them but I suspect the process would be more involved than what they show there. Anyway, the new show is most likely something that I’ll keep watching though I notice that it’s on against Law & Order, another favourite. I’ll have to see how they integrate the new character into that show seeing as Lennie is now gone.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m looking forward to seeing this movie. My interest is at an insane level. I just finished watching the trailer as a refresher. I saw it in theatres when Marcy and I went to see The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement back in August. It’s a funny trailer though the story is a little unclear from the trailer alone. Fortunately there’s a link to the story.
I’ve talked about the movie before and recently there hasn’t been much news to post. Now that we’re in the home stretch before the premiere, I’d expect the media coverage to increase. I can only hope that the Reformed Church of Spongebob (a radical branch from the now-defunct Church of Spongebob) gets more converts. I like their sacraments, specifically the Simple Pleasures Sacrament:
- Lean forward on your right foot, with your left leg bent and sticking out slightly behind you.
- Spin around, STOP!
- Double take 3 times, counting out loud, one, two, three.
- Pelvic thrust Wooo! and back again, Wooo!
- Stop on your right foot, don’t forget it!
- Bring it around the town.
- Bounce on your bum twice.
- Make a circle with your body;
- A zig-zag,
- A triangle,
- A donut around your body.
- Flatten yourself on the floor.
- Bounce up with only one eye.
- Then, stand on your left foot and blow a bubble (or pretend to).
Bringing it around town is one of the most important steps. I’m going to bring it around town tonight.
More Ken news – Jason, through some amazing sources, has obtained the final Final Jeopardy! answer that Ken sees. Yes, I’ve ruined my attempt to protect the spoilers. It’s all over the news today. I have an idea what the correct question is but I’ll wait for Jason to post it later. It’ll be sad to see Ken go but he’s such an amazing contestant that he’s more than earned the praise and respect that he’s received. I’m not going to miss that last show for the world.
Jason has heard a rumour about the demise of Ken Jennings’ streak on Jeopardy! He has cleverly concealed the news but you can read it on his site if you want to by highlighting the black text. I watched Ken yesterday and he seemed fairly confident even though the match was fairly close until the end and then ended close because Ken got the Final Jeopardy! question wrong. He only won $21,000 yesterday.
Edit: I should mention that it’s kind of different watching Jeopardy! when your TV is on mute. You can tell by the people’s expressions if they got the answer right or wrong, particularly in Final Jeopardy! HopefullyI’ll be home in time tonight to watch Ken continue!
Edit 2: Jason says now that he’s received independent corroboration about this news. Again if you don’t want to know this potential spoiler then don’t click on the link. For some reason this makes me excited and proud. Ken won $27000 today which brings him close to $1.4 million.
I liked this picture so much that I added it to my local collection of images:
End Bush
I found this on Boing Boing just now. Most people this week are focusing on the Republican National Convention (who seem to think it’s cute when they capitalize the middle W in their website name). I don’t know how much perspective I can have from up here but I do know that Canadians living in the US do tend to feel strongly about this election even if they can’t vote (found here). There are certainly some inventive signs displayed at the protests so far (look here or here for some great shots). I’m looking forward to Jon Stewart’s take on the week. Hopefully we’ll have enough time to fit in his comedic show into our busy schedules currently.
See here for an explanation to my post’s title reference.
If you’ve watched movies or television shows with me then you might know that it irks me to no end how the forensics labs have amazing photo manipulation tools that inevitably reveal the truth about a crime or person’s identity. This happens most times you turn on the tv or watch a movie. It happened most recently to me when Marcy and I watched Foolproof last week. The trio were trying to read a new combination for a fancy safe and they had installed a camera in the ceiling of the office to capture the view of paper. It of course was very fuzzy so they asked the computer whiz to “clean it up a little”. The end result, you guessed it, was a crystal-clear image of the new combination, enabling them to break into the office the next night. Argh!
Has anyone in the entertainment industry ever used photo manipulation software? It doesn’t work that way. To prove a point, Darren goes through a typical scenario featured in these shows and movies. It’s amusing because in some ways you get less information from the image after “he’s cleaned it up a little”.
Apart from Darren’s mention about the customized software they use, it always amuses me how specific their searching capabilities are. You use one software application to search for felons in the tri-state area. Another one is used for sexual assaults in these counties. Yet another is used to track different fingerprints. Also amusing – the fact that a positive search result takes so long and inevitably displays hundreds of different “possible matches”, eventually ending up on the one result we want. Negative search results? They take very little time at all and sometimes don’t display any of the possible matches.
Ah well, I guess we all have our pet peeves with television and the movies. I know I’m not alone in having this one as mine though. I’m sure it’s a common tech-person annoyance.
Update: Ian points me to this comic that illustrates the differences between Hollywood and reality quite aptly – one, two and three.
I’ve been eating carrot muffins for breakfast this week. Now usually I abide by the rule that the muffin top is better than “the stump” (as prescribed in this classic Seinfeld episode) but with Coffee Time muffins it seems that “the stump” is almost as good if not better than the top. I know it seems ludicrous but I can vouch for this fact. I’m not sure why this is but for one thing, the muffins don’t come in their traditional wrappers but I’m sure they were baked with them. All I know is that I’m enjoying my week o’ muffins though even these fantastic muffins can’t compare with Marcy’s baking. I get homemade baked beans to look forward to eating tonight! I can’t wait!
I watched the first part of The Daily Show last night and they were talking about this. They discussed the doctor who said that he worked on John Kerry when he was injured and consequently received his first Purple Heart. This despite the fact that the doctor’s signature did not appear anywhere on the medical forms at the time. In addition, the doctor recalls the wound being so minor and superficial. The guys at The Daily Show invented a letter home sent by the doctor:
Dearest Prudence,
The horrors of war are mild as they are weak.
Yesterday I saw a wound so minor that I wondered what kind of God would allow a man to be injured so superficially.
I found that pretty funny. I didn’t stay up to watch President Clinton speak because last night I was feeling rather sick. Perhaps working 72 hours last week might have something to do with that.
Once again, I defer to Augie to bring me my Jeopardy!-related (and Ken Jennings-specifically) articles. I’ve even created a new category devoted to Jeopardy! posts.
In Othello, Shakespeare wrote: “O! Beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”
We have become such a cynical society that we cannot often make success and achievement a cause for celebration. That has been no more personnified than those who would minimize or throw verbal knives at Jennings and Jeopardy! with unsupported allegations and baseless baloney.
This guy has written the most erudite defense of Jeopardy! and Ken Jennings than they could ever hope for. It’s brilliant and a must-read, particularly for those of you who think every tic of the show is now a sign that the whole thing is fixed.
September 6 can’t come quickly enough.
I don’t understand why people would think that Ken has been cheating. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would do that. I think he enjoys the game too much. I agree though – September 6th can’t come soon enough. It’s just not the same with the College Tournament on this week.
Last week I posted about Ken Jennings, Jeopardy player extraordinaire. In that post I linked to this amusing post on Jason Kottke’s site. I also did a trackback on the post and thus was listed at the side under the other trackbacks. I received a lot of referral traffic from Jason which is not surprising since he is one of the more widely-read blogs on the Internet. Also, as Hello, Typepad says, he is Mr. Google since his post about Ken Jennings is the #1 hit when you search for him on Google.
The traffic did level off somewhat until Jason posted an update on his last 100 posts. More referral traffic was directed my way as a result of people reading Jason’s original post about Ken Jennings. To get a sense of the popularity of his blog, I’ve received over 550 hits from people clicking directly from his post. Since I’m just an obscure blogger, I can imagine that the actual number of people reading that post (and not clicking on my link) is far higher.
I would imagine that the traffic will die down as Ken Jennings is forgotten until the show starts up again in September. For me, I’m just happy that my server has withstodd the traffic, as it’s not exactly the most reliable of machines.
Edit: Augie has a nice summary of why Ken Jennings is such a strong contestant.
I’ve mentioned previously the fantastic exploits of one Ken Jennings in this space. As he continues his streak (surpassing now the highest lifetime winnings on the show), he’s getting more and more attention in the media. This morning there was a Bill Simmons article on him, last week Heather Havrilesky wrote about him and there’s even a Wikipedia entry on Ken Jennings now (updated regularly I assume).
Interestingly, from the Wikipedia entry comes this page which is Ken’s own page listing the top 10 movies from 1921-2003. This guy has seen a lot of movies which shouldn’t be very surprising based on his breadth of knowledge.
One of the most amusing posts that I’ve read is The Cult of Ken Jennings on Jason Kottke’s site. He muses on the future implications for Ken’s continual success.
I’m pretty sure that this (or next) week is the last for the 2003-2004 season so we’ll see if he makes it past that roadmark with his streak intact or not.
Edit: I forgot to mention that a lot of the links above I received from this informative post on “hello, typepad“.
I’ve been a Jeopardy! fan for many years now; my parents used to watch it a lot while I was growing up and so I had a natural affinity towards the answer-question format of this popular gameshow. I’d watched it off and on over university (mostly off) and over the last year I’ve had periods where I watched it everyday and periods where I did not. Mainly it depended on what else was going on in my life.
I’d been reading “Various and Sundry” on a regular basis (since February I think) and noticed that he kept on mentioning this amazing streak of one contestant from Utah. I decided to start watching Jeopardy! again.
This guy, Ken Jennings, is quite gifted at the format of the gameshow and he has a firm grasp on many of the categories that they’ve used so far. Even when it seems like he’s in trouble, Ken can clean up on one category and be too far in the lead for any of the other contestants to catch him.
Augie mentioned today that there is the beginning of a backlash against the show for Ken being the champion for so long. I can understand the viewer anger but the man has to lose to get kicked off of the show.
And I’m sorry to hear that. I’d like to see him go 50 outings before he loses. I like the idea of rewarding achievement, and not punishing it “to be fair to others.” If only the rest of the world were like that…
I agree, the show isn’t meant to be some kind of “co-operation booster”, it’s a competitive show.
In reference to this quotation:
indicates that the streak is ended already, but that nobody’s talking as to how. The shows were filmed in February.
It has always amused me how Alex pretends to be living in the present day on the show when in fact the show is taped 4 months before airing. Yesterday on the show he said that when Ken was first champion it was still spring and today it’s “over 90 degrees”. Now yesterday in Los Angeles (where I presume the show is filmed), it was indeed over 90 degrees but I’m sure L.A. routinely has warm weather in July so it’s an educated guess by Alex. I often wonder if the contestants find it difficult to pretend that today is “New Year’s” or “Thanksgiving” because Alex says that’s what it is and there are categories reflecting that.
Ken Jennings is a gifted player for today’s Jeopardy!, there’s no question about that. He’s won over $800,000 thus far and it’ll be interesting if he cracks $1 million.
I’m not in the habit of watching CBC’s Witness though I have watched a few of their documentaries over the years.
Last night I decided to watch it and was pleased to watch a fabulous documentary on how Islam has been finding a lot of converts with the prison population in the United States, Canada and England. It’s called Islam Behind Bars.
There are apparently over 200,000 Muslims in the American prison system and most of these are African-Americans. This particular statistic is kind of frightening:
African-Americans comprise 13% of the U.S. population, 30% of people arrested, 49% of those in prison, according to a 2000 report by Human Rights Watch.
Frightening because it would tend to reinforce the idea that the “Black Man” is one to be feared.
I found it particularly interesting how the prisoners interviewed had such strong feelings against Christianity. They felt that it is a “slave-master’s faith” and didn’t really speak to them (these were the black prisoners saying this). When they discovered Islam, it threw the despair, poverty and hardships of people in other Muslim countries as well as their own into sharp focus.
The documentary tries to investigate whether this shift towards Islam is a positive development or “a breeding ground for terrorist organizations.” This latter view is held rather strongly by author Stephan Schwartz:
“They have turned Islam in prisons into little Saudi Arabias, in which they can exercise total ideological control, ostracize dissidents and threaten and intimidate people.”
Now I have little connection to the prison system so I really can’t say one way or another if this is true. I can understand how people might perceive this surge in Muslim adherence as a warning sign but I think that if these criminals can find a way to be peaceful, faithful and good citizens inside the prison (and later outside) then how can that be a bad thing?
I think people need to walk a fine line between labelling every Muslim as a terrorist and allowing people to speak their minds freely. Sure there are Muslims who want to destroy Western civilization but there are Christians, Jews and probably even Buddhists who think that way too. That determination extends across all faiths.
Stick To Drinking (from … Over Anything)
Just finished reading that critique of the new FoodTV show Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters.
Marcy and I watched the first episode with Bobby Flay and initially when I saw it on the guide I thought it was just a repeat of the previous Iron Chef battle (US vs. Japan) but no it’s a whole new show. It seems like an interesting concept if you liked the original Iron Chef show and if you like the arrogance of chefs like Bobby Flay. They made a huge deal in the first episode of how Bobby jumped onto the countertop and the Iron Chef from Japan was immensely insulted. Well Bobby did it again this time perhaps to show that he was still as arrogant as ever or maybe he just likes irritating the Japanese chefs, who knows? Anyway, we missed this past week’s show and it’s probably not something that I’ll be looking to see each week but maybe once in a while it might be good to watch.
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