Filed by matt on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at 9:23 pm

I really really try not to judge things without giving them a fair shake. After finishing with the new South Park though it turns out the tuner was set to NBC and I couldn’t help but watch the last 5 minutes of the new Knight Rider show. It was astoundingly bad. It was so bad that I frankly can’t possibly imagine what could possibly offset the 5 minutes I saw. I may not have wanted to judge but I had no choice. Anyway – really bad.

Filed by Richard on Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 11:11 pm

I managed to watch a major awards ceremony without accidentally or stupidly surfing across a web site that gave away the results before I could see them. And because I started watching the Emmy’s as they began, at 7pm, I couldn’t accidentally fast forward ahead, catching a glimpse of a winner when I’m just trying to bypass some ads.

As for the show, much of the hosting fell flat, but who cares. Awards shows are great and I always love them. It was great to see Bryan Cranston win the lead actor award for Breaking Bad; a great show that no one apparently watches. And it was especially great to see Mad Men win Best Drama; what a terrific show.

Filed by matt on Friday, August 8, 2008 at 8:43 pm

My wife is nuts for the Olympics the way I’m nuts for Firefly. Which means she wanted to record the local NBC affiliate’s opening ceremony “pre-game” show and we’ve just finished it. I’m now officially burned out on the generic Chinese music they play into and out of commercials and montages. I think they should mix it up. Maybe play some Jonathan Coulton.

Filed by matt on Friday, August 1, 2008 at 11:08 pm

While Richard was getting the vapors over the relative success of The Dark Knight I got caught up on this week’s Daily Shows. As is customary they mocked the mainstream news represented this time by CNN and I saw something that even my cynical nature was astounded by. Apparently they’ve started using extended song clips as bumpers coming into stories as if they’re a morning radio “Zoo” show and crank calls will be coming up just after the break.

Even worse is the attempt to play the “perfect” song for every story so “Rock You Like a Hurricane” leads into a story about a tropical storm brewing in Bermuda. Get it? Cause see the lyrics say hurricane and the tropical storm might become a hurricane… And then the newsreader/anchortron tries to tie the lyrics into the story. “Changes” by David Bowie plays, and is then followed with “Changes in the way people are using their credit cards.” How can you even parody that? It’s caught in its own Escher-like parody loop.

The Daily Show played a number of examples each achieving the same high bar of stupidity. It’s no wonder to me that the Amercan public is so woefully uninformed on the critical issues of the day. They’re being treated like Ralph Wiggum who summed it up with, “It says Choo-choo-choose you and there’s a picture of a train on it!” There sure is Ralph, there sure is.

Filed by Richard on Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 10:32 am

I love Al Gore. I’m a HUGE supporter of him and a big believer in his efforts to highlight the effects of climate change.

I also cringed at the the successful efforts in the 2000 election to paint him as a serial credit-taker (“I invented the internet” etc.), when it was clear that he was not, in fact guilty, of taking the credit he had been accused of.

So it pained me to watch Meet the Press with Tom Brokaw this morning, with Al Gore as a guest. In the recorded introduction Brokaw said of Gore “he has since focused on his environmental crusade, winning an Oscar for his documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ as well as the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.”

Umm… Newsflash to Brokaw at NBC news: Davis Guggenheim won the Documentary Feature Oscar for his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” which featured Gore. Gore didn’t win the award any more than Robert McNamara won the Oscar for “The Fog of War” (directed by Errol Morris and featuring McNamara).

So at this point in the show, I’m just disappointed in NBC and Brokaw for their poor fact-checking.

Then, Brokaw introduced Gore live. “Nobel laureate, Oscar winner. Crusader for conservation of energy…” While Brokaw was saying this, the camera was focused on Gore. He bowed his head down slightly like an elder statesmen to acknowledge the credits that Brokaw was extending his way… but he doesn’t bother to correct Brokaw when he described his “Oscar win.”

Ugh. This is very disappointing; This isn’t even nuanced. Gore did not win the Oscar. He could have quickly corrected Brokaw and moved on, but he didn’t bother.

I can see why NBC and Brokaw made the mistake: Do a quick Google search on “Al Gore” and “won the Oscar” or “Oscar winner” and you’ll get about 100,000 pages returned. do the same for Davis Guggenheim and you’ll get less than 10,000 pages.

But come on Al! Brokaw was speaking right to you on national TV. You had an obligation to correct the guy! Stop giving ammunition to your critics.

Full text and clip of Guggenheim’s acceptance speech at the Oscars (he invited Gore on stage to also say a few words).

Download the Meet the Press Podcast from iTunes (the offending parts are all in the first two minutes).

Filed by Richard on Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 11:36 pm

The Colbert Report featured one of the most amazing and unexpectedly moving moments in the show’s history this Tuesday during an interview with Big Cats expert Alan Rabinowitz. It starts at about 1:10 into the clip:

Wow. As someone who has been an animal advocate in my personal life and for many different animal organizations, I am humbled by this man’s statement. Absolutely beautiful.

Filed by Richard on Sunday, June 8, 2008 at 6:41 pm

Another edition of the George Polk Memorial Award-winning podcast featuring Matt and Richard.

 

 Mustard77 [59:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Filed by matt on Sunday, June 8, 2008 at 2:59 pm

I like Universal HD quite a bit. They rerun Battlestar Galactica and Firefly episodes in HD and the signal quality is pretty impressive. I own the Firefly DVD set, sitting not 10 feet from where I am, and yet I’ll watch Firefly again in HD whenever the DVR records one from Universal HD.

I’m watching Solaris right now, the underappreciated Steven Soderbergh film, on Universal HD. It’s a very subtle film with a very specific mood. And I’m watching it, surfing the web for iPhone rumors and very much into the soft subtle mood the film has created. And then WHAM, a loud commercial for hair plugs. I got so used to movies on HDNet or HDTheater being commercial free that I just assumed all HD films were commercial free. With a DVR it’s not a huge deal to skip the commercials but when you’re not expecting it and you’re a film snob… well it’s sub-optimal.

On a side note the score to Solaris is amazing. One of the few soundtracks I actually went out and bought. I listen to it frequently at work as its fairly calming.

Filed by matt on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 7:39 pm

Mike Birbiglia is a comedian I’ve been a fan of for a few years now and he was on my friend’s radio show this morning. He shot a pilot for CBS a month or so ago and is waiting to hear if it gets picked up. Since I’m on his email list I knew that already but the appearance is what’s prompting the post.

The setup sounds like a sitcom from years ago – by which I mean a show is built around a comedian’s act as the comedian plays a version of themselves that has been presumably a bit focus-grouped. Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond are some successful examples, or now that I think about it the Cosby Show or Newhart. Mike said that Bob Odenkirk is playing his brother, and what’s coincidental about that is that Bob is getting back together with David Cross to do a similar sitcom setup at HBO built around David. Sitcoms as a format have taken it on the chin lately and I think it’s interesting that two are in development (potentially) that I would love to watch.

I met Mike a few years ago – I was working part time at a radio station and he was doing a live appearance on my friend Marty’s show in advance of playing a comedy show for the station. I was in the area and decided to rather rudely barge in and say hello. He was super nice and encouraged me to write him an email but I never did. I was worried I wouldn’t have anything bright to say other than gee I think you’re pretty funny.

Something I’ve noticed as I’ve grown older is an attachment to the stars and celebrities that are from your generation that I don’t feel with the previous generation. I can look at the Sarah Silverman show and think it’s great that she’s doing so well but I remember when she was doing guest spots on Mr. Show. Or thinking that maybe everyone knows Jack Black now, but I saw him in Tenacious D when it was still a 15 minute bit on HBO or being a fan of Ben Affleck’s since he was in Kevin Smith’s movies. It’s not really the “I knew them when they were cool and now they’ve sold out thing” – it’s more like feeling validated that someone you thought was awesome when they were still small time is now doing really well. And if Mike’s show gets picked up my excellent taste will be validated. And I totally could have been his email buddy.

Filed by Richard on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 12:20 am

Comcast sucks story number 304,934,454: So I was at my dad’s house tonight, and I tested his up and download speed on his cable modem. My dad has a slingbox attached to one of his DirecTV Tivo units; it’s my main source of TV at my house. The signal is always a bit slow and I wanted to see how much upload he had to find out if there was any way I could improve the slingbox signal.

Anyway, it was slow as suspected: 4 megs download and like 400k upload.

 So I went to the Comcast site to find out what options there are for speeding the thing up. Try as I might, I COULD NOT FIND ANY PRICES FOR VARIOUS SERVICES ON THEIR SITE. They just don’t have any page that I could find that lists the various prices for things. I couldn’t even find a page that lists the different levels of cable internet service.

So I called Comcast, and to their credit, an actual human answered the phone, and answered quickly (this was 9pm on a Friday night). I asked them what the options where for speeding up the service, and found out that my dad had the 4 meg service, but “this service choice doesn’t even exist anymore,” so my dad was eligible for the 6 meg service “at no additional cost.” I asked the rep how long the new service has been available, and she said that she thought it was available for about two years. I asked her (rhetorically), “so you changed the level of service for the same old price, but continued to provide my dad the old speed for two years?” Her response: “It looks that way. Customers need to specifically ask for the new speed.”

“But how are we supposed to know about the different speed options? I could not find a single thing about them on your site.”

“That I cannot answer”.

 To her credit, she elected to give my dad 3 months of free upgraded 8 meg service. I suspect everyone gets this free offer, but I’m choosing to believe that she only gave it to us because she felt sorry that Comcast had screwed us for two years.

 Postscript: my slingbox picture looks 10 times better. But the very second that FIOS is available in my neighborhood, I’m signing up (apparently we’re about a month away…)

Filed by Richard on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 12:31 am

I didn’t look too closely at the headline of this article and I spent about 15 blissful seconds thinking someone had ginned up a retail version of the Hypnotoad.

Alas it is not to be. But the hypnocube looks pretty cool though.

Filed by matt on Friday, April 11, 2008 at 10:06 am

My wife and I watch the Food Network on occasion, despite the fact that I know this makes me deeply uncool. Last night right before bed Iron Chef America comes on and I figure we’ll just see what the secret ingredient is and turn it off. The ingredient turns out to be coffee beans and then of course you have to watch the whole thing to see how you can possibly cook with coffee beans. You can basically use it as a spice but not being a coffee drinker it all looked pretty unappetizing. I don’t know how I watched a whole show about something I don’t really like but we were just sucked in. Amazing.

Filed by Richard on Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 5:37 pm

In this latest edition of the Juno-awarding winning Mustardayonnaise podcast, Matt and Richard discuss DVRs, Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six, and lots, lots more!

 

 Mustardayonnaise 73 [61:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Filed by matt on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 8:05 pm

This past week I worked something around 56 hours. It’s pretty hard to actually watch movies, tv, and play video games let alone post about any of those thing when you’re dog tired. On top of that I was home late for various reasons the whole week. The first thing I noticed is that the Daily Shows and Colbert Reports start to stack up in the DVR. Then a new CSI:NY and CSI popped in there. Then a few Top Gears appeared, a new Frontline to join the last two that are still on there and a Bill Moyers Journal adding to my pointy-headedness. The only thing I managed to keep on top of was Arrested Development on HDNet every night – usually watched during late dinners. And then last night the new Battlestar Galactica appeared which was all I really cared about last week anyway. Totally worth it.

Also Richard is a dorkwad for continuing to beat the gamerscore thing into the ground. 

Filed by matt on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 6:28 pm

Haven’t written a post in a long time so I thought it was high time I slapped something up. My wife and I usually watch TV when we’re eating dinner. We’ve learned over time that certain shows should not be watched while eating. Right now the forbidden list includes Man vs Wild, House, and South Park. Something incredibly disgusting can happen on any one of those shows at any moment having a very negative impact on one’s appetite. Right now the usual dinner show are the previous night’s Daily Show and the run of Arrested Development that’s on HD Net.