Drumming Gorilla
October 23, 2008 | 0 Comments
I kind of wish this video of a gorilla drumming to Total Eclipse of the Heart was an actual gorilla and not a commercial. (via @thedayhascome)
Literal Music Videos, How I Love You
October 17, 2008 | 0 Comments
Like any warm blooded human being, I have a special place in my heart for great music from the 80’s. Big hair, power ballads, one hit wonders, it’s all great. Lately that wonderful music has been making a comeback online thanks to an influx of literal music videos. The first one I saw was a few days ago over at Wil Wheaton’s site where he featured a sweet rendition of A-Ha’s Take on Me — which, if you know anything, is basically the most groundbreaking music video of all time. Then today, I came across a nice take on Tears for Fears’ Head Over Heals over at Geekologie. What a cool form of digital expression. I’ve included both videos below for your weekend enjoyment.
Did the Writers Strike Make Writers Worse?
September 24, 2008 | 0 Comments
The WGA writers strike seems like so long ago but it seems we might still be feeling it’s effects. Since the new television season has started, it seems the quality of the writing has diminished after taking a half season off. I’ve watched three shows so far this season and all of them have had writing “issues” so far.
The first show is Saturday Night Live. To say SNL has writing issues is an understatement. The show has downright problems. In the two episodes that have aired so far there has been one sketch that was actually funny: the Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton season opener.
After watching the rest of the episode, and a majority of the one aired this past Saturday, it seems as if Tina Fey herself might have written this one. The SNL writing has been in trouble for a very long time and this season it just seems worse. It begs the question, will NBC grow a pair and clean out the write staff or *gasp* cancel the show?
The next show that makes me wonder what the writing team is thinking is Fringe. I’ve talked about Fringe before, it’s a great show that is part LOST and part X-Files. One of the main characters is a former mad scientist who has been locked up in a mental institution for the past 17 years. While most of the writing revolving this character is done well, there seems to be one “out” the team is using.
In the first episode Bishop, the character in question, wanted to use his lab from 17 years ago. Good thing it still exists! Harvard just decided to use it as storage. And by storage they meant cover the equipment with a tarp and put a few boxes in there. Convenient. In the second episode Bishop needed a file he left in his car. Well guess what? His car is in the same pad-locked garage it was 17 years ago! Again, how convenient? Finally, last night, Bishop needed a piece of equipment he hid in the wall of his former home. Well guess what. It was still there. But it wasn’t in a wall, it was in a dumbwaiter merely covered by a bookshelf. Do the writers really expect us to believe that the key to all of Bishop’s experiments are littered all over Boston and somehow completely untouched and right where they were left 17 years ago? Come on?
The final show I’ve watched so far this season has been Heroes. Cut to only 11 episodes last year because of the strike, it’s been a long time since Heroes has been on the air. But watching the two hour premiere on Monday, a few things struck me about one of the main characters, Peter.
Peter can absorb every power that he comes in contact with making him pretty much the most powerful “hero” of them all. Yet, somehow, Peter manages to constantly make poor decisions and, as a result, the world ends four to five years later. This season, future “Dark Peter” has come back from the future to prevent bad things from happening. But here’s what I don’t get: Dark Peter has a giant scar across his face. Lest we forget Peter has the ability to heal himself. Curious? Even more curious is that two of the powers Peter has absorbed involve being able to see the future. Given this, you would think Peter would know that his horrible choices have an effect down the road. Either that or the writers just assume we don’t remember these things.
None of these writing slips will cause me to stop watching the shows, well except maybe for SNL. But after waiting so long for good TV to come back on, I’d like to think the writers would be willing to not treat the audience like children and actually write the show without the sloppy “outs” they have been given themselves. Maybe it’s just been so long that I forgot this is the small screen norm and am being overly critical. If Toby shows up on The Office on Thursday I’ll know sloppy writing abounds.
What do you think? Have you noticed other instances of sloppy writing on TV so far this year? Leave it in the comments.
Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld… why?
September 4, 2008 | 5 Comments
Ok, so I don’t even know what to do with this. Jerry Seinfeld was tipped to be the new spokesperson for Microsoft. I guess they wanted to combat the very clever Mac vs. PC ads that Apple has been running for a few years now. I like Jerry Seinfeld, I even liked the HP commercial he did last summer, but this… well, let’s just say I don’t have a clue what the point is nor how it’s supposed to sell Windows. In fact, I don’t really know what to say about it. I’m kind of dumbfounded that such a large, and at times brilliant, company could think this made sense:
Maybe I’m not seeing this right. Maybe my Apple love has blinded me. Maybe. What do you think? Does this commercial make a bit of sense to you? Let me know in the comments.
Via MacUser.
Kalong’s Pick of the Day #5
September 4, 2008 | 0 Comments
So interesting things continue to happen as a result of the August Blog-O-Rama. First my website viewers goes up significantly and then I discover what blogging is all about. Yesterday I was featured on Kalong’s Pick of the Day. Kalong is one of the wonderful people behind the very cool Strands, which I’ve mentioned before. Check it out:
In case you’re wondering what the salt comment is all about, it’s from something I said on Twitter. She picked up on it and, well, there you go.
Thanks kalong!