Rick's Rants » Media

Fall 2009-10 TV

lryer — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:50:33 +0000

Here’s the Fall TV (mostly) SF menu:

Monday
Heroes (NBC) Sep 21
Lie To Me (Fox) ?
Castle (ABC) Sep 21
Tuesday
Warehouse 13 (Syfy)
V (ABC) 3 Nov
Sons of Anarchy (FX) Sep 8
The Forgotten (ABC) Sep 22
Wednesday
Modern Family (ABC) Sep 23
Cougar Town (ABC) Sep 23
Glee (Fox) Sep 9
Eastwick (ABC) Sep 23
Thursday
Fast Forward (ABC) Sep 24
Bones (Fox) Sep 17
The Vampire Diaries (CW) Sep 10
Fringe (Fox) Sep 17
The Mentalist (CBS) Sep 24
Friday
Smallville (CW) Sep 25
Medium (CBS) Sep 25
Dollhouse (Fox) Sep 25
Stargate Universe (Syfy) Oct 2
Sanctuary (Syfy) Oct 9
Monk (USA) Aug
Psych (USA) Aug
Saturday
Legend of the Seeker (Syndicated) 7 Nov
Sunday
Dexter (Showtime) Sep 27
Mad Men (AMC) Aug 16

Later
Friday
Caprica (Syfy) starts 22 Jan 2010

Over the edge

lryer — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:37:33 +0000

A haunting footnote to my favorite-movie-I-can’t-find.

Calculated Risk: Maricopa: Do It For the Children

Sunday morning musings

lryer — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:12:34 +0000

One of the mornings’ obligatory questions seems to be about how the Clinton campaign will deal with the effect of the two new biographical books. The question seems to misunderstand how effective a book can be the current media world. Ultimately the books that the Media remembers are the books the Media covers.

Most of the time the only wide effects of political books are the effect of “news” produced by the book. Does it contain stories that are powerful enough to effect public perception? The big news from the Bernstein book is that Hillary might have a problem being perceived as “authentic”. Yeah, hold the presses. Also that it directly and effectively contradicts the big story from the other book…

Not that books don’t have their own real effect. Often the Media don’t cover the news (see Randy Rhodes, The News Has Been Canceled) and even if there is no new “news” a story can re-frame a candidate or issue. These sorts of books can be a great grass-roots organizing tool. The book must be a compelling read and the organizing must have a long time frame.

Traveler Notes

lryer — Thu, 31 May 2007 05:37:35 +0000

Why is ABC calling the first episode of new series Traveler
a “sneak preview” followed by the “series premiere”? OK, I get it… According to IMDB, Pilot aired on May 10, I missed it. This is the regular time weekly start, aka series premiere with a repeat of the pilot episode in front. D’oh…
Hard to follow at first, but pretty engrossing by the 30 minute mark. The pilot is the essential setup for the whole series. Two innocents are framed for a terrorist act by mysterious grad roomie, the eponymous Will “Traveler”, who after the first 30 minutes seems to exist only in flashback.

Oh. My. God.

lryer — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 05:46:52 +0000

An AARP commercial using The Buzzcocks “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” – (March 2, 1979 #29 UK)

Watching the parade go by

lryer — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:06:03 +0000

Watching the Rose Parade I feel like I’m being captivated by the train wreck that is America. The theme in this year of torture, secret prisons, illegal surveilance and the end of habeus corpus is “Our Good Nature.” The opening ceremony featured the B-2 Stealth Bomber! Coupled with the spectacularly, even surreally inept commentary and the rampant jingoism it is hard to look away. The Star Wars spectacular features not the rebels but “the largest gathering of storm troopers ever assembled!” [A reminder that, due to the addition of episodes I-III, the saga now ends with the triumph of the empire and the ascension of Darth Vader.] Ads for reality shows remind us that life is primarily a competition for survival and Americans are divided into winners and losers.

On the reliability of internet information

lryer — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 23:39:31 +0000

There is no difference in quality of information inherent between, say the internet and print simply as a medium. All information must be evaluated dynamically and critically. Information becomes meme because of its contribution to a story rather than any possible external measure of truth. We need to know the history and sources of the information, and we need to know the effect of the process. What is created by editing, juxtaposition, restrictions of the form? The internet is rich in tools useful to evaluate information. That is why the internet is more fault tolerant than some other media.

Every Who in Whoville

lryer — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 02:14:27 +0000

Watching the first season of Doctor Who the second time through on SciFi, the biggest surprise to me has been how conventional (within the series conventions of Whoville) the episodes are. The conventionality is primarily structural. Episode opens in strange time/place, a couple of characters are introduced, a dramatic event implies a much broader strangeness, TARDIS or Doctor appears, theme, title and credits. The differences are the hour format, which has a different rhythm and act structure than the earlier shows. The original series was a descendant of movie serials – episodes ran a half hour and the story arc generally ran 4 episodes. These were also distributed widely, especially in North America, in the form of edited (to trim the repeated sections used to introduce the situation in episodic format) movies running 90-100 minutes.

The other big difference is the intesity of the emotional landscape of the new series

Selling books

lryer — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 01:16:38 +0000

A detailed and accurate primer for selling to used book stores (in St. Paul area, but pretty universal. [from the Star-Tribune]

Did you know?

Ding an sich

lryer — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 11:43:17 +0000

Wonderful note in a slashdot comment:

Slashdot | Solving the Home Library Problem?

Re:Scan them all and use google desktop
(Score:2, Insightful)
by knisa (209732) on Wednesday March 22, @05:56PM (#14976437)
Books don’t fail to boot.
Books don’t require batteries.
Books are often more compact than their electronic equivalent.
Books can withstand massive g-forces and falls from great heights.
Properly cared for books can last hundreds to thousands of years.

Now why again should I go exclusively digital?
–
One man’s proctologist is another man’s neurologist. – Me.

And while I’m researching book organization, check out this pic..

and another good comment:

… Many readers have a fondness for the particular copy that they have. I know I find a certian joy in finding a sought-after edition; finding a first edition of Pohl’s Gateway in a Half Price Books certainly made my day.[emphasis added]