Entry 10

Yo!

Well, I just have to announce formally that this is (hence the subject line) my tenth blog entry, a momentous occasion in itself, considering I was expecting to lose track of this thing completely by about entry six or so, but here's double-digits at last! That said, before I begin, I want to give out a special thank-you to all my readers who gave a crap enough to keep coming back for more bloggage, despite my constant tardiness and wacky, sometimes stupid subjects (remember the spreadable butter rant from a few weeks back?). So, thanks, MySpace Blog readers, for ten mildly interesting weeks of bloggage (excluding those 2 that I completely forgot to post on, of course).

Anyway, I have to say some words about the way television in general is today. More specifically, the widescreen "letterboxing" you see all the time these days. It's true, a lot of stuff in widescreen is designed with widescreen high-definition TVs in mind, but seriously. When music videos and commercials start going theatrical on the viewers, don't you think that's more unneccesary than "edgy"?

Actually, what really ticks me off is when music videos do what I call "video-sandwiching". You know what that is. The main video is in widescreen, but instead of the horizontal black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, you see another video completely, cut in half ("the bread"), with the top half on top and the lower half on the bottom, leaving the real video in question ("100-percent-all-beef patty, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions... ah, you know the rest) smack-dab in the middle.

For some reason, this video format I've always found to be kinda stupid, despite being really popular in hip-hop videos. Case in point: "Unpredictable" by Jamie Foxx, and "Lose Control" by LL Cool J and J.Lo. Go to Yahoo Launchcast, VH1.com VSpot, or wherever you watch music videos online, and tell me that's not somewhat stupid. My point is, I'm sure it was an interesting idea on paper when it was first thought up, but seriously. I forgot what was the first video to do it (my examples were the first times I saw it, but I bet BET had some other videos running that way earlier than December '05), but I think we could use a bit of leway on the widescreen assault, "H-wood".

At the very least, lay off on widescreening the commercials, and keep to the primetime TV, where it belongs. When the broadcast standard changes from American NTSC to full-on 480p (I think) HD in/around 2009, then feel free to wide it up for us. but until then, those of us who are still (for now) using $300 Wal-Mart TVs have, for the most part, kinda had enough. ....Well, at least that's just me, anyway. ---I mean, BUT that's just me. PHEW! almost messed up my signoff line there... Okay, later peeps!

-D.