Yo!
Geez, this has to be, I think, the second-latest I've ever been with my weekly Blog posting in the six months I've been at this continuously. Getting to it, though, I don't actually have any major, interesting observances to comment on this week, so I'll just say a couple really brief things about the Sirius Satellite Radio free preview period.
For the uninformed, last Thursday and Friday... or was it Wednesday and Thursday; I forgot... Sirius ran a free preview period where anyone can get onto sirius.com and listen in to all their streamable online channels including all their commercial-free music channels and yes, both of Howard Stern's channels. Anyone who can do enough basic math to figure out how to put in any number lower than 1988 as their birth year so they can pose as being over 18 to hear Howard's uncensored stuff without their parents finding out, at least.
It's my understanding that this preview period did exactly what you'd think it would do: get loads more potential subscribers interested enough to fork down the $12.95/mo for a full subscription. Loooooooads more. Big move for Sirius right there, officially putting it in "free preview once a year or so" territory formerly dominated by certain digital cable TV channels, like HBO or Starz. .....I suppose. .......since a pay-radio service doesn't really fit into a category with premium movie channels without the common denominator of transmittable by satellite. Sorry guys, I'm kinda off-guard here. I kinda had a crazy weekend and I didn't have much of a chance to think about what I'd write about tonight.
...................................Uuuuuummmmmmm........ The WWE is having a super-interactive Pay-Per-View "Cyber Sunday" event. That's pretty big. ...but that happens next Sunday. ...................Did anything major happen in TV/movies/internet/music this past week...................? You know what, I'll open up the floor. I know I have plenty of readers here, since my hit counter just topped 800 page views this morning, so I'll just ask you guys to help me out this time. Any of you guys out there know of anything major worth fully blogging about this week.......? Please leave comments on this post with your suggestions and I'll keep checking back and posting stuff on it when I can this week. Just consider this one a "rolling post," I guess. You know, 'cause of the whole rolling off-and-on during the week, ongoing thing this week.
Back to business-as-usual next week, though. ....I'm sure. ...But that's just me (sorry, you know I had to somehow end with that sentence).
Later.
-D.
ADDENDUM TO BLOG (10/31/06 9:16am): Saw 3! Number one movie last weekend! I knew I was forgetting to mention something... Oh, and that Lionsgate franchise is coming out with the fourth film in as many years, next year. More info HERE. Other than that, anything else worth mentioning, people.....?
Monday, October 30, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
Entry 32: "Where No Family Guy Has Gone Before"
Yo!
So I was surfing around on the web a few months back, when I noticed THIS interstitial airing on Cartoon Network's [adult swim] late-night animation block fairly regularly (this was probably January/February-ish). I, like most Family Guy fans, started to ask myself, "Why isn't there a real FG video game?" Then, I reminded myself of THIS gem Vivendi Universal came out with at the height of that show's popularity, and further said to myself, "It's not like there's no market for wacky adult cartoon-based platformers..." Come to find out, a few months later, word broke out about 2K Games putting the finishing touches on a real Family Guy video game (PS2, Xbox/Xbox 360 [if the Ninjas got the backwards compatibility for this right on an earlier update somehow], and PSP. The only current systems that have parental control blocks. Figures, since it's got an "M" mature rating). Immediately after which, [adult swim] managed to start their suuuuper-subtle gloat fest with "We called it first! [as] does it again!!!", what with getting enough ratings to get Comedy Central to put together new Futuramas in 2008, new Saved By The Bell in planning/scripting right now (seriously), and helping bring back Family Guy in the first place. And rightfully so, I might add. I mean, SBTB's been out of production for over ten years! I can't wait for the Pee-Wee's Playhouse reunion!
.....But this entry's not about [as], it's about the new Family Guy video game that was released last week. For all those doubters, I'm pleased to say that this game actually delivers exactly what you'd want in a FG game: nonstop hilarity, relatively easy pick-up-and-play game mechanics, triple-threat story lines ripped from the show, every single character ever featured on the show makes an appearance, every single voice is there from the show, and the famous non-sequitur "manatee gag" throwaway sequences translate perfectly as WarioWare-style mini games that pop in right where they should. Not only that, you're dealing with interactive versions of some of the funniest non-sequiturs in the show's history, from Stewie's infamous sexy parties and Peter forgetting how to sit in a chair, to the movie's Stewie playing Marco Polo with Helen Keller sequence. It's all here.
I rented the Xbox version from Blockbuster on Friday, and for a while, I actually forgot about Scarface being the #1 new game of the fall (I should be getting paid for all this promotion and linking, Amazon!!!!!!). Gameplay's divided among three types, played by three different Griffins: Peter does arcade-style beat-em-up action against everyone and anyone from the long armed guy who tickles "little people" to Mr. Herbert, the perverted old man who regularly lusts after Chris. Stewie takes out his famous ray gun and blasts through Bertram, his evil(er) arch-enemy's forces, primarily consisting of sperm brethren still inside Peter, and clones of some random kid with a pot on his head. Classic platforming. Brian attacks his missions Sam Fisher-style, but without the guns. Or the wrist computer. Or the triple-vision headgear thingy. Or the crazy-tight spy suit. Or any discernible tools whatsoever. Just straight stealth at its... um... stealthiest.
I haven't gotten 100% through the game yet, but it's definitely worth the buy. In fact, that's my Bottom Line right there. The new Family Guy video game gets five of five stars!!!!! Because I clearly couldn't think of a better topic for this week!!!!!!!!!!!! Whoooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .........................uh... Sorry about that. Lost what little cool I had for a second there. Hang on... The Daily Show kicks a#%.... VH1 Celebreality sucks....... Vista looks like some serious stuff, but Microsoft had better fix the Beta glitches and drivers........ OK GO's "Here It Goes Again" is a really cool song and great video, I don't care what Yahoo Music's Top 100 list says........ Phew! There we go! Got it back. Anyway, Family Guy. Great game. I highly recommend it for fans who've seen the last three seasons because they'll get most of the references easiest. ........But that's just me. New episodes return to FOX on November 5. New [adult swim] encores begin this Sunday, the 29th. That is all.
See you next week.
-D.
ADDENDUM TO BLOG (10:04pm): I'm playing this game a little bit more tonight, and I just had to say that in the level where Peter's in drag, rampaging through the Indian Casino, one of the non-sequitur mini games actually has a random stick person drawn on a sheet of paper, and Peter does a voice over saying they couldn't afford another mini game, so just press a button. That's it. They keep the countdown clock, though. As if it takes all of ten seconds to push any random button on the controller. Gotta be the dumbest, easiest mini game in the whole darn thing. Other than that, I still say this is one of the best, funniest games I've ever played, at the very least, on current-gen consoles anyway. That's all.
POST-ADDENDUM ADDENDUM TO BLOG (10/27/06 11:27am): After double-checking last night's [as] schedule after the gag was rebroadcast, I found out that the Helen Keller Marco Polo gag wasn't from the movie, but rather from last season's "Peter's Got Woods", first aired 9/11/05, available on the Family Guy Season 4 Part 2 set. PreOrder-able/Buyable HERE. Felt I should clarify my mistake. THAT's all. Promise.
So I was surfing around on the web a few months back, when I noticed THIS interstitial airing on Cartoon Network's [adult swim] late-night animation block fairly regularly (this was probably January/February-ish). I, like most Family Guy fans, started to ask myself, "Why isn't there a real FG video game?" Then, I reminded myself of THIS gem Vivendi Universal came out with at the height of that show's popularity, and further said to myself, "It's not like there's no market for wacky adult cartoon-based platformers..." Come to find out, a few months later, word broke out about 2K Games putting the finishing touches on a real Family Guy video game (PS2, Xbox/Xbox 360 [if the Ninjas got the backwards compatibility for this right on an earlier update somehow], and PSP. The only current systems that have parental control blocks. Figures, since it's got an "M" mature rating). Immediately after which, [adult swim] managed to start their suuuuper-subtle gloat fest with "We called it first! [as] does it again!!!", what with getting enough ratings to get Comedy Central to put together new Futuramas in 2008, new Saved By The Bell in planning/scripting right now (seriously), and helping bring back Family Guy in the first place. And rightfully so, I might add. I mean, SBTB's been out of production for over ten years! I can't wait for the Pee-Wee's Playhouse reunion!
.....But this entry's not about [as], it's about the new Family Guy video game that was released last week. For all those doubters, I'm pleased to say that this game actually delivers exactly what you'd want in a FG game: nonstop hilarity, relatively easy pick-up-and-play game mechanics, triple-threat story lines ripped from the show, every single character ever featured on the show makes an appearance, every single voice is there from the show, and the famous non-sequitur "manatee gag" throwaway sequences translate perfectly as WarioWare-style mini games that pop in right where they should. Not only that, you're dealing with interactive versions of some of the funniest non-sequiturs in the show's history, from Stewie's infamous sexy parties and Peter forgetting how to sit in a chair, to the movie's Stewie playing Marco Polo with Helen Keller sequence. It's all here.
I rented the Xbox version from Blockbuster on Friday, and for a while, I actually forgot about Scarface being the #1 new game of the fall (I should be getting paid for all this promotion and linking, Amazon!!!!!!). Gameplay's divided among three types, played by three different Griffins: Peter does arcade-style beat-em-up action against everyone and anyone from the long armed guy who tickles "little people" to Mr. Herbert, the perverted old man who regularly lusts after Chris. Stewie takes out his famous ray gun and blasts through Bertram, his evil(er) arch-enemy's forces, primarily consisting of sperm brethren still inside Peter, and clones of some random kid with a pot on his head. Classic platforming. Brian attacks his missions Sam Fisher-style, but without the guns. Or the wrist computer. Or the triple-vision headgear thingy. Or the crazy-tight spy suit. Or any discernible tools whatsoever. Just straight stealth at its... um... stealthiest.
I haven't gotten 100% through the game yet, but it's definitely worth the buy. In fact, that's my Bottom Line right there. The new Family Guy video game gets five of five stars!!!!! Because I clearly couldn't think of a better topic for this week!!!!!!!!!!!! Whoooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .........................uh... Sorry about that. Lost what little cool I had for a second there. Hang on... The Daily Show kicks a#%.... VH1 Celebreality sucks....... Vista looks like some serious stuff, but Microsoft had better fix the Beta glitches and drivers........ OK GO's "Here It Goes Again" is a really cool song and great video, I don't care what Yahoo Music's Top 100 list says........ Phew! There we go! Got it back. Anyway, Family Guy. Great game. I highly recommend it for fans who've seen the last three seasons because they'll get most of the references easiest. ........But that's just me. New episodes return to FOX on November 5. New [adult swim] encores begin this Sunday, the 29th. That is all.
See you next week.
-D.
ADDENDUM TO BLOG (10:04pm): I'm playing this game a little bit more tonight, and I just had to say that in the level where Peter's in drag, rampaging through the Indian Casino, one of the non-sequitur mini games actually has a random stick person drawn on a sheet of paper, and Peter does a voice over saying they couldn't afford another mini game, so just press a button. That's it. They keep the countdown clock, though. As if it takes all of ten seconds to push any random button on the controller. Gotta be the dumbest, easiest mini game in the whole darn thing. Other than that, I still say this is one of the best, funniest games I've ever played, at the very least, on current-gen consoles anyway. That's all.
POST-ADDENDUM ADDENDUM TO BLOG (10/27/06 11:27am): After double-checking last night's [as] schedule after the gag was rebroadcast, I found out that the Helen Keller Marco Polo gag wasn't from the movie, but rather from last season's "Peter's Got Woods", first aired 9/11/05, available on the Family Guy Season 4 Part 2 set. PreOrder-able/Buyable HERE. Felt I should clarify my mistake. THAT's all. Promise.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Entry 31: "Page-ing Mark Foley....."
Yo!
There's a reason why up until now, I've purposely tried to stray away from blog entries about hot-button political issues. Common sense, because most of said topics are way too subjective and the potential for offending people is quite large depending on the issue. ...But eventually everything comes to light. Just ask Lance Bass. Anyway, as you can tell from the title of this one, I had to post something about this week's #2 news tidbit right behind, as Pres. Bush would say, North Korea's "nook-ya-lur," weapons tests: Congressional House Representatives and emotionally scarred pages.
Right off the bat, I gotta say that Bill Maher (I think it was him) put it best on his HBO show "Real Time" a couple weeks back when he noted that there's a difference between pedophilia and regular... Ah, crap, the right word escapes me right now. Not real molestation, because he never actually did any of that (that we know of). But it sure as heck was premeditated. Verbal molestation........? I dunno. Anyway, these pages weren't "boys"; they were young men by age, and in the HIGHLY incriminating instant messenger records, you can tell these young men were actually writing back the right things and fueling everything. I'm still a teenager myself (interestingly, my 19th birthday is this coming Thursday, the 19th), and in my early teen years and even a little earlier than that I knew the difference between homo- and heterosexuality. Not just by looking up respective definitions, but by just being around other kids my own age and talking about all that stuff, since in SexEd, we kinda had no choice (your dollars at work, parents!). Oh, and television of course. The third parent.
Also, everyone knows that at this hormonally enraged period of life, teenagers are typically horny all the time anyway. So the young man answered honestly in those IMs with (former) Rep. Foley. There can't be any VIDEO chat records unfortunately, because if there were, we'd be able to prove conclusively by now what the teen was doing while these chats were taking place. Although, as people who pay attention to certain major celebrity cases can tell you, even blatantly incriminating video doesn't necessarily mean you're found guilty. R. Kelly had a tape he freakin' made HIMSELF and the charges were still dropped somehow. Love this legal system. Incidentally, that page could've just gotten through looking at hetero porn, and his boner hadn't gone down yet so when Foley asks if he's horny and the page replies, "a little", that doesn't necessarily mean he's gay, does it? Sure, it means he's brutally, embarassingly honest, but fruitier than Carmen Miranda's famous hat? Of course having said that, we can't ignore the possiblilty that the young men who responded like that weren't all "victims of honesty" (I guess), but legitimate homosexuals that hadn't quite come all the way out of the closet yet. They could've easily just stopped the chats right at the first offensive sentence, reported him at the beginning of this thing and left the page program on the spot but, like I said, they kept the conversations going. Willingly. ...From what I heard of the transcripts. We don't quite know either way publicly yet, and I'm personally not trying to cast judgment on this page, or any of the others that recently came forward, for being/not being homosexuals, 'cause it's obviously not my place. I'm just weighing both sides best as I can.
Foley, on the other hand, knew darn well what he was doing, knew the guy was under 18, and had to know there'd be some kind of paper trail behind him. And because of this scandal, and the fact that other pages are coming forward faster than Michael Jackson's underage "playmates", people are now beginning to call this another nail in the coffin of the current Republican power structure in Washington. In fact, even Fox News is saying that Foley's scandal could result in a Democrat, Tim Mahoney, winning the primary election next month, meaning Florida's 16th district will be Democratically represented in the House for the first time in its history, since its creation in 1973. The Bottom Line is, Foley's resignation two weeks ago and the no doubt forthcoming trial (Sorry, Foley, but using the "was molested as a teen myself" copout card won't work there) and further public ridicule can't just be the end of this. I'll bet eventually all the other Republicans in Washington who knew of this and started messing up their statements on this will start politically dying like flies. However more there happen to be. House Speaker Dennis Hastert seems to be first on the chopping block.... I can't wait to see how this mess turns out. .....But that's just me.
See ya next Monday.
-D.
There's a reason why up until now, I've purposely tried to stray away from blog entries about hot-button political issues. Common sense, because most of said topics are way too subjective and the potential for offending people is quite large depending on the issue. ...But eventually everything comes to light. Just ask Lance Bass. Anyway, as you can tell from the title of this one, I had to post something about this week's #2 news tidbit right behind, as Pres. Bush would say, North Korea's "nook-ya-lur," weapons tests: Congressional House Representatives and emotionally scarred pages.
Right off the bat, I gotta say that Bill Maher (I think it was him) put it best on his HBO show "Real Time" a couple weeks back when he noted that there's a difference between pedophilia and regular... Ah, crap, the right word escapes me right now. Not real molestation, because he never actually did any of that (that we know of). But it sure as heck was premeditated. Verbal molestation........? I dunno. Anyway, these pages weren't "boys"; they were young men by age, and in the HIGHLY incriminating instant messenger records, you can tell these young men were actually writing back the right things and fueling everything. I'm still a teenager myself (interestingly, my 19th birthday is this coming Thursday, the 19th), and in my early teen years and even a little earlier than that I knew the difference between homo- and heterosexuality. Not just by looking up respective definitions, but by just being around other kids my own age and talking about all that stuff, since in SexEd, we kinda had no choice (your dollars at work, parents!). Oh, and television of course. The third parent.
Also, everyone knows that at this hormonally enraged period of life, teenagers are typically horny all the time anyway. So the young man answered honestly in those IMs with (former) Rep. Foley. There can't be any VIDEO chat records unfortunately, because if there were, we'd be able to prove conclusively by now what the teen was doing while these chats were taking place. Although, as people who pay attention to certain major celebrity cases can tell you, even blatantly incriminating video doesn't necessarily mean you're found guilty. R. Kelly had a tape he freakin' made HIMSELF and the charges were still dropped somehow. Love this legal system. Incidentally, that page could've just gotten through looking at hetero porn, and his boner hadn't gone down yet so when Foley asks if he's horny and the page replies, "a little", that doesn't necessarily mean he's gay, does it? Sure, it means he's brutally, embarassingly honest, but fruitier than Carmen Miranda's famous hat? Of course having said that, we can't ignore the possiblilty that the young men who responded like that weren't all "victims of honesty" (I guess), but legitimate homosexuals that hadn't quite come all the way out of the closet yet. They could've easily just stopped the chats right at the first offensive sentence, reported him at the beginning of this thing and left the page program on the spot but, like I said, they kept the conversations going. Willingly. ...From what I heard of the transcripts. We don't quite know either way publicly yet, and I'm personally not trying to cast judgment on this page, or any of the others that recently came forward, for being/not being homosexuals, 'cause it's obviously not my place. I'm just weighing both sides best as I can.
Foley, on the other hand, knew darn well what he was doing, knew the guy was under 18, and had to know there'd be some kind of paper trail behind him. And because of this scandal, and the fact that other pages are coming forward faster than Michael Jackson's underage "playmates", people are now beginning to call this another nail in the coffin of the current Republican power structure in Washington. In fact, even Fox News is saying that Foley's scandal could result in a Democrat, Tim Mahoney, winning the primary election next month, meaning Florida's 16th district will be Democratically represented in the House for the first time in its history, since its creation in 1973. The Bottom Line is, Foley's resignation two weeks ago and the no doubt forthcoming trial (Sorry, Foley, but using the "was molested as a teen myself" copout card won't work there) and further public ridicule can't just be the end of this. I'll bet eventually all the other Republicans in Washington who knew of this and started messing up their statements on this will start politically dying like flies. However more there happen to be. House Speaker Dennis Hastert seems to be first on the chopping block.... I can't wait to see how this mess turns out. .....But that's just me.
See ya next Monday.
-D.
Monday, October 9, 2006
Entry 30: "Death of a Cartman"
Yo!
In case you missed it, the tenth season of Comedy Central's flagship series (other than their prestigious Stewart/Colbert "news" hour, of course) "South Park" premiered last Wednesday night, boasting simultaneously one of the wackiest, yet not-too-unrealistic, plot lines in recent memory, and one of the funniest uses of Warcraft machinima I've ever seen. Apparently, this episode deals with the emergence of a seemingly unstoppable World of Warcraft player who keeps killing people all over the place (in-game, obviously), ruining things seemingly forever, and even the game's developers, Blizzard Entertainment, are incapable of stopping him, since they can't just load up the master player list on the game server and simply delete his profile and account, neutralizing the threat on the spot, since A) that would be waaaaaay too convenient for them to do and ruin the plot, and B) Trey Parker and Matt Stone(the series' creators/main writers) know better than that. The resulting plot line has everyone's favorite racist, foul-mouthed, big boned festively plump fourth-grader, Eric Cartman, recruiting all his classmates to help take down the one geek to rule them all (wink-wink, J.R.R. Tolkien), or else it'd literally be the End of the World!!! ...............of Warcraft.
As I said, this is hands-down, very high (#2) in my top five machinimas ever, right behind "Red vs. Blue," of course. Mainly because of the surrealness of watching these Warcraft characters getting brutally slaughtered and hearing the kids' voices (Trey & Matt, using voice manipulation software) in place of what they should realistically sound like. Pure audio-visual gold. And I do mean slaughtered, to the point of the kids playing as them (read: "Blizzard's Final Solution") throwing up their poorly animated hands in disgust, and one who recognized the futility of the strike at first blow whipping out a Playboy. Yes, one of the kids gives up and actually breaks out dad's porn in the middle of the desperate final battle to save the world. ........of Warcraft. Honestly, I missed the ending first time around (fell asleep), but that's just why man invented VCRs and reruns, now isn't it?
Later this week, I'll review the tape and catch the no doubt hilariously ridiculous ending, but I'm going through all this rant to simply state that I'll give South Park: "Make Love, Not Warcraft" four out of five stars, with the fifth star reserved for the ending I have yet to see and rate, and of course, my trademark Bottom Line: Why is this show still on-air? Yes, I enjoyed what I saw of this season's launcher, and yes, I do enjoy the show, but if I wanted to see ridiculous barely plausible plot lines and visual gags out the yin-yang, I'd catch some good old-fashioned manatee gags on Family Guy, which I do anyway, so that statement doesn't have a whole lot of "sting" to it, but you get the point. There are some shows that hit the ten-year mark and end prematurely (Stargate SG-1), shows that almost hit the decade point, but for some reason, the network didn't let it happen despite fans' outcry (The X-Files), and shows that had absolutely no business whatsoever dragging on to season ten in the first place (Friends, Frasier, Law & Order, Rugrats). This, to me, is one of those shows. Comedy Central, please just make the sequel to BLaU, and let the show end on a high note: Kenny living. ...........and Butters dying.
.............But that's just me.
See ya next Monday!
-D.
In case you missed it, the tenth season of Comedy Central's flagship series (other than their prestigious Stewart/Colbert "news" hour, of course) "South Park" premiered last Wednesday night, boasting simultaneously one of the wackiest, yet not-too-unrealistic, plot lines in recent memory, and one of the funniest uses of Warcraft machinima I've ever seen. Apparently, this episode deals with the emergence of a seemingly unstoppable World of Warcraft player who keeps killing people all over the place (in-game, obviously), ruining things seemingly forever, and even the game's developers, Blizzard Entertainment, are incapable of stopping him, since they can't just load up the master player list on the game server and simply delete his profile and account, neutralizing the threat on the spot, since A) that would be waaaaaay too convenient for them to do and ruin the plot, and B) Trey Parker and Matt Stone(the series' creators/main writers) know better than that. The resulting plot line has everyone's favorite racist, foul-mouthed, big boned festively plump fourth-grader, Eric Cartman, recruiting all his classmates to help take down the one geek to rule them all (wink-wink, J.R.R. Tolkien), or else it'd literally be the End of the World!!! ...............of Warcraft.
As I said, this is hands-down, very high (#2) in my top five machinimas ever, right behind "Red vs. Blue," of course. Mainly because of the surrealness of watching these Warcraft characters getting brutally slaughtered and hearing the kids' voices (Trey & Matt, using voice manipulation software) in place of what they should realistically sound like. Pure audio-visual gold. And I do mean slaughtered, to the point of the kids playing as them (read: "Blizzard's Final Solution") throwing up their poorly animated hands in disgust, and one who recognized the futility of the strike at first blow whipping out a Playboy. Yes, one of the kids gives up and actually breaks out dad's porn in the middle of the desperate final battle to save the world. ........of Warcraft. Honestly, I missed the ending first time around (fell asleep), but that's just why man invented VCRs and reruns, now isn't it?
Later this week, I'll review the tape and catch the no doubt hilariously ridiculous ending, but I'm going through all this rant to simply state that I'll give South Park: "Make Love, Not Warcraft" four out of five stars, with the fifth star reserved for the ending I have yet to see and rate, and of course, my trademark Bottom Line: Why is this show still on-air? Yes, I enjoyed what I saw of this season's launcher, and yes, I do enjoy the show, but if I wanted to see ridiculous barely plausible plot lines and visual gags out the yin-yang, I'd catch some good old-fashioned manatee gags on Family Guy, which I do anyway, so that statement doesn't have a whole lot of "sting" to it, but you get the point. There are some shows that hit the ten-year mark and end prematurely (Stargate SG-1), shows that almost hit the decade point, but for some reason, the network didn't let it happen despite fans' outcry (The X-Files), and shows that had absolutely no business whatsoever dragging on to season ten in the first place (Friends, Frasier, Law & Order, Rugrats). This, to me, is one of those shows. Comedy Central, please just make the sequel to BLaU, and let the show end on a high note: Kenny living. ...........and Butters dying.
.............But that's just me.
See ya next Monday!
-D.
Monday, October 2, 2006
Entry 29: "Soap Oprah"
Yo!
So I was watching Larry King on CNN last night, and he was talking with Oprah Winfrey "and friends" (read: "and business partners," I'll bet most of whom [except Gayle King of course], were purposely painted up as "friends" solely for the sake of having a catchy group name that rolls off the tongue better than "Oprah & Harpo Media Empire Business Partners"), and the topic of the hour was Oprah starting her own channel on Sirius' barely-a-threat satellite radio competitor XM last week. This means that those die-hard fans out there who REALLY need more than their 300 minutes a week Oprah fix now have an alternative, 24/7 fallback option, before, during and after the initial TV show to scratch that itch whenever the heck they want.
......................Ooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaayyy.........
Obviously, this move is nothing more than XM continuing to struggle to compete with Sirius by signing over their own really popular, high-profile celebrity, and reserve a channel on their lineup (channel 156, if you must know) exclusively for attempting to answer the million-dollar question: "How, oh how, do we compete with Howard Stern??" Personally, I've been on the satellite radio bandwagon for a while now; I've been a happy Sirius subscriber since December. It seems to me that there's just no end to the one-upsmanship XM is willing to stoop to in their never ending uphill battle for superiority.
I forgot who came first, XM or Sirius, but I remember when I first heard about satellite radio a few years back, I thought it sounded like a pretty cool idea on paper ("Radio beamed down from space?!? Madness!" and later, "......Ooooooohhh, on second thought, why the crap didn't I think of that?!?! First TapLights, now this?!?!?!"), and soon after, put it on my top-ten list of things to get after I could afford to, and in this case was old enough to, sign up for it. I turned 18 last October, and got a "Starmate Replay" Sirius receiver as a Christmas present from me to me because I'm always missing the Eagles and Steelers NFL games for one reason or another, and the commercial-free music was alright by me. Stern was, and still is, just the occasional icing on the cake to me. Seriously. I'm just not that heavily into Stern, and anyone who thinks people get Sirius only for hearing Howard's show.......... Well, okay, they're mostly right, according to the new subscriber numbers since January. But not all of us are SFN members, that's for sure.
..............Getting to the Bottom Line, though, Good luck to Oprah and XM. ...Oh yeah, and friends. From the looks of it, they'll sure need it. Sirius is about to start selling their first walk around, truly portable receiver unit, the Stiletto (yes, like the women's shoe), very soon, and The Sirius Store, aka "TSS Radio," is taking preorders on it as I type, but after all the dust settles from this radio war, you have to know that at some point, these companies are probably going to merge somehow. Heck, at this rate, by this time next year, Sirius will probably be making almost enough money to just buy XM out, and Oprah will just have to take her friends with her. All I'm saying is, watch your corporate news, people. All these companies merge eventually. ........But that's just me.
Later.
-D.
So I was watching Larry King on CNN last night, and he was talking with Oprah Winfrey "and friends" (read: "and business partners," I'll bet most of whom [except Gayle King of course], were purposely painted up as "friends" solely for the sake of having a catchy group name that rolls off the tongue better than "Oprah & Harpo Media Empire Business Partners"), and the topic of the hour was Oprah starting her own channel on Sirius' barely-a-threat satellite radio competitor XM last week. This means that those die-hard fans out there who REALLY need more than their 300 minutes a week Oprah fix now have an alternative, 24/7 fallback option, before, during and after the initial TV show to scratch that itch whenever the heck they want.
......................Ooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaayyy.........
Obviously, this move is nothing more than XM continuing to struggle to compete with Sirius by signing over their own really popular, high-profile celebrity, and reserve a channel on their lineup (channel 156, if you must know) exclusively for attempting to answer the million-dollar question: "How, oh how, do we compete with Howard Stern??" Personally, I've been on the satellite radio bandwagon for a while now; I've been a happy Sirius subscriber since December. It seems to me that there's just no end to the one-upsmanship XM is willing to stoop to in their never ending uphill battle for superiority.
I forgot who came first, XM or Sirius, but I remember when I first heard about satellite radio a few years back, I thought it sounded like a pretty cool idea on paper ("Radio beamed down from space?!? Madness!" and later, "......Ooooooohhh, on second thought, why the crap didn't I think of that?!?! First TapLights, now this?!?!?!"), and soon after, put it on my top-ten list of things to get after I could afford to, and in this case was old enough to, sign up for it. I turned 18 last October, and got a "Starmate Replay" Sirius receiver as a Christmas present from me to me because I'm always missing the Eagles and Steelers NFL games for one reason or another, and the commercial-free music was alright by me. Stern was, and still is, just the occasional icing on the cake to me. Seriously. I'm just not that heavily into Stern, and anyone who thinks people get Sirius only for hearing Howard's show.......... Well, okay, they're mostly right, according to the new subscriber numbers since January. But not all of us are SFN members, that's for sure.
..............Getting to the Bottom Line, though, Good luck to Oprah and XM. ...Oh yeah, and friends. From the looks of it, they'll sure need it. Sirius is about to start selling their first walk around, truly portable receiver unit, the Stiletto (yes, like the women's shoe), very soon, and The Sirius Store, aka "TSS Radio," is taking preorders on it as I type, but after all the dust settles from this radio war, you have to know that at some point, these companies are probably going to merge somehow. Heck, at this rate, by this time next year, Sirius will probably be making almost enough money to just buy XM out, and Oprah will just have to take her friends with her. All I'm saying is, watch your corporate news, people. All these companies merge eventually. ........But that's just me.
Later.
-D.
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