Watch, as ***Dave slowly continues the inexorable growth of his media empire … Well, I’m no Rupert Murdoch, but my stats again continue to grow. I will be merciful, however,…
Watch, as ***Dave slowly continues the inexorable growth of his media empire …
Well, I’m no Rupert Murdoch, but my stats again continue to grow. I will be merciful, however, and skip over into the “Extended Entry” screen, for those of you whose interest in my hit stats is only marginally blow your interest in my belly button lint …
… that the latest twist on web advertising — the dynamic image that (temporarily) imposes itself in front of the page content — is without a doubt the most incredibly…
… that the latest twist on web advertising — the dynamic image that (temporarily) imposes itself in front of the page content — is without a doubt the most incredibly annoying thing yet, from an industry (web advertising) which has come up with a lot of annoying things.
For an example, go to the TV Guide page cited below, then click on the link for the Greatest Show Ever. The Zyrtec ad comes alive and blocks most of the page, like some idiot in a sandwich sign interposing himself as you try to get into a movie. Unfortunately, while you can punch the idiot with a sandwich sign in the nose, you can’t do anything with the web ad until it finishes running and returns control of your web page to you.
I don’t know how it works. I don’t care. (Well, actually, I do want to know how it works, but that’s beside the point.) I just want someone to come up with a tool to block them. Now.
TV Guide learned a long time ago that “List” issues are big sellers. The Top Ten Comedies. The Top Twenty Dramas. The Twenty-Five Best TV Actors. The list goes on,…
TV Guide learned a long time ago that “List” issues are big sellers. The Top Ten Comedies. The Top Twenty Dramas. The Twenty-Five Best TV Actors. The list goes on, and on, and on, until you’re sure you saw that cover blurb a year or two ago. And maybe you did.
So the latest-greatest is, in honor of the magazine’s 50th Anniversary, a list of the Fifty Greatest Television Shows of All Time — at least as produced and broadcast in the US.
The list (and my inevitable thoughts):
1. Seinfeld (Never have figured out the attraction.)
2. I Love Lucy (This, on the other hand, was a true classic.)
3. The Honeymooners (See #1. Gleason just never did it for me.)
4. All in the Family (Groundbreaking, I guess.)
5. The Sopranos (Any show less than five years old — or even any show still in production — should be excluded from such a list, sez I. That having been said, badda-bing, I’ve enjoyed all two episodes I’ve watched on business trips.)
6. 60 Minutes (Groundbreaking news show. Hell, I remember watching this when I was still living with my parents!)
7. The Late Show with David Letterman (I’d rather give the nod to Johnny (#12). Or even Steve.)
8. The Simpsons (Yup.)
9. The Andy Griffith Show (Never have cared for it.)
10. Saturday Night Live (Certainly wins the “This Show Will Be Cancelled After This Season” Anti-Prediction Award.)
11. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Triffic stuff.)
12. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (Never watched it much, but it was a seminal show in its influence both on talk shows, on comedy, and on late-night TV.)
13. The Dick Van Dyke Show (Probably one of the most brilliant comedies ever.)
14. Hill Street Blues (As a trend-setter for grim-n-gritty, sure.)
15. The Ed Sullivan Show (No comment.)
16. The Carol Burnett Show (Was to the Variety Show what Dick Van Dyke was to the sitcom.)
17. Today Show (No comment.)
18. Cheers (Never much cared for it. The characters spent way too much time being mean to each other.)
19. thirtysomething (No comment.)
20. St. Elsewhere (Was to doctor shows what HSB was to cop shows. Great, great stuff.)
21. Friends (Another show I have never “gotten.”)
22. ER (At least they had the decency to rank it below St. E.)
23. Nightline (No comment.)
24. Law & Order (Entertaining, yes. Long-lived, absolutely. One of the greatest? Feh.)
25. M*A*S*H (The Tragicomedy. Good, solid stuff, even if it got preachy as time went on.)
26. The Twilight Zone (Give me the Outer Limits any day. But I’ll take the nod to sf/fantasy.)
27. Sesame Street (No comment.)
28. The Cosby Show (Entertaining, but I liked Bill on a number of other shows he did a lot better. I, Spy, anyone?)
29. Donahue (No comment, except to note that his successors in the talk show arena make Donahue look like Einstein.)
30. Your Show of Shows (No comment.)
31. The Defenders (No comment.)
32. American Family (No comment.)
33. Playhouse 90 (No comment.)
34. Frasier (See #18.)
35. Roseanne (See #18.)
36. The Fugitive (Probably the best of the QM herd. Great, audience-gripping action, formulaic as all hell, and a marvelous herd of guest stars. This one deserves to rank higher.)
37. The X-Files (Another show I never got into. Given that folks have said it’s sucked for the past few seasons, I’m not sure how it ranks here, except as a cult classic.)
38. The Larry Sanders Show (Funny.)
39. The Rockford Files (I’d prefer Maverick, but they’re basically both the James Garner Show, so I’ll take it. But the greatest?)
40. Gunsmoke (No comment.)
41. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Damned sight better than a lot of the ones ranked above it.)
42. Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (Okay.)
43. Bonanza (One of the better westerns, which is not saying much.)
44. The Bob Newhart Show (I can’t believe this one ranks below Cheers, Frazier, Roseanne … It’s another MTM classic.)
45. Twin Peaks (Cult classic. Yawn.)
46. Star Trek: The Next Generation (I’d rate the first three seasons of DS9 as better than any season of TNG … but I’d probably have to rate TOS as the best of the franchise, all told. And Farscape beats any of them, hands down.)
47. Rocky and His Friends (This should be in the Top 20.)
48. Taxi (Another show I never understood. If you want dark, urban comedy, how about Night Court?)
49. The Oprah Winfrey Show (No comment.)
50. Bewitched (What?!)
You can also go vote for the Best Single Series of All Time at the site. Dick Van Dyke got my vote.
You are a Doc Searls. You enjoy writing, linking to interesting technologies and being an all-round smiley guy. Take the What Blogging Archetype Are You test at GAZM.org Taking a…
You are a Doc Searls. You enjoy writing, linking to interesting technologies and being an all-round smiley guy.
Take the What Blogging Archetype Are You test at GAZM.org
Taking a look at Doc Searls’ site, he’s a bit too much into the techie side of things for my taste, though I like to think that I am a smiley guy, and also enjoy writing. Also, Doc Searls does not test as himself, but as David Weinberger. Go fig.
I’m taking down the Poll section, for two reasons. 1. I ran out of things to poll about (or that I really felt like polling about). 2. I’ve got too…
I’m taking down the Poll section, for two reasons.
1. I ran out of things to poll about (or that I really felt like polling about).
2. I’ve got too much material over there in the sidebar anyway.
The results of the last poll — “Dave Does the Personality Tests” — were as follows (N=29):
And just so things aren’t too angsty … today’s Haiku: PaintShop Pro installed. Dave is playing with fill tools. Drawings drowned in blue. Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll…
And just so things aren’t too angsty … today’s Haiku:
PaintShop Pro installed.
Dave is playing with fill tools.
Drawings drowned in blue.
Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll be here all week.
I sit before the keyboard, fingers straining, wondering why. Why the sweat? Why the guts that clutch And twist? What’s so hard? Free verse. The sound of liberation that I…
I sit before the keyboard, fingers straining, wondering why.
Why the sweat? Why the guts that clutch
And twist?
What’s so hard?
Free verse. The sound of liberation that I shrink from,
Hiding my head beneath a quip or pun.
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
Would you be free?
Give me rhyme, that the tunes and tones of words will be the mark
I need to hit.
Give me meter, marching to the margin as I write,
So they can sing it.
Give me prose, an action scene or two,
To carry through.
I don’t want freedom, though I would choose
To have the chains be long, and loose,
And light.
I view the words I write, sans rhyme or structure,
Each line a fragile piece of art, viewed bemused by critics.
“The presumption! He must be mad,
Or ego-filled the size of Baltimore.”
A teacher laughs and points and chatters of Narcissus.
Free verse. But freedom means that I must be responsible,
And every word must be the right one, not for form or tone,
But for the feeling, mood, experience.
And when I’m done, then I must sit and smile,
And say, “Hey, look what I have done.”
And feign that every word is right,
Every feeling strong and bold and vivid,
Every picture painted, sculpted, touched with care and craft.
A pretence that it’s more than pretentious crap.
I dare not eat that peach,
Those mermaids do not sing to me.
I sit before the keyboard,
Look at words on the screen, soft phosphors in pleasant colors,
And writhe.
They make it look simple, those others.
Words strung along, offered just for joy
Of writing.
The letters dance, the pictures glow,
The feelings build and crash and tease.
So simple.
Good stuff. Good stuff. I wish I could.
Which is why I sit here.
Nodding to the soft and constant hum that echoes through my head,
Muffling thoughts,
Making me safe and armored and removed.
So I will talk about it, bare my soul, raise a smile,
Blog an inch or eight.
I can write a post. I will!
Or maybe —
Maybe —
Write a poem.
Let the words of free verse flow from fingertips that sweat.
Therapeutic, perhaps, or bold,
Or just a silly thought,
Or ego.
And so I sit.
And click on Save.
The Hubble Telescope, bolstered by a new camera back in March, is taking some incredible pictures, including some that show some 12 billion years of galactic evolution. I recall when…
The Hubble Telescope, bolstered by a new camera back in March, is taking some incredible pictures, including some that show some 12 billion years of galactic evolution.
I recall when the Hubble was first launched, and the massive boondoggle so many people thought it was when it turned out that its mirror was not properly aligned. Since the rescue mission to fix that problem, though, it’s been cranking out some spectacular — dare I say stellar? — shots. I mean, some of these things look like they’re off the cover of some sf paperback. Amazing.
More pics can be found here.
The highly-publicized alleged meeting between 9-11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence in Prague probably never actually took place. Czech and US intelligence agencies have been looking at the connection,…
The highly-publicized alleged meeting between 9-11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence in Prague probably never actually took place. Czech and US intelligence agencies have been looking at the connection, and find there’s little except one uncorroborated connection that was made — and plenty of indication that there was no such meeting.
Given that this story has been touted as a major reason why we should bomb the crap out of Saddam Hussein, it’s a shame its debunking hasn’t gotten more publicity. Not that there aren’t plenty of other reasons to do so, but we only weaken that cause by invoking excuses we know not to be true.
(Via NextDraft)
To all of you yahoos back in high school who incessently used the term (or worse) on me as an epithet … screw you. How Gay are You? (Not That…
To all of you yahoos back in high school who incessently used the term (or worse) on me as an epithet … screw you.
(Via Blogatelle)
I don’t know much about Banshee Studios. I do know a couple of things, though. 1. It’s a quarterly e-zine for fiction and essay writers. 2. Stacy/Sekimori/Blogatelle is involved in…
I don’t know much about Banshee Studios. I do know a couple of things, though.
1. It’s a quarterly e-zine for fiction and essay writers.
2. Stacy/Sekimori/Blogatelle is involved in the effort. She writes reel good, and so it’s almost certainly something worth checking out.
3. They have an extremely cool logo. And it’s a raven, with is even more extremely cool.
4. It certainly looks like an interesting e-zine, and I plan on going back to it when I get a chance. You should, too.
Stacy talks more about it here.
(Full Disclosure: Stacy promised me a t-shirt if they make any money and if I plugged the site. But everything I say above is true, so I can be bought off with a clean conscience. Though if that t-shirt has that cool logo on it, I might even be willing to lie a bit.)
Everyone send virtual attaboys to Margie today, who bore the brunt (the latter two-thirds or three-quarters) of Kitten being snotty, vomitous, over-tired, restless and lonely last night, into hours that…
Everyone send virtual attaboys to Margie today, who bore the brunt (the latter two-thirds or three-quarters) of Kitten being snotty, vomitous, over-tired, restless and lonely last night, into hours that were well on their way past being wee.
I don’t tell her often enough how much I love her.
UPDATE: The morning base-touch call with Margie had her mentioning something about “throwing up every half-hour between 1:30 and 3:00.” Give her extra virtual attaboys.