"We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will return to the air on January 7 -- someone must have rescued Stewart and Colbert from XKCD.

Although I selfishly celebrate their return, it seems like it was a hard decision for the two. Stewart and Colbert support the WGA strike, their writers and comedians have posted amusing videos in support, and the WGA's reaction to the announcement states that the hosts were forced to return to the air by Comedy Central. I foresee Colbert doing better with the improvisational requirements of their return, but I can't see either show doing that well -- I always fast forward through Stewart's interview, which will likely now dominate the show.

As angry as the WGA is, perhaps poor quality comedy shows will highlight the importance of good writing. I'm not saying that Colbert and Stewart should throw the game, but perhaps they can do more in their return than not.

m hooked me up with a ticket to the free screening of Battlestar Galactica: Razor, a two-hour made-for-TV movie (free-for-movie-screen movie?). It's meant to be enjoyed post-Pegasus arc, but doesn't directly deal with the story arcs for the final Season Four. Rather, Razor feels like a well-done polishing of the BSG universe with the writers going over the rough edges of the BSG universe. Current BSG characters get some added depth, continuity with the original series is painted in, and the moral counterpoint of the Pegasus is illustrated. It's not required viewing, but it is entertaining viewing for those who enjoy BSG, and especially worthwhile for those that miss Admiral Cain.

At the end of the movie they teased us with a trailer for the "extended uncut" version of Razor, which clearly showed clips that were not in the two-hour presentation we just watched. I felt slightly cheated that a release one month from now will have additional footage, but I may just pick it up to see the additional Adama and Cain back story.

The Daily Show has launched a new site with its complete archives of Daily Show segments since 1999. To celebrate, enjoy the clip above of my favorite segment from this month or browse the archives of Even Stephven. (FYI: The site is having a bit of trouble with the traffic right now)

WashingtonPost: "Discovery Communications Lays Off 3 Percent of Workforce"

Discovery Communications (aka Discovery Channel) laid off 3% of its workforce but also plans to grow elsewhere. I bring this up because many of my favorite programs (MythBusters, Dirty Jobs, and Deadliest Catch) are on Discovery, as is the very excellent Planet Earth series -- its only fault is that it feels the need to say how great it is.

A positive note in the article is:

Discovery will be hiring for its digital media department, as the company seeks to make its television content available to high-speed Internet users.

Another note from the article is:

Discovery is exploring whether it should get out of the storefront-retail business. The company has 100 Discovery stores around the country. But Discovery pays high rent for premium mall space and is studying whether it could sell its branded products more efficiently with a combination of online sales and partnerships with established big-box retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Target, executives said.

While I enjoy the Discovery stores, I don't think Discovery has quite caught up to the modern era of e-commerce. They're still too focused on selling individual episodes (what casual viewer is going to spend $20 on a single episode?) and availability of their products on sites like Amazon remains spotty.

parakkum told me about This American Life migrating from radio to a Showtime series. I was dubious -- the personalities of TAL were more book and radio sorts of stars. My opinion is being swayed by the Chris Ware clip above. If the rest of their storytelling has similar sorts of production, I could really start to go for it.

Some of you may recall my past troubles with legal letters from a IP firm representing a particular TV network. I posted tiny screencaps of one of their shows and they informed me that 1) I couldn't use tiny screencaps and 2) I was misappropriating their logo, because the screencaps all have the 'bug' logo in the lower right corner. I thought this was a rather dumb policy -- it both alienates fans and punishes free marketing. Keep in mind that the actual makers of the show are very supportive of fan-generated media -- it's just the TV network and it's lawyers that were troublesome.

Well, now that TV network has decided to hire a marketing firm that specializes in promoting online. Said marketing firm has contacted me to offer me photos and videos of the show that I can post freely. Does this mean that TV networks are starting to get it? Perhaps. I was shocked when s showed me SNL digital shorts on YouTube, officially supported by NBC. It wasn't too long ago that NBC was the one issuing takedown notices and forcing people to navigate their crummy Web site to watch the same exact thing, but with more difficulty.

I love this turn of events, as I believe it is the right move. It is ironic in light of past events, but welcome. I didn't stop promoting the show here when I got those nasty notices, and now I can continue promoting with even more media to share.

The New York Times has an article title 'Best Science Show on Television?", which discusses the MythBusters TV show and their Hindenburg experiment.

The MythBusters "Mega Movie Myths" episode has now aired so I've uploaded some more photos from "Awning Fall," which is the segment that we got to watch. m lent me the 16-35mm lens that really made a lot of these shots possible. I'm still watching the episode so I'll keep my comments brief, except to say its fun to finally see how they put it all together.

• MythBusters Awning Fall (spoilers)
• MythBusters Awning Fall Setup -- you may have seen these already

See if you can spot me ;) (Hint: you won't recognize me, just my big telephoto lens shooting behind everyone as Tory does his fall)

photo used with permission

d and I love Dirty Jobs. d loves it because "it reveals the dirty underbelly of capitalism," I like it because it's dirty. In honor of their 100th dirty job episode -- Farmer Bob's Las Vegas pig farm is our favorite -- we put together this drinking game. This is our first cut, we may refine the list later.

Warmup:

• "Hi, I'm Mike Rowe" (including outtakes)

Drink if:

• Mike tells someone, "you have a dirty job"
• Mike quotes opera lyrics, theater lines, or poetry
• There is an explosion
• Mike squirts/flings something on the camera
• Mike gets something unpleasant in his mouth
• Mike writes "Dirty Jobs" in muck
• Fecal matter is involved
• Pigs!
• Mike harasses a cameraman
• Mike attempts math
• Mike takes his shirt off
• Mike loses a shoe
• Vexcon makes an appearance
• Mike has to catch an animal
• Producer jazzes up monotonous segment with rock music
• Mike has to sex an animal
• Mike wonders why he isn't wearing a mask
• Mike complains about not getting any help
• Mike has to herd an animal into a pen
• Mike mentions his former career
• Mike eats whatever he was handling
• Mike gets stuck
• Mike has to assist animal mating rituals
• Mike fears for his life

Chug if: * Mike sings a song * Mike coaches a kid to say Dirty Jobs is his favorite show * Mike vomits

If you're really crazy, drink (or chug) if: * Mike screws something up

TiVo reminded me that Lost season 3 is approaching by recording a crummy 'survival guide', but that's not the season 3 I'm looking forward to because Lost season 2 just wasn't that good and I'd be happy to see it end with a bang this year. Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, is a season 3 I'm eagerly anticipating. It's going to be dark, dark, dark. At Comic-Con, they mentioned that the darker moments of season 2 will become the lighter moments of season 3. I can't wait, and thankfully scifi.com has started a ten-part 'webisode' series that leads into the Oct 6th premiere. There isn't too much material, but it's enough to remind me that I've been waiting to watch some good TV and the wait is almost over. 

If you're looking for more spoilers, there's always these notes from the Comic-Con BSG panel for mild spoilers and this Aint's It Cool News writeup for even more (thanks meta for the second link and the webisodes headsup).

Stephen Colbert coins 'Wikiality' (reality/truth defined by a majority) as his W�rd, edits the George Washington entry to state that, "In conclusion, George Washington did not own slaves," and The Colbert Report entry to call Oregon "Idaho's Portugal." He also calls on his viewers to edit the elephant entry to state that the number of elephants is increasing, which results in the predicted vandalism across Wikipedia.

Now the 'Stephencolbert' user has been blocked for user verification (the edits occurred before the airing of the show), and Slashdot is declaring the prank 'backfired.' But did it backfire? It sounds to me it all went according to plan -- the Wikipedia editors are still debating how to include 'Wikiality' in Wikipedia.

I just got back from watching the MythBusters in action. They were really nice to us and I took a ton of photos, but I'll have to figure out how to split this up as neither I nor they want to give away any spoilers.

Update: here's an initial sample. There are many, many photos remaining, but they will probably wait until I can do a writeup.

rockstarprogrammer sent me this bit of info: the MythBusters will be doing entertainment at the AfterDark party at JavaOne. If you're having trouble getting your boss to send you to JavaOne this year ($1500 reg fee), then maybe this will tip the tables in your favor.

While MacRumors focuses on the fact that Apple is rolling out a new subscription pricing model for iTunes TV shows, all I care about is The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will be available for download for the first time -- sure to be much better than the streaming video on the Comedy Central Motherload that adds its own frame-dropping punchlines. I'm still crossing my fingers for the 50-disc yearly DVDs, but downloading does seem a bit more convenient. Each month of episodes (16 episodes) will cost $9.99.

It's been awhile since I last watched the Oscars. I think I briefly watched the hobbity bits, but not the entire event. I watched to see Jon Stewart and, for the most part, he didn't disappoint... for me. According to The Moderate Voice, the reviews are mixed. My own brief Technorati search for "Jon Stewart" turned up positive review after positive blog review, which seems to agree with my own understanding, which is that Jon Stewart made funny jokes if you are a Jon Stewart fan and made unfunny jokes if you happen to be the type of person who takes what actors wear to the Oscars seriously. I especially liked the Spielberg "Trilogy" joke and the fake lobbying ads ("Acting while beautiful"). The opening monologue and a montage of Jon Stewart jokes have made it onto YouTube -- hopefully other clips will make it up long enough for viewing before being taken down by a cease and desist letter.

Update: my summary and videos from the event have been posted

Even in light of my previous post, I'm still going to a "MythBusters Live Event to Benefit Encincal High" in Alameda. Perhaps they will be raising money to fix the goalposts they warped in Border Slingshot. Here are the full details:

Encinal High School Presents:
Myth Busters : Live Event to benefit Encinal High School
Saturday, Mar 25, 2006 7:00 PM PST (6:00 PM doors)
at Kofman Auditorium

Tickets are still available.

The MythBusters will be at Maker Faire, April 22-23 in San Mateo. Maker Faire is an event being held by Make Magazine, which is a darn cool magazine for people who want to get MacGuyver-y with electronics. The faire might give me a good jump start on my kite camera.

Discovery has posted some videos of 'lost' experiments: MythBusters: Lost Experiments

These aren't really 'lost' because, as far as I can tell, they've all been shown on the show before. They're more like MythBusters shorts.

The MythBusters were interviewed over at Ask Slashdot: The Mythbusters Answer Your Questions. I think the most interesting bit for me is finding out that they have just completed an episode on firing bullets up into the air -- it should be a nice variation on the Penny Drop myth.

In short, a good, but not great action film.

I have only seen half of one Firefly episode and I hated it. If one were to show me synopsis of each episode I won't even be able to pick out which one I had watched. That said, I'll probably give the show another shot, which won't show up in the box office receipts, but may be an effect that gives more fuel to Whedon's trilogy campaign.

The movie was rewarding in a way that space dramas made from TV shows generally aren't. At the end of the hour-long TV show you know that all the scratches will be buffed back out and this trait often shows up in the movie adaptation. Star Trek movies, in particular, are handcuffed by the need to maintain consistency in their well-documented timeline. Whedon was willing to put the Serenity story first ("I'm a leaf on the wind") even if it meant roughing up his well-crafted universe -- perhaps having only half a season on the books was a good thing. The movie still has the burden of syncing to the TV show, the actors feel more like TV actors, and the special effects are TV-rate as well, but I give the movie a lot of credit for making an entertaining sci-fi/space-samurai-spaghetti-western/Whedon-esque movie out of a $40 million budget.

(NOTE: My only significant complaint is that it was darn hard to understand the dialogue all the time. Out of four of us that went to see the movie, I know that at least three of us missed a line here and there. I felt that I needed subtitles or TiVo.)

If only I had a couple thousand dollars, lived in NY, and had a huge apartment to display it in, I could bid on pieces of the old Daily Show set. No sign of the couch, so I'd still have to hold off hope that I could sweep into the Daily Show studios and revert the crappy new set back to the way it was.

Discovery re-released the MythBusters Season One DVDs. Instead of costing $150+ for the thirteen episodes, it's now a much more reasonable $50. They also repackaged the DVDs so that they no longer have the generic Discovery Channel packaging. The only downside is that they still didn't include the pre-season-specials like the Jet Assisted Chevy, but that wasn't enough to stop me from picking up a set and clearing some room off the TiVo.

The new Battlestar Galactica is the best space sci-fi show I've seen in quite awhile. It stays away from the cantina/alien-of-the-week cheesiness that dominates the recent Star Trek franchise offerings, instead giving us a good, simple, dark Us (Human) vs. Them (Ceylon robots) that keeps the focus on the story, not the makeup. It also has IMHO the best space battles of any sci-fi TV show that I've seen. Star Trek battles tend to resemble naval ship battles or aerial dogfights -- BSG space battles feel like actual space battles. The director uses very long shots that capture the tininess of the ships against the vastness of space with quick zoom-ins to give it good action cuts, fully aware that ships in space are capable of turning, flipping, and spinning in all three dimensions.

Comcast doesn't seem fit to give us proper Sci-Fi channel reception, so I've been downloading the episodes off of BitTorrent -- a couple sites have the entire mini-series and entire season packaged together to save you time and effort.

Jon Stewart's Crossfire appearance has put him front and center. The Washington Post is now running a profile, he'll be on 60 minutes this week, and just several days ago the NYTimes did a profile as well.

I finally got to see a video of Jon Stewart's quickly-becoming-famous appearance on Crossfire (transcript), and I have to say, if you want to see a guest rip into the show's hosts repeatedly, and deservedly, I encourage you to watch. It's not intentionally humorous, but I found myself laughing regardless.

Tucker Carlson bears the brunt of the blast (Begala stays quiet for much of the assault) and was the victim of exchanges such as:

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery?

STEWART: Absolutely.

CARLSON: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on and you...

STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

and, as the they degenerate into outright insults going into the commercial break:

CARLSON: I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion.

CARLSON: OK, up next, Jon Stewart goes one on one with his fans...

STEWART: You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.

If you have trouble finding a copy (link 1 torrent link), send me an e-mail and I'll get you a copy.

Alias season 2 and 3 and West Wing season 2 arrived today. I don't feel guilty shelling out $$$ as I have come up with a plan to justify it all.

While borrowing West Wing season 1 from Alyssa, and was facing 15+ hours of TV watching (in less than 1 week), I decided that I would justify my TV watching by viewing the episodes with Spanish subtitles. Given the large amount of dialogue present in each episode, I feel that I'm starting to get a grasp, though it helps that I can quiz my fellow Spanish speakers for help.

My plan is to now go through all the TV episode DVDs I have and watch them with Spanish subtitles. West Wing season 2 should help me understand Spanish/Mexican politics, Buffy seasons 1-4 should help me on chupacabra expeditions, and Alias seasons 1 and 2 will train me for my career as a Spanish double agent. Sadly, season 3 of Alias is missing Spanish translations; hopefully my season 1 and 2 lingo will be enough to keep my secret identity from being uncovered.

After a series of mis-starts, it looks like Discovery is finally gonna let loose with the new MythBusters season. Tonight's episode features Archimedes using mirrors to set fire to the Roman fleet. I'm looking forward to the "Beat the Radar Detector" episode Oct. 17 and the "Levitation Machine" on Oct. 6.

In other TV news, I'm headed over the s's place to see the Lost premiere. No other new show this season has caught my eye so I'm looking for new shows to fill up my TiVo with.

I got to see Buffy, I mean Sarah Michelle Gellar. She seemed a little nervous and overwhelmed, perhaps because it started off poorly. The first question, as expected, was why hadn't she been to Comic-Con before. Expecting this, she pulled out a chronological list of reasons as to why she hadn't been there. It was a list only a comic geek could love, and it was delivered by someone who clearly wasn't a comic geek, to a crowd that contained many people who weren't comic geeks. I didn't even get them all (someone want to fill me in on the Phantom Zone reference?). According to my sparse notes, the reasons were (I may be missing one):

1. Holding out for all the image guys to return to Marvel
2. Two words: Phantom Zone
3. Didn't have a ride back to LA
4. Still trying to make sense of the Spiderman clone story
5. Dark Knight Strikes Again -> done with comics
6. Gonna wait for the next Tick issue. Still waiting.
7. Waiting for Peter David/Todd McFarlane debate to be over
8. Already married to world's biggest comic geek
9. Not enough merchandise with my damn face on it

The rest of the talk was fairly bland: some nice things said about the Japanese people, Gellar's failed attempts to learn Japanese in time for the Japan premiere of The Grudge, compliments to the other guy for Roswell. The main highlight I remember was an exchange where a girl asked her if she ever used any of her characters to help her through real-life situations. Gellar replied, "You know they're not real, right?" which was followed by her saying that Cruel Intentions did teach her how to kiss a girl, "thank you Paris Hilton."

Eliza Dushku was also there again this year desperately trying to revive her dying show. As you can tell in the gallery, it was a whole lot easier to get close enough to take decent photos. In at least one of the Sarah Michelle Gellar photos you can see the shrimpy security guy moving me away.

Buffy/Faith Photo Gallery (23 Photos)

If you've ever wondered what Gary Burghoff (aka "Radar" O'Reilley) has been doing since his MASH days, I've found out the answer. He starred in a DARPA video about AI-based personal assistants. Paraphrasing:

"Hi I'm Gary Burghoff. You probably know me as Radar O'Reilley on MASH, where I was known for my ability to anticipate the needs of my commanding officer. In the future, personal cognitive assistants will...blah...blah"

It reminds me of Jimmy Buffet playing at the birthday party of the Tyco CEO's wife, and it also reminds me of all the old sci-fi-series actors at Comic-Con who sit in their autograph booths with absolutely no one in line for them.

I only post all of this to ask the question: How much do you get paid to lose all your dignity after your fall from fame?

I found this too amusing to not post. I think I find it particularly amusing because it's a government agency using a fictional TV character to do its recruitment. The only thing more amusing would be Sean Connery doing MI6 ads (MI5 is hiring).
- Jennifer Garner CIA Recruitment Ad

One of my favorite new shows, thanks to Paul, is MythBusters which is on the Discovery Channel. It's pretty apparent that the show is in the Bay Area, but up until a post on A Whole Lotta Nothing I didn't know where. You can check out the link below to see where there located (not too far from meta) as well as see their portfolio of stuff they've done for movies/commercials/etc...
M5 Industries Visual Effects

For a couple of months I had digital cable with Comcast, but I quit using it because the Motorola digital cable boxes managed to decrease the quality of my TV viewing experience. Comcast had an opportunity to improve this by going with a TiVo DVR, but instead it looks like they are going to try and do their own DVR using an upgraded version of the crappy Motorola platform.
Comcast takes on TiVo | CNET News.com

Fresh Air: Friday - November 21, 2003

Hear Terry Gross have to say 'poop' again and again, a short dig about the Gene Simmons interview, and satire of the Bill O'Reilly interview.

This Popular Science article posted on Slashdot, The Worst Jobs in Science, was a good lead-in to a new show I just watched called Dirty Jobs, which airs on the Discovery Channel.

What impresses me most about this show isn't the selection of nasty jobs they've found. Rather, it's that they've found a host that actually participates in all of the nasty jobs. The episode I watched starts off with the host spelunking in a bat cave full of forty million bats, forty million bats that are crappin' and pissin' all over the floor. His guide at one point notes, "Feel the rain?" On the way out of the cave the host gets stuck in the bat guano and covered in it as he has to sit down in order to unbury his trapped feet.

Monster Garage did a cool episode on "Backyard Monsters" where they showed a bunch of creations that other people had made. Here are some that I was able to find links for:
- Dobbertin Surface Orbiter (photo links at the bottom). Built out of an oil tanker, it can travel on land and sea.
- Draka. When we saw this, we immediately said "Burning Man" (confirmed by this unfortunate article) It's a gigantic dragon vehicle that shoots flames.
- Shortcut High. A chopped school bus that gives new meaning to "short bus."
- Carthedral. A Goth chick's dream car.
- Mirabilis Statuarius Vehiculum. A car witha bunch of artsy stuff glued on top of it.

Note to visitors: there are no b-l-u-e-p-r-i-n-t-s on this site. Sorry for the funny spelling, but the next paragraph should explain.

There are several comments posted asking for b-l-u-e-p-r-i-n-t-s that I have deleted it. I did those not out of malice, but because I believe that your comments are making this page show up in google searches for people looking for b-l-u-e-p-r-i-n-t-s. I have now removed all references to the word b-l-u-e-p-r-i-n-t-s (with the correct spelling) on this page, so hopefully those people who are doing those searches end up elsewhere.

If you are about to post a comment, please do not ask for b-l-u-e-p-r-i-n-t-s. I wish you the best of luck on your project, but you won't find any b-l-u-e-p-r-i-n-t-s here.

While I was over at Making Light I also stumbled upon this insight as to why O'Reilly really doesn't like Al Franken: Instant Replay: The BuzzFlash Interview with Al Franken. Bill O'Reilly Gag on this One! - A BuzzFlash Interview

More info on transforming your Polk into a Peabody: The Peabody Award Spin

Fox got booted out of court. Among the quotes:
- "There are hard cases and there are easy cases. This is an easy case."
- "This case is wholly without merit both factually and legally."
- "Parody is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment. The keystone to parody is imitation. Mr. Franken is clearly mocking Fox."
- "["Fair and balanced"] is a weak one as trademarks go."

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

NY Daily News - News - Bill O'Reilly: Calling Al Franken a satirist is a farce

To paraphrase in my own words: "Fox News is so cool. That's why everyone hates it and tries to make fun of it. But those liberals that make fun of Fox are just jealous. They wish they were as cool as Fox. And making fun of cool people just isn't cool. That's why we support Ashcroft. He'll take all those ultraliberal types that want to make fun of cool people and throw them in jail where they belong with all the other hippies."

And to quote in O'Reilly's own words:

"Fox has succeeded by mixing a populist-traditional, pro-American editorial posture with lively debate that includes voices the traditional network news organizations would never allow airtime."

Actually, my favorite quote is, "The accusation that Fox is a conservative network is pure propaganda." How could people possibly think that? I mean, doesn't every news Web site have prominent links to books like "Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism" and Oliver North's "Mission Compromised"?
(via Metafilter)

Fox News has trademarked "Fair and Balanced" and is suing Al Franken for using it in the title of his upcoming book, "Lies and Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."
- CNN.com - Fox sues Franken over 'fair and balanced' - Aug. 12, 2003

This clip (courtesy of Lisa Rein) continues to demonstrate that the Daily Show is the funniest show on TV. Stephen Colbert's commentary is hilarious. Also, be sure to check out this image when you get to "those cuts would come back to haunt us" as the graphic is hard to make out in the video.

Joss Whedon was a spaz; entertaining, but nevertheless a spaz. I don't care enough to transcribe everything he said, which was mostly bitterness at Firefly (with optimism for the future), closure over Buffy, and dodging of questions about future story arcs. Luckily, Rebecca Salek did good job of transcribing the Q&A session, which you can find in this Newsarama thread.

Tara/Amber Benson from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was at the Comic-Con signing autographs. I didn't bother, but here's a photo:
this entry contains a photo, click to view

Season Four of the Buffy marathon is officially complete, bringing to total to forty-four episodes. Amanda's now picking and choosing among Season One and Two episodes as she's already seen them all.

More photos summarizing today's action in the extended section.

Latest marathon update: Amanda has finished Season Three! That means she has twenty-two episodes under the belt.

More photos summarizing today's festivities are in the extended entry.

Day 1 of the Buffy Marathon is over. Amanda has to go to bed so she can do her Team-in-Training run tomorrow morning (she claims this is all for this other type of marathon she's doing in September). So how did she do? It looks to me like she's possessed by the demon: