Category: Television 
When a 1 hour 36 minute movie takes 4 hours to show.
And before you start thinking too much, I already did the math for you:
- Movie length = 96 minutes
- Total length of showing = 240 minutes
- Total commercial time = 144 minutes (Total length - Movie length)
- Amount of commercial time for each minute of movie time = 1.5 minutes (total commercial time / movie length)
That means that if they display 10 minutes of movie, you have to sit through 15 minutes of commercials.
And you just know the commercials on the Hallmark Movie Channel will make you want to scratch your eyes out.
I was watching TV when a commercial for Verizon FiOS in NYC came on. I noticed that the Verizon installer was using an electronic gadget to keep track of his installation appointments. The gadget looked surprisingly like an Amazon Kindle. That’s when I realized that they must be testing an updated version.
Based on the commercial, we can see the following:
- Same basic size and shape.
- It will have a touch screen with cute little beeps when you touch it.
- It will have either a backlit screen or a much brighter screen.
- It will support custom applications like the Verizon FiOS installation application.
I assume it will be released in time for Christmas.
I’ve included the commercial and some large screen caps below.
Continue reading . . .
When you watch English speaking shows, they have the Spanish audio on a SAP (secondary audio programming) channel. How come the Spanish channels don’t have English audio on a SAP?
‘How It’s Made’, on the Science Channel, is one of the best shows on TV. If you haven’t heard of it or seen it, it’s title pretty much describes it. In a typical show, they show three segments profiling how “things” are made. The “things” range from sandpaper, to chocolate, to kitchen sinks, to curling stones, and they take you into the factory and show you the most interesting steps in the process. I’m almost always fascinated at how automated processes are, but yet they still require a lot of manual intervention. I’ve never been disappointed with a ‘How It’s Made’ show...until now.
They say there are two things you never want to see made, sausage and legislation. Guess what ‘How It’s Made’ showed in episode 16? Yup, hot dogs, and they showed it all. It’s true that no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to “unsee” something that you’ve seen, and this is one of those times I wish you could. Yuck. Pig parts...chicken parts...all mushed together...blech!
I’m just glad I don’t get Science Channel HD!
Is it me, or is she the second most annoying* person, ever? Evidence: “Delish”, “EVOO”, the Dunkin’ Donuts commercials, and she’s just so darn cheery all the time. I really dislike people who are cheery all the time.
* there is no “first most annoying”...sorta prevents one person from running away with the title...of course, she pretty much could run away with it if allowed to.
I love ESPN, especially SportsCenter, and I love most of the commercials in the “This Is SportsCenter” campaign. They are often funny, irreverent, and do a good job of incorporating, and poking fun at, sports stars.
One of my favorites from the last few years is The Manning Family Tour in which the entire Manning family (mother, father, three brothers) are given a tour of, what is probably, a small section of ESPN’s production offices. During the tour, Peyton and Eli, each wearing their respective team’s t-shirts, are “getting on each other’s nerves” by flicking ears, giving wet willies, and even a behind the back kick. While your focus is on the brothers and their antics, the tour guide talks about the various areas. The best part of the commercial is when Archie Manning looks back at the brothers and Peyton points to Eli like it’s all his fault. You can see the commercial on YouTube.
So, for the public’s benefit, I present the transcript of the tour. I love how the hallway plays a prominent roll.
Anyway, that’s the control room. Lotta chaos there, but it all looks good when it comes out on the show, actually thanks to those people. Then over here in the digital center is our highlight screening area. So that’s where we get all the games that are played that night down into ninety-second or two-minute clips or whatever you see on SportsCenter. This hallway, it runs between, you know, between both rooms, you know. If you want to get from the control room to the screening, then this is the hallway you take. Questions or anything? I can answer whatever you want about the place. No? Nothing?
I was watching TV and saw a Wendy’s commercial touting how their burgers are made with fresh beef. I like looking at the fine print in ads, so I noticed the following screen:
In case you can’t read it, at the bottom it says, “Fresh beef available in contiguous US and CN.”
So what exactly are the burgers made of in Hawaii and Alaska?
I’m several days behind watching Ken Burns’ “The War”, but I just started watching episode five, “FUBAR”, in which the explanations for the acronyms SNAFU and FUBAR were clearly bleeped.
To be honest, I’m surprised that WNET went with the bleeped version, but with the inconsistencies from the FCC over the use of certain words, I can’t blame them for being scared and cautious.
I’ve had HDTV for about a year now and can say that it is one of the most amazing products technology has brought us, but also one of the most frustrating.
It’s true that an HD picture is great, and at times, breathtaking, but this is also the most frustrating part. In a nutshell...once you see a true HD program, you never want to watch anything in standard definition again. Ever.
Discovery HD Theater (DHDT) is a great example of what is great about HDTV and what is frustrating about it. Basically it has it’s own programming and is not just an HD broadcast of what’s on standard definition Discovery Channel, unlike most HD channels. I love the Discovery Channel and many programs on it, and would love to see some of them in HD, but for some reason, not a lot of their shows are shot in HD, or if they are, aren’t shown on DHDT.
Planet Earth is a special series that is broadcast on both Discovery and DHDT and it’s fantastic. In the most recent episode they showed a great series of shots of angel falls, and they were absolutely breathtaking in HD.
Discovery Channel shows “Dirty Jobs” and “Deadliest Catch” should be broadcast in HD if they can be. “American Chopper” is broadcast in HD...does it need to be? The main difference between the shows is that “American Chopper” is mostly shot in a controlled environment whereas the other two are shot in various and, in the case of “Deadliest Catch”, harsh environments and it might not be possible to shoot in HD all the time.
As I previously predicted, Sanjaya was voted off the island on ‘American Idol’. While I’m no great predictor of the future, I will go out on a limb and predict that I will have grilled chicken for lunch today. Anyone wanna takes bets on that?
Update: I was right, grilled chicken for lunch! Maybe today’s the day I should play the lottery.
There’s a leak at CTU? No, can’t be. That place is always so careful about who they hire.
As usual, the person who they think is the mole may not be the mole. Moles in the 24 universe are very good at rerouting their activity through other’s workstations to hide their activities.
They have more leaks than the Titanic, and the show wouldn’t be 24 without them.
Howard Stern has mentioned that he wants Sanjaya to win “American Idol”, and that he wants to throw all his media weight behind it by having his fans vote for Sanjaya.
While I don’t watch “American Idol”, or care who wins, I don’t think Howard will be successful in his campaign.
First of all, Howard has significantly lost the amount of listeners he could have reached before he moved to satellite radio. While those that followed him to satellite are probably his most loyal fans, it’s still a fraction of the listeners he could reach while on terrestrial radio. This fact will translate into a high percentage of Howard listeners that will call and vote for Sanjaya, but it will not be a very significant percentage of total “American Idol” votes coming in.
Secondly, I’m guessing that 50% of the normal regular voting fans of “American Idol” (not the Howard Stern driven fans) pick their favorite contestant and stick with them, and the other 50% vote for who they think is best on a weekly basis. I further assume that if the first group’s favorite is voted off, 90% of them pick a new favorite and keep on voting each week, rather than drop out completely.
Based on the above two assumptions (which I don’t think are far fetched), I will go on record and say that Sanjaya will not win “American Idol”. As the contestants are whittled down, all the “American Idol” faithful will continue to vote for contestants other than Sanjaya, and Howard’s lack of mass-audience-reach will not be able to overcome those numbers. I’ll say that Sanjaya doesn’t reach the final four.
Update: As predicted, Sanjaya was voted off last night, albeit a little earlier than I thought.
Today’s been an apartment straighten-out day. I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought a new Dust Buster and then used it until the battery ran out. I also started reorganizing my kitchen.
During this whole time, I had the Daytona 500 on the TV, partly because it’s “The Great American Race”, and partly because there’s nothing else on. I’ve never really watched a NASCAR race from start to finish before, but so far I have to say that I don’t get it.
First off, they have to install these things called “restrictor plates” in each car which, I think, restricts the flow of fuel to the engine, which limits the speed of the car. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the point of racing was to go as fast as possible. If everyone is running at the same speed, what’s the point of building the cars and tweaking them to get the most performance out of them?
Toyota made one of the car types racing today. The ironic thing is that the Toyota is the only one made in the U.S.A. The Fords, Chevys, and Pontiacs are all made in either Canada or Mexico. You gotta’ love NAFTA!
Everyone has a southern accent. If they don’t, they sort of talk like they do.
A car can be “loose” and it can be “tight”, but I can’t tell if it can be both at the same time.
They clean up the accidents pretty quickly.
Anytime anyone speaks about a car, the always seems to mention the big sponsor as if it’s the name of the car. I.E. “The Office Depot number 99 just got four tires.”, or “The Domino’s Pizza double zero had a good pit stop.”
I’m fine watching the race from the wide and semi-wide angle cameras, but every once in a while they have this camera that seems to be right on the wall of the track, and it snaps around as a car races by at 170mph. That shot gets me dizzy. They also have a crane camera in the front area that travels against the traffic...weird.
There is a lake in the middle of the racetrack, and there’s a boat in there. What’s the deal with that?
I’m not sure if Ricky Bobby qualified for this race or not, but I haven’t heard them mention his name.
Update: Some pit crew member just had a car run over his ankle. How does that not happen more often?
Update: OK, I’ll admit it...that was a great finish! The problem is that there was 198 other laps before it. It’s sort of like a basketball game...the last two minutes are great, it’s the other 46 that suck.
From tonight’s episode of “The Simpsons”:
This episode is dedicated to all who died in the “Star Wars” films
Darth Vader
Darth Maul
Greedo
Uncle Owen
Storm Trooper #5
Jango Fett
General Grievous (Droid)
Storm Trooper #22
Dak
Obi Wan (Ben) Kenobi
Whoever Jimmy Smits Played
Hutt, Jabba The
Sy Snoodles
Unfortunately, Not Jar-Jar Binks
Everyone on both Death Stars when they blew up
I was especially saddened by Storm Trooper #22’s death.
Fox certainly sold a lot of advertising to the big mobile phone companies. Verizon is pushing the Q, Sprint is showing off its GPS functions, and Cingular is now the new at&t (they use lowercase, so I think I should too).
Cingular is also showing off the Samsung Blackjack, both in a Cingular commercial, and a Samsung commercial that I’m sure Cingular helped underwrite. I was hoping Cingular would change the “splat” to the at&t blue, but it doesn’t appear so.
Oh, and Jack’s back for another season of ridiculous chases, convenient timing, breaking every rule in the book, and implausible situations. Can’t wait.
I subscribe to CNN’s Breaking News e-mail alerts. I figured that since I have a BlackBerry, I can get important news e-mailed to me so I can be aware of it without having to check the web site. For a little while it was good in that the news that was considered “breaking” was actually news that might be considered important.
That has changed. I think that whoever is pulling the trigger on what is breaking news has a very low threshold, or, they are paid by the number of breaking news items they send out. Below are just three “Breaking News” items that CNN saw fit to send me.
- Don Knotts died.
- Ben Rothlisburger to be issued summons for failing to wear a helmet and have a proper motorcycle license.
- Dan Rather reaches agreement with CBS News to leave the network after 44 years.
You’re joking, right?
Update: I threw up a page that keeps track of the ridiculous ones. They’ve gotten a lot better.
I’m watching Seinfeld on my local Fox station and during a commercial break, they advertise that they now have HD cameras in “Chopper Five”.
What I want to know is who’s been calling Fox and asking for their morning traffic reports in high definition?
I’m watching 24 and I had to pause it for about 1 minute because I was making dinner. During the next commercial break, I hit the fast-forward button, and was able to make it back “live”. The problem is that sometimes when that happens, the DVR gets a little “funny”. It starts getting a little jerky, especially with the audio. The only way to clear it is to change the channel and then change back.
I did just that during the commercial break and continued to watch 24 live. Within 20 minutes, I had to address a biological function that was not going to wait for the next break, so I hit the pause button right in the middle of 24. To my surprise, when it paused, it showed a Target commercial, which was a bit odd since I was in the middle of 24 (I believe a hostage taker was on the phone). When I got back, I hit “play” and the Target commercial played. Huh?
I hit the fast-forward button, and eventually the DVR hit live again, and to my shock and dismay, it was showing some award show. The Golden Globes to be exact. Huh? Huh?
The display showed channel 5 and said “24” as the title of the show, but clearly, it was not 24! Son of a *&%$#!
I guess what happened was that the channel switch that I did to clear up the jerky audio was too fast for the DVR to handle and while I was viewing channel 5, it was recording channel 4 in the background. Another channel switch, this time slower, cleared it up, but I missed about 45 seconds. Damn.
I’m not sure why, but I really like that Mastercard commercial where Peyton Manning is cheering and asking for autographs of people doing their regular jobs. I like the part where he stands outside a restaurant and cheers the employees going home, and then is so happy when one of them throws him their apron.
However, my favorite part of the commercial, and they don’t show it every time, is after the Mastercard logo, at the very end of the commercial, Peyton hands a loaf of bread to a supermarket employee and says, “Could you sign this for my little brother”. Priceless.
