Entries tagged “media”

Nov 8, 2010

This commercial for the video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops” is probably the best video game commercial I’ve ever seen.  The average American 30-somethings firing weapons; Kobe and Kimmel; “Concierge”; The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”—stopping and restarting at the perfect times; and no actual game play footage all underscore the perfect tagline: “There’s a soldier in all of us”.

Hopefully the game will live up to the commercial (it’s got zombies…how bad could it be?)

The Hallmark Movie Channel Does It Again

May 22, 2009 at 10:30pm • One comment

Do people really watch movies on this channel?  IMDB lists the movie at 112 minutes long, yet they take 4 hours to show it.

Once again, I’ll do the math:

  • Movie length = 112 minutes
  • Total length of showing = 240 minutes
  • Total commercial time = 128 minutes (total length – movie length)
  • Amount of commercial time for each minute of movie time = 1.1 minutes (total commercial time / movie length)

That means that if they display 10 minutes of movie, you have to sit through 11 minutes of commercials.

How do they get away with this?

P.S. At least I’m consistent.  The photo from the last time something like this happened showed that I was tuned to SNY at 9:37 p.m.  Clearly, I’m fond of watching SNY at night and cruising the guide for something else to watch.

How You Can Tell That The Movie You’re About To Watch Has Too Many Commercials

August 18, 2008 at 8:30am • 12 comments

When a 1 hour 36 minute movie takes 4 hours to show.

image

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.

Update (May 22, 2009) — They’ve done it again!

What Exactly Is In Wendy’s Burgers?

October 7, 2007 at 10:20pm • 7 comments

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:

Wendy's commercial screencap

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?

CNN’s Breaking News Annoys Me

June 20, 2006 at 10:00am • 3 comments

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 recently:

  • 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.