In mid-January, the Wall Street Journal analyzed the actual amount of play time of the average football game.  They added up the amount of time the ball was actually alive and in play in four different games, and it averaged out to about 11 minutes.  They concluded that the average game broadcast on TV shows 17 minutes of replays and 67 minutes of players standing around.  With the biggest game of the year coming up, I decided to do my own analysis of the actual play time.

There’s a WOMBAT for that.

While growing up in Manhattan, I had always heard about this type of thing, but had never seen it in person.  I had seen references to it in movies and on TV, and friends and acquaintances swear it’s happened to them, but I had always thought that they made it up as sort of practical joke on a city kid.  I had dismissed it as a myth or an urban legend—like unicorns, alligators in the sewers, or that girl that had to go to the hospital because she got a frozen hot dog stuck somewhere.

The other day, when I got home and picked up my mail, I saw an odd looking envelope mixed in with a magazine and another envelope containing local coupons.  This envelope caught my attention because it was a first-class letter sized envelope with both my address and the return address handwritten on the front.  It looked like something that a friend would send me, except that I knew of no friends with the return name or at the return address.  Additionally, it was addressed to “Joshua Madison”, and about the only people who use that form of my name are my parents and the I.R.S., neither of whom this envelope came from.

I was intrigued, but also weary.  Visions of some long lost relative who left me a million dollars danced in my head; so did anthrax.

I slowly and carefully opened it.  Inside was what appeared to be a pamphlet that had been folded to fit inside an envelope, and wrapped around it was a handwritten note.  I was so focused on whether or not the note was really handwritten, or just printed to look handwritten, that I actually didn’t read it at first.  I just felt it to see if I could feel the handwriting…and I could.  It was a real handwritten note from a stranger, addressed to me.

I started to read a bit.  The person who wrote it wanted to tell me that they were a volunteer in my area, that they were unable to reach me in person, and “was hoping to share some positive thoughts with you.”

Oh boy.

I could see where this was going, so I decided to finish the rest of it while sitting on the throne dropping some kids off at the pool.

I continued to read about how life may feel like a hamster wheel, and how you can be famous or wealthy one day and lose it all the next, but luckily, the enclosed magazine could make me feel truly successful, so successful that even if I were to lose everything I wouldn’t feel as though I’ve somehow failed.

I opened the little magazine and it was called “Awake!”.  I looked at the table of contents and noticed a very slight religious tone to the articles, such as “How Does God View Aids to Worship?”, and “Was It Designed? The Navigational System of the Butterfly”, and “Young People Ask How Can I Improve in My Prayers?”

Oh, this is so not for me.

But before I threw it out, I was curious about who really sent it.  I figured it would be the Mormons, or maybe that Scientology thing.  I looked around the table of contents but couldn’t find anything that obviously spelled out who was responsible.  I flipped the pages a bit and found the publishing information.  It was published by some outfit called, “The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society”.

“Wait, that sounds familiar,” I thought.  “Where do I know that name from?”

My mind started accessing information pathways that hadn’t been used in some time.  For some reason, the Brooklyn Bridge popped into my head, followed by a building in Brooklyn, then…

“Oh my god!  Could it be?!  Is this them?!!” I ejaculated.

As quick as I could, I got to my computer and looked it up.  It was.

IT WAS!!!

It was published by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and this letter and magazine must be the Manhattan equivalent of them knocking on doors.  It’s really real.  Perhaps everything everyone told me, and what I had seen in movies and on TV, were real as well?  It took 35 years, but the Jehovah’s Witnesses finally made contact.

I just hope I don’t get more of this crap.

Update: Almost forgot…the return address from the envelope is about 12 blocks North from me, and I walk by it all the time, but I never knew there was a Jehovah’s Witness hall there.

The other day I ran into one of my favorite shows on TV, the Discovery Channel’s “How It’s Made”.  This particular episode was of special interest to me because they showed how fortune cookies are made, and I’m somewhat fond of them.  The production of fortune cookies was about what I expected it would be: ingredients mixed; cookies baked; fortunes inserted and cookies folded; cookies wrapped, boxed and shipped.

During the segment, they gave out two interesting statistics that I was hoping they would.  This particular fortune cookie factory produces 4 million cookies per day, and uses 5,000 different fortunes, which means that each fortune printed is going to be duplicated 800 times per day.  Afterward, the number 4 million got stuck in my head, and danced around in there as I tried to sleep.  I’m not sure why, but it just seems like a very large number to me.

Continue reading . . . 

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.

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

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 . . . 

According to CNN, there were two important breaking news stories today. The first was the emergency interest rate cute by the Federal Reserve, and the second was Heath Ledger’s death.  I won’t get into why the second one is not important, but I just wanted to point out that CNN did not have a story on it so I went to one of my local TV station’s sites to see if there was an article on it.  There was, and I was sort of interested in one particular sentence.

Now I understand that this was a fresh story that was breaking at the moment, but that doesn’t let the writers off the hook for getting some basic facts correct before they publish something.  Take the following sentence:

He was pronounced dead at 3:26 p.m. in his downtown Manhattan residence by his housekeeper [...]

His housekeeper pronounced him dead?  I’m fairly certain that in NY State only a doctor or someone with official medical training can pronounce someone dead.  Perhaps he was “found dead” by his housekeeper?

But that’s not the sentence that bothered me.  It was the one right before that:

The Australian-born actor was just 28.

Why was his age reported as “just 28”?  Is there a hard-and-fast rule that people under a certain age are reported as being “just” x years old, and if so, what is that age?  When does someone’s age stop being a “just” and start being just an age?  If he were 34 would he still have been “just 34” or would he be “34”?  What’s the cutoff for getting the “just” in the sentence?  Does it depend on the age of the author, and anyone younger than he/she is “just” x years old? Does it have to do with the circumstances of the death…for example, if a 68 year old woman was killed by a hit-and-run, would she be “just 68”? Or is it nothing more than just the whim of the writer, and on a different day he would have been “28” instead of “just 28”?

Update: I wrote to one of the authors of the story and asked why the “just”.  Never got a response.

Note: The original article has been edited and corrected.  A screen shot of the original article can be found here.

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!

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.