TV
7
Nov 08
Hope for my children
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Last year, about a month before my daughter turned for she asked who the “pretty man” on TV was. “Obama” I replied. When I went to YearlyKos in Chicago, I told her about how the Democratic presidential candidates would be there and she’s asked if “President Obama” would attend. I explained to her that he wasn’t president and I doubted he would be.
She bugged me all summer and fall of 2007 to vote for Obama, but he wasn’t my choice. I wasn’t interested. She told me on my birthday last year, “If you don’t vote for Obama, maybe a bad guy will win and you’ll be sad.” Manipulative little…
Super Tuesday
When we voted in the primaries, I was definitely going to vote for Obama. She was at my side, as usual, making sure I voted the right way. “Is he president now?”, she’d asked. Not yet, but at that point, I was sure he would be.
Throughout the primaries, her face would light up with she saw Obama on TV. She’d asked if he was president yet and I’d tell her not yet. She loved Obama. When she finally figured out he had two daughters, she asked me to call him to see if they could have a playdate. On Super Bowl Sunday, I had taken her to see Michelle Obama speak (the day, I firmly became an Obama fan, incidentally). My daughter recognized that she was seeing a woman who looked like her mom, though admittedly more beautiful. She thought Michelle Obama was a queen.
Once the general election kicked in, she was very much against McCain. “Why is that man so mean?”, “Why does he tell lies? Lying’s bad.”, “I think his mom should give him a timeout.” were questions she asked over and over again. By mid-September, she was done with politics and thought the mean guy should just let Obama be president already. I agreed, but gave her an age-appropriate lesson in democracy. Continue reading →
10
Aug 08
NBC still sucks
Image via WikipediaI wrote an entry about the suckitude of NBC covering the Olympics back in 2006. NBCs coverage certainly fell off 10 years previous, but since Sydney, it’s increasingly painful to watch. It’s not the just the fluff pieces on the athletes where a knee scrape at the age of 6 is told with overwrought music and fraught with drama. It’s not just the insufferable focus on American athletes, many of whom don’t stand a chance to win a medal, let along a gold one. It’s not even the fact that if you do not have cable, you’ll miss 95% of the coverage. The worst part of NBCs coverage, at least for me here on the west coast is the utter lie that is that taunting “LIVE” icon in the top right corner of my screen.
Opening Ceremonies carried that “LIVE” tag, even though earlier in the day I heard about all the technological feats from European friends a good 9 hours before I even had a chance to watch it. Yesterday, people were talking about swimmer Michael Phelps wondering if he’d win his gold medal. 3 hours before it was shown here on the west coast, I already knew that he did.
I had this rant ready to go, but I just reread what I wrote in ’06 and it still stands today. The 2 points I made then, I wanted to make today:
Not to knock on my fellow countrymen, but the best part about the Olympics is the internationality of it all. I love seeing people excel in sports that they shouldn’t have or surpass all kinds of odds just to get to the Olympics, but I have a feeling that Americans don’t have a corner on hardship*
AND…
Now let’s get to programming. Remember the days when the Olympics were carried live? Remember when you had to set your VCR to tape figure skating at 2:45pm? Well now, we’re subjected to 3.5 hours of highlights. By the time the Olympics air here on the West Coast, I already know who won. Hell, Comcast On-Demand has the winners up before NBC plays their stinkin’ highlight reel. And that’s exactly what it is: a flippin’ highlight reel. I have no idea what’s edited out until I see who’s competed. On the computer. Where it’s already tomorrows in Torino. You’d think that there are really only 6 people competing in any given sport. Those other names? They’re just ghosts of Olympics past.
I think that if I want to watch soccer and avoid gymnastics, I shouldn’t have to use a chart to determine when it will actually run and on what channel. I should be able to watch an entire competition all the way through. Instead, last night we got a chunk of gymnastics (US, China and Japan only, even though 5 other countries also competed), some swim races, a volleyball game, interviews with the US Women’s fencing team and highlights of other sports that weren’t televised at all.
How do they think that is watchable? That was just on the Universal HD (where it is so not HD) channel. I popped over to USA Spain vs. Greece basketball and the commentators were calling color from a studio in New York! I haven’t caught anything on MSNBC, Oxygen, Telemundo or CNBC mostly because I find it ridiculous I have to flip that much to watch old news. But I wish I knew the reason why content couldn’t be aired live across all timezones at the same time. NBA finals, Super Bowl, World Series, Wimbledon, US Open, etc. are all aired at the same time in the US. Why not the Olympics?
I really, really, really detest NBCs coverage and you can let them know at [email protected]
25
Jun 08
I won!
That’s right, I won the Easy Green Living book by Renée Loux that was being given away on Seesmic. Want to watch the whole thing? Below is the video of the when Ms. Loux took our questions on what we viewed as important in living “green”:
Yes, that’s not Renée, but if you click on it, you’ll see here (yes, I’m laughing at a pretty frantic email I received).
About a week and some days later, the winner was announced:
I laughed. I cried. I want to thank the Academy…
Then today…the book arrived:
I’m kinda busy with work, but I’ve had a chance to flip through the book and it’s pretty interesting. There are a lot of items in the book that I already own/buy not because of any greenness on my part, but because of price, locality and prettiness/smells. The book is more a shopping guide than a lifestyle guide, IMO, but even flipping through it, it was struck by how many items in the book are things you don’t really need in life. Or the lack of actual greenness of them, i.e. paper towels/napkins. It’s much more green to use cloth towels, and thankfully, the author does point that out. Which brings me to the second cool thing about the book.
Everything is pretty accessible to anyone who can read and shows that you don’t have to drop big $$$ to be green which is stunning to me considering Loux hosts a show on Fine Living. The best part is that Loux does explain why certain things are better than others. Unlike other “green” books, there doesn’t seem to be those not-so-unsubtle judgment calls on your purchases. Take the section on cookware. It’s extremely detailed explaining why Teflon or non-stick cookware isn’t in your best interest vs. stainless steel or cast iron cookware.
Check out the book at your local library or you can find at Powell’s.
20
May 08
He’s not even dead
MSNBC is disgusting. They just spent the last 3 hours eulogizing Sen. Ed Kennedy and he ain’t even dead yet.
Gross.
11
May 08
SNL made a funny
Well, SNL did their once-a-decade funny sketch. I have to hand it to the players, they did a great job parodying the people from Match Game.
11
May 08
Holy Ini Kamoze!
WaPo is reporting that the Clinton’s campaign is $20M in debt.
$20M.
And they want back in to the WH?
There’s nothing in the article that says anything beyond Wolfson’s confirmation of the number. We have no idea if that includes the $12M the Clinton’s loaned themselves. Terry McAuliffe was on Meet the Press this morning and said:
A top Clinton adviser this morning said that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is open to the possibility of loaning her campaign more money to continue in the race.
Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton campaign chairman, told Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” that he spoke to Clinton about the possibility of contributing more money and “she said that she would be willing to do it.” However, McAuliffe insists, “We haven’t needed it.”
Russert pressed the issue, asking McAuliffe if the Clintons will be able to repay all debts after the campaign is over. “We plan on it,” he replied.
Must be nice to have that kind of change. Let’s put this in perspective: With their first loan, the Clinton’s could have paid off my house, bills and bought me a new car and it would still have been well under 10% of what they loaned themselves.
What a working class family.
17
Apr 08
Oh those San Francisco Liberals
One of the biggest jokes of the past week has been how Sen. Clinton tosses off “San Francisco” as if it’s a dirty word. We shouldn’t expect much from one half of a couple who spent an inordinate amount of time running away from the “liberal” tag just because the scary old Republicans tried to turn it into a playground taunt. Still, Clinton does have her supporters in San Francisco, so the way she’s been denigrating the Obama supporters who heard his truthful remarks and comparing them to “real” people, is so much GOP bullshit.
The out of touch media dorks were oh-so-quick to give a shout out to their blue-collar upbringings…well, that is the blue collar cities where they were born (near), though many of them are trustafarians who were raised in a different area. Their experiences with blue collar workers has either been ordering them around or getting their asses beat by them. The way they condescend bears this out. Keep in mind that these were people who were telling us that blue collar workers have no idea what arugla is.
Insulting.
So while the small town voter in Pennsylvania who was not being insulted by Sen. Obama’s remarks, is being puffed up by Sen. Moneybags and the Fourth Estate, the poor souls in San Francisco have to deal, yet again, with being treated like they’re so far out of the mainstream. In all these years where “San Francisco liberal” has become a Pavlovian buzzword to half-witted Republicans and even some “D”emocrats. I’ve never once heard any media pundit come to the defense of the San Francisco voter. I’ve never heard any Democrat stand up and say, “This is where we draw the line, the voters of San Francisco are people, tax-paying Americans who also deserve to be treated with respect.” Maybe we could even go all Godwin’s law or something. The fact is, that words taken of out context and/or distorted could be insulting to anyone anywhere. You know who the media largely caters to when they’re more concerned about blue collar workers, gun owners and the crazed Bible-thumping faction of religion being insulted than if black, Latino, rich, gay, or just regular religious folks (UCC anyone?) are insulted.
Let’s take the Muslim thing for example. For almost 14 months during this campaign, Muslims have been smeared. In that, I mean that some Democrats <coughHillaryClintoncough>, the media and certainly the unintelligent Republicans feel that it’s alright to “slime” Sen. Obama by implying that he’s a Muslim. Sen. Obama is the only elected official during this entire campaign to say that what these people were doing was insulting to Americans who are Muslim. The only one. That tells me more about their character than anyone Sen. Obama may have sat next to on a board eons ago.
That Clinton thinks that’s it’s totally okay to denigrate one group while ginning up false outrage over a distorted remark not aimed at another group, say even more about her character. On one hand I should be surprised, but then I remember that this is a person who has told us that black voters, activists, caucus-goers, young people, and states that she didn’t win aren’t important. This is a person who wrote off the endorsement of a friend for her opponent as “insignificant”, then spent two weeks publicly attacking the friend.
So, while she’s reminiscing over a duck hunt with dad that probably happened as often as sniper fire in Tuzla, we’ll do well to remember that even though she’s been a hanger-on in the upper echelons of the political class for over 30 years, she can still pretend to the a voice of the American people, while mildly insulting those San Francisco liberals who went to listen to Sen. Obama. Though, I’m sure the San Francisco liberals who are dumping nearly $500K (that’s 10% of what Clinton loaned her campaign!) in Pennsylvania this week on her behalf are the right kind of San Francisco liberals.
23
May 08
Keith Olbermann Spits Madfire
I’m not usually big on Olbermann’s Special Comments, but sometimes there are really brilliant ones. This is a really brilliant one. The subject is Sen. Clinton’s remarks then half-assed sorta apology for invoking RFKs assassination (for the 2nd time) as a reason to take it to June. This time, unlike her remarks from March which very few people seemed to have noticed, she got caught out, making them to the editorial board of the Argus Leader in South Dakota. An interview that was streamed live.
I don’t have anything to add. I’ve been saying Clinton should have dropped out of the race since the end of Feb. This is the cherry on top, that proves what I’ve been saying for the past 3 months, this woman is not fit for the job of President of the United States.