Telefizzled

Kind of burned out on television a little bit last year. I don’t know if it was the WGA strike, the inconsistent quality in shows I watch or just getting over watching a ton of telly. I suspect, now that I typed that out, it is a little bit of all those things.

So, I guess it comes as no surprise that my schedule this year is pretty light, which is a good thing. I deliberately decided not to glom on to any new hour long shows this year. I am going to try a couple out, but other than that, I am just saying no. I am also going to try out a new 1/2 comedy and re-adopt one that fell to the wayside last year. Finally, I am going to try and write a little bit about shows each week just to judge my interest, and yours, in them. That means comments people!

That said, here’s my fall schedule (new shows in bold):

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My Charlie Brown Christmas

I realize that most no one reads this blog anymore, and if you are reading at all, then you are probably out rushing around to finish up your last minute shopping, etc. Well, should you have ended up here because you needed a break, then I implore you to watch the video below. It will make me happy.

Yes, in the spirit of regifting, I am reposting this from last year, which I reposted from Joe (via the now defunct Scooby Speak).

Creativity on strike

As you no doubt know by now, the folks responsible for the somewhat fine writing on television and film went on strike yesterday. Now we can wait for an inundation of reality TV to fill in throughout the strike once the nets no longer have any first run shows left and need a non-rerun ratings grab.

To me, there’s a positive and a negative here. The positive is I am hoping that the flood of reality shows kills the genre. I am hoping that once America is supersaturated with this crap, they will turn their backs on it. Yeah, I’m probably hoping for too much…

The negative is this may adversely impact the few shows I still watch. (I’ll have a post about this soon.) The biggest being my favorite show Scrubs. As noted in an E! Online News story about the strike, this already shortened season show (and still not filmed in HD!!!) is eight episodes short in completion. Should the strike drag on too this series may not get the planned ending it rightly deserves.

So, I’d really appreciate it if the two sides can come to an agreement quickly, but I understand the stakes and think it is important that the writers get some of what they want. Hopefu... Continue reading »

My civic duty

Oooh… I just love it when I can use a Scrubs inspired title for a blog post.

So, today I fulfilled my civic duty by spending a day in the jury pool. I know… fun, right?

Actually, not that bad. It would seem that the folks at this particular courthouse get the fact that no one wants to be there. In fact, I think many are working on their amateur night stand-up routines. I won’t get into the specifics of their comedy, suffice to say that it wasn’t half bad. Heck, even two judges were part of the act!

The decades old orientation video even provided some unintentional comedy. Not quite like a Hanso Foundation film reel, but maybe as old. I’m guessing by the clothing and hairstyles that this thing was filmed during my high school years, so late eighties.

All kidding aside, I will say that the folks were all very nice, especially those two judges and the two court officers babysitting us. This seemed in sharp contrast to the procedural folks I remember from my last dip in the pool 11-12 years ago. As for the folks in the pool itself, not so much. Most everyone was complaining amongst themselves about being there. In fact, I found ... Continue reading »

Tellyman returns

Not really, no.

Well, not in so much a way as before?

Ah, who cares, it is just a post about some televisionic observations I have had of late (and maybe later…).

So, I was watching Heroes last night, which has been so very good the past three epsiodes, and NBC is running ads for their newest show sure to fail, Raines. Now, was the pitch for this show something along the lines of “let’s put Medium, Tru Calling and The Ghost Whisperer in the blender and sprinkle with a little bit of Monk… oh, and we’ll get Jeff Goldblum!” Really?

Anyone else watching The Black Donnelly’s? I feel compelled to watch, you know, as an Irishman… yeah. Well, if you are, do we really need Joey Ice Cream as a narrator? The sudden insertion of himself into a scene, with subsequent character reaction, is unnecessary and seems forced as a way to try and distinguish the storytelling as unique or different. The story being told does the job just fine… which is to say, mediocre at best. Not sure this one is going to fair much better than Studio 60.

Speaking of which, I’ll be sorry to see Studio 60 go. It was good enough t... Continue reading »

The blog identity

Hmm… I had been waiting for my one hundredth post to roll around with the hopes of having something special to write for you, but that just isn’t going to be the case.

If you haven’t guessed, this is my 100th post (195 posts minus 95 Asides), which to me is quite amazing considering it came in less than a year and I’m not exactly a writer. But then, I guess that’s what actually got me to finally writing this post and maybe it will be something special, or maybe just different.

Back when this blog started with Walk This World, I told you I wasn’t a writer, yet, that’s what I think I found myself trying to be much of the time. Trying to write game, movie, music, comics or television *reviews* like I was some kind of pajama journalist/critic.

I suppose doing that kind of thing gave me an excuse to post something, but it is definitely not a strong point and that is why I have abandoned that kind of thing over the last few months… or at least that is what I am telling myself. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that, yes, while busy at work, I still haven’t had much desire to blog stuff when I have ... Continue reading »

My Charlie Brown Christmas

I know that pretty much everyone reads Scooby Speak, right?

Well, in case you don’t, I don’t want you to miss out on this gem that Joe found and posted over there.

Tellyman 10.4

I had a brilliant post written for last week’s shows, but Firefox 2.0 just took a big dump on me and it is all gone. I didn’t save a draft in WordPress either; gone means totally gone. I was trying to load up cbs.com and an episode of How I Met Your Mother so I could get a vidcap for the lead picture, but when it started loading their InnerTube — which came first, Inner or You? — page, it locked up because I was missing the RealPlayer plug-in. I tried IE first, but same issue except it wouldn’t set Windows Media Player as my preference there (it gave me a choice between the two). I hated RealPlayer before, which is why I didn’t have it installed, and now I doubly hate it. I’ll never install it again. Ever.

Of course, it is not like I just lost a term paper or novel or something like that. I didn’t even shout, snap a remote in half, smash a keyboard or punch a door. The post was mostly the same old usual garbage spew about shows most of you readers don’t even watch. In fact, that was the whole point of the start of the post, but I eventually got to the usual boring snippits, which were actually shorter this time. Ho... Continue reading »

Happy Halloween

Nothing like posting a Happy Halloween post about an hour before the day is over, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. If I wasn’t a major sleepaholic or I was a major slacker at work, I could have either gotten up earlier this morning and posted or posted while at work, but since I am and I am not, you get this now.

Makes perfect sense, right? You better read that again…

Anyway, I wanted to post a photo of my Halloween costume this year because I was so happy to have had one in a while. Okay, so that is a lie. You can see my last one from 2003, which is or isn’t a while, over on Ed’s blog (he was Tom Hanks from Castaway again, which is still a kick ass costume three years later). I don’t know if I can consider me as Affleck a costume since he seems indicate I dressed as myself, but whatever.

This year, I was J.D. from Scrubs… okay, so I was a doctor with scrubs on, and that is easy, but I made up a badge with a picture of Zach Braff and the name and all that and since my hair hasn’t been cut in a couple months, I was able to push it up a bit like him (unfortunately if flattened out fairly early as I don&... Continue reading »

Falling Away With You

Wouldn’t you say it is rather ironic that while I was writing my Summer wrap-ups last week it was feeling like Autumn and as I write my Autumn preview this week it has felt like Summer? I guess that’s how we roll here in New England.

Has the wacky weather been a contributing factor in the huge downturn in readers over the past few weeks here at OB1og as well? Certainly can’t be because I haven’t been posting like Ed or Jason. Of course, Ed isn’t posting for a good reason and then there is Jason not posting for a secret reason.

Is there something going around? No writing and no reading? Certainly no commenting on any of the three sites! I don’t know about BBn, but The Ed Zone’s daily traffic has been halved — still plenty of search hits for Lost and the local news ladies and weather girls — and that is still more than I get in half a week lately.

Well, whatever the reason, I am getting psyched up for Fall so whether or not you read my posts or check out my Flickr photos, I will keep putting content up. Of course, if I drop more pop culture refs or local news lady names like Ed, I’ll get more hits an... Continue reading »