The Internet Hasn't Killed The TV Star (yet)

Today I saw an article about MySpace launching a show about politics. I reflected on how much TV or video I actually watch on the Internet today. The answer: not much at all.

Sure, I watch the occasional YouTube video of something funny or cute, especially if someone sends it to me. But those are usually 1-3 minutes long, and not an episode-length sitcom or drama by any stretch of the imagination.

However, more and more production of video for the Internet is being planned. And I don't think I'll watch much of it at all, unless it's really good. Why? Because the Internet isn't integrated into my living room. I want to watch those shows on my TV, while sitting on my couch. It's a pain to watch long stretches of video elsewhere.

"But George," you may say, "you can do that! You can get a Media PC, or get MythTV going". Yeah, but I perceive it as a hassle to setup, and I would be entering a world where there woudl be lots of extra software and hardware that I have to deal with and manage. Despite the lack of streaming and immediacy, it's pretty easy for me to NetFlix over some DVDs, put them in my player, and watch them.

Am I asking for the impossible? I don't know. I guess what I want is an easy delivery mechanism of Internet-published TV shows, with the ease of flipping on my TV and watching them. To that end, I'm intrigued by the video possibilities of the XBox 360 and the Wii, for streaming video and browsing the 'Net. If the content is good, and I don't feel constricted to only certain types of content that someone is pushing to me, then networked consoles may be my golden ticket.

Anyone have an ideal setup for watching whatever video content they wish on their TVs?

Winners Of The Attention Market

I'm not a big fan of advertisements. That said, in the market of attention, these advertisements are certainly creative and attention-getting.

So do ad people really sit around and think of ways to do this? I have to admit that sounds kind of fun.

Did I just lose a karma point?

I Have No Twitter Friends

I've tried to use Twitter, the reported panacea of all things "what are my friends up to?". But I can't seem to find any of my friends' handles, in order to add them to see what they're up to, or for them to see what I'm up to.

Which brings me to the question: if you twitter something that no one reads, are you just wasting time?

From The "Did You Consider The Train?" Department

A quick, odd news item: apparently, you can arrange for a cab to take you on a cross-country trip. But really, is it much better than a train, given the cost?

Sorry I've been amiss at posting. The move sucked a lot of time. I think we're back to normal schedule-wise, so expect more updates soon.

The Story Behind The Picture

Here's the picture.



Now, I'm curious what people think the story is behind the picture. Extra credit if you guess without clicking through.

For those that are stumped: I'll post the backstory soon.

Update: OK, here's the backstory. We were at Gay Bingo a few weeks ago. The March edition had a 70's theme to it, and folks had decked out their polyester best. Anyway, back in the January edition of Gay Bingo, Glamazonia (the host) mentioned that she had a MySpace page. Later on, I added her as a friend.

Now, fast forward to the March Gay Bingo. We're sitting at our table, which was located right off the main path between the front doors and the stage. I'm chowing down on a pork sandwich, in between bingo games. All of sudden, I hear Glamazonia over the PA: "Hey, I know you!".

At this point, I think, "Oh, she's talking to Steven." You see, Steven is a friend of ours that lives in Glamazonia's building, and they know each other. They must be chatting it up, I think. But then, I look up, and I see Glamazonia towering over me, pointing a finger at me, with a spotlight illuminating her and everything around me.

Gulp.

Glamazonia continues: "You're on my MySpace!" She comes over to my side and reaches out her hand to shake. "Let's make a MySpace connection!". Now, everyone at my table is cracking up, as I try to scarf down the bite of sandwich, raise a thumbs-up, and shake her hand all at the same time. Then, Glamazonia calls over the photographers to take a few pictures of our introduction.

So there's the story behind the picture. A 7' tall drag queen, 800+ people, and me.

We're Buying A House

As in tomorrow. As in we're signing the papers and handing over a big check for the down payment and closing costs and getting the keys on Friday and then putting up blinds and painting a few walls. As in moving in in about a week and a half. As in officially out of our apartment by the end of the month.

I guess it'll sink in by the time I sign the gajillionth piece of paper. I'm pretty it'll get to the point of legal absurdity where I'll sign something saying that I won't sue the paper or ink manufacturers for any distortion of the words on any of the other contracts I've signed. You know, just to be sure I don't sue.

I didn't blog about our house hunt primarily because we were busy doing the whole house buying process. But now that we're close to moved in and done with it, I'm consider posting what we did and what we experienced, if only to benefit some other first-time buyer out there.

Or wait, was I the last one to buy? :)

Pineapple Express

Yes, we're in the midst of a Pineapple Express this weekend, which is a Kindergarten way of saying "warmer and wetter than usual", weather-wise. Combine that with an earlier-than-normal daylight saving time this year, and most of Seattle is currently groggy and gray.

Strike Two For East Roy: Coco La Ti Da Shuttered

I think 809 E Roy Street is officially cursed, especially when a good restaurant moves into the place. First it was Fork. Now, Coco La Ti Da is closing its doors, just a few months after it opened (and when I wrote about the great time we had there).

One thing that doesn't make sense to me is McCown's quoted reason for parting ways:

McCown said balancing wholesale and retail operations proved to be too much. "I'm not the business side of it, I'm the creative side. I was getting farther and farther away from what I wanted to do."

I can understand being overwhelmed and having to do stuff you don't want to do. But, come on, Sue: you've been in the biz a while now. Wasn't the work required to keep wholesale and retail open foreseen? And, even if it wasn't, couldn't you have hired someone to help with the business end of things?

Every time we visited Coco, the place was packed. And the food & drink wasn't cheap, so I'm guessing revenue wasn't the reason Coco's shuttering.

I suppose it's more complicated than what Sue decided to share with the restaurant beat critic at the Seattle Times. Still, I'll lament the fact that there's now one less dessert place in the neighborhood.

Quitting Caffeine

This past holiday season, I decided to wean myself off of that most common of drugs: caffeine. While I admit I didn’t quit it cold turkey, I can say that I’ve pretty much eliminated the dependency on caffeine to get through the day. Yeay me.

So why quit caffeine in the first place? Simple: I was dependent on it. Not DT, cracked-out, gotta-have-it-to-function dependent. But if I didn’t have it by midday, I would get a headache and I became irritable. If I then downed a cup of coffee or had some black tea, I was better in a matter of minutes. I decided that while this was a sustainable way to live, I didn’t really love the fact that caffeine had become a sort of chemical overlord over my mood.

So, over the holiday, while we were back east visiting family, I decided that this was a long enough stretch of time to try to kick the habit, and see how I fared.

Day 1: The first day wasn’t great. I felt groggy all day, and I had an on-again, off-again headache. Fortunately, we didn’t have much to do beyond eat holiday dinners and sit around and chat with family and friends. Still, I can’t say I was the happiest of campers. I did consider having a bit of tea in the afternoon, but resisted.

Day 2: The next day was worse than the first. My headaches had gotten worse, to the point where I needed some over-the-counter pain killers to dull them. Irritability and grogginess went up a notch. In the afternoon I was definitely ready for a nap. Still, I didn't ingest any caffeine.

Day 3: On the third day, I woke up dreading the worst. Instead, I was...fine. No headaches. No grogginess. No irritability. I went through the day without any

Now, I didn't kick caffeine completely out of my lifestyle. It's hard to (I'm not giving up foods like chocolate, sorry). But I don't drink beverages containing it during weekdays, and I have an occasional coffee or black tea on the weekends, which doesn't relapse me.

I know I probably had it easy; there are people who drank much more caffeine per day than I did, and I imagine their withdrawal symptoms would be worse. Still, in the end I found that it was worth it. My mood and attention level, while different than when I was on caffeine, are fine. And I don't really crave it during the day.

Apparently, caffeine withdrawal is seen by some as a disorder, both mental and physical. Wow! I should have checked into rehab!

TSA Devises Another Way To Impinge On Your Privacy

It's just low-dose radiation. It'll see through your clothes, but not your skin. And don't worry, the people looking at your naked body will be in another room.

Thanks, TSA. You've given me one more reason to not want to fly.

Yahoo Mail's Beta Is Just Not Doing It For Me

When Yahoo Mail's beta UI came on the scene, I gave it a shot. I stuck with it for months. And today, I switched back to basic mode. Why? Simple. With all the glitz, the AJAX, the animated characters, and the hootin'-falootin' big-time splash that they're making this app out to be, I found I could read my mail less well, and less quickly, by using the beta UI. Specifically:

• The new UI is S-L-O-W. I spent more friggin time watching that stupid animated cartoon guy break-dancing, running from an ostrich, or getting a 1950's belt-round-the-waist workout than I did reading my email. When the app finally did load, switching between emails and performing basic actions like, oh, I dunno..."sending an email" or "deleting an email" took forever.
• The new UI was buggy. Today, regardless of how many times I refreshed, I couldn't get past a half-unrendered welcome screen.
• The new UI wasn't all that. Sure, you had tabs. Sure, it looked kinda like Outlook circa 2000. But I didn't feel that the presentation was really all that.

In the end, I decided to switch back. Now my Yahoo email client is uglier but darn fast and stable. No thanks, Yahoo. I'll stick with the boring Web 1.0 version of your mail client. Hey, at least it works.

Playing The Bagpipes

Yes, I play the pipes. And now I have pictures to prove it. These were taken at a recent WPA indoor competition.





Yes, you may now insert your obligatory kilt jokes here.

It's Just Like A Mini-Mall

Question: what do you get when you mix an enthusiastic, rapping shop owner, a beat, and two minutes of video? Answer: a highly amusing commercial.

I disagree with the YouTube title. I wouldn't call this the worst commercial ever. I still claim King & Bunny's holds that title.

I Lit A Number

OK, I promise not to make this a blog about darfurwall.org. But I couldn't help posting one more update about it. Several days ago I finally lit up a number, 7179, on the wall. High time, I know, especially after lauding the wall, blogging about one of the founders, Jonah, and such. If you click on the number on the right-hand column, it'll take you to the site where you can check out the latest wall status and, yes, you too can light one up.

Further Proof That Starbucks Coffee Is Bad

Consumer Reports' testers deem McDonald's coffee better than Starbucks, giving McD's brew a "decent", while Starbucks got a "burnt and bitter". Not a surprise that Starbucks has the nickname of "Charbucks" in these parts.

I had a guy tell me once that the reason that Starbucks was so popular was because of the quality of their coffee. Bullcrap. They sell ambiance and atmosphere, and have elevated a beverage to a status symbol. That, and familiarity and marketing, is why people buy Starbucks' coffee, not because of its quality.

Smoke And Mirrors In Solving Global Warming

So we've all seen An Inconvenient Truth and heard the dire predictions of our climatological future. What do our leaders propose as a solution? Smoke and mirrors. Literally.

Yep, our submission to the UN report for a worldwide climate plan is to reflect some of the sun's energy back into space, through the use of giant mirrors or reflective particles shot into the atmosphere.

Would it work? Maybe. But why the heck are we resorting to lofty projects like these (literally), when we waste so much power we produce through dirty means? Let's reduce the emissions from those coal plants, for one. Let's invest more in cleaner energy production and mass transit, for another. And let's do it fast.

Funding, you say? I know where $5-$10 billion a month is going that we could put to better use...

Darfur Wall Featured In Our Local Papers

Props to Jonah for getting written up in the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. When I first blogged about Darfurwall.org, the site had already raised several thousand. Now he's over $30K. My prediction: we'll hit the goal of $400K by the end of the year.

The Most Rotten Movies Of This Decade

I like the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes. It aggregates reviews from lots of sources and gives you a sense of whether most reviewers did, or didn't, like a movie. Anything above 60% positive is considered "fresh", and anything below is considered "rotten".

Today, I became curious: what are some recent movies (say, since 2000) that rendered no positive reviews? Zero. Zilch. In other words, a 0 % rating on Rotten Tomatoes, or the most rotten rating a movie could earn.

Thanks to the advanced search features on the site, it appears there are seven movies that fit this dubious distinction.

• Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
• Pinocchio
• Zoom
• Crossover
• King's Ransom
• Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
• National Lampoon's Gold Diggers

Apart from the National Lampoon's movie, I haven't heard of any of these. Has anyone had the unfortunate experience of seeing one of these?

This Is What Happens When It Snows In The Northwest

This video pretty much describes how people drive when it gets unseasonably snowy and icy up here in the Pacific Northwest, and people try to drive. Admittedly this is Portland, Oregon and not Seattle. But trust me, the the driver mentality is very close to the same.

Blog Housekeeping: Feed Update

For those subscribers to my blog: a couple of housekeeping changes today.

1. I've changed my feed to show the full post text, not summaries. Yeah, summaries are kinda irritating.
2. I've changed my feed URL to use FeedBurner. The new feed URL is here, and can also be found when visiting the blog itself. Please update your readers!

Fine print: the old URL should still work for a while, but I can't guarantee for how long.

Update: Yes, some images may appear to break when using the FeedBurner feed. That's because it doesn't process relative links as relative to my blog. I'll think about whether that tanks it or not. :)

Update 2: Looks like the feed viewed in the browser has image issues, but viewed from within Google Reader looks fine. Anyone else seeing broken images in their feed reader (example: does the picture of the robot show up in the post below?).