Television

Four Things Meme

Four Jobs I’ve Had

  1. Public Library Page
  2. Assembly Worker of Industrial Gas Shut-off Valves
  3. Chicken Restaurant Cooking Staff
  4. Website Designer

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

  1. Auntie Mame
  2. The Wizard of Oz
  3. Southpark: Bigger, Longer, Uncut
  4. Much Ado About Nothing

Four Places I’ve Lived

  1. Ankeny, Iowa
  2. Canton, Ohio
  3. Muncie, Indiana
  4. Indianapolis, Indiana

Four TV Shows I Love

  1. Veronica Mars
  2. Lost
  3. Gilmore Girls
  4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Four Places I’ve Been On Holiday

  1. Munster, Germany
  2. Luray Caverns, Virginia
  3. Chicago, Illinois
  4. New York City

Four of My Favorite Dishes

  1. Lasagna
  2. Pizza
  3. Fried Chicken

Four Sites I Visit Daily

  1. Flickr

Four Places I Would Rather Be Now

  1. At home in bed
  2. New York
  3. In the car on a roadtrip
  4. London

Four Bloggers I Am Tagging

  1. Stephanie
  2. Anyone else
Continue ReadingFour Things Meme

ABC kills reality show because winners are gay

The television show “Welcome to the Neighborhood” was supposed to be a huge hit. Seven families compete to win a McMansion on a cul-de-sac in an suburban neighborhood, with the winners being chosen by the neighbors. Turns out, the popular couple who won, by changing the hearts and minds of the redneck republican residents, were gay men. And ABC, fearing a backlash from the religious right in the form of a boycott of their pet film Chronicles of Narnia, killed the show because they thought viewers might object to a neighborhood embracing gay people as friends and neighbors.

Now the gay couple who won the house, and the neighbors who changed their minds to support them, are speaking out about what happened.

Continue ReadingABC kills reality show because winners are gay

The Book of Daniel

Man, you ignore political news for one day around here, and the shit hits the fan. Everyone’s talking about the Terre Haute TV station that’s refusing to air the NBC TV show “The Book of Daniel.” that premieres tomorrow night. I hadn’t even heard of it, and had to go look up what all the fuss is about. Here’s a hysterical and freaked out synopsis of the show, from the American Family Association’s newsletter:

It is time to make our voice heard at NBC that we will not long remain silent about their anti-Christian bigotry. Here is what NBC considers to be a positive portrayal of Christians and Christianity:
The program’s main characters include Daniel Webster, a drug-addicted Episcopal priest; his alcoholic wife; his son, a 23-year-old homosexual Republican; his daughter, a 16-year-old drug dealer; a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop’s daughter; his lesbian secretary who is sleeping with his sister-in-law; and a very unconventional white-robed, bearded Jesus who talks to the priest.
It is written by Jack Kenny, a practicing homosexual who describes himself as being “in Catholic recovery,” and is interested in Buddhist teachings about reincarnation and isn’t sure exactly how he defines God and/or Jesus. “I don’t necessarily know that all the myth surrounding him (Jesus) is true,” he said.

Practicing homosexual? Man, that Jack Kenny better work harder if he’s only practicing. Most of us have got this stuff down already. Ahem.
Anyways… the AFA is leading a huge campaign to contact TV stations all over the country to try to persuade them not to air the show, and some wingdings in Terre Haute and Little Rock, Arkansas have taken their disinformation at face value.
You can contact the stations yourself, if you want:
Indianapolis station 317-636-1313
Terre Haute 812-696-2121
Me, I went right out and DVR’ed the show so I can see what all the fuss is about. Sounds like a hoot. Seems like the best way to get a ton of publicity is to get the AFA to boycott you. Hmmm.
Jesus is a pussy! That’s right! He’s a yellow-bellied, pink-wearing nancy-boy! And did I mention I’m a homo? I really am!

Continue ReadingThe Book of Daniel

Outrageous Firsts in TV History

YesButNoButYes lists controversial first in TV broadcast history.

1947: First Couple to Share a Bed – Mary Kay and Johnny, on…Mary Kay and Johnny
1957: First Toilet on Television. – Leave it to Beaver
1957: First Exposed Rack on Television – Jayne Mansfield, 1957 Academy Awards
1967: First Time the Word Hell was Used on Television – Star Trek
1971: First time the phrase God Damn It was used on Television – All in the Family (also one of the first gay characters: A closeted football-playng friend of Mike’s came out on the show)
1972: First Abortion on Television – Maude
1974: First Rape Scene on Television – TV movie Born Innocent (I remember hearing about this in school.)
1977: First Recurring Gay Character on Television – Soap (although “The Corner Bar” had one in 1972)

Continue ReadingOutrageous Firsts in TV History

mental notes

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I need to remember to set the DVR in January for:
Fox’s “Skating With Celebrities” – Wednesday, January 18th
Showtime’s “The L Word” – Sunday, Jan. 8th
“My Name is Earl” – Thursday, Jan 5th
NBC’s “The Office” – Thursday, Jan 5th
CBS’s “Love Monkey” – Tuesday, Jan 17th
CBS’s “The New Adventures of Old Christine” – March?
Sci Fi’s “Battlestar Galactica” – Friday, Jan 6th
FX “The Shield” – Tuesday, January 10th, 10 pm

Continue Readingmental notes

Melissa Etheridge and other cool stuff

My friend Amy gave me Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled by Melissa Etheridge a few weeks ago. I’ve been listening to it, but didn’t get around to paying attention to some of the new tunes on it until this week. There’s a very beautiful song called “This Is Not Goodbye” about going into surgery and having a loved one sitting in the waiting room for you. Thank God we didn’t hear that frickin’ song earlier in the year. I can’t even listen to it now. It’s a great song, but still.
Also, check out this awesome Library of Congress photo gallery of color pictures taken between 1939 and 1943. There are some fantastic photos there, like this one. You can see even more of the photos taken by the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection at this link, though, and although it’s not as easy to navigate, you can find the high-resolution images.
A really cool video on how to perfectly fold a shirt. I’m so going home to practice this one.
Cool new board games for 2005. There are some on here I really want. I looked at “Around the World in 80 Days” and “Ingenious” at Game Preserve the other day, and they made my want list. I’m adding “Shadows Over Camelot” to the list, too.
AirTran/Wendy’s Free Flight offer: for 32 flight coupons, get a 1 way ticket, 64 coupons get a round-trip ticket. You get a coupon on every Wendy’s drink cup. Pretty awesome.
PaperbackSwap is a way to exchange paperbacks with other folks. You send paperbacks to others, and get credit to have them send some to you.
The straight dude’s guide to ‘Brokeback Mountain.’
From Uncommon Goods:
gorilla pillows – $40.00
sock monkey slippers – $15.00
monkeys on the bed – $26.00
write no evil pen holder – $75.00
FREUDIAN SLIPPERS – $24.00

Continue ReadingMelissa Etheridge and other cool stuff

Lost for the Lost

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I watch Lost religiously, and I actually picked up a few tidbits of information from this article on the show by Paul Scheer.

I didn’t catch that there were six Dharma Initiative science stations around the Island. I didn’t catch the Dharma Initiative logo on the shark, or that ghost Walt was speaking backwards. Ethan Rom, the first “Other” that kidnapped Claire in season one, is an anagram for “Other Man.”
The article itself isn’t very well written, though. It doesn’t give enough detail about the characters (it only highlights two) and it mentions the Dharma Initiative stations at the beginning, and talks about “the hatch” later, without noting that they’re the same thing. It also gets a bit too caught up in narrating and leaves out some pretty gaping details in that narrative. But I’m always interested in juicy bits I didn’t get.
Other stuff I discovered after doing some googling: Jack appears in Shannon’s flashback in the hospital where her father dies. Her father was apparently in the same accident as Jack’s future wife Sarah, whom he saved.

Also, you can see the Orientation video here: The Dharma Initiative. And if you notice the little copyright info at the end, it is to the Hanso Foundation. Screw around on this site for a while, and you’ll discover lots of hidden clues to Lost info. Run your mouse over the picture of Alvar Hanso and you see a mirrored letter pop up. Click on it, and the computer screen that we was in this last episode displays, only the message is : Hello? Hello: Who is this? MOLE. Then we see a cryptic letter displayed. The site contains a ton of information on what the Dharma Initiative was attempting to do, including:

The Hanso Life-Extension Project
The Hanso Foundation Electromagnetic Research Initiative
The Hanso Quest for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
The Hanso Mathematical Forecasting Initiative
The Hanso Cryogenics Development Imperative
The Hanso Juxtapositional Eugenics Development Institute
The Hanso Accelerated Remote Viewing Training Facility

I gather there are several Disney-owned sites like this one out on the internet, with cryptic information about the show and hidden pages and puzzles.

Also, check out this photo, from the speculation that the DeGroots, the scientists who founded the DI, are The Others.

This is on the Lostpedia wiki, which I’m just now combing over, after having spent quite a bit of time looking through posts at losttv-forum.com.

Continue ReadingLost for the Lost

Welcome, WISH-TV Viewers

If you’re here because you saw Dick Wolfsie’s report on the news this morning, thanks for thinking of me. My pictures of “Big Things” are here.

Mr. Bendo
Mr. Bendo

I think when I talked to Dick I mentioned some “Lost Big Things” that I took pictures of at one time or another which are no longer around. I mentioned Habig’s giant gardening trowel at 52nd and College as being one of them, but that isn’t correct. The trowel disappeared for several months, but it came back recently with a shiny new coat of paint, proudly displayed where it has always stood. I was very excited to see it.

The Giant Colgate Clock that the anchors were discussing is in Jeffersonville, Indiana, just outside of Louisville, Kentucky, and it is at the Palmolive Colgate Plant. It’s the second-largest timepiece in the world.

Continue ReadingWelcome, WISH-TV Viewers

1st Place 2005 Journalism: Commonplacebook.com

I’m going to be on WISH-TV’s morning news on Friday morning for my “Big Things” photographs again. I did an updated interview with Dick Wolfsie a few weeks ago, and it will air then. So check me out being all famous and stuff.

On top of that… I won first place in the (original link, no longer active – http://nuvolab.com/88#comments:Nuvolab 2005 Journalism Awards).

(original link, no longer active – http://nuvolab.com/88#comments)

1st Place 2005 Journalism
1st Place 2005 Journalism

My friend Bil won second place for his local group political blog, Bilerico.

Check it out; it’s cool.

Continue Reading1st Place 2005 Journalism: Commonplacebook.com