Some Random Thoughts

• I have an air conditioner now! Last night, Sam and I slept with a cover. A cover!!!
• At work yesterday, I was passed along this article about Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to his "classic" Phantom of the Opera. Not only will it feature the ridiculous title "Phantom: Once Upon Another Place" it will also have 100% more robot fucking.
  My guess is he's just ripping off Zipperface...
• The Emmy nominations are up and The Wire, y'know, the greatest American drama in the history of television, got one nomination in its final year. One! That means that it will have only recieved two nominations in its entire run. I'm used to shows I love not getting respect from the retarded Academy (Kristen Bell, if only they had a category for Most Adorable...) but The Wire is different. To not nominate a show that good, is to ruin the relevence of the entire awards. Oh, but thank God they remembered to nominate Entourage, a show that hasn't featured a decent episode in three years.
  As TV critic Alan Sepinwal noted, According to Jim got its third nomination this year. According to Jim is officially "better" than The Wire.

Even a Lowly Intern Knows This is Moronic

I mentioned in my last post that I've started working at McCarter Theatre. What I didn't mention was that my internship was in the marketing department. I'm mentioning this now because it's a perfectly good segue into quit possibly the most retarded advertising ideas in the history of television. Ever.

So imagine you're watching Family Guy (I know, I know. Just pretend.) on TBS (I know, I know. Just pretend.) and you're having a perfectly good time. Then this happens:



That is absolutely insane.
Now we all know that television advertising is in a huge bind as of recently. Tivo, DVR, and illegal downloads have irreparably hurt the entire market. The whole game has changed. This has led to desperate networks having to come up with crazy new ways to do something that hasn't really differed since Farnsworth invented the damn television. There have been good ideas (streaming entire seasons of shows online with one or two commercials stuck in instead of full blocks) and bad ideas (obnoxious pop-up ads that block half the screen). But this is something else.

Do they really think that there's anyone alive who is going to see Bill Engvall, blue collar comic, appear on screen and PAUSE THEIR FUCKING SHOW IN THE MIDDLE OF IT to shill his crap and then think, "Gee, that's pretty wacky. Maybe I'll check out that fun looking family sitcom". NO! NO NO NO! Even if there's anyone on this planet who actually cators the idea of watching The Bill Engvall Show, this is going to instantly make them hate him, it, and the entire network at large.
What were they thinking?

Anywho, this video was taped by a dude named Jason Kottke who wrote about the experience on his blog here.

Racing Towards the Finish Line

I was trying to watch the premiere of the new Venture Brothers season (it's amazing by the way) on Adult Swim's website, and I had to sit through a Navy commercial first. It was kind of like this one:



I'm sure I'm not the first person to point this out (YouTube tells me this commercial was posted a year ago), but is it really wise for any armed service to advertise under the slogan "Accelerate Your Life"? Especially in war time?
They might as well just say "Navy: die earlier than most people!"

ps. Go Team Venture!

Random Video Fun!

Oh my Christ, is this disturbing and hilarious.

Episodes in the Lows of Humanity

Apparently Denise Richards is getting a reality show. This news somehow passed me by. Probably because I have no desire to watch anything with Denise Richards where she's not fighting giant space bugs or making out with Neve Campbell. Anyway, she plans on having her two daughters (age two and three) on the show with her, something that Charlie Sheen, her ex-husband and the girls' father, doesn't really want.
Of course, I don't really understand that at all. How anyone could not want their todler daughters to star in a nationally broadcast reality television show during important formative years of their lives is beyond me, but I suppose Sheen has his reasons. So he sued Richards to stop her. And lost.
Here's some quotes from an article on the subject:

...a Los Angeles judge ruled in Richards' favor and gave her the green light to feature the kids in the currently untitled program.

Richards insists her daughters were desperate to be a part of the project.

She says, "I am a single mom and I am very hands-on with my kids so I can't do a show without the kids at all.

"I asked them if they wanted to be on TV and Sam said, 'Yes!' My girls have been around it so much. They love the make-up. They love the hair. They love all of that.

Wow. Congrats, Denise Richards.
I'm not anyone to judge and I've always followed Thumper's mother's advice, so all I'll say is at least you've got nice tits.