You're Jamming Up My Tivo.

So last night I watched three (count 'em, three) blocks of Olympics that my Tivo box snagged for me. The first I believe was a reasonable 4 hour block which contained some swimming finals (that I'd already read about 6 times before I got home) and other mildly interesting things like diving and gymnastics. The second was a 7 (SEVEN!) hour time sink with soccer, table tennis, beach volleyball, rowing, etc. And the final block was the most reasonably clipped 3 hour Olympic coverage I've experienced with kayaking, boxing and women's basketball.

Now you may be saying to yourself "Sweet son of jambalaya! How in the name of Zeus' butt hole did you manage to fit 14 hours of tv in after an 8 hour work day?" To which I respond, you my friend are not aquainted with tivo's 60x fwd mode and judicious use of the "skip to the next half hour mark" button. So while I'm aware that fits of soccer and boxing flashed on my screen, I wouldn't say that I watched any of those events. The table tenis and kayaking were interesting for a while, but I gotta tell you those Olypmic badmitten players are goddamn insane! I can't even keep track of the shuttlecock and they're smashing and diving all over the place to keep that badboy up. Don't miss out.

Of course once I was done fast-forwarding through NBC's saptastic coverage I had to stop watching tv, because my Tivo hasn't been able to record ANYTHING else for the past two days. Nice job, NBC scheduling gurus, you completely boxed-out the competition. Too bad the result isn't increased eyeball to NBC time, but rather me throwing in a DVD for the first time in several months.

I'm Trying. Really.

Isn't there an ESPN-style olympic coverage that I can watch? I mean, I'd like to get my international sporting competition on, but I don't know how much more NBC shmaltz I can stomach. I mean, NO, I don't want to watch Tiki Barber and some chick spew uninformed drivel all over themselves in between 4 second clips of the world's greatest atheletes. And when you follow the US women's gymnastic team around like a love-drunk puppy, maybe it'd be a good idea to aknowledge that there are actually competitors from other countries too. Also, I have to basically cancel all the other programing my tivo has lined up to get one of your 6 hour superblocks of swimming, diving, tennis, badmitton, team hand ball, archery... why in the hell don't you break these things up into separate listings, so that people can actually figure out when things are on? Are there really folks sitting down every night to watch 4 hours of tearjerking backstory and commercials? Or more likely, do they just flip on the coverage, watch whatever's on at that second, ans lose interest in 20 minutes cause its not something they want to see? Whatever, I'm sure you know better than me. Just because I can't figure out how to watch a world-class 150 year old international multi-sport competition in a manner that makes it seem interesting doesn't mean too much. Right?

Take Your Censor And Cram It... Into Your Living Room.

Yes!  Roll this out into every American's home today!  Well, maybe just to everyone who complains about the language and suggestive content on TV.  I'm mostly unsympathetic to these folks; if you don't want to see it, don't watch it.  Pretty simple, don't go complaining to the censors every time your virgin eyes get molested.  I know we've got the rating system and we've got the v-chip, but that's apparently too hard to use.  Enter the personal TV censor.  Its like having a 1950's school teacher running the volume control in your living room.  Every time she sees a dirty word pop up in the closed captioning the TV mutes for a second.

Yeah, the first thing I thought when I read this was "but the closed captioning is a little behind the audio on most shows."  So you'd just end up bleeping some innocuous word a few seconds after the eff bomb.  Whatever, I don't care, cause I'm not getting one.  No one is getting one.  But I feel like this idea is important because but it'll help crystallize the issue.  You are responsible for the content you consume, just like food.  Sure, the government may have regulations about packaging and labeling, but if you want to eat spam you're allowed to eat spam.  People aren't complaining because they're accidentally exposing themselves to objectionable content.  (dammit, I was at the grocery store looking for healthy food and I accidentally opened and ate a can of spam, even though it was clearly marked as such)  They don't want you to expose yourself to that content.  And they don't have that right.

• Engadget: Inventor Patents Personal Censor

I Don't Have Any Kids To Think About.

Uh-oh FCC looks like you're on shaky ground. Ever since that boobslip a while ago (still can't believe I missed that) the FCC has been imposing mystery fines on networks with taboo content. But rather than tell the offenders what is allowed and what is not there are a set of vague 'guidelines'. The effect is that once in a while a network will get a bill in the mail that says "you shouldn't have done that."

Well 3 judges yesterday questioned that practice as well as the root issue of "won't somebody please think of the children?" The FCC is often coerced into regulating content by "Family" groups who loathe inappropriate material and wish the government would shelter their kids. The court noted that the FCC (very rightly) has no jurisdiction over cable broadcasts where kids are much more likely to see the good stuff. The FCC and the government can't protect your shorties from dirty jokes, and if the best way you can think to monitor their activities is to have the government do it, you need to do some thinkin'.

Unless of course the kids are just an excuse and the real reason you're complaining to some magical authority is that you don't think anyone should be watching this stuff. Well too damn bad. This country affords certain freedoms. Movement, assembly, flag burnin and raunchy TV. Hell, its the reason why you're allowed to think that we should all be sheltered like your 5-year-old. But I disagree, so shut the fuck up.

• Techdirt: Court Not Buying FCC's Claims Over Indecency Fines

Magazine Of The Year: All Of Em EXCEPT Time.

Alright, so by now you've heard about TIME magazine's choice for the person of the year. That's right, its you! Feckin weak guys. Why don't you grow a pair and pick someone? Anyone. I mean how the hell do you call this the person of the year? If everyone is special, then no one is special. Its a non-statement. Yeah I know it technically falls in your guidelines for "person of the year": a profile on the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year." What? Group, idea, place or machine? Are you guys on crack? Maybe you should change it to "Noun of the year". Yeah the noun which most influenced verbs over the past year.

Lets face it, you've already changed it once. It used to be the "Man of the Year" back in 1927 when you ran Charles Lindbergh on the cover as the first Man of the Year. Oh wait, this whole thing only started because you forgot to run a Trans-Atlantic flight story in 1927 and wanted to make up for it when there was nothing going on. So its kinda like a yearly tribute to all the stuff that you should have done a better job covering. Its like a yearly apology issue. I mean, I forget to write about things sometimes but I'm not charging people for this stuff. Goodness.

Person of the Year - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Calm Down, Its Just English.

51 With A Concession In Virginia.

Whew, I would like to thank George Allen, a Tip 'O The Hat sir. He could have dragged this thing out for weeks if he wanted to. As it is he stepped up and took one for the team. Of course one has to wonder why he was getting pressure from "GOP colleagues in Washington." Was it the republican's plan to throw the election? It did kinda seem like it for a while now, but why would they do that? So that the new Democratic Congress won't get anything done by 2008 and we'll have another Republican president? I'd like to think there aren't schemes like that running around out there.

But what I really want to talk about is the Washington Post. They've got buttons for Digg, del.icio.us, reddit, google, yahoo and facebook right on their article side bar. They get that one of the best ways to increase their distribution (besides being indexed by search engines) is social bookmarking and communities. Way to embrace the tubes guys, keep up the good work.

• Allen Concedes Election, Democrats Win Control of Congress - washingtonpost.com

If You Can't Trust Bloggers...

I remember back in the day when people used to write for the fun of it, before all this payola crap tainted opinion pieces from the common man. Now people have to wonder if you're being paid to say nice things about a company or product. PayPerPost is the end of trustworthy anonymous sources of advice and opinion on the Internet. I'm a big fan of transparency so the policy of optional disclosure, or the dilution of disclosure pisses me off a bit.

The policy on PayPerPost is that bloggers need not disclose that they are being paid to express a specific opinion about a product. Also, in an astroturf-like move, PayPerPost has launched DisclosurePolicy.org which helps people develop disclosures for their sites (and pays them to display it). The trouble is that they want people who have nothing to disclose to also display one.

This blog does not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, or paid insertions. We write for our own purposes. However, we may be influenced by our background, occupation, religion, political affiliation or experience.

I'm not going to say that, because I'm writing my opinion, and of course my opinion is going to be influenced by who I am, that's why its mine. They're trying to desensitize readers to advisories like this, conveying that everyone has an agenda, and it shouldn't matter what motivates them. So as soon as the kickbacks start rolling in, I'm going to have a disclosure posted on every article.

But rest assured, I'm not going to stoop to this. Granted there's no reason to believe me; but if I recommend a product, its because I really like and endorse it. Not because I'm being paid to suck up. Unless you see me on a Subway commercial talking about how I lost 400 pounds eating chicken subs, then it will be for the money.

• Techcrunch » Blog Archive » PayPerPost Is Now Officially Absurd

I Can't Force You To Read This.

An article at TechDirt lays some smack down on Harry Fuller's little snippet about TV/Internet integration. Its mostly about Stephen Colbert and how Harry says he's doing it all wrong. He tries to tee up on the recent Star Wars green screen challenge.

"But can you find that video on the Colbert Web site? Of course not, you have to go to YouTube to see the videos fans produced. Colbert thinks he can use the Web to force people to watch his TV show? Not too swift."

I'm gonna have to jump on the TechDirt wagon cause most of that noise doesn't make any sense at all. Fuller is a former TV executive, so I guess he wants all information easily contained and sanitized for consumption in a single location. That way they can "force" you to view their content. For example, I just looked at the source code of FoxNews.com and didn't find a single external link other than its ads. Yeah, you get the Internet. Colbert talks about (and creates) current Internet events on his show. He doesn't just have a sad little site that tries to supplement what I saw on TV. If I want more information on something, there are way better sources than FoxNews.com. In all honestly I can't even remember most websites that they tell me on TV. I have never been to ColbertNation.com. But I did vote to name the bridge in Hungary (after Chuck Norris), because I found a link to it on another site.

That's what the executive fringe doesn't seem to get. I'm not typing in a url and staying confined within that domain. I'm clicking links, I'm looking at sources, I'm enjoying quality websites that aren't concerned with cornering market share. When I post external links here I assume that most of you will at least glance at them. And I fully expect that I'll loose a good portion of traffic from people that just never make it back. The Internet is too big and interesting to limit readers like that. I've come to expect it, and I can only hope that people will be drawn in by my terribly witty insights. So I think that what Stephen Colbert is doing is exactly what Internet integration should be. Becoming part of the buzz and accepting it as its own medium, not just a way to corral more eyeballs into your roundhouse.

P.S.
Harry Fuller,
No I'd never heard of current.tv (wikipedia), but now I have thanks to the external link on your post. And now they have another link from my post. See how the Internet goes down?