31 posts tagged “tv”
Today was my very first day at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Most of the afternoon was spent working with Blellow setting up the booth and trying to get a SxSXi badge, all of which happened within hours of each other.
Unfortunately my boss was feeling under the weather, so they all retired to the rent house leaving me alone to terrorize the streets of Austin. I just happened to run into my friend Henry (or Smokin, as he’s known on this very blog) while he was going up the escalator to pick up his badge, so I was able to hook up with him later on. I got a chance to meet the fine folks at Pajiba, Dustin Rowles, Frank, and Seth, all of who are not only great people, and ended up buying me many drinks later in the night (more on this later).
After hanging out at the convention center, (and meeting Derrick from FriendFeed), I decided to break outside my shell and mingle a bit in the growing number of tech and film enthusiasts in Austin.
I started the night by walking about 10-12 blocks down to the Belmont for the Techset meets the Ratpack party. I arrived a little early, so I killed time at the bar and had a lovely discussion with a representative of uStream.com.
Once the party started it got pretty wild fast. As I was standing in the midst of the crowd talking to two interesting guys from Vancouver, Canada, lo and behold Jeffery Tambor (George Sr. From Arrested Devlepment) makes his way through the crowd.
The conversation I had with him was something like this:
Jeffery: “Wow, this is pretty wild, huh?”
Me: “Yeah no kidding! I’m a huge fan of yours, I’m so happy to meet you!” (shakes hand)
Jeffery: “Thanks! I like your hat.”
Me: (Flabbergasted and speechless)
Erica O’Grady introduced me to Hugh McLoud, aka Gaping Void of “Cartoons on the back of business cards.” He even drew me a special card that said “Fuck You, I’m at SxSW 2009!” I was pleased to get a custom card form him, as I’ve been following his work for several years now and was quite a fan.
After much searching and Twitter DM’ing, I finally tracked down my FriendFeed friend Mark Krynsky, and we decided to head down to Emo’s for the “Pastries and Pasties” Burlesque show, only to turn away at the $15 cover charge at the door. We ended up at the Rio Grande a few blocks away and met back up with my friend Henry. After a few drinks the restaurant was closing, so as Mark left to Chugging Monkey to track down Kevin Rose, I left with Henry and the Pajiba crew for many more beers and some interesting discussion of the movie Bridges of Madison County.
Tomorrow is day two, and if it’s at all like today then I have nothing but good conversation and meeting a lot of wonderful and exciting new people to look forward to. So far this has been the start of the best week of my life.
If you would like to connect with me at SxSW Interactive, I’ll be in the Blellow booth for most of the weekend, and after hours terrorizing the streets of Austin. Link up with me through Twitter!
Related posts:
Today’s full of win is dedicated to XZibit from MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” and inspired by the random, and quite hilarious internet meme featuring him putting things inside other things. The show itself is beyond ridiculous, but luckily the final episode above wrapped up everything nicely.
Related posts:
- Red vs Blue: Episode 100 - The End of an Era
- Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind (part 5)
- Bobby Brown On Fox Sketch Show
No, it has not been four months since I last posted. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Moving on…
Continuing with the series of “10 Things I Love” we reach the next item on the list, something that without which you would not be reading these very words:
THE INTERWEBS.
Yes, as lame as it sounds, I love the Internet. It’s completely changed my life and managed to make things both more efficient AND take away hours of free time at the same time.
Where did it all begin? Where did this fascination of wanting to be online and interacting with complete strangers come from?
Follow me as we take a short detour to my teenage years.
My first exposure to the open publicity of the Internet was before it was even widely available outside of college campuses. I was an avid user of Dial-Up chat boards, back in the days of the BBS - Bulletin Board System. For those who have no idea what that is, it was basically either a single person or a small company who allowed people to call into their computers via the phone lines. Once connected, it was a small site that had message boards or text games.
The larger systems had multiple phone lines so that you could chat with other users, and the chat boards were born. In Houston we had a few that I would regularly call and stay online with until the wee hours of the summer mornings. Off the top of my head the ones I visited most were: Houston After Dark, Houston Teen Beat (once we were all kicked off HAD), and later on Colors of Chat. There was also Matchmaker, but it was not only expensive but also was a haven for the dark side of the scene (there always is one).
Once dial-up Internet hit the world, and I’m not talking about America On-Line, I had a whole new world to explore. At the time there wasn’t much but E-Mail, Usenet, and IRC, but then Netscape Navigator debuted and gave us the World Wide Web and it was a whole new game.
Over the years I’ve found new obsessions birthed by the Internet: Napster, Blogs (since 2002!), YouTube, MySpace / Facebook, Social Networking, MMORPG’s, and much much more.
Here’s a few of the things that I primarily do because the internet allows me to better than ever before, and the tools I use:
Balance My Bank Account & Pay Bills
Online Banking? Whatever. I need more than just my bank balance. I need to be able to enter in manual transactions, see how I’m doing on my budget, set saving goals, and reoccurring transactions. And I also need this available wherever I am going.
Enter Yodlee Moneycenter and Mint, both really good applications that are taking online banking to the next level. I’ve been testing Mint for about eight months now and it’s pretty great in its beta stages, but lately I’ve been gravitating over to Yodlee simply because it offers much more.
Mint and Yodlee both allow you to set budgets, see your spending habits, and set budget/account alerts, but Yodlee allows you to import not only your bank account but also Loans, Electricity and Utility bills, and even reward systems like the Best Buy Reward Center.
If you have doubts about security, then fear not: Yodlee is the major engine behind almost all of the bank’s online banking. The security to login is almost annoying but understood; this is my money we’re dealing with.
Keep My Life in Order
Remember the Milk
I am a complete scatterbrain. If I don’t write something down, typically I’ve forgotten it by the time it’s crossed my — ooh look, a bunny!
Uh.. nevermind. The moral of the story is, I need something to help me. Not just remember things like my friends and families birthdays, but also things like thinking I need ketchup, only to discover the two other bottles in the pantry upon return from the grocery store.
Enter Remember The Milk. This simple task service allows you to make any list you wish, whether its just a simple grocery list (with priorities), birthdays, bill payment due dates, or simply adding upcoming events.
While opening Notepad and writing a list is easy enough, RTM allows interfacing through several methods: through a plugin for Firefox/gMail/Google Apps, text messaging services, Twitter direct messages, and even a Google Talk account.
Find Old Friends
Facebook/MySpace
I check my E-Mail about ten million times a day, and probably check Facebook and MySpace about half that. When I joined MySpace I was suddenly being contacted with people I hadn’t spoken to in 5-10 years, sometimes more. The list only grew once Facebook opened up for more than just college students.
It’s been a little easier and less time-consuming with great tools like Digsby, which allow me to update my status and check on friend updates without making me go to the websites. Facebook I don’t mind so much, but MySpace — new design or not — looks like ass, so I avoid it as much as possible these days.
Watch TV
Hulu / Windows Media Center / iTunes Store
Remember the days when if you happened to miss an episode of your favorite show, you had to wait until summer to watch the rerun? I do, and it was terrible. Luckily there were a lot more non-linear shows around back then, but it was still a hassle to deal with.
With the internet, if I miss a show I can pop on one of the network websites and watch it the next day, sometimes hours after the original broadcast. Miss an episode of LOST? Pop on ABC.com and watch it in HD. Want to take it with me? Go on iTunes and download the episode for $1.99 and I can watch it on my iPod anywhere.
Not only does this apply to new shows, but older shows are finding new life on the internet. Recently several networks joined together and created hulu, which catalogs both new and old series ranging from fan (and personal) favorite Arrested Development to classic television like Buck Rogers.
Also available on Windows Vista and Windows Media Center Edition is the Media Center application from Microsoft. The Vista version has direct links to several online providers of television and film content, as well as full-length movies.
Play Video Games
World of Warcraft / Halo 2
As I spoke about in the first “10 Things I Love” list, I do so love video games. Even more than playing them by myself, I love to play them with friends even more. The social aspect of playing games always makes them that much more fun, whether you are fighting against each other, or helping to achieve a shared goal.
MMORPG’s are the ultimate in shared experience games. I’ve made several friends among those in my World of Warcraft guild, many of which live hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away.
Video game consoles have also benefited from online multiplay. Halo is a fun game, sure, but it’s so much more fun when you can play with four of your friends online from the comfort of their own couch, and you don’t even have to share the screen with your opponents. It’s even brought the “trash talk” element to the console with voice chat.
Discover New Music
Last.fm
Music, which is going to be the feature of its own “10 Things” article, is something else that is very important to me. There is hardly a time in the day where I don’t have music playing, either in concentration or just simply background noise.
I’m pretty good about discovering new artists and new songs on my own, but there have been times when I’ve used the aid of one of my favorite social networks, Last.fm. What started out as Audioscrobbler, a tool for sending your music listening statistics to show how much you listen to what, eventually became Last.fm, a full social network for people who love music and want more of it.
It started with recommendations. A click on the artist profile you are listening to shows you “Similar artists” based on the listening habits of other users who listen to the same band or song. Then came the playlists and user radio, which played back streaming songs picked right out of your own tracks and other artists like them. Last.fm’s latest allows paid subscribers access to full-length tracks and videos by several recording artists out there.
I’ve so firmly immersed my life with the Internet it’s difficult to imagine a world where it doesn’t exist. The one thing I haven’t decided on though, is if my life would be more or less productive. While I’ve been good about listing productive services (not counting Facebook/Myspace) I use, I also spend an equal amount of time on sites like Fark, Twitter, and my Google Reader RSS feeds.
Regardless of productivity or not, the Internet continues to shape and change the way I do ordinary tasks. I don’t want to be part of a world that isn’t connected.
When I was just a kid, there were a series of Coke commercials that aired in the US featuring a strange, stuttering, and profoundly bizarre character named Max Headroom. The character has the ability to randomly appear and interact with people near his television set, and soon became the main character of his own TV show (as well as the single-episode talk show that became the basis of the US TV series).
The show lasted eleven episodes before being canceled, but Max’s popularity remained for several years afterwards. Recently, British Television’s Channel 4 launched a campaign promoting its upcoming Digital programming featuring Max Headroom as its spokesperson, albeit a slightly older version.
Actor Matt Frewer portrays both the young and old version of Max. An interesting bit of trivia: The original Max Headroom was in fact NOT computer animated. Technology of the time prevented full-person rendering, so they “tricked” the viewer by dressing Matt Frewer up in a latex and foam rubber costume and cell-shading the geometric lines and shapes that appear behind him.
For more on Max Headroom, see Wikipedia’s article here
The above is SNL’s Digital Short from this last Saturday’s episode starring Bon Jovi with Foo Fighters as the music guest. I don’t know why this is so damn funny, but even with the sound off I was cracking up.
The ending makes no sense.
Bravo, Samburg.
BELIEVE IN YOUR DREAMS!
Conforming to Hollywood’s recent trend of raping our childhood memories, E! Network’s The Soup gives us an exclusive look at the next big blockbuster based off of another classic cartoon from the 1980’s: Rainbow Brite.
I predict already that it will outsell Transformers and Spider-Man 3 COMBINED. The casting decision to play Rainbow Brite herself is genius, and I couldn’t have picked anybody better.
I think i’m gonna have a nightmare about it tonight.
Via David Wain’s MySpace page, solid news has finally been broken concerning the classic MTV Sketch Comedy Show, The State, coming to DVD.
The State was a comedy show that ran in the mid-90’s featuring Reno 911’s Thomas Lennon, Ben Garrant, Kerry Kenney-Silver, Ed and I Love The 90s Michael Ian Black, and several other comedians featured in hundreds of projects since The State went off the air after two seasons.
The set will feature 5 DVD’s with every episode of the first season, and also includes never-before-seen sketches and plenty of DVD Commentary from the improv troupe. No release date has been set as of yet, only the ubiquitous “Coming Soon to DVD.”
Oh, and I’m Doug, and I’m outta heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere.
Source: David Wain’s MySpace Blog
The amazingly underrated FX sitcom Always Sunny In Philadelphia returns for a third season on September 13, 2007 with the full cast including Danny DeVito, who joined in the second season as the father of two (or is it three?) of the characters.
Enough simply cannot be said about how hilarious this show actually is. The show plays out like Seinfeld on crack–lots of funny interactions between characters doing horrendous things to each other with no remorse. Every character is almost close to being a sociopath, completely devoid of human feeling and compassion for those around them, including each other.
FX is currently re-running the first and second season at random times, and you can pick up the first season on DVD right now, and a combination of Season 1 & 2 on DVD on September 4, 2007.
Source: TV Squad
The clip above is from an MSNBC morning news show that broadcasted today. It features three of the newscasters reporting on the day’s stories, as usual, but when journalist Mika Brzezinski is supposed to start off with the “lead story” she immediately apologizes for the content, then after a second thought flat out refuses to discuss the topic.
What was the topic that she refused to report on? Paris. Effing. Hilton.
The clip jumps a few times, showing Mika getting more and more frustrated with both her fellow newscasters and the producer (which I assume is shouting obscenities in her ear) who still try to get her to do the story. She even goes so far as to steal a lighter out of one of the other newscasters pockets and attempts to BURN the damn story on live television. Before she can set fire to MSNBC’s studios they wrestle it away from her, but not before she rips the copy to shreds.
The producers even go so far as to print out another copy, which she promptly stands up and shreds in a nearby waste bin.
Kudos to her. If only everyone else in the media would do the same, Paris would lose all her powers and die on a coke binge somewhere. The media not paying attention to her is like Kryptonite to Superman.
Source: Perez Hilton
“Here’s a song by a gay guy.” - Brian
This video is taken from last season’s Family Guy where Peter wants to relive his teenage years and gets Death (played once again by Adam Corolla) to send him back in time. What ensues is a cross between Back to the Future and It’s A Wonderful Life, with Family Guy’s own special twist.
The scene above is at the homecoming dance where Peter and Lois are supposed to kiss and fall in love (a la George & Lorraine McFly), with Brian playing guitar after the band’s original guitarist was injured. Since the story takes place in the early 80s, instead of Brian doing Chuck Berry, you get Marvin Astley.
The best part:
“Hey Rick! It’s your cousin, Marvin! Marvin Astley. You know that mediocre generic sound you’ve been looking for? Well listen to THIS!”
BONUS: The origins of Peter vs The Chicken.
DOUBLE BONUS, BITCH: And for those brave enough, or want to relive those precious childhood memories, here’s the original Rick Astley video in all its suckery. Apparently this video has been made into an internet fad called “Rickrolling” which is done by mislabeling a link to something exciting.
Click here for exclusive leaked footage of Spider-Man 4!!!1!
Did you click on the link? If you did, you’ve just been Rickrolled. I love the Internet.
