So the Tonight show with Conan Obrien is officially being reset back to Jay Leno. Obrien is being forced out to the tune of a almost $40 million dollar severance package, and will be release from his network contract within a year. Leno goes back to hosting the Tonight show, and his primetime show is cancelled.
This has been a remarkably bad move for NBC. They lose Conan with alot of bad blood. They are also keeping the rights to his segments and characters from late night and tonight.
They of course can't use any of these characters since even though they own the rights, everyone connects them with Obrien. It's just a play to try to prevent Obrien from succeeding without them. Yea, cause that worked so well on Letterman.
The bigger problem for NBC is that they are losing their late-night anchor right as their station is about to go into the broadcasting failure that is the olympics. So Conan leaves next friday, then nothing until March. So Fimmy Fallon will likely keep his normal viewers, but will lose his hip-lead in. Leno however, is fucked. Different timeslot, different show, audience hostility, and a month of downtime while the other late night shows suck up all of the viewers that NBC is shedding. Leno will return to zero audience.
The only one who profits from this is Letterman. Due to NBC's retardation, everyone has forgotten about his sex scandal.
So here is my prediction- 3 months from now NBC will have entirely lost the 10-midnight timeslot. Letterman and Kimmel will control latenight, and there is nothing they can do about it. Conan will make guest appearances all over TV to attempt to keep his popularity up until his contract ends, then he'll pitch a show to one of the other networks. So another network gets to try their hand at late night, and NBC officially loses late night, due to their own stupidity.
So good job there NBC, piece by piece you are killing your own network.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
On Avatar
Finally a good movie to review.
Avatar: James Cameron's masterpiece.
Honestly, Im not a huge cameron fanboy, I hated Titanic, but I love Avatar. The movie is so good in fact, that this post will contain no spoilers, simply commentary on the storytelling process of the film.
The film received alot of grief for being all style and no substance. I retort that the people making these claims are also the same ones who can't seem to figure out why it is doing so well.
The movie touches a part of the human soul that is beyond style or substance, it looks back at human history to the pre-industrial eras and says "Hey, we may not have had toilets and TV's, but it was a rather fufilling way to live".
This also brings up the next big question: "Does technology make us more or less happy?"
I would honestly say Less. We spend less time with real people and real activities, and more time doing meaningless things in cyberspace. These internet and television activities are a great way to kill time, but not a great way to enjoy time.
A happy human is one who is actively enjoying their life, not their lifestyle. A man in love will work like a slave if he has to, as long as he gets to come home to the embrace of his lover every night. Happiness, like love, is an intense emotion, and does not translate well via cyberspace.
In the modern era happiness is so rare that we work and strive for even momentary happiness. We'll do anything for a moment of happiness, but most of the time need to settle for merely dulling the pain of reality with false enjoyment, drugs, booze, etc. We have fake friends of "social websites" who we never see in person but share our innermost thoughts with. As humans, we've become so desperate for "real" that we even seek it out in the land of the fake.
Avatar shows us a man of the fake world who comes into the real world.
The experiences are intense, the emotions are real, to the point where discerning reality from fantasy becomes a game of harsh truths.
In the Avatar world there is much joy, because they live in the moment and leave the future to itself.
Modern man has made the mistake of living for the future. We do awful terrible things with the justification that we'll make up for it in the future, but we never do. In Avatar the people live for the present, everyone is held accountable for what they do now, not for what they plan on doing.
No more excuses, just make the best of the moment.
If not for the quality of filmmaking or the depth of the story, watch the movie for the social commentary. The world of Avatar could be our world (with some sci-fi exceptions). We are not so far gone that we couldn't live a simplier, happier life. and this movie shows us that.
Avatar: James Cameron's masterpiece.
Honestly, Im not a huge cameron fanboy, I hated Titanic, but I love Avatar. The movie is so good in fact, that this post will contain no spoilers, simply commentary on the storytelling process of the film.
The film received alot of grief for being all style and no substance. I retort that the people making these claims are also the same ones who can't seem to figure out why it is doing so well.
The movie touches a part of the human soul that is beyond style or substance, it looks back at human history to the pre-industrial eras and says "Hey, we may not have had toilets and TV's, but it was a rather fufilling way to live".
This also brings up the next big question: "Does technology make us more or less happy?"
I would honestly say Less. We spend less time with real people and real activities, and more time doing meaningless things in cyberspace. These internet and television activities are a great way to kill time, but not a great way to enjoy time.
A happy human is one who is actively enjoying their life, not their lifestyle. A man in love will work like a slave if he has to, as long as he gets to come home to the embrace of his lover every night. Happiness, like love, is an intense emotion, and does not translate well via cyberspace.
In the modern era happiness is so rare that we work and strive for even momentary happiness. We'll do anything for a moment of happiness, but most of the time need to settle for merely dulling the pain of reality with false enjoyment, drugs, booze, etc. We have fake friends of "social websites" who we never see in person but share our innermost thoughts with. As humans, we've become so desperate for "real" that we even seek it out in the land of the fake.
Avatar shows us a man of the fake world who comes into the real world.
The experiences are intense, the emotions are real, to the point where discerning reality from fantasy becomes a game of harsh truths.
In the Avatar world there is much joy, because they live in the moment and leave the future to itself.
Modern man has made the mistake of living for the future. We do awful terrible things with the justification that we'll make up for it in the future, but we never do. In Avatar the people live for the present, everyone is held accountable for what they do now, not for what they plan on doing.
No more excuses, just make the best of the moment.
If not for the quality of filmmaking or the depth of the story, watch the movie for the social commentary. The world of Avatar could be our world (with some sci-fi exceptions). We are not so far gone that we couldn't live a simplier, happier life. and this movie shows us that.
Friday, January 1, 2010
The 00's, a decade in review
So the last ten years can pretty universally be stated as one of the worst decades in American history.
We had the economic troubles of the 1930's, the wars of the 1960's, and probably the worst president in American history.
But more than anything else, this was a decade of drastic change. Consider the following:
-In 1999 alot of people had a computer and a cellphone, in 2009 cellphones have progressed to be more powerful than most computers in 1999.
-In 1999 most people were vaguely connected via e-mail and phone numbers, now we have social networking sites that allow us to remain in contact with people we would have lost contact with in 1999.
- In 1999 Napster was the big change to the internet and media marketplace. You could get music without copying it from radio or buying a CD. Now you can get anything from the internet. PDF's, movies, tv shows, computer programs, videogames, etc. you name it, it can be obtained from the internet. Some people even do their grocery shopping via the internet.
- The biggest change in America has been the way the American people deal with employment. In the 1990's a person would take a job, and likely keep it for many years. in the 00's a person would get a job and then be in the market for a new job within a year or two. Job security has vanished, with it goes Pensions and medical coverage.
But as amazing as these changes are, most of them resulted in very negative outcomes. Internet file sharing as led to decreased value in most content. Social networking has decreased socializing. And the employment change has left most Americans without any sense of financial security.
So this decade ends with most Americans in financial danger, we're still at war, and basically 95% of Americans have significantly decreased happiness this decade over last decade.
We had the economic troubles of the 1930's, the wars of the 1960's, and probably the worst president in American history.
But more than anything else, this was a decade of drastic change. Consider the following:
-In 1999 alot of people had a computer and a cellphone, in 2009 cellphones have progressed to be more powerful than most computers in 1999.
-In 1999 most people were vaguely connected via e-mail and phone numbers, now we have social networking sites that allow us to remain in contact with people we would have lost contact with in 1999.
- In 1999 Napster was the big change to the internet and media marketplace. You could get music without copying it from radio or buying a CD. Now you can get anything from the internet. PDF's, movies, tv shows, computer programs, videogames, etc. you name it, it can be obtained from the internet. Some people even do their grocery shopping via the internet.
- The biggest change in America has been the way the American people deal with employment. In the 1990's a person would take a job, and likely keep it for many years. in the 00's a person would get a job and then be in the market for a new job within a year or two. Job security has vanished, with it goes Pensions and medical coverage.
But as amazing as these changes are, most of them resulted in very negative outcomes. Internet file sharing as led to decreased value in most content. Social networking has decreased socializing. And the employment change has left most Americans without any sense of financial security.
So this decade ends with most Americans in financial danger, we're still at war, and basically 95% of Americans have significantly decreased happiness this decade over last decade.
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