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February 18, 2004 00:27 +0000  |  Society & Culture 2

i have a theory about this whole "lets cancel angel and firefly, but keep crappy shows like charmed and fear factor going" thing: tv stations are afraid of producing intelligent content. that's the only line that works. sure angel was dark, and firefly was odd, but have you looked at those other two shows? the only definitive difference here is that the people who watch the shows that got cancelled are people who like intelligent humour and plots that actually require thought to follow.

"but why would broadcasters want to do such a thing?" you might ask. it's all about lowering the bar my friends. producing crap like fear factor is cheap and easy, but writing a show that keeps people coming back is much, much harder and therefore, more expensive.

now we've seen intelligent tv survive in the past, but shows like csi and star trek appeal to a different audience: 30+. angel and firefly (and going further back, babylon 5 and farscape) all appeal to the 20+ group, a market much larger and heavily leaning toward an iq roughly resembling that of a turnip. how else can you explain why charmed is still around? and survivor? broadcasters can't let intelligent shows survive, lest they risk raising the bar and widening the audience for talented entertainment... and if that happened, the crap they're pushing now just might flunk out and they'd lose that cash cow started by "who wants to be a millionaire".

man i'd be happy to pay $40/mo for just three shows: angel, startrek & the monday report. screw the rest of the garbage. but if that were possible, they'd never make any more pacifying the idiot nation.

here endeth the rant.

February 17, 2004 04:07 +0000  |  Miscellaneous Society & Culture 0

they've cancelled yet another good show. yet another joss show. this will be the last season of angel, so a big "lick me today" goes out to the buttholes at the wb who for some reason decided that the show, their second-highest rated show had to die. i would really appreciate an email from the morons who did the math here and decided that "charmed" should live (ew) and angel must die. i guess it's just another example of good programming that gets replaced with crap as a matter of course. it would seem that the gaping void for intelligent entertainment is going to swallow the lot of us.

February 15, 2004 06:02 +0000  |  Society & Culture Why I'm Here 0

anger, tears and goosebumps. this could possibly be the most important movie you'll ever see. it's well written, historically accurate and features some of the most important minds on the issue of globalisation. but sensationalism aside, seriously, see this movie. and here's why:

globalisation is a really big subject. so big that it's literally impossible to understand when concerning yourself with the entire concept all at once. you have to take it apart into smaller pieces: sweatshops, economies of scale, terrorism and at the root of it all: the corporation.

as citizens of a democracy, we can't sit by anymore and assume that stuff like this doesn't apply to us. the world is broken, our assumption of "truth" is flawed, and if we are to survive as a free and healthy people, we have to begin to understand why constructs like the corporation are unhealthy for us.

i can't go on into more detail without either boring you with facts and figures or somehow dulling the importance of this film's message, so i'll just leave you with what i hope will be enough to convince you to see this movie:
  • if you're american, your milk is poisoned. but more importantly, your milk was allowed to be poisoned because someone paid to make it this way. and what's more, you were prevented from hearing about it because people were paid to kill news stories about it

  • privatisation of breatheable air, as ridiculous as it sounds, is not a foreign concept to modern supporters of the corporation. it's right up there with monsanto's seeds that self-destruct after one crop, and a bechtel's ownership of the water of cochabamba, bolivia -- even the water falls from the sky

  • not only did ibm supply the nazis with the technology required to manage their jewish problem, but they personally serviced the machines that were used to process the men, women, and children into the gas chambers and death camps. i even saw a picture of the ceo of ibm having lunch with adolph himself.

  • there is hope. the ceo of interface flooring systems has publically decided to make his company completely sustainable by the year 2020. no bullshit. read the details here.

February 05, 2004 04:36 +0000  |  Society & Culture 2

apparently, janet jackson's boob is now the most sought-after image on the internet. i ask you: why? who the hell cares? it's just a boob!

americans are just so funny...

January 31, 2004 23:45 +0000  |  Society & Culture Why I'm Here 2

when i moved out here, i told everyone that i had a reason. i didn't quite understand the details around it then -- i suppose that i still don't have a perfectly clear picture. but the general understanding was that i had to leave vancouver so that i could learn about how the world works, and through that learning gain the power to change what i felt needed changing.

today i took my first concrete steps in that direction. i have four big ideas for the city of toronto, the details of which (once heavily scrutinised and worked out) will be available online. but the important part is that today i stopped screwing around and started working on it. did some research online for toronto budget information (the details of which are sadly lacking) and then contacted a nice man at the toronto chapter of the sierra club looking for some help on where to go next. it may not look like much, but i'm locked in now. no where else to go but through the other side.

January 23, 2004 04:31 +0000  |  Nifty Links Society & Culture 0

"the medium is the message -- i think that the internet makes you into a libertarian to a certain extent. because you can see non-hierarchical, non-centralized systems working, and it becomes hard to credibly claim that we need increased centralization in order to create order or equity or equitableness."
-- cory doctorow on the internet


www.shift.com/content/web/451/1.html

read the article, and if you have the time, you can download his book for free or buy it on hardcover.

January 20, 2004 01:54 +0000  |  Society & Culture 1

so it turns out that the american moron has decided that he wants to go to mars. my first thought was: "it's about time". this was my only thought on the subject until i saw a prediction for the final landing date: 2030. it was then that i realised that i'd be 50 years old at that point.

whatever happened to us? we were supposed to be building a colony on the moon and taking regular missions to and from mars by now. 35years. that's how long it's been since the human race (granted, under an american banner) touched down on the moon. what the hell has been going on since then? what do we, as a people have to show for 35years of being on this planet? a couple wars, an internet and a whole bunch of fuct-up marketing selling the masses stuff we don't need. we could have gone to mars, but instead we bought washable cellphones. and now a war-mongering idiot is pretending that he has an honest desire to explore the galaxy just so he can get re-elected and make more money for the oil industry.

here's a thought: what if we could convince debeers to finance an expedition to neptune? apparently, scientists have theorised that it's raining diamonds there. they can harvest the rocks, and we can build starships. sounds like a plan to me.