Watching nearly all television time-shifted on TiVo and fast forwarding through commercials amplifies something, that TV programmers think that you, your mother, and everyone else is stupid. Even cable networks with “intelligent programming” show this. On countless shows, just before every commercial break, you are presented with a “coming up” promo of what is going to happen later in the show. This is presumably to keep you hooked into the program and prevent you from changing the channel during the break. Many shows bookend the commercial break with a recap of what you presumably just watched. This must be for those of us who are drunk, suffering from ADD and off our meds, or are just too stupid to remember what just happened less than fifteen minutes prior.
Certain networks like VH1 and MTV, who arguably likely do have a larger percentage of their audience that are truly stupid than say Discovery, cut their “coming up” promos to lead you to believe something is going to happen that in actuality does not. They use the magic of editing to create tension and twist events to keep you hooked in their shit program, and then let you down afterward. Although, you can’t blame them since they repeat it at every break and their regular viewers fall for it time and time again. Speaking of Discovery, their networks have perfected the cock-tease promo. Their pre-break promo is typically for something that happens much later in the show, and you are subjected to a recap at the end of the break.
This is why DVRs are so wonderful. Not only can you skip the commercials, you can skip this “coming up” and “moments ago” crap and reduce your typical 1hr cable show into something about 30-35 minutes long.
Far Cry 2 is the follow-up to the excellent PC first person shooter Far Cry released by Ubisoft in 2004. In the following years, Ubi whored the game out primarily through their Montreal division, originally releasing a reworked console version called Far Cry: Instincts and then a sequel Far Cry: Predator for the original Xbox, Far Cry Instincts: Predator for the 360 which features enhanced graphics of the previously mentioned titles with some extra features, and finally another remake, Far Cry: Vengeance for the Wii. There was also a crappy arcade light gun arcade game. Suffice to say, the four years between Far Cry and Far Cry 2 haven’t been the best for the franchise.
Initially I was excited to hear about a proper sequel, Far Cry 2 was being released in late 2008 for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. That was until I found out Ubisoft Montreal would be handling it, the same studio that had created the poor console ports. Thankfully, they took a new approach to the Far Cry franchise and released what looked like a very good game. more »
Monday was the series finale of My Own Worst Enemy, and it had probably the lamest of any series finales I have ever witnessed. I am already sorry I bothered continuing to Tivo it. If you really want to waste your time watching it spoiler free, and not do something more productive like clip your toenails, stop reading now. The show was given enough lead time to made changes to the final episodes to wrap things up, but instead pulled off an idea that probably sounded really cool on paper and with a lack of forethought, but was instead a giant “Fuck You!” to those who actually made the mistake of watching bothered to watch the show.
Obviously for a show with such a convoluted plot, tying everything up nice and tidy is next to impossible. So much of the show was implausible and contradictory that all I asked for was some sort of resolution to the main story. Instead, the writers went in a completely different, and ill advised, direction. They didn’t bother wrapping a damn thing up and instead finished off with two new cliffhanger storylines. Yes, the writers, who had an opporutnity to resolve things instead created a cliffhanger storylines on the series finale. The following is my summary of the events of this episode. more »
According to SiriuslySrewed.com, which I didn’t even know existed until this day (despite the name of these posts), the censored edited content on previously unedited channels will be gone from Sirius XM’s airwaves by January 15th, 2009. Also at that time, the channels Backspin and The Strobe will be returning. Good news if you ask me, although when it comes to the edited content, it is long overdue. Some songs seemed to be corrected, but every instance of the so-called “f-bomb” in a song that I had heard was still edited. So I’ll be sticking it out to see if they truly follow through with this.
So according to Scott Greenstein, head of Sirius XM programming, there are only 3 channels on Sirius that actively play edited versions of songs. Supposedly the edited music airing on Lithium 24 was accidentally imported from the XM equivalent and over-wrote preexisting songs in the Sirius library. Of course I have yet to actually hear unedited versions of songs, but to be fair, I haven’t been listening to Lithium as much since the programming merger. The quality of that channel seemed to drop tremendously. There is only so much Dave Mathews Band, Creed, and other 90’s pop masquerading as “alternative” music, that I can tolerate.
As I mentioned last week, Sirius and XM merged a lot of the similarly themed channels across their two services. From the get-go, I knew this would happen and I thought it made sense and simply hoped that the bulk of the Sirius channels would survive. While that is true for the most part, it unfortunately seems like the parts of XM I didn’t like have bled through anyway. It isn’t even the loss of channels that I really care about, it is the censorship. Sirius channels had previously been able to play unedited music on their channels outside of the family-friendly and pop stations. Now it seems that XM’s brand of “sanitized” radio is the norm. What the hell?
I’ve been a Sirius subscriber since January of 2006, and there were a number of reasons I joined. I want a diverse selection of music, deep playlists, unique programing and freedom from the chains of terrestrial radio who plays edited versions of music because they have to due to FCC regulation. Satellite Radio doesn’t have to play edited songs, XM chose to do so, and that was one of the reasons that I didn’t keep them after my 3 month trial. Now as a Sirius subscriber, who had been enjoying unedited music for nearly three years, the quality of my service is being crippled? Again, what the hell?
One of the arguments Sirius and XM made during their merger was that they had to compete, not only with commercial terrestrial radio, but other forms of portable entertainment, such as iPods. Well, my iPod plays unedited music, always has and always will. One of the reasons I joined Sirius was to hear music that I don’t own, hadn’t heard, or at least hadn’t heard in ages. The special programming was a huge bonus, and remains something that I enjoy, but when I hear an edited song, I want to turn off my radio. So Sirius, bring back the real music, the music that your customers have been enjoying for years. You don’t see HBO playing “edited for content” movies, their subscribers wouldn’t stand for it. So what makes you think yours will?
According to THR.com, by way of Ain’t It Cool News, NBC has canceled the new series My Own Worst Enemy. I’ll spare you the easy jokes and just say that I am not at all surprised. I’ve been following the show since it’s debut, being a fan of Christian Slater. Seriously, how could you not love the invisible star from Hollow Man 2?
Anyway, the overly complicated premise of the show is that Edward Albright is a special agent for some organization that runs covert operations around the globe. For some, inadequately explained reason, all the organization’s agents have a computer chip implanted in their brains to help create a “split personality”, which only comes out for everyday life. The agent personality stays dormant and is only pulled out when called for duty. Well of course there is some sort of mishap and Edward’s “regular Joe” personality, Henry Spivey, starts coming out at inopportune moments. Henry also becomes aware that he is actually Edward, and the two leave video voice mails for each other filled with the type of overboard bitchy quips you’d expect to see in interview segments on The Real World. Don’t worry, it gets more convoluted from here. more »
Today you launched the semi-merged channel lineups on both Sirius and XM satellite radio services. I understand this was a necessary and sensible move, as there was a lot of genre repetition across the services. And while I am glad to see that most of my favorite Sirius channels survived, the change still leaves a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. I am annoyed at the total loss of the classic rap/hip-hop channel BackSpin, and the growing number of artist-specific channels. Sure AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Elvis, etc. all have some great songs, but how many people really want to just listen to those individual bands? Isn’t the whole idea of satellite radio variety and diversity?
However, my biggest gripe is this was done with no real warning to subscribers. Sure, those who followed the merger knew it was forthcoming, and those of us who read satellite radio blogs knew it happened today, but we’re in the minority of your subscribers. Most simply got the channel update today, found some of their presets gone, and their favorite channels replaced. more »
I pre-ordered Resistance 2 from Amazon, and have had it since the release date. I’ve only had a few chances to play it, and thus am only part way into the game, but I already have some initial thoughts on it. Unfortunately not all of them are good and echo a few of the things I have heard from others, which is really disappointing considering how much I love the original game. I really want to love this game, but so far I am just kind of lukewarm on it.
First things first, the game is absolutely gorgeous looking. The visual attention to detail is amazing, making for some seriously stunning game environments. I thought the first game looked great, and visually, R2 improves upon everything while retaining the visual feel of the first game. The huge boss type characters are worthy of showing just what the PS3 is capable of doing. Unfortunately that is where my praise ends for now. more »
Microsoft is set to drop their new “Xbox Experience” later this month, and while I don’t buy the company’s rhetoric about all it is going to change, there is one thing it definitely is changing: themes. If you need a reason not to waste your money on virtual system skins, that are usually little more than glorified advertisements, here you go. This new Xbox interface overhaul is nullifying every single one of them. I suppose a few might get updated, but expect to toss more spacebucks at it.
Amusingly enough, Sony has recently started selling premium themes for the PS3. This is odd to me since many of the existing free themes are already suffering from the inclusion of new features pushed out by firmware updates. I’m all for customization, but I’m not about to drop my hard earned money on what equates to nothing more than custom wallpaper, icons and maybe some annoying sounds.
So enjoy your premium themes while you can Xbox owners, or keep your system offline for good. Because your purchases are going the way of the doo-doo bird soon enough. As for me, I’ll keep saying “no thanks.” I’ll save my money for actual gaming content.
