Vh1 Games for Everyone
Vh1 Games for Everyone by Roxanne McDonald
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It may be common knowledge that a great number of television shows—especially reality TV shows—have adjunct games on their corresponding websites. But I discovered Vh1 games and game matrices just in time. |
With the advent of “interactive” TV, which I am for the most part opposed to, I was still delighted to find a more standard kind of interactivity—the acceptable kind where TV viewers and/or pc users can “compete” against or in favor of the celebreality stars of their choice.
For “I Love New York,” Vh1 has the I Love New York Premonition Matrix, wherein one can place pictures against captions that read New York’s Favorite, Mama’s Boy, or Not Good Enough—casting your premonitory vote.
For “Surreal Life Fame Games,” Vh1 has brought us The Fame Games Matrix, where you decide whether the celebrities belong on the A-List or the C-U-Later List by putting them “in their place”—rating current episodes; and the Celebrity Ugly Stick, in which you intentionally make one of three celebrities “get ugly,” so he or she can win the Ugly Award.
You Want to Cut the Violence on TV? Stars with those Hideous Commercials
You Want to Cut the Violence on TV? Stars with those Hideous Commercials
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How violence harms our children could be compared to how much advertising does the same. When you combine the two, you may as well say goodbye to innocence. |
Numerous and thorough studies done on the impact of violence on our kids suggests we tone down or moderate. Parental controls finally provide one solution, giving parents the responsibility they for so long were accused of denying. Okay.
But how do parents control the commercials their children are bombarded with?
As Levine Breaking News reports, “Violence on broadcast television is nearing ‘epidemic proportions,’ surging 75% over the last six years while posing a threat to children that government officials need to address, according to a new study by the Parents Television Council. ABC has the sharpest increase in the study.”
At the same time, as CBS News reports, kids see some 40,000 TV ads a year.
Now make those ads violent, and the whole construction of healthy development of our children is leveled. I’m speaking of the most hideous, most obnoxious, and most shamelessly disgusting ad I have yet to mute: the Volkwagen crashing violently, scaring the hell out of the happy movie-goers or relationship musers, then cutting to a showroom-style offering of the now-crashed and crunched vehicle.
This ad pisses me off. It is loud, violent, and resorts to the appeal to fear strategies I thought we had outlawed. As much as I abhor censorship and the ignorant who wield it, I still say get rid of these stupid, stupid ads.
TVPrediction.com’s Swann Reveals More TV-buying Info
TVPrediction.com’s Swann Reveals More TV-buying Info by Roxanne McDonald
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He set us straight about the DTV; now Phillip Swan gives us much-needed info on HDTV. |
Returning from an HD World Conference and Exposition in New York, Phillip Swann, TVPrediction.com guru reports his findings about high-definition televisions, programming, and the industry.
Swann reports that other than the 30 million HDTV owners, people are waiting for a price-drop—which if it happens, in, say, January through June of 2007, would likely “trigger an explosion in sales.”
The TV expert also notes how while some stations are going high-def, others have not yet made the transition.
Also big on the industry’s radar is the Toshiba/Sony “HDTV DVD war”, which Swann indicates has stymied potential buyers from going for such celebrated (and fought over, evidently) new items as the Blue-ray/HDTV DVD players.
High-definition TV was only a projected concept a year and a half ago, when I first investigated and wrote about what viewers would be compelled to upgrade to to be able to get not only quality reception but reception of any kind. Now, as my techie friend notes, HDTV is a reality for most channels and DTV is soon to be the mainstay for satellite and cable TV users.
This leaves only a few to buy DTVs or DTV converters or to go without. The latter I don’t see happening regardless of whether the prices come down or the electronic monoliths stop jockeying for first place or the TV goes completely digital, back to analog, back to being a boob tube, forward to HD, D, or super Tee.
We need our TV(s).
Ugly Betty Has Competition: Phillip Swann’s HDTV Yearbook Superlatives
Ugly Betty Has Competition: Phillip Swann’s HDTV Yearbook Superlatives by Roxanne McDonald
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According to Phillip Swann of TVPredictions.com, the high-def picture makes some celebs among the “worst-looking” on TV. |
TMZ staff writers report the findings of the HDTV industry website, TVPredictions.com. Among the findings are those clarified by Phillip Swann, expert TV and technology analyst: Rosie O’Donnell wins the “worst looking” label, as the “crystal clear reception of HDTV,” which picks up “every line, wrinkle, and crevice on a stars face” makes her look, says Swann, “like she uses a Brillo pad [to wash her face].”
Howard Stern takes the second worst looking title, with Swann determining he appears as if to have endured the “worst abuse of a surgical scalpel since Jack the Ripper roamed the streets of London,” while the usually stunning Teri Hatcher gets the third anti-accolade for being “so thin [on HDTV] she could pass as a mother of four…,” whatever that means.
And with Britney looking ten years older than she is and Madonna having cheeks that are “more caved in than a West Virginia coal mine,” the stars of Hollywood, when showing up on HDTv may as well sign up for reality TV.
But let’s hope the public is savvy enough to not hope these great minds, comic, and talents give in and sign up for some plastic surgery or other (unless, like Rosie did on Nip/Tuck—and was brilliant at it–their characters do so).
How Many of Us Hate Change—Especially When it Involves Our Hard Work of Cataloguing and Listing Favorite TV Channels?
How Many of Us Hate Change—Especially When it Involves Our Hard Work of Cataloguing and Listing Favorite TV Channels? by Roxanne McDonald
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What in hell has happened to my TV Listings? |
I am completely lost. This morning, as I always do when I first sit down at the computer to complete my rituals, which include writing out the TV show line-up for the day—I clicked on my HOME folder, clicked on the WATCH folder, clicked on the TV folder, and clicked on Y! Listings—Yahoo! TV. But I was taken to an “oops!” page, with some TV Listings Beta header, instead of the schedule of the day.
After re-loading the page and clicking around this newly formatted site, I realized that all of my saved info is gone into the refuse dumps of cyberspace, evidently.
My personally selected and added favorite channels are gone, the month, day, year, and time zone data is gone. The ritual of finding the shows I watch faithfully and/or those I watch to write to you about are also gone.
Besides that, what has taken place of my version of a most functional TV/movie guide is substituted with replications of what a hundred other TV sites are doing: the “News” section, for instance, features one single chat line, which is oddly repeated three times. So one can click on how great Lost is, three times. That’s it. No reports, no news writer interviews of celebs, no updates.
I concede that the Yahoo! TV Guide Listings was free—or at least it was to those who are SBC Yahoo subscribers (which I am). I also concede to the fact that SBC Yahoo! ISP and other constituents merged with or were bought out by AT&T, which I LOOOVE. But I cannot reconcile my coo-coo, ADD, quasi-obsessive-compulsive brain with having to re-search for, re-calibrate, re-categorize, and re-acclimate to another online TV guide.
More Info, Less Griping…about DTV
More Info, Less Griping…about DTV by Roxanne McDonald
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They are doing a DTV countdown, but are we, the consumer public, the ones who really should matter, ready? |
Okay, okay, ignorance is supposedly blissful, but in the case of how we will all be going digital, ignorance is actually miserable. But I found out that not only will we, the television-obsessed, not be forced to buy new TVs or new converters or what-have-you, but we also can learn about the nation-wide conversion from analog to digital broadcasting.
According to the FCC, “On February 18, 2009, full power television stations will stop analog broadcasting and transition to digital broadcasting.” Now, at first consideration, we would agree that since the new technology did not exist when we bought our TVs, which could be as recently as yesterday or a few hours ago, we do not have a DTV TV or any converter technology to go with it.
This means that if we do not also subscribe to cable or satellite service that we will “need either a [new] television set capable of receiving DTV programming, or a digital-to-analog converter box,” the latter of which will enable us to get a DTV signal on our non-DTV (analog) TVs.So we don’t have to buy yet another plasma wall screen but can instead hit the participating retail stores where digital-to-analog converter boxes will be available [in retail stores during the transition].
But before complaining about yet another enforced expense on already bulging budgets, know that according to the FCC, “The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce is developing rules that will allow households to obtain coupons that can be applied toward the purchase of digital-to-analog converter boxes.”
Check out the very clearly detailed (surprisingly easy to understand) info at FCC’s site, http://www.dtv.gov/ — where you can read up on everything from FAQs to definitions; or go directly to the source for information on the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Assistance Program at NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), where you can read up on NTIA’s FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions).
Do We Now Have to Buy New TVs? Fork over MORE Money?
Do We Now Have to Buy New TVs? Fork over More Money? by Roxanne McDonald
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Who decided on this new kind of television, when did we vote on it, and what do we do now…with our very expensive, recently-purchased sets? |
I just finished watching Francois Truffaut’s directorial version of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (mostly for the last ten minutes wherein each person has become a book), and noted how the futuristic TV was quite a prophetic item on Bradbury’s part. Not only is it huge, it is also to some degree interactive—which, thought up by Bradbury in 1950, anticipated the internet, really.
But also eerily similar to what we revere today, the TV was a social imperative: in fact, at one point in the story, Montag’s fire captain says, “Oh, you just have the one wall screen,” shaming Montag.
We now are faced with a similar shame, or obligation:
there’s some buzz on the news, on the net, that we are going to have to cough up more money—again—for yet another corporate creation. Broadcasting is shifting to digital television, and using technology that would require a (mandatory) broadcast digital television (DTV) tuner in every TV…or in every new TV.
Or this is what I thought, what I feared, and what I was prepared to bitch and moan about to anyone who would listen.
Dexter: Another Brilliant Premium Show
Dexter: Another Brilliant Premium Show by Roxanne McDonald
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Creative generosity, acute acting skills, and more exacting performances by the great Michael C. Hall make Dexter the next addictive Showtime feature. |
The opening offers us Dexter’s neck, close up and in warm shadow. What light there is focuses on the razor (which one can hear in replete scraping splendor) as it travels down along the throat, cuts, and sends drops of vibrant red blood to the next shot—in the sink, where the credits too begin to roll and roil. The close-up tissue soaks the blood at Dexter’s neck. To make a slick and sensitive shot of human soup of sorts. An odd knife (a grapefruit knife? A filet knife?) cuts through tender raw meat cum packaging. Dexter’s wide grin cuts teeth through cooked pork or veal (likely pork, as he mentions it enough, later); and an egg bleeds into the hot and greasy depths of the fry pan Dexter wields with the precision he extends to his work: as a blood spatter analyst for Homicide.
Dexter is a sick boy, a mental maniac,
with a reverence for serial killing that is only thwarted or kept at the fringes of his consciousness by his upbringing
by an adoptive father (also in police work) who knew and who groomed Dex away from the “wrong side of the law.
The dialogue is sharp and tight, and laced with mocking, sardonic humor (Another fine day in Miami. Murder, dead bodies, and a chance of late rain…. ). The character interaction sees Dexter against the so-depicted “normies” in his stoic internal struggle to tolerate such attitudes as that of a colleague, a fat bastard (Detective Angel Batista, played by the unsung celebrity status performer, David Zayas) who boasts that the way to get off best is to do her doggie style and just as you near climax yell out another woman’s name so she bucks like a bronco trying to pull away.
The awareness of his penchant for the artfulness of serial murder not only makes him perfect as homicide analyst (the dick gets into the criminal’s head to catch him theory) but pristine as one who covets the habits and lifestyle of the most aberrant of sociopaths.
CSI: Miami More Color Intensive
CSI: Miami More Color Intensive by Roxanne McDonald
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With the “Curse of the Coffin” episode, CSI: Miami is even more visually intense –and therefore even better (if that’s possible). |
In the most recent episode of CSI: Miami, “Curse of the Coffin,” which aired on October 23rd, the colors are more vibrant, the lines are sharper, and the imagery even more outstanding.
The opening scenes have always been dynamic, with high energy, fast and loud action and sound effects, and scenic views, But this new episode showed more decadent rays of light and/or muted yellow hues in the buildings and sharper, almost surreal blues in the waters and at the shorelines.
In one cemetery scene, the place is flooded with light,
bringing out a vibrancy of the green of the lawns which is taken to the edge of an almost nuclear yellow-green.
The haunting greens extend to the interrogation rooms, where fuzzy backgrounds meet sharp, to meld and create an eery yellow-green-cast environment of a futuristic sort.
The CSI labs have yellow backgrounds and angles, juxtaposed with almost neon blue/white/violet overhead lights and rays emanating from the pc stations.
Dane Cook’s Vicious Circle Has Us All Spinning
Dane Cook’s Vicious Circle Has Us All Spinning by Roxanne McDonald
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Dane Cook was, until recently, one of American comedy’s best kept secrets. He was kept or kept himself hidden for years, an awkward and antisocial kid who, he says, didn’t have an in with any particular group, didn’t get invited places, and wasn’t all that attractive. But man, this working class funny man with the mind of a giant makes thousands of us glad he has an axe to grind now. |
If you missed his Tourgasm, which took him on tour across the country with fellow comics and comedians he nurtured along (gorgeous cookie-themed Gary Goldman; equally hilarious hard-ass Bobby Kelly; and neophyte Jay Davis), then hopefully you caught Dane Cook: Vicious Circle, wherein he does a solo two-hour stand-up show.
Cook’s directness, his pure honesty (which we know makes the BEST comedy) makes the humor fly as his adolescent male fantasies make way for hysterical metaphors riding on his stories of childhood (and seeing his father in a shortie robe), teen years (and his imperative to commit a crime, a B&E, which results in merely kicking in two doors, which likely drive the homeowners mad with wonder from then on), his relationship years (and his definitive and detailed recounting of fights and break-ups), and a multitude of other related and random topics.
Cook integrates his own details, though, by using the direct address approach, whereby he describes feelings, actions, events, and minor incidents and habits
as if we the audience (you) are doing the doing. (Of course, to act out as he does on stage with such energy and intensity would have us spinning more than his comedy has us catapulted into paroxisms of laugh.)
His comedy is innocent, farting and fooling around, and it is ironic and angry and fresh at the same time—his descriptions and repertoire working in dive-bombing detailing of vampirish drunken night antics, movie-going etiquette that leaves much to be desired, and science fiction analogies for overdone sexcapades a man inevitably craves and indulges in whenever and wherever possible.
Nip/Tuck Characters as Compelling as Ever
Nip/Tuck Characters as Compelling as Ever by Roxanne McDonald
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Let’s keep tabs on our Nip/Tuck peeps and babes, shall we? |
Julia is still keeping the baby, despite its ectrodactylia. Her daughter Annie has turned all the hands of all her dolls into lobster claws, but while she did so to come to terms with how it will be to have a sibling with a condition like this, Mom mistakes it for disrespect and chastises Annie, telling her it will be hard enough with strangers laughing and staring and demanding she throw away every single doll.
Matt McNamara is pumped and pumping more at a local gym, when he spies a beauty across the room. The babe turns out to be a renewed Kimber. Upon her query, Matt reports he has clamed down, has no feelings really, as he is on anti-depressants and sees a shrink. Kimber goes nuts in response, suggesting he re-think his life and attitudes and feelings by futzing with this machine that measures a kind of mental/emotional homeostasis. Turns out, the whacky new technique that has changed Kimber into a make-up-free, health-conscious, but somewhat tendentious new woman is Scientology.
This brings us to
Sean and Christian. Both have been getting called on the carpet for doing pro bono work – Sean for work on a severely needful client (with what looks like craniodiaphyseal dysplasia) and Christian for doing a classic boob reduction job.
Besides facing the “boss” b.s. together and in contention with each other, they also share the concerns of a son who has chosen to go the way of Kimber and L. Ron Hubbard. Matt has come to Sean asking that the money spent on drugs and shrinks be used for Scientology instead, and Sean has refused, so Matt, in a typical offspring move, goes to Mom, who agrees to give him the money.
And Liz has accidentally happened upon the new boss getting seduced by an older femme, played by Jacqueline Bisset, in the building’s parking garage. When she alludes to it later, the freaked out Mrs. L. fires Liz. (more…)
Internet TV Software allows you to Watch Satellite TV on your PC
You can now watch satellite TV on your PC with Internet TV Software!
Watching TV shows over the internet continues to rise in popularity.
Studies indicate that there are over 3.6 billion “video streams” watched by internet viewers.
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This article on satellite tv will help you learn about the benefits of PC Software that will help you watch satellite tv programming on your computer, almost as if it were an actual television set! That’s very cool! |
In fact, the regular internet user spends nearly forty one days each year being online or approximately 164 minutes per day;
likewise, researches reveal that 148 minutes per day are spent watching television. This supports studies done in September 2005 that most individuals spend almost eight hours a day using 2 or even more media simultaneously. (more…)
The New TV Shows for Fall are here in Summer!
New TV Shows for the fall season are almost here!
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Actually I just watched a new one last night (August 23rd) called Vanished which is really good!
The new fall season just started in Summer! More on Vanished in a future review of the season premiere episode from last night! |
When fall “really” comes, you can expect to see a lot of the new TV shows working their way into our consciousness.
The Fall season used to be the only time a network would premiere new TV shows, but that is finally changing.
The change is due to the changing habits of viewers in general. Some networks now put new shows on in the spring, or replace shows that are not doing well in the middle of the season. No matter when they debut, the networks are always fighting to get you to watch and embrace their new shows.
The new Fall TV shows come and go. Get ready for some that you like to quickly disappear like the Heather Graham show that bombed last year. Gone in 60 seconds (practically!) (more…)
Mel Gibson and Scott Baio in LA Sherrifs Commercial
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Wow! You gotta see this one! Mel Gibson and Scott Baio in LA Sherrifs Commercial It’s the Mel Gibson Commercial for LASSO! Pictured are Mel Gibson (not Scott Baio) and some guy that looks like Rudy Giuliani, but most likely he is a Malibu cop or Sherrif. |
Mel Gibson of recent Malibu DUI fame,
plays a tough cop as he grills Scott Baio in this commerical for the LA Sherrif.
You have gotta see this commercial! (more…)
Jenna Morasca has a TV Journal
I was just buzzing along looking at the latest news in TV and found that one of my ultimate dream girls Jenna Morasca, winner of a million bucks on Survivor, has her own TV Journal at the CBS News site!
Very interesting!
In “Jenna’s TV Journal” she dishes out her opinions on such shows at Treasure Hunters, Hell’s Kitchen. Rock Star: Supernova, Last Comic Standing, Big Brother: All-Stars, Project Runway, So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Got Talent and Who Wants To Be A Superhero! (more…)
TV Downloads World Leader is UK
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I was cruising along checking out one of my favorite sites Slashdot.org when I ran across a post that suggested the United Kingdom led the world in TV Downloads, at least so far as “tv piracy” downloads are concerened. |
Australia came in at # 2 with the United States coming in 3rd.
http://slashdot.org/articles/05/02/18/0324238.shtml
Upon further investigation a story at the UK site Guardian Unlimited, an article explained more about the UK and TV downloads.
But the writing may be on the wall for TiVo-like devices because of what David Price, a researcher with Envisional of Cambridge, calls the free global TiVo on the internet. He is referring to the dramatic upsurge in downloading films and TV shows through peer-to-peer sharing facilities on the web. The biggest of these, BitTorrent, is reckoned (by CacheLogic, another Cambridge company), to account for over a third of all data carried on the net (of which 10% is TV piracy).
New Envisional figures about to be released show Britain leads the world in piracy. We are responsible for 38.4% of TV downloads in the EU and 18.5% worldwide. Australia is second with 15.6% and the US a poor third on 7.3%. The reason is simple. The pirated programmes are mainly made in English by US companies and released earlier there than here. Top of the piracy charts is 24 (95,000 downloads an episode) followed by Star Trek: Enterprise (90,000).
Full article on TV Downloading
It’s Time for Directv and Echostar to Merge
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This time is right for Directv and Echostar (Dish Network) to merge. Rumors about a possible upcoming merger between the two have begun to circulate recently. I hope it happens this time. They tried it four years ago but were rejected by the FCC, whose members felt that a merger would violate antitrust laws. |
However, their primary competition is no longer each other but the cable and phone companies, which have more advantages.
Right now, satellite operators cannot provide competitive broadband, video-on-demand, and VoIP on their own the way the cable and phone companies can. (more…)
TV ROBOT: The Trouble With TV
There are two things you quickly notice about not watching TV.
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The first is that everyone with a telly watches it far more than they admit. The second is that it gives thousands of hours of good quality entertainment for astonishingly little cost. |
What critics have long maintained is that TV destroys the mind, but I’ve now got to admit that people who haven’t got a TV become restless, edgy and ultimately obsessed with trivia.
I tried keeping a diary of the experiment: “Day 1. Life is so much better without TV. I’m doing so much more, and I feel a better person…” and so on…The second week was just dull. I felt slightly numb and dimly aware of everyone else was having fun while I couldn’t allow myself to do so. Going out with friends also got problematic. I now realize that at least two-thirds of conversations begin:”Hey! Did you see… the other night?” Of course I didn’t! People started regarding me as some sort of sad case.
TV Robot is here!
Welcome to TV Robot!
We’ve got a lot planned! We intend to make this site fun and frisky! Not nasty, but definitely on the edge!
We plan on covering all your favorite tv shows and present pictures and videos of your favorite tv stars!
We’ll also be covering the equipment you are dying to get your hands on such as big screen LCD and Plasma TV’s with Surround Sound Systems! (more…)
