Author: RTOlson

The blogging thing

I’m surprised at MySpace. It’s been an Internet phenomenon for more than two years, but they still can’t get their blogging tool to fully work in Firefox. For shame, Tom. For shame.

On the subject of blogging, I wanted to announce the newest and coolest blog to hit my profile in the past 10 minutes. I’ve started up a pop-culture entertainment blog on NorCal Blogs. It’s the Buzz Blog. It’s sorta like my old pop-culture column, but slightly more frequent and vastly more banal.

To keep tabs on all of my blogging endeavors, I’ve added a little widget to my profile. All of my blogs are now squeezed into a tiny space.

BuzzBlog Team coverage

If you read my entry on Normal Street, you would’ve gotten some of the first skinny on the situation before today’s story in the Enterprise-Record.
While I would pat myself on the back for this “scoop,” I realize even a wrong clock is right twice a day. Unless it’s digital and then it’s something else.

Something’s not “Normal” around here …

Pop quiz, hot shot. Without looking on a map, what’s the name of the missing road in this sequence:

Broadway Street, Salem Street, ????, Chestnut Street.

If you get your geography lessons from taverns and bars, you’d identify it as Normal Street. However, the road’s correct name is Normal Avenue.
Unfortunately, it appears Chico’s signmakers may have been spending too much time at the bar and not looking at their maps.
Signs hung at the newly signalized intersection of Normal Avenue and West Second Street say the road is “Normal Street.”
All of this raises several questions — How did this mistake happen? How much will this goof cost to fix? Was it a conspiracy? Perhaps it was a clever publicity play by the owners of the Normal St. Bar to further ingrain their geographically incorrect name among the town’s denizens.

Bad marketing tie-ins

The launch of the new “Halo 3” video game was accompanied by a bevy of related products, including a special flavor of Mountain Dew. The instructor I interviewed mentioned that several products were rejected for various reason.
It got me thinking about what products might not have passed publisher Microsoft Corp.’s muster. Here’s the best product I could think of:

“Halo” Kitty — Combining the cuteness of the Sanrio figure Hello Kitty with the awesomeness of Halo’s Master Chief.

I can’t take credit for that idea. It seems like something someone would’ve already thought of.
I can take credit for my brilliant idea to closely tie “Today” show weatherman Al Roker with a candy to go in the NBC’s candy shop at Rockefeller Center:

Almond Roker — Taking the best of Almond Roca candy and combining it with Roker’s iconic image.

Sure you could get boring chocolate squares wrapped with the “Friends” logo, but Almond Roker is something special.

The return of El Rey

Over the weekend, I was driving past El Rey theater and noticed a large, tan bin filled with what appeared to be trashed seats. I felt a little regret at the cushy seats being tossed aside, but I’m glad to see the theater come back to life in some form. The first show is Friday, according to the Buzz editor’s column.
I wrote about the El Rey’s last night as a movie theater on my personal blog. At the time, I was pretty sure the former cinema would be reconfigured into office and residential space. The plans changed and now the lights will shine on El Rey for some limited performances.
I wonder what the final outcome is for El Rey. It’s been a struggle to save downtown performance spaces in many cities, including Chico. Overcoming long-term issues about an aging building or site is important.
A couple of issues I’ve heard about El Rey is that is has a musty smell and there were some water leaks (both I hear have been addressed). The seats were an issue of mine — several weren’t in good condition when I saw a film there in 2005.
I’ll be interested to see if people can successfully restore the space into a living, useful environment for the community.

Feelings (or lack therof) on Britney news

It’s been about 4 hours since I read news that Britney Spears has temporarily lost custody of her two children to Kevin Federline. For some reason, I just can’t get too worked up about the news. At the same time, photos of Spears shaving her head or assaulting a car with an umbrella seem less funny now.
I don’t know what it is. Is it because Spears’ “downward spiral” has reached this conclusion? Is it because that, while Spears’ recent life choices have been disappointing, placing the kids with Federline doesn’t quite seem like the fairytale happy ending?
TMZ.com is reporting the reason Brit lost her kids is because she wasn’t following the court’s orders. That makes sense. You sometimes hear about the LA justice system being lax on celebrities. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but they seem to have made decisions appropriate within the law for Paris Hilton and now Spears.
At the same time, I was pleased when Hilton was ordered to jail to serve her time for repeatedly breaking the law.
Maybe my lack of zeal for this story is that the ongoing hijinks of seemingly childish adults is potentially disrupting the lives of two small, and hopefully still innocent, children. Amid all the foolishness, the tragedy is that are other people’s lives are at stake.

I’m not going to “watch it all for you”

Odds are, you’ve got a friend who’s more than willing to say, “You should really watch this TV show.” At the very least, they’ll say something like, “Did you watch ‘Survivor’ last night?” Then you’ll have to shrug your shoulders and respond, “Isn’t that the show with the naked dude on it?”
In my office, I’m “that guy.” I try to stay up on the TV shows and other pop-culture happenings. I don’t obsess over TMZ every hour, but I watch my favorite shows and I check in with “The Soup” and “Best Week Ever” and call it good.
The thing is — after a week of trying to watch the new fall TV shows, I’ve come to the annual conclusion I’m not going to get to them all. I spent nearly all day Saturday watching recorded shows from the past week. The first seven hours of “The War” are a battle I have yet to engage.
There are some train wrecks that I want to watch (“Cavemen” and “Carpoolers” come to mind), just so I can have the experience of it. There are also some good shows I have no idea when I can watch them.
There’s a lot of enjoyable TV shows out there that have never entered my orbit. It happened last year with “Ugly Betty,” a show I have yet to watch a single episode of. It’s gotten to the point where I watch and thoroughly enjoy an episode of a “good” show, like “24” or “Lost,” but I have to pass on future airings because my viewing dance card is full.
I almost don’t want to watch another good show because it means there’s another series I’ll want to follow.
So, while other pop-culture enthusiasts say they’ll “watch it all for you,” there’s no way in heck I’ll do that. I’ll write about the amusing things I come across naturally. At some point in November, I’ll write about the most-viewed programs in the country (which often differ from what I watch).
I know most of my posts thus far have been about television. That’ll change as I get out into the Chico nightlife and explore other aspect of entertainment.

Tuesday’s episode of “Eureka” was -INSERT AD HERE-

Lewis Black ranted about it during the Emmy ceremony, but few TV executives seemed to have heeded the sage comedian’s words. Black delivered a funny, yet obvious, monologue about the annoying -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- banners and bugs that clutter up the TV screen when someone is trying to enjoy their program.
It seems the Sci Fi Channel hasn’t gotten the message. I was trying to watch Tuesday’s airing of “Eureka” but my viewing was interrupted by -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- the constant presence of a large promotional ad for an upcoming show of another series in the -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- right-hand corner of the screen. It loomed above the station’s normal bug (which is unnecessary in this era of digital cable/satellite and DVRs).
This ad was on the screen for the entire episode. (UPDATE: You can see the image on TV Squad’s episode review. Grrr.).
Now, I can see why Sci Fi can -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- lend some of the screen real estate for some promotions, but did I really to have to be subjected to that annoying promotion for -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- the entire 42-minutes of actual programming? Not only did it consume a bulk of my viewing time, it ate into the screen image. The station bug and banner ad gobbled up about a tenth of the viewable screen (already reduced because the show is letterboxed). When you add Sci Fi’s -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- 18 minutes of commercials along with the show, a viewer ends up watching commercials the entire time.
Indeed, the banner was so -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- annoying, I paused my enjoyment of the show I wanted to watch to give the advertised show -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- “Three Thumbs Down” on my TiVo (The thumbs are a way of indicating show preferences on the DVR). Not only have I never seen the show -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!-, I know have no desire to ever seek the show out. If the show happens to be on when I watch TV, I will steer far clear of this -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- program.
Notice that I have not disclosed the -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- show that Sci Fi was so eager to -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- promote. I have no desire to give this program any inadvertent promotion on my -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- own.
As I’ve tried to illustrate with this blog with the -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!-, the constant presence of the advertising banner totally takes away from my enjoyment of -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- this -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- program. -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!-

More on “Chuck”

Now that the premiere of “Chuck” has aired, I can discuss what I view to be two big pitfalls in the series. Chicago Tribune critic Maureen Ryan mentioned them in her review of the show, but I’ll summarize. First, won’t all the secrets in Chuck’s head get old after a while? And second, the cold-blooded shooting of a character added a dark tone to the pilot.
Since her blog allows people to comment, here’s what I wrote:

I picked up on the potential “stale secrets” plot hole as well. I wonder how they’ll deal with it, but I imagine they have to especially because the pilot dealt with intel acquired within a matter of weeks, not years.

My theory — the trio of Chuck, Sarah and Casey will become the human version of the two intel agencies feeding data into the secret computer. It makes sense for the agents (and agencies) to keep providing information to Chuck — somehow.

My other concern dealt with the casual brutality of Casey telling other agents that it’s OK to murder another U.S. agent and on American soil to boot. Of course, how Sarah dispatched the agents was violent, but still executed in a fun, if implausible, fashion.

I’d be curious to see the longevity of the series after a few episodes. I wonder how the show will spin its wheels through weekly episodes while trying to drive a plot arc through a number of episodes.

I’m still gonna watch the show, but these things are in the back of my mind. A promo for an upcoming episode showed the spies and Chuck sitting at a table with photos. I hope they’re feeding him intel and proving my theory right.

Hey! Free marketing information

The Nielsens are probably best known for the TV ratings the organization releases every week. The trouble is the ratings are less useful in this era where people watch shows from hundreds of channels on DVRs.
Nielsen is also facing problems convincing networks and their advertisers that its information is still useful. After all, who cares who’s watching “The Office” when it’s potentially possible to measure who’s watching the commercials between the show.
20070925_heynielsen.jpgNielsen has launched Hey! Nielsen, a new site which just seems geared to mine marketing information from the general public. On the face of it, the site appears to be a place for people to sound off about TV, music, etc., but Nielsen has plans for the information.

From Hey! Nielsen’s About page:

Using data from real users, Hey! Nielsen generates a Hey! Nielsen score — a real-time indicator of a topic’s impact, influence, and value. As users submit feedback, the score is created from a number of factors such as user response, blog buzz, and news coverage, as well as raw data from our sister sites Billboard.com, HollywoodReporter.com, and BlogPulse.com.

It seems to me Nielsen is trying to use the social-networking potential of the Web to build a new set of marketing data. I wonder how many people are going to divulge their opinions for Nielsen’s new data mill.
I also wonder how useful the data will be. After all, marketing data is used to help determine the Peoples Choice Awards and we all know how well a barometer of pop culture that event is.