Tag: television

West Wing Quote

FATHER CAVANAUGH: You know, you remind me of the man that lived by the river. He heard a radio report
that the river was going to rush up and flood the town. And that all the residents
should evacuate their homes. But the man said, “I’m religious. I pray. God loves me.
God will save me.” The waters rose up. A guy in a row boat came along and he shouted,
“Hey, hey you! You in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety.” But the
man shouted back, “I’m religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.” A helicopter
was hovering overhead. And a guy with a megaphone shouted, “Hey you, you down there.
The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I’ll take you to safety.” But the
man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that
God will take him to safety. Well… the man drowned. And standing at the gates of
St. Peter, he demanded an audience with God. “Lord,” he said, “I’m a religious man,
I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?” God said, “I sent you a radio
report, a helicopter, and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?”

(He pauses. Bartlet looks very upset.)

FATHER CAVANAUGH: He sent you a priest, a rabbi, and a Quaker, Mr. President. Not to mention his son,
Jesus Christ. What do you want from him?

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

I like the new Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show. As with anything, I was wary of the switch from Conan to Jimmy, but from what I’ve seen from the first eight episode, I think I’m going to like Fallon even better. There is more variety to the show than I’ve seen in other shows of this type. It’s rough around edges, and I hope it stays that way. I especially like that many of the interviews are not stationary/static. Fallon has had a dance-off with Cameron Diaz, done a green screen with Amanda Peet and hosted a mock episode of Diggnation with Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. It’s all fun stuff that gets more from the feature guest than the usual stories about their (often) lackluster lives. Plus he’s made a point to incorporate technology and interview more tech geek type guests.

Here’s the late night show switch schedule:

  • Late Night with Conan O’Brien went off the air February 20, 2009.
  • Late Night with Jimmy Fallon come on air March 2nd, 2009.

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  • The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will go off the air on May 29, 2009.
  • The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien will come on the air on June 1, 2009.

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  • The Jay Leno Show will premier in September 2009.

Embrace the Internet Already!

Dear Newspapers and Television Networks, the fact that I can’t get everything you offer for free on the internet at the same time, or earlier, than when you print or broadcast it is unfortunate in this day and age.

Newspapers, most of you are starting to get it. But you’ve been slow on the uptake. The pay walls were not smart (Come on WSJ!). I understand you’ve yet to figure out how to make enough money from your websites to cover costs. That, coupled with declining print subscription rates is doubly bad.

My suggestion is this: stop paying reporters to write content for you. Cut that part of your staff. It’s got to be a significant portion. Instead, make the people your media. Tap the collective mind, and hire a smaller herd of editors to refine submissions. I’d be surprised if the contributions were not overwhelming. Exposure would be compensation.

It is here that we can take a page from Twitter’s book. At the rate the world turns today, printed news is old news. In fact, CNN is often old news. During an event nearly anywhere on the globe, search for relevant keywords on Twitter’s search and I assure you that you’ll be more in the know than anyone reading a newspaper or watching cable news.

Broadcasters, you, too, need to accept the web. I can deal with the commercials you splice into your online offerings. I get that your linear brains see that as the obvious way to do things. There were commercials on TV, so there should be commercials on the internet, right? Wrong, but I forgive you for the time being.

There can’t be a delay and the content needs to be high definition. Further, you need to flip your current stance and make the Internet your primary focus and television your secondary focus. New goes online because online is where we find new things now. That’s where it will be shared on Facebook, talked about on Twitter, and recut for YouTube.

Stop showing kids toys they can’t play with. Instead, give them the toys early and let them play and share them. Embrace that the kids may find new uses for the toys you didn’t think of instead of being scared of such an outcome. The worst case scenario is that the toy sucks. Best case scenario – the kids love the toy and do your marketing for you. Do yourself a favor and loosen up a little!

My Information Experiment

A few years ago I heard that the most informed people were those who regularly watch the evening news – local and national. This came as a surprise to me, a guy thoroughly overwhelmed by hundreds of minute-by-minute RSS feed updates. I thought that I was surely the most up-to-date fellow around. But, I’ve never been able to get a solid grasp of “real” world news from online sources. Either I get overwhelmed by the amount of information or I get distracted by geek news and pictures.

So, two years after first learning that despite being highly tech savvy I was among the less-informed, I am going to undertake an experiment and get my news from three different sources each of three months.

March: I will read one local and one national newspapers daily for one month. I will do my best to avoid both online and television news.

April: I will watch the local and national news daily, avoiding newspapers and online news.

May: I will read online news (sources TBD), avoiding tv news and newspapers.

My prediction is that if I can make/find the time to read the newspapers, I’ll be most informed during March. Least informed in May.

I’ll post my thoughts at the end of each month and a conclusion in June.

Criminal Law TV Shows

I’ve been watching old episodes of The Practice and Murder One on Hulu non-stop. I haven’t even turned on my TV, except to watch golf coverage over the weekend.

I’m taking Criminal Procedure at school this semester. It’s the only exposure to criminal law I’ve had to date. Criminal procedure, not to be confused with criminal law, is the “legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated criminal law.” (Cite) I never thought I would be interested in criminal law, however the cases in my Procedure class are some of the most interesting I’ve read. There is no shortage of drugs, death or other allegedly illicit illegal activity. When compared to 50-page antitrust cases where the highlight is the court finding that company A orchestrated a horizontal merger among companies B and C, criminal law is a thrilling read.

Anyway, the shows are interesting, and it’s always fun to relate what I’m learning to a television show.

(Last semester it was applying my newly acquired common sense Professional Responsibility knowledge to pick out moments when the lawyers crossed the line of ethics on Boston Legal.)