Month: November 2001 (Page 4 of 5)

Just call me Nostradamus. On Wednesday, I suggested that the Survivor producers find ways to break up the tribal voting blocks that make the show so predictable. And ping! So it shall be done. Three members of each tribe were switched to the other tribe last night, throwing cold water on the plans of slimy Silas and his gang of whiny Gen-Y slackers. So Teresa and Frank, the “older people” targeted for extinction, were given new life – and Silas was kicked out by unanimous vote! As Martha would say, that is a good thing.

Of course, I missed the big switching action, because I assumed the “presidential address” at 7 p.m. was being carried by all the networks. So I was watching ABC – the only network to carry the speech. D’oh! Thanks to my friends Dave and Susan, who called to discuss the big switch. Without them, I might have gone on watching Alfred E. Newman, and missed the entire show.

Since Blogger was down most of this morning, it adds a little kick to my publicizing of Big Blog Tool, a Blogger alternative weblog publishing system. They’re charging right off the bat, but it’s a very small charge – I didn’t hesitate to spend $8 for three months of access (I’m just testing it, since I’m still working on my own system). It’s the first Blogger alternative I’ve seen that follows the Blogger model: runs on their servers, but uploads the content to yours. I bet with them charging immediately, it will keep traffic down and thus help with uptime. They have some nifty features, like multiple content areas on a single page, remote templates, and “friendly links” so you can have fellow webloggers’ names translate into links to their sites automatically.

From the little I’ve seen, it looks like a good system with lots of enthusiasm and plans for the future. Bravo to their decision to charge. I’m just surprised it took this long for real Blogger competitors to emerge. Here’s hoping this is the first of many.

Witty and funny animation – go there now!

Memo to “Survivor” Producers:
So you’re way down in the ratings this go-round. Well, that’s understandable. People are a little tiny bit distracted. But that will pass – you just fell victim to some bad timing. There’s one thing you’ve got to fix, though: find some way to make these voting blocks harder to form. With the alliances forming from Day 1, it’s too easy to predict how things will go. Remember in Survivor 1, when there was one surprising vote after another? With that factor eliminated, what you’ve got is an A&F ad stretched over 13 episodes. Nothing to sneeze at, certainly, but not enough to build a dynasty around, either. Shake up the voting process, and you’ve got a chance.

Also, now that I think about it, how about some originality in the locales? Back to the islands for S4? Yawn. Just like with the voting, you’ve got to stretch the premise if you want people to keep watching. I know you can do it. Good luck.

If you loved “Monsters Inc.” and want a little online fix, you can go to Pixar’s site and watch a bunch of their short films. (Thanks to JD for pointing this out. He has quite a cool weblog, by the way – you should go there now.)

My esteemed friend Mr. Mosey has called for a return of the days when many of my weblog posts would just be pointers to Salon articles. Well, Mosey, your wish is my command: Amy Reiter reports (scroll down a ways) that Lance Bass is interested in making “Grease 3” with his ‘N Sync bandmate Justin Timberlake’s girlfriend, Britney Something-or-Other, playing the role of Sandy and his band as the T-Birds.

Oh my sweet lord. If we didn’t have enough evidence of the need to torch the whole culture and start again, now we do. (At least my search engine hits will be getting a little goose from this post. Damn that Osama Bin Laden, anyway.)

Confession: sometimes I enjoy watching Martha Stewart. It’s like gazing into an alternate universe, a world where the pillows are always fluffed, gifts are always homemade, and everyone not only knows what chervil is, but they have it growing in their meticulously-tended gardens. I also love how since Martha lives in this world, she assumes everyone else does too.

Tonight, her idea of a “quick cook dinner” was red snapper with capers, italian green peppercorns and fennel, cooked in parchment paper, with a side dish of cous-cous with shallots, lemon zest and fresh dill.

Yeah, I’ve got that stuff on hand.

You know how great it is when you read something that articulates exactly how you are feeling, but were too worn out or played out or just not eloquent enough to write yourself?
Evil Evildoers of Evil. (via Arthur)

Purchase of the guy in front of me in the grocery checkout line: a can of “Irregular Pears.” Almost as good as the pyramid of boxes at Sam’s Club that read: “Broken Pretzel Pieces – 10 Pounds.”

Unsolicited advice
Do you have a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while? Was it because of a fight you had with them? Do you even remember what the fight was about? If you do, do you really think what you were arguing about was worth your friendship? Think about that one hard. If you are co-workers and the conflict was over something at work, let me answer that last question for you: NO. If you’re just waiting for them to make the first move, since they were wrong and you were right, get off your butt. Right now. Friends are exceedingly hard to come by, and we let them go way too easily.

That is all.