Dallas

I have the theme to Dallas stuck in my head. Don't know how. But it's there. Firmly lodged. Probably right in between the cure for cancer and the best script anyone ever wrote. Can't get to either of 'em, however, because the Dallas theme is in the way.

And supposedly, if I finish it, I could get it out of my head, but who the hell knows how it ends? Does it even have an end?

All day!

This sucks.

Red-Eye

This one's for all you Chicagoans.

Have you seen the movie Go? If not, it's great. One of the few Pulp Fiction rip-offs to actually make its own ripple in the public consciousness, and deservedly so.

Anyway, a character in the movie has a monologue about the singleframe comic strip Family Circus. He goes on and on about how much he hates it. He's enjoying the funny pages, laughing, having a grand old time. And then there's the Family Circus which, with it's sheer unfuniness, sucks all the joy out of his previous minutes of bliss.

Another character naturally asks why he reads it?

Because it's there.

This is how I feel about the Red-Eye.

Y2K

So at my place of work, our operating system is, well, decrepit. I'm pretty sure it's DOS. But today I found out just how decrepit it really is. If you've read the title, you've probably figured it out. That's right, we've got a Y2K problem.

And you thought it didn't affect anyone. Well it affects me!

I was searching for something from 01 to 03, in my mind 2001-2003. But the computer kept beeping at me and telling me that the "End date cannot come before begin date." So, I looked at those dates hard, trying to see if I've maybe missed something. I know from experience by editing any number of documents, balancing my checkbook, and playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for many hours, the slightest thing can slip right by you.

I couldn't find anything. So I called downtown to the agency guru. At which point he revealed that our system has a Y2K problem.

I laughed for a good long time.

Apparently, the changeover from 1900 to 2000 happened in the year 2003. So anything from 2000 to 2002 is read as 1900-1902. Which doesn't explain why it kept telling me that "End date cannot come before begin date" since it clearly does. By about a century. But I think it's the computer's way of throwing up it's hand and yelling, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! You didn't fix me?!?!"

Oh, what might have been.

Here, read this. This is from IMDb's Studio Briefing for February 7, 2007. I'll be back at the bottom.


Newly Counted College Kids Give Some Shows Big Boost

Analysts pointed out that several shows last week got a boost as a result of college-age viewers being included in the Nielsen survey for the first time. As Washington Post TV writer Lisa De Moraes observed, "Previously, they got in on the Nielsen action only when they went home to do laundry at holidays." ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, and What About Brian; NBC's Scrubs and The Office; Fox's Til Death; and CW's Gilmore Girls all saw huge leaps of 50 percent or more in their ratings for 18-49-year-olds. Scrubs, in fact, saw its ratings in that demo double.


Hey, me again.

WHAT!?!?!?!? You just started counting? Can we look at the statistics? One in particular. Scrubs doubled. DOUBLED!!! This from a show that I think has nearly been on the chopping block several times. You think they might reconsider now?

But what pisses me off most about this is the shows that we've lost that we didn't have to lose. The first one that came to mind for me was Arrested Development. You know kids on college campuses were watching that. The other show I thought of was Ed. Now I never watched Ed, but it seems like What About Brian perhaps inherited those viewers. In a conversation I had about this last night, Firefly came up.

I don't know. What do you think? What shows have we lost that we needn't have?

Sick of Hollywood

That's it! I'm out. I want my old Hollywood back. The one that remembered how to make a summer blockbuster. The ones that were under two hours and fun. The days of Hollywood Lite. I don't want sodden character development and 2 1/2 hour run times leaching my fun summer movies of their fun! Give me my fun and give it to me now! Good gravy, man! I want my 1978 Superman. The one that I grew up with. The one that was fun. The one about Superman and not Lois Lane. (And by the way, Margot Kidder may not have been the ideal choice for Lois, but she certainly kicks Kate Bosworth's ass.) And why on earth does a pirate movie have to be so frickin' long? Show me buckles that swash, some Johnny Depp hijinks, and get me out of dodge. NO ONE BELIEVES THE LOVE STORY! There, free clue. Get it, Bruckheimer!

Because I hold Jerry Bruckheimer entirely responsible. Gore Verbinski directed both The Ring and The Weatherman which are both SHORTER than either of the Pirates movies. I suppose the length is for the themes that need- Sorry, I couldn't finish that joke. And there couldn't possibly be two different people on this great green earth who thought that both Pirates of the Caribbean movies and Bad Boys 2 had to be 2 1/2 hours long. No, that thought could only be conceived in one sick mind.

So this is me, calling out to Old Hollywood. The one from the mid-90's. Come back. Come back to me. Bring me Twister. Bring me Speed. Hell, I guess that means...bring me Jan de Bont.

Screw this. I'm going to pass out watching Elia Kazan's Pinky.