Yesterday was kind of a busy day here in Destin, ran around and had a bunch of interviews for Saturday’s paper so I didn’t get a chance to post a Line. Today’s Line will be stories from yesterday as well as stories from today.
Apparently life is tough when you share a name with a boy wizard.
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Well-rounded news…
The University of Iowa could become the first university to name one of its colleges after a corporation following a $15 million gift from Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Disney has pulled the plug on its plans for a ‘Ratatouille’ wine.
One of the things that I hate the most when reading blogs is those that are not updated frequently. And alas, I’ve become one of them. So I returned to my news reader to find more San Diego Comic-Con stories than you can shake a stick at and more Michael Vick news. Fun.
If you get bored, I’d highly recommend Kevin Smith’s Smodcast that he does with longtime friend and producer Scott Mosier. Really funny, insightful stuff on a variety of topics, the least of which appear to be movies. Here’s the link if you’re interested.
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No, seriously…
Who knew an exclamation point could be so expensive.
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Well-rounded news…
The Consumerist is reporting that Best Buy has fired some Geek Squad personnel following newspaper articles about “agents” taking files from customer’s computer.
A major investment group has called for the resignation of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey after it was discovered he was posting to a Yahoo! stock forum anonymously.
The Federal Trade Commission may block Whole Foods’ acquisition of rival Wild Oats. Seriously, consumers need two places where they can buy overpriced health food. Good lookin’ out, FTC.
The New York Times and NBC News will collaborate on their coverage of the 2008 Presidential Campaign.
A first look at the Lost videogame. Warning: You should secure your brain before you watch this! I almost lost mine. No pun intended.
A teaser trailer for the Dark Knight. Oh man. I don’t usually get excited about trailers, especially one that is 45 seconds long. But I’m a dork and I like Batman so this made me excited.
The New York Post has an interview with a former consultant from the riveting Discovery Channel show, Man vs. Wild, who says the show’s host, Bear Grylls doesn’t really have it as rough as it would appear.
Mark Weinart, an Oregon-based survival expert, told the Post:
“If you really believe everything happens the way it is shown on TV, you are being a little bit naive.”
According to Weinart, the survivalist spent some nights in a cushy lodge with the show’s crew when he was shown on the show to be staying, of course, in the wild in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.
I guess I’m not awfully surprised by this, if not a little disappointed. What a viewer has to consider when watching a show like this is that the production has every advantage in portraying reality in any way they wish. If they want to make it look like he has to make a makeshift hut out of sod or narrowly escape a death by yetis, they can do that regardless of whether or not the danger was that imminent or if yetis are real.
I still find the show and Grylls impressive, I’ll still watch it when it comes on (my girlfriend will still roll her eyes when I do) but I think now every time you see something on the show you have to wonder if it really happened that way.
For my money, I like Survivorman. Les Stroud is a poor man’s Canadian Bear Grylls.
Response from last night’s YouTube debates is in. (New York Times/Time Magazine’s TV Blog/Jeff Jarvis). To be honest, I didn’t find this all that spectacular. The questions were predictable and kind of average. They certainly were no different than any question posed to the candidates during a traditional debate. I’ve decided that while I think Obama is the more viable candidate and certainly someone I would vote for, I love Joe Biden, even if he puts his foot in his mouth — a lot. Oh and as anyone who watched last night will tell you, Sen. Mike Gravel is nuts.
NBC is being sued after someone caught on Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” series killed himself. While it is difficult to argue with the intent of this series, as a journalist, I do not feel in any way that reporters should be doing the police’s job for them and making the news. It was really only a matter of time before this happened.
Part 2 in Entertainment Weekly’s Top 50 Best Love Songs ever.
John Mayer addresses the 63 fan arrests at his gig in Hershey, Pa.
The Cinematical on how much a critic should spoil a film when writing a review. When writing reviews and when we did the Industry Outsider podcast, I tried to always be respectful of the readers and listeners who hadn’t seen the film. To not do that, in my opinion, is an arrogant and pompous things to do because at that point you are not writing the review for anyone else, you’re writing it for your own self-satisfaction.
TiVo to debut a $299.99 HD DVR. Nice. I think this will prove to be the right price point for this product.
CBS’ Public Eye on how the internet has become the destroyer of financial models.
No, seriously… A man in New Orleans found a knife in his back more than 5 months after he was stabbed in a fight.
Zimbabwe authorities are pissed at a medium that led them on a hunt for diesel fuel the medium said was in the northwestern part of the country.
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Well-rounded news…
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune on Best Buy’s Geek Squad taking stuff off your computer. Consumer rights blog The Consumerist led the way on this story. Good job, guys.
University of Kansas students will have their internet privileges taken away if they are caught file sharing.
The assistant managing editor at the Birmingham News is a genius!
I finished reading the seventh and final installment in the Harry Potter series last night. I spent the entire weekend on a reading binge, first re-reading the sixth book, then blazing through the seventh.
Let me just say, well done JK. You have managed to not only wrap up the saga with a Martha Stewart worthy bow, but you’ve managed to take the final book in directions I never expected. There was so much new mythology, so many new details on the characters. So much backstory! This is an author who truly loves her characters.
And now that it’s over? I don’t know. I’m completely satisfied with the seventh book. All my questions have been answered. And yet I’m oddly sad. It’s hard to believe the whole thing is over (and don’t say, “but there’s still two movies left!” The movies don’t count). All the waiting for the next book, the midnight release parties, the one day that the publishing industry triumphs over movies and video games and television shows.
I hope something else comes along the gets kids excited about reading, I really do. It was such a joy to see children clammering for a book. A BOOK. CHILDREN. READING. Wow… The first book was released in the US in 1998. A good chunk of the children lining up to get the last book weren’t even born yet, and still they were part of the excitement.
The whole thing is bigger than the story. The Harry Potter series has left an indelible mark upon popular culture, and I hope part of that legacy is that it gets kids to pick up other books, latch on to another series. I know my childhood was richer, my imagination more vivid, because of the rabid reading I did. I hope if I ever have kids they’ll pick up books with the same enthusiasm.
And if it seems like their interest is tepid, I’ll just hand them Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Every week, I’m going to ring in the weekend by making some random top 5 list and encourage everyone else to do the same.
Today’s topic: Top 5 overlooked television shows
5. Beg, Barrow & Deal – ESPN – ESPN’s ripoff of the Amazing Race was amazing. Originally aired in primetime, when this show began airing at like midnight, I figured it was a bad sign.
4. Swan’s Crossing -My guess is that if I actually went back and watched this teen soap opera that aired for 13 weeks in 1992, I would think it was awful but I have super fond memories of the show from when I was 9.
3. Blow Out – I think my favorite part of this show was watching hair stylist Jonathan Anton try to convince the world that he was straight every week. Dude, you have tattoos and you finish every sentence with “man,” you like chicks, I get it.
2. Bands on the Run - I was obsessed with this show when it was on. I just didn’t miss it. If anyone from VH1 ever reads anything I write, I hope it’s this.. BRING BACK BANDS ON THE RUN AND RELEASE THE FIRST SEASON ON DVD. Who can forget the hard-drinking, hard-living guys from Flickerstick going toe-to-toe with corporate rock schmoozers Soulcracker. That show was epic.
1. Degrassi: The Next Generation – I know as a 23-year-old white guy, I’m hardly this show’s target demo but Stephen King’s love for Veronica Mars makes me feel like this is ok. This show is completely mindless and melodramatic and fantastic. If you don’t believe me, I’ll give you an example of the power of Degrassi. A couple weeks ago I was at home in Indiana for the wedding of my blogging colleague L-Mo and my girlfriend, myself and my friend Zac were sitting around my parents living room watching television. I turned on Degrassi. What started with “This is so dumb” quickly turned into wait “Who did Emma sleep with?” and “Why is Jimmy in a wheelchair?” That’s right, it’s social commentary brought to life by Canadian teenagers.
