Ploafmaster General

Sweet Mother of Chocolate Sauce!!!

The Daily Show has a new website, and it contains a full archive of the show (at least the Stewart era so far), searchable, tagable, embeddable, incredible! The episodes are broken into nice, bite-sized nuggets with a short ad either before, after, or both - generally a tolerable 7 seconds.

I believe I agree with Slate's Dana Stevens: this would sure satisfy my Daily Show cravings until the WGA Strike abates.

A real category on Jeopardy's Tournament of Champions this evening:

"Baby got Bach."

Plenty of commercials use popular and recognizable music to help sell wares. UPS' brilliant white board ads use The Postal Service's Such Great Heights. Cadillac abused Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll before finally switching to Stars by the alternative rock band, Hum.

What drives me up a wall, however, is the lengths companies go to when they can't get the genuine article. Either they won't pony up the coin required to use the real song, or the musicians (for reasons of integrity or otherwise) won't sign off. What do we get instead? We get Heineken's misguided Keg Can ad ripping off of Daft Punk. We get Dodge trying to cop a commercial contact buzz off of Apple by using a bouncy guitar/mandolin tune in their latest Caravan commercial (I can't find a clip as of this writing).

I know why they do it. I don't expect more than 0.05% of ads to be original. I still can't stand it.

After a stressful day, nothing makes me smile more than some slapstick comedy. This commercial for the game Flash Focus on the Nintendo DS made my evening so much more jolly:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5RVfai1f9g&rel=1&w=425&h=355]

I watch too much television. I admit it.

Now that I've got THAT out of the way...

I think I finally saw the first "reality competition" show that I enjoy - Food Network's The Next Iron Chef. I believe it airs on Sunday evenings, but I recorded it while I was out of town and finally got to watch it this evening. I know, I know...I'm biased. I love cooking, and I love the Food Network, and I watch pretty much any show with Alton Brown. But there are structural reasons why I feel this competition program fares better than the rest.

The first standout is the collection of contestants. It's rare to see so close a correlation between the entrants and their goal. Every competitor on this show is a real chef - most of whom own and operate at least one high-end restaurant. These are not simply athletic people trying to survive on a deserted island. These are not people who are simply pretty enough to be on camera. These are trained artisans trying to prove which is the best...trained artisan.

What I enjoy the most, however, is the relevance so far of the challenges. No attempts by business students to sell crap out of an Airstream trailer. The first episode consisted of two main events. The first was a test of speedy food prep skills. Chefs had to race between an ingredient station and food prep tables earning points for the quick filleting of fish, frenching of a rack of lamb, and extracting coconut water. Such an activity is straight out of Iron Chef (or a real kitchen for that matter) and practical preparation for competitive cooking. The second challenge was a test of creativity; entrants developed their own recipes for two desserts - one traditional and one with a savory ingredient (squid, tripe, or beef anyone?). Once again, this test was 100% relevant to the goal of the contest. Competitors on Iron Chef are forced to develop recipes on the fly all the time, and quite often from unconventional components like ground beef or sea urchin.

You may not like Iron Chef or cooking, but it's quite refreshing for me to see a show in this genre which actually seems to prepare it's contestants for their prize. Give it a shot if you like cooking shows - it's quite entertaining.

Oh yeah, and pardon my excessive use of alliteration in this post - it's hard to think of synonyms for "chef" and "competition" while I'm watching TV :-)

It's only halfway through as of the writing of this post, but I must say that the Family Guy "Star Wars" episode is absolutely amazing. This comes as close as possible to the concept of "loving mockery" as possible. From the music to the scene transitions to much of the dialog, this is expertly done. At the same time we have some light-hearted fun-poking about the idiosyncrasies found in the classic film.

I haven't watched the show in quite a while, but I have to say this is good form.

I read an article on CNN's site today (which I cannot seem to relocate here at home for the life of me) that highlights ABC.com's move from flash-based online video to a new format.

This new technology requires the installation of a small plugin which is definitely available for Firefox, and works in both Windows and OS X.

The essential benefit of this switch is fast-loading, high quality streaming video that's playable "full-screen" (it only filled half the screen on my Macbook Pro). I have to say the quality is impressive. The load time is extremely fast, and you're only interrupted periodically by 30 second ads - less advertising than a regular TV program over all.

It may just be the thing to introduce me to a few ABC programs.

...and funnier than many stand-up comedians. Guest-writing on Michael Ruhlman's blog, Bourdain pretty much nails down how I feel about the Food Network these days - and even shares many of my opinions about their cadre of stars.

I do believe I'll be scouring Da Webs for more of his writing. I have to force myself to stifle my laughter whenever I come across any of it.

Tonight marks the return of new episodes of Heroes!

I'm totally stoked to see what happens, and what new heroes are discovered.

Woot!

Man, I've been hooked on Heroes since the first episode. But now I have to wait until the vaguely-defined period of "until the new year" before another new episode.

I still feel like it's a total rip-off of the X-Men concept. I still think half of the acting is cheesy.

I still think the show is totally freaking awesome.

Heroes is like the Pop Music of TV shows. Not a lot of substance, but full of hooks, and just good enough to get stuck in your head. The next new episode (whenever that is) can't get here soon enough.

Here's a ripe ol' commercial from 80s land:
[youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lO4j3wbpZM&w=425&h=350])

I've become absorbed in the NBC tv show, "Heroes."

The acting isn't particularly great, the direction is a bit clichéd, and the characters aren't too deep (yet). I mean, the general concept is almost a direct rip-off of the X-Men, and unapologetically so; certain people experience genetic mutations which provide them with extraordinary powers. They even reference X-Men in the first episode.

So why the heck do I watch it?

The method of story-telling is enthralling. Each episode so far rotates through the main characters, showing between 5 and 10 minutes of story per person. Just enough plot is revealed for each character to whet the appetite of the viewer.

I guess I'll see how the series progresses. For now, I can't stop watching it.