If you read this blog, and care about this info, you’ve already heard. If you read this blog, and don’t care….too bad. This news made my day.

All My Children Head Writer Fired!

Man that feels good to read.

As you all know from my previous posts, I’ve been working on projects in my spare time for fans of this soap. One of my big things was my desire to see this head writer ousted. All My Children, no matter what you may think of it, has an extremely rich, and vibrant, history. This was something Megan McTavish did not care for one bit. She tore apart history, rewrote it, discarded characters all in an effort to twist the canvas of All My Children to her will, and it was tearing the show apart.

The above linked article is from TV Guide, and I will quote what they said as it’s worth repeating:

The return of AMC heroine Dixie Cooney Martin (Cady McClain) was totally botched. We were supposed to buy that Dixie would let her family think she was dead for four years. Then Dixie’s mixed up in some nonsense with Zach Slater (Thorsten Kaye) instead of reuniting with her true love, Tad Martin (Michael E. Knight). Just when Dixie and Tad were on track for a reunion, she eats poisoned peanut-butter pancakes and dies. What a stupid, uncreative waste of a beloved classic character!

The revelation of Tad Martin as the person who buried alive Dr. Greg Madden (Ian Buchanan) and tortured the evil MD from above ground was absurd and completely out of character. “Tad would never do that,” longtime AMC fans insisted.

This Satin Slayer serial-killer saga has sucked from day one. To cap it off, AMC viewers just found out Zach’s diabolical daddy, Alexander Cambias Sr. (Ronald Guttman), is the killer. Talk about a snooze-o-rama reveal. Why has Papa Cambias been poisoning all these young ladies and festooning them with flowers and ribbons? He’s mad at Zach for faking his death to escape from their dysfunctional family years ago. Yawn. I don’t know about you, but whenever the show delves into the convoluted Cambias family history, I get awfully bored.

McTavish’s failure to give Brooke English (Julia Barr) any kind of send off at the end of Barr’s contract also ticked us off. Barr spends 30 years on AMC and fades off screen with no on-air acknowledgment of her departure? What a cold slap in the face to Barr and the show’s loyal viewers.

Worst of all, McTavish outrageously revised history when she undid Erica Kane’s (Susan Lucci) landmark 1973 abortion. Viewers were told that the fetus was somehow stolen from Erica’s body and implanted in another woman. Now a Calvin Klein model is playing Erica’s grown son, Josh, who’s grumpy because he was almost aborted. What?!

McTavish has a left a path of destruction in her wake that I am not sure will ever be fully repairable without even more rewriting of history. Even with that in mind though….”Ding dong, the witch is dead.”

Remember how I said I felt was Judge Larry Seidlin playing to the camera? He was.

According to this story, CBS has contacted him about doing a regular spot on The Early Show. This man shouldn’t be getting job offers, he should be brought before a board of judicial review! He made a mockery of the judicial system. I would even go so far to say that his past judgements should be reviewed.

And don’t even get me start on CBS’ role in this. This is their “news division” hiring this demagogue of a judge. Sure they are allowed to have a legal segment, but this buffoon? He should not be allowed anywhere near a serious news source. This whole thing leaves a horrible taste in my mouth.

The erosion of this country’s once shining example of journalism sickens me, this judge sickens me, and the non-stop circus sickens me.

As anyone who watched Star Trek - The Next Generation may remember…we all hated Wesley Crusher…A LOT. Well, Wil Wheaton, the actor who played him, has turned in to a pretty good writer and is now writing reviews of classic Star Trek:The Next Generation episodes for TVSquad.com.

You’re sure he’s being snarky for his pay check, but it’s a fun type of snark and well worth your valuable time. And hey, he shares my loathing for Counselor Troi, so it’s all good!

My dad works for me in my shipping department. While he packs boxes he listens to books on tape. Makes sense, packing boxes is mindless work. Normally I don’t pay much attention to them, but today I was pulling product and I hear what sounds like an old radio show…then a book….then back to the radio show. I asked him what it was and he said it was John Grisham’s The Bleachers. I asked that he turn it off until I was done.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why….even if you aren’t, too bad.

I have no problem with the concept of audio books, and I feel they are perfect for people such as my dad who used them when he was a traveling salesman, and now when he is packing boxes and it gives him something to listen to. The one caveat I have to this rule is, they must maintain the integrity of the work. As someone who writes for fun, and has written professionally, I was offended by the idea of adding effects to the story. It is the job of the writer to set the scene, describe the sounds you are hearing. To add special effects is offensive to me. When I have written, I would love to have a sound chip with my writings, saving all that pesky time of describing what’s going on.

What’s next? Adding musical scores to build the tension? Horse sound effects like an old time radio trick? Scratch-n-sniff cards?

No thank you.

I have no clue when this will end up getting posted. Stupid ass blackouts at my web host is playing havoc with all my websites.

this is one of those…”I had no time to post, but didn’t want to ruin my run!” posts…enjoy!

In all this Anna Nicole Smith hoopla (yes, I am no longer watching the TV news, this was all over the net today), one person has stood out weirder than the rest…Judge Larry Seidlin. A former cab driver from the Bronx, this guys behavior has been rather suspect to me from the get go. It constantly nagged at me that he may be playing to the camera, and when you’re in his position, I just don’t feel that is proper.

Flash forward to today when he hands down his judgment on what is to be done with Ms. Smith’s remains and he starts sobbing as he discusses the case. Really? Sobbing?

I understand judges are only human beings, but don’t you think if you were involved in a high profile case, being watched by people all over the world that perhaps you would want to handle yourself with a bit more dignity and composure?

Again, I understand he’s only human, but I still think it was pretty disgraceful behavior.

You know, there’s something to be said for good comapny and good conversation, even if it’s only online sometimes.  A “room” full of your like minded internet buddies, and pages filling faster than you can hit reload….good times!

Course…not all of it made sense, but isn’t that what makes it fun?

I give up.  It’s obvious there will be no Satchel Of Doom love on this season of 24.  Although, it might be it got a look at the script and ran for it’s life.  (compared to season 5, this one is sleep inducing)

There’s a motto I live by when I travel: Why should I eat at any restaurant I find in my own home town? It seems pointless to me. On my first trip to Japan in August 2000, one of the guys I met up with there ate Wendy’s almost every night we were there. It drove me nuts. I have a Wendy’s less than two miles from my house! If you’re going to go through the trouble of going some place new, then be adventurous and eat new foods! Expose yourself to what the world has to offer.

With that in mind, there is a show on the Travel Channel I love called Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. Anthony is a professional chef who has lived a “colorful life” and makes no bones about it. However, he has an acerbic wit, paints vibrant pictures with his words, and has a motto I love; “Be a traveler, not a tourist“.

And as if I didn’t have enough reasons to love him, two weeks ago he was a guest blogger on Rhulman.com and the following to say of my girlfriend, Rachael Ray:

RACHAEL: Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful. Her ear-shattering tones louder and louder. We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So…what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She’s a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that “Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!” Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, “Hell…I could do that. I ain’t gonna…but I could–if I wanted! Now where’s my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?” Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better–teach us–and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. “You’re doing just fine. You don’t even have to chop an onion–you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing…Just sit there. Have another Triscuit…Sleep….sleep….”

But I digress…

Back to what I was saying about trying new things (sleep…sleep…aspire to nothing), I think everyone has to remember something about “odd foods”. Just because they are odd to you, doesn’t mean they are odd to the locals of where you are. Even if you are traveling across country, try a local cuisine. If you travel to another country, I beg of you, try the local dishes! Sure, you’ll run in to some things you don’t like, but aren’t there things here in your own country you don’t like eating? Just because you don’t like one dish in another country’s cuisine, it doesn’t mean you write them all off.

So why did I mention the Rachael Ray thing? (beyond my hatred of the miserable little chipmunk cheeked harpie?) Just as he said she lulls you in to a sense of not aspiring to better cooking, I think the same can be said of Americans when we travel. We fear change, we want the safe and familiar. Watch an episode of Bourdain’s show, see how he’ll try an ostrich egg cooked in a dirt oven, or eat a dish made of rat, or the lower intestine of another animal. Some of it he likes, some of it he doesn’t, but doesn’t the old saying go “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”?

It’s well known that California never met a law it didn’t like, but now it appears New York state is following the lead. A couple of weeks ago a state senator proposed banning using electronic devices when crossing the intersections in major cities such as New York City. Apparently three pedestrians were killed by cars while crossing streets and were found to be using iPods. They would be ticketed $100 if spotted by police.

I traveled to New York City for five years in a row when I was a magazine writer to cover a press event. It was the early to mid-90’s, and I noticed something about people crossing the streets there, I called it “The Lemming Effect”. They would be reading newspapers, magazines, any number of things besides paying attention to the lights. They would see movement out of the corner of their eye, they’d step in to the street thinking they had the signal. This was pre iPod mind you, and cell phones were just picking up speed. Some people weren’t even reading or using anything, they were just zoned out. Also, I really can not see cops taking time out of their day to cite people for using electronic devices when crossing the street.

Now there’s a new one, a different state senator is proposing banning “spinner” hubcaps as a distraction. His law, however, would not ban hubcaps with built in LED lights or advertisements. On the third citation, it would be a $750 fine for the spinners.

This is government as “nanny” in my eyes. These are pointless laws where these men feel they have to hold your hand and help you cross the street. They are nothing but a burden on the people who have to enforce them, on the courts, and on the government itself. No distractions when crossing the street? Ok, you’d better include newspapers and magazines. What about people who get lost in their own thoughts? Deaf and blind people? This is silly and a waste of time. The government has to stop trying to be our parents and protecting us from ourselves.

I am sure these men have the best of intentions, but they are just silly laws that do nothing but irritate people, take up valuable police time and do nothing but further take away personal rights. How about concentrating on actual problems like state budgets?

A while back I wrote an entry about not being able to unsubscribe from the Major League Baseball mailing lists. I’m still getting them, but I just try to ignore them now. I do have another interesting email I get each week now…”A Foreign Affair weekly matches”.

I have NO clue how I got on this mailing list, none. Each week I am treated to a list of women from such places as the Ukraine, Colombia, and the Philippines. Then they offer a “romantic trip” to one of their locations to meet said women…yeah, it’s all pretty sleazy. And just like the MLB mailing lists, I can not get rid of these stupid emails! I mean, silly me, I’m not interested in 19 year old Ukrainian women. I know, I know, you’re all shocked. But I mean, really, there are so many available women in the U.S.A. who are quite the catch…

hmmm Maybe the Ukraine isn’t so bad…

I’m too cold and too tired of fighting with snow to blog anything super coherent tonight. I’m the only one home for a week as my parents and employees are in Orlando, FL working a convention, so it’s just me, the 3 dogs and my 85 year old grandmother, who lives in her own house on the property. So after the big snow the other day I paid a guy to blade the road and the driveways…well…there was no more snow in the forecast then! Now we are under white out conditions and everything I had accomplished is now gone. *sigh*

Stupid flippin’ snow.

As of the morning of February 16th, 2007, I have officially given up on watching “Headline News”, mainly because it is anything BUT headlines.

At 10:00 AM EST, you started showing the Anna Nicole Smith hearings regarding her remains live from the hearing room….for 10 minutes. You may have gone on longer, but I wouldn’t know as I turned the channel and never came back. Your name is not Court TV, you are not normal CNN, you are “Headline News” and Anna Nicole, at this point, is nothing more than an entertainment section also-ran. This is not to mention the total lack of “Headlines” from 7:00 PM EST to 2:00 AM EST.

If I had any way to remove you from my satellite package, I would, but ala I will just have to be content with not tuning in to your channel any more when I used to leav my TV on your channel about 12 hours a day.

Thank you for your time,
Sean P. Aune
Kirksville,MO

Usually after I watch All My Children on the east coast ABC channel I get, I flip over to the Los Anegeles ABC to watch the mid-day news report.  With my hatred for the big news stations for the past few days over the Anna Nicole Smith stuff, I figured a local news broadcast might be safer…

Anna Nicole Smith’s remains being fought over was the lead story.

THE LEAD STORY!

Not the President’s news conference.  Not the war in Iraq.  Not the Iranian weapons found in Iraq…Anna Nicole Smith’s remains.

With the 20 months to the presidential election already ramping up in to a free-for-all, the never ending drek being spoon-fed to the masses as “news”, I am giving serious thought to Tivoing the BBC news each day and watching it when I get home and just giving up on my country as a whole for news.  We are too slap happy with celebrities, feel good stories, and things we THINK are important.

I have had it.  I’m done.  Last one out, turn out the lights.

Oh

My

God

I am going to shotgun my lovely new HD TV if I have to hear any more about Anna Nicole Smith or her baby! Basically you now have a multi-million dollar football being tossed around without anyone really caring about the human lives involved. No one has tried to claim Ms. Smiths remians even. But no, you have websites like TMZ.com running pictures of the contents of her fridge!

And the whole subject of the paternity of the child…dead men, husbands of washed up Hollywood stars, lawyers…I’m figuring an alien is going to land any day now and claim that is the result of a late night abduction of Smith.

The media should be ashamed of itself…these men should be ashamed of themselves…and I should be ashamed of myself for blogging about it, but damn it, I want to watch some actual news!

Two hours of 24 tonight and STILL no Satchel of Doom!  Are they trying to torture us now?  They know we want it, but yet, they don’t give it to us.  GIVE US THE SOD!  Jack Bauer needs the SOD like Superman needs his cape!

The other day I talked about the Snickers ad and how I thought it was being blown out of porportion. Well, one of my regular readers (I think I’m up to 3!) pointed out what the hoopla was a little bit more about accurately. I asked if I could just copy her comment:

I only want to clarify something about the Snickers thing.

The Snickers one that aired certainly wasn’t the big issue. The big issues were the football players watching the ads on the Snickers website and making comments about how disgusting it was to see two men kissing as well as other variations on the ad that they were having fans vote on what woudl air for the Dayton 500. That is why the outrage displayed by MSF, GLAAD and HRC.

On the website one such ad to vote on was titled the WRENCH - instead of ripping out their own chest hair they had one man club the other over the head with a Wrench because of the kiss only to then have retailation of slamming the other guys head in a car trunk. You can find that version on Youtube I believe still. It’s just plain wrong…

As a huge supporter of MSF there is a reason Judy Shepard and others stood up to Mars and demanded the ads be pulled from the site. It’s also interesting to note that the ad agency first contacted GLAAD to review the ads only to change their mind before showing them and that commericial industry insiders are saying that some people from the ad agency will be out of jobs because Mars is so angry about the contraversy.

This one in particular wasn’t mocking homophobia but instead displaying homophobic motivated violence against another person as well as watching ‘big macho football players’ mock how ‘gay’ the ads were….

Considering the reputation of homophobia in professional sports this isn’t surprising that was the reaction by these players but it seems very calculated that once again the gay community was used to give Snickers more ink after the SuperBowl - however not speaking up about it would have been wrong

hey - my two cents

But a very good two cents! She also sent me a link to GLAAD’s press release, Mars Corporate response release (which was highly “get a sense of humor people!”), and the highly offensive version of the ad on YouTube.

I can already here a couple of people thinking in their head “Sean…why does this ad qualify as being offensive when the robot jumping off the bridge, which offended another group, didn’t?” Simple. These ads are showing that the most logical way to respond to a homosexual advance, even if unintentional, is to harm the other other person. They have to do something “manly” to regain themselves. Then to run the ads online with footballer players mocking them? Way to get rid of those professional sports homophobia stereotypes guys.

In conclusion…
Robots committing suicide = funny
Men hitting each other with wrenches to prove they aren’t gay = not funny

brinshannara asked me the following five questions. If you’d like me to come up with five questions for you, post a comment.

1) What is UP with the Sonic picture that follows you to like, every community you’re in? ;)

(for those who don’t know it, it’s this )
Ikebukuro, Tokyo Japan, August 2001 - I’m wandering around Sunshine Street and there’s a big Sega arcade there kitty corner with Tokyu Hands at the end of the street. Sonic is out there trying to bring in the customers, I shoot a picture to show my friends back home. Just as I snap the picture, he puts his hands up. I just think the pose is hilarious because he looks like he’s snickering. Here’s the unedited version

2) Why and how did you get so involved in the BAM storyline?I had seen a news story on the site AfterEllen.com and started researching it for fun. I actually monitored the board for awhile, but never joined. When I saw they were leaving, I figured it was now or never to join!

3) Do you write apart from BAM fic? If so, what sort of writing?

Just when I was a professional magazine writer. BAM is my first fic work.

4) Ever wish you had a more traditional job? If so, what kind?

Full time writer would be nice, I miss it.

5) What’s your favourite BAM scene?

hmmm tough call! “In to guys” has always impressed me for it’s lighting and acting, but for “I never“…Maggie finally admitting her love? *swoon*!

deepthinker16 also asked me 5 questions.

1. Why does Japan fascinate you so much?

When I was in 2nd grade, a teacher at my school in Phoenix had been to Japan and was showing classes slide shows. She showed 2 slides and made one statement that FASCINATED me.

a. The statement was about sentence structure. Where we would say “A woman in a beautiful red dress walked in”, they would say “In a beautiful red dress, a woman walked in.” That mesmerized me.

b. She showed a slide of two houses so close together, a human couldn’t fit between them going sideways.

c. She showed a slide of 2 geishas.

I knew that day I *had* to go to Japan. I was 7, and I did nothing but read and dream about it for 22 years. I went for the first time shortly after my 29th birthday and I have been back twice since.

2. What’s your best tip for saving money?

*phew* Not eating out unless you have no choice is always #1 in my book.

3. What is your dream profession? Be specific.

Writer. Has been since I was 4. After high school I never thought it would happen due to my abysmal grades in English, but 4 years after high school I was handed a monthly column in a magazine and I spent 5 years writing anywhere up to 3 paying articles a month. I still want to write a book someday.

4. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers… a shameless ripoff of Voltron?

No. Any time you have a series from Japan featuring “teams” it is called a “Sentai” series. Sentai meaning “task force”. The first of the Ranger shows was “Himitsu Sentai Goranger“, produced from 1975 - 1977, which predates Voltron. Was MMPR (Kyouryuu Sentai Zyuranger in Japan) a ripoff of Volton? Possibly. It was the 16th series of Ranger shows, by then I am sure they needed ideas :-p (and no, I did not know ALL of this off the top of my head….I couldn’t remember Zyuranger’s full name…)

5. Would you consider living abroad for one year? Why/Why not?

In a heartbeat I’d do it. Other vultures fascinate me and I would love to immerse myself in one!

To anyone who liked Anna Nicole Smith, this rant is not about HER as a person.

Yes, Anna Nicole had a tragic life, I won’t argue that, what I will argue is the media should be ashamed of itself. In no way did she deserve the amount of coverage she received since her death yesterday. This morning, as I sat down with my morning bowl of oatmeal, CNN Headline News couldn’t shut up about her. Just on and on and on…ok, fine, talk about it for 2 seconds and then move on to something important like the war or Darfur.

I get to work, jump on the net…top story on every news site.

Watching All My Children from Los Angeles, they break in with “Breaking News” to cover the press conference for her autopsy.

This story does NOT call for this sort of coverage. But our media has become so obsessed with “news lite”, the easy story, it seemed like a no brainer to them I guess. I mean really, let’s not talk about real news when we can show the exact same footage of Anna again…and again…and again.  Let’s trot out the Entertainment Tonight reporter who last interviewed her, he’s important!

She led a tragic life…let her rest in peace.