Welcome to the fourth week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of the Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Steven and Mark discuss days that don’t go well, and then they get down to some discussing of behaviroral ads, based around this post today over at SiliconANGLE. They don’t see eye-to-eye, but as with all Cynical Bastard discussions, they aren’t that far apart even while being on opposite sides.
While both companies are currently declining to comment on the story, it is looking like the deal is close to being done with Comcast buying an 80% stake in the television network from its current owner, General Electric. The remaining 20% currently belongs to Vivendi, who has actually been talking about offering their portion as an IPO (initial public offering) of common stock, which Comcast has been rumored to have expressed an interest in purchasing.
If this deal proves to be real, Comcast will be acquiring a truckload of products. Beyond just the flagship NBC network, the holdings include the cable networks Bravo, MSNBC, Syfy, USA Network, Telemundo and The Weather Channel. In the realms of the Internet, NBC is the owner of the iVillage website, and is one of the key owners of Hulu. This isn’t to mention the theme parks and several other smaller holdings.
In short, this is one giant of a purchase … if true. My thinking is that this is real, and it is happening, if there wasn’t some truth to it, the two companies could have easily denied it, but instead they both just declined to comment. According to the original source, the deal is almost hammered out, so expect to see this hitting big in the news any day now.
Welcome to the fourth week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of the Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Steven and I go on an Apple run tonight, discussing a ton of Apple related stories, and only went seven minutes over the usual 20 minute run time! Yay us! Here are links (thanks, Steven) to all of the things we discussed tonight, as you can see it is a quite a boat load!
Hard to believe it, but this is the 2000th post on this blog.
Now, that isn’t 2000 consecutive days (I’m at 1,662 days), but it is a total of 2,000 separate posts that I’ve made, some of them even before I started this non-stop run attempt. It really isn’t that large of an accomplishment compared to most big blogs, some that can do that many posts a month, but when you are the lone writer on a blog, I think it’s worth some form of acknowledgement.
So I thought I would do a quick walk down memory lane of a few of my favorite posts.
Who Is The Best James Bond?
No clue why, but I really liked doing this post, and people seem to like it also as it continues to get new visitors every day. It was just kind of nice to discuss something that has been a part of pop culture for so long, and is something just about every one has some sort of an opinion on. I don’t think any two commenters had the exact same order of which actor played the role the best, but that was half the fun.
It’s nice to do something on here once in awhile that actually feels like it might open someone’s eyes to the things going on in the world around them. If I can ever get even one person questioning the motivations of the Church of Scientology, then I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something.
I know, I’m cheating by just listing a group of posts, but it’s my blog, and I can if I want!
A lot of friends have asked me privately if there is something in my past that causes me to write about the teacher sex scandals, as in have I ever been sexually assaulted by a teacher. I can tell you without hesitation that absolutely nothing like what these teachers have done has ever happened to me. I simply write about these stories because I have known a great number of teachers in my life, and in general I just find it disgusting that any teacher would betray the trust of the student, their family and the community. So, if they do it, they should be talked about.
I have actually pondered spinning those stories off into their own blog, but that is something I am weighing the pros and cons of at the moment.
47-Year-Old Susan Boyle Wows The Judges On Britain’s Got Talent
For all of the negative things I write about on this site, it is nice sometimes to write about a positive, uplifting story. Susan Boyle was definitely one of those stories, and kudos to her. And, yes, I did actually spin stories about her off into their own blog at SusanBoyleFandom.com which I am still updating with various tidbits about her and her upcoming album entitled “I Dreamed A Dream”.
I know my favorites seemed heavy on recent posts, but that is partially because I think I am finally finding my voice as a blogger. One would certainly hope I have after this many posts!
I am excited about the future, and have no intentions of stopping blogging any time soon, so here is to 2,000 more posts of my rambling!
Welcome to the fourth week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of the Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Mark and I discuss the controversy over the “Should the President Be Killed?” poll on Facebook that took the blogosphere by storm today. While we didn’t really have a problem with the actual blogs written about the poll, but the comments people were leaving that suggested this poll was some sort of Secret Service sting, or perhaps a Jewish conspiracy … if you listen closely, you can hear me hitting my forehead on the keyboard through out this episode over the stupidity.
1,2, Freddy’s coming for you
3,4, Better lock your door
5,6, Grab your crucifix
7,8, Better stay up late
9,10, Never sleep again
I’m going into this A Nightmare on Elm Street “reboot” with mixed feelings. The 1984 original is one of the creepiest movies I think I have ever seen, and I feel Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson was one of the bar setters for the new generation of Scream Queens.
All that being said, I have to say the new trailer doesn’t look terrible, and Jackie Earle Haley (best known as Rorschach in the recent Watchmen movie) appears to make a decent Freddy Krueger, although he will have to fill the enormous shoes left by Robert Englund who originated the role.
The new Nancy is played by a relative unknown (thank goodness for that) named Rooney Mara. Her list of credits is mostly as one episode stints on shows like ER, so at least we aren’t coming in with preconceived notions of how she’ll play the role.
While I can already see a few changes from the original (Freddy was burned in the boiler room of the school in the original), for the most part it looks spot on to the first film. That’s even down to the glove showing up in the bathtub, so they seem to be staying fairly faithful to the source material. And thank goodness they left the rhyme alone! (see above) The iconic sweater, hat and glove also seem to have been left alone, so no huge “reimagining” there.
I have been pretty harsh on remakes as of late, like the upcoming Highlander remake, but so far I have to say this one doesn’t look too bad. (Geek alert! Clancy Brown, the Kurgan in the original Highlander is in this new Elm Street!) I will actually probably see this one in the theater just because I am such a huge fan of the original series, but believe me, I will be watching it with a very critical eye. The trailer is below for those that wish to check it out.
President Obama has begun talking about the possibility of extending the school day, and while I think he is on the right track, he is coming at it from the wrong angle.
According to a story for the Associated Press (sorry, can’t link it or quote it due to their insane rules on bloggers owing them money if we do so), President Obama is currently looking at extending the school day by three hours, and also increasing the number of days per year that students go to school. This is said to be combat the continually low scores that American students have in comparison to countries such as Japan.
In comparison, USA students attend school an average of 1,146 hours, while students in Japan attend 1,005, but I am going to concentrate on why this is a bogus number and the Japanese actually attend more hours than that. The students OFFICIALLY attend 1,005 hours, what is not counted is their “extra curricular” hours which are “elective”, but you would be hard pressed to find any student who does not attend them. They are also quite often going in to school on Saturdays and Sundays, again this is “optional”, but due to the pressure of their peers doing it, so they know if they don’t follow suit that they will fall behind.
So is extending the hours of the day the solution? No, I don’t think so. From the sounds of it, it almost sounds like Obama envisions this partially as a babysitting service as he sees keeping the students in school until 6 or 7 PM. You are talking about children who are not used to such long hours, and you are also going to have a major cut down in the amount of time they have each night to do homework. Extending the hours per day is not the best choice.
He also has discussed the possibility of cutting the summer vacation time down, and while I have problems with extending the number of hours per day, I have no problem with changing up the structure of the entire year. The current model of nine months on, three months off is based on the agrarian calendar of farming, but children are no longer spending the summer working in the fields with their parents, so needing the block of time off is no longer required.
A school year model that has shown some definite success is a quarter system where students attend school for 9 weeks and then have 3 weeks off. Students attend the same number of hours per day, but with less down time between sessions, the students don’t forget as much, and take less time to get back up to speed when they do get back.
Of course, all of these plans ignore the problems inherit in our public school systems and the subject matters they teach our kids, but that is another argument for another day, but I do agree with the President that a change needs to be made in how the kids attend school. While I have already seen some blogs such as Sweetness & Light decrying this as a way to brainwash children into being liberal leaning, Obama lovers, there have been schools playing with the structure of the school day and year for quite a while now. I knew a child attending a 9 on/3 off school 12 years ago in St. Louis, and yes his grades did go up from when he attended in the 9 months on/3 months off school.
In a study conducted in 2006, students in the United States placed 17th amongst 30 countries compared in how their students were doing. I am sure no one will ever think this is a desirable place to be for this country, and while I feel there is a lot that needs fixing in our system (psst, school uniforms), a change to the school year is inevitable at some point. Be it under Obama or whomever follows him into the Oval Office, this is a subject that will need to be addressed at some point along with the manner and matter of what we are teaching the students in school.
… or do you really know that many kids still working in the fields each summer?
After several years of trying, I finally got to see Southern Culture on the Skids in concert. Was it worth the wait? Read on.
By pure chance I checked the Southern Culture on the Skids web site a few weeks back, and much to my surprise they were performing in Columbia, MO on Friday the 25th. The weird part was they were playing at something called ROOTS ’N BLUES ’N BBQ FESTIVAL in downtown Columbia. Er … okay, whatever, tickets were only $10.
Well, they were only $10 if you lived in Columbia and could pick them up. Ordering two (my father went with me after hearing “BBQ” in the name) via Ticketmaster online ran me $34 after fees. Love ya, Ticketmaster!
So we headed down, and after having to drive all over God’s green Earth due to the number of streets blocked off for the event, we finally got there and experienced some of the most lackluster BBQ ever. I mean, not only was it insanely over priced ($6 for a pulled chicken sandwich that had some of the saddest chicken I’d even seen), it just wasn’t even that tasty. Whatever, I was there for the music.
SCOTS, as they are known, were playing at a stage on 7th & Locust, but they were the second band to go on, so first I had to suffer through something called The Wilders that were … well … horrible. Musically they were tight, but they played the twangiest, ear twisting kind of country that was enough for me to contemplate putting a gun to my head. And their audience banter was just painful. I wandered off a lot during this set.
Anyway, finally SCOTS got on stage, and while I have been listening to their albums for some years, and fully expected to enjoy the show, I was pleasantry surprised it was even better than I expected.
Recorded albums do not do this band justice on just how tight their playing is. Rick Miller, guitarist and lead singer, is just a sick guitar player. His ability to change up styles, tempos and everything else is some of the finest guitar playing I have ever witnessed. Mary Huff raises the bar for bass players keeping pace with Mr. Miller at all times, and also deserves credit for bring more respectability to her instrument, one that I feel never gets enough attention. Dave Hartman, the percussionist, plays the entire show standing up, something I have never seen a drummer do before, and gets more mileage out of just a few drums than most players get out of a full kit. Tim Barnes is on rhythm guitar, and, well, I just couldn’t hear him in the mix well enough to be certain, but he sure seems to play well.
The sad thing is, this band has been around since 1983, has released 10 studio albums (with an 11th on the way in December of January), 1 live album and 3 EPs, and I know a goodly number of you have never heard of them. Considering some of the tripe released these days, it is heartbreaking to see a band this good be so unrecognized. I spoke very briefly with Mr. Miller prior to the show (more on that later, I hope) while he and Mr. Hartman were setting up their own equipment. Yes, you read that right, 23 years and they are setting up their own equipment and doing sound check with no roadies. You have completely untalented people like Brittany Spears going out there with insanely huge productions, tractor trailers loaded with equipment, armies of roadies, and these hard working talented folks are setting up their own show. Something is very unbalanced here.
If you ever get a chance to see them, do go, they are worth every penny, and they are highly entertaining. Just watch out for flying pieces of fried chicken…
Welcome to the third week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of the Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Mark and Steven set out to discuss new advancements at Microsoft (which they get to eventually), but not before they take a swipe at a guest post at TechCrunch by Shelby Bonnie, which somehow involves discussing how much I blog and what an idiot I am for doing it. (I wasn’t even on the show to defend myself!)
Well folks, it seems you can’t keep a good Slayer down.
Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, has confirmed that the end of the Season 8 comic series will not be the end of our favorite blonde Slayer. Speaking with MTV’s Splash Page column, he spoke about the length of the current season, and where he will go from here.
As for Buffy’s continuing adventures in the Dark Horse comic book series, Whedon said the end of her “Season Eight” is in sight—but fans shouldn’t be worried, he has “Season Nine” already mapped out.
“Well, 40 issues was always the goal, and that’s how we’re playing it,” he said of the current “Season Eight” run. “We’re around issue 30 now, we’ve got about 10 to go, five of which I have to write, so I have to get on that. Then we’ll pause for breath and then we’ll start Season Nine.”
“I have had for a long time a conception for Season Nine that is very different from Season Eight,” he added. “It may not run as long, because 40 issues sounds great until you realize that it’s four or five years.”
Seeing as I have been doing a summary/review of each issue of Buffy Season 8, I am thrilled to know the end point at last, but also horrified by doing another “season” of those. Each issue takes me over two hours to write up, but since people seem to love them, continue to do them I will. Just glad he mentioned there will be a breather between seasons!
I do agree with him that 40 issues is too much. I wrote up the first issue on March 14, 2007, so seeing as I have been doing these for 2 & 1/2 years now, I would really like to see the story flow a bit faster. Only 12 more issues to go in season 8!
- The Highlander remake isn’t the only thing annoying me about the movies this week.
Here’s
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Someone seems to be forgetting to tell large corporations that there is a recession going on.
Hard to believe it, but this is the 2000th post on this blog.
1,2, Freddy’s coming for you
President Obama has begun talking about the possibility of extending the school day, and while I think he is on the right track, he is coming at it from the wrong angle.
Back to the regular posting volume this week. Only 29 articles this week … ho-hum.
After several years of trying, I finally got to see Southern Culture on the Skids in concert. Was it worth the wait? Read on.
Well folks, it seems you can’t keep a good Slayer down.
Scattercast is 62 … and yes, this is an all original episode despite the title.
