Into The West

Loved By The Buffalo is out surveying the lands and finds only remnants of tribes and no people. He sees that the white man's slaughter is still going on despite a peace treaty. Clara Wheeler(Rachael Leigh Cook) met up with long lost relatives who rudely welcomed her after she announced she's now an orphan. She has grown tougher but slowly gets her dream boutique up and running. The rest of the family sinks into pimping and general meanness over money.
Meanwhile photographer Ethan Biggs, played by Daniel Gillies real life husband of Rachael Leigh Cook( aka lucky guy), and his wife Margret Light Shines are confronted with the ugly hatred of the Indians after the restless army comes into town. After the Cheyenne attack their carriage he is saved by his magical photoshop abilities and they become "guests" of the tribe. The army breaks a promise to not make war with the Cheyenne and soon kills most of them including Biggs, they even shoot a tot crying over his moms' corpse. Light Shines then goes with the remain Cheyenne and leaves the Lakota and white nations behind.
Abe Wheeler meets up with some Chinese rail workers and start dynamiting mountains away.
Jacob Wheeler Jr. meets up with and frees his sister,Light Shines, from a military prison and they realize that the railroad and the Natives can not co-exist.
The whites call for the extermination of "the savages" as the transcontinental railroad is spiked finished.
Two more episodes of Into The West as Custer and Wounded Knee loom ahead.

TV Guide July 10-16

Bloody hell, it's another "collectors edition" four-cover set. A dedication to the Sci-Fi channels' Friday night line-up. The covers feature 2 actors of either Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1 or one of each called Sci-Fi Returning Favorites. Matt Roush reviews Battlestar Galactica and finds it violently fun. He also tells of the new cast members to Stargate SG-1, Ben Browder and Claudia Black of Farscape fame and Beau Bridges recently in Into The West. There is an amazing 9 page article on all the going ons of "Sci-Fi Friday", which I didn't read because I want to be surprised when the episodes premiere. A few thing did pop out, Lexa Doig wife of Michael Shanks joins the cast of Stargate SG-1 and Lou Gossett Jr. as a Jaffa. Stargate Atlantis gets more Wraithy. Lucy Lawless joins the Battlestar Galactica cast as a reporter.

Good things to read inside:

• They have pictures of the first official Lost convention that took place in the Burbank Airport Hilton where "Losers" "Losties" got to have a Q&A with producers, don't fret they will have 5 more over the next18 months.
• Mariska Hargitay is not pregnant but she's trying.
• Wonder Showzen an MTV2 pupppet show.
• Into The West had 15,000 extras and one of the largest cast of Native Americans ever, and yes the white man did mistreat them, again.
• Sci-Fi will air Firefly, all episodes starting July 22. Serenity is out in theaters in September, do the math.
• A six-page summer horoscope? And then after that your regular horoscopes.
• Farhrenheit 9/11 on Showtime
• Reality Round-up:Hogan Knows Best, Brat Camp, MLB All-Star Game
  

I understand that with todays modern technology that printing multiple covers is easier and cheaper than ever but calling them "special" or as TV Guide does on page 3 the "Complete box set" with a number to order right below is just wring and inaccurate. It would be funny that if in forty years the sell for thousands of dollars butI doubt it.
On the advertising front I've noticed that their ads are now featuring lots of new sweets that I don't see in the markets. Wonka Cakes, Gummi LifeSavers, etc. maybe my local markets just suck.

London Attacked TV to Blame

------Cowards I'm Still Not Afraid, -------
------You Won't Change Me -------

London, England was the setting for a highly coordinated series of bombings during rush-hour today. This sad day followed a jubilant celebration Londoners had yesterday when they received the Olympics.
The only ones to blame for the attack are the Muslim terrorist themselves and anyone who helped them pull-off this attack. Their inspiration though was quite obvious, TV.
Imagine that your a terrorist sleeper cell and on July 6 you watch television and you see the happy screaming faces of British citizens as they get the news about hosting the 2012 Olympics. This is enough to push their demented minds over the edge.
All terrorist, Islamic and Fascist, hate that other people are happy. It is not about foriegn policy or invading armies. They want us dead or panicked and when we're not the get angry. See the beautiful happy faces of those Londoners made them angry beyond reason. They would have probably taken the Chunnel and bombed Paris if they won the Olympics.
The only city that could have prevented these attacks would be New York, or any American city. The news said that the U.K. had to deal with direct bombings for the last 60 years and they still can't prevent bombings.

Back to the Basics

On tonight's Nightline Christina Applegate, John Lithgow and Jeff Goldblum got together to speak about why Broadway is more successful than the film industry. John Lithgow basically said that the quality of the movies are down and television is being flooded with reality-tv. Christina Applegate did say how when she hurt her foot her producers shut down the show, proving that it's the celebrity factor that is bring the money to Broadway. Jeff Goldblum also said that the quality of Broadway has improved. Remember that Denzel Washington and Billy Crystal also have big roles on Broadway. The stage has been said to be the one form of entertainment that will never die. And judging by the slump in the box office and ever lower ratings of TV maybe quality does count, not just big names.
Nightline also found out why New York City lost the Olympic bid. According to the IOC they want a city to improve conditions for the poor and England has a greater rate of poverty and made a cool video showing how they're going to demolish the slums and make parks. They also showed England's old Olympic village which is now crap housing. Greece and other recent Olympic cities are in huge debt and there venue are now poor preforming public venues or just sitting there empty.

Beauty and The Geek and Others

Beauty and The Geek:
This was the sort of final episode and it was a perfectly choreographed nail biter. After Chuck tried to teach Richard to calm down they prepared for a question show down. Richard correctly predicted that the question would be personal and made a side bet with his Beauty to make out with her if they win, actually it was her idea. When Chuck and Caitilin started the 10 personal questions contest they were strong and confident. They ended up getting 8 right.Then Richard and Mindi were up and quickly got two wrong(add suspense here) they proceeded to get the next 8 right. Now tied both teams had to go into a one on one questioning until someone got theirs wrong. They went into triple overtime until Richard guessed badly and lost. Chuck and Caitilin got $125,000 each. The show is not over, like The Real World they will have an upcoming Beauty and The Geek:The Aftermath where they will reunite the cast and finally answer is Richard for real.

The Inside:
There were two episodes as the show is being rushed off the air. The first episode was kinda dull so I'll skip it just saying that it was bring the group closer in their daily rituals.
The second episode showed how the good boy scout Special Agent Paul Ryan joined the agency. It also had him at home with his happy pregnant wife. Paul Ryan's first Agency case resurfaced when someone started cutting out hearts. Allegations of tampering with evidence came up and the guilty killer was freed. This upset Agent Ryan especially when his boss Virgil was the tamperer. While trying to scare the killer he gets the call that his wife was hurt he is about to kill the bad guy when he is informed that his wife was in an accident not hurt by the baddie. The second heart-ripper comes in to kill the first and everything goes bad. At the end Ryan lost his baby and the first killer lost his woman and Virgil confesses and lost his job being replaced by Tuvix(Tom Wright).

House:
Keeping it brief, House has a boy with conflicting symptoms and figures out his lying father is to blame because he gave the boy Lepersy after the kid contracted Anthrax. There was a side story involving Dr. Chase and his dying father.

Six Feet Under:
The Fishers have mellowed a bit except for Ruth who hates Claires for some unknown reason. David and Keith had there bio-baby dreams dashed and will adopt two troubled kids instead. Nate and Brenda agreed to tell Maya of her real mommy.

New York Olympics 2016

The IOC(International Olympic Committee) gave the games to the city of London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was there to give a happy ending to all the IOC judges. New York only had mayor Bloomberg and Senator Clinton. Outside Rockefeller Center the disappointment came early when the second of the five finalist to be eliminated was announced, it was New York with only 16 votes in favor. Moscow was first and Madrid came next. But the future is not all gloom the 2016 Olympic bid seems stronger.
Now while some blame Bloomberg administration I don't think that is true at all. When he lost the West Side Stadium he quickly got two alternatives. I think they should highlighted the fact that these other countries are unreliable. Now in Paris during a heat wave recently over 10,000 people died that doesn't bode well for a summer Olympic. Moscow had little resources to transform the city. Madrid continues to deal with terrorism from the Muslim and the Basques.
To counter all those points New York had a huge power outage during one of the hottest days of the year and not one person died and there was no looting and for that day crime actually went down. We in New York may not all have resources but the richest people in the city would have contributed if money was an issue. While we are the biggest target in the world we haven't been attacked since September 11^th while Madrid who has 30 years of being attacked still can't keep there citizen safe.
So all that is left is London while small and crowded so is NYC. In my eye the thing that pushed it over the edge for London was Tony Blair was there in person and the current vibe of the world is to hate America.


The good news today though is that the Mets and the Yankees got new stadiums construction will start for the Mets stadium next year.






Another piece of good news out today was that Lil' Kim will be going to prison for a year and a day for lying.


Here are the official results:
Results of the vote:


Round 1
London: 22
Paris: 21
Madrid: 20
New York: 19
Moscow: 15

Round 2
Madrid: 32
London: 27
Paris: 25
New York: 16

Round 3
London: 39
Paris: 33
Madrid: 31

Round 4
London: 54
Paris: 50

Covering NBC's Fireworks Coverage

Blue, Red and White! No not the American flag I'm talking about the order of Mariah Carey shrinking wardrobe changes. The first half of the broadcast was in HDTV whether you owned a HDTV set or not. I guess no one noticed the black frame's ever surrounding all the commercials during the broadcast. After the fireworks were over the screen went back to normal. Al Roker hosted in half a suit and some baseball cap.

Donald Trump tried to intro the fireworks but instead just pitched his crappy show.
This was one of the worst televised 4^th of July coverages ever. Only one musical act no speeches and no mini-history moments. NBC really dropped the ball. I'm not sure how much control Macy's had over the coverage but I remember just last year and all the previous years the show was longer and had more speakers. I TiVo'd The show and unless TiVo made a mistake it was only an hour long.

Happy 4th of July

It's the 229^th birthday for our great and wonderful country. While celebrating let's remember the history. Do not forget all those who fought to make this country great and those who still fight to make us better. Be safe I know fireworks are fun but I can't make them work on my blog imagine the problems with real ones. A good Independence day wish goes out to the 50 states and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the rest of the U.S. territories. Go out and celebrate in style.

Alternative Channels

No I don't mean the new Logo station which debuted this week in a fairly low key way. I tried watching it after the countdown and the official launch show came on. The first show was basically describing the channels content I got bored and changed, I haven't checked back since.
The real alternative channel I was talking about The Outdoor Channel a channel dedicated to mostly to hunting less to outdoor adventures. They also have lots of racing and off-roading programs. There were two shows that I watched and loved because it brought out the true American in me.
Prospecting America has Perry Massie using different techniques to find gold, the episode I saw had him using a metal detector. It was fascinating since my dream was to retire at 35 and search beaches and old barns for buried treasures ever since I first saw The Goonies and heard of Indiana Jones.
Gold Fever was the second show it also had a couple of Massie's Tom and his young daughter. They dove into creeks and came up with gold nuggets. At the end of the show Tom got a little preachy on how activists are trying to deprive people of the joy of prospecting. While he made a very valid point and I would love to prospect if only a few people do this it's fine but if there is a modern day "gold rush" his community would be destroyed.
I like the symmetry of these two channels while most people who love the Outdoor Channel would find Logo repulsive so would the Logo fans about hunting and skinning on the Outdoor Channel.
A tag I'm just testing Outdoor channel

When rainbows and gold collide.

A True Spin City

Remember Carter's "ugly" dog in Spin City well he was adorable compared to this one.
Santa Barbara, California hosted this year's World's Ugliest Dog Contest. While chihuahuas and other small short haired dogs are not the prettiest animals ever they don't hold a candle to this 14-year-old pedigreed Chinese crested. The Sonoma-Marin Fair contest had this ringer in it for the last three years. Oh don't worry about next year because the dog seems to be dying of every known ailment.
To make Californians even stranger the dog has become a cult icon.

Click on Carter's dog if you forgot what Carter looked like.

Here is the full Url on the Yahoo story with links to the Santa Barbara paper you'll need a membership to view the full article.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050701/ap_on_fe_st/world_s_ugliest_dog

TV Guide July 3-9

This weeks collector edition covers feature the five stars of The Fantastic Four. My issue came with Chris Evans as The Human Torch, I guess Jessica Alba was a one in five chance. There is a five page article chronicling the history of the Fantastic Four. It started in 1961 when Stan Lee wrote a team of astronauts altered to become superheroes, illustrated by Jack Kirby. Lee wrote this in response to DC Comics unleashing Justice League of America. The article also goes on the set with Michael Chiklis and tells of the original Fantastic Four movie made in 1994 that was never released but floats around on the internet. Cartoon Network is airing a Fantastic Four marathon on Saturday & Sunday, 7/2 &7/3, 8pm-12amET. The talk a little on both cartoons the the 1967-70 ABC version and the 1994-95 syndicated version now out on DVD.

Good things to read inside:

• Veronica Mars is getting two new actresses to tweak the show and make Mars herself sexier.
• Cody Kasch the troubled kid from Desperate Housewives is playing the same on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
• A nice article on all the show cloning on the next season, Martha Stewart's version of The Apprentice, Jennifer Love Hewitt's version of Medium and on and on.
• Keri Russell had a crush on Gordon from Sesame Street
• The new Big Brother house
• David & Keith get a foster son on Six Feet Under
• Nauseating Purple cupcakes------------------------------->
• Rick Schroder
• The Surreal Life