Friday, April 25, 2003

Me and My TiVo: UPDATE

Works perfectly, and way ahead of schedule. I can "publish" JPG files from my computer so that I can view them on my TV. I can "publish" MP3 files and access them through my television. Once I get the downstairs TiVo hooked into the network, I'll be able to sit down there and listen to music that is presently on my computer.

I tried the on-line scheduling, deliberately selecting a show that conflicted with a recording I already had scheduled. Went to the TiVo site, picked it...and within moments, TiVo had sent me an e-mail telling me that it was not scheduling the recording because of the conflict. It also sent a TiVo message that I could view on my TV screen. Neat.

Took no time to set up and so far, it's doing everything it's supposed to do. Why can't all technology be like this?

• Posted at 11:14 PM · LINK

Me and My TiVo

I am told that some people who do not own TiVos are sick 'n' tired of those of us who do waxing enthusiastic about them. Well, tough. TiVo has elevated my enjoyment of television a couple hundred percent by allowing me to watch what I want when I want without hassling with tapes and silly programming codes and all that this involves. With TiVo, you just press a couple of buttons that say, in effect, "Record The Jerry Springer Show every time it's on," and that's it. You will never miss another episode in which some guy's mother goes on national television to reveal to him that she's always been a transvestite pygmy.

You can pause, jump ahead, watch at double speed, freeze-frame nude scenes...whatever thrills you. I enjoy this invention so much that I have upgraded every time they've brought out an improved model and, though it hasn't been around all that long, I am now on my fourth and fifth TiVos. The two latest are both the new Series 2 model which, among its other innovations, allows you to install a package of services jointly called the "Home Media Option." I just installed this on the TiVo in my office.

Briefly, Home Media Option allows me to connect my TiVo to my home network which, in turn, connects to the Internet. Instead of obtaining program info via a phone line, TiVo now connects to the web and downloads it — faster and more often — from the TiVo website. I can log into the TiVo website (from my home computer or a remote one) and select shows for TiVo to record. This means, at least in theory, that if I'm over at Marv Wolfman's house and I suddenly realize I forgot to set up to record Mr. Personality, I can hop onto Marv's computer and tell my TiVo to add it to its task list. I can also take the JPG and MP3 files on my computer and send them through my home network to play or be seen on my TV screen. And once I get around to running a cable down to my downstairs TV room, I can connect my two TiVos and swap recorded programs from one to the other. At least, this is how it's all supposed to work.

Does it? I don't know yet. I just set it up, and it's supposed to download the required software to make all these things happen in about three hours. Check back then and we'll see.

• Posted at 9:43 PM · LINK

Gelbart in the N.Y. Times

Larry Gelbart has an article there tomorrow morning, all about flying the Concorde to and from Europe. Here's that link.

• Posted at 8:49 PM · LINK

Blacker and Blacker

Here's a link to another Lewis Black commentary from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Again, the dreaded RealPlayer is required.

• Posted at 7:25 PM · LINK

Robbins on Today

Got a couple of e-mails from folks who believe — as I suspected — that the story of Tim Robbins getting cut off the air on The Today Show might not be all it's cracked up to be. Here's Paul Harris...

It's probably something a lot less devious. NBC has a hard cutaway to local stations at :25 and :55 every hour of Today. They break the network at that point so affiliates can do local commercials and news inserts. These are never pre-empted unless the full network is in pre-emption mode (as on the morning of 9/11, for instance) when they don't even break for commercials because of continuous coverage of a major event. So the more likely reason is that someone — in the booth, on the floor, or in Lauer's ear — got the timing wrong, or Lauer ignored the cutaway signals because he was so caught up in what Robbins was saying.

Makes sense, but Standard Broadcasting Procedure would then be for the host, following the break, to say something like, "Our apologies to Tim Robbins for a technical error that cut him off." On the other hand, we don't know that this wasn't said. I just think it's funny that, intentional or not, Robbins got cut off while he was going after Corporate America on NBC, just like a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Tim Robbins got cut off while he was going after Corporate America on NBC.

And don't forget to visit Paul Harris's splendid website after you get through reading this splendid website.

• Posted at 6:06 PM · LINK

If You're Not Sick...

...of hearing about Michael Moore and the Dixie Chicks and whether the right-wing is trying to make criticizing G.W. Bush seem like treason, you might like to read this interview with Roger Ebert.

• Posted at 12:20 PM · LINK

Fade to Black

Maybe I'm misremembering but it seems to me that back when Tim Robbins once hosted Saturday Night Live, the monologue bit went like this: Robbins began criticizing the parent company of NBC, General Electric, and suddenly he was cut off and an announcer proclaimed that Saturday Night Live would never be seen again. Something like that. (I think it turned out to be a nightmare. Lorne Michaels woke up in bed with Phil Hartman...)

If this account is true — and I don't know for sure that it is — then a very similar thing not only happened for real on The Today Show recently but actually happened to Tim Robbins.

• Posted at 11:56 AM · LINK

More on Santorum

Just read a wide range of Internet comments on the controversy. Some called for him to resign, which I usually think is showboating. Good, bad or indifferent, a representative under this kind of fire is there at the service of those who elected him. Only they really have the right to remove him and if they so desire, there are processes by which they can do that, including the next election. I also see a lot of folks doing backflips of logic to try and explain the difference between legalizing homosexual unions and leaping onto that much-mentioned "slippery slope" towards incest, polygamy, bigamy, going to Yanni concerts, and other no-nos. (I am generally suspicious of "slippery slope" arguments. Some are quite valid but some are just ways of masking your inability to argue the immediate. It's like you want to ban cheeseburgers and your arguments are feeble, so you argue that eating cheeseburgers is that fatal first step down the slippery slope to killing puppies. You know, if cheeseburger consumption increases, we would eventually run out of cows, and we'd have to make them out of something...)

What I think bothers me about the Senator's remarks are, first of all, that folks are seizing on the homosexuality = incest end of it while ignoring his more offensive (to me) remarks about the children who were molested by priests, trying to pretend they were mainly consenting teens just shy of the age of consent. No, some of them were quite non-consenting 4-year-olds. Secondly, there's a kind of soft, coded bigotry underscoring this kind of thing.

Analogies between gay rights and the rights of racial minorities only go so far, but I think this one applies. Years ago, a "mole" who worked in the George Wallace campaign revealed that Wallace and his aides had actually rehearsed saying the word, "nigra." It was deliberately picked as a kind of halfway-point between "negro" and "nigger." The idea was to send a message to potential Wallace supporters: In order to get along in the world and perhaps win the presidency, ol' George couldn't use the word he really meant...but you know what he means. If someone called Wallace on it — and some did — he'd feign innocence and say, "Why, shucks, that's just my accent." It was a way of sending coded messages to his people while being able to disavow use of the word.

Now, maybe I'm reading too much into this but during the Trent Lott brouhaha, I thought a very apt comment was that the Republicans were not promoting or advocating bigotry but that they were trying real hard to wink at it and not lose the votes of such folks. It's the same way that their "big tent" philosophy causes them to try and have it both ways on abortion. There's a large chunk of people out there who believe that anyone who isn't actively working against abortion is a baby murderer...and the Republican leadership has done a good job of assuring such folks that they agree while at the same time saying those baby murderers are welcome in the party and that the G.O.P. has their interests at heart, as well.

I initially thought Santorum's remarks were just that of a gay-basher thoughtlessly shooting his mouth off. I dunno. Maybe they were more calculated than that. An awful lot of other prominent Republicans seem to be making the same kind of "have it both ways" remark that assures a certain core constituency that it will do what it can to roll back gay rights and similar causes, while at the same time trying not to alienate that part of the voting bloc that believes — as hard-core conservatives perhaps should — that the government should stay out of the bedroom. When you say you have no problem with homosexuals, only with homosexual acts, that sounds glib and, yes, it has its Biblical antecedents. But in the world of politics, I think it's a way of hinting a stronger position without having to actually say it.

• Posted at 11:19 AM · LINK

The Sanest Website

As usual, Spinsanity is right. There has been a lot of misrepresentation and misquoting of the infamous remarks by Senator Rick Santorum. Here's their debunking of some of it.

• Posted at 10:03 AM · LINK

Black Humor

I said it before and I'll say it again: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart is the sharpest, funniest show on television. Among the many reasons are the weekly commentaries by Lewis Black. Here's a link to one from a week or two ago. (You need to have RealPlayer installed to view it.)

• Posted at 2:51 AM · LINK