Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Time Shifting

A number of e-mails asked me about DirecTV and if I like it better than my local cable options. Yes, I do. My local cable company is Time-Warner and about twice a day — via phone call, e-mail, paper mail or even someone coming to my door — I'm offered their service for increasingly low prices. If the trend continues, by November they'll be paying me to take their service.

But I don't want it. They keep saying, "We have 200 channels." Well, yes, but they're missing a number I enjoy, plus they don't have both the west coast and east coast network feeds which can be obtained in certain areas. I am in one such area so this makes it possible for the TiVo in my office to record the following each Monday through Friday for me...

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM — Countdown with Keith Olbermann*
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM — The Rachel Maddow Show*
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM — The Jay Leno Show
8:00 PM - 8:30 PM — The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
8:35 PM - 9:35 PM — The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
9:35 PM - 10:35 PM — The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
Then I used to record The Colbert Report from 11 PM 'til 11:30 but for reasons mentioned earlier here, I now record the 6:30 AM showing. Finally, there's...
11:35 PM - 12:35 PM — The Late Show with David Letterman

(*Before anyone accuses me of watching only Liberal shows on news channels, I only watch Olbermann when Olbermann's on, I rarely watch more than a little of Rachel if that much, and earlier in the day, I usually catch a random hour or so of whatever's on Fox. Hey, did you know Obama has appointed 82,000 "czars" and George W. Bush only had three?)

So you can see why I like getting the west coast and east coast network feeds. It makes it easy to record shows that are opposite each other. (For a brief time, I also TiVoed Late Night With Jimmy Fallon after Conan and recorded Ferguson after Letterman. But I rarely got around to watching Mr. Fallon's program so I unTiVoed it and moved Craig into that slot.)

I have another TiVo downstairs on which I can record any show I want that airs while the above programs are being recorded, and then I can transfer them upstairs to watch on my office TV. But this way, I get the regular shows directly on the office TiVo and can watch them as I work or blog or do Sudoku puzzles or whatever it is I do on my computer here.

Sometimes, I tell a Time-Warner hard-seller that I would consider their service if they had the east coast network feeds and if they ran stations like Comedy Central from an east coast feed. I would imagine there's some contractual reason why they can't do this but they never say that. They say, "Uh, we wouldn't want to take up a channel slot with something that just repeats what's on another channel earlier." No, but they'll take them up for multiple shopping channels or nineteen versions of Encore, MTV or ESPN. I suspect more subscribers would rather have two bites at CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox than to get every possible gospel and shop-at-home network. On the other hand, they do run CSPAN3, which DirecTV somehow refuses to pick up.

The reason I mention all this is to wonder: How long before CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox start encouraging cable companies to carry multiple feeds of the same programming? It could only increase viewership, which is something those networks fervently crave. It works so well for me I can't believe a lot of folks wouldn't like it. Even if I had a DVR that could record two channels at the same time, it's still handy to be able to watch shows earlier. I watched the Emmys three hours before anyone local with cable got to see it. Multiple feeding may not be the next step in television but I'll bet it's not far off down the line.

• Posted at 11:37 PM · LINK

Meals on Wheels

One interesting new business is taking hold in Los Angeles, and I would imagine elsewhere: Food trucks. These are like the old-style catering trucks but they visit different neighborhoods with food you'd actually want to eat. They roam about and you can find out where they're going to be on their websites or via Twitter.

This page tracks a number of them, including Barbie's Q, which is the only one there I've tried so far. About once a week, they park themselves for a few hours in a business district not far from my abode and they sell pulled pork and brisket sandwiches, primarily to folks who work in that area. I got one of each about two weeks ago and thought they were quite deelish. There are a few others I've heard about that may get my business if they come 'round.

That page, by the way, links to similar pages that track food trucks in San Francisco, Portland and New York.

• Posted at 7:26 PM · LINK

Today's Bonus Video Link

If you haven't seen this, you should...

• Posted at 5:12 PM · LINK

The Most Important News of the Week!

October 19 through October 24. Creamy tomato soup at all outlets of Souplantation or Sweet Tomatoes.

• Posted at 1:38 PM · LINK

Second-Hand Surveys

A few years ago, there were a couple of medical-type reports that said that second-hand smoke did you no real harm. I never thought those reports were particularly credible and, sure enough, we now have a new major study that says, among other things, that smoking bans in public places can reduce the number of heart attacks by as much as 36%.

Anyone surprised by this? I wouldn't think so. Even if you believed those studies that said second-hand smoke didn't hurt you, it's not that incredible to find out that maybe it does. I mean, it's not like someone has just come out with a report that claims Martians walk among us. Still, I was amazed at those who embraced the "no real harm" findings. One that comes to mind is the Penn & Teller show on Showtime, the name of which I'm not mentioning since doing so seems to lower my site's standing in some search engines.

I like that show even though I often disagree with its "findings"...and even though every time they set up one of their silly Candid Camera-style experiments, they prove absolutely nothing and pass it off as something. I just like skepticism and wish we had more of it in the media. In fact, I wish we had more skepticism of the skeptics since despite what some skeptics seem to think, going against the Conventional Wisdom doesn't automatically mean your wisdom is correct.

Their first season, Penn & Teller did a show about second-hand smoke and concluded it did not create health problems. As I recall, the supporting evidence was that one or two studies had said as much, and somehow these reports trumped all the many that had concluded otherwise. But what bothered me was that the show attacked people who were working to ban smoking in public places and treated them like they were scumbuckets pushing an outragous lie — like if they were claiming to talk to the dead or something — and bilking gullible folks of their life savings with the lie.

Since then, studies like the above-cited have convinced Penn & Teller that they were wrong, and they've admitted as much here and there, and I think they stuck a line in one later episode that said so. But it's kind of like a newspaper that gets it wrong on Page One, prints the later retraction in the classified ad section where no one will see it, and doesn't apologize to those it wronged. They weren't the only ones who did this, of course, or even the worst offenders. A lot of people let one or two reports of dubious pedigree overrule simple common sense. Second-hand smoke makes most people cough and feel ill. Doesn't that suggest that maybe, just maybe, it ain't good for you?

• Posted at 12:24 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Yesterday's video link was, as I mentioned, a kinescope. Just as folks were writing to ask me what the heck a "kinescope" is, my buddy Jerry Beck dropped me a note to tell me about this wonderful short film from 1949 that explains about the process with examples. I think the footage of Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra was done in Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, which is where they now do Saturday Night Live.

• Posted at 12:02 AM · LINK

September 23, 2009 • Current • September 21, 2009