This is kind of funny. Yesterday while I was out, UPS attempted to deliver a package to me. I wasn't here so they left one of those little, scrawled post-it notices that they'd reattempt delivery the next day. It said the parcel was from, "Love, Frances." I was puzzled. I couldn't think of anyone named […]
Fred Kaplan — to whom I usually link for good political insights — offers some pretty sound advice for those contemplating the purchase of a high-end television screen. […]
Irwin Donenfeld has died. Irwin was the son of Harry Donenfeld, the founder of DC Comics, and he literally grew up in the comic business. He was twelve years old when the first issue of Action Comics was published and so was probably the first kid in the world to read the debut story of […]
I have two creative friends named Paraskevas. Betty Paraskevas writes wonderful books for kids of all ages like The Tangerine Bear and Monster Beach and various volumes featuring Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. (I'd link to my favorite Paraskevas book, Junior Kroll, but it seems to be momentarily out o' print.) All of these were […]
You may think you get a lot of Spam. You'd get more if you had an active website like this one. Several times a week, I receive e-mails like this one that just showed up in my mailbox… I am contacting you about cross linking. I am interested in povonline.com because it looks like it's […]
Thanks to the wise and perceptive Avedon Carol over at The Sideshow (which has a new address, by the way), I found this piece by media reporter Jeff Jarvis. When the FCC levied a $1.2 million fine over a TV show for its contents, Jarvis filed a Freedom of Information request to find out how […]
I was never a huge fan of the musical, Oklahoma! I've seen it on stage twice (once, a production with Jamie Farr as Ali Hakim) and I've given the movie a fair shot. I thought it was good but not great, and always wondered just what it was audiences saw in the material that allowed […]
Here's a link to a semi-silly article by Bill O'Reilly that says Dan Rather was "slimed." I agree with the sentiment that Rather was a good newsman but O'Reilly's piece is a pretty lame defense with some obvious self-interest lurking as subtext. He writes, "There is no way on this Earth that he would have […]
A couple of folks have written to ask if, given these "bad news for TiVo" articles I keep pointing out, I think our beloved Personal Video Recorders are doomed…and if so, what that means for their owners. Despite the fact that the company has yet to post a profit, I don't think the demise of […]
Michael Kinsley [Washington Post, registration usually required] talks to us about "values" and how meaningless that word is becoming. Personally, I think a lot of folks like it because it's so vague, it can mean almost anything and make whatever it is sound noble. […]
Here's a hot new invention: The TV B-Gone. It's a small device you put on your keychain and when you press a button on it, it turns off every television set in the room. Almost immediately, someone came up with — and is now selling on eBay — the TV B-Gone Scrambler Device, which prevents […]
Folks who own 'em aren't happy about recent developments. Go read. […]
As you probably heard, there was a brawl at the Pistons-Pacers game a week ago — one that started when a cup of water or beer (accounts vary) was hurled from the stands and struck player Ron Artest. A man named John Green has been mentioned as the hurler, though I have not heard of […]
And here we have Frank Rich, who I seem to link to every week. This time out, he's talking about the ginned-up controversy about that segment on Monday Night Football. The modus operandi of the protesters is that they spot something on TV they think they can hype into an object of protest. And even […]
I rarely link to articles over on Salon since reading them requires either being a subscriber (which I am but you might not be) or watching some commercials. If you don't mind one or the other, this article by Joe Conason is a pretty good summary of some of the economic problems we may be […]