Category Archives: Uncategorized

Senator Alan Simpson once supported "Don't ask, don't tell" in the military. He has come around to the viewpoint that gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military. His two main arguments seem to be that (a) we need everyone competent we can get and (b) it doesn't bother some people as much as it once did. These are good reasons…and I suspect they were good reasons back when Simpson was on the other side of this issue. But back then, he was running for office now and then so he had a good reason not to come to this point of view.

Thousands and thousands of photos from 9/11. So we don't forget…not that there's much chance of that.

This article in The Washington Post is about how game shows are getting dumber; how shows like Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? come from the viewpoint that the viewers are low in I.Q. points and therefore enjoy watching idiot contestants. Here's one section of the piece…

Some of the program's questions are difficult, but it's unusual to get more than two real tough ones in a row. Among the questions in the debut episode: Name the ship the Pilgrims sailed on from Plymouth, England, to the Plymouth colony in America in 1620. Name the closest star to the Earth. What country has the longest shared border with the United States? What is the suffix in the word "undoubtedly"? TV executives call those kinds of questions "relate-able," by which they mean "unlikely to challenge viewers too much and thus make them feel bad about themselves."

More than a few viewers apparently appreciate the approach. Are You Smarter's elevation of familiar, simple facts to brain-twisting stumpers has proved to be monstrously popular, attracting a larger audience than any new show in the Fox network's history, some 26.5 million (although it admittedly was helped by following the even more popular American Idol). The quiz show's second episode drew 23.4 million.

My view? I think the whole premise of the article is wrong on two fronts. First off, there have always been game shows that required no intelligence or knowledge to get to the big prizes. Anyone ever see Beat the Clock, which was one of the most successful of the genre? How about Let's Make a Deal? To win on Newlywed Game, you only had to be on roughly the same mental wavelength as your spouse. To win on Match Game, you only had to fill in the blank with a word like "boobs" or "buns." Those were all pretty popular shows and on most, you could have the brains of a refrigerator and still win a refrigerator.

So this is not a new trend at all. Secondly, the point of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? seems to have eluded the author of the article so I'll explain it: The point of the show is to laugh at the stupid people. It comes from the same place as those jerk-on-the-street interviews that Jay Leno does where we're supposed to howl with laughter that some people think Ben Franklin was our first president. With some of the other shows, it's just mindless or near-mindless fun, which is not always a bad thing.

I'm surprised the reporter came to his conclusions. He interviewed two of the most knowledgeable people I know on the subject of game shows, Fred Wostbrock and Steve Beverly. On the other hand, I've seen very few articles lately in The Washington Post that I thought knew what they were talking about. What has happened to that paper? I think they're the ones trying to cater to stupid people.

Speaking of blowing up hotels in Las Vegas: Here's the last six minutes of the Hacienda Hotel, which was imploded on New Year's Eve ten years ago. As I wrote about here, I was present for this event. If you look hard, you may be able to see me in the crowd. I'm the one standing next to the really drunk guy.

Just to remind you all: Turner Classic Movies is running the oft-discussed (on this website) and ultra-cynical Billy Wilder movie, Ace in the Hole this Saturday. I think it's on at Noon on the West Coast but you'd better look it up to make certain. It may be listed by its other name, The Big Carnival.

As you may recall, we made a fuss over this film in part because it's never had a real home video release in the United States. Several folks have now informed me though that a DVD is coming this summer from the folks at Criterion. So if you don't remember to set your TiVo, it may not matter.

Rolling Stone convenes a panel of Iraq War pessimists to discuss how bad things are there and how much worse they can get. I almost didn't link to this because it seemed too negative and gloomy…but I do think even the optimists need to brace themselves for the possibility of some "worst case" scenarios. This piece will give you several.

The last big building that comprised the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas was imploded very early this morning and I thought you might enjoy seeing that. Originally, the company behind it all told reporters that they weren't going to make a fuss; that they even preferred for safety reasons to not draw a huge audience for the event. Obviously, they changed their mind because they put on a huge fireworks show before making the shell of the hotel go bye-bye. It doesn't look like their fireworks display was as spectacular as the one I saw when the Hacienda Hotel was blown up but it looks pretty good.

It's charming in a way that they added the fireworks. I mean, why? It's not like you need that to attract interest when you're blowing up a building. And for what purpose? They don't have to drum up business for the Stardust, after all, and I fail to see how this will translate into any value to the new mega-resort they'll be opening on that parcel of land in a few years. They just did it to show off, which I think is great. It's Vegas, baby.

We have team coverage for you of the demolition. First, here's footage from a British newscast…

Then since that clip ends a little abruptly, here's the CBS News footage of the implosion…

I'm not going to miss the Stardust for reasons I explained here. Or at least, I thought I wasn't going to miss it. I kinda wish I'd gotten there one last time before they made it go away, not because it was a great hotel. It hadn't been that for decades. But it was fun to look at the coffee shop and imagine Frank and Dean and Peter Lawford sitting there, talking about stuff.

A message from the family of Richard Jeni.

My man, Fred Kaplan, on George W. Bush's obsession with other nations saying "thank you" to the United States.

This post is mainly for folks who live in Los Angeles but the rest of you can listen in.

One of the things I've learned to never discuss with friends is pizza. I have friends who wouldn't react if you told them their mother was a crack whore but if you disparaged their favorite pizza, it would be pistols at twenty paces. Actually, the possessive quality of one's pizza fave often goes in two stages, the first being the locale of the best pizza. Some stand ready to fight to the death should anyone suggest that the best pizza outside of New York is not inferior to the worst pizza in New York. I have learned not to tell these people about some of the real lousy slices I've had in Manhattan.

Others are the same way about Chicago, Boston or certain parts of New Jersey, and I even have a friend who stands ready to argue that there's no better pizza than one can find in Reno, Nevada.

Anyway, once you decide what city defines your ultimate pizza, you can get down to the second stage of the argument, which is where — outside of that town — someone makes a reasonable facsimile of it. In Los Angeles, I have heard people swear that the closest thing to "New York Pizza" is to be found at Mulberry Street Pizza (in Beverly Hills and Encino), at Frankie & Johnnie's (in Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood), at Damiano's (on Fairfax, across from Canter's), at Rocco's (in the Miracle Mile and on Vermont, across from L.A. City College) and at Johnnie's (many locations). I like all of these places and wouldn't argue for or against any of them.

Two or three years ago, there seemed to be a consensus winner among my acquaintances. That was Vito's Pizza, over on Vermont in the building that is now a Rocco's. I know people who'd drive clear across town, passing all those other places, to get pizza from Vito's…and I admit, it was pretty good. Many went into mourning when Vito and his brother closed down, reportedly moving back home to Chicago.

Well, they're back. I haven't been there yet but I received an ecstatic e-mail from one buddy that Vito has reopened on La Cienega Boulevard. He's in a strip mall somewhere between Melrose and Santa Monica Boulevard…and it's all so new that Directory Assistance doesn't even have a listing for them yet. This is exciting news, especially if it turns out that I'm in their delivery area, as I may well be. I'll give them a try just as soon as Creamy Tomato Soup Month is over at the Souplantation. That's all I'm eating until April 1. If anyone gets there before me, let me know if the new Vito's is as fine as the old Vito's.

Ever since Deal or No Deal debuted, I've been TiVoing the show and watching it with increasing speed. Thanks to my remote control, I now make it through an hour episode in about seven minutes. When I pause, I can see that the program has gotten a bit more condescending and a lot more repetitive. There have been many games that were simply not interesting because the contestant knocked out the big amounts near the beginning so the whole hour was to see if they'd go home with $10,000 or $20,000.

Last night, they had on a two-hour episode and I guess I should insert the SPOILER ALERT right about here in case you recorded it and haven't watched yet.

Still with me? Fine. Last night, they had the second half on a game from the previous episode plus two complete games. No one won huge amounts. All three players went home with amounts under $100,000 — but what was interesting was that two of them picked the case with the million dollars in it. One sold it for $99,000 and the other — who obviously got out way before the producers and audience were expecting him to — took $81,000.

Now, neither one of those folks were likely to take home the million. They play out the game after the deal is accepted and the last guy, the one who settled for $81 grand, would have reached the point where he had either $75,000 or the million and he had a bank offer of, I believe, $561,000. If someone got that far, they almost certainly would have grabbed the dough. I doubt anyone would go down to the last case unless their last two choices were both six figure amounts.

Still, it's fascinating that the million was picked in two of three consecutive games. I guess that's why I still TiVo the thing…to see those odd moments. This one was pretty odd.

You may not want to sit through this entire clip but it's kinda interesting in a way. In 1972, the Goodson-Todman game show company revived their old game show, The Price is Right, in a new, more energetic format. In addition to the daytime version hosted by Bob Barker, there was a syndicated nighttime version hosted by Dennis James, and this is a sales film for the syndicated version. It was sent to stations to try and get them to buy the show…which, at this point, apparently had not taped any episodes. One presumes that if they had done some, they would have included scenes. Instead, Mark Goodson and Dennis James have to sell the show by explaining what it is, how it works, etc. There is a clip but it's of James filling in for Monty Hall as the host of Let's Make a Deal.

This runs close to fifteen minutes and it's amazing that the show sold. It sounds complex and boring, whereas the TV show they were hawking was pretty simple and fast-paced. You have to wonder what they thought the station managers would think they were buying — the idea of pricing games? The charisma of Dennis James? It may have just been the past track record of Goodson-Todman but for some reason, Goodson doesn't itemize their many past hits. If I were running a TV station and they sent this to me, I think I'd have wondered why they were so sure they had a great show when they obviously hadn't done one episode yet. But it worked.

Having troubles with your computer? A lot of people recommend Iolo's System Mechanic to fix them.

Having no troubles with your computer? I recommend Iolo's System Mechanic to create some.

Seriously, I had one or two things wrong on each of my two main computers. I installed System Mechanic and suddenly had ten or fifteen things not functioning properly. I uninstalled it and now I'm back down to the one or two things wrong on each.

Moral of the story: Well, you can figure out what the moral of the story is — something about not believing that every piece of software out there will do what it's supposed to do on your computer…or even what it does on other folks' computers.

Over at the Sequential Tart website, Katherine Keller makes her case that the annual Comic-Con International in San Diego should become the annual Comic-Con International in Las Vegas. I don't think this is very likely. For thirty-some-odd years, there's been talk of the convention moving to another city but it's never really come from anyone who would actually be involved in making that happen.

In any case, Katherine concludes her essay by saying, "Based on these facts, name me one reason it should not be Las Vegas." Since I know Vegas pretty well, I'd like to give her a few, starting with the weather. The average July temperature in San Diego is 84 degrees and it's usually 5-10 degrees less around the ocean where the convention center is located. The average July temperature in Las Vegas is 106. How's that for one reason?

I would also question a lot of those facts or at least their relevance. Yes, McCarran Airport in Vegas can handle a lot more traffic than San Diego. It has to handle a lot more and it isn't doing that good a job of it. They've been adding new terminals and gates at a feverish rate and so far, they haven't been able to gain on the steadily-increasing visitor traffic. Deutsch Bank recently released a projection of tourist volume that does not seem to be available online except behind one subscription firewall…but trust me. They calculated the number of planned hotel rooms in Vegas (42,000 more in the next five years) and said that McCarran will fall even farther behind. In fact, the hotels have been counting on some (not all) of those problems being alleviated by a new $4 billion airport planned for Ivanpah Valley, which is thirty miles outside Las Vegas. But the most optimistic date for its completion is 2017.

If we're going to compare the two destinations in terms of how easy they are to get to, I think San Diego wins. Most San Diego attendees are coming from portions of California to the north. Many go by train and they can't get to Vegas that way since there's no train service to Las Vegas. There's also very little bus service. Most drive…and the drive to Vegas, at least from Southern California, is a mess these days with I-15 being intermittently closed or limited for construction. One of the appeals of Comic-Con is how many attendees come from Hollywood…and it takes twice as long to drive to Vegas from Los Angeles as it does to drive to San Diego from Los Angeles.

Ms. Keller touts the wonders of the Vegas monorail system as being able to deliver people easily to the convention center. Well, it is if you're near one of the seven places it stops. It's useless for most hotels in Vegas and it's even useless for the seven locations it serves when it's out of commission, which is a large percentage of the time. It may become totally useless if it closes, which it may do because it's losing a fortune.

Yes, Vegas has more convention center space. It's also vast, cold and impersonal. People complain about having to walk too much in San Diego. These are all people who've never attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. More space is not a good thing if it fragments the event to the point you never get from one area to another.

The C.E.S. is worth mentioning because it's the biggest convention in that city and at 150,000 attendees, it's as big as the Comic-Con will be in a few years if Comic-Con doesn't do something silly like move to Vegas. It's no easier or cheaper to get a hotel room in Vegas during C.E.S. than it is to get one in San Diego during Comic-Con. Just to give you an example, I went online and checked out the Riviera Hotel in Vegas, which is one of the crummier places one might stay there. During normal, non-convention times, a room at the Riv is $69 a night. For the dates of next January's C.E.S., which is not even on a weekend, they're already asking $269 a night. The Bellagio, which is a very nice hotel, is asking $499 a night and the cheapest room at the Venetian is $549. If it were a weekend, those rates would certainly be doubled. These prices should tell you something about demand and availability. During C.E.S., all the hotels either sell out months in advance or charge like that…or both.

And let's also note that the C.E.S. is in January. They're smart enough not to try to get people to go to Las Vegas in the Summer. When they used to have two Consumer Electronics Shows per year, they had the Winter one in Vegas and the Summer one in Chicago.

Lastly: The convention, when it's in San Diego, is almost the only game in town. Comic-Con would not be that big a deal in Las Vegas. No one convention is and the hotels in Vegas were not built to serve the convention center, whereas the main ones we stay at in San Diego were. The Comic-Con actually changed the face of convention-going in San Diego and is deemed important by the locals there. Vegas wouldn't care. We'd just be one of many conventions that week or that month, and the esteem in which we were held, and the "clout" of the convention organizers would have everything to do with how much money we spent while we were there. Somehow, I don't think comic book people would spend anywhere near as much as the people who attend the C.E.S. in Vegas, most of whom seem to be Sony and Panasonic execs on unlimited expense accounts. I also don't know what exhibitor space at a Vegas convention would cost but I'll bet it would be a lot more expensive than what Sergio Aragonés and Stan Sakai pay for their tables in San Diego.

So there's a whole bunch of reasons and I'll bet if I spent another twenty minutes on it, I'd come up with twenty more…and I say this as someone who likes Las Vegas, who goes there often. But I go there for totally different reasons than I go to the Comic-Con in San Diego. Vegas is designed to lure you to the showrooms and Blackjack tables when you're not at your convention. At Comic-Con, I don't want or need all that enticement. When we go to Comic-Con in San Diego, we're the show and we bring our own entertainment. Oh, and I just remembered a biggie: At Comic-Con, they don't expect you to go pay good money to see Wayne Newton or Carrot Top. There's two more reasons.

Still no sign of Disney releasing Song of the South on DVD. But over at the Disney Family Museum website, this page has a nice article about the film and some online video clips shot on the set. So if and when they do put the film out on DVD, there could be some great extras included.