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Sunday, Aug 15, 2004
free tirade
prescient
Saturday, Aug 14, 2004
opinionadir
Then, one by one, the producers pitch ideas, tossing them out like clay pigeons that O'Reilly shoots out of the air.
"C'mon, people," he says.
A female producer suggests a segment on the Palestinians, who it seems are -
"I'm asleep, Stephanie," O'Reilly interrupts. He looks around the circle. "Give me something I can put on the air, please."
A producer tosses out an idea about a doctor who recommends giving pot to kids with attention-deficit disorder. O'Reilly's eyebrows lift into two sharp points.
"Can we get the doc?" he snaps.
Friday, Aug 13, 2004
defenseless position
"How is it that civilians in a hijacked plane were able to communicate with their loved ones, grasp a totally new kind of enemy and weaponry and act to defend the nation's Capitol, yet the president had "communication problems" on Air Force One and the nation's defense chief didn't know what was going on until the horror was all over?"
Thursday, Aug 12, 2004
ship to shore
just saw chris matthews give anti-kerry swiftboater john o'neill "the business." as usual for his show, nothing was learned, but im glad to see matthews shortsighted bluster reserved for someone i dont like. even the dimwitted matthews understood that enlisting to fight trumps awol from the national guard. good thing matthews feels a double dose of shame as he himself avoided the war. he made this clear at the end of the show when he repeatedly made reference to the fact that kerry had done more for his country than either he or bush had. hopefully that bit of conventional wisdom will remain part of the larger narrative.
Sunday, Aug 08, 2004
triumph of the shrill
"Comedy writer Robert Smigel has built a formidable career out of childhood fixtures such as silly voices, animals, cartoons, and puppets. He received his big break in the mid-'80s, when Lorne Michaels hired him as a writer for Saturday Night Live; Smigel went on to write such classic skits as the one in which William Shatner admonishes a crowd of Star Trek fans to get a life. In 1991, Smigel hooked up with fellow SNL writer Conan O'Brien to write Lookwell, a revered pilot starring Adam West as a clueless, washed-up TV star turned detective. The show wasn't picked up for production, but Smigel later become one of the primary creative voices behind Late Night With Conan O'Brien."
Saturday, Aug 07, 2004
money honies
"Before Moneyball, the mainstream more or less ignored sabermetrics. Those who brought up statistics were dismissed as roto-geeks; the game couldn't be boiled down to numbers, and if these losers would get their heads out of their spreadsheets and actually watch a game, they'd know that.
But now, as Moneyball showed everyone, they're on the inside, taking over some of the game's most prominent franchises, and what's more, they've been successful. Sabermetrics no longer belongs to fringe outsiders, it's part of the game. Sabermetric teams are still a minority, but it is firmly entrenched, and likely to spread."
Sunday, Aug 01, 2004
pass it on
"TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It's asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature -- the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people."
tvelopment
"That's because "Arrested Development" is trying to reinvent the rules of the half-hour comedy. The show trades the laugh track, multiple cameras and over-lighted stage sets that have characterized sitcoms from "I Love Lucy" to "King of Queens" for the hand-held single camera, natural light, heavily scored soundtrack and voice-over narration of a pseudo-documentary like "The Real World." It's very much a post-reality-show sitcom, capitalizing on the influence of the fledgling genre and translating its conventions into a new kind of comedy — broadly drawn but presented utterly deadpan."
Saturday, Jul 31, 2004
wrysible
"Write it yourself!"
Friday, Jul 30, 2004
club key
"The New York Yankees baseball club will announce soon that it plans to build a new ballpark across the street from the current Yankee stadium, which would be torn down, according to Crain's New York Web site.
Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr., tells NewsChannel 4 the deal is not yet 100 percent complete on City Hall's end of things, but that he expects an announcement in mid-August.
A spokesman for Mayor Mike Bloomberg reassured taxpayers Thursday that they won't be paying for the new stadium, saying it will have to be built completely with private money. And if there is accompanying city investment in infrastructure, it would have to pay for itself so "it wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime.""