Posts tagged as "television" - Chris Hardie

A few random thoughts on the Superbowl, quite belated in Internet Time: After the initial total failure of my cable-less schemes for watching the Superbowl online, and the subsequent grumbling trip to an alternate viewing venue, I enjoyed watching the game. I say "enjoy" as in, "it roused the part of me that enjoys the technical aspects of physical competition and spectacle," not enjoy as in, "I really appreciate the Superbowl and what it says about the state of humanity." And I couldn't help...

For over a year now, I've been living well without cable or broadcast television in my life.  I thought I would share some thoughts on how that transition has gone, and some pointers to tools and technologies you might be interested in if you're on a similar path. (Disclaimer: I'm not here to tell you how to live, but my general sense is that the world would be a better place if people didn't spend their time watching television.  Period.  That said, and the reality of TV watching as a cultural...

About five years ago, it was one of those deals where the cable company gave you a nine hour window in which they would have someone out there to do the installation, and you just sat around and hoped that they showed up at all. I was apparently favored by the cable installer gods that day because the guy showed up within the first hour of the window, AND he was in a really great mood. "Hey, how ya doin, ready to get this all set up for ya..." and so on. "This will be fun," I thought. "Hey,...

Until I watched the PBS Frontline documentary On Our Watch, I had only a very general awareness of what people meant when they talked about the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. It is sobering and sad to know that that even with all of the news and pseudo-news I follow and the "think globally" circles I travel in, it's still possible to not really know the details of a genocide that has gone on since 2003, killing over 200,000 people and forcing the relocation or outright flight of another...

This is an ad for a really great Frontline episode called "The Persauders" - a thoughtful and thorough journalistic look at the world of advertising and how it affects us at all levels. It covered a wide variety of perspectives, from advertising executives to media experts to sociologists to counter-cultural ad-busters. Quote from interviewee Mark Crispin Miller: "Once a culture becomes entirely advertising friendly, it ceases to be a culture at all." There's an interesting segment about how one firm...

I enjoyed attending the premier party tonight at WCTV, Richmond's local public access cable television station. As I've encountered the station over the years I've come to appreciate that it's another amazing (but underutilized and oft-overlooked) resource that sets Richmond and Wayne County apart. Three stations with a diverse lineup that ranges from government meetings to church services, free-form poetry to public health info - high-quality production studios, a highly professional and knowledgeable...

For the last several weeks I have been participating in a broad stroke study of law enforcement practices on city streets across America. I have done ride-alongs with police officers from coast to coast - Portland, Oregon to Austin, Texas to Cincinnati, Ohio to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These ride-alongs are usually in the form of 22 minute segments during which I am transported to the ride-along locations using a technology called "Court Television." As the ride-alongs start to blur together...

It excites me much more than it should that I've found him after all these years: Ashton Smith. You know, the guy. The guy with the voice. The guy with the voice that narrates over almost every movie trailer, commercial, television show promo, and network news teaser that we see/hear. I didn't think it was possible that it was all the same guy, but it is. Ashton instills solemnity and foreboding into every word he speaks. And yet, he has the tender inflection that can make us rush out to spend...

Mark Burnett's checklist for Season Two of "The Apprentice" (yes, I watch that crap, leave me alone): Elevate Donald Trump to the status of demigod through not-so-subtle use of regal music and flattering camera angles. Check. Exploit women for profit while using Carolyn's "strong character" to take the moral high ground. Check. Breaking the stated rules of the game, fire someone who isn't technically allowed to be fired that week. Check. Breaking the stated rules of the game, prematurely...

Okay, I'm not usually one to gripe, or even talk about, the horrors of keeping up with all my favorite TV shows and movies. But last night was just not fair. UPN was showing two episodes of Star Trek Enterprise (one of the two TV shows I watch), one at 8 and one at 9. The 9 o'clock showing overlapped with the season finale of The West Wing (the second of the two TV shows I watch), which overlapped with my travel and prep-time for the 10 o'clock theater showing of The Matrix Reloaded (one of the few movies...