September 2nd, 2010
With just a few weeks to go until the 2010/2011 US television season starts I thought I’d continue the proud tradition on this blog (can three years be considered a tradition?) of talking about what I’ll be watching over the next year or so.
Here’s last year’s television list for comparison.
What stays
- 30 Rock - Like I said last year.This is one of the few televisions shows that Ange and I watch together.
- Californication — Every time I watch this show I get the urge to become a crazy writer. They make it look so fun.
- Entourage - Last year I stated that Jeremy Piven’s Ari Gold was the only character people watched Entourage for. I still stand by that. He’s the only character who’s had any sort of growth.
- Robot Chicken — I haven’t seen this show for a while now. I wonder if they’re still making it.
- South Park — One of life’s guilty pleasures.
- Supernatural - The last season ended on such a high note that I worry how well this last season will pan out.
- The Daily Show - Since ABC2 started screening it at 7:15pm every weeknight I haven’t had to download this show. It’s what The 7PM Project is attempting to be. Irreverent, but still relevant. Love it.
- The Simpsons — All but rusted on now. I can’t not watch it. Though the last couple of seasons have been getting better, they’re still no season six.
- True Blood - There’s only one episode to go in the third season.
- Weeds - I don’t know why this wasn’t on earlier lists. I’ve only been watching it for the past five years or so.
Added in the off-season
- Doctor Who - I was never a fan of Doctor Who, but I started watching the new Matt Smith season on a lark and was completely hooked by the end of the first episode. The upcoming season has an episode written by Neil Gaiman. Can’t wait!
- The Big Bang Theory - This should have been on last year’s list. I churned through the first two series in about two weeks. It has it’s detractors, but I like it.
- Community - Easily one of the best shows on TV.
What’s new
- Blue Bloods — I might wait until the off-season and watch the first season of this show in one hit. I’m not dying to watch it and waiting frees up my download cap for other more useful things.
- Nikita - I caught an episode of the original Nikita TV series years back and didn’t mind it. I do like my action-y/spy stories.
- Undercovers - I’ve just about reached my limit of TV shows launched by JJ Abrams. If I don’t get into this one I’m swearing off his stuff for good.
- The Event — This could end up being another FlashForward. The marketing campaign has just been awful.
- No Ordinary Family — This could be terrible or it could be good. I’ll give it three or four episodes.
- Walking Dead — A TV adaptation of a zombie comics. How could I not be interested in it?
What goes
- Dollhouse - What a let down that second season ending was.
- FlashForward - A moderately interesting thriller only noticeable because it actually answered questions (*cough* Lost *cough*). Started to sag towards the end, but it’s cancelled now.
- V - After building up my hopes, the first episode was a total let down.
Tagged with: 2010, 2011, television | No Comments »
May 26th, 2010
With every man and his dog quitting Facebook in the next few days I thought I’d put down a few words on why I’m getting rid of my Facebook account.
I don’t use the site that much these days — which in itself is a good argument for deletion - so I probably don’t know all the various menus and/or settings that may solve my problems with Facebook. Having said that let’s push on.
The biggest problem I have with Facebook isn’t with their Content Ownership rules (if they exist); nor is it with their ever shifting Privacy Policy (even though one major change reset all my carefully chosen privacy settings). My biggest problem with Facebook is the lack of control.
While you’re free to “create” a lot of things on Facebook (content, photo albums, goddamn Farmville accounts and connections to corporate entities), it’s near impossible to take something back.
Installed applications aren’t required to delete information trawled from your account once you uninstall them, which I can chalk up to the tomfoolery of third party developers; more tellingly photos that are deleted by a user aren’t actually removed from the site. Yes, all just references to them are removed but the images themselves still exist deep within the fetid bowels of the Facebook network. If you have the direct URL you’ve got access to the image.
Just to reiterate, it’s not a privacy thing. I’m not deleting my account because my details were leaked or used for nefarious shenanigans. I’m happy to have reasonably identifiable information out there on the internet, but only if I have control over how and when it’s used.
I have no faith that Facebook will ever give me that control. That’s why, in two days from now , I’ll be deleting my account.
Tagged with: control, deleting, facebook, privacy | 5 Comments »
May 1st, 2010
Well, what can I say. Another Script Frenzy, another dismal failure.
While I may need prescription glasses to see, funnily enough I have perfect hindsight. I know exactly what I did wrong:
- Had only the barest idea of the plot,
- Had no idea who the characters were…
- …or their drivers,
- And didn’t write nearly regularly enough.
I’ve mentioned it before on the site, but actually starting to write is one of the hardest things for me to. Once I get going though it’s pretty hard to get me to stop.
So the plan for now is to write and write and write. I don’t know what I’ll write, but I need to keep the fires burning. That means throwing up a framework around my creative writing. I need to lock down my weekly output and what and where I need to improve. Hopefully with year’s practice I can come back to Script Frenzy and finish the damn thing.
Tagged with: 2010, script frenzy, writing | 1 Comment »
April 25th, 2010
I’d like to share a relevation I had towards the end of last week. It’s a fairly simple revelation, and now that I’ve had it I can’t believe it didn’t occur earlier. Somewhere closer to the start of the month. And here it is:
Write the interesting stuff first.
I did warn you of it’s simplicity.
See, my current method of scriptwriting involves plotting out a number of beats in my head, then writing down everything that happens in the lead up to each beat. In theory the beats become a rewards system. A long slog through mundane, leading conversations is rewarded with a few pages of white hot action! Of course, in reality what happens is that the promise of tearing into a juicey story beat things just isn’t enough to keep me from boring the shit out of myself and losing interest in writing.
I guess I just wanted to keep a sense of linear story progression. Without the bridges the story just becomes a series of vaguely connected story beats. Basically the script for Napoleon Dynamite.
With only 1 week to go until the end of Script Frenzy, I’m going to focus solely on those story beats I’ve got riding around in my head.
Oh and for those of you still keeping score. I wrote two more pages this week. Bringing the grand total to 10 pages.
Tagged with: 2010, script frenzy, writing | 2 Comments »
April 16th, 2010
I bet you’re thinking “With the poor showing last week he would’ve used this week to catch up or at least get close. ” The answer is no, no I didn’t. The total number of pages written this week was zero.
It’s not that I don’t want to write. I love writing. I like building tiny universes and populating them with semi-interesting people.
This is very similar to what happened with NaNoWriMo, except it happened far earlier. I was all set to write my amazing-but barely-thought-out screenplay, but then that devious black box of distraction just had to rear it controller-shaped head and insist I pay it some attention. And who was I to argue?
It’s a tad cliché, but coming home after a big day at work, there’s nothing better than sending a few digital hollow-points down the old telephone line. I’m just not in the right mindset for creating a stellar piece of writing at the moment.
That fact that I’m even a day late with the regular update is proof enough.
Tagged with: 2010, script frenzy, writing | No Comments »