Year in Review, Part 1

I should be back tommorow with gay little end of the year awards, but today I figure I’d go back in time and compile my personal bests of the year. Of course, I already kind of did this when I selectively imported certain posts from the Herald this summer, but hey, I love talking about myself, so there you go.

Azumanga Daioh First Impressions: I ended up really, really enjoying this show. Even though it was filled with typical anime silliness that I usually can’t stand, it was a tremendously likeable show with great characters who worked well off eachother. Stay away from the dub, though.

Who to Root For in Super Bowl XL: My attempt to tell you how to think. I wish I was right.

Legend of Zelda: Windwaker Review: I’m really digging Twilight Princess, and I’m pretty sure it’s the better game, but the dark atmosphere of it really made me appreciate the character and charm of Windwaker.

Crashing through Subway Windows: The sole reason for that silly tag on the right, and also the only real cool thing to happen all year.

Birth of a Nation: Okay, bad title. Sorry. But this was the first post of the new site. I timed it with my 1000th post on the Mega64ums, hoping to suddenly get a rash of publicitity… somehow. And, well, I’m averaging about 2 hits a day, usually from people who are searching for “dirty fucking” and “racist nigger toons”.

What went wrong with the Red Sox: This column was titled “My life is over”, which was a pretty stupid title, since it was a relatively positive, hopeful column, not nearly as doom and gloom as the title implies. So anyway, I sent this to Deadspin and it promptly got more than a thousand hits in a span of 24 hours. I’m pretty sure not nearly as many people actually read it, since it was ridiculously long and scared everyone off. But yeah, this made me think I was hot shit for a few days. Then my readership just fell off the table. My life is over.

Kurt Angle is Fired: And he never comes back to television ever again. Ever.

Grim Fandango Review: I still love this game. And among my many aspirations to eventually get done, a stage adaptation of this game is definitely one of them.

Star Fox Command Review: So apparently, I’m the only person in the world who really, really liked this game. Whatevs.

Fixing the Red Sox: They signed Lugo. And they went after Matsuzaka. But they didn’t get a closer and they’re madly in love with JD Drew. But this was an advice column, not a prediction. Although, hey, I suck at both, so whatever.

Discovering Kaiju Big Battel: From what I can tell, they haven’t done a live event since this. But I’ll be there when they do something. Whenever that is.

Waiting for Yoshi’s Island 2: And it ended up being just what I hoped for. Awesome.

The Next Console Generation: Long, rambling, and possibly very, very correct, if the backlash against the PS3 continues. That’s a first.

TNT, November 22nd: My first thoughts on the Wii and my opinion of Grandma’s Boy, still the most infuriating film I’ve ever seen.

Journalism Homework: I figured I’d use a piece from my journalism class for a post, since in my next course, I’ll probably use a post from this site as homework.

I probably wrote better things somewhere, but that was just a quick scan of the largest non-gambling things I wrote. See you tommorow. Maybe.

Hay…

My banner is missing… I think. I’ll be back later tonight with a self-glorifying review of the past year of 140.85. Make sure you check that out; it’s a rare opportunity to read things you’ve already read.

I missed the Saturday game. So once again, I’m gonna just give myself the loss.

CINCINNATI (-6) over Pittsburgh
DALLAS (-12.5) over Detroit
Cleveland (+6) over HOUSTON
Jacksonville (+2.5) over KANSAS CITY
St. Louis (-1.5) over MINNESOTA
NEW ORLEANS (-2) over Carolina
NY JETS (-11.5) over Oakland
Seattle (+3) over TAMPA BAY
TENNESSEE (-3) over New England
Buffalo (+9.5) over BALTIMORE
Miami (+9) over Indianapolis
Atlanta (+8) over PHILADELPHIA
San Francisco (+10) over DENVER
Arizona (+14) over SAN DIEGO
CHICAGO (-3) over Green Bay

…So learn to love it, cause it’s the best thing goin’. WHOOOO!!!

ST. LOUIS (-2) over Washington
Chicago (-4.5) over DETROIT
New Orleans (+3) over NY GIANTS
Baltimore (+3) over PITTSBURGH
New England (+2.5) over JACKSONVILLE
Indianapolis (-9) over HOUSTON
ATLANTA (-6) over Carolina
Tennessee (+4.5) over BUFFALO
CLEVELAND (-3) over Tampa Bay
SAN FRANCISCO (-4) over Arizona
San Diego (-4.5) over SEATTLE
Cincinnati (+3) over Denver
DALLAS (-7) over Philadelphia
MIAMI (-2.5) over NY Jets

…And it’ll be like this for the next month…

OAKLAND (+6.5) over Kansas City

So we’re doing this one sentence every week thing…

Minnesota (+3.5) over GREEN BAY

Look what Billy made in class today!

I’m in a journalism class, and I just handed in my final article this morning. I had a 625 word limit, which I went well over, and still after cutting some great lines from Jon Glaser and Rab Florence (and not even being able to use the quote I got from Jon Benjamin), it still ended up quite long. But I figure I’d post it here anyway, just so people can know how cool I am that Jon Glaser and Rab Florence responded to my emails. And Jon Benjamin.

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Sites like YouTube and Google Video have made finding videos on the internet easier than ever, but not every video is a ten-second clip of someone getting hit in the groin with a tennis ball. While some aspiring filmmakers have tried using the internet to spread their films across the world, many folks have taken to making TV shows on the web. And while plenty of them gain devoted fanbases, is Hollywood paying any attention? Many of these shows are just started up by people with a lot of ambition and some good ideas. But what about the folks who are aiming for television?

Jon Glaser is a New York comedian and actor. His credits include appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and the recent Billy Bob Thornton film School for Scoundrels, as well as voice acting roles on cartoons like Stroker & Hoop and Freak Show, to name just a few. Glaser and his colleague, actor Jon Benjamin, have pitched pilot after pilot to networks but rarely taste success. “Benjamin and I sold a pilot to Comedy Central a couple years ago” Glaser says, “we wrote a great script, they said they liked it a lot, and then passed on making the actual pilot.”

He’s not alone. Before being hired for the late shift, Conan O’Brien pitched a pilot and got it filmed, but never got it to air. Ben Stiller hoped to parlay his film success into a comedy series of his own, a Six Million Dollar Man/Knight Rider mashup called “Heat Vision and Jack” starring Jack Black and Owen Wilson, both relatively unknown at the time, but never got his pilot aired either. Because shows like Emily’s Reasons Why Not and Skin are promoted to high heaven before being cancelled after only a few episodes, the pilot process is an inexact science to say the least.

Instead, some media outlets are now choosing to jump into the internet pool, sanctioning online-only versions of their shows like Dr. Who, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars and soon, The Office. Not surprisingly, most of these shows also cater to the less-conventional television audience. But while TV networks are happy to put their properties on the web, they don’t seem as willing to put web properties on TV.

Robert Florence and Ryan MacCleod are the creators of Consolevania, a Scottish video games review show that many call a pioneer for video games television. Florence, a Glasgow native who had previously written for a few BBC comedies, reached his biggest success when the BBC asked him to create video game review show to be broadcast on the network. Despite less-than-desirable limitations (the show was limited to six 15-minute episodes on late Sunday nights), the BBC and the viewers liked their product VideoGaiden enough to commission a second series a year later, this time getting a full half hour.

Are networks finally catching on to some of the internet’s success stories? Florence isn’t quite sure. “I’d say that the BBC is definitely wanting to appear more web-literate, but the jury’s out on whether or not they’ll be paying anything more than lip service to the ‘internet broadcasting’ movement.” Florence also isn’t necessarily sure he got the job because of the success of Consolevania. Instead, he thinks that the BBC was more apt to trust him based on his previous sitcom work, although Consolevania certainly piqued their interest.

So can the internet be a tool for networks to scout future talent, or are they only interested in spreading their reach over their audience? “I have been approached numerous times about on-line only shows and projects,” Glaser says. “The money wasn’t anything like doing a TV show, but at least I got to pay people a little something for their time as opposed to just doing it for fun and putting it on the internet.” But what about broadcast television? If aspiring actors’ ideas are rejected, should they just give up or should they pitch it to every network not named HGTV? “You can either pitch it elsewhere, shelve it, or move on to the next idea. And HGTV is starting to do a lot of interesting comedies, so you might want to take back the slam.”

Also…

Denver (-3) over ARIZONA
St. Louis (+2.5) over OAKLAND
Philadelphia (+5.5) over NY GIANTS
Kansas City (+7.5) over SAN DIEGO
Cincinnati (+3) over INDIANAPOLIS

Aaannd…

It’s 6:40 AM and I have to get to bed. So here’s the early games. I’ll get the 4 PM games later. At least I’m technically posting more often now.

NY Jets (+3.5) over MINNESOTA
NEW ENGLAND (-11) over Houston
NEW ORLEANS (-10) over Dallas
CAROLINA (+3) over Pittsburgh
BALTIMORE (-12.5) over Cleveland
Miami (+1) over BUFFALO
CHICAGO (-13.5) over Tampa Bay
GREEN BAY (-5.5) over Detroit
TENNESSEE (+3.5) over Jacksonville

One more…

I’ve decided to just give myself the loss for thursday game. As for tonight,

Dallas (-4.5) over ATLANTA

Uhhh

Oops. Forgot about tonight’s game. Oh well. In a week or two, I expect to have a huge-ass review of Twilight Princess and hopefully a column about Iverson relatively soon.