When a Vampire Offers You Soup Edition

Todays links of interest:

• Comcast to Slow Some Web Traffic for Up to 20 Minutes
  Here’s an idea, if Comcast doesn’t like the way consumers use the Internet maybe they should get out of the business altogether and stick with what they know — providing crappy customer service to cable subscribers.
• Rachel Maddow to Replace Dan Abrams on MSNBC
  Yay! We like Rachel Maddow.
• ‘Home’ Closing at Hachette Filipacchi
  That’s what happens when the remodel finishes. Remodel ‘loper stops buying so many house magazines!

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No One Dies Doing This Edition

Todays links of interest:

• Bigfoot Hoax Called A ‘Scheme To Defraud’
  I’m so hoping this whole thing turns out to be a viral campaign for a new mockumentary.
• Apple Is Flailing Badly At The Edges
  When someone who has purchased over a dozen Apple products in the past few years is saying this, it might be time to pay attention.
• ‘It’s not my fault - the dog ate my lyric sheet!’
  When musicians release bad albums…

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When we talk about “convergence” here at Loper HQ, what we aren’t talking about is getting our internet, cable and phone from the same evil multinational corporation.

Instead, we mean devices that combine several formerly disparate functions into a single, easy-to-use interface. Like, of course, the iPhone, which Tim Gaskill declared this weekend to be the greatest thing ever made.

While the iPhone is most certainly a major step in portable convergence, there hasn’t yet been a device in the home video space that allows me to watch a combination of internet video and recorded TV with a single, easy-to-use interface.

You know, the One Box.

One Box to rule them all
One Box to find them
One Box to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them

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1/100th of a Second Edition

Todays links of interest:

• MST3K crew appears during the Summer Olympics broadcast?
  If this isn’t real, it should be. And if it IS real, it’s the best thing ever.
• The Hold Steady, Drive-By Truckers team for fall trek
  Awesome awesome awesome.
• AC/DC to Sell New Album Only Through Wal-Mart
  AC/DC is still around? Seriously?!

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Sheer Elegance in Its Simplicity Edition

Todays links of interest:

• Georgia men claim hairy, frozen corpse is Bigfoot
  Haven’t really been paying much attention because of the Olympics; is this why Russia invaded?
• "Bigfoot" fails DNA test
  Well, if you call proving that Bigfoot is actually 96% opossum a failure, then I guess this is bad news. The headline should read "Bigfoot May Have Prehensile Tail!"
• The couple who lived in a mall
  For four years. And Kirk & Kassia wanted out of their mall apartment after only a few days!

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Another Friday, another list! This one is is inspired by the “Favorite Album for Each Year I’ve Been Alive” list.

Essentially, it’s a list of best TV show debuts for every year I’ve been alive.

When researching — Wikipedia, naturally — I determined that the absolute nadir of American television was the 1980s, which is no surprise to anybody who lived through it. On the other hand, there is no doubt that we entered a golden age in 1999, which lasted until the great HBO shows all ended.

Also, there tends to be a pattern where one year has a bunch of fantastic debuts, followed by a couple of down years. Which is why a lot of the greatest shows ever aren’t on this list: they had the misfortune to debut the same year as an even better show (too bad, West Wing! tough luck, Veronica Mars!). The opposite held true: especially in the 1980s, I had to do some stretching to find anything halfway decent.

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Code 86 Edition

Todays links of interest:

• A clown car on a BART train
  You know what? If I walked into a BART train that was full of clowns, I’d turn around and get right back off!! Shivering.
• Longs was the last regional chain drugstore
  Wow, we used to shop at the Longs on Piedmont in Oakland all of the time . . .
• Netflix suffers biggest outage ever
  Whew! Luckily for us, it happened after we got our shipment of the third disc of the first season of "WKRP in Cincinnati." However, we’re almost finished with it, so we hope that Netflix resolves this problem before it’s time to get the first disc of "Spaced."

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Won’t You Lie On The Grass And Hold Your Ear to The Ground Edition

Todays links of interest:

• Microsoft gets a ‘Blue Screen of Death’ medal in Beijing
  Even the Chinese government can’t make the Blue Screen of Death disappear.
• Social Networking Sees Worldwide Growth
  It’s the Social Networking Effect in action.
• Why Does Aaron Sorkin Feel So Guilty?
  Because he knows that he totally blew it with the shoulda-been-great "Studio 60." While there was a lot of hate around here for that show, we’re still looking forward to whatever TV he does next.

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Won’t You Take The Time to Listen to Evening’s Faint Sound Edition

Todays links of interest:

• Microsoft in Flickr rights shockr
  Looks like someone at Microsoft needs a lesson on copyright law.
• Ad Skipping? Just Wait. It’s Going to Get Worse
  Or, as we ask advertisers, what have you done for me lately?
• F.B.I.?s Use of Phone Records Shows Need to Protect the Press, Senators Say
  Of course, they forget about protecting the general public, but hey,we’re only the voters!

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So this morning, I dialed up the Twitter, and saw that @TechCrunch had tweeted that he had discovered that Twitter users could now follow CERN, the European Organization of Nuclear Research.

Apparently CERN is going to use Twitter to send out updates about the progress of Large Hadron Collider, the gynormous particle accelerator which lies underground near the border of Switzerland & France. On September 10, they’re going to fire that sucker up and it will give Mankind the Final Key to How It All Began and a Glimpse of the Face of God.

Either that, or suck the entire Earth into an ever-expanding Black Hole that will eventually be the end of existence.

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