Open letter to television producers

Dear sirs and madams

I would like to thank you for years of quality programming, especially in the game show/reality TV genre. I have spent many years watching people try to phrase their response in the form of a question and spin again one more time for big money. I've enjoyed watching half-dressed, half-starved cast-aways screwing each other over. I have watched people buy countless vowels, and lose all their money, but not their merchandise, because once they bought a prize, it was there's to keep. I've seen stars that could dance, stars that could skate and even a few who could box. I've spent hours cheering for hyper-active seniors coming closest to the retail price without going over. I've watched pretty girls who wanted to kill each other pose for pictures, sing songs, and shake their booty. I've seen grown men act like children and beat the hell out of each other. I've seen people race, marry, fall in love, and fall out of love. I've seen people who weren't smarter than a fifth grader, people who didn't know the lyrics, and people who couldn't tell the truth. And there was that strange little man who tried to sing about the girl who bangs. I've enjoyed all of these very much, but I have to say that things are starting to get a bit repetitive. I'd like to watch something new, something clever, something that might make us think a bit.
Continue reading.

There is a genre of flash games you can find on the internet. I like to call them escape the room games. I'm sure you've seen them, There's the Crimson Room, the White Chamber and countless others. They are the grand children of the early text adventures that so many of us loved back in the early days of home computers. I would spend hours wandering the twisty passages of the great underground empire, searching for treasure or trying to defeat the wizard. It was great fun.

This leads me to the purpose of the letter. I would like to see this medium turned into a game show and put on TV. Hell I'd probably even want to be a contestant. Find people who want to play, and lock them in a room, or maybe even a castle. Maybe they can be on teams. I don't know. Fill the place with clever locks and hidden passages, and give the first person to solve them all a million dollars. I'm sure you could make a whole season out of it, and I know I'd tune in every week.

I'm not sure but I think something like this has already been done in England or someplace, and since we've been importing the bulk of our game shows from them for the past 10 years, this shouldn't be too hard to convert and bring over. If not, I'm sure there's many clever puzzle makers out there that would love to help you bring such a production to the viewing eyes of millions of consumers just looking for the best places to spend their hard earned money.

I want to thank you for taking the time to read this. Feel free to use any of my ideas without credit or compensation.

Thanks.


P.S. If this doesn't work out. Japan has tons of great ideas for game shows. There's nothing better than watching people hurting themselves for the chance to be on TV!

National Geograpic: Quit being part of the problem!

I love science shows. I watch them all the time. When I'm looking for something on tv the first place I go is the Discover Channel, followed by the Science Channel, The History Channel and National Geographic. I've relied on such channels to provide me with high quality educational shows for many many years, and I have to say that much of what I know about science is based on these shows. So last night while I was watching "Naked Science: Pluto Rediscovered" on National Geographic, I was appalled at the glaring errors and simply unscientific statements that were made in the show. Especially considering some of the high quality scientists that were featured.

Continue reading.
The show started off with a history of Pluto, how it was discovered, and how it was named. They said that it was named after the Greek god of the underworld. It wasn't. The planets are named after Roman Gods. Pluto is the Roman God of the underworld. Hades is the Greek. It's minor, I know, one may say nit-picky. However this is a siteable source. It featured many respected astronomers. I think it has a responsibility to it's audience, and to the scientific community to make sure what it is saying is true. However, if that was the only gaffe, I probably would have let it go.

Later it started talking about the New Horizon probe, a space craft that we are sending to Pluto and the Kuiper belt. We currently don't have a way to get a space craft to go fast enough to reach Pluto, at least not on it's own power. So to generate enough speed to make it to the outer solar system, we use the enormous gravity of Jupiter to give us a little push. While we were there, New Horizons took some stunning photos of Jupiter and some of it's moons. This is where the second gaffe took place. The show claimed that New Horizon took a photo of Jupiter's largest moon IO. The only problem is that IO isn't the largest moon. In fact it's the third largest moon of Jupiter. I'm not an astronomer by trade. I'm not a producer who makes science shows, nor am I a screen writer who writes narration for science shows. The fact that I know this, and I recognized the error on the first viewing, while feeding a fussy 6 week old baby and no one else who had the power to correct this in the months it took to produce this program caught it, is shocking to say the least.

This however wasn't the worst of it. Science in this country is under attack more than ever before. Not since the Pope locked up Galileo for his audacious claims that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe, has there been such an organized and concerted attempt to undermine the teaching of basic scientific principles. Lead with the call of "it's just a theory." No words make me gnash my teeth more than those. However here, in a show made by scientists, and produced for the purpose of teaching science, did they make such a statement. Granted not like the others do, but possibly much much worse. Let me explain.

Kenneth Edgeworth was a good scientist. He followed the scientific method precisely.

[he] hypothesised that, in the region beyond Neptune, the material within the primordial solar nebula was too widely spaced to condense into planets, and so rather condensed into a myriad of smaller bodies. From this he concluded that “the outer region of the solar system, beyond the orbits of the planets, is occupied by a very large number of comparatively small bodies.
-- wikipedia

He observed, he formed a hypothesis that made a specific prediction. However, it wasn't until 1992 that one of these bodies was actually observed. 6 months later, they found another one which confirmed the existence of the Kuiper Belt. It was at this point that Edgeworth's (and others) hypothesis became a theory. It can't be a theory until it has been backed up with experimental (or in this case observational) results.

However when Naked Science explained this, they said, (and I'd quote if I could remember it exactly) until 1992, there was nothing to back this up, it was just a theory. Now you may think this is all much ado about nothing. But lets look at this in today's context. We have people who are going around claiming that evolution is just a theory and in fact it is a theory, it's a very good one. It made many specific predictions, many of which have come to be proven true. Natural Selection predates genetics, it predates DNA, it even predates most of archeology, Yet it predicted all of them. Every day we are discovering more facts to add to the mountains of facts that confirm the theory of natural selection, and we have yet to find one that contradicts it. If we did, we would change it, or discard it to fit with our observations. That is science! By referring to Edgeworth's hypothesis as "just a theory," or even calling it a theory at all, while at the same time pointing out that it had no factual evidence to back it up, puts it, in the uneducated viewers mind, on the same level of natural selection, and simply feeds the fire of ignorance that is threatening to push us back into the dark ages.

I think we should expect more from our science based broadcasters. I hope they and the many fine scientists who were featured in the program, read this and speak out.

My plan to make the world a better place.

A new study performed by a team of researchers at the University of British Columbia has showed that spending money on other people makes you happier. So in light of this, I want to do my part to make everyone happier. I invite all of you to send me money and/or gifts. I will make it my burden to accept your money and gifts, in order to bring you happiness. I know what your thinking, how can any one person be so selfless. Well it's not easy I assure you. But if my sacrifice can make the world a better place, then I am willing to make it. To further my good deeds, I promise to also help stimulate the economy. I will take all the money I receive, and immediately inject it back into the economy. Mostly by taking it to high end electronic stores, and exchanging it for goods and services. I don't ask for anything else in return. You don't need to give me a medal or name a bridge after me or anything. It's really the least that I can do for the betterment of mankind.

more at LiveScience.com


I think Better has the same idea.

Headlines

CHENEY: Iran May Have Resumed Weapon Program...

They also may at this very moment have millions of Muslim Ninjas (musjas?) swimming over the atlantic with bags full of stones to stone us all for our evil ways.

but then again, maybe not...

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Hillary Was in White House on 'Stained Blue Dress' Day...

Is this a new holiday now? I think Hallmark has really went too far this time. Then again, on second thought. I kind of like the idea. I think I need to buy my wife a blue dress.

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Animal lovers turn their dead pets' coats into warm jumpers!

Oh Sure, but they sure got pissed when Cruella DeVille wanted to make herself a nice coat.

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UN-SEX AND THE PITY: Sarah Jessica Parker reveals heartache at being named 'world's unsexiest woman'...

I demand a recount!

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Key Dem Weighs Bush Impeachment -- After Election...

Because really, an empty meaningless gesture is much better than fixing that little problem with Social Security.

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Michigan 'Do-over is dead'...

Kick ball will never be the same.

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Obama belittles McCain for confusing extremists...

I mean really, aren't they confused enough?

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Sharpton: 'Hillary Clinton has never done nothing for us'...

OK, maybe she has a point about that education problem.

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DRAMA: NY Gov. admits bedding women, jealousy over wife's affair...

Finally, a politician who admits to something!

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The Final Odyssey.

I'm sure everyone is doing their own tribute to Aurthur C. Clark today. For those of you who haven't heard yet, He passed away last night. I'd like to share with you stories of how Clark inspired me or helped to make me the man I am today, but I really can't. I read the entire 2000 series. I liked it. I saw parts of 2001 and all of 2010. I liked them too. But that's about it. I think the man was an amazing human being, and I'm sure the world will miss him, but to be quite honest with you, upon hearing of his death, I was more surprised that he was still alive, well up to the point that he wasn't. I even kind of knew better, I think I saw him in a documentary just a few years ago. But like most great figures who don't die early, Aurthur C. Clark died many years ago when he retired from public life, at least to those who weren't lucky enough to know him personally.

I guess that's a sign that you've lived a long and full life, if people are more surprised to hear that you didn't die many years ago than they are that you died yesterday. So to Aurthur, I wish you good luck on your final odyssey. You have been and will continue to be missed.

Tiny Vader finds your lack of faith disturbing.

A question about names

I need a little help here. There's something I just don't understand. My name is Matthew. My parents called me Matt. My teachers called me Matt, except for my kindergarten teacher who called me Matthews, but that's a much longer story. When I write my name, I write Matthew. Yet people still call me Matt. I wrote Matthew on my job application, yet somehow, the name placard on my cube says Matt. I'm not complaining mind you, Matt is a fine name. It's a little funny when it's written next to Burns (think wrestling, trust me, it's hilarious) but over all I'm happy with it. What I don't understand is this. If my parents were going to call me Matt, why didn't they just name me Matt?

My wife's name is Ginny. We call her Ginny. On her birth certificate, it says Ginny. Not Ginevra, Virginia, Ginevra, Geneva or Genevieve, Just Ginny. My son's name is Garrick. We call him Garrick. My other son's name is Riley, we call him Riley, (sometimes I call him butt head but mostly it's Riley.) I have a friend from college, his name was Bobby, ok, we called him Bob, but his momma called him Bobby. And then there's Jimmy Carter. His name isn't James, it really is Jimmy.

So my question is this, Why do parents name their children something that they have no intention of calling them? (except when they're in trouble but middle names work nicely for that as well) I'm not criticizing, I really don't understand. Can anyone help me out?

5 Reasons why I'm a bigger geek than you.

1. I find this site, amazingly funny.

2. I sent this site to several of my friends.

3. I know why this is funny.

I CAN HAZ HD-DVD NOW?

455FE10422CA29C4933F95052B792AB2

KTHXBYE

4. I think it's very funny.

5. I'm blogging about it.

Happy Pi Day!

Hello all. It's Pi day. What is Pi day you ask? (like any of you who are actually reading this don't know) Pi is the ratio between the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter. It's an Irrational number which means it goes on forever and never stops and never repeats. It's approximately 3.1415926. So today, 3-14, is Pi day. At 1:59 today (well really this morning, but who was up then?) you should think about math or something.

Rome is Burning.

I was watching something on The History Channel or Discovery or something. It was talking about political dynasties. I think specifically it was talking about Nero, but the key point I took away from it is that by the time you get to the third level, everything goes to hell. I remembered specifically that it was Julius, Augustus and Nero. Though after doing some research I see that there's a few other levels between Julius and Nero. Actually the Dynasty starts with Augustus and ends with Nero, though Caligula is third on the list, and well frankly that fits in just fine too. I thought they had other examples as well, though I don't recall them off the top of my head.

The point is, we seem to be at the tail end of another political dynasty. We've had Senator Prescott Bush, who according to some had Nazi ties and was part of a conspiracy to overthrow FDR. Then George Herbert Walker Bush, who I think did a pretty decent job as Vice President, President, and muse to Dana Carvey. And now, we have Dubya, who based on many recent comments I'm pretty sure is completely insane and totally out of touch with reality.

This of course is really why we are taught history in High School. At least in theory. It's been often said that those who ignore history are destined to repeat it. If Americans were better educated, then they would have known that the third generation of any dynasty is totally insane and not fit to rule. He never would have gotten elected as the Governor of Texas and McCain would have won the Nomination in 2000. I can't say how this would have played out in the general election. Though Gore was only a second generation politician, so in hindsight, he may have been better. But in the end it doesn't matter. We as Americans ignored history, and we've sent Nero to the White House. The country is falling apart around us, but at least we have some music to listen to as we sink into the night.

Just for the record, I'm not just another liberal bashing Bush. In fact I'm not a liberal in any sense of the word, except that I like Science. I thought going into Iraq was a good thing. Not because I thought Saddam had the bomb, or because he was crazy and dangerous(though I was a bit worried about Qusay,) or because I thought he had anything to do with 9/11. (In fact I think Al Queada was looking to over throw him as well.) I just thought it was the right thing to do. The Western world has been screwing over the Middle East for years. The whole reason Saddam was in power is because of Western meddling. I supported Bush for a long time, but I can't just sit back and ignore what's plain to see. I just hope we as a country can survive the next year, and that Bush doesn't dig us into a hole that we can't get out of. That is if he hasn't already.

Evolution

When I was a kid, I was lazy and disruptive. I spoke out in class, I didn't do my homework. I would stare off into space or out the window. Obviously I had some kind of attitude problem that could be punished out of me, that is if I weren't so stubborn. But I showed them! I stayed lazy my whole life and dropped out of college several years later. I guess we see who had the last laugh!

Many years after college, I found a book called "You Mean I'm not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?", or something like that.
Continue reading.It was a book about Adult ADD. Ironically enough I could only get thru the first 3 chapters, but at last I knew there was a reason for my problems. Oddly enough when I was a kid, I didn't just like getting punished, or act out because of some hidden resentment for my mother. Over the years I had come up with many answers to many questions that I just didn't have answers too. Explaining how I was bored in school, or didn't feel as if I had to do homework, as if there were someone who could give me a good enough reason to overcome my aversion to the task at hand. The truth is, that it didn't make any sense to me either. I knew then, and I know now that just doing it and getting it over with is so much better than putting it off. Incidentally, I'm writing this at work, where I probably should be doing something much more constructive. Obviously, this knowledge hasn't done me a lot of good, since I have failed to act on any of it. I have developed a great many coping devices, and I've been lucky enough to find gainful employment where my tendencies aren't crippling. I feel like I'm just squeaking by, but judging by my reviews, I seem to be excelling. I think it's just a knack I have of finding employers with very low expectations, but I could be wrong.

Lately, I seem to be coming to the realization that there's much more to this story, and to me than I thought. I've been reading up on Asperger's Syndrome. It's a form of Autism, and I'm guessing it's the main reason why there are so many more diagnoses of autism lately. I have a feeling that the numbers have always been as high as they are, but before it was just never recognized. Aspies, as they seem to be called, were often just dismissed as shy, or awkward. Dorks and nerds and the like. After reading up on this, and taking a test or two, I'm pretty sure I fall into this category as well. The only problem is, I can find a lot of places that tell me I am an Aspie, but I am not finding many that tell me what I should do now. I mean it's nice to know that there is a reason that I'm so bad at life, and the fact that I'm doing as well as I am gives me a sense of pride and hope, but over all, it doesn't do me a whole lot of good.

I guess the next step is to seek out some professional somewhere and make it official, and see what they have to say. Though I'm reluctant to do so. I seem to have a great deal of social anxiety, I'm not sure if this is part of Asperger's, or part of some other problem I have, but it makes me hesitate. Also, I'm not sure what they can really do. I don't want to go on any type of drugs, and frankly it would be hard to convince me that they have any that work. I don't want to play trial and error with my brain, there's just too many things that can go wrong. And of course there is always the worst possible scenario. I go there and I find out that there's really nothing wrong with me. That I'm just a lazy emo and there's really nothing more for me to do except get my head out of my ass and get to work.

I'll keep looking and let you know how things are going. I'm kind of excited, like an explorer sighting new land for the first time. but then I think about how many of those explorers got eaten by natives the moment they landed on the beach.

Battlebots!

The greatest sport ever invented by mankind will be returning to the air waves!

It seems that ESPN has signed a deal with Battlebots to film and broadcast a new Collegiate BattleBots Championship.

Both Grant Imahara and Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters have made robots for past competitions. I would love to see them come together to form a new MythBusters team.

I think ESPN should just make a new channel dedicated to Robot combat, Strongman events, Lumberjack contests, and Japanese game shows. I don't think I would need another channel at that point.

C is for Caedus.

Since you all didn't get my rant for my last comic, I'll start off the new format with it.



For those of you who don't know, Jacen Solo (son of Han Solo and Leia Organa for those who really don't know (yes they got married for those who really really don't know)) has become a Sith Lord. His has taken the name Darth Caedus. Since the books don't come with pronunciation guides, I was a bit confused by how best to pronounce it.
Continue reading.My first thought was Cay-dus. since that's what it looks like. But then I thought, hmmm maybe that C sounds like an S, which would make it Say-dus. Which of course sounds a lot like Sadist, which considering Jacen's experiences with the embrace of pain, would make a great deal of sense. So I've been reading the last few books, alternating my pronunciation of Caedus between Kay-dus and Sadist. Finally I got around to looking it up and it turns out I was completely wrong. It's /kie'duss/. (sounds like Hide us.) So wiki has this to say about the origin of the word.

Caedus is an invention based on the Latin verb cædo, cædere (the noun form of which is cæsum, not cædus) which means "to cut" or "to kill": which accurately describe Jacen's increasingly violent tactics towards civilians and his murder of his own loved ones.[source?] However, caed is also an early Welsh word which translates as battle. It is also reminiscent of the Spanish word "caido", which means "fallen".

Now I'm not sure what part of that would lead me to know how to pronounce this correctly. I looked up some more. It turns out that Caedo in latin is Chay-doe (yes better was wrong, but it's not like Bob is going to call her on it.) There's a place online called Caedes, which they say is pronounced kayds. But anyway, The official site says it's KIE-duss so who am I to argue.

Though while I'm on the subject, let's take a look at some of the other names on that site. We'll start with an easy one, Borsk Fey'lya - BORSK FAE-lee-yaa. Now I've always pronounced this pretty much the way they do there, though I have to say that the apostrophe really throws me off. More on that later. This next one really messed with me, Joruus C'baoth - joe-ROOS suh-BAE-oth. I always pronounced this as Jorus KA-boath (like boat with a th at the end.) This all leads me to a bigger question. Why is it that sci fi writers chose to spell names so freaking weird. I mean I can understand that when dealing with alien species, chances are that their names are going to sound really foreign to us humans. However, we're reading a story that's written in English, in the real world. Even if we assume that the heroes in the story we are reading speak and write English, and that this alien species has decided that his name is spelled that way in English, why the hell do we have to read it that way? The Author can choose to spell it anyway he wants to. If it's pronounced suh-BAE-oth, then why the hell don't you spell it Suhbayoth? I mean really? What are you gaining by writing it that way? What's the apostrophe for anyway? In the names like O'neal and others that have the apostrophe in them, it's a contraction. at least I think it is, I've always thought that it hearkens back to the clan names meaning Of Neal. So even if C'baoth is some kind of freaky contraction in what ever language he happens to natively speak, if it's not part of the story, why do we need to know this? And it's not just Star Wars, it's all over Sci Fi. Why? Is it just to make people think that they are too dumb to read it? Do they really wish to limit their audience that much? I learned to read by sight. I was reading quite well before I ever heard of phonics, so reading strange words like this out of any rational context is hard for me. I've heard Dune is a really great book, but because I can't pronounce so many words in it, I never get past the first page.

Then again I think this is only a symptom of the problem, and not the cause. The cause of course is the written English language itself. Lets look first at Caedus. There's the C. C sometimes sounds like K, and it sometimes sounds like S. never does it sound like C. No one knows what C sounds like, except like K or like S or sometimes CH, which based on where my tongue goes when I make that sound really sounds a lot like Sh anyway, but we can deal with that later. The question is why do we have C? The letter is 100% redundant, and there's really no good way to know when it sounds like K or when it sounds like S. I'm sure there's rules somewhere in those phonics books I ignored in grammar school, but as with all of those rules, I'm sure I can find an exception for each of them (and I bet not one of them tells you how to pronounce it when it's followed by an apostrophe.) Then there's the highly pompous looking ae combination. I tried to think of words that have ae in them. the only one that came to mind was ceasar (which is latin by the way, which should actually make Caedus sound like seedus, but hey why be picky) Looking thru this list of words however gives me a lot more, most of which I can't pronounce anyway. but based on that list, and the words on it I can pronounce. I can say with certainty that ae, sounds like ee. it also sounds like the a in air in aerobic and Ay in names like Norma Rae. I don't know why we continue to use that anymore either. (though looking I don't think we do that much anymore thankfully.) There are of course hundreds of more examples like this. I don't know why we continue to make the written English language so complicated. Why do we have homophones? In spoken language, there is no difference between there, their and they're. Yet in written language there is. Couldn't we figure out what the word means based on the context in the same way we do while listening?

I know I'm not going over new ground here. The written language has been source material for comics thru out the ages. (we won't go into the whole through/thru debate now either) I'm guessing the reason we don't fix it, is that we don't know who would fix it. There's not a world wide consortium on the written word. maybe there should be, I don't know. but in the end, I guess it doesn't matter anyway. You could fix the language, but in the end all the old letters and rules will still be there, and there will always be some sadistic writer out there who choses to twist those rules in cruel and novel ways to ensure that I don't read his books.

And now for something completely different.

So. I've been thinking. I do that. The comic thing is fun and all, but over all, I think I'm a better writer than I am a cartoonist. It's getting progressively more difficult to translate my thoughts into the mouths of others, and limit them to only 4 panels, without the aid of expressions, or even head movements.

So, things are going to evolve slightly. I'll post a link to the old comics over there on the left, or maybe the right, I still have a lot of bugs to work out with this thing to make it my own. I'll probably still make comics staring the Flicks as well. I'll just post them here instead.

Other than that, I'll probably be writing more, as the thoughts come to me, instead of limiting myself to one thought per day, that is associated to a comic strip.

Check back now and then, the site should evolve over time as I figure out this new toy that Google provided me.

till then.