I was reading a cnn.com article that talked about how wikipedia was planning to move to an editor based system, which sounds similar to tv.com, but not really. I could see where the stakeholders in the Wikipedia group would be more concerned about controlling their content. At least on here, we could always point to the neutral source known as the actual broadcast episode or released boxset, and provide fairly reliable official guides and news articles. We editors usually aren't the actors or programming directors ourselves that we could pull rank on our information. I hope they do continue to credit our work on tv.com whenever they cover TV shows.

The Wiggles have moved from Disney to triple-digit cable-land on Sprout. It's cool that they get to do a few new segments, although their Wiggly Waffle show is broadcasting at 6-9am ET, which means 3-6am PT. Ack, I can't stay up late for that. But it's cool to see them do birthday announcements and pseudo-live things after being free from The Mouse.

Hopefully after I add this one the more recent stuff will be added too! (Or maybe not?) After plugging and unplugging cables and boxes for several days, we figured out that adapter cable box was defective at the input connector. Apparently quite a few folks were in the same boat with upgrading their cables to digital. They just take the box and give you another refurbished one.

I did get to see the Doctor Who special, though with tons of commercials since it's the premiere, and enough of Torchwood as to not get spoiled. It does makes me wonder what will be the next hot show coming from there. Will that Being Human vampire/werewolf thingy satisfy?

It's been a few weeks but I'm hooked onto Facebook; some of my comments may be obvious to those who regularly use it. A lot of those tools are typical for web 2.0 places, and I'm glad to see tv.com is making a concerted effort to keep up with the times. Most of my family and friends who have some sort of computer knowledge are active there. So that's what they've been doing all these years, well, besides dealing with the usual family stuff. It didn't seem like they were actively playing computer games anymore, well some are, as I soon learn. This site has pretty much corralled personal webpage services, leaving the old personal website for name branding and all of your professional e-business dreams.

Insta-blogging. This spins both ways. One thing I love about tv.com's blogging is that you get to write real columns, which I think is great for working on your writing, plus I just have a lot to say after thinking about stuff. Plus the forums are more structured. But with web 2.0 world comes the feed of "I fed my dog some chicken pieces." or "I'm bored." or "I watched Up today." Short but sweet and garners lots of responses.

Lots of ways to pass the time. Not only can you send "What X are you?" quizzes over and over, but you can join those infectious point allocation games where the more friends you have, the stronger you are or the more you visit, the more virtual points and virtual levels you get. Kind of like tv.com but at least here you actually contribute potentially useful content that stays around for a while.

Fan feeds - You like a TV show? Become a fan. You like a celebrity or music group? Become a fan. You like ice cream? Become a fan. You like popping bubble-wrap? Become a fan. Um, okay, great, more voluntary spam for your inbox. At least many of the feeds are from official sites.

Plus there's the Facebook button. Yeah, that one at the tail of this blog. Has anyone tried it yet? You can share this blog post or others right onto your Wall. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a decent selection of icons yet, preferring your banner picture and your friends' avatars or Search Forums.

Anyway, if you're into FB and want to social network with me there, let me know.

So TV.com wants a presence on Facebook? That's cool, except now I wonder if we should mix our profiles? At the minimum, I can just say I'm a fan, and that those who really care to research it can make the link, but I don't know about wanting very casual online friends whom I haven't even met in person to see my personal photos or know my real life friends and family. That'd just break all sorts of privacy. Similarly, I wouldn't want my real life to be strongly associated with my dog's blogs here, and have people assume that all I do is watch tons of television and obsess over subs and silliness here. Unless I was working in the television industry, I don't see the benefit, although it is very web 2.0 to merge it all.

What do you think? Do you prefer to keep your fun hobby networking separate from your real life networking, or is it not a big deal?

Can someone tell me what a stress test is and why someone outside of the financial industry should care? What's the point in figuring out if a bank sucks? If they fail the test, wouldn't that mean people would lose confidence in the bank's results and cause it to collapse more? Why can't companies hire people and get them back to work? That'd do a lot more for consumer confidence if people can earn money and then use it to stimulate the economy.

Swine flu sucks. Some of the cases are near where I live, and given how people go to work sick and send their sick kids to school or out in public, that's not a good thing for quarantines. And isn't it AP testing season; how's that for messing with schools? And correlating it to allergy season sucks too, because then everyone gets paranoid over a sniffle. I hope everyone can stay healthy through this, and overcome it if they get hit with it.

What do people think of these cross-promoting free networks? I remember years ago, Showtime and HBO would have free preview weekends, and that was quite the treat, but now we have DIY channel advertising on HGTV and Disney XD advertising on Disney? Why? Is some minor triple digit channel really going to inspire me to increase my cable budget to triple digits?

As for the fastest two minutes in sports, gotta quick question; do they run other races for the derby that day or just that one race? I can't remember. Usually for regular horse racing there are like ten races of all sorts of classes.

Other goodies:
School Rumble - Thank goodness; I needed that laugh. I think it's as good as or even better than Ouran, and that's saying quite a bit.
Bolt - It's got an Angus looking dog, which instantly puts it above the average movie. Hey, it worked for Stuart Little 2 and Kitty.
Dragonball Z Season Eight - Goku spent an entire episode powering up to Super Saiyan 3. And Vegeta spent an entire episode saying goodbye. Some of the discs had scratches, which was really annoying, but thank goodness for fast forward and captions.

Thanks to Master_M2K for the Trust on Rosario+Vampire. Gotta love magical girl shows even if they have clichéd storylines.

So I was observing some folks on Easter Sunday talking briefly about how Facebook has replaced Myspace as the hot trend of playing on the Internet, and how MySpace is so several years old. So that got me thinking of other popular media and how some social things may seem geeky but they're actually quite mainstream or new school these days.

For example, on April Fool's Day, a large number of my coworkers had already visited the major websites and done the silly Easter egg experiments of printing stuff for 3-D or laughing at how there's a new upgrade. Of course, I was preoccupied with the sad reality that TV.com's redesign didn't fall in that category. But I felt like I missed out. Was that a New School trend or something only Computer Geeks should care about?

TV.com's escalated much of my viewing habits. I'm watching shows with more intention than a casual viewer, looking at credits lists, and spotting weird allusions and goofs. Now it's great that many, many shows are available over the Internet, but I wonder when we have a person who prefers to watch the show on the computer rather than a live broadcast with friends and family, is that the future of mainstream television or we're still considered rather geeky? And when people are recommending shows that aren't available on television that you have to jump through weird hoops on the Internet to watch, is that desire to see those shows mainstream?

Something that seems to be fairly old school along with MySpace was collecting music on the computer. Who has really listened to more diverse music than ever because of this? These days, I hardly ever dig out the iPod. I don't even know where it is. Are people still collecting music or is that habit gone now and people are headed back to the radio? Or have people been turned deaf because they have that earbud in 24/7 and listen to the same albums over and over?

Is it worth jumping on the Twitter bandwagon? That moved from hot trend to mainstream thanks to segments on major talk shows. Is it really worth finding out what random celebrity people are doing when they don't even call up their friends anymore and ask the same question?

I don't know. Maybe I'm just too old to want to care. I feel like I need to tune out computer stuff when I go home, which is why nothing is really networked well at home. I haven't moved my digital camera pictures, updated a Facebook/MySpace personal page outside of this place, or even caught up with email. I'd rather just veg out with playing a mainstream title like Spore, and then afterwards slip in a boxset DVD to watch really some really old show or retro cartoon. Yet I'm asked to grow up and out of that world too and keep up with the times, and trying to balance between that and geeking out can be quite the challenge.

I have to share my post from the Animation Revelation, 'cause it's just so darn funny.

Yep, the setting's all there and that the twilight movie is channeling quite a bit of the anime show Fruits Basket.

You already got the average looking but quirky new high school girl who doesn't get along with her own relatives/parents except that she misses and is really concerned about mom, not good or comfortable with sports, is clumsy, isn't concerned about fitting in, but some school friends take a liking to her. Replace "enjoys cleaning" with "enjoys driving her pickup truck".

Then you got the handsome but has a secret guy who doesn't want anyone to get to know him but the girl somehow gets into his world and learns the secret by accident, and the guy has lots of relatives that live in the woods who share the secret of being different and eventually consider her as family, many are exceptionally strong at fighting, some Kagura-type aggressive girls that are a bit possessive of their relationship, a patriarch type of guy who is a local doctor. Teen angst and romance. Replace "secret vegetable garden" with "glitter in sunlight". Add a love triangle, which the story didn't really explore that, except possibly in the upcoming books.

I suppose technically only some fraction of the content has to be original to not call it plagiarism but hey, at least it gives me a framework for watching the sequels.

I was hoping to comment on the TV and Movie stuff I've been watching over the past month, but nah, gotta rant again. If you want those thoughts PM me (I have them posted on another site I frequent, and they're pretty cool!)

So the site got another changeover with more de-features that slip through without any concern or consideration.

The whole concept of teaser quotes, trailers, and read more is completely gone. Now you have to just click multiple links and gamble on whether any information will show up behind the page. Think there's a recap? Click. Nope nothing there. How about quotes? Nope. Videos? Bzzt. You think a casual user is going to bother with that? Heck no.

Who cares about all-time top episodes for a show? Why is that rating on the guide when people would much rather see their own rating alongside it which also gives people a chance to track what episodes they have watched in a series?

These are supposed to be GUIDES not data mining exercises. If you want to increase access, make information more accessible on the summary pages so people can enjoy it and respond to it.

I want my short cast lists back.
I want my trivia and favorite quotes back.
I want my old fashioned printable episode guide back.
I want show summaries plastered in the middle of the main guide back.
I want my editor's blog back.

ugh. Tell me this is an April Fool's joke, please?

Jump to the TV.com Actor and Show Duplicate Assimilation Union Board

I was looking up some Southern phrases, and thought hmm, wonder where "possum in a gunbush" originated. It turned out that was made popular by Enos on The Dukes of Hazzard. That got me thinking of when I noticed a square-shaped lake on a road map, and I drive by that lake, and it isn't square. And how there's a band called "Boa" that did an anime theme song when I thought it was "BoA" who did another anime theme song. It also had me thinking of the recent Hulu-Tv.com breakup. Thought that was a bummer, but what else can you expect when you tell your content partner you're going to compete directly against them. Oh well, I leave that headache for Legal and the forums, but I guess we'll be busy complaining about the redesign soon and how more information is hidden away.

There are boxsets now for Sesame Street episodes called Old School. It's rather funny that the leadoff episode in Volume 2 is number 666, but wow, if The Electric Company and Space Ghost weren't enough of a nostalgia trip, seeing Mr. Hooper, that red typewriter on wheels, the twelve ladybugs picnic, and Bert popping out of a flowerpot would definitely re-energize some old neurons. Definitely a "when I was your age, this is what I watched" family moment.

Editor update
I'm done with the recaps for Sasami Magical Girls Club Season Two. Last time I reported about eight done; well, I've gotten all thirteen for that season posted, making it 26 for the two seasons. It took a while to finish as I ended up watching each episode like 3-4 times, and they're not even that profound, well, definitely more profound than the Wiggles, and I need to recap those dudes soon. I'm pondering my next sequence of videos to watch and whether I should bother recapping more or take a break.

Also did some Today Show episodes. Some of the segments are definitely in that recurring human interest pile as if they were sponsored by Nancy Grace. Caylee becomes Kaleigh (very sad!), the Duggars family (18 kids) becomes Octo-Mom (14 kids), Scott Peterson becomes Drew Peterson (nah, he wouldn't appreciate that similarity), they even brought back the Chandra Levy case with a possible arrest. And what's with all the plane crashes? Are they trying to prove true the "plane crash every day" saying? Almost like those cars getting hit by trains because they stop on the tracks. Was February a heart awareness month? They sure did a lot of segments on that. Don't forget to lose weight, get depressed over the economy, ogle the First Family, and watch Slumdog Millionaire, even if you know the ending. I hear Watchmen movie is going to be big. Good timing. We need an action movie to get excited about running unopposed.

After finishing the fourth season of Doctor Who last week, I've really enjoyed the allusions and trivia items people have picked out on the tv.com guide here like the Doctor's daughter and the Agatha Christie fun. Thanks to those who contribute to that guide!

If you're working on duplicates or new people, you might have to wait until they show up in search. That process needs another kick. I had one guy I was trying to add to episodes but he hasn't shown up, but he's quickly becoming recurring and is in at least two shows now.

Question
Any bets on when they'll cut in the redesign? I'm thinking Wednesday.

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As Pamela Anderson said on a Today show interview, when it comes to her kids and the environment, she is glad they are conscious.

But anyway, I was thinking about going green extreme and came up with this list.

10 things you must do to save the Earth

1. Take sponge baths. It'll use as much water as a toilet flush. Heck, you could use the toilet as the bathwater, and it'll give you motivation to clean the toilet.
2. Bicycle to school/work. Invest in a foot-powered four wheel vehicle if you have kids. Nevermind the days when it rains, or that you live miles and miles away, or that your route involves biking alongside polluting automobiles. It just means you gotta get started earlier. And avoid police patrols so you can put your kids in a wagon and not require seatbelts.
3. Convert all your lightbulbs to the swirly kind or LED's. Nevermind that the swirlies don't work at all with dimmers; you don't need ambiance anyway. Or that staring at the bulb because you're fascinated by its swirliness will blind you.
4. Initiate your own rolling blackout periods. Loss of consciousness does not count.
5. Don't use any plastic bags, and don't buy anything that has packaging. Plastic bags are evil. The city will tell you that. Never mind that they actually can contain the smell of waste products from dog walks.
6. Reuse needles. If you have all those nasty diseases, reusing them won't give you that many more. It's like reusing your toothbrush. It's got the same germs.
7. Wear biodegradable clothes. So they'll look tattered in a few months; washing them or putting them on children will do the same thing.
8. Do composting in your bathroom. Heck, you're halfway there.
9. Build a windmill when you live in a tornado or hurricane zone. When the big one hits, you're set for power for a long while, and the energy you save will power up rebuilding your home and a new windmill for next time.
10. Buy green credits. I heard you could sell them back to companies or maybe they just expire. Companies are doing it, and it's better than throwing away a buck and a hope.

If you have some more ideas, feel free to share.

I noticed the name of a Recently Added actor matched someone I knew back from the high school days so I have to check with my family and see if he is the same person or just a coincidence? Not quite "brushes with greatness" but that'd be pretty funny if I went after his guide.

Spore kills
So this past weekend, I played Spore again. The game WAS fairly easy; most of the strategies were just simple RTS or FPS and you could sing and dance, or at least grow big and powerful and kick some major butt. But I was in for a shock when I hit the Space stage. At first, it's like sure, set up a colony, talk with aliens, do mini-quests, but now the quests get more elaborate, and I've got some factions that have declared war on me or war on each other, along with random pirate raids, that now I'm overwhelmed, and wonder how the heck can I recover from this. And thus I lose an entire night of sleep and feel miserable the next day, only to have some of my progress wiped away by the program bailing out. The hard part: you can't start the stage over. Any tips would be appreciated? Is it worth terraforming despite the expense, or just keep trying to do the quests, and be on the defensive, or just go on the offensive and blow away cities, or continue expanding and have tens and hundreds of systems to micromanage? I get the feeling this is the real part of the game after people spend their tens of hours, creating and decorating all sorts of alien creatures, houses and vehicles.

Nah, I must put this game away before it consumes my TV and video watching habits. Lost Season 5 has commenced, and in the anime world, I'm watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, which I didn't care for the first time around four years ago, but now I really enjoy it and consider it a cIassic. Also got some demand for the rest of BBC's Robin Hood; I have no idea how season 3 is going to be like with some rather important characters supposedly going away. I hope it's not like Torchwood Season 2. And somehow I ended up with 10 different video discs borrowed from the library, so I'm queued for the duration.

Cartoon Classics
And, thanks to my sister, I now have a boxset of The Adventures of Space Ghost and Dino Boy. I remember seeing that when it aired in reruns ages ago, and remembered Space Ghost Coast to Coast was one of the best things to come out of Cartoon Network in the 1990s. First thing I noticed was that they're tapping their badges when they talk, and it's like, wow, wonder where I've seen that played out? "Make it so." Second thing was who voiced Bronty in Dino Boy. Scooby Doo? Yep! Hooray! Third was spotting a goof thanks to all that TV.com training. Fabulous!

Question: Musicano Americana
I was watching this video show on mundos, and the host was speaking English, but then she switched to Spanish for a few sentences, and then back to English for some more. This wasn't just your "I don't know the local language equivalent for this English phrase/word so I'll just say this part in English" phrasing that I see in the tech world, community groups, or some music videos that shout out English phrases, but it was like a switch of some train of thought that you could click and she'd speak Spanish for a duration, click, English for a few sentences, click, Spanish for some thoughts, click, English? Oh, and it wasn't like she was repeating the phrase in both languages. I don't know Spanish but I could at least figure that out. So my question is, is this typical of the culture? Or should I be bothered by this trend of hosting?

Question: Dead or Alive?
Some months ago, a friend of mine asked if one of my friends had passed away. She heard the guy's name in a news bulletin. Now that's an awkward question to figure out. Should I call the person and say "Hey just calling to see if you're still alive?" or "Are you dead, dude?" Or just wait it out and see if he calls me?

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Hope everyone's enjoying the Obama Inauguration. I'm looking forward to the parade as one of our local school bands gets to participate in it. Whether you're blue state, red state, purple state, think someone's an idiot, or could care less about politics, this is probably the most anticipated inauguration in quite a while. TV.com's CBS coverage looks alright, if you can stand Katie Couric; I think they're ahead on the video delay than the local TV station, which is cool. (correction: depends on what station you watch).

Editor news
I'm about a third through series 6 of The Wiggles, and with that came EIGHT more recaps. Although it's for a children's show, and most of the format is the same, there are quite a few skits that had to be detailed. Also pressing through the recaps for Sasami Club season 2, got two more posted, and have to post two more to reach for the halfway point. Slayers Evolution-R season also started; getting details for that will be scarce given that the show is being broadcast in Japan and licensed by Funimation now so you might just see placeholders.

Question
We're pondering purchasing some boxsets. Somehow those sets from the UK shows cost twice as much as the US shows and have half the number of episodes. What's up with that? Is it worth getting now or will they ever be price competitive with US boxsets?

A lot of family stuff went on at the turn of the New Year that made me forget about mailing Xmas cards, and I really didn't feel like blogging. I apologize for that, but some things just got so personal. If you need to know, just PM me. On the fun side, my sister-in-law got me a My Neighbor Totoro hat that she said I should wear for my blogging habit. Cool!

How about that tv.com advertised cute pose by Katy Perry? I think she's copying my icon that I might have to switch over to her? Although it doesn't help that I don't listen to current music; maybe I should though?

I'm glad the first week back opened with a bunch of bug fixes including the comma separations for crew, import, levels, search, I can't remember them all, but it was all good. Import becomes useful again, and the email news sounds really promising, although at this stage, it's still a promise. I don't know the legal ramifications of labeling that feature the same as their partner content and potential competitor's feature, but I guess that's for them to figure out.

Next bug to bash
Now they need to fix the ability to edit/delete added people's character names and role types. It sucks when I'm 20 people into adding a cast/crew, and end up doubling up a name by accident.

Editor update
On the editor's side, I've been busy updating titles, cast, and summaries for Ragnarok: the Animation. Many of the existing episode summaries had spoilers on who lives and dies, and that just had to go. I'm a big fan of Dungeons and Dragons styIed cartoons, and this was no exception. Characters act just like they would in a video game, chanting spells and abilities, and you can almost see the numbers flash on the screen as they take down boss monsters or heal up.

Did I mention I picked up the editorship for Novel Adventures? Not the novels themselves, but that heavily promoted TV.com/CBS online show. Kind of funny my other sister-in-law joined a book club around that time. I was about to ask if she watched that series. I didn't think it was that bad, although it had a tough time competing with the Funimation Quickies on Youtube, especially when the ones right before Xmas really cracked me up.

I'm still behind on writing recaps, but Sasami Magical Girls Club did get three more recaps. Eventually I'll get around to recapping those Wiggles series 6 episodes, which are sitting in placeholder land.

Lost Universe is mostly there. I just need to tweak a few more summaries that were plagiarized. If you want to help, please PM me.

Thanks to Newb for all the Today show fun.

I also want to thank my buddies at Animation Revelation for getting me hooked on Yu Yu Hakusho. I finally got into reading the series and watching some of the episodes, and they are really fun.

Finally, for you computer gamers, thanks to my sister, I've got to recommend Spore. It's the first game in a while that totally plays to the artists in our family, which means more than one person wants to play it. I even had my little one design a car for one of the stages.

Q: New Year's Resolution
I've picked an interesting one, and that's to grumble more, which sounds negative at first, but I think it will keep me out of trouble in comparison to my old habits of whining and barking back. If you have one that you think you'll keep or want to share, go for it.

Hope you have more fun stuff going on during the holidays than busy work.

First, a shameless plug from our sponsor (me). This is working out really well. Duplicate guides are going bye-bye thanks to the staff's hard work and efforts.
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I saw this topic on Off-Topic, but thought it'd be nice to share for this week's blog instead of mourning over more lost tv.com features.

CarltonAquilson wrote:

This will be the topic I will be discussing on the air about why cartoons affect children in a negative way and the different ways cartoons can affect children. I am already going to talk about how children can be addicted to them and how it can make them more violent but I need more topics from a wider audience to know what their views and thoughts are concerning this topic.

Well, cartoon violence and marketing are old topics, so I'm going to blabber about these topics.

"If cartoons were meant for adults, they'd put them on prime time" - Lisa Simpson
Cartoons aren't just for children anymore. The longest running cartoons are geared towards an adult audience, and some even purpose themselves to be offensive and edgy in humor, while delivering a message that isn't for children at all, even if the format has a "what did we learn today" component like Jerry Springer, or child characters that are easy to draw. Many movie length animations like Shrek or Doogal that are chock full of references only grown-ups would understand, or are full of heavy doses of sarcasm.

E|I Saturation
Most experts recommend children only watch a limited amount of hours each day, but that gets pushed aside for the large amount of programming that each network is required to pump out under the E|I moniker, at least in the USA. They don't want to make something geared towards elementary or middle school folks, since that requires thought and possibly meeting education standards, so they aim low, WAY LOW, like preschool. So now you have brain candy for preschoolers, with each show barely having educational content to keep their E|I. These shows also run in the early morning hours, and some are so horribly addictive, that you wonder why you can't get your kids out the door.

Marathons
Speaking of addiction, much of it can be traced to the increasing number of serial shows, which drive kids to collect and "marathon" watch episodes, if only to understand what is going on. It wasn't bad when it was just Rocky and Bullwinkle, since no one cared where they were and where they were eventually going, but with the most popular current shows adopting this format, more children have to get their parents to acquire boxsets or record entire seasons of their shows. Add to that the large number of Japanese serials available like Naruto and multiple broadband options, and it's no longer acceptable to jump in to watch this week's episode for fear of watching some spoiler. You could argue that this increases attention spans but it also sucks a lot of energy dedicated to tracking the series. The commitment for a Fan can range from tens to hundreds of hours per series, an overwhelming number that could have been allocated for other activites that would enrich your life, like uh, walking your dog .

Significance
Not only are cartoons serial, but they also hold some status in society like a sports team or a fashion label. Just this week, my family was telling me how their cousins want to get these Zugs (sp?) shoes for Xmas. Um, yeah, those products will make you feel like you are personally bailing out the shoe industry. But alas, direct marketing is an old topic.

Taking it to the next level
The more serious fans will add an Internet habit to this, creating icons, collecting and editing video clips. Some will even dress up as their favorite cartoon character on days other than Halloween, and attend conventions with complete strangers of all ages, and without any parental supervision. Is this really a good idea? The results of these can be positive if treated as a hobby and balanced out with other activities, or if the child wants to prep for a career in the animation or entertainment industry. But how many colleges are going to care that you cosplayed, watched a hundred cartoon series, or know how to post other people's videos to a video site?

Parental Cascade
Parents often say they want to watch every cartoon or movie before their kids see it. I see a different agenda, as they prefer to impose on their kids the cartoons they loved as a kid. The cartoon industry has also caught onto this trend and have favored re-releasing and remaking old series, or even going live-action with their products. It's no surprise that children can't appreciate new cartoon ideas when they are flooded with their parents' shows.

Things we can do to enjoy cartoons in a positive light

Adult cartoons? Ask yourself why you enjoy those cartoons. Question your own need to be edgy if it causes your child or younger sibling to adopt bad habits from watching your videos.

E/I Saturation? Limit the hours. Just because the buffet is there doesn't mean you should eat it all. Watch with intention and purpose. Most children will not care that they've seen the same episode tens of times; those that want something different will prefer marathoning anyway.

Marathons and Status symbols? Limit your choices and prioritize them based on greatest social impact and personal enjoyment. As with other hobbies, don't expect to complete it all at once, but set reasonable goals and balance it with other activities.

Taking it to the next level? If you are serious about the show, then express it, not only with icons but also with a critique of the episode, picking out highlights that you enjoy out of the animation, and lowlights and things that you would rather not see again. Use the review or blog to practice your writing skills, and have similar objectives with video editing. Study the episode as if it were literature, read the related book, so you can compare how the cartoon director and producers are re-interpreting the story. If the cartoon is that good, you'll have things to say about it, and if it sucks, then it'll just motivate you to find something better. And if the entire subject seems worthless to pursue, at least now you recognize it.

Parental cascade? Set boundaries on how much your parents can influence you on what to watch. Get your parents to pick out cIassics and discuss why they consider them so. Stay away from bleh sequels unless the original author intended it to be so. On the parents side, it's not really a heritage to have them like the same cartoons you do, unless you have some sort of tie to the entertainment industry or related souvenirs.

I suppose this could apply to all television shows, but at least they make for great starter topics.

Question: Your thoughts? Is it worth structuring your television watching, or is that just way too much to try on an already burdened life?

Recent Feature Creepers none of us asked for but got.

Feature Creeper #1: Reversed episode lists.
This is totally wrong.

First, the seasons should always be listed in order, and the only thing that had to be fixed was that if you had a RETURNING series, you click "go to episode guide" and it jumps you to the latest season. That is all. Do not reverse the order of the individual episodes. All other times, we want our guides in order. When we click episode list it should start at Season 1.

Second, if you have a NEW or RETURNING series with recent episodes, go back to tv.com 2.0 idea, and list the last three episodes on your FRONT PAGE and then the next brand new episode on the calendar. This covers the "what did I just miss" and "what's next" queries.

Third, for series that have ended, you should post only the episode that is of type REGULAR and has the highest lifetime number. Do not use the airdate as some series get cut short on broadcast but go straight to video. This will give people a quick overview of how many episodes were in the series and generally when it ended.

Fourth, if you really want reverse seasons, make it an option.

Fifth, bring back the season dropdown box. That was useful for long running series like The Today Show or The Simpsons. I don't want to have to click 29 times to get to season 29 out of 50.

Feature Creeper #2: Multiple video tabs that go nowhere

Video feeds are good since I've been updating the Today show summaries with it. But this needs to connect to the related episode. The full episode video needs to be a Video link from each episode, and also appear in the download tab of the Episode List area. You can still support iTunes links if that is still a stream of income. Conversely, there needs to be a link to the specific episode from the Video page.

Look, you linked successfully with TV Listings, why not do it here?

Practice on Novel Adventures please. I've already organized the tv.com episodes, and the official CBS webpage of that looks fine; why can't the tv.com guide be more like that?

Feature Creeper #3: Trivia and Quotes removed from Person Guide Front Page

Ugh, more interesting info shoved away. Please bring this back. Front pages need to be informative. And while we're at it:

Please bring back the most recent episode. It's extremely difficult to clean up duplicate cast credits without this.

Please bring back the Cast/Crew lists from tv.com 2.0.

Link some of the videos to the corresponding actor guides. Suddenly actor guides become interesting.

As a bonus enhancement, my suggestion on person cast/crew roles is to highlight the following starring roles: 1. Their most recent starring role 2. Their most popular roles by number of appearances. 3-5 Their most popular roles by ratings.

Person guides could be so much more. The star list needs to include all their entries from the show level for that guide which has all the season tags, not a single starring role on a random episode.


I'm sure there are other surprise features but these especially bugged me this month.

I know work life is stressful but there are plenty of difficult (and some easy) bugs to fix that we don't need to create more for job security purposes.

Happy Thanksgiving Holiday! I'll likely be out of town again and sitting in traffic.

In editor news, I've adopted my 30th person, and my first Today Show related person Amy Robach. I didn't realize she had a following on the net as a hottie news reporter and former beauty queen, but hey, that's all good.

I also want to thank EmeraldWarrior for taking my cast updates for Blue Gender.
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Speaking of babes, I've been filling in some summaries for that Novel Adventures TV.com series they keep blasting in front of the forums. It's alright and reminds me a lot of those Disney shorts This is Daniel Cook / Emily Yeung but for women. I guess I don't mind the Saturn sponsoring infomercials. It reminds me a bit of when Andy Dick took out all the Jay Leno commercial ads to push the HHR. Or maybe that Taco Bell Dana Carvey Show? Nah, I think I like it because Lizzie looks a little like either Elisabeth Shue, or Blair from The Facts of Life.

Jena's informed me that Disney will finally be showing Series 6 of The Wiggles. About time; only took like a whole year, a concert, and four videos later. I just have to remind myself to watch or tape the show. What's also cool is Anthony's workout videos with Fitz that's been making the Youtube rounds. If you ever feel like you can't be in the best shape of your life in your 40's, watch those videos where he does the rings, and be inspired. He could give Aido a run for the gymnastics spot.

We're also watching Primeval, which meets almost all the criteria my family likes in those kinds of shows: Dinosaurs + Wormhole/Time Travel + BBC = WIN.

Question
Can anyone give me a summary of what Ben 10 Alien Force is all about? And whether you need to watch Ben 10 first to have an idea of what's going on? It looks like a lot of sci-fi action to me. Does it appeal to mainly boys or can girls enjoy it too? Would you recommend it to someone under seven years old?

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Over the weekend, my family purchased two old musical movies, Mary Poppins and Annie. Not sure why those were especially desirable to own, considering how often the first one shows on TV often, but one thing I do remember is that as a kid, Mary Poppins was one of the first movies I listened to the soundtrack extensively before ever seeing it on TV. And I definitely remember the Broadway version of the Annie song a lot more than the movie version; I hear there are two movies now, plus that rap version of It's a hard knock life..

I was thinking whether that trend continues to be the preferred way to appreciate musicals. Granted, you really don't get much of a chance with High School Musical or Hannah Montana because that's all about the image and dancing first, or with Chicago and Rent which quickly grabbed a select audience before "selling out" to the movie scene, but it worked really well for the slightly older musical offerings like Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast, and any of the cIassics.

I still prefer to listen to music than watch it, although with some music videos, I do like when they go out of their way to make the presentation some sort of interesting drama, or catchy dance routine. Michael Jackson is still the king of that music video world; many of the Asian pop singers still emulate his trendsetting dance concepts, while some bands continue to make full motion picture music video experiences.

On the flip side, when I watch a video and then try to buy the soundtrack for the movie or show afterwards, it's been very disappointing. Even if the overture or main theme is awesome, I can't imagine listening to that all the time, unless I happen to like the styIe throughout, but that's rare. I hear people did that with Lord of the Rings.

With books and comics, I prefer watching the movie first and then reading. Some folks say that for a literary perspective, it totally ruins creativity, but then again these authors approve the adaptations and have large creative control over the material, so the only ones that get screwed over are the cIassics. Not that it was a book series or anything, but I was also thinking about my ambiguity on the Get Smart movie, which totally butchered up the 1960s cIassic whenever they tried to refer to it, yet had some really funny moments when they just did newer jokes and just had Steve Carell be more like The Office character.

Most recently, we borrowed the They Might Be Giants 123s album which had a full featured companion DVD video, and the little pups loved it. The animation was decent, nothing terribly cutting edge, but I guess it is good practice for anyone trying to get into the animation world and doesn't want to risk it all on a random Cartoon Network show. And since it's for little kids, puppets are always a winner.

Question: What are your thoughts on soundtracks and music videos? Do you go for the visual first and then enjoy the album, or vice versa?

Here's the usual jump:
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Subs
I've written up FIVE detailed recaps for Sasami Magical Girls Club, so that finishes up Season One with 13 episodes worth. Over a thousand words each; well I hope they are readable; according to Off-Topic, the Internet doesn't improve literacy, so I'm hoping to defy that. I'm looking forward to later in November, when Funimation releases Season Two! Speaking of Funimation, they've been running this Todd vs. Scott campaign on Youtube that's really amusing; it's great to see the voice actors and staff involved in actual on-screen acting even if it's amateur styIed.

In other editor progress, I've completed cast for Initial D Stage Four. There was one guy who I thought was a brand new person but was really an alias after examining the kanji and taking some guesses with the usual database references.

Viewing
Netflix has given me a bit of a headache this past month. First, they delivered Disc 1 when I wanted Disc 2, and then when I returned Disc 1, they didn't receive it and I had to report it as lost. I guess it's not as annoying as finding a totally scratched up or broken DVD from the library.

We're in a bit of a dinosaur/adventure kick, after seeing the Journey to the Center of the Earth video, so I'm going to try to get the Primeval series although there are a ton of fascinating videos out in November, like Get Smart.

More Random TV
Sunday night had this really bleh sci-fi movie about college guys getting frozen by alien babes with tentacles. I don't know why I bothered to watch that, although according to tv.com's article if you watch enough TV with sex in it, you might get pregnant. I also tried to background watch Valentine and that bounty hunter one Easy Money afterwards, oh and Lipstick Jungle too. Are those supposed to represent the top, middle, or bottom of the prime time shows? Guess I should have stuck with HGTV after all.

Question - One of my coworkers is going to party it up and take a day off if his candidate wins, or take the day off and get totally drunk if he loses. So I'd like to know if any of you or your friends have put in any weird stakes or wagers on the election results. And bonus LOLs for anyone who put up something ridiculous based on a margin and will plan on following through with it.

This was too good to just stay in a forum post.

Thanks to Moon-Crane for posting the following text on the Redesign Feedback : The Rating System thread.

Moon-Crane wrote:

It's likely been mentioned already somewhere on the board, but the way i get around the new 'improved(?)' rating bar to set a proper score is to add a rating in their usual 0.5 increment, then manually adjust the score within the URL displayed in the address bar (eg: if you want to rate something as 8.3, set the bar to 85, then the bit that shows 'user_rating=85&rating_ref_type=103' in the address bar can be changed to 'user_rating=83&rating_ref_type=103'. The bar will reload to show 8.3 on the page). Pain to have to do though, and i find the new bar pretty unstable even just trying to set a rating.

After some experiments, I've discovered you need to do this if you are on the episode page and want to rate your episode.
If you're on the episode page which has two ratings sliders.
Pick a rating for the episode.
Hover over the RESET button afterwards or pay attention to the link at the bottom of your screen.
rating_ref_type=101
rating_ref_type=103

One of those will apply to the episode, the other will be for the show. It can vary.

Minimum value for user_rating is 10 and max is 100. All others will give an NA

Change Rating to 6.8
Scrub out everything past the question mark
Add: user_rating=68&rating_ref_type=101
or : user_rating=68&rating_ref_type=103