[Written on Friday.] I’m glad I came into Austin early; for one thing, I’m far better rested this morning than I would be if I’d gotten in last night, and for another thing, it was nice to see Austin. We stayed at the Austin Motel, on South Congress Street, which is pretty clearly the hip area of Austin. Funky stores, good clubs, ice cream, and good Mexican food — what’s not to like? ...
I now believe that Hollywood is in imminent danger of being destroyed by an angry God. It’s an unavoidable side-effect of reading the fall 2004 TV pilot roundup. It’s nice to know that Seth MacFarlane (“Family Guy”) is working on another animated show. I did not particularly want to know that Rob Lowe is in a pilot in which he plays the in-house doctor at a Vegas casino. Nor do I have much hope for the premise “Animated show about Siegfried & Roy’s Vegas act, told through the eyes of the animals.” Or “Suburban mom uses psychic powers to solve crime.” ...
From AICN: Aaron Sorkin, giant-brained creator of “Sports Night” and “The West Wing,” has now gotten the greenlight from New Line to produce his spec screenplay for “The Farnsworth Invention,” which depicts a 22-year-old genius from Utah who invented television in the 1920s, according to Friday morning’s Variety. This project has long been a part of Sorkin’s agenda, so one assumes Sorkin will still return to TV at some point to oversee his long-gestating proposed series — a backstage show-within-a-show kind of thing depicting the the creators of a fictional late-night comedy show that bears more than a passing resemblance to “Saturday Night Live.” ...
Being a music lover, I was quite pleased to accidentally stumble into the useful world of MP3 blogs. It’s a blog, see, but instead of ranting about politics, these people are posting MP3s and talking about music. The MP3s usually don’t stay up for more than about a week, which is enough time to give them a listen but apparently not enough time to get on the RIAA’s radar. It’s like a very very slow radio station. “This week, we’re going to play the new Prince single.” ...
I don’t know how to listen to Live365 stations easily on my Mac, but I am fairly certain that someone reading this will be happy to know that there is a 24/7 Muppet music radio station out there.
Sadly, Kwame lost, but it won’t hurt his career. Which is good — I think he’d have been a better hire than Bill, although I’m sure Bill will do a good job for The Donald. On the other hand, Bill certainly did a better job on the final task than Kwame. Kwame was stuck with Omarosa no matter what, but he should have at least tried to sideline her. Even given that he’d kept Omarosa, he might have had a chance to win if he’d defended himself in the boardroom. I’d have used the situation as an excuse to trot out the “I always hire people who are smarter than me” line, which has the advantage of being true. I’m pretty sure Kwame’s management style works better when he’s had the chance to build and/or mold his own team rather than inheriting a bunch of subpar workers. ...
The 2004 Hugo nominees are out. I have very little opinion. I do find it interesting to compare them to the Nebula nominees, insofar as the Nebula nominees include quite a few stories originally published online.
The rumor is that this is Owen Wilson. “My life is boring and not worth writing about, except for my knowledge of one thing. So this blog will focus on that thing. It is, for lack of a better word, celebrity. I stumbled onto it by a series of chance events. Suffice it to say, I can tell you what it’s like to see your picture on the magazine rack every now and again when you pay for groceries. And that’ll have to suffice. I’d like this to be the sort of account afforded only by anonymity. And it that happens, if my identity were revealed, I’d quickly be selling grapefruits — instead of paying $14 a pop to eat them — on Sunset Blvd.” ...
Excellent second to last episode of The Apprentice tonight. I’m already looking forward to the next season, when competitors will know the format better. There wasn’t a lot of metagaming in this season, and that’s got to be partially due to the lack of information about the full rules. Next year, contestants will know that they’ll see their fired peers again, and they’ll know that they can keep allies on their team safe even when it gets down to three people per team. More important, they’ll be more confident about the twists. ...
Things I know to be true: Kip Manley can write, and City of Roses looks like it might be a really good textual equivalent of the webcomic form. Which is to say we’re getting back to serial literature, a la Dickens, except that Kip’s madly promised to post an installement every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so it’ll be a tad more frequent than Dickens. No standing on the docks waiting for the next installment for us. ...