Insert picture here
James Kibo Parry
->
-> "ARTY" SERIES FINALE TURNS OUT TO HAVE BEEN COMPUTER ERROR
->
-> A computer error was being blamed for a split-second flash of an African
-> woman holding a basketball that appeared at at least two points during the
-> season finale of HBO's Six Feet Under last week, the New York Times
-> reported today (Monday). The shot touched off speculation on the Six Feet
-> Under website about what the subliminal images meant, with many commenting
-> that they were intended to be symbolic. "What a brilliant
-> directing/producing technique!" one fan wrote. HBO, however, told the
-> Times that the images were not inserted intentionally into the movie by
-> the producers of Six Feet Under, and that they apparently came from the
-> movie The Air Up There that had aired on HBO the same day.
From now on, whenever one of my articles isn't interesting, just pretend
there is a half-second image of a black woman holding a basketball and
I will magically become talented through the use of my special ray which
inserts these images. (I bought it from some guys in Hollywood, they had
used it to insert quarter-second token black characters into the far
background of Elvis movies.) Now that HBO has discovered this phenomenon,
I expect them to bring back all their old boring shows with extra stock
footage of women holding basketballs so that all those crazy people
on the Internet will acclaim HBO as the greatest filmmakers ever.
I can't wait to see if "Dream On" becomes good once they insert MORE
stock footage filler. ("Dream On", a show I found tedious, was explicitly
created as a means to exploit a library of black and white films that
viewers wouldn't watch, so they did a lame sitcom where random clips
from old movies would flash on the screen in place of a laugh track.
In other words, the show's creation came about because they had paid
for something and so they felt obligated to show it to us for no reason.)
I'm surprised they claimed that the guy pushing the wrong buttons on
the video switcher was "a computer error" and not "a computer virus".
Most people have figured out by now that computers don't just make
mistakes without someone actually doing something wrong at some point,
so when they want to pretend they're innocent they have to invoke viruses.
Still, it's a cute thought that HBO wants us to believe that their
entire network is completely computerized and runs without human intervention.
Sure, TBS runs that way ("The Beastmaster" on odd-numbered days,
"Twilight Zone: The Movie" on even-numbered days, "Star Trek:
The Motion Picture" on any day that doesn't have college basketball)
and in the case of TBS it's really obvious that it's computerized
because they haven't noticed that their clock has been five minutes slow
for many years. But I can't believe HBO could be run by a computer
because they show Dennis Miller and no computer would choose to show
him -- computers just don't find him funny. I guess some super-genius
nerd could have spent years writing an artificial-intelligence program
that would get Dennis Miller, but the smart nerd would have told HBO
that putting a computer in control of an entertainment network was
an idea stupider than giving "Fish Police" a prime-time slot, so I
don't buy the assertion that HBO's computer can just start inserting
pictures of black people into extremely white shows all by itself.
These big Grass Valley video switchers covered with hundreds of
glowing buttons and levers, not unlike Scotty's Transporter console,
lead to such interesting screwups when the TV broadcast engineers
fall asleep and lean on six or seven of the buttons and levers and
suddenly a rotating purple star-shaped inset containing a still
picture of a skull is superimposed on Conan O'Brien. If their
co-pilot is on the ball, they will turn the thing back off in about
half a second, just long enough for people to clearly perceive the
incredibly obvious subliminal accident caused by the clumsy
operator asleep at the switch. Grass Valley and other companies
should start making vision mixers with a big clear space in the
middle for the operator's head to land when they pass out from boredom.
(Know the scene in "Star Wars" where the Death Star gunners with the
super-silly-looking black banana-shaped helmets pull the lever that
fires the Death Star's giant cannon? That's one of those video
switcher consoles. The things show up constantly in science fiction
movies because they do look so much like old "Star Trek" set pieces
except the buttons actually light up and beep and stuff without
anyone having to slide cardboard cutouts back and forth behind some
glass marbles that were cut in half with an axe. The best use of
a video switcher as a computery prop is in "The Jupiter Menace", a
laughable "documentary" about the coming destruction of the world
by the mid-1980s, in which "scientists" for the first time simulate
and earthquake that goes to 11 by pushing a button on their video
switcher, then we see some really crude sketches that are supposed
to pass for computer animation but look like they were drawn in
kindergarten, then we see a "scientist" chewing on his eyeglasses
in horror. No women holding basketballs, though.)
My current favorite inept broadcast engineers are at Comedy Central.
Not only are their audio levels always waaaay out of whack with all
the other cable channels (Comedy Central is usually much quieter
than the others, especially during the better programs) but during
commercial breaks they actually turn down the master volume OF THE
PROGRAM BEING AIRED as the commercial plays -- rather than just
turning down their headphones so they don't have to listen to the
color bars, they turn down the program itself -- and they usually
they turn the volume back up several seconds after the commercials.
So "South Park" comes out like this:
CARTMAN
Okay, Kyle, I believe you. Mr. Hankey is real!
KYLE
Hooray!
STAN
Come on, guys, let's go visit Mr. Hankey!
(CUT TO COMMERCIAL.)
COMMERCIAL
Blah blah blah blah roto-tiller blah blah blah press-on nails.
(BACK TO SHOW.)
STAN
.... ....... ... ..... ...
KYLE
........ .. ...... ...?
CARTMAN
.....!!!
STAN
....... ..., ....!!!
VIEWER
What the fudge? (turns the volume up three notches
right before Comedy Central turns it from 1 to 10)
KYLE
..... ... ...... (nine billion decibels) YOU DUMBASS!!!!!!
I get the feeling those people at Comedy Central don't like to interrupt
their crossword puzzles to attend to the airing of their own shows.
Hmm, maybe Kenny's voice isn't meant to sound that way.
-- K.
Then there are the audio engineers
who mix Indian movies, who make
everything easy to hear by cranking
the gain up to maximum on every
piece of equipment they have,
so you can hear the distortion clearly
and everyone sounds like they have
a microphone stuck down their throat.
This completely ruins the HIGH QUALITY
of Indian movies.
Still, they could fix it by just
inserting more pictures of women
holding basketballs.
Dramar Ankalle
James "Kibo" Parry <ki...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:kibo-28080...@ppp0b003.std.com...
<snip>
Know those artsy type descriptions in Home and Gradens and those type
magazines where there are descriptions like this...
"I planted on a fertile hillside that gets lots of rain, and tilled the
ground and built terraces.Squash, Jibbybean,Emoting Stangers, Threesomeweed,
all were cared for in our backyard getaway from the elements and punishing,
summer gaze"... are inserted in stories?
Well how many variations of "loving soil, lovingly planted, cared for seeds,
water fetish and garden mania" are there?
I see a need for blank spaces in magazines for those oft used phrases that
key on , say, your sweat or something, and therefore the gruff Joisey
car-repair types could get one type of "special page", like "I threw that
crap out da windah, and it grew like a sumbitch".
Its the interactive magazine sitcher that puts *you* in the action, although
you are really sitting in a waiting room, laundry room, or waiting to get
deposed by the Grand Jury.
> (Know the scene in "Star Wars" where the Death Star gunners with the
> super-silly-looking black banana-shaped helmets pull the lever that
> fires the Death Star's giant cannon? That's one of those video
> switcher consoles. The things show up constantly in science fiction
> movies because they do look so much like old "Star Trek" set pieces
> except the buttons actually light up and beep and stuff without
> anyone having to slide cardboard cutouts back and forth behind some
> glass marbles that were cut in half with an axe. The best use of
> a video switcher as a computery prop is in "The Jupiter Menace", a
> laughable "documentary" about the coming destruction of the world
> by the mid-1980s, in which "scientists" for the first time simulate
> and earthquake that goes to 11 by pushing a button on their video
> switcher, then we see some really crude sketches that are supposed
> to pass for computer animation but look like they were drawn in
> kindergarten, then we see a "scientist" chewing on his eyeglasses
> in horror. No women holding basketballs, though.)
>
Jupiter
Pepper tobamovirus; Tobacco mosaic
virus
http://muextension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/hort/g06202.htm
Talysman the Ur-Beatle
> From Lycos ShowBizData:
> ->
> -> "ARTY" SERIES FINALE TURNS OUT TO HAVE BEEN COMPUTER ERROR
[ stuff about artsy tv series "six feet under" ]
what gets me is that everyone made a big deal about this series
because it's directed by the same guy who directed "American Beauty"
(as opposed to "American Pie" or "Invasion America")... but from
what little I saw of the series, it's boring as hell.
my theory is that everyone got all worked up over the african
basketball inserts because, compared to the rest of the series,
it was EXCITING.
of course, the reason why "Six Feet Under" isn't as good as "American
Beauty" is because the best stuff about the movie was the cinematography,
which was by Conrad Hall, who also did the cinematography for "Incubus",
which is simultaneously creepy and cheesy. I should watch Incubus again
and do a review...
meanwhile, "Six Feet Under" would probably improve as a series if they
started mixing in plots from "Incubus". or if they redid all the dialogue
in Esperanto (or Escargot.)
> From now on, whenever one of my articles isn't interesting, just pretend
> there is a half-second image of a black woman holding a basketball
or a baby's arm holding an apple
> I can't wait to see if "Dream On" becomes good once they insert MORE
> stock footage filler.
if they inserted stock footage in place of the main storyline, which
mainly dealt with Brian Benben masturbating or chasing women.
> an idea stupider than giving "Fish Police" a prime-time slot
I thought that was a drug induced hallucination!
ARGH!
> My current favorite inept broadcast engineers are at Comedy Central.
[ ... ]
> I get the feeling those people at Comedy Central don't like to interrupt
> their crossword puzzles to attend to the airing of their own shows.
I get the feeling that those people at Commie Central don't like having
to do *anything* that caters to their viewers. back when they still
aired MST3K, there was outright warfare between Penn Jillette and the
people who actually watched the show and became extremely tired of his
endless blathering and would rather listen to the simple music on the
end credits. of course, Penn Jilette did not take this criticism very
well and began bitching about the MiSTies during these same endcredits...
this would seem astounding and perhaps even artsy (in an african
basketball sense,) if it weren't so obviously part of the CC's general
"we really hate you people" attitude.
for a while, CC ran commercials with this same Penn Jillette saying:
"Comedy Central. We've upped our standards. Up yours."
it kind of puts it all in perspective.