Archive for November, 2007

Dana Perino is my new hero

By Keith, 30 November, 2007, No Comment

h/t Bryan @ Hotair

In today’s White House press conference, the following conversation took place between Press Secretary Dana Perino, and that walking corpse Helen Thomas:

Q [Thomas] (off mike): Why should we depend on him?

MS. PERINO: Because he’s the commander on the ground, Helen. He’s the one who is making sure that the situation –

Q (off mike): — You mean how many more people we kill?

MS. PERINO: Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front-row position bestowed upon you by your colleagues to make such statements. It is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we as the United States are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive.

It’s about time someone gave that old battle axe a talking too… I’m surprised Tony Snow never did it.

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WGA borrows from Jericho?

By Keith, 30 November, 2007, 1 Comment

You may remember that several months ago, a group of intrepid Jericho fans who were upset that CBS had decided to cancel the show got together and decided to send tons upon tons of nuts to the execs at CBS in an effort to voice their displeasure (in case you’re wondering, “nuts” comes from these scenes in the season finale, a reference to General McAuliffe at the battle of Bastogne). The result was that Jericho was saved, when CBS decided to bring back Jericho for seven episodes and perhaps even a third season if the ratings support it.

According to Ronald D. Moore’s new blog, it looks like the Writer’s Guild of America may be borrowing the idea for their strike. They have set up a website, Pencils2MediaMoguls.com where they are asking fans to send as many boxes of pencils as possible to the execs at the six major media companies. For Battlestar Galactica fans, Moore is offering a special carrot to get people sending pencils:

How would you like to go to a hockey game with the Chief?

That’s right, our own Aaron Douglas will take one fan to a Canucks hockey game, along with another buddy of his up in Vancouver. And how can you score this treat? Simple. By going to Pencils2MediaMoguls.com and buying as many boxes of pencils as you can. On the first page (which is a subset of United Hollywood) you’ll see a place to identify which show you’re supporting. Type in “BSG Aaron Douglas” and we’ll enter your name into a raffle, with the lucky winner getting to attend the hockey game with Aaron.

In addition to a hockey game with Galactica everyman Aaron Douglas (one of my favorite characters), you could also get a telephone call from Mary McDonnell, Tricia Helfer, Michael Hogan, Jamie Bamber, or Michael Trucco.

If the WGA did borrow the idea from the fans of Jericho, it makes for an interesting coincidence. After all, the argument of the Jericho fans was that while the ratings weren’t quite what CBS wanted, they had more viewers than they thought because many people were watching it online at CBS.com. That’s fitting since this strike is mostly about compensation for original web content and episodes that are watched online rather than on the air.

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Return of the work samples

By Keith, 30 November, 2007, No Comment

Now that I’ve had a few days that haven’t involved searching for work day and night, I’ve had a chance to play around with Wordpress a bit more. I’ve brought back the Work Samples page… it’s ironic that it was gone at the time I was looking for a job, isn’t it?

There isn’t much there yet, just the parody songs from the Early Spin, and my internship log from WGN Radio. I’ll be adding more as I get a chance. I’d really like to dig up some of the early imaging I did for WUMP oh so many years ago… some of that stuff was actually pretty good. So take a look, and check back from time to time when I get to add some things to it.

On a related note, can anyone recommend a good audio player plugin for Wordpress?

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By your command

By Keith, 29 November, 2007, 4 Comments

I was wondering how much we would see of the old school Cylons in Razor… since they did show up a lot in the deleted scenes/Razor Flashbacks. They played a pretty important role, but we didn’t really see all that much of them, of course what we did see was still pretty cool. For example:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0RkM3WYi4o]

Overall, I thought Razor was great. Especially since we got a chance to see things that we had only heard of before, like the Pegasus escaping the Cylon attack and their run-in with their own civilian fleet. Since the offseason will be just about a full year, I think this movie/extended episode was something they really needed to do, just to tide people over.

I was a little disappointed though, since the reviews all said that parts of Razor would foreshadow the final season, but I didn’t see anything that I didn’t already know about after seeing the SciFi Channel’s promo for season 4. But maybe I missed something.

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What I will miss most

By Keith, 29 November, 2007, 5 Comments

Now that I’m on the long road to Atlanta… I’ve made it most of the way, but I’m staying with my family in Huntsville for a few days before I had down there this weekend… I’ve been thinking about what I will miss now that I’ve once again left the midwest for a while:

  • Midwestern Accents - I have only been back in the southeast for a matter of hours, and already I have been deluged with “y’alls” and “fixin-to’s”.
  • Milwaukee Brewer fans - I think the Brewers and Cubs have a rivalry that’s already one of the better ones in the National League, and I think it’s only going to get better over the next few years. It was certainly a great change to be around people who are as passionate about their team as I am. I’ll definitely miss that in Atlanta.
  • Working with Dan and Nicole - Having to wake up before Willard Scott every day is a big disruption to your life, and it’s just not worth it if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing. Dan and Nicole are two very funny and talented people, and it’s a shame that we only got to work together for two years
  • “The Cheddarsphere” - I’ve already been scanning the web and there doesn’t seem to be anything remotely comparable to impressive blog network in Milwaukee and Wisconsin in general. Obviously I’ll be keeping tabs on what’s going on up in Milwaukee, places like Dailytakes, Real Debate Wisconsin, Badgerblogger and yes even Pete Republic have become a part my daily routine. Still, it will be different watching these from afar.
  • Chicago - I know that people in Milwaukee don’t like being compared to Chicago very much… and rightly so, Milwaukee is a great town on it’s own. However, I have to say that one of the things that drew me to the job in Milwaukee was it’s close proximity to Chicago. Even though I’ve spent a huge chuck of my life elsewhere, I always have and always will consider myself a Chicagoan, and being so close made me feel like I was making progress in getting back home to the Windy City. I still believe that I will get back there eventually… hopefully sooner rather than later… but I have to say it does make me a little sad that I can’t jump on the train and go down there at a moments notice. This job in Atlanta is actually a promotion over Milwaukee, but the fact that I’ll be moving so far away from “home” makes it kind of a sad one.

I also certainly met a lot of great people over my two years in Milwaukee… more than I could ever hope to list here, and I’ll certainly miss them as well, although I’m sure I’ll be staying in touch with most of them. Maybe we’ll all meet again when I make it back home to Chicago.

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Obama wants immediate US withdrawl… from space

By Keith, 27 November, 2007, 1 Comment

Senator Barack Obama has done what previously would have been thought impossible… he has actually made Senator Clinton look reasonably palatable as a Presidential candidate (cue soap opera music).

So far only two of the 127 people running for President have bothered to formulate any sort of space policy. Hillary Clinton to her credit, has come out in favor of NASA’s plan to develop the Orion spacecraft and the capability to go back to the Moon (she has stopped short of fully endorsing the return to the Moon, but that’s not an issue since if she were elected for two full terms, the first Lunar mission wouldn’t be until four years after she left office).

Last week, Obama unveiled his space policy… if you want to call it that. The Senator, who I am sorry to say represents my home state of Illinois, has decided that despite the emergence of China as a space faring nation with aims on a manned Lunar mission… despite the fact that Russia plans on launching its own Lunar program and may very well join forces with the Chinese… despite all of the innovation associated with the US manned spaceflight program… Obama has decided that the US space program is not a worth while pursuit.

Yes, with everything that’s going on in the world Barack Obama thinks that the best idea is to “pause” our manned spaceflight program until at least 2020, and then decide if we want to take it up again. That incidentally would also be long after he leaves office, even if he served two full terms. He says that he would take the money already allocated for Project Constellation and divert it to education.

I think Kevin said it best: “If you’re not going to have a space program, why do you even need education?”

This reminds me of what I have read about Walter Mondale’s crusade against the Apollo program in the 1960’s and 70’s. Despite the fact that NASA’s budget then (as now) was less than .01% of the national budget, Mondale’s war cry was that the money should be spent on the War on Poverty… since the hundreds of billions of dollars we were spending each year weren’t enough, I’m sure that NASA’s $3-4 billion Apollo-era budget would have put them over the top.

This time Obama is already transparently trying to weasel out of any debate on this… to him if you are for sending people back to the Moon you are obviously against education.

Say what you want about Hillary Clinton but she isn’t stupid. By supporting NASA’s plan for space exploration, she is showing that she can at least vaguely see where things are heading… China is trying to become the dominant country of the 21st century, and much in the way that the Soviet Union was able to claim technical superiority after Sputnik, if the Chinese can get to the Moon before the US they will certainly have a huge advantage, and if they can make some sort of claim to the vast resources on the Moon then they, and not the US will be the world’s lone Superpower. If Obama has his way, while China has people walking on the Moon, we will be lucky if we can remember how to get people into orbit, let alone explore the solar system.

Normally I shy away from making political disagreements personal, but I have to tell you, if Obama cannot see the value of manned spaceflight in general, and NASA’s new Lunar program in particular, then I really have to question his intelligence.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again many many times in the future, there will be a new space race between the US on one said and Russia and China on the other, and that race will be the most critical thing we will be involved in over the next 20 years… anyone who doesn’t realize that should not be President of the United States. Period.

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Wood to return to Cubs after all

By Keith, 26 November, 2007, 1 Comment

Well it wasn’t quite like Pay-Rod, who after using his out clause told the Yankees to not even bother trying to re-sign him… only to re-sign with them weeks later, however it’s certainly good to see that the Cubs won’t have to worry about filling another hole in the bullpen this offseason after signing Kerry Wood to a 1 year contract today:

CHICAGO — Kerry Wood is staying put.

The Cubs agreed Monday to a one-year, $4.2 million contract with the free agent pitcher, who had been courted by other teams as a setup pitcher.

Wood, coming off his first full season as a reliever, may get the opportunity to be the Cubs’ closer in 2008, and will compete for the job this spring along with Carlos Marmol.

It seems like most of the fans I’ve talked to never doubted that Wood was coming back. However the Cubs lost exclusive negotiating rights with him back on November 13th and hadn’t been anywhere near re-signing him, then last week Paul Sullivan with the Trib wrote that he could be heading to the Red Sox. So it was hardly a sure thing.

The Cubs bullpen turned into a huge strength with the mid-season additions of both Wood and rookie Carlos Marmol, and if Wood had left there would have been a very large hole to fill, especially since Dempster was dethroned as closer. As it stands the Cubs need only get 6 quality innings from their starters with Wood, Howry and Marmol picking up the last three innings.

It’ll be good to see Wood get a full, injury-free season under his belt. He really seems to be one of the better guys in the Majors. Already in his career he’s turned down the possibility of getting more money elsewhere because he was loyal to the Cubs and Chicago. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he’s the 21st century answer to Ron Santo… we may even see him in the booth one day living and dying with the Cubs.

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