Scary clowns can be funny though, it seems.  A friend showed me the new Wal-Mart clown ad and I just about peed myself laughing.  So, below are some of the best clown ads I can find!

E-Trade Superbowl Ad

USPS Flat-Rate Ad

Newest Wal-Mart ad

Yes, I’m a big fan of Conan O’Brien.  No, this entry is not just about him.

You all remember when NBC decided that it’d be a great idea to cash in on our childhood memories with Knight Rider?  If you do, you’d also remember that it sucked horribly.  It stunk so badly they didn’t air more than four episodes despite the fact they paid for a whole season.  Because Knight Rider had a car as it’s central figure, some genius at NBC figured that people must not like cars and shows about cars.  With that logic in mind, NBC decided to drop Top Gear America without even showing the pilot.  For those of you who aren’t in the know, Top Gear is a BBC program in the UK that is one of the most widely distributed shows in the world.  It has been spun off into Top Gear: Germany, Top Gear: Russia, and Top Gear: Australia.  We were inches from joining the rest of the civilized world in getting Top Gear: America!  I guess people just don’t like car shows enough to watch them on TV (we do, however download Top Gear UK so much that it is the most BitTorrent’s show in the world).

Next on the chopping block?  Crusoe!  You remember that memorable show, right?  No?  Neither did I till I went through our own archives here!

So, NBC has a long time history of screwing things up.  Instead of making a miniseries with a complete story arc to show (and see if people actually like it) they order entire seasons of untested shows, THEN put minimal effort into the production of said shows.  Since the whole concept of television programming seemed to be failing them, I guess they decided to just make everything on their network be a late night talk show.  I won’t go into the details since you’ve likely read/heard them from many other sources but the instant they announced that Jay Leno would be taking over prime time, admit it, you knew it was a bad idea.  And it wasn’t even that he was starting a new show, either.  The Tonight Show, was simply moving to prime time.

People watched the Tonight Show with Jay Leno for two reasons; 1) they really like Jay Leno, and 2) that’s when they get home/get kids in bed/get in bed themselves to watch TV.  The people who love Leno moved to the prime time spot with him.  The people in the second category stayed with the time slot.  Instead of doubling their ratings, NBC effectively split them in half!  Now, after admitting it was a terrible idea, they are moving Leno back to the 10PM spot, booting O’Brien, and keeping the rookie Fallon (we think).  I’m honestly not going to get into who should do what, I’m just pointing out that it was a stupid idea when it was announced, and it’s even worse now that they’re trying to fix it.

This entry doesn’t actually end there, either.  See, while everyone else is really interested in this late night mess that NBC has caused, they don’t really look at some of the other channels that NBC owns and operates.  Top of this list in “WTF moments” for NBC would have been renaming SfiFi into Syfy.  You pronounce it the same, it looks kind of the same, but one is a genre of media and the other is a venereal disease (“Syfy” is Polish slang for syphilis).  Supposedly, this renaming was part of a global rebranding effort by the network to get farther away from science fiction based programming.  However, their effort to do so has ended there, as they haven’t changed their programming in the slightest (other than the sudden influx of Ghost Hunter:Enter Random Destination here shows).

In their latest scheme, NBC and Syfy want to hop on the MMO bandwagon and they want to do it in a truly unique way.  Instead of creating a whole new world for a game, they instead want to create a whole new world for a show, and the game goes along with the show!  Of course, this was planned long ago with another, more popular property.

I have two theories behind what must be going through NBC executives’ minds regarding all this:

Theory 1: One network analyst pointed out that Conan is much more popular with younger viewers than Leno is.  Top Gear is mainly watched by car and tech enthusiasts.  Neither of those really fit into NBC’s target “50-60 Never Married Female” demographic.  This demographic also typically doesn’t have TiVo, watch TV on the internet, or know how to program their microwave clock.  Since they aren’t going to be watching pre-recorded, commercial free TV, NBC has to ensure that those ladies won’t ever turn their TV’s to another station.  Instead of trying to reach out to new demographics and strengthen their viewer-base, they play to the low hanging fruit.

Theory 2: Someone in the higher echelons of NBC wants to be let go in a glorious fashion!  Perhaps they’re hoping for a Rick Wagoner level severance?

http://www.empsfm.org/

Based upon my observations, I’d like to make some predictions about what the show holds for the future:

• Randy Jackson has become more and more “gangsta” each year.  By season 11, he has gone fully ‘Flavor Flav’ on everyone.  By season 13, his speech has degraded to almost Boomhower levels with “Dawg” being the only distinguishable word left.
• The final 6 each have to sing a song about their favorite Ford car while drinking a Coke.
• Votes will be tallied by counting how many iTunes downloads each contestant gets.
• In Season 12, Ryan Seacrest will be named America’s Oldest Living Teenager.
• Sometime around Season 17, Dick Clark will challenge Ryan in a fight to the death to try and retake the title.
• Paula will finally embrace her inner couger and comes right out and proposition a 15 year old male singer (like we know she’s been trying so hard not to these past couple seasons).
• After Simon Cowell’s departure, producers scramble to find another judge to replace him.  In an effort to find someone who sound’s like a prick even when they’re not trying to, they will settle on either Jeremy Clarkson or Gordon Ramsey.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the show’s premise, it’s about two male Caltech prodigies in their twenties, one an experimental physicist (Leonard) and the other a theoretical physicist (Sheldon), who live across the hall from a blonde waitress with show-biz aspirations (Penny). Like a typical sitcom, they engage in zany antics but with a geeky twist.  It’s the geeky twists that I can appreciate and usually find myself laughing out loud at.

The show has been renewed for two more seasons so I’d highly recommend getting caught up and joining in on the fun every Monday night.  Here is a small sample to get you started.

Just in case you hadn’t already heard, I’ll give you all the quick rundown:  SciFi network has decided that it doesn’t like the Science Fiction genre and believes that fans of the genre are weird.  So, to help distance themselves from the identity they spent 17 years creating they are naming themselves “Syfy” (or “Venereal Disease” if you speak Polish).

This confuses me greatly.  Yes, I get the idea that SciFi is technically an entire genre of entertainment and so branding it can be quite hard.  I guess I could pretend that most people don’t know how to capitalize the name of a network that isn’t just a bunch of letters.  I could even humor the idea that they want to broaden their horizons and start showing programming with a different target audience.   But that’s where I start to choke.

You don’t expect to find fast cars on the Food Network, do you?  I’m not expecting Talk Sex on the SPEED Channel.  I don’t expect anything good on ABC Family.  The idea of not expecting science fiction on the channel named after science fiction is a little baffling to me.  Granted, SciFi became almost synonymous with “bad made-for-tv movies” instead of actual science fiction but at least they were consistent.  What are we to expect now?  

Wasn’t the whole point of naming it SciFi in the first place to make sure people knew it was a science fiction centered channel?  You could have just named it “We’ll show whatever gets us ratings, unless we think you’re all losers” Network (WSWGURUWTYAL?  Maybe not) if this was your intent all along:

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network. 

“We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi,” Mr. Brooks said. “It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.”

You spent a lot of time in the ’90s?  You created the series in the ’90s!  You aren’t exactly the National Broadcasting Company, are you?  It’s not like you’ve been around through a few world wars and have had to change to keep up with the times.  You created the network to fill a specific niche, and now you don’t like the niche you picked?  Why not just create a new network then!?

Probably the most transparent argument for the name change is the idea that trying to copyright the brand “SciFi” is too hard, and “Syfy” is much easier.  I’m not a trademark lawyer, but I’m pretty sure this is a load of bull.  I’m fairly certain that The Learning Channel never got confused with an R&B/Rap duo.  When I tell people I watch Discovery Channel, I’m fairly certain they don’t picture me actually watching a discovery being made.  I mean, if the guys over at FOOD Network aren’t having a problem with branding, I doubt SciFi is really all that hard.  Even Oxygen doesn’t think it’s a problem (and they don’t even put “Channel” or “Network” after their name)!

While watching tonights finale of geek fav Battlestar Galactica take a drink of your beverage of choice each time on the the following happens:

· Gaius is talks to imaginary Six and another character looks at him like he’s loony.

· Admiral Adama cries.

· Anders gets rejected by Starbuck.

· Anyone yells “Gods damnit!”

· Someone on the show takes a drink.

· Every time Grace Park is on screen… Shout the character you think she is: Eight, Sharon, Athena or Boomer. If you’re correct, hand your drink to someone who got it wrong.

· Someone says “toaster.”

· When you think you hear Jamie Bamber’s British accent. (drink two if you didn’t know he’s a Brit)

· Any time you wonder why more people watch “Lost.”

· Every time you’re weirded out by the late-blooming Saul-Six relationship.

· Every time Starbuck has a mood swing.

· Every time you hear the term “skinjob” and it creeps you out.

My job allows for me to see all sorts of technology before other people.  It also allows for me to watch television shows and movies on one monitor while I do work on another.  This is very convenient because I am able to stay current on a lot of the shows that I enjoy watching.  I also get to watch a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t otherwise have the time to.  No, I don’t just watch TV all day.  I do get to see an episode here or there though.

One of the shows that I was introduced to by my coworkers is a British comedy called The IT Crowd.  This is a true comedic gem.  It’s about two guys and their female, know-nothing-about-IT boss who work in an  IT department.  They are typical basement dwellers who only come out to fix the things that technically challenged people shouldn’t be using anyway.  They just finished up the third season in the UK and there have been talks of bringing it to the US a la The Office.

Of all of the characters, Moss has to be my favorite.  He is the most awkward computer nerd you have ever met.  The beautiful thing about his character is that we all know somebody like him.  Heck, we might even be him.

If you have never seen this show, you need to.  It’s not available on DVD in the US yet but, being the geek that you are, I’m sure that you can find a way to procure it in a sutiable format for your viewing pleasure.