The Daily Loper – February 7, 2007

All Hail Duchess Gloriana XII! Edition

Todays links of interest:

• Google and cable firms warn of risks from Web TV
  Apparently, there are bandwidth issues. Who knew?
• Law Would Ban IPods When Crossing Street
  Also cell phones and other distracting devices. We soooo need this law in California.
• Disney clocks 1.3 million iTunes movie sales
  And Robert Iger says downloads aren’t cannibalizing DVD sales. Of course, what are the chances that he’d say they were? All things considered, these are pretty darn good numbers.
• Larry Sanders Show, The – Not Just the Press Release
  This is not what we asked for when we asked for more Larry Sanders on DVD. We want every show from every season, not some trumphed-up "Best-of." Imagine that the only thing you were ever going to get from, say, the Rolling Stones 1965-1972 was a 20 song best-of. This is a travesty on that type of scale.
• Phone companies rolling out TV services
  Apparently watching movies and television on cell phones plays in Peoria… No word on battery life or consumer desire. Should be forthcoming, no?
• Fountains of Pain
  When you think too much about one single band, you end up writing articles like this.
• A Real Chance In A Second Life: Virtual Book Signing In The SecondLife.com Virtual World
  As Second Life grows (and it’s the next great online story, trust us!), the opportunities for virtual book tours will become more interesting. Just make sure your avatar is fashionable.
• Why didn’t Prince get electrocuted?
  In case you were wondering. BTW, if his performance was really an affront to the God that the people claim to be offended in the name of, wouldn’t this have been the perfect chance for some instant justice.
• Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll For 2006
  Yes, the last of the 2006 critics polls, quite possibly the oldest and historically the most respected. And this year, surrounded by a controversy that only the people who care about it actually think is a controversy.
• Tab Titan Loses ‘Pecker’ Power
  If this isn’t a timely reminder to buy your name, right now, we don’t know what is. Also, do not assume that everyone knows you’re a celebrity. So embarrassing when they don’t recognize you on sight.
• Mars Scraps Snickers Ad After Complaints
  That’s okay — they’re banning pigs from Chinese television, too.
• NBC?s Zucker lashes out at YouTube
  For a guy who’s supposed to be on the cutting edge of hipness, he’s not impressing by starting off doing the exact same thing that everyone else is doing.
• Disney, movie producers create animation firm
  Isn’t this the technology that made "Polar Express" feel so creepy?
• A Hollywood 101 course for Capitol Hill
  Or (and there’s really no way to avoid this), Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.
• U.S. sent pallets of cash to Baghdad
  A half-century later, and the strategy employed by the Duchy of Grand Fenwick still works: get the United States to declare on you, and after we win the war, we will "rehabilitate" you with tons of cash! Extra special 21st Century bonus: now, we don’t even have to actually win the war for you to get the cash.
• Hackers Slow Internet Root Servers With Attack
  See, this is what doesn’t make any sense: if you kill the Internet with your kewl hackz, then you have no way to hack in the future.
• Boston scare suspect videotaped bomb squad
  If these two guys were the terrorists, the terrorists would never win.
• Wal-Mart entry to video downloads a ‘game changer’
  Yeahhhhhh . . . no.
• Prince’s halftime imagery questioned
  At least we finally know what that symbol is for.