The Daily Loper – November 20, 2007

How Do You Say “I’m OK” To An Answering Machine Edition

Todays links of interest:

• The Filth and the Fury 101
  A curated look at the books, images, and sounds that defined the early punk era. Sure to elicit ‘loper arguments.
• Senators, Presidential candidate talk tough on ”Manhunt’
  Ahh, you know that we are bearing down on an election year when pandering politicians talk tough about Video Games perhaps being misrated instead of trying to solve, you know, actual problems.
• Yahoo, Sony BMG Team Up For User-Generated Content
  Yes, because when you’re 15 years old, and you just want to make a video of you and your friends dancing around to your favorite songs, you’re going to stop to make sure that the artist who made that music is a Sony BMG artist. In addition, you are going to want to be sure to IM or email or text all of your friends and say: "look at the video we made from our favorite Sony BMG artist that we uploaded and you can watch on Yahoo’s DRM-encoded player!!" By all means, let’s make sure we legalize every ounce of spontaneous fun right out of the experience.
• Amid writers’ strike, networks try to conserve episodes
  With limited supplies of episodes on hand, the nets are facing the choice to either run out of episodes early or sprinkle what little they have over the coming months. If the former, then that particular show’s season ends unnaturally early; if the latter, then it’s a crapshoot as to whether the audience will find the new episodes sprinkled within all of the repeats. Here’s a idea for the networks: end the strike by giving the writers a fair deal!! That way, you don’t have to make this choice.
• AT&T announces Napster phone
  Napster? Is that still around?
• All-star ‘Apprentice’ set to shine
  Uh, that’s one way of looking at it, but here’s the headline we’d prefer to see: "Bogus gathering of mostly terrible people sucked into Black Hole, never to be heard from again."
• Red Hot Chili Peppers Sue Showtime
  BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! This from a band that nearly got sued themselves last year over a song that they had lifted from Tom Petty, who had the good graces not to sue. This is such bollocks. One wonders if having the name of the album out there in world the hurt sales or spurred sales. Hey Chili Peppers, if you need some more money, do a goddammed car commercial!
• You Just Got Slapped
  Video postscript to last night’s already legen – wait for it! -dary "Slapsgiving" episode of "How I Met Your Mother," easily the most underrated of the great post-sitcom sitcoms currently on TV. Is there anything that Jason Segel can’t make funny?