Retired

While you were eagerly anticipating the season premiere of Veronica Mars, Lost and Battlestar Galactica (well, so were we), this is what we were looking at:

• YouTube and Orphaned Art – YouTube shouldn’t stop until they’ve become a repository for everything ever filmed.
• How Paramount Steals My Life, A Few Minutes at a Time – Jim sitting through promos for Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley – trust me, it’s not pretty.
• There Ought To Be A Law – Kassia dreams of a world where politicians actually know what they’re talking about.
• Teaching Consumers About DRM – Where you should go to learn about DRM before your mp3s stop playing.
• That’s What We Like: Battlestar Galactica – There are Cylons among us. Funny, Kirk was conspicuously quiet on this topic.

While you were busy making daily lineup changes in order to win your Fantasy Baseball league, here’s what we were looking at:

• The MPAA’s Final Solution to DVD Piracy: Two Doggies! – Sometimes the tactics that organizations like the RIAA and MPAA use to combat piracy seem evil, other times, they seem silly. This is the latter.
• Woe Is Wal-Mart – Why the studios shouldn’t delay downloadable movies.
• My Home Stereo Upgrade: The Roku SoundBridge – What’s amazing is that there aren’t more of these types of products out there. Seems like a no-brainer,but obviously, that’s wrong.
• TiVo, Lower the Price on Your HD-DVR! – Seriously, the second this drops to a reasonable price point, I am snapping one up.
• That’s What I Like: The MX-500 Universal Remote – Kirk talks about the remote that’s simplified his life.

While you were relishing the fact that for the first time in your life you have a retort to “eat your spinach,” here’s what we were looking at:

• Playing For One Night Only: The Fall Television Season – Many are called, few are chosen.
• My Problem With iTunes 7 – Is different than other people’s problems with iTunes 7. Lotsa people having lotsa problems. As it turns out, perhaps the only person not having problems with it is Tim.
• Microsoft Insider Clarifies Zune’s Sharing Limitations – or “Whoops. Remember that Thing I Blogged? About Zune Wrapping Everything Up In DRM? Well, Not So Much.” Considering the firestorm surrounding Zune & DRM, you wonder how long it’s going to be before Microsoft disappears the poor guy.
• The DRM Virus Is Spreading – A Pandemic May Be Near – Home taping didn’t kill music. Used CDs didn’t kill music. Downloading didn’t kill music.
  Ironically, under the guise of “protection,” DRM has a better chance of killing music than all of these things combined.
• Will Success Spoil YouTube? – A slightly paranoid question, to be sure. But I’ll still bet that, by the end of 2007, YouTube will feel totally different than it does right now.
• That’s What I Like: The Office – Kassia hits the nail on the head when she calls it “one of the smartest, funniest, most painful shows on television.” I continue to think that it’s the best cover of an undisputed classic since Hüsker Dü’s “Eight Miles High.”

While you were exploiting the memory of 9/11 for your own political gain, here’s what we were looking at:

• Debunking A Few Amazon Unbox Myths – The first of the rash of the major product announcements in the past week or so was Amazon’s Unbox. Remember that? Didn’t think so.
• Unbox: High Prices, Restrictive Terms – High prices and restrictive terms?? Golly! Where do I sign up!
• What is a “Webisode” Anyways? – Content generated for specifically for the web is its beast, with its own rules (which are still being established), so we shouldn’t treat it the same as content generated for other mediums.
• Why Steve Jobs Pre-announced Apple’s iTV Product – Because he’s Steve Jobs and can do whatever the hell he wants?? Er, because Apple didn’t want to get lost in the rash of product announcements.
• Hello EMI! Goooood-bye! – In which another major label does the wrong thing in the name of “protecting” their artists.
• Rushing For Gold – The dirty little secret about gold rushes is that it’s never the prospectors who get rich, but rather the hustlers who sell stuff to the prospectors. Just ask Al Swearengen. Or Mark Burnett.
• Why I Won’t Swoon For Zune – Why Microsoft’s vision of a nation of consumers beaming songs at each other like so many souped-up Palm Pilots probably won’t come to fruition.
• Zune’s Big Innovation: Viral DRM – Somehow, I don’t think that this is the Zune discussion that Microsoft wanted.
• That’s What I Like: Bob Dylan – If this article were a Bob Dylan song, it would be “Highlands:” perhaps a bit overlong, and most certainly meandering about.

While you were wishing that the Battlestar Galactica webisodes could be, you know, longer, here’s what we were looking at:

• How Not to Do A Character Blog – Life on Mars is great show, but the main character is either in a coma or in 1973. Either way, he wouldn’t have a blog.
• From Japan, it’s the iPodBot! – As if Jim needs another robot to ignore. Poor Roomba.
• The Village Voice Breaks Up With Robert Christgau – Jim gives the Village Voice’s decision to dump Christgau an E-.
• Network Neutrality: Now More Than Ever – These companies can’t even fix a single customer’s DSL in under a week. And now they want to control the internet?
• How, Exactly, Is A Celeb Arrest “BREAKING NEWS”? – One more reason in a long list why I don’t watch the local news in Los Angeles. Another reason: those weird weather guys.
• That’s What I Like: Joss Whedon – It was my turn to like something this week so I revisited an old obsession.

While you were busy remembering Katrina or gearing up for college football here is what we were doing:

• How Not To Sell Books – Yet another example of a company that doesn’t understand how to properly market themselves on the web.
• Why Pitchfork Scares Adults – What makes a good review? Passion for the topic. Something a lot of reviewers seem to lack.
• Why HD DVDs Won’t Save Hollywood – Jim explains his reasons why we won’t be switching to HD DVD or Blu-ray, much to our bank account’s great relief.
• Will Spiral Frog Leap Into Our Music Collections? – …somehow I don’t think so.
• More Politicians In The New World – Is the appearance of Mark Warner in Second Life an anamoly or a harbinger of these to come?
• The Futility Of DRM – As the amount of available digital content grows so do the issues with DRM.
• That’s What I Like: Salon – So much to love. Here’s just a taste.
• No Virginia, There Is No lonelygirl15 – Call us cynical, but lonelygirl15 is probably anything but what she appears to be, a random teenager posting her video diary.

While you were relishing the chance to make yet more Uranus jokes, here’s what we were looking at:

• CBS Reaffirms Its Commitment To Appointment Television – CBS’ online newscasts: one step up, two steps back. What’s the point in doing online news and restricting access by time zone?
• Watch Out For Falling Serpents!! – Hey everybody! Remember that whole Snakes on a Plane thing? Wasn’t that funny? Absolutely one of the best pop culture moments of Springtime 2006.
• What Happens When Your Radio Station Switches Formats – You don’t have to be a Country Music fan to understand the reasons why the wholesale abandoment of the format by radio in our larger metropolitian areas sucks. Adding insult to injury in Los Angeles: the return of hack DJ Rick Dees.
• There Is A Cure For the Summer Tube Blues – Stop whining about nothing being on TV and start watching these shows!! Oh wait, most of them have their finales this week. Oh well, there’s always next summer.
• Hollywood Today – Not so different from Hollywood yesterday. Which doesn’t bode so well for Hollywood tomorrow.
• The Truth About Pluto’s Demotion – Neptune is celebrating, as it always regarded Pluto as a bit of a poseur. No word on what Uranus thinks, which is weird, as it’s usually not shy about expressing itself.
• That’s What I Like: WordPress – You gotta love a Web Pub Tool that makes it this easy for schlubs like me to immediately share our bad jokes with the rest of the world.
• Zune Autopsy Photos Revealed By FCC – Still looks better than the Prism Durosport 6000.

While you were using the Web to arm yourself with information about new cars — and still ended up paying more than you intended — here’s what we were looking at:

• Why Zune & iPod Should Have the Radio On (Radio On!) – Hell, even the Prism DuroSport’s got the AM, so why aren’t Microsoft and Apple down with giving us as many listening choices as possible?
• It’s Hard Out There For A Critic – In a world where critics aren’t the gatekeepers and tastemakers, what role will they end up playing?
• Assessing The Impact Of the AOL Data Spill – Kirk takes an in-depth look at the impact of AOL’s leaked user search data.
• 10 Ways To Protect Your Privacy Before The Next Data Spill – This sort of thing is going to happen again, and you’d best believe that your data is being traded privately all of the time anyways, so here’s how to minimize the impact.
• That’s What I Like: The Complete Peanuts – In the latest installment of our highly acclaimed* series, Jim looks at early days of the iconic comic strip and points out that, originally, they were just weird little kids.
• Nothin’ From Nothin’ Leaves Nothin’ – It’s obviously going to take Billy Preston to convince John Lennon to let Yoko know that it’s time for The Beates to join the iTunes parade.

*To each other

While you were waiting for the TSA to finally ban people from boarding airplanes, here is what we were up to:

• 6 Books You Should Read Right Now If You Wanna Get Some Insight Into This Whole “New Media” Thingy – Must reads if you want to understand the thinking behind some of the rants and raves here at Medialoper.
• Out Of Touch With The Real World: Modern Media Critics – Snobbish, pasty white men are telling us what to watch and what to read but who’s listening? Well deserved criticism for the critics.
• Was Google GTunes A Victim of Zune? – It looks like Microsoft may win this battle in their ongoing war with Google.
• How Zune Could Actually Be an iPod Killer – Jim’s dream mp3 player isn’t the iPod and it probably won’t be Zune.
• When Computers Marry Televisions – Unfortunately, my dream of a living room with just one “box” that does it all (as opposed to the six we have currently) is still a long way off.
• Why Kids Don’t Watch Movies On Cellphones – Turns out, having their parents nag them about cellphone charges is at the top of the list.
• Sopranos HD-DVD: Whack Job – Tony and his gang try to take out Blu-Ray but the price may be too high and could cause HD-DVD to go down, as well.
• That’s What I Like: Slings & Arrows Season One DVD – Oh and let’s not forget, it stars Paul Gross.

While you were working on your spreadsheet of who started which war when, here’s what we were looking at:

• Suggestions For The New Media World – Some simple suggestions for those who want to be part of the changers, not the changees.
• MTV Looks Better Than You Did At 25 – But then again, you drink a lot more than MTV did, too.
• More Fun In The Digital World – Given the democratic nature of digitalizing content, we probably won’t be asking “who killed the ebook?” anytime soon, so the question is whether or not publishers are going to get serious about digitizing their backlists, because somebody is going to.
• Why MySpace Won’t Live To See 25 – The second something like MySpace gets to be big enough to be purchased by, say Rupert Murdoch, it’s peaked.
• Hollywood’s True Long Tail – It’s movies on TV. Who would have thought that Monster Chiller Horror Theatre was actually a profit center?
• That’s What I Like: Countdown With Keith Olbermann – Kassia points out that there’s nothing sexier than a guy who wears glasses.
• 5 Signs That Zune Has Already Jumped the Shark – Perhaps, but in France, they make an amazing baked Zune with a white wine reduction sauce. At least that’s what I saw on the Helo Cooking Show.
• No Heat, Little Vision & Jacking Off – I think that I’m going to make a pilot about uploading my reject pilot to YouTube and waiting for another network to call me about it.