The Weekly 'Loper

While you were sighing in relief because you weren’t mentioned in the Mitchell Report, here’s what we’ve been looking at:

• All My ‘Lopers – What if your ‘Lopers were stars of their own Internet Soap Opera? Well, one this is for sure: it would be better than Quarterlife.
• 50 Great Songs Over 7 Minutes Long That Didn’t Make Rolling Stone’s List – Rolling Stone did a list of what they called the fifty greatest songs over seven minutes long. Not even close.
• Writers Strike Deathwatch: Heroes – This is a bad sigh: not so much with the missing Heroes right now.
• Will An Irrational Fear of Piracy Destroy the Publishing Industry Too? – Oh, probably.
• The World’s Most Expensive RSS Reader – Kassia has found her killer app for the iPhone: Google Reader!
• Video on Demand Update: 2007 State of the Industry – The state of the video on demand is 2007 is . . . sucky.
• 50 Great Songs Under 2 Minutes Long – Another list!

• Writers Strike Deathwatch: Pushing Daisies – What sucks was that it feels like it was just getting started.

• What a Swell Party This Is: Three Moustache Rides at the Castro Theater – Nothing like a Burt Reynolds film festival, is there?
• Screamin’ Jay Hawkins Is a Wild Man, So Bug Off! – Kirk must have screamed for joy when he came across the 20-year-old tape that fuels this podcast.

While you were busy adding new Facebook applications, here’s what we were looking at:

• Where Some See Lemons: More On The Writers Guild Strike – As new media changes the overall current of how money flows, writers and other creatives can use it to create their own productions outside of traditional studio control.
• Six Unanticipated Consequences Of The Writers Strike – Are you missing your fix of The Daily Show yet? How about The Colbert Report? Or the other late night shows? Just curious.
• MLB and DRM: A Match Made in Hell – Even if he had nothing absolutely to do with this, I blame Bud Selig. Imagine how popular Baseball would be right now if we’d had a good commissioner for the past decade.
• Making Us All That Much More Stupid: Bad Movie Night at The Dark Room – What happens when a bunch of smart film-lovers take the MST3K concept and apply it to a live audience showing? Find out.
• Gearing Up for TOC 2008 – The O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference for 2008 is sooner than you think.
• 360 Deals: The Musical Merry-Go-Round – The music industry finds newer and deeper ways to screw up-and-coming artists who are willing to gamble on losing their long-term viability for some short-term success. Unless, of course, I’m wrong and Paramore is the biggest band of 2012.
• Writers Strike Deathwatch: The Office – This is just the first of our favorite Primetime shows to be affected by the WGA Strike. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be the last. Oh, and hey NBC? I’ve seen the first three episodes of quarterlife. It’s not your savior.
• Music Executive Makes Startling Deathbed Confession: “We Were Wrong” – Gee, ya think?
• Reasons To Be Thankful 2007 – Strangely enough, none of them have anything to do with either technology or pop culture. How shallow.

While you were sitting at home reading stories about the writers’ strike that were written by writers who won’t be striking, here is what we were sitting at home writing about:

• To CD or Not to CD – When did Jim’s fear of new technology end? Or has it?
• Your Helpful Pre-Writers Strike Primer – A good overview of the reasons behind the strike that will cause your favorite shows to begin disappearing from the airwaves in a matter of days.
• Happy 25th Anniversary to KFSR – 25 years? That can’t possibly be right. Jim, Tim and Kirk certainly don’t act as if they’re that old. And by “that old,” I mean 25.
• That’s What I Like: The Amazon Wish List – Just in time for the holidays and all of those end of the year birthdays. Have you updated your wish list lately?

While you were wondering if the Colorado Rockies were ever going to lose another game ever, here’s what we were looking at:

• Scalpers vs Teenage Girls – And the winner is . . . Billy Ray Cyrus!! Also, good on Ticketmaster for going after the auto-scalpware makers. Two sentences that I thought I would never write.
• The Wilco Songs on TV Shows Watch – Well, that was a bust. What we thought was a trend turned out to be just a coincidence, after all.
• Can The Music Industry Really Have It Both Ways? – They’ll try, but in the end, they aren’t going to have it any way. Except, of course, by suing each and every single one of us.
• The Kucinich Campaign Stumbles Into Second Life – All of this talk about the nerds taking over the country and yet the nerdiest candidate in either party can’t get enough love despite his obvious greatness?
• The Week the Music Industry Came Unraveled – Somewhere, over In Rainbows, Music Executives cry: “If Radiohead sells loads of In Rainbows, then why, oh why, can’t I”
• Will Total Music Be Total Crap? – And will anybody even really care, for that matter?
• Prepare for the Worst: 4 Simple Digital Media Backup Solutions – Because you want to make sure that all of that music you’ve ripped is safe. Forever.
• Ash in a Digital Earn – Rounding out our “Dancing on the Ashes of The Music Industry’s Grave (Yes, That Is A Mixed Metaphor) Week,” Tim offers his thoughts as he discovers one of his favorite bands, Ash, is rerouting their career focus. Because, now, they can.

While you were wondering if the Colorado Rockies were ever going to lose another game ever, here’s what we were looking at:

• The YouTube Result: Democratizing Reporting – One of the many disruptive results of YouTube has been the rise of the citizen-journalist-vlogger, in this case Talking Points Memo’s new daily videocast, TPMtv.
• The Medialoper Review of Spiral Frog – At this point, I’ve pretty much run out of things to say about it. Let’s promise not to speak of it anymore.
• How Amazon’s MP3 Store Will Challenge iTunes, and Why Steve Jobs Doesn’t Care – The Amazon store could be one of those rarities: a win for all involved. Including the consumer.
• O’Reilly Seeks Proposals for Second Annual TOC Conference – Get cracking on yours today!
• The Gingrich Who Stole Second Life – Remember what Wired said all of those years ago: “Friend AND Foe.”
• Radiohead OKs Computers – After wading through the unintuitive mid-1990s jungle of the In Rainbows website, I finally figured out how to pre-order my downloads. It remains to be seen if, on Tuesday, I’ll be able to get the songs.
• Doomed But Loved: Friday Night Lights – Sigh. After all of that, they have to hit us with the shark-approach of the newest twist in the Tyra/Landry storyline, which is the worst thing to happen to a show I love since the newly-minted-possibly-retcon Cylons on Battlestar started quoting Bob Dylan.
• Ode To A Simpler Time – Kassia likes Mad Men, the little-watched show on AMC that will probably go down the best TV show to debut this year.

While you were still trying to figure out how Sally Field and James Spader could even be nominated for Emmys, much beat out Edie Falco & James Gandolfini, here’s what we were looking at:

• The Future, As I See It – Kassia gazes into her crystal ball and sees cities full of wi-fi. What, no flying cars??
• Joan Rivers, Blogger Keeping things in perspective, I have to point out that the above phrase isn’t nearly as horrific as, say “Britney Spears, Schoolteacher,” “Sally Field, Best Actress in a Drama,” or “Sam Brownback, President.”
• Print-On-Demand: What Happens when Book Publishing Becomes a Commodity? – In the very first Medialoper Podcast, Kirk talks to author Timothy Sykes, and then deconstructs the future of self-publishing with Kassia.
• Book, Movie, Audience: Bringing Forces Together – Looking at the need for books and movies made from those books to better cross-promote on the internet.
• Why “Sweet Home Alabama” is a Bad Choice For A Tourism Theme – However, it would be the perfect choice for Alabama State Song.
• My Weekend in iPhone Activation Hell – Kassia gets an iPhone, but Kirk is the one spending the weekend trying to get it activated because AT&T has chosen that weekend to upgrade their activation system. Hee.
• That’s What I Like – Things From Another World – One of the things Rox didn’t mention but no doubt she likes about Things From Another World: she can get her Buffy comic fix without having to deal with the Comic Book Guys of the world.

While you were busy hanging on Steve Jobs’ every word . . . ok, so were we. But this is what else we were doing:

• The Advertising Conundrum – Kassia takes a look at the future of advertising and the difficulty they will have as consumers scattered across multiple platforms.
• Potpourri: Download Service Explosion, Miss South Carolina, iPhone Hacking – Jim jumps around to highlight a few newsworthy tidbits.
• At the Tone, the Time Lady Will Be Gone – But not forgotten. Ok, probably forgotten, as well.
• That’s What I Like: Somethingness – Mmmmm…more wine, please.
• NBC’s Bad Move – Another bad decision by a television network? Why, oh why, am I not surprised.
• iPod Touch: The Final Nail in Zune’s Coffin – Another one of Kirk’s predictions comes true. We should be keeping track of these.
• Apple Scruffs: New iPods & the Universal Dust-Up – Yes, I’ve already been told how my $100 Apple store credit is being spent. Who else wants an iPod for Christmas? I might as well start my list now.
• That’s What I Like: Debunking Urban Legends – What do you mean I’m not gonna get any money from Bill Gates! Seriously, I’m not?

While you were busy trying to fill one of the last two weeks of summer with too many activities, this is what we were doing:

• One of Those Late Summer, Living Is Easy Posts – Damn, I wish I was in San Diego!
• My Afternoon in Wal-Mart’s MP3 Download Hell – Kirk takes one for the team. One more reason to stay away from the nightmare that is Wal-Mart.
• Debunking the Great DVD Sniffing Dog Hoax – The latest adventures of Flo and Lucky – invasion of privacy is only the beginning.
• Active Eight – Tim praises the internet for its help in facilitating his numerous outdoor activities. The rest of us ‘Lopers are sitting on our couches or laying in our hammocks with our heads hung down in shame.

While you were trying desperately to stay out of the godsdammed heat, here’s what we were looking at:

• YearlyKos is Dead, Long Live Netroots Nation – Our man Ronin Kurosawa reports from the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago. Er, Second Life.
• My iPhone Crash – It seems to be all better now, thanks for asking.
• My Heart Starts Pumping, My Fists Start Pumping – Kassia discusses her long-time love for Patti Smith.
• Joining The Patti Smith Fan Club – In the first installment of “Medialoper Classic,” I write about the first time I saw Patti Smith in concert — it was 1996, so this isn’t a “I was there before you were there, nyah, nyah” thingie — and just how amazing it was.
• Google Video Debacle Demonstrates the Need for Consumer Protection Laws – You know all of those digital download websites where they force you to login to keep watching things you’ve purchased or you download music that only plays on certain devices? This right here is a) why these things suck total ass. Thanks, Google, for providing such an object lesson!!
• Why Universal’s Dissing of iTunes Doesn’t Really Matter – Because nobody knows what artist is on what label anymore, and the online music space is so fracked up that one more thing like this just doesn’t matter.
• The False War: HD DVD versus Blu Ray – I’d love to have something pithy to write about this, but I’m too busy digitizing my old Beta tapes, and don’t ever plan on making a choice like that ever again.
• A Tribute To Coffee – Kirk channels Agent Cooper — Season 1 Agent Cooper — and discusses why he likes his coffee.
• Wireless In San Diego — Kirk rails against the San Diego Hilton confusing Broadband with Wireless. I’d like to point out that this is the same braintrust that gave us Paris Hilton, and ask why he is funding her in the first place?

While you were thinking “just go ahead an hit those damn home runs already, so we can go back to some semblance of normalcy,” here’s what we were looking at:

• It Only Took 20 Years… – But the cleverly titled The Simpsons Movie got made, and was a huge hit. You may have heard something about it.
• Warning: Those Copyright Warnings May Not Be Entirely Accurate – It turns out that Major League Baseball is probably overreaching and you may not need (all together now!) “express written consent of Major League Baseball” to discuss last night’s game. Which is good, because the Office of the Commissioner has gotten extremely slow with their responses.
• Dr. Strangeglove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Barry Bonds – And Sherilyn thought that defending the cleverly titled Star Trek: The Motion Picture was unwarranted. Also: 755. Please don’t report me to Bud Selig.