Category — Television

Finally, one of the more incisive commentators on television finally will be getting her own show on MSNBC. Rachel Maddow will replace the show Verdict with Dan Abrams at 9pm with her own show of opinion on politics and other items. She is scheduled to premiere on Sept 8th after the Republican convention.

In the months she has been on MSNBC providing commentary on the primary results along showing up on the various opinion shows like Hardball, Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Verdict. In the past month, she has been the Countdown guest host giving her practice in hosting on a show of her own.

Rachel has been a strong voice for progressive politics on television. While other commentators try to straddle some line of objectivity, she is out there telling how it is and providing a strong counterbalance to other commentators. Her battles and takedowns of old-time conservative Pat Buchanan are legendary.

With Keith Olbermann as the lead in to her show, progressives like myself have a definite place to go through this political season to November.

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I am a Olympics junkie. For the past twenty years or so, I have been an interested devotee of the games and for most of the events no obscure it may be.

It has been quite a change from how I track the games events and results from 1988 to 2008. Back then, I was reliant upon whatever the CBC/CTV or the American networks carried on their braodcast which usually was just snippets of clips and focus on whatever the stars were for the event. If I was lucky, I could read about other events and see the stats for the events in the paper even if I knew the results well ahead of time.

Over the years, as computers and the Internet became more prevalent in our lives, I found it was easier to catch up with the results. In the late 90’s, the websites associated with the Olympic games or the network sites would have some stories posted along with the results. Not in real-time but usually ahead of what was printed in the paper the next day.

By this time, the games were seen as rating gold especially for NBC, and we start seeing more around the clock coverage allowing the viewers to see more sports even if was just the gold medal final.

By the 2000 Olympics, I had become throughly immersed in the Olympics as the games progressed checking on the results with a relentless spirt. With faster Internet speeds, seeing video whether live or even just highlight clips became a useful tool.

Now, in 2008, what do I have access to?
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Just nine weeks to go before the commencement of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing China. This Olympics may prove to be somewhat controversial on many fronts whether it be the fact that China is not a free society, the issue of its government and its policies in particular Tibet, and finally the issue of the pollution that seems endemic to that part of China which may affect athlete performances.

But all of that is to be talked about by others. What I am more interested, as always, is the performance of Canada’s athletes at the games.

There has been a real switch in emphasis in high caliber athletics in Canada. Where once it was the Summer Games that garner the attention of Canadians, it is now the Winter Games that receive most of the attention. There are many reasons why this is so. First of all, it is helpful that athletes actually start winning medals at the highest level in sports and for the past two Olympic cycles, it has been the Winter Games athletes that have been winning more medals than the Summer Games athletes despite the face that the Summer Games has over four times as many opportunities to win medals. Why have Canadian been more successful? Government sponsorship has been key in sports funding and the push to get a Winter Olympics selection, successful for 2010 in Vancouver, meant that Canada wanted to ficus on athletes that have the greatest impact and since Canada is a winter nation, it only stands to reason that the winter sports would start to get more attention. People who have aspirations for Olympic glory even at an early age can determine which sports will get the most funding and attention from government and corporations. More funding means better venues and training facilities and better chances to compete at the international level. But Canada is not a nation that fund every sport out there in the manner that will produce Olympic caliber athletes. It has to be selective and more often than not now, it is the winter sport that will get the preference over a summer one.

Still there are some great athletes for the upcoming summer games. Unlike the winter games where Canada can dominate a sport like speedskating, the summer games, with perhaps with the exception of the rowing an canoe events, are most individual achievements like Ty Christopher in the 400m or Simon Whitfield in triathlon. They will also be relatively few in number but consistent with past Olympics where Canada’s haul somewhere between 10-16 medals. It should be no different this year.

Much like what I did for the winter games two years ago, I will be providing bios of the various athletes for Canada in advance of the Games and provide daily commentary of the results with a focus on Canada’s achievements. It may turn out that there may be days between medal results for Canada but that is something that we just have to accept.

A big partner in my drive to write about the Olympics will be the NBC network. Being in the summer means that network will be providing heavy coverage throughout the day using its variety of networks: NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, and Oxygen and its Spanish speaking networks. The key network will be NBC as it will be on the HD signal. Of course, being 12 hours in time difference will mean that most broadcasts in prime-time will be tape delayed and I will probably will know the results well in advance. As for the various allocations on what network will carry what sport is still yet to be determined.

Just can not wait until it gets here.

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to Fedex Office. From my experience with the business, it is actually quite good in getting copies taken care of along with other parcel needs. But for me, Fedex Kinkos will always be associated with one of the all favorites of commercials for me.

I think this past weekend’s Saturday Night Live was perhaps the strongest show of the season. Some really great sketches like the opening sketch of the senators and General Petraeus, the Activa Yougurt, The Cougars Show were just plain funny. Perhaps Ashton Kusher should host some more shows in the future. At least he seems to energize the staff to come up with original stuff…. Hockey playoffs are well on their way now. Does not look too promising for Ottawa right now being down 3 games to Pittsburgh. Quite a contrast to last year’s matchup. Montreal looks like the strongest of the Canadian teams to go deep into the playoffs….One thing father thought he would miss by being down here in the states was the finals of the World Curling Championship. A quick by me found a site that had streaming video of the gold medal final game between Canada and Scotland which Canada won 6-3. It has been a long time since I watched a good curling match… Spring is wonderful right now but this cold snap reminds that winter was not that too long ago….

Zipping around the 500 block of HD channels on my television last night and I came across some new channels that I never noticed before. Without any fanfare, Time Warner Cable add four new channels from the Discovery Network. Now we have access to Animal Plannet, TLC, Science, and Discovery Channel. The original Discovery HD network, HD Theatre is still available though it is probably less relevant now. Much of the content that was presented on HD Theatre was originally part of the content of the newly added channels.

More HD channels are laways appreciated though i think personally, I will not get much use out of them but it goes to show you that soon, you will not need any of the standard channels to watch television as there will a HD equivalent.

Last week Christian Siriano won the fourth season of Project Runway but I was not there to see it. I tried to get into this year’s season but somehow this group while talented never really caught on with me as personalities as it with Jeffery and Laura from season three. I think I watch the first four episodes before drifting away.

So too it has been with American Idol this year. I think I caught one audition show this year. Perhaps last year’s disappointing group burn me out but then again after crowning Taylor Hicks, it could only go down.

But I think the bigger factor was that I have been intently focused on the political front with all of the elections, debates and endless analysis and punditry. I am truly a political junkie and for most of the week I have been tuning into the shows whether or not an election has been held that night.

As always, I have been settling in on MSNBC with the lineup of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. Decent analysis and commentary on the latest going ons though sometimes you think that they are just trying to fill in the time especially if there was no scandal or major news to comment on. The faces are getting to be pretty familiar now. I must say Rachel Maddow looks pretty hot even if she is a lesbian. Chuck Todd is a pretty good hand in keeping things grounded in reality as sometimes the commentators get carried away with themselves on the most minor of items.

For balance, I check out CNN’s coverage for different perspectives. I think it is a bit amusing that they would have on an election night no less than three separate panels for commentary. Must be pretty crowded in that studio.

This week though, I think I give political television a break for awhile. It is difficult to sustain interest for six weeks until the next primary election. Fortunately, it is time for the tournament to start. This week it is ACC, next week it is the NCAA tournament. After that, hockey playoffs and finally, English soccer is starting to reach its climax as the teams vie for the Premiership and the FA Cup. Nothing like sports to get your mind off things.

So far it has been four episodes into this, the fourth season of Project Runway and I have yet to get the strong vibe as I did with last year’s show. It is not as compelling to clear my schedule and make time for the show. More like catch up with the repeats as when they broadcasted. This is not to say the show is bad. Just not as interesting.

Hard to say what the cause is. Very few of them are bad designers per se. Some like Victoria, do hold interesting design ideas but the really bad designs have few so far which is probably testament to the screening process which yielded very capable designers. But on the other hand, as personalities, this a very mild bunch. It seems that in the absence of strong personalities like Jeffery or Laura, the show is relying on the bitchy comments of the flamboyant gay men who seem to be all queeny without the wit of Kayne from last season.

Another factor could be the increased number of designers at the beginning of the season. With 15 faces to remember and what personality type or quirk to assign them may be too much given the amount of time the show has to spend on each one of them. But that the case somewhat last year too as it was not until about when the crowd had been to reduced to 8 or so that we really started to know those designers. I do not think it would not be any different this year. Of course , the reason we have 15 this year is to stretch out the season as the show is a proven money maker for Bravo.

Hard to say who is the favorite at this time . I will probably have more to work with with a few more shows.

Still, I will make time when I can for the show.

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