So when are any of the 1,500 companies that received letters from SCO inviting them to purchase Linux licenses going to step up and complain to the US Postal Inspectors? To me, SCO committed fraud, misrepresentation, and extortion based upon their communications. Postal fraud is enough to send their entire board of directors to the slammer.
"Where are you getting that info? You're not *forced* to signup with SBC as your landline or any company for that matter. If you have SBC as your landline phone and sign up for combined billing, you CAN get a discounted rate. But, this is ONLY by your chosing. I wouldn't recommend it anyhow because Cingular doesn't handle billing and some other account related stuff."
That's right, SBC handles the billing. Just as SBC controls the billing for SBC Yahoo DSL service. I am speculating about the near future where two of the largest cell phone providers who are owned by traditional residential telephone monopolies (SBC and Verizon) continue to gobble up competitors and then leverage their power to dictate that you will have a residential telephone line. You may disagree with me but we are one step closer to that reality if the Feds do not have the common sense to block this acquisition. I wanted Vodaphone to take control of AT&T Wireless. In the rest of the world, Vodaphone is a major GSM customer, and they would've brought that volume purchasing to AT&T Wireless and would've made the market even more price competitive. This deal sucks not only for AT&T Wireless shareholders in the long run, but also for its customers, which I am one of them.
"Didn't know that Comedy Central was co-owned. Also didn't know that Comcast and TimeWarner were so willing to work together. Thanks"
It is a plausible scenario. I should state it was last year that Time Warner finally sold out its 50% stake in Comedy Central back to Viacom, over strong protest from Ted Turner. Richard Parsons, the CEO, was under pressure from institutional shareholders to reduce debt. To me, it was laughable because AOL Time Warner had about $25 billion in debt, and that was in 2003 dollars. Time Warner itself has consistently had a debt above $20 billion ever since Time acquired Warner Bros. back in 1989/1990. Its rather hypocritical of the market if you ask me, considering Comcast still has $30 billion in debt, does not have a major motion picture studio, does not have the #1 ISP in the world, does not have a publishing empire, and does not have the amount of cable or broadcast channels and interest that AOL Time Warner has. Since last year, the market has forced Parsons to drop the "AOL" from Time Warner's name, made him sell off their in-house CD and DVD manufacturing operation, put a for-sale sign up for Warner Books, sold off Warner Music (WEA - Warner Elektra Atlantic) to private investors, sold off their stake in Columbia House to private investors, sold off the 50% stake in Comedy Central, and given lip-service to spinning off Time Warner Cable in an IPO since the current valuation of Time Warner stock does not even take into account how much Time Warner Cable or AOL is worth on their own. Great stuff. Oh, I should also mention the market basically dictated that Parsons force AOL to settle its antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft last year for a measily $750 million when they were suing for $10 billion (which would've been trippled in court if they won). Stupid short-term stockholders...
Furthermore, if you don't think SBC doesn't call the shots for Cingular, think again. SBC prints up Cingular's bills. I know, I have a family member who works for them in that department.
And as the wireless industry consolidates, you'll find out that your choices will shrink along with it. Verizon Wireless is owned by Verizon, which is a large residential telephone service. If SBC's Cingular is allowed to take control of AT&T Wireless, they'll soon figure out a way to bundle their residential telephone service into the plans. Just look at cable modem service. Subscribers who opt not to take the cable television service (analog or digital) do not get a special on their services. Nor do you get to really pick an independent ISP either, even though Comcast was supposed to allow AOL and Earthlink as outside ISPs. Do you really want less choice? That's what we are heading for.
"You don't have to be subscribed to a landline with Cingular. They are not an SBC company. I think they were part of BellSouth (SHITTTTTTY!) but not anymore. I have their GSM service. It is OK. Not great coverage but the rollover plan is cool. Never run out of minutes."
SBC is the majority shareholder of Cingular Wireless. The minority shareholder of Cingular is BellSouth. And the more media pieces SBC gets ahold of, the more chances they will take at ensuring people continue to subscribe to their bread-and-butter operation, that being residential POTS (plain old telephone service). Read the writing on the wall, cable modem service is cleaning the floor with DSL providers; VoIP service is starting to take off eating away market share from traditional (POTS) service which itself is dwindeling because people are switching to using cell phones as their primary telephone device. SBC backed out of bidding for DirecTV last year; don't think they won't try to grab up (Echostar) DISH Network. The only reason why they haven't already is because they don't want to deal with Charles Ergin if at all possible. SBC also pushed their only statewide (here in California) DSL competitor Covad into bankruptcy and then bought up a large chunk of their stock to controll them. SBC is too powerful it is without gobbling up AT&T Wireless...
Its a good thing I only opted for a one-year contract with AT&T Wireless when I switched from Cingular back in November. There is no way I'll resubscribe this year with the merged entity unless the FCC forces SBC to spin off Cingular (doubtful). I do not want to be forced into signing up for a residential landline with SBC just as they do with DSL. My rule of thumb is I do not do any business with SBC and I don't intend to break this now. I don't reward shoddy service providers like SBC.
"First, if the purchase is through a stock offering, how would it put Comcast in debt?"
Who says in the finale that it'll all be settled through stock? To sweeten the offer, Comcast will have to offer a mix of cash and stock to entice the Disney shareholders. Add to the fact Comcast already is in debt $30 billion.
"Second, how would Disney Animation Network and Cartoon Network merge, since they wouldn't be owned by the same company? As you've said, CN is a TimeWarner company."
The combined channel would be co-owned by Disney and Time Warner, just as Comedy Central had been co-owned between Time Warner and Viacom up until early this year ever since the combination of Comedy Channel and Ha. It would be in the best interest of Comcast because they would chuck a legacy Disney channel with little value with a merger with the biggest cartoon channel currently and it would also free up bandwidth and increase licensing fees from the other cable and DBS providers.
Actually, I hope this merger goes through. For one, it'll sink Comcast so far in debt that investing in Time Warner stock will be considered a good investment among media companies. Second, Comcast will quickly dump the "ABC" Family Channel. It does not fit into the Disney/ABC content at all and was a stupid purchase to begin with. Third, Comcast might chuck the Disney animation channel and merge it with Time Warner's Cartoon Network, similar to what happened with the Comedy Channel and Ha many years ago (thus becoming Comedy Central). Fourth, the FCC and FTC might step in and make Comcast shed some of its cable markets. Ode to get Time Warner Cable here in Sacramento instead of Comcast. To think our city fathers passed on Warner/Amex Cable so many years ago because Warner didn't want to pay for our idiotic community access channel studios. To tell the truth, this cable market hasn't been good since AT&T Broadband got swallowed up in that monstrosity that is Comcast.
If we had Time Warner Cable here, we'd probably have VoIP service through the cable company itself instead of through third-parties such as Vonage. We could have AOL or Earthlink as our "native" cable modem ISP instead of having to pay for email service through Comcast that probably none of us use (lets see, it was @home.com, then it was @attbi.com, and now its @comcast.net, great track record!). I also suspect my market would also have a greater emphasis on HDTV deployment and while it isn't TiVo, at least Time Warner Cable would offer some DVR options, unlike Comcast (and they even own a chunk of TiVo stock!).
So, for my very own selfish local reasons, I hope this convoluted merger goes through! May Comcast harvest the energy derived from the synergy of the AOL Time Warner merger!:)
"seems a little fishy to me. While Pixar is amazing at what it does, it's no Disney. Nobody wants to take thier kids to Pixarland, and you don't get the Pixar channel at home, and I'd say it'll be quite a while before either of those happens. They are by no means trusted to the level of Disney in a family atmosphere."
Hmmm. And I don't want the Disney Channel, ABC, ABC Family Channel, or ESPN on my cable bill, but for some reason I have to have them according to Comcast. And after Comcast acquires Disney, I'm sure us customers will be treated to even more dreck from the *Mouse House.* I do not trust Disney one bit. They were a big supporter of the DIVX DVD format too, remember?
"I don't know, but Larry Ellison is worth $50 billion, and he JUMPS at every chance for an interview. Perhaps Jobs is embarrased by his relative net worth?"
Ellison also owns a MiG fighter. Why? Because he CAN. Ultimately, that's cooler than Jobs or Donald Trump's supernatural hair helmet.
"The way Steve Jobs manages all these tasks is that there is the real Steve Jobs, and the other company is run by a clever, leading edge animated, life-like, 3-Dimensional replica."
No. There's the original Steve Jobs and then there's the clone(s). Remember, Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas. He obviously got ahold of some spare spaarti cylinders from Kamino to crank out batches of clones. That way he can send a clone to each division of Apple and Pixar and yell at everyone to motivate them into working harder and more efficiently and making him appear omnipotent (I call it the "Zardoz effect"). The difference between him and Gates would be that if Bill Gates did the same thing, Windows would have even more bugs in it. And of course the world would end if there were more than one Larry Ellison.
Ducks for cover! Shortly thereafter, a thousand Voodoo2 PCI boards were thrown in his general direction...:)
Re:What else could the WB show??
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"It WAS replaced by fastlane in the sense that fastlane was given its time slot, and was allowed to finish the season."
That's not a replacement. That was shifting an existing show to a different time slot. Obviously, that timeslot sucks [Friday nights] and Fox itself hasn't really had a hit in that time slot since The X-Files occupied it. A replacement is like cancelling Angel and replacing it with Dark Shadows v. 3.0.:)
Even after having a baby she's one of the hottest of the hot. Wonder Woman the movie? or TV show? Hmm, that could have potential... esp if she buffs up for it.
Buff up for it? Linda Carter was not buff, she was busty. And so is Charisma Carpenter. Buff or toned is like Ms. Alias, Jennifer Gardner. To me, she isn't Elektra.
"I wonder if we could find out who the Nielsen families are and well, kill them. Would this be bad or wrong?"
I mentioned in a different thread that that could be the basis for an Angel episode in Season 6. A wacked out fanboy gets a list (from a supernatural source) of Nielsen families and systematically wipes them out because of the countless number of television shows he loved but were prematurely cancelled. Team Angel has to come in and save the day even after much soul searching (pun intended).
Check it out for yourself. 5,100 homes tyrannically decide what we watch on television here in America. Bland, unsophisticated, dumbed down crap thanks to these fools:
Re:Who decides this stuff anyway?
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"This is why everyone who cares about what they watch should own a TiVo -- because of the anonymous aggregate viewing data they collect. You may not be able to be counted by the Neilsen rating system unless you happen to get one of their viewing journals; but with a TiVo, your "vote" is always counted."
Unfortunately, TiVo aggregate data is still not as widely respected as Nielsen data. Sure, TiVo has 1 million homes subscribing to the service and Nielsen only has 6,000, but somehow, the Nielsen's represent America better. Yep, its fishier than a Florida election.
And I say this as a TiVo owner who watches and records Angel every week. I even replay it the next morning when I'm getting ready to work for some added stats for the show.
Personally, if Angel returns next season on another network, there should be an episode when a deranged fanboy goes around killing off Nielsen families and Team Angel has to stop him after much soul searching. I think this would be right up Ben Edlund's alley.
Re:What else could the WB show??
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· Score: 2, Interesting
"i would also love to see Sci-Fi pick up Firefly, that show was headed for greatness. Alas it was on Fox and they cut it to replace it with "Fast and the Furious" the TV show.... Movies of the Buffiverse would rock."
Eh? You are right in spirit but wrong in facts. SciFi passed on FireFly already, as did all the cable stations it was offered to. Fox didn't exactly replace FireFly with "Fastlane" either since that show has also been cancelled. There's food for thought, Tiffani Amber Thiessen on Angel Season 6... I'm just saying! And if you didn't hear, Charisma Carpenter is rumored to be up for WONDER WOMAN. I guess the timing is right since she'll be posing for Playboy later this year.
Re:Charisma Carpenter is doing Playboy!
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"What she should be doing first is Atkins."
You OBVIOUSLY did not see the 100th Episode where she returned. She has her fabulous body back! Its unfair to talk about her body from Season4 since she was pregnant at the time!
So she will be fabulous in Playboy and hopefully that'll help her win the WONDER WOMAN role!
Re:Charisma Carpenter is doing Playboy!
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"She's also did a cheesy movie for WE called "See Jane Date" Frankly, she's a bit chubby now.Not sure what genius had her cut her hair off either. -dave"
Chubby? She was pregnant. She's also been on "Miss Match" on NBC. You should've watched the 100th Episode of Angel. Ms. Carpenter has her fabulous body back.
"There is one line in the announcement that makes suspicious something else is going on. "David Boreanaz continues to be one of the finest, classiest and friendliest actors we have had the pleasure to work with and we hope that the relationship furthers from here." I wonder if someone that the WB has a "close" relationship with, like say Kevin Williamson, has expressed interest in having Boreanaz in one of his series and the WB decided to "free" him from his contract. So now we're going to get some kind of Dawson's Creek crap with Boreanaz casted as the teacher. All part of the WB vision."
Nah. Warner Bros. Pictures and director Chris Nolan passed up on having Boreanaz portray BRUCE WAYNE/BATMAN in the new film in favor of Christian Bale. There was also that crazy rumor about Boreanaz up for Superman, but considering WB has yet to finalize on a script AND a director, its just a crazy rumor. However, the talk is that Charisma Carpenter is up for WONDER WOMAN! Sweet! And she'll be posing in Playboy later this year!
Re:Glad I'm a Neilson family this week
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"No, CSI doesn't just fudge science to "protect the kids" or to keep the criminals in the dark - they consistently get it wrong because they cannot be bothered to get it right. If you can, go watch old episodes of "Quincy" to see forensic science on TV done (more) correctly."
Not to mention the fact that the entire law enforcement community in Las Vegas thinks the show is a joke... I'll always favor NBC's "Las Vegas" show because if there's one thing I know, James Caan has great taste in hookers...he was like Heidi Fleiss's second best customer after Charlie Sheen!:0
Re:Glad I'm a Neilson family this week
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"The folks who did MacGyver knew this and always omitted one key ingredient in whatever MacGyver was concocting to keep kids from blowing up the living room. (anti-violence is reinforced in the series also where Richard Dean Anderson's character hate guns because when MacGyver was young, one of his friends was killed when a bunch of them fooled around with a revolver. Despite the jingoistic nature of the show, his current series, Stargate SG-1, also has an important anti-gunn stance where the main character's son accidentally shot himself with his own father's weapon.)"
It also had to do with the fact that one of MacGyver's writers was Terry Nation, who created the DALEKS on DOCTOR WHO. The Doctor generally disapproves of guns, and uses his wits to defeat villains everywhere he travelled. He carries his Sonic Screwdriver which helps him get out of jams just as MacGyver wouldn't go anywhere without his Swiss Army Knife. MacGyver had a crazy nemisis named Murdoch who simply would not die, just as the Doctor had his foe in The Master.
MacGuyver is just an American version of DOCTOR WHO without the British accents, time and space travel, and sporting a semi-mullett haircut. Give it up for the WHO. Yep, MacGyver didn't have a rock band named after it either...although I guess you have to mention that Depeche Mode did steal MacGuyver's theme song for one of theirs.
Come to think about it, Buffy/Angel sure openly riffed off the good Doctor's 27 years of television exploits. One of the main vampires was named THE MASTER. Season5 of Buffy featured a cosmic key that turned out to be Buffy's sister Dawn (straight out of the 1970s "Key to Time" episodes). And the character of "Fred" (Winifred) on Angel is most likely an homage to The Doctor's favorite TimeLady named Romana who said she wanted to be called "Fred."
So I guess the moral of the story is, when you gotta steal from someone, steal from the best!:0
"I did enjoy the portion of one of the episodes that ends with Spike embracing a cross and smoking. It was actually pretty touching and increased my respect for the actor (don't know his name). But yeah, you're right, the last season sorta sucked. The gnarl monster was stupid. The giant spider episode was retarded."
James Marsters is the actor in question. Hometown of Modesto, California, just like George Lucas. Wait a sec, I better watch out for any stray rocks for even stating Sr. Lucas's name here on Slashdot! Ouch! That rock hurt!
Feel free to check out Marsters on IMDB.com. He also has a rock band named "Ghost of the Robot" and had been semi considered to play Tarkin in Star Wars Episode III (he had the cheekbones!) until Lucasfilm went with another actor and decided to equip him with prostetics to look like a young Peter Cushing.
"Do you know what's a good day to cancel a show? Any day besides Valentine's Day! I mean, what, were they running low on dramatic irony?"
That's Hollywood's way of showing its love. My sense is the WB kept Angel around until they thought they had something better they could replace it with. People on AICN (Ain't it Cool News) have stated that the WB had hoped to replace Angel with "Birds of Prey" but of course that show went down even more spectacularly than Jenna Jameson. Something about revenge being best when served cold. The WB hasn't exactly been happy with Joss Whedon since the bidding war erupted over "Buffy" and the WB lost face to UPN. What a better way to shove it to him than wait for the show to hit the 100 episode mark, receive critical acclaim all over the town, and then fire off a press release right before Valentine's Day, and after they told one of the guest stars the show had been renewed. Yep, that's class.
Slashdot Mirror
So when are any of the 1,500 companies that received letters from SCO inviting them to purchase Linux licenses going to step up and complain to the US Postal Inspectors? To me, SCO committed fraud, misrepresentation, and extortion based upon their communications. Postal fraud is enough to send their entire board of directors to the slammer.
"Where are you getting that info? You're not *forced* to signup with SBC as your landline or any company for that matter. If you have SBC as your landline phone and sign up for combined billing, you CAN get a discounted rate. But, this is ONLY by your chosing. I wouldn't recommend it anyhow because Cingular doesn't handle billing and some other account related stuff."
That's right, SBC handles the billing. Just as SBC controls the billing for SBC Yahoo DSL service. I am speculating about the near future where two of the largest cell phone providers who are owned by traditional residential telephone monopolies (SBC and Verizon) continue to gobble up competitors and then leverage their power to dictate that you will have a residential telephone line. You may disagree with me but we are one step closer to that reality if the Feds do not have the common sense to block this acquisition. I wanted Vodaphone to take control of AT&T Wireless. In the rest of the world, Vodaphone is a major GSM customer, and they would've brought that volume purchasing to AT&T Wireless and would've made the market even more price competitive. This deal sucks not only for AT&T Wireless shareholders in the long run, but also for its customers, which I am one of them.
"Didn't know that Comedy Central was co-owned. Also didn't know that Comcast and TimeWarner were so willing to work together. Thanks"
It is a plausible scenario. I should state it was last year that Time Warner finally sold out its 50% stake in Comedy Central back to Viacom, over strong protest from Ted Turner. Richard Parsons, the CEO, was under pressure from institutional shareholders to reduce debt. To me, it was laughable because AOL Time Warner had about $25 billion in debt, and that was in 2003 dollars. Time Warner itself has consistently had a debt above $20 billion ever since Time acquired Warner Bros. back in 1989/1990. Its rather hypocritical of the market if you ask me, considering Comcast still has $30 billion in debt, does not have a major motion picture studio, does not have the #1 ISP in the world, does not have a publishing empire, and does not have the amount of cable or broadcast channels and interest that AOL Time Warner has. Since last year, the market has forced Parsons to drop the "AOL" from Time Warner's name, made him sell off their in-house CD and DVD manufacturing operation, put a for-sale sign up for Warner Books, sold off Warner Music (WEA - Warner Elektra Atlantic) to private investors, sold off their stake in Columbia House to private investors, sold off the 50% stake in Comedy Central, and given lip-service to spinning off Time Warner Cable in an IPO since the current valuation of Time Warner stock does not even take into account how much Time Warner Cable or AOL is worth on their own. Great stuff. Oh, I should also mention the market basically dictated that Parsons force AOL to settle its antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft last year for a measily $750 million when they were suing for $10 billion (which would've been trippled in court if they won). Stupid short-term stockholders...
Furthermore, if you don't think SBC doesn't call the shots for Cingular, think again. SBC prints up Cingular's bills. I know, I have a family member who works for them in that department.
And as the wireless industry consolidates, you'll find out that your choices will shrink along with it. Verizon Wireless is owned by Verizon, which is a large residential telephone service. If SBC's Cingular is allowed to take control of AT&T Wireless, they'll soon figure out a way to bundle their residential telephone service into the plans. Just look at cable modem service. Subscribers who opt not to take the cable television service (analog or digital) do not get a special on their services. Nor do you get to really pick an independent ISP either, even though Comcast was supposed to allow AOL and Earthlink as outside ISPs. Do you really want less choice? That's what we are heading for.
"You don't have to be subscribed to a landline with Cingular. They are not an SBC company. I think they were part of BellSouth (SHITTTTTTY!) but not anymore. I have their GSM service. It is OK. Not great coverage but the rollover plan is cool. Never run out of minutes."
SBC is the majority shareholder of Cingular Wireless. The minority shareholder of Cingular is BellSouth. And the more media pieces SBC gets ahold of, the more chances they will take at ensuring people continue to subscribe to their bread-and-butter operation, that being residential POTS (plain old telephone service). Read the writing on the wall, cable modem service is cleaning the floor with DSL providers; VoIP service is starting to take off eating away market share from traditional (POTS) service which itself is dwindeling because people are switching to using cell phones as their primary telephone device. SBC backed out of bidding for DirecTV last year; don't think they won't try to grab up (Echostar) DISH Network. The only reason why they haven't already is because they don't want to deal with Charles Ergin if at all possible. SBC also pushed their only statewide (here in California) DSL competitor Covad into bankruptcy and then bought up a large chunk of their stock to controll them. SBC is too powerful it is without gobbling up AT&T Wireless...
This of course is my opinion...
Its a good thing I only opted for a one-year contract with AT&T Wireless when I switched from Cingular back in November. There is no way I'll resubscribe this year with the merged entity unless the FCC forces SBC to spin off Cingular (doubtful). I do not want to be forced into signing up for a residential landline with SBC just as they do with DSL. My rule of thumb is I do not do any business with SBC and I don't intend to break this now. I don't reward shoddy service providers like SBC.
"First, if the purchase is through a stock offering, how would it put Comcast in debt?"
Who says in the finale that it'll all be settled through stock? To sweeten the offer, Comcast will have to offer a mix of cash and stock to entice the Disney shareholders. Add to the fact Comcast already is in debt $30 billion.
"Second, how would Disney Animation Network and Cartoon Network merge, since they wouldn't be owned by the same company? As you've said, CN is a TimeWarner company."
The combined channel would be co-owned by Disney and Time Warner, just as Comedy Central had been co-owned between Time Warner and Viacom up until early this year ever since the combination of Comedy Channel and Ha. It would be in the best interest of Comcast because they would chuck a legacy Disney channel with little value with a merger with the biggest cartoon channel currently and it would also free up bandwidth and increase licensing fees from the other cable and DBS providers.
Actually, I hope this merger goes through. For one, it'll sink Comcast so far in debt that investing in Time Warner stock will be considered a good investment among media companies. Second, Comcast will quickly dump the "ABC" Family Channel. It does not fit into the Disney/ABC content at all and was a stupid purchase to begin with. Third, Comcast might chuck the Disney animation channel and merge it with Time Warner's Cartoon Network, similar to what happened with the Comedy Channel and Ha many years ago (thus becoming Comedy Central). Fourth, the FCC and FTC might step in and make Comcast shed some of its cable markets. Ode to get Time Warner Cable here in Sacramento instead of Comcast. To think our city fathers passed on Warner/Amex Cable so many years ago because Warner didn't want to pay for our idiotic community access channel studios. To tell the truth, this cable market hasn't been good since AT&T Broadband got swallowed up in that monstrosity that is Comcast.
:)
If we had Time Warner Cable here, we'd probably have VoIP service through the cable company itself instead of through third-parties such as Vonage. We could have AOL or Earthlink as our "native" cable modem ISP instead of having to pay for email service through Comcast that probably none of us use (lets see, it was @home.com, then it was @attbi.com, and now its @comcast.net, great track record!). I also suspect my market would also have a greater emphasis on HDTV deployment and while it isn't TiVo, at least Time Warner Cable would offer some DVR options, unlike Comcast (and they even own a chunk of TiVo stock!).
So, for my very own selfish local reasons, I hope this convoluted merger goes through! May Comcast harvest the energy derived from the synergy of the AOL Time Warner merger!
"seems a little fishy to me. While Pixar is amazing at what it does, it's no Disney. Nobody wants to take thier kids to Pixarland, and you don't get the Pixar channel at home, and I'd say it'll be quite a while before either of those happens. They are by no means trusted to the level of Disney in a family atmosphere."
Hmmm. And I don't want the Disney Channel, ABC, ABC Family Channel, or ESPN on my cable bill, but for some reason I have to have them according to Comcast. And after Comcast acquires Disney, I'm sure us customers will be treated to even more dreck from the *Mouse House.* I do not trust Disney one bit. They were a big supporter of the DIVX DVD format too, remember?
"I don't know, but Larry Ellison is worth $50 billion, and he JUMPS at every chance for an interview. Perhaps Jobs is embarrased by his relative net worth?"
Ellison also owns a MiG fighter. Why? Because he CAN. Ultimately, that's cooler than Jobs or Donald Trump's supernatural hair helmet.
"The way Steve Jobs manages all these tasks is that there is the real Steve Jobs, and the other company is run by a clever, leading edge animated, life-like, 3-Dimensional replica."
No. There's the original Steve Jobs and then there's the clone(s). Remember, Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas. He obviously got ahold of some spare spaarti cylinders from Kamino to crank out batches of clones. That way he can send a clone to each division of Apple and Pixar and yell at everyone to motivate them into working harder and more efficiently and making him appear omnipotent (I call it the "Zardoz effect"). The difference between him and Gates would be that if Bill Gates did the same thing, Windows would have even more bugs in it. And of course the world would end if there were more than one Larry Ellison.
Ducks for cover! Shortly thereafter, a thousand Voodoo2 PCI boards were thrown in his general direction...
"It WAS replaced by fastlane in the sense that fastlane was given its time slot, and was allowed to finish the season."
:)
That's not a replacement. That was shifting an existing show to a different time slot. Obviously, that timeslot sucks [Friday nights] and Fox itself hasn't really had a hit in that time slot since The X-Files occupied it. A replacement is like cancelling Angel and replacing it with Dark Shadows v. 3.0.
Even after having a baby she's one of the hottest of the hot. Wonder Woman the movie? or TV show? Hmm, that could have potential... esp if she buffs up for it.
Buff up for it? Linda Carter was not buff, she was busty. And so is Charisma Carpenter. Buff or toned is like Ms. Alias, Jennifer Gardner. To me, she isn't Elektra.
"I wonder if we could find out who the Nielsen families are and well, kill them. Would this be bad or wrong?"
I mentioned in a different thread that that could be the basis for an Angel episode in Season 6. A wacked out fanboy gets a list (from a supernatural source) of Nielsen families and systematically wipes them out because of the countless number of television shows he loved but were prematurely cancelled. Team Angel has to come in and save the day even after much soul searching (pun intended).
Check it out for yourself. 5,100 homes tyrannically decide what we watch on television here in America. Bland, unsophisticated, dumbed down crap thanks to these fools:
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/
"the UPN is dying.... LET THEM DIE"
:)
That means UPN uses BSD, right?
"This is why everyone who cares about what they watch should own a TiVo -- because of the anonymous aggregate viewing data they collect. You may not be able to be counted by the Neilsen rating system unless you happen to get one of their viewing journals; but with a TiVo, your "vote" is always counted."
Unfortunately, TiVo aggregate data is still not as widely respected as Nielsen data. Sure, TiVo has 1 million homes subscribing to the service and Nielsen only has 6,000, but somehow, the Nielsen's represent America better. Yep, its fishier than a Florida election.
And I say this as a TiVo owner who watches and records Angel every week. I even replay it the next morning when I'm getting ready to work for some added stats for the show.
Personally, if Angel returns next season on another network, there should be an episode when a deranged fanboy goes around killing off Nielsen families and Team Angel has to stop him after much soul searching. I think this would be right up Ben Edlund's alley.
"i would also love to see Sci-Fi pick up Firefly, that show was headed for greatness. Alas it was on Fox and they cut it to replace it with "Fast and the Furious" the TV show.... Movies of the Buffiverse would rock."
Eh? You are right in spirit but wrong in facts. SciFi passed on FireFly already, as did all the cable stations it was offered to. Fox didn't exactly replace FireFly with "Fastlane" either since that show has also been cancelled. There's food for thought, Tiffani Amber Thiessen on Angel Season 6... I'm just saying! And if you didn't hear, Charisma Carpenter is rumored to be up for WONDER WOMAN. I guess the timing is right since she'll be posing for Playboy later this year.
"What she should be doing first is Atkins."
You OBVIOUSLY did not see the 100th Episode where she returned. She has her fabulous body back! Its unfair to talk about her body from Season4 since she was pregnant at the time!
So she will be fabulous in Playboy and hopefully that'll help her win the WONDER WOMAN role!
"She's also did a cheesy movie for WE called "See Jane Date" Frankly, she's a bit chubby now.Not sure what genius had her cut her hair off either. -dave"
Chubby? She was pregnant. She's also been on "Miss Match" on NBC. You should've watched the 100th Episode of Angel. Ms. Carpenter has her fabulous body back.
www.charismacarpenter.com
"There is one line in the announcement that makes suspicious something else is going on. "David Boreanaz continues to be one of the finest, classiest and friendliest actors we have had the pleasure to work with and we hope that the relationship furthers from here." I wonder if someone that the WB has a "close" relationship with, like say Kevin Williamson, has expressed interest in having Boreanaz in one of his series and the WB decided to "free" him from his contract. So now we're going to get some kind of Dawson's Creek crap with Boreanaz casted as the teacher. All part of the WB vision."
Nah. Warner Bros. Pictures and director Chris Nolan passed up on having Boreanaz portray BRUCE WAYNE/BATMAN in the new film in favor of Christian Bale. There was also that crazy rumor about Boreanaz up for Superman, but considering WB has yet to finalize on a script AND a director, its just a crazy rumor. However, the talk is that Charisma Carpenter is up for WONDER WOMAN! Sweet! And she'll be posing in Playboy later this year!
"No, CSI doesn't just fudge science to "protect the kids" or to keep the criminals in the dark - they consistently get it wrong because they cannot be bothered to get it right. If you can, go watch old episodes of "Quincy" to see forensic science on TV done (more) correctly."
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Not to mention the fact that the entire law enforcement community in Las Vegas thinks the show is a joke... I'll always favor NBC's "Las Vegas" show because if there's one thing I know, James Caan has great taste in hookers...he was like Heidi Fleiss's second best customer after Charlie Sheen!
"The folks who did MacGyver knew this and always omitted one key ingredient in whatever MacGyver was concocting to keep kids from blowing up the living room. (anti-violence is reinforced in the series also where Richard Dean Anderson's character hate guns because when MacGyver was young, one of his friends was killed when a bunch of them fooled around with a revolver. Despite the jingoistic nature of the show, his current series, Stargate SG-1, also has an important anti-gunn stance where the main character's son accidentally shot himself with his own father's weapon.)"
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It also had to do with the fact that one of MacGyver's writers was Terry Nation, who created the DALEKS on DOCTOR WHO. The Doctor generally disapproves of guns, and uses his wits to defeat villains everywhere he travelled. He carries his Sonic Screwdriver which helps him get out of jams just as MacGyver wouldn't go anywhere without his Swiss Army Knife. MacGyver had a crazy nemisis named Murdoch who simply would not die, just as the Doctor had his foe in The Master.
MacGuyver is just an American version of DOCTOR WHO without the British accents, time and space travel, and sporting a semi-mullett haircut. Give it up for the WHO. Yep, MacGyver didn't have a rock band named after it either...although I guess you have to mention that Depeche Mode did steal MacGuyver's theme song for one of theirs.
Come to think about it, Buffy/Angel sure openly riffed off the good Doctor's 27 years of television exploits. One of the main vampires was named THE MASTER. Season5 of Buffy featured a cosmic key that turned out to be Buffy's sister Dawn (straight out of the 1970s "Key to Time" episodes). And the character of "Fred" (Winifred) on Angel is most likely an homage to The Doctor's favorite TimeLady named Romana who said she wanted to be called "Fred."
So I guess the moral of the story is, when you gotta steal from someone, steal from the best!
"I did enjoy the portion of one of the episodes that ends with Spike embracing a cross and smoking. It was actually pretty touching and increased my respect for the actor (don't know his name). But yeah, you're right, the last season sorta sucked. The gnarl monster was stupid. The giant spider episode was retarded."
James Marsters is the actor in question. Hometown of Modesto, California, just like George Lucas. Wait a sec, I better watch out for any stray rocks for even stating Sr. Lucas's name here on Slashdot! Ouch! That rock hurt!
Feel free to check out Marsters on IMDB.com. He also has a rock band named "Ghost of the Robot" and had been semi considered to play Tarkin in Star Wars Episode III (he had the cheekbones!) until Lucasfilm went with another actor and decided to equip him with prostetics to look like a young Peter Cushing.
"Do you know what's a good day to cancel a show? Any day besides Valentine's Day! I mean, what, were they running low on dramatic irony?"
That's Hollywood's way of showing its love. My sense is the WB kept Angel around until they thought they had something better they could replace it with. People on AICN (Ain't it Cool News) have stated that the WB had hoped to replace Angel with "Birds of Prey" but of course that show went down even more spectacularly than Jenna Jameson. Something about revenge being best when served cold. The WB hasn't exactly been happy with Joss Whedon since the bidding war erupted over "Buffy" and the WB lost face to UPN. What a better way to shove it to him than wait for the show to hit the 100 episode mark, receive critical acclaim all over the town, and then fire off a press release right before Valentine's Day, and after they told one of the guest stars the show had been renewed. Yep, that's class.