“The exodus is about to begin…”

“The exodus is about to begin,” noted Jim Watkins, the WB 11 news anchorman (aka Kaity Tong’s co-anchor), while he introduced the tonight’s news segment on Memorial Day/summer driving trips. Yep, that’s right, it’ll be Friday of the Memorial Day weekend and people are off on vacation. Silly me, I have to go to work tomorrow. Eh.

“For Some, the Blogging Never Stops” – NY Times’ article in today’s technology section – there are people out there who are serious blogging addicts, but are without mass audiences. The writer, Katie Hafner, notes:

Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession. Such bloggers often feel compelled to write several times daily and feel anxious if they don’t keep up. As they spend more time hunkered over their computers, they neglect family, friends and jobs. They blog at home, at work and on the road. They blog openly or sometimes… quietly so as not to call attention to their habit.

Hafner further notes:

Sometimes, too, the realization that no one is reading sets in. A few blogs have thousands of readers, but never have so many people written so much to be read by so few. By Jupiter Research’s estimate, only 4 percent of online users read blogs.

Indeed, if a blog is likened to a conversation between a writer and readers, bloggers… are having conversations largely with themselves.

The crazy bloggers let it consume them; then there are those who do get around to get back to life, but then feel guilty because the blog goes blah. Okay. Sure.

Personally, I think I know how to restrain myself and I don’t mind not having mass audiences. Really. Maybe. Hopefully? Eh. I’m a sucker for writing and reading, so I’ve come to appreciate blogging as a hobby. Then, once in awhile, I come across something like this article: lawyers who blog, thinking that’ll get them their next job. The Law.com article notes:

Forget want ads and recruiters. Bruce MacEwen has a new approach to job hunting: blogging.

Last month, MacEwen, a lawyer and legal consultant based in New York City, launched his own Web log….

“My motive is to increase my visibility among people interested in the management of big firms,” said MacEwen, who hopes one day to be an executive director at an AmLaw 100 firm.

Yeah, right. That’s just like saying, “All you need is a dollar and a dream,” isn’t it? If it works, let me know; I’d like to be a general counsel for a nice, public-interest minded-but-for-profit corporation and make six digits and then buy a bridge that’s between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Besides, the law professors who blog appear to have pretty successful blogs, from what I can tell, but I’d imagine that it’s because they’re profs (therefore slightly perceived as more expert than mere associates about that thing called “The Law”) and they’ve time to read everything (they’re profs – their job is to read because that’s the academic thing to do) and comment about anything (because that’s what they do all day in their classrooms and don’t a bunch of the law students out there get a hold of their profs on-line these days – of all people who have easy access to the Internet, it’s those in academia). Well, just my two cents; I could be wrong.

“Joan of Arcadia” – such a good show. I was watching the rerun tonight, and thought it was nice. When a show’s rerun is watchable when it’s a rerun, it’s a good sign that it’s a show for the long haul. Kudos for CBS for renewing it for next season.

“Star Trek: Enterprise” – season finale (a season finale because UPN mercifully gave the series a reprieve and let it continue for next year) – was 90% good. The last five minutes made me want to throw a shoe at the tv screen; the Star Trek writers just had to come up with a Really Ridiculous Cliffhanger ™. Argh. Just when you had all that nice suspense; big-blow-’em-up moments; and poignant character moments, you get Really Ridiculous Cliffhanger ™. Ah well. Kudos that Linda Park (playing communications officer Ensign Hoshi Sato) got good screen time and acted so well. Hoshi was such a sad character to watch (like, Captain Archer, could you just put more pressure on her to decode the codes when she’s psychologically barely holding herself together after being tortured by the Bad Guys? – and for those who didn’t get it, that was sarcasm on my part). Anyway, if you missed the season finale and forgot to tape it, feel free to catch the weekend re-broadcast in your region. Like I said, 90% good!

Hmm. I made two APA references (not that I was really counting). Pretty good there – and APA heritage month is wrapping up. So it goes…

Strange Weather

This is just plain freaky. Saturday/Sunday was summery. Today is April weather – in the 50 to 60 degree range, partly cloudy/drizzly/increasingly overcast/expected hail/thunderstorm/etc. Huh? Where oh where is spring?

I got around to finally watching an entire “24” episode last night – wow, that’s quite a season finale. I kept thinking, “No way is Kiefer Sutherland going to do that. No way… Holy s—, he’s going to do it…”

Spoiler —

Kiefer as Federal Agent Jack Bauer is trying to stop germ warfare bomb from blowing up; but, his partner/protoge Chase is attached to the bomb – Chase locked the bomb onto his wrist to prevent the Nasty Villain from taking off with the bomb; poor Chase. Jack glances at the fire extinguisher/fire axe combo at the corner – and one wonders, No, Jack, no! Chase, though, is a Good American – tells Jack to do his duty. So, one gasps as Jack runs to break the glass to get the axe…

Somehow Jack saves the day, even if it means chopping someone’s wrist off. Chase, I think, will live and those snazzy doctors may be able to reattach his arm. But how many really crappy 24 hours can one agent have? Jack seems to have one almost every year.

I was generally squeamish about the biological terrorism storyline of this season’s “24” (enough to only follow it from commercials or TV Guide summaries) – but watching the last two episodes have been very impressive. “24” is pretty solid, even if it has some overwrought moments.

Slate.com’s Dahlia Lithwick – the woman’s one smart cookie and I so enjoy it when she writes Slate.com’s “Jurisprudence” column. Last week she did “Slippery Slope,” slamming the slippery slope argument against gay marriage (i.e., the argument that proposes that gay marriage paves the way to bestiality, incest, and other sins – as if any “sin” is very similar). Putting aside whether one is for or against gay marriage, one must reasonably expect proper development of legal argument – and slippery slope arguments are not exactly the best one, as law school has taught us, and I really liked how Lithwick nailed the argument as a specious one (if not, at least a boring argument).

This week, Lithwick analyzes why Justice Sandra Day O’Connor bemuses us – very interesting reading, as we continue the struggle to understand the justices in Supreme Court.

Interesting NY Times’ editorial – I always perk up a little when the Times does a human interest type of editorial: “Merry Times for Commoners.” The editorial board notes that this month has been the month of the weddings of the Crown Princes of Europe – Prince Frederik of Denmark marrying an Australian commoner; and this past weekend, Prince Felipe of Spain marrying a Spanish anchorwoman/commoner/divorcee. (sidenote: yep, on Saturday, even I was watching a little bit of the Felipe/Letizia wedding on Spanish TV – I don’t understand a word of Spanish, but I’m transfixed as anyone with a nice old-fashioned royal wedding; and, more yep, ladies – let us all bow our heads that the previously most eligible bachelors of royal Europe are no longer eligible). The editorial’s odd humor (odd, because I didn’t think this was really in the Times’ editorial bunch):

English tabloids would have enjoyed imagining that conversation over tapas in the royal palace, “Mom, Dad, there is something you need to know about Letizia. . . .” But this was Spain, not England, and the royal family is no subject for mockery.

Indeed, far from a national ornament, the father of the groom, King Juan Carlos, is widely admired for his forceful oversight of Spain’s transition to democracy. And though the ceremony was toned down in remembrance of the March 11 terrorist attacks in Madrid, it was watched by millions of former subjects throughout Latin America, whose fascination for Spanish royalty is not unlike Americans’ interest in the Windsor clan.

Above all, these May royal weddings are a tantalizing form of reality TV. It’s no longer about evoking fantasies of being born a prince or a princess. All aspiring contestants need to do is go out and woo one.

Umm hmm. The Times gettin’ with the times, I guess. Personally, I think royal weddings are better than so-called reality tv; we may not expect to marry ourselves to princes or princesses, but as national figures, they mean something (at least, to Spain or Denmark, they do).

Fantasia Barrino – the new American Idol. Too predictable; Diana Degarmo got weak there with two of her songs and so it was clear who would be the winner, short of America’s bad voting conduct. Ah, well. Congrats to the winner and the runner-up; So goes spring tv.

“Reality TV has Taken Over.”

The title of today’s blog is something right out of today’s “Daily News” (NY’s hometown paper), wherein the resident tv critic David Bianculli highlights the reality of American television next fall (or already in effect) . Some commentary off the top of my head:

“Alias” – I had taped the season finale last night, but watched the last half hour, and still don’t get it. What the heck happened? Jack Bristow telling his daughter Secret Agent Sydney (paraphrasing): “I never meant this for you…” What?! And, ABC announced that the next season won’t be until January 2005?! What?! Being a lawyer, I can figure out the arguments about this decision –

Pro:
– ABC will show all 22 episodes without reruns interrupting, from January to May.
– By buying time for the writers, maybe the writers can write up some smoother and better storylines.

Con:
– We have to wait until January?!
– I personally don’t mind reruns – it’s a way to catch up on the episodes missed. I mean, I know that the age of DVD’s means no one has to watch reruns unless he/she wants to, but being slightly-behind-the-technological times, I seriously do not mind reruns and I ain’t going to get the DVD’s very soon anyway.
– We have to wait until January?!

The reports on the upcoming NBC sitcom/”Friends” spinoff, “Joey,” sound very positive. But, keep in mind – “Joey” is looking like the only new sitcom coming up this season. Eh? Are sitcoms doomed? All the media hype bemoaning sitcoms’ end – from Entertainment Weekly’s roundtable discussion to every tv critic column I came across. And, of course, the reality show dominance – the benefit of being cheap (no need to pay for writers; no hand-wringling over plots when it’s all a matter of throwing disparate personalities together; and no need to cast actual actors); easily made (cameras rolling…); and rendering every viewer a sucker by sucking him/her into the storylines/conflict/gameshow winner.

Watching the “Simpsons” last night would suggest that the sitcom isn’t completely doomed, or at least if you go by the NY Times’ article about it. Gosh, the article was spoilers galore about the episode, but analyzed how such a cartoon/sitcom is written out and utterly dedicated to the idea of making a viewer laugh – what a lot of so-called sitcoms don’t do enough of (say goodbye to “I’m with Her”; “Married to the Kellys,” and the Jim Belushi show (I think) – sadly all on ABC, a show once known for decently silly sitcoms like “Three’s Company” What is the state of ABC? I don’t know).

On the bright side, “Arrested Development” will be back – an absurd show which is “they can’t do that, but they did” kind of funny (which, considering the time slot, I could never watch but always wanted to). On the negative side: there’s a whole load of “The Swan” and other dregs on in the meantime.

I wonder if the networks are putting themselves in a position set for failure – glutting the market with reality stuff (quite honestly, my life is reality, so why do I have to watch others’ so-called reality? TV’s my escapism, hello, Mr. Network Executive) – and what will happen the ratings won’t be there? Will the pendulum go the other way, to give us watchable dramas and comedies again? If so, when? (no, really, I want to know, because crappy syndicated television is hardly satisfying me – am I so desparate for non-reality tv that I’d watch “Andromeda”? Apparently – and that was a pretty lousy episode last weekend). Hmm. No wonder why I’ve been watching so much PBS lately. (well, not the “Colonial House” stuff – I haven’t watched since “Victorian House” – anything else would be almost derivative…) … More hmm. [better stop before I start sounding like Marge Simpson…]