So, in the middle of the first of last night's two episodes of The Family Guy, Stewie belts out an e-mail address: loismustdie (at) yahoo.com. Within seconds, I was crafting a crafty note to everybody's favorite cartoon baby. To my surprise, it worked – and I received an autoresponse not long after. Apparently, they've set up shop at DamnYouAll.net. Someone told me about this site a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't pay much attention to it. Seth (or another individual on the FG team) must have played some part in it's creation and promotion. I wonder if the RIGHT Fox executives know about it? Ah, even if they did, nothing can argue with the “almighty” ratings.
Which leads me to my next rant. Television. I love it, but I don't love everything on it. I'd just as soon “subscribe” to programming. Yes, this is exactly what PVRs do – and precicely what will force change on the home entertainment industry. Radically. I don't want The Family Guy to go away. It's one of the only shows that Gretchen and I enjoy together. She likes Will & Grace, but I don't. I like Everybody Loves Raymond, but she's not that partial to it. Everybody can't like everything, but TV is still trying to be everything to everybody. And success seems to be measured solely by the habits of a select few. Why can't I opt in to watching shows that I want to see – whenever I want to see them? Yeah, the “TiVo” isn't just a flash in the pan technology. It's the future – and consumers will embrace it quicker than stations will adopt and adapt to it.
A show's “popularity” can be gauged according to how many people have subscribed to it. Some would say that with 250,000 subscribers, Lockergnome is successful. I'd disagree. That number doesn't mean anything – because Gnomies aren't (currently) paying anything to receive the information we distribute. In time, that will be a more comfortable number to deal with.
We don't have one right now. We've been waiting for our complex to dump the old “dumpy” satellite provider and pick up a new one. As I've come to discover, Des Moines doesn't have a monopoly on slow motion. San Francisco has been (in many cases) more bass ackwards than half of the Midwestern cities I ever visited. We may have culture, but that hasn't given us clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel's hidden fort. This bickering is pointless. I want MyTV – and I want it now.