I'd rather be watching TV

The rilestar does heart the teevs, and these are a few of his more public rantings lately.
First, in relation to The Age article "All just a little bit tasteless", which states the bleeding and punning obvious by saying: "Despite both being based around food, The Biggest Loser lacks taste and My Kitchen Rules has no flavour", rilestar said:

"I have never watched a single one of these games shows (calling them "Reality TV" I think is giving them more credibility than they deserve), including Big Brother, Survivor, et al, apart from a few episodes of The Amazing Race, which was actually very entertaining. But otherwise I generally stick to quality scripted dramas and comedies...and dramedies...stuff like Entourage, 30 Rock, Deadwood and Community.
I have no great desire to watch boring people being boring. Leave that to other boring people.
Plus I'm not fat."

Speaking of fat people, another contributor, Tara, said "To anyone overweight who is reading this, may you nourish yourself with love and the food that benefits your body." By which I assume she means "Hey fat people: eat a carrot." Harsh! (her words, not mine)
Another article, "Goodbye Daily Show, we hardly knew you", reports that ABC2 no longer has the rights to broadcast Rant faves The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The rilestar had been wondering what had happened to them, as they were good back-ups in case the old iQ failed to record either or both for whatever reason, and so also contributed to the discussion (swimming against the tide of "Foxtel sucks, I download everything"):

"It seems I'm one of the few (or the only person?) who signed up to Foxtel just to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (about 5 or 6 years ago). Love 'em both - also flew to Washington last year for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, so paying for Foxtel is not that big a leap. There's lots of good stuff on Foxtel though, like Louie and the latest episodes of Entourage (just a little late), so I'm happy with it (though was wavering a bit last year when TDS and TCR were on ABC2 and the other networks seemed to be getting their acts together on their alternative channels - not wavering any more). Now my bugbear is Channel Go! not showing Community any more - tempted to jump on Channel BitTorrent for the first time ever, just to get my fix of the funniest show not currently on TV..."

And speaking of Community, rilestar also waded into the debate regarding "Where did all the intelligent TV go?", in particular, the many comments along the lines of "All US shows are crap":

"To the US-haters, a lot of my current favourite TV shows are American: Community, 30 Rock, The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Louie, Entourage, Modern Family, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and that's just the comedies. Great dramas include Deadwood, Lost, The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad (just to name a few). Not to mention Seinfeld!
Anyone who thinks all American TV is like Two and a Half Men really needs to get out more. By which, I mean, they should stay in more.
But to respond to the point being made by Mike (who also mentioned many of the above shows), I agree that the Australian commercial networks really do seem to think that Australians can't handle quality TV (though maybe their market researchers only interview ignorant people like the US-haters).
Personally, I rely on Foxtel's iQ taping all my faves and watching them at my leisure, supported by iView, etc. I like my TV.
But here's a message for GO!: Start broadcasting Community again! Funniest show not currently on TV."

Yeah. The rilestar's not afraid to re-use the same line, time and time (and time) again*.

PS Continuing the bad news, The White Stripes also announced they were breaking up. The writer in this article talked about the first time he saw them in 2001, and the rilestar responded with an anti-rant:

"I was also blown away by their cover of Jolene the first time I saw them - on the second stage at the Corner Hotel supporting Six Ft Hick (probably 9 or 10 years ago, as well). Much as I like the Hicks, I couldn't believe that this band was supporting them. And obviously the rest of the world (at least, the part that rocks out) went on to love them, too. Vale, White Stripes. Long live the Dead Weather."

Were you at that gig, too**? Let me know!

* A Strangelove song, I think...
* Saying this makes this seem like a professional blog. I realise that the chances of someone both being at that gig AND reading this are infinitesimally small. Actually, just the chances of someone reading this are infinitesimally small...

Easter – Let’s all remember Jesus’ sacrifice or, like, y’know, whatever

It's not all rants on this blog.

I love Easter, for example. It allows good Christian folk to revert back to their pagan roots, just like they secretly yearn to do. Jesus died on the cross at during Jewish Passover. Consequently, we must all eat chocolate eggs left in our garden by the Easter Bunny.

Excuse me? I think someone needs more practice operating their logic machine.

Ah, it's all good, though. Fact of the matter is, Christianity has always appeared to have a healthy relationship with paganism - and what could be wrong with that? A lot of Christian doctrine has a lot more in common with pagan ideas than with Judaism, from whence it supposedly sprang.

Your god dying and then coming back to life 3 days later (assuming for the moment that Sunday is three days after Friday)? Try out the (originally Persian, I think) god Mithras, the subject of a cult especially popular amongst Roman soldiers from around 300 BC, and who was being resurrected way before Jesus made it fashionable. Mithraism was spread out all over the Roman Empire – I can actually verify this having visited Mithras shrines myself in both Slovenia (in Ptuj) and on Hadrian’s Wall (Newcastle).

Yeah, I’m the man.

But getting back to paganism and made-up stories, how about the virgin birth? Unfortunately, already a well-worn pagan road - apparently Perseus, and, of course, Mithras again, were born of virgin mothers. Mithras also just happened to have been born on 25 December.

So why the rejection of Jewish doctrine, when Jesus himself was a devout Jew? That seems to be more a product of history – the four gospels found in the Bible were written just after the Romans had finally decided to rid themselves of their Jewish "problem" between 60 and 70 A.D., when they put down numerous insurrections and finally sacked the Temple in Jerusalem and burnt it to the ground (so, yes, when the evangelists wrote of Jesus predicting the fall of the temple, they were kind of writing with the benefit of what is known as hindsight). Anyhoo, the new Christian movement tried to distance itself as much as possible from the Jews of the time. Not to mention the fact that Paul was doing his best to convert gentiles left, right and centre, and was quite happy that they not undertake any Jewish ritual, so long as they accepted Paul’s version of Jesus’ message. Did I mention that Paul never met Jesus? No? How remiss of me.

Finally, once Emperor Constantine decided to make Christianity the new State religion in the fourth century A.D., and move its headquarters to Rome and appoint the heads of the church himself (“pontiff” is derived from the Latin “Pontifex Maximus”, who was the high priest of the Ancient Roman College of Pontiffs), Christianity was able to rid itself of its troublesome Jewish connection, re-establish its true pagan roots, and get into some serious anti-semitism for the next 2000 or so years. Glory be to the Highest!!!

Don’t worry about any of this, though.

Just eat your chocolate eggs. Not only do they boost the economy…they’re yummy!!!

PS As for Easter next year – just consult your local astrologer – the dates of Easter depend on the movements of the moon, just like any good Christian festival should.

PPS For the record, I'm a good ol' Irish Catholic with a passing interest in actual history.

Coincidence? Or supernatural goings-on? YOU be the judge!

I've been inspired to finally make my very first post to this here blog due to the occurrence of an amazing phenomenon. Just yesterday I posted a letter to Channel 7, kindly requesting that they consider allowing Foxtel to use their electronic program guide. I have written to Channel 7 before, with little (no) success, and expected similar (identical) results this time round.

I was wrong.

Lo and behold, I just read today, less than 24 hours later, that Channel 7 has finally decided to...you guessed it...allow Foxtel to use their electronic program guide.
Was it just a waste of a stamp? Or, more likely, do I have...power? Am I some kind of television superhero? Not like The Greatest American Hero, but someone who can actually achieve good in the real world.

With television.

Anyway, here's the letter I wrote (it contains much less vitriol than my usual rants, as I was actually hoping to get something done - my other letters should be more entertaining):

Programming Department
Broadcast Centre
Channel Seven
160 Harbour Esplanade
DOCKLANDS VIC 3008

12 February 2008

RE: Electronic Program Guide

Dear sir/madam

I would like to ask that Channel 7 provide its Electronic Program Guide (EPG) to Foxtel.

Many of our favourite shows are on Channel 7, including Lost, 24, and My Name is Earl. However, now that we have Foxtel (with IQ), we rely almost entirely on Foxtel’s Electronic Program Guide when working out what we will watch and when. As a result, since Channel 7’s listings are always blank, we constantly miss shows we would like to watch. This also means we are missing advertising for other Channel 7 shows, and, of course, the products of your advertisers.

As a consequence, we missed pretty much all of My Name is Earl last year, and most recently we missed the pilot of Dirty, Sexy Money last night, which is what finally provoked me to write about this. Since we’ve missed the first episode and there doesn’t appear to be any other way of watching that episode (apart from downloading, which we don’t do), we probably won’t end up watching the series at all, which is a shame as we were looking forward to it.

As you probably know, Foxtel is now in something like 25% of homes. It makes sense for you to tap into that market and give Foxtel viewers the best opportunity to watch your shows – particularly since watching your rivals’ shows is so easy (and we don’t really like Channel 9 or 10 shows these days).

Also, we can tell you that my wife is a shareholder in Channel 7, and she doesn’t mind if you provide your EPG to Foxtel. In fact, as it would increase viewers, we expect it would increase Channel 7’s revenue, and hence Channel 7’s share price.

Finally, Tivo’s yesterday’s news. Don’t worry about it.

Regards

(the rilestar)

According to The Age, "The deal was unexpected because Seven is preparing to launch its TiVo digital video recorder, to challenge Foxtel and its iQ recorder.

"Foxtel chief executive Kim Williams conceded the agreement to re-broadcast Seven on Foxtel had been "a long time coming"."

Spooky.

This has inspired me to provide more of my private rants to the world, just in case there's something more at work here...