Senator McCain Responds (sort-of) to My Anti-SOPA/PIPA letter

From the: CAN-YOU-READ-? Dept.

Along with millions of other people back on January 18th, I wrote letters to my Congressmen, Senators John McCain and Jon Kyle, and ‘Representative’ Paul Gossar. To date, one has responded. Mr McCain (or, more accuratly a computerized form-letter-machine) has written to address my fear of Internet Regulation, censorship, and my growing distaste for a private industry buying politicians with money and favors.

Well, kind of. It doesn’t really address anything from my letter except maybe some of the censorship stuff, but if you actually READ my letter (MCCAIN! I’m talking to YOU buddy!), you’ll see that the argument goes much deeper:

The First Thing I Remember (Circa December ~9th~15th, 2009)

For Context: This post is the second in a series which talks about my experiences of the last year, my illness, and subsequent hospitalization and recovery. There is a LOT of stuff that I simply don’t know. Things happened that I was not aware of at the time. I will NOT try to explain the illness too much, as I want this to be about what I experienced, and not a report on my health, nor a treatise on the health care industry. This is more or less a list of things that happened, and not a narrative story. Someday maybe I will get to write that. This post is a summary of events from around 12/9 to around 12/15/2009.

What is Real?

“If real is what you can feel, smell, taste, and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” – Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)

I’m honestly not sure these days, how much of what I remember was real, and what was a hallucination. I had a lot of dreams about what was happening to me. For a while I was convinced that I was captured or kidnapped. There were ‘Doctors’ in my dreams, and they were usually good guys who wanted to help me but simply couldn’t. They couldn’t let me go. That’s all that I wanted. I wanted to go home. I thought about my wife, our son, and the baby that was on the way, and all I wanted was to get back to them.

Sometimes I thought it was Al–Qaeda, sometimes it was aliens, sometimes it was the ‘Shadow Government.’ What I couldn’t figure out though, was what they wanted from me. I kept telling them that there was no reason to hold me hostage. “There’s no money. No one can give you money for me,” I kept telling them. But they wouldn’t listen. They never listened.

I did try to escape, and almost made it a couple of times. Although, where would I have gone? I can remember when they started putting the ‘mittens’ on me. They were huge wrapped pads on my hands that were supposed to keep me from pulling my wires and tubes out. They started with plain Velcro, but I was able to pull that off with my teeth. Then they wrapped them with tape. And I think they ended up doing something even more drastic, but I can’t remember. Pretty sure that I was tied down at one point.

What was really happening was this:

Readers Block

I need something to read!

For the last couple of weeks the only thing I’ve felt like reading are old Dilbert strips. But today, I marshaled all my strength, and read… stuff on the INTERNET. woo hoo. So, lets go through my browser’s history and see what I read today:

First thing i read (actually last night) was This Blog Post from Walkswithstress. This gave several alternatives that our President could go with instead of wearing ‘human’ beach attire while on vacation. Reason being, some news organizations questioned weather the leader of the free world should actually dress like hes hanging out on a beach when he is… hanging out on a beach. Although, it looks like his ‘flip flops’ have gotten more attention than his six pack.

Next up was, Techdirt for my dose of who is suing who for copyright infringement. The first thing that caught my eye in the rss reader was this story about Duke Nukem being possibly upgraded from Vaporware. Again. Good luck.Really? I actually stopped reading Nukem articles back in ’05. This one has the air of something that might actually happen though, so who knows…

CNN had a nice little article from CES that basically stated what I knew all along, Android would dominate the Smartphone market. Despite an article (which i can’t find now) I read last week saying that once Verizon got in bed with Apple on the [disappointing] iPhone4…blah blah. NO, we are not all just waiting to get the iPhone on our own carrier. Any way, the CNN article lists a TON of Android devices which are scheduled to be released this yer.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

And then there was this about the end of the Saturn brand. Um, the guy actually claims he has been following Saturn and collecting memorabelia since he was 10. Um, dude, when i was 10 I was riding my bike up and down the street, more interested in bugs and Thundercats than a car company. Of course he also says he waited over 15 years to actually buy one… eh. anyway, it was a good read with some insightful items about the company’s history. It was also interesting to read up on yet another GM brand to go up in smoke. A few years ago it was Oldsmobile, and just recently Pontiac closed the doors to its last dealerships… so sad.

My heart grows ever colder towards the SyFy channel as I find out from Twitter that Star Gate Universe will not return for a 3rd season. Most people are only pissed off because it means the direct to DVD SG:Atlantis movie is now put on hold, but screw those guys.  SGU was (Still is) an awesome show. I will miss it terribly. Hopefully this news does not totally kill it for me, as there are still 10 episodes left in season 2 which will (supposedly) air in the spring. I also read some where that Smackdown isn’t doing that great on Friday nights, so i hope that SyFy is happy that they completely screwed the pooch by moving the incredible Friday line up to Tuesday. WAKE UP SYFY!

Lets see here, facebook, facebook, twitter, oh yeah: The JoCo Cruise is coming to an end, hopefully it won’t put an end to Len Peralta’s “@wilw’s Sequential Panel of Awesome”

And finally, back to Techdirt for a quick roundup of links about 3D that isn’t a fad.

And that’s today’s post… I guess it was more about a writing block than a reading block.

STFU pt2

No, you’re singing over the Beatles isn’t annoying… It’s FRAKIN’ ANNOYING!

please stop 😦

Goddamn you SyFy

Seriously SyFy, do you hate me? Do you not like me watching your shows? Please tell me what I’ve done to deserve the following:

-First, a little background-

There are a few shows on SyFy (Formerly the channel known as ‘SciFi’, but for some reason wanted to re-brand and confuse a LOT of people) that I really, really like. Eureka, Stargate: Universe (SGU) and Warehouse 13 (also the frakin’ most awesomest show EVER: Battlestar Galactiga). These are excellent shows. I’ve followed Eureka since it was unleashed upon us back in 2006. I finally got the rest of my family into it and we’re GREATLY anticipating the 4th season, slated to start this Friday (barring any scheduling hiccups [are you LISTENING SYFY??}).

As much as I like Eureka, and some of the movies they put on, like Riverworld, I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the ‘Sci-Fi’ channel in a while. Maybe this is why they hate me. Last summer I was especially forgetful and totally missed the re-branding into SyFy. But, when I was in the hospital last fall and winter, my wife would change the station and let me watch some stuff on the seefee channel. I remember dreams about Warehouse 13, which must have been me actually watching the show but I thought I was just dreaming of being a secret agent along side Saul Rubinek. When I went back to check it out this spring, I was amazed. It was REALLY good. I finished the first season just a couple of weeks ago, and was looking forward to the new season. Everywhere I looked there was a review saying how bad-ass it was going to be, etc. man, oh man…….. I checked my DVR 6 times over the weekend to make sure it was set to record, because I KNEW that I wouldn’t be able to watch it during first broadcast. I checked and re-checked the time slot on both TVGuide.com and the Directv website, just to be sure. you know, normal stuff.

Yesterday I was going nuts. OOOOOHHHHH…. Warehouse 13!! I follow @SyFy [Craig Engler, the SVP & GM of SyFy Digital] on Twitter and he kept posting people saying how great it was and everything. Coulden’t wait to fire it up after everyone in the house went to bed… damn. So, yeah. By air time I was eating dinner, and I checked the DVR just to be sure it really was recording. w00t! yes! totally recording that shit. Even checked to make sure it wasn’t going to be a 2 hour episode… etc. However, by the time we got the kids in bed and all of that I was exhausted, so read for a bit and went to bed early, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Obviously I was not going to watch the premier last night.

~06:30 Today
Woke up a little groggy, but none the worse for wear (I love that phrase). Fed the baby, hit the bathroom, checked some email, made coffee and saw my wife off to work. And I still had about an hour and a half to kill before I’d have to leave.

~07:15 Today
Opened the correct menu on the DVR, scrolled down to WAREHOUSE 13 and hit play. Tail end of a commercial and… WTF??

WRESTLING. There was Wrestling on my DVR. Who? What? You can probably hear the small ‘nghngh’ sound that barely escaped my throat. PANIC.
Ok, calm down, there has to be a logical explanation. Hit Info button. Yadda Yadda, SyFy Channel, Yadda Yadda, tuesday 8PM, etc… It looks good. BUT WHY IS THERE FRAKING WRESTLING ON MY FRELLING DVR??

After checking the machine, etc to make sure it was ok, I fast forwarded thinking that tehre may have been a minute or two of a previous show, and then WAREHOUSE 13!!
… 8 minutes later… w00t! Warehouse 13!! ok, but seriously, 8 minutes? Fraking wrestling ate into my show by 8 minutes? Who in their right-fucking-mind would run 8 minutes of wrestling into my show?

SyFy

I rattled off a tweet.

“Anybody(@Syfy ) want to explain why the first 10 minutes of #Warehouse13 on my DVR is goddamn wrestling? Hello?”

As of this writing, no one has responded.

Even though my DVR told me that it had recorded for exactly 60 minutes, I figured: “Oh well, I’m sure it will be fine.” Thinking, of course, that there had to be a good reason for this. So I sat back to enjoy my show.

**SPOILER ALERT**
**The following paragraph contains information pertaining to the last few scenes of the Warehouse 13 season 2 premier that aired last night at 8 pm Pacific. if you haven’t seen it yet, please skip the following paragraph (just one, I promise), and continue with the next paragraph. thank you… Ever So Much.**

———————————–**Begin Spoilers**——————————————

So, I watched the show that I had recorded. the one I’d been looking forward to for some time and was anxious to see what had happened to Artie and Pete and Myka. I was positive (as we all were, I’m sure) that Leena wasn’t really a double agent, and that Claudia’s name would be cleared. I knew that If Artie had survived the explosions st the end of Season 1 (HE DID!) that he would be able to track down MacPhearson and all would be well. So there I am, on my couch, drinking my morning coffee with the not-quite-silent hiss of the baby monitor in the background… and we get to where HG runs into the Escher Vault wearing the vest that I can’t remember the name of… and Myka tricks MacPhearson using the thimble while Pete cracks him over the head. And MacPhearson lays dying when Artie and Claudia come running up. Artie holds his old friend and explains what he saw when he kissed the Phoenix Medallion and MacPhearson is so understandably apologetic about having misinterpreted the whole thing and becoming evil for no reason. This hits me in the chest the same way as Darth Vader’s redemption at the end of Jedi, bringing me to not-quite-tears. Then a slow fade to black, where we assume that there will be a short commercial break and then a prologue where we’ll find out the answers to all the questions left unanswered…and…

———————————–**End of Spoilers**——————————————-

FRAK!!!!!
No. There is a fade to black, and the message from my DVR that explains to me that the show is over and do I want to keep or delete the file.

What.the.FUCK?

Thats right, the Season 2 premier of Warehouse 13 was offset by about 10 minutes. On Purpose.

I fire off another tweet:

‘@Syfy I’m kinda pissed. You’re stupid wrestling schedule made me miss the last 10 minutes of #Warehouse13! You happy now?’

[EDIT: after 24 hours since i tweeted that, no on has responded…]

There is only possible explanations for this.

The offset was there to expose as many people as possible to both the Wrestling crap, and Warehouse 13. See, the people who tuned in to watch wrestling are already invested by 8 minutes into the hour, so they might just stick around and see what this warehouse-thingy is all about. And by the same token, the warehouse people will tune in at the time the show is SUPPOSED to start, see wrestling and think,” huh, this ain’t too bad. I’m SOOOOOO sorry that I called Craig Engler the spineless toady of a failing network.” ( These are not my words, but a culmination of how actual sci-fi fans view the decisions of SyFy, through the mirror darkley that is the internets)

Either way this is annoying. The offset its self wouldn’t have been so bad if they had let anyone know about it. ie: my satelite/cable company’s scheduler. There are ways to do this. You don’t just release the air time as “8 o’clock.” you say hey, this set of shows is going to be offset a bit, please adjust your schedules accordingly. NBC does this, why can’t SyFy? The Tonight show always starts at 11:35 where i live. The scheduler shows this, and if i record it on my DVR it begins at the correct time. There is absolutely NO reason why one channels Tuesday night line up can’t be scheduled correctly, or compensated properly by a scheduler.

Any way, i was going to end with some links to other sites that talk about this, but apparently I’m the only one that was affected… WTF? So, to sum up… SYFy hates me. .

updates to come….

** The bulk of the above text was written yesterday, Wednesday 7/7/10, the following was written this morning after considering what is above*****

Look, I understand that SyFy is a business and they are simply looking for better ratings on their shows. I’ve already indicated that I LOVE their shows and some of their movies. So I’m not against SyFy in any way (except the name…. god it’s silly). I actually wish the channel the very best of luck in raising it’s viewership and exposing more people to good science fiction.

That said, SyFy pissed me off to no end yesterday when they offset their showing of Warehouse 13. First, I don’t like wrestling. I loathe it. It’s the most pointless thing in the world to me. Especially American entertainment Wrestling. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Maybe if it was Mexican wrestling with the awesome costumes etc…

but I digest.

It just pisses me off that SyFy can have such little respect for actual science fiction fans that they would put wrestling on their channel.

and then offset it so that it interrupts a great show that i was really looking forward to watching.

in the end, I went to Hulu for the last 10 minutes, and had to suffer through 3 minutes of Vodka commercials to do it.