A Way To Combine Social Media Into One Feed

I love the internet. If you come up with a problem, a quick search links you to the world's brain and sure enough, someone's already thought of a solution or eleven.

I thought there must be a way to combine all my social media into one mainline feed. Sure enough, you can. Grazr used to do it, but they are dead. Instead, check out FriendFeed. The benefit of this, as far as I'm going to use it, is to send all my social media feeds to one location, then pipe that feed out (they provide RSS, Facebook App or Google Gadget as output methods) to my eventual Simon J. Green website as a mega updater.

Here's my feed at the mo-mo: http://friendfeed.com/simonjongreen

Simultaneous Release

Movies get released in stages. Theatres first, then retail (DVD), then Video On Demand and digital, then pay TV, then broadcast. In between, there are established waiting period of weeks or months. If a film broke that waiting period, there was trouble. This model is based on a finely balanced set of needs between film studios who want to make money off of films so they can make more films, and the distribution channels who on-sell those movies.

The new model emerging is to smash those windows of release, Hulk style, and release a movie on DVD, in cinemas and digitally on the same day, or a few days apart.

This is a good thing.

Some quarters complain that this could lead to the end of cinemas. Sure. But so be it. Let them go the way of the drive-in as an outmoded form of technology that the audience simply stopped using. The world has decided en masse that they will take movies when they want them. This is the result of that demand. Steven Soderbergh put it similarly: "Name any big little movie that’s come out in the last four years,” he said, and “It has been available in all formats on the day of release.  It’s called piracy.  Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings, Ocean’s Eleven and Ocean’s Twelve – I saw them on Canal Street on opening day. Simultaneous release is already here. We’re just trying to gain control over it."

Good for Footy

These are two skits Dave Jackson and I did for Last Radio Show on the Left, an insane show we produced on SYNfm in Melbourne in the early naughties. I thought of them completely out of the blue this morning and realised you should all share in their glory.

Footy Training

At The G

As you can see, there's a theme. I always liked the fact we seemed to be one of the very few who went for that holy cow, AFL football. Sure our satire was crude, but at least it's on the ball. Enjoy!

Grog's Blahmut

The chap who is Grog's Gamut knew he ran the risk of being unmasked when he first set up an anonymous blog. If he didn't, he wasn't too bright. The fact that he was unmasked may be unfortunate for him, but I don't see it being in any way unethical. No one has a right to anonymity for no reason. Mr. Gamut knew he was doing something his job disallowed him, but he did it anyway, hiding behind anonymity. That's fine so long as it lasts, but like any superhero or villain, if you run around hiding your identity someone, somewhere will work it out. The longer he ran as anonymous, the greater his chances of being unmasked, especially as his profile rose. Why should he remain anonymous if a media worker discovers him? Since when is the media supposed to ignore a fact when nothing but a person's job is at stake, especially when that job was placed in jeopardy by Mr. Gamut's own actions? If Mr. Gamut really wanted to influence politics, he could've quit his public service job at any time and gotten rid of the need to be anonymous in the first place. The notion he was silenced is silly. He chose to be an anonymous blogger running the risk of being outed. The media have always investigated mysteries and uncovered them to the public. That's what they do.

Unless he was a whistle-blower or in a position where his anonymity was crucial for his or someone else's physical security, he had no rights to anonymity, just like any of the rest of us. The dude played a game and lost. Next.

30 Rock and That Joke

People are throwing the all too familiar moral shit fit today over a joke on 30 Rock. Pete Hornberger explains that with his extra free time he made love to his wife, but that she was asleep, so he didn't have to be gentle. We then see a mid-shot of Pete's snoring wife as she starts to jiggle up and down.

The online community have erupted with cries of 'rape joke,' and there's vocalisation that the writers crossed a line.

Now, my girlfriend and I exploded with sustained laughter after this gag and had to watch it again to maximise the hilarity. At the time I didn't even think of rape. I was laughing because being a fan of the show, I know that Pete and his wife have a history of bizarre sex practices, and this was just the next step in their escalating kinkiness. I also laughed at the grotesque nature of his wife's mass of snoring flesh wobbling back and forth as a bald, most likely naked Pete began rutting her. I thought my reaction to that horror show was reflected in Liz Lemon's curdled face when we cut back.

Pete intimates he knows it's gross and we cut back to his wife really shaking. Here I figured the writers knew they'd come up with a great joke and wanted to milk it a little extra.

Maybe this says something about me, that my mind didn't go straight to rape, but if so, it equally says something about those whose minds did race to sexual assault in the framework of an off the wall comedy like 30 Rock.

Now that I read the outcry, I realise this scene could indeed be seen as rape, but I really don't believe that was the point or intention of the comedy, and it's certainly not why I laughed. Maybe the writers were a little dangerous with their humour on this one, but in the context of the show, Pete having sleep-sex with his wife seems completely appropriate. This is the same couple who were happy to have sex in Lemon's bed and whose children beat up their father. I believe that Pete's wife, upon waking, would be fine with Pete having made love to her while asleep, because they've set her character up that way. She's a kinky woman. So maybe Mrs Hornberger is happy to be sleep-sexed. Does that mean she condones the same or worse to other people? Does that mean the writers of the show do? Of course not!

The joke is risky, but I think edgy comedy needs to be observed within its sphere of reality. To leap to the conclusion that the scene, the characters and the writers condone rape is absolutely ludicrous.

YouTube Tuesday: Lisa vs Pooh

Made this after I discovered the joys of decent video on my phone. It's silly, but fun.

I'm sure before long you'll all be enduring five minute vids of my cat playing with a shoe...

YouTube Tuesday!

I couldn't NOT share these with you.

Glorious and stunning.