television | mashby

June 29, 2006

Palm TV Ads Online

I’m a HUGE fan of the Palm OS operating system, aka Palm Pilots. Have been since 1997 when I bought a used Pilot 1000. As a rabid fan, I’ve collected as much Palm stuff as possible. One of the things that I dug up many years ago were some television ads that Palm did. Not being a huge company with a huge marketing budget, television advertising is not something that Palm has done a lot of. Many of their ads never made it to TV, but were used for trade shows and the like.

This morning, I was reading Mike Mace’s article “We need a new mobile platform. Sort of.” and he made reference to the Palm Ad “A Perfect Day” and the fact that he couldn’t find the video online. I decided to do my ~~civic~~ geeky duty and upload the video to YouTube.com. Not wanting to stop there, I decided to upload all the videos I’ve collected over the years. 8)

The playlist and the embedded player below, have the videos in date order as best as I can tell. There are 6 videos in all — enjoy.

April 11, 2006

Still Getting A Kick Out Of It

Moleskine Reporter Pocket featured on Hustle

I’ve created, managed and published a lot of web sites in my day, but I still get a kick out of seeing someting I’ve submitted appear on someone else’s site.

For example, I’m a big fan of the BBC television series “Hustle” and I was watching the lastest episode last Friday night. One of the characters, Danny Blue (Marc Warren), was pretending to be a journalist for the con that they were working. Throughout the episode he’s seen sporting a Moleskine Reporter Pocket edition. In fact, the journal was featured so much that in one scene you can even make out the embossing on the back!

April 6, 2006

John Mese On “CSI” Tonight

John F**kin' Mese Be sure to tune your televisions to CBS this evening to watch “CSI“. My good buddy, John Mese will be appearing as Gordon Wallace in tonight’s episode Spellbound. I’ve seen a few previews for the show and you can clearly, albeit quickly, see John being interrogated. I don’t know if this means he’s playing the “bad guy” or not, but he’s sure to get plenty of face time, which is fantastic.

John’s been having a great run over the past year or so. He was on “Law and Order” in the episode Acid, which then lead to a role on “Bones” in The Superhero In The Alley. Before all that, he was on “Medium” in the episode Suspicions And Certainties, which was a brilliant role. It was very dark but VERY funny.

March 3, 2006

“The IT Crowd” – Farce At It’s Best

Like most people who have become fans of the Channel 4 UK hit, “The IT Crowd“, I heard about the show through Boing Boing and other tech web sites. After watching the first episode, “Yesterday’s Jam”, I fell in love. In fact, I like the show so much, I bought the company. Err… OK, I didn’t buy the company, but I DID become the Editor for the show over at TV.com. 🙂

February 8, 2006

Check Out “Bones” Tonight

I haven’t been a big fan of the new FOX television show “Bones”, but tonight is a “must see” night to watch, because my good friend John Mese. The episode is entitled “The Superhero In The Alley” and John will be playing the part of Ted McGruder. I don’t know how big of a role he’ll have in the episode, but I’m hoping it’s pretty big.

December 28, 2005

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To North Carolina

An open envelope Since I met my wife over 18 years ago (gawd that makes me sound old), we’ve always celebrated her birthday by trying to make it special. Since it falls on the 19th of December, just 6 days before Christmas, it makes it a bit of a challenge since it’s easy to lump the two events together. So we found that by taking a small trip somewhere, we can help make it more unique. This year we decided to drive to North Carolina and explore High Point and Willimington.

The plan was to leave the night of Thursday the 15th to get a head start on all the driving. High Point is an 8 hour drive, so instead of eating up all of Friday driving, we could break it up over two days and have most of Friday to browse the acres of furniture that High Point is known for. I also had to do my radio show for Computer Outlook that evening, and the day itself was crazy as ever with having to visit several client sites, shop for Holly, etc. Suffice to say that it I had a very busy day planned.

December 6, 2005

I’m The TV.com Editor For John Mese

Today I became the TV.com Editor for the actor John Mese. What does that mean? Well, I now have editorial control for the content submitted for John. How did I get this title? By submitting enough content about him to earn enough points for the title. Now that you know the “what” and the “how”, you’re probably wondering the “why”, so I thought I’d give a little bit of the back story. Back in 1988, I needed an elective at LSU and I opted for an Acting 101 class. John was the instructor and I have to say, he was an excellent teacher. It was clear that he found acting exciting and he translated that into the class. It was a blast and I ended up getting an “A” and fueled by John’s love of acting, I decided to go on to the 201 class after that. Unfortunately, the 201 instructor sucked and I dropped the class. John ended up graduating from the Master of Fine Arts program, a graduate study curriculum in the Theatre Department, that year and moving to LA to pursue his career. While he was in Baton Rouge though, he was one a very cool guy to hang out with. I can’t say that we were friends really, I mean he was my instructor, but he was very approachable and fun to hang out with. I’ll never forget this party he through. He was living in an old shoe, or boot store (if memory serves) and he threw a party. I was lucky enough to be invited, so I invited a buddy of mine to go with me, since I didn’t know anyone other than John. We went and it was a blast. He played some of the worst music I’ve ever heard in my life, but it didn’t seem to matter because everyone was dancing and having a great time. I distinctly remember seeing John standing on a table howling up at the ceiling clearly enjoying his party as much as his guests. Since I’ve gone off on a tangent, I might as well go off on another. During his days at LSU, John had long hair that was all one-length. If you remember Dan Cortese when he was on MTV Sports, then I think you get the picture. He was quite proud of his hair too, which is understandable, and would pull it back into a pony tail. You’d never know that he was a Catholic High School graduate to look at him then. He was definitely NOT preppy in any way shape or form. Continue Reading

November 18, 2005

Mashby’s Top 10 Television Shows (part 2)

The other day I wrote about the first five of my top ten favorite television shows. It’s now time to cover the second half of my top ten. If you missed the first part, you can find it at this link. So without any further ado, my favorite shows from 6 to 10 are as follows.

06. “Lost” (ABC)
Lost My wife and I missed catching the first few episodes of Lost when it first began airing last year. It wasn’t until the Season 1 DVD came out that we were able to catch up and see what all the buzz was about. After the second episode we were hooked and now we never miss an episode and thanks to iTunes, I don’t have to.

“Lost” is the story about the survivors of a plane crash, who find themselves on an island. The real adventure begins once they discover that the island holds many mysteries and so do the survivors themselves. The hook that pulls you in and won’t let go is the way the story slowly draws you into the mysteries. Instead of big stunning revelations, the viewer peels away one layer at a time, much like layers on a onion. For this reason though, it’s really best to watch it from the beginning. Coming into the middle of Season 2 isn’t the best way to ease your way into the series. There’s a lot of strange things that occur and it’s best to experience them for yourself and not by word-of-mouth.

If you’re new to the series, be sure and watch the Season 1 DVD, or download the last season on iTunes for $34. It’s worth the effort.

November 9, 2005

Mashby’s Top 10 Television Shows

With all the talk this week about the mechanics of receiving television this week, I thought it was high time to talk about the shows themselves. I’m a confirmed TV junkie who can’t seem to get enough. When I stumbled upon Broadcatching, my addiction got the best of me, but over the summer I pulled myself together and got my habit under control. So here’s my top 10 list of the creme de la creme of what’s out there on the boob tube. I’m listing them in my order of preference, so you don’t have to wait until tomorrow for the top-rated shows. Bon appétit!

01. “Firefly” (FOX)
This series was canceled in 2002, but to this day it stands out as my favorite television show. Created by Oscar and Emmy nominated writer Joss Whedon, who had created two blockbuster hits for FX with “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Angel“, was asked to create one more show for them. What he came up with was “Firefly“. The network eagerly bought the show and then didn’t know what to do with it. They decided not to air the pilot, then dumped it into a crappy time slot and in the end canceled it. Idiots.

Lucky for us, the fan base for the show was legion and they were vocal. After the show was canceled, they started up a grass roots campaign to drive the sales of the DVD for the series and that got Universal’s attention who decided to continue the story with the first of hopefully 3 movies called Serenity. The series is great, the movie is great and it’s all shiny.

“So what’s the story about?” It doesn’t matter. Go buy the DVD and watch it. “But isn’t it Sci-Fi?” It is and it isn’t. It’s unlike any show that’s out there, so go buy it and watch it. “Yeah, but I’ve heard it’s a western too” It doesn’t matter. Go buy the DVD and watch it.

November 8, 2005

On-Demand Deal Doesn’t Really Meet Consumer Demands

A man scratching his head I didn’t really mean to make the topic of downloadable TV, or TV On-Demand, a theme for the week, but after reading a few announcements today I felt a few words were in order. Today CBS and NBC made two big announcements regarding providing content from their network in an On-Demand model. This of course comes on the heals of the ABC deal with iTunes, but it differs from that arrangement pretty significantly. Instead of just jumping on the bandwagon and signing up with iTunes, CBS and NBC are both using a model of using a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) to receive their programming. So instead of using your computer, you use a DVR directly connected to your television.

So how is this different? Well, with this model, you would have a dedicated device connected to your television that would then communicate with your television provider to receive the content. Once received and purchased, you could then hit a button on your remote and watch the program. With the iTunes model, you can easily download the content, but you have the hurdle of getting it to your television. With a DVR that hurdle doesn’t exist. Sounds like an easier solution then, right? Well, it is and it isn’t.

Category / television