Sou Yo Kokoro No Nai Kotoba Nanka Yori

Here's some video from the first day of my trip to Tokyo. Enjoy!

No Telling How This Came To Be. You Ended Up Here When You Didn't Agree.

[I have video and stories from Japan, which will be posted soon, but I wanted to talk about TV first. Check back later for cool Tokyo stuff]

NBC blew my socks off last year. Seriously, there wasn't another network that even came close to the success they found with their new and returning shows. Heroes, The Office, 30 Rock, and Friday Night Lights just hit me in the face and reminded me how amazing television can be.

I watched them all on my computer and iPod because I don't have cable, a dependable VCR, a DVR machine or the inclination to be sitting front of my TV, hoping for decent reception, every week at the same time. Sure, that sounds petty, but it isn't like I'm tuning in for the cure for cancer or the key to transcendental awakening. It's great entertainment, but it's just storytelling. However, I happily paid my $1.99 per episode to make it convenient to enjoy that entertaining storytelling. Really, I just enjoyed taking 22 minute lunch breaks so I could watch the latest 30 Rock each Friday. It was convenient, easy and dependable.

I guess it just wasn't enough for Vivendi.

They're ending their agreement with Apple to sell new programs on iTunes, which sucks. The relationship went flying off the rails for the same three reasons that most relationships do: money, control, and ego. Vivendi wants to raise the rates above the standard $1.99 per episode, Apple wants to keep the price low to make video iPods more appealing, and neither wants to cave to the other's demands.

The end result is that NBC won't be putting up the new seasons of Heroes, 30 Rock or The Office, or new shows like Bionic Woman. Instead they'll be selling them through Amazon's Unbox program (which is incompatible with Apple's operating system) for $1.99 per episode. So, I won't be downloading them this year. For now Heroes is available for streaming on NBC.com (with commercials and some glitches), but for some reason The Office does not seem to be. I have to wonder at the logic behind these decisions (if there in fact is any) and why Vivendi seems to have such little regard for the consumers they have found through iTunes.

The whole fuss reminds me, though, that my life was just fine without Heroes, 30 Rock, The Office, Friday Night Lights or any other NBC/Universal program. They're great entertainment, great storytelling, but they aren't going to cure cancer or help in my spiritual awakening.

So, goodbye NBC.

Maybe I'll check out the DVDs next year. In the meantime, I'll just have to find someone else to eat my lunch with.

White And Black, The Friendly Bears Of China. White And Black, They Rarely Reproduce.

This may be the worst thing that has ever happened in the history of humanity: China is ending Panda Diplomacy.

For over 1,000 years China has made up for any rampantly heinous behavior by sending out the most lovable, awesome creatures in this or any reality. Yeah, I'm well aware of unicorns, the mogwai and pikachu. They all look like obese, drunken rednecks next to a panda. But I've lost my original point... See, that's what happens! China does something awful, and you want to hate them, but then they whip out Chia Chia and Ching Ching and you melt. It's like the Wookie defense.

Sure, some people will try and come at you from an ethical, conservationist standpoint, arguing that living beings shouldn't be turned into unwilling participants in global geo-political strategies, or exploited to further the economic aims of a nation whose continued prosperity threatens that creature's very survival. But to those people, I say simply "boo!" Pandas are awesome, and anything we can do to make them more accessible to endless crowds of lazy-eyed mouthbreathing lookey-loos is not only ethically justified but is in fact a categorical imperative. And I must point out that here, in the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen (suck on THAT, Denmark), the closest Pandas are an entire time zone away from me.

This is unacceptable.

China should not be choking off the supply of these precious, majestic creatures, just to turn a profit by renting them out for breeding and research. They should be embracing these gentle, roly-poly marsupials as the living, breathing Hallmark Cards that they are. And they surely are not running out of things to apologize for. This is a perfect symbiotic relationship, and it makes no sense for the Central Government to go and screw this up for themselves now.

Take solace in the fact that there are still numerous pandas serving their misguided country in zoos around the world. See them while you can.

Hopefully in one week I'll be gawking at a couple myself.

Once Again, It's All About Me. And Pride Is Not A Factor, No.

or "But I Get Along All Right. As Long I Don’t Have To Interact
With Anyone Else On A Meaningful Level, I’ll Be Fine."

So, I somehow got nominated for an award. Whoever did that to me, "thanks." It's great to be recognized, but now I have inadvertently been put in the position of incipient loser. Or perhaps not. If enough people vote for me, I might just win. But don't bust your ass doing it, kids, because there's no money at stake, just my foolish pride and ego.

Speaking of foolish Pride and Ego, I've got some shows coming up.

Tonight I'm at Othello's! New stuff tonight.
434 Buchanan in Norman! FREE! 9:30pm!

Thursday night I'm at Pepe Delgado's! Slightly less new stuff, but likely much funnier.
752 Asp in Norman! Three Bands, Four Comics, Five Dollars! 10:00pm!

October 3-7 I'm at the Tulsa Loony Bin! Older stuff, but they haven't seen it.
6808 S. Memorial in Tulsa! Free - $8.00! Various times!

October 12 I'll be at OKC COMEDY NIGHT 2007 at Stage Center! It will be a good show, or Jason Black will slit my throat.
400 W. Sheridan in Oklahoma City!
Buy tickets at the Civic Center Box Office: $10.00 plus $1.50 service charge = $11.50
Buy tickets over the phone at 405.297.2264: $10.00 plus $2.50 service charge = $12.50
Buy tickets online at www.myticketoffice.com: $10.00 plus $5.50 service charge = $15.50

In the meantime, you can listen to me fail at the Loony Bin last week.

Oh, and I'll be going to Tokyo next week for pretty much no good reason at all.

Don't forget to vote, kids.

It’s Water, Don’t Try To Fight It

Last Thursday I came home to find water pooling in my closet. It was dripping, strangely enough, from the air conditioning unit above the vent in the ceiling of my closet. It was a terrible tragedy that dragged on through the entire Labor Day Weekend until Tuesday, when our handyman Ken finally fixed it. He's got dozens of aging units to care for and, as far as I can tell, no one to assist him. It's like some weird synthesis of Hercules and Sisyphus, constantly waging war against entropy like that. My parents did it with old cars when I was a kid, so I have a reverence for that kind of losing battle. It is maddening to fight against the tendency of things to break down, and I admire the tenacity and commitment to mental illness necessary for such work.

Sometimes I feel that's what life is about, tenacity and mental illness in dealing with certain inevitabilities. And having been raised Presbyterian, the Calvinist in me thinks that all things are inevitable, and everything happens or does not happen just exactly as it is supposed to. I don't know if I can or want to accept such an orderly universe, but watching the water drip from the ceiling to the shelf to the bucket over and over, I couldn't help but think that entropy is one of those inevitabilities, and with entropy comes the flavor, if not meat, of chaos and I find that somewhat comforting. I am trying to find comfort in the idea of an orderly universe running on a straight track just as it is supposed to, but I'm not there yet. Maybe I'll get there in this lifetime.

I wish I could say for certain.