Shelock Holmes Wins an Emmy on Facebook!!

Its Wednesday, September 1, 2010. and today is an important day. Brother Anonymous is joining me in my quest to acquire as many gray hairs as possible. Now some of you might be thinking, why on Earth would my brother only comment on here anonymously?

If you were related to me would you really want people to know it?

I thought not.

Happy Birthday, dude.

UNPLUGGED!!

The newspaper and the Yahoo news reel were looking very familiar. This is probably due to them getting around to what I was writing about a week ago. Facebook "check in", in which you can 'check in' other people giving away their location, is under fire for being an invasion of privacy, because its one thing if you want to paint a big old e-target on yourself and say "here I am", and its another if you want to paint a big old e-target on someone else and say "there he is". As I've said, you can block people from doing this with your privacy settings, but that involves actually knowing how to operate them.

So Facebook is now Big Brother, and I don't mean the CBS reality show.

But, in looking at job listings I've discovered some employers WANT their employees to be on Facebook to the point where they've said don't apply if you don't have it. Now this seems counter-intuitive on the surface because why on Earth would you want to hire someone who possibly would be wasting company time playing Farmville. However, this maneuver is a stroke of Machiavellian brilliance because the employer can bring up everything you are doing. Are you updating when you should be working? Were you really sick the day you called in sick? Got something nasty to say about them?

People have lost their jobs for things they have posted on Facebook. Hell, people have been arrested for it. And they do it to themselves. What you post online anywhere will eventually be made public, especially on Facebook.

Will this catch on? Will I have to go crawling back to Facebook and get another account if I want a nice job in a cushy office someday? Who knows. I do know that if this becomes the norm then Facebook is going to be about as popular as herpes and everyone over the age of 18 will have very boring Facebook pages.

DISCONNECTED?!

The Emmys were on, and I actually watched a good chunk of it. The vast majority of winners are shows I don't watch and many of them I've never heard of. So either my lack of cable is leaving me seriously out of the loop, my viewing habits suck, or there's a disconnect somewhere between the industry of TV and viewers. Its probably the first option, and even if it isn't I'd much prefer to plead ignorance than to cop to sucking. Honestly, I didn't know MAD MEN was a drama. All I knew was that it was on a station I don't get and Christina Hendricks is on it.

And now a Christina Hendricks moment:



OK, all better now. Back to business.

Often there's a disconnect between what people in an entertainment industry say is great and what an audience says is great. I don't think that was totally the case Sunday night, because many of the shows that won I have heard glowing praises about from Chris who knows good television when he sees it. I see it a lot with the Oscars since often the big winners are movies that no one really watched.

Its pretty prevalent in comics. The company powers that be tell us how awesome Barry Allen and Hal Jordan are despite newer readers having little frame of reference as to these characters they are thrust upon us whether we like it or now. We just had got done with half of DC comics being "Blackest Night" crossovers and having read "Blackest Night" I can say that its not a very good book. Its fine if you don't think very hard about it, but this isn't an event I'd flood a company with. "Brightest Day" looks equally inane. But we are told that these books are the greatest thing ever. We're supposed to pay attention to these things. We're supposed to rave about JMS's work on WONDER WOMAN and SUPERMAN. We were supposed to think ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER was completely awesome.

Frankly if all of the thing I mentioned went away I'd be a much happier little nerdling.

I understand the creative standpoint. When you're crafting these stories you have to do it to your own tastes. The writer's tastes may or may not line up with my personal tastes, and that's fine. That's just how it goes. However it does seem that now in a time when editors seem to fall down on the job a bit more noticeably than before, that some of these companies need to listen a little more more and tell a little less. This is a good part of the reason why WIZARD magazine is a shadow of its former self. They became the premier source for information about the comic book industry and started telling us what is cool, and when enough people stopped and came the conclusion that they didn't agree they got their news elsewhere.

Its a risk I run writing this blog. I can rail on at length about how brilliant the Morrison Batman story is, but is someone does not agree at all then I run the serious risk of losing a reader. And that's tough when you don't have a ton of readers. But I can't just play it safe and try to write nice little piece for everyone, because that's pandering, and that gets us nowhere.

The bottom line: the Emmys and shows like it are nice and fun, but often they don't reflect the thoughts and feelings of the audience. That's just how things are. All we can do is find what we like and support the hell out of it.

BACK TO BASICS!!

I've been reading a book. Without pictures in it. Yes, that does actually happen from time to time. Specifically, I'm reading "A Study in Scarlet" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This was the first Sherlock Holmes story showing not only how Doctor Watson met Holmes but also scary Mormons.

A couple of things strike me as I read this. First, I like how a story written over a century ago can still be to alive and vibrant on the page. Very often literature is perceived as dry and dull. This story obviously isn't. Second, is that Robert Downey Jr didn't make a very good Sherlock Holmes. Not that it was a bad movie, but Holmes was always impeccably groomed and dressed nicely. He carried an air about him that Downey didn't, which is as much Guy Richie's doing. I prefer the books.

I love reading book. Yes, you can do it online and download books into your Fancy Dan handheld Tricorder but nothing beats the feel of a good book in your hand. I feel smarter just carrying them around.

MUSIC!!

And now a geography lesson featuring cute little animated characters.



That's a wrap for today. This is the part where I'd say I'll see y'all Friday, but not this time. Hurricane Earl is heading this way to say 'howdy'. And by 'howdy' I mean 'destroy all manner of stuff'. Right now its a category four hurricane, which for those of you who don't know is pretty damn bad. Bad enough that when those head this way I don't right it out, and get out of dodge. Right now there's a slim chance it will hit here directly, so I'm keeping an eye on it. Most likely it'll curve away from here, but we're going to get serious wind and rain regardless. Most likely I'll be spending Friday without internet and possibly without power.

So its a no go for Friday, and possibly Sunday if things go seriously tango uniform here. So, we'll see y'all when we see ya. Behave yourselves.