The Shield Season Finale // March 22nd, 2006

‘The Shield’ from FX Networks
Warning, spoilers to follow

I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie or television show where I walked away thinking, “I can’t believe it.” over and over. Perhaps in the movie ‘Seven’, but on TV… sure there have been similar endings on other shows, but those characters weren’t as integral as this one. And this will have a huge impact in all coming episodes, no other show can claim that. That is why it was so insane, so unreal for everything to go down the way it did.

If haven’t watched it, you really should have stopped reading. But for those that did watch it;
HOLY SHIT! I can’t believe Shane killed Lem. I kept thinking it was going to happen, I am sure everyone was thinking it too, but hoped it was just the cynic in me. The badass part of me wanted to think, “nah, he’s gonna beat the crap out of Lem (because he doesn’t want to run, see?) and send him on to Mexico and the strike team will get out of another bind. Right? Right??!” Then ka-boom! Just like that, it was all over. I wondered why Shane didn’t kidnap Lem and take him into Mexico. After a few moments, the cynic in me thought it was Vic’s plan, that was why they split up when they left the Barn. No, that wasn’t the case. Vic had no plan other then getting Lem to Mexico, he had no idea as to what Shane was planning. How will Vic handle it when he finds out his best friend killed his other close friend? “We’re going to find out who did this and kill them.” Insane, man, insane.

I don’t watch enough TV to know what drama is the best, but from what I do watch, nothing comes close to The Shield. The only bad thing about it is there are only about 13 episodes a season. 13 episodes of great TV is far better than 22 weeks of ‘Bones’ or ‘24′ or, yes, even ‘Lost‘. So when weeks 8,9, and 10 roll around, you just want this show to keep running and running. After 5 seasons (the storyline has only been 30 months too) on the air, there have only been 65 episodes (I think I’ve seen them all) while craptastic shows have over 100 in 5 years. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? I say the show’s greatness more than makes up for it.

Anyway, I just wanted to get it out there… on the record if you will, about how much I like this show. Because no one listened to me when it first started 4 years ago and, and… and I don’t know… I was right the whole time, yep, that’s it.

Now we just have to wait until January 2007 for season 6.

Update: I guess ‘Dallas’ could count as a show that did something very similar with the infamous killing of Bobby, but then again it doesn’t since it turned out to be a lame dream sequence after the producers caved to the public outcry.

Update: In the comments, Chris Cardinal pointed me to a TV Squad post on The Shield in which they report Michael Chiklis said, “that there are 10 more episodes (all are not filmed yet) and they will be billed as a new sixth season; not an extended fifth season.”

So then I contacted Aaron Barnhart of TVBarn.com (I helped set-up his blog when I was with Knight Ridder) and he had this to say;

I just chatted yesterday with David Rees Snell (Det. Ronnie Gardoki). Production resumes in 2-3 weeks and they’ll make 10 eps. That’s season 5.5. It will air probably around the time production wraps in July (but who knows for sure). Then Shawn [Ryan] will decide if he’s got a sixth season in him. That’s what you’d see in 2007.

Season 5.5 or 6? It doesn’t really matter. It does look like it will be back before the end of the year. Now the question for me is if it will be back after this coming season. With creator Shawn Ryan also working on ‘The Unit‘ (which looks good) on CBS, I think The Shield comes to an end with 5.5/6.

Update (06-05-06):‘The Shield’ Set to End in ‘08

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The Fall of Knight Ridder // March 16th, 2006

Every time I hear about the sale of Knight Ridder, two things happen. One, I sort of chuckle at the failure of the company as a whole thanks to the mindset of management. And the second thing that happens is that I cannot help but think what a shame it has been to see such a powerful company, and a lot of their employees, go out the way they did.

When I worked at the web operations branch of Knight Ridder, Knight Ridder Digital I met a lot of great KR employees, a handful of them even worked in my building! I really did have the privilege to administer/construct/maintain over 100 blogs, most for some really great people. And when I think of all of these people in these uncertain times, even I get a little angered at how things went down.

But even having said that, this wasn’t really unexpected. Even before the largest shareholders of KR demanded a change, this company just didn’t know what to do in these turbulent times for the media. This sale is probably a result of KR’s inactions and poor decision-making.

Let’s face it; KR/D didn’t have the best decision making track record. I’ll just refresh everyone’s memory with the $6.3 Million Tribe.net partnership that went nowhere and the use of city & regional domain names instead of their papers. BayArea.com branding has come and gone. To get a sense as to what type of mind set permeated Knight Ridder/Digital, you should just take a look at an interview PaidContent.org did with Hillary Schneider SVP at the time of KRD had to say about those damn user registrations;

Q: KR started a registration initiative for its sites about a year ago. How has this worked for KR, and how do you measure the results?

A: Gauging the results is fairly straight-forward - have the number of registrants increased or not? KR benefits from having registered users, because it enhances the company’s ability to have a dialogue with its local viewers and then offer those viewers content that they are interested in reading at a much greater frequency. Since we started registration, we have seen traffic increase very nicely to our local sites.

Did you catch it? KR benefits from having registered users. First and foremost; Knight Ridder. Not the advertisers, and especially NOT the users or subscribers. Knight. Ridder. That is where the problems begin. That thinking is what sets you on the wrong path.

But at least there were the blogs. Right? Wrong. I can’t say the blogs failed, because there was so much growth. At the same time I can’t say of lot of them succeeded either. Sadly a lot of them just couldn’t meet an unexpected amount of requirements, all thanks to the insane costs involved, and were cut out of the picture. Having to deal with these plainly stupid costs was unfair to them, but that is how KR/D operated; all about the money (it has even been said that KRD only came about because Knight Ridder wanted to spin off a branch for an IPO - I think that sums it up all right there). What I can say about the KR blogs is this; they could have been 20-100 times better. The bloggers wanted them to be better, the local market wanted them to be better, I wanted them to be better. But we had no pull, no say, no input. One person did, however. One person over many, a many who were more experienced and considerably more savy in this field, but were ignored. This was certainly the rule and nowhere close to being the exception. That was Knight Ridder.

(Looks like the time has come; so long and thanks for all the fish; Aaron Barnhart, Greg Reeves, Suzanne Tobias, Bob Henry, Bob Heisse, Rich Matheison, Jon Fortt, Ari Soglin, Kathy Vetter, Jim Arnold, Dan Rubin, Chris Norman, Glenda Bautista, Jimmy Mass, Alan Quinonez, Stan Kadani, and Robert Torres.)

To be honest, it was quite obvious early on that KR/D had no serious intention of wanting success in the blog portion of internet communication. But I had a hard time swallowing the fact the people in charge attended irrelevent conferences like one on search engine optimization rather than something like Blog Business Summit or even Web 2.0. My co-worker Jeremiah said it best, “that’s going in the wrong direction”. The wrong direction to the rest of us who know, but the RIGHT direction for those folks in the management. And we now see where that thinking got them.

Update [3-23-06]:
PressThink links over here in the post Twelve Newspapers in a State of Nature where I find this interesting tidbit on McClatchy Interactive;

Describing what he characterized as McClatchy’s approach to corporate oversight, he [Christian Hendricks, McClatchy VP who heads the company's online sites] said: “Corporate doesn’t send dictates down the pipeline telling people how to run things. We have a discussion and set broad parameters. We tell people where the fences are, what the long-term strategies are in terms of readership and financial goals.”

He added: “If (the local online managers) operate outside those fences, we don’t shoot them. We have a discussion about whether we should move the fences or whether they should get back inside … We really believe that the people at the local sites are the ones who should be talking to their markets and making decisions.”

See? Someone gets it. Actually, a whole company gets it. That is the complete opposite of Knight Ridder Digital, where they made it seem as if the local sites had no clue, when they really had the best understanding of anyone. If any of my former co-workers at Knight Ridder Digital are brought over to McClatchy when the deal is closed, and appreciate McClatchy Interactive’s thinking, they should consider themselves very lucky.

Update #2 [3-23-06]: Ouch! But still funny.

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Snow in/near San Jose // March 11th, 2006

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Landed // March 10th, 2006

After 2 months of being unemployed, I finally landed a new job last week and as you think to yourself; “finally!” I should state for the record that I was literally minutes from giving up working in the tech field, giving notice at my apartment complex and packing everything in to just live at home with the parents.

But as luck would (rarely) have it in my case, I received an email from a technical recruiter about a position not far from my home. After reading the email and job description I was amazed that A) the job so closely matched what I was looking for and B) that I was going to promptly reply with my resume (I usually investigate the company, commute options, and job potential before I bother moving forward). Stunned again I was when the recruiter got back to me within minutes about interviews, see normally they respond several hours or even days later.

What followed was a few exchanges of phone calls, setting-up of interviews, me not being able to follow driving directions, and a lot of “I hope they get back to me by Friday so I don’t have to break my lease and pay an extra month’s rent just to move 2 miles away, and back in with my parents no less.” Well, they did get back to me, the next day in fact.

And before you say what I know you are thinking, “Pffttt… Suckers”. The job does seem like a good fit for both parties (yes, that is correct, I referred to myself as a “party”. That should come to no surprise to those that know me since I am a party. Speaking of which; book party at Barnes & Noble this weekend; who’s in?! First round of Starbucks-esque coffee is on me. And we just need to show up early to make sure we get sofa chairs seats before all those Anime fan kids show up and browse everything but not buy anything, again).

“Are you excited?” asked the recruiter upon informing me with the good news of a job offer. Yes, but more like relieved (I could eat and turn on the heater again!).

Perhaps my problem with finding decent web jobs was being open to the idea of one with non-tech companies and or with non-web people, foolishly thinking I could enlighten them about the web and internet. Instead they just want to be told how the internet can fit their square peg ideas into the round holes of success.

More details on the job may or may not come at a later time. But after nearly two weeks, it really does seem like a good fit, even if I’m the only badass here.

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Rescue Me News // March 6th, 2006

Some news about FX’s ‘Rescue Me‘ which is easily one of my favorite shows (more so now since both ‘Lost‘ and ‘24‘ have gone down hill fast);

• Susan Sarandon has signed on to guest star in three episode - [Reuters].
She will be Franco’s (older, much older) love interest. I hope Leary and Tolan make her character nothing like that of Jude Law’s older love interest in Alfie. Not that I watched that movie….

• DirecTV subscribers will be able to pay $2.99 to see episodes of ‘Rescue Me’ a day or two before everyone else. “…the pre-air episodes may also offer DVD-style extras like additional scenes.” - [Zap2it]
Come on, Comcast, why isn’t this on your OnDemand system??

• The complete second season will be available May 9th.
Finally a use for those 3 Best Buy gift cards I received for Christmas.

• IMDB user’s list (in progress) of songs from the show.
No soundtrack just yet so us fans have to make do.

• While the show is currently in production, no definite premiere date has been set, but going by FX’s history, I am sure it will premiere at the end of June. About 13 weeks after the first episode of ‘Thief‘.

Update: Even though I have lost interest in ‘24′, this is my new favorite ringtone - courtesy of Jeremiah, a co-worker (yeah, I got a job).

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Crashed the Party // March 6th, 2006

Has there ever been a more overrated movie to win Best Picture than Crash? I didn’t see Brokeback Mountain or Munich, but Capote and Good Night and Good Luck were far better films than Crash. While the acting in Crash was great, the characters and story were not. And from what I heard Million Dollar Baby was overrated as well, and what do you know, look at who wrote both movies.

The story of Crash is the thing that annoys me about the critical acclaim this movie received. “One thing that happens, again and again, is that peoples’ assumptions prevent them from seeing the actual person standing before them.” You don’t say. Man, I’m glad a movie came along and taught me how to deal with all the diversity in the world. I was on the wrong path in this life, but then, then I saw this movie and everything changed. They should show this movie in school so the kids can see how people are actual people. Man alive, if the world could see this film tonight? BAM!! Peace on Earth tomorrow. I think Jon Stewart summed it best during the show after a montage of clips from movies dealing with “poweful issues”; “…and yes, those issues were never problems again.”

There is nothing in this world that annoys me more than when someone passes his or her own enlightenment or ephinany off as one needed for everybody. It is just like watching a film that tells you life is precious, or money & fame aren’t everything, or it’s not whether you win or lose, but it is how you play the game. This is what Crash does. Telling you not to be racist because racism is bad and having consequences reach farther than one can see. Yes, you are correct; I just summed up the entire movie for you. And yes, I am sure you are already aware of racism being bad and having consequences reach farther than one can see.

And the characters in the story. I didn’t care for one. Not a single one of them. All connected together, all ugly in their own way they blame anyone and everyone for their own problems and misfortunes, often by vocalizing their racism at any chance (what a fake ugly world Haggis paints, yet people applaud him). Sure, that’s realistic. Then suddenly something happens to them, something happens to all of them in a 36-hour period, and then voila!, they have a change of heart and perspective and everything turns out rosy.

Well congratulations, now everything is suddenly simple… and suddenly unrealistic.

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Lost Interest // March 1st, 2006

That’s it. I’m done with Lost after tonight’s waste of time episode. Nothing was answered and more questions were presented. Exactly what I wasn’t looking for. And once again there is no continuity between episodes. Last episode Sayid was going to tortue a new stranger to see if he was in the good or evil camp (but wait… which camp is good and which is evil? Eh?? Maybe that’s the secret of the show). This week? He didn’t even have an appearance. Also, Jack was against tortuing the new person, but this go around he advocates keeping him prisoner. Plus, during the show I was thinking, “Maybe there is some sort of contractual agreement where they have to give even the worst of actors a certain amount of screen time”. That’s the only reason I can see in keeping the annoying Aussie chick on the show. Next week, the annoying Korean lady.

I don’t know about you but I have better things to do than sit around and watch a show that is simply teasing people for more ratings in order to make more money. Actually, that’s not true, I don’t have better things to do, but I’m still not going to bother with this show anymore.

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