Shadows and Images

So, I know a lot of people who may or may not read this may be upset about this, but Alias was finally given the axe (use bugmenot.com if you don’t have an account…)

It was bugging me that ABC will pick up a show like Alias and let it run for 5 seasons, while Fox will option shows like Firefly and Arrested Development and kill them all too prematurely. However, upon reflection, NBC kept West Wing alive through at least seven seasons, and now look at what’s happened to it. It just seems to me that short series are able to pack all their quality in high concentration. This is true almost across the board – in movies, books, TV shows – a good series that’s kept short is a lot less likely to run dry.

Think of the examples:
Harry Potter vs. The Hardy Boys, or Nancy Drew, or The Boxcar Children
Star Wars the real movies vs. Star Wars including the extra lesser trilogy

OTOH, the good Star Trek series did well with their 7-year schedules, but that’s in large part because it typically took them 3 seasons to really hit their stride.

In any case, I’ve stopped feeling upset about the cancelation of Arrested Development, with the knowledge that all good things must come to an end, and I’d rather they stopped while still being good, rather than faded into mediocrity.

By way of postscript, I’d like to end with a choice extract sure to get the goat of my Alias-loving friends:

But, in a nutshell, what they said was:
“We’re devastated to announce the end of the longest running unsuccessful prime-time series on television.”
“Alias” is, let us not forget, the lowest-rated show ever to air after the Super Bowl.
And yet, as “Law & Order” creator Dick Wolf so grumpily — and yet so accurately — pointed out at the most recent TV press tour, “Alias” got more hype per rating point than any other show in TV history.

I own a Motorola V180. I hate this phone. I want to chuck it at walls so very often. I explain why here.

I’ve been meaning to post this, as undoubtedly some of you have noticed, I am very upset at my cell phone. It’s not just its abject failure to work as any stable form of communications, though that’s part of it.

Just to start out, I want to make a few clarifications:
First, when I say “never again”, I mean “until proven wrong” (this is in contrast with my “never use Sprint” policy, which is deep-seated and will last as long as it possibly can). Secondly, yes, I mean any Motorola phone – this includes the RAZR and the ROKR, because, despite these two phones’ respective sexiness factor, as far as I can tell, these design issues apply to all of Motorola’s current lines of telephones, including my friend’s RAZR I played with. Thirdly, this is not a vendetta agains Motorola – I had a StartTAC back in the day and loved that phone like a brother, even in the face of the new-fangled color screens, non-alphanumeric displays, and cameras. It’s just they don’t seem to have kept up with the pack (or at least Nokia). Finally, my next phone will probably be a Nokia. I have experience with Nokias, and loved my old one, even if it got dust inside the faceplate a lot – I put that thing through enormous abuse, and it never stopped delivering like a pro. Plus, the design decisions in terms of the software were so subtly useful, except for one, which I’ll get to in a bit. Anyway – on with the show.

For fairness sakes, I ought to start this off with Motorola’s successes with this phone in my eyes:

Things Motorola Did Right

• Standard USB connectivity with a standard 5-pin mini USB connector built into the phone (of course, if you’re a Windows person, you have to shell out big buck for their accompanying software.
• Having four different customizable functions a simple click away from the home screen is very nice.
• Works with iSync. (I’m not sure this is Motorola’s doing, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.
• It uses a standard hands-free set connector
• There is a microphone, and two speakers (one for speakerphone, one for the earpiece

That’s more or less it. Now for the meat:

What Motorola Did Wrong

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Anything but that