![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oval Office seal wallpaper
Apr. 19th, 2009 04:26 pmBased on this picture on Flickr. I'm currently using this as my wallpaper on Minimax. Cropping, antiquing, blurring, all by me.
Administrations come and go...
Jan. 22nd, 2006 04:56 pm...but LA City Councilmen are forever.
No, wait, wrong lead.
Anyway... Dave Winer points to this AP report at the WaPo site that NBC is cancelling The West Wing.
Key paragraphs:
""The West Wing" announcement wasn't much of a surprise. Although this season's story line with a presidential campaign involving a Democrat played by Jimmy Smits and Republican portrayed by Alan Alda has been strong critically, ratings have sunk with its move to Sunday nights.
The decision to cancel it was made before actor John Spencer, who played former presidential chief of staff Leo McGarry, died of a heart attack Dec. 16, said Kevin Reilly, NBC entertainment president.
...
The series finale will be May 14, preceded by a one-hour retrospective. The campaign to replace the fictional Josiah Bartlet as president will be settled, NBC said.
Producers Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme, who created the show and guided it through its early years, will not be involved in the finale, Reilly said."
So... Anyone here in Seattle who has a working cable/TV feed willing to host a wrap party that night? :)
No, wait, wrong lead.
Anyway... Dave Winer points to this AP report at the WaPo site that NBC is cancelling The West Wing.
Key paragraphs:
""The West Wing" announcement wasn't much of a surprise. Although this season's story line with a presidential campaign involving a Democrat played by Jimmy Smits and Republican portrayed by Alan Alda has been strong critically, ratings have sunk with its move to Sunday nights.
The decision to cancel it was made before actor John Spencer, who played former presidential chief of staff Leo McGarry, died of a heart attack Dec. 16, said Kevin Reilly, NBC entertainment president.
...
The series finale will be May 14, preceded by a one-hour retrospective. The campaign to replace the fictional Josiah Bartlet as president will be settled, NBC said.
Producers Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme, who created the show and guided it through its early years, will not be involved in the finale, Reilly said."
So... Anyone here in Seattle who has a working cable/TV feed willing to host a wrap party that night? :)
The West Wing
May. 9th, 2004 05:51 pmSo, as you may have guessed from a few references that have crept in, we watched the first season of the West Wing via DVD from Netflix.
Other people have spoken about the wit of the "walk and talk" dialogue. I find the care and attention to detail very high (and it's usually in my fannishly pilpul way that I notice such things).
Example: There's an episode where a State dinner is being given by President Bartlet for the President of Indonesia. There's a bit of kerfluffle between the two governments, and the McGuffin is that there's a member of the kitchen staff (shades of Dave Sim) who speaks Portugese and... Whatever the Indonesian language was. Not Bahasa, something else. And I remember thinking, "Portugese? Why would -- Ah. He's from East Timor." No real big play is made on this point, it's just a minor bit of the larger plot, from a Hollywood viewpoint there's no need to make a subtle reference to East Timor, which only earlier that year (1999) had had its violent dispute with Indonesia... But Aaron Sorkin, the writer, put it in there anyway.
I was mentioning this to Randy Byers a while back, and he observed that he'd noticed a bit in one episode where they talked about the Pacific island Yap. A few times, even. And as someone who'd lived on Yap, he was surprised it was all accurate.
Yep.
Two things, though:
Here's a speech by Toby, the Director of Communications (a job currently held by Dan Bartlett -- no, prior to this, I'd never heard of him, either. He picked up the job after Karen Hughes). I'll let Toby talk:
"I understand you all had a very interesting evening... So did I... I met an unusual man. He didn't walk in to the room with a political agenda, he didn't walk in with his mind made up. He genuinely wanted to do what he thought was best. He didn't mind using the words, 'I don't know.'"
That's what I think politics can be, at its best. And to me the greatest crime in the current coverage of public life, in which we all take part, one way or another, is to obscure that.
Here's another piece of dialogue I love. President Bartlet is speaking to someone thinking of going into politics:
"Do you have a best friend?"
"Yes."
"Is he smarter than you?"
"Yes."
"Would you trust him with your life?"
"Yes."
"That's your Chief of Staff."
*^*^*
What I find revealing here is that Andy Card, the present White House Chief of Staff, probably fills in no more than one of those questions with Mr. Bush. He reads much more like he should be George H.W. Bush's Chief of Staff, than anyone else's. But there ya go.
(As for me, I have![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pecunium, should the time ever come. :)
*^*^*
Another thing that's fascinating, that I mentioned todaveon when he was between flights here:
We've also recently watched Yes, Minister on DVD.
What's interesting is, the US TV series about politics the public has chosen to embrace portrays the administration as more intelligent, more caring, and more sincere than it actually is. By contrast, the UK TV series about politics the public has chosen to embrace portrays its administration as more stupid, more callous, and more cynical than it actually is.
I'm not sure what this says about the two countries -- other than obvious, Americans are rambunctious dogs, Brits are reserved cats -- but I'm sure it says something.
It's also interesting, given how many comics come from Canada and how both funny and biting they usually are, that there hasn't been a Canadian series that's comparable (that I'm aware of).
Other people have spoken about the wit of the "walk and talk" dialogue. I find the care and attention to detail very high (and it's usually in my fannishly pilpul way that I notice such things).
Example: There's an episode where a State dinner is being given by President Bartlet for the President of Indonesia. There's a bit of kerfluffle between the two governments, and the McGuffin is that there's a member of the kitchen staff (shades of Dave Sim) who speaks Portugese and... Whatever the Indonesian language was. Not Bahasa, something else. And I remember thinking, "Portugese? Why would -- Ah. He's from East Timor." No real big play is made on this point, it's just a minor bit of the larger plot, from a Hollywood viewpoint there's no need to make a subtle reference to East Timor, which only earlier that year (1999) had had its violent dispute with Indonesia... But Aaron Sorkin, the writer, put it in there anyway.
I was mentioning this to Randy Byers a while back, and he observed that he'd noticed a bit in one episode where they talked about the Pacific island Yap. A few times, even. And as someone who'd lived on Yap, he was surprised it was all accurate.
Yep.
Two things, though:
Here's a speech by Toby, the Director of Communications (a job currently held by Dan Bartlett -- no, prior to this, I'd never heard of him, either. He picked up the job after Karen Hughes). I'll let Toby talk:
"I understand you all had a very interesting evening... So did I... I met an unusual man. He didn't walk in to the room with a political agenda, he didn't walk in with his mind made up. He genuinely wanted to do what he thought was best. He didn't mind using the words, 'I don't know.'"
That's what I think politics can be, at its best. And to me the greatest crime in the current coverage of public life, in which we all take part, one way or another, is to obscure that.
Here's another piece of dialogue I love. President Bartlet is speaking to someone thinking of going into politics:
"Do you have a best friend?"
"Yes."
"Is he smarter than you?"
"Yes."
"Would you trust him with your life?"
"Yes."
"That's your Chief of Staff."
*^*^*
What I find revealing here is that Andy Card, the present White House Chief of Staff, probably fills in no more than one of those questions with Mr. Bush. He reads much more like he should be George H.W. Bush's Chief of Staff, than anyone else's. But there ya go.
(As for me, I have
pecunium, should the time ever come. :)*^*^*
Another thing that's fascinating, that I mentioned to
daveon when he was between flights here:We've also recently watched Yes, Minister on DVD.
What's interesting is, the US TV series about politics the public has chosen to embrace portrays the administration as more intelligent, more caring, and more sincere than it actually is. By contrast, the UK TV series about politics the public has chosen to embrace portrays its administration as more stupid, more callous, and more cynical than it actually is.
I'm not sure what this says about the two countries -- other than obvious, Americans are rambunctious dogs, Brits are reserved cats -- but I'm sure it says something.
It's also interesting, given how many comics come from Canada and how both funny and biting they usually are, that there hasn't been a Canadian series that's comparable (that I'm aware of).
Tags:
All the News
Apr. 27th, 2004 05:55 pmFirst off, I have a new job. I'm again working for Volt, doing e-mail support for... Well, my contract stipulates I cannot say. Some call them The Empire. Some place a normative judgement on what kind of Empire they are. Me, I just like to call them: The Jackal The Client.
{yes, that was a west wing joke that just flew by. shoot me now.}
This means I suddenly have access to a bunch of things I'd missed, sometimes without even realizing it. A cheaper cafeteria. Factiva. Free MCP testing. The Client's Library. You know, stuff.
The contract is for a year (unless they change their mind, which they can do on a moment's notice). There's a slight temp-to-perm buzz, but then, I heard that last time, too. So... I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to just take advtange and get my MCDBA and MCSE certs out of it.
*^*^*
In other news, a part-time-ish job I've been slowly developing has been being a professional DJ for Pro DJs. It's run by a jock from Mix-92.5 here in Seattle, D.K. Erickson, and tends to do weddings, school dances, parties, corporate events, etc.
Saturday I did my first solo gig, having been to two training things leading up to it. It was the wedding of Brooke and Dario Rojas, held at Lord Hill Farms. It was a very religious group, it seems, so the "Lord" in "Lord Hill" is like, you know, The Lord.
Even so, it was pretty fun, even if there were two or three panic cell calls to D.K. ("Hey, D.K.... I only have one power cord for the two speakers -- now what?" Answer: Wing it, Daddy-O.) But after the clear air turbulance at the start, I mostly settled into my groove. At the end I had to go up to the groom, Dario, just to check in how well I'd done because... Remember the religious angle? Seems this group doesn't dance. Tough to judge feedback, at that point.
I'm not expecting to go great guns on this gig, if for no other reason than my new schedule with The Client: Wed-Sat, 7AM-6PM. That means three-day-weekends, true, but it also means Sunday is the only day off I have in common with Ulrika for the duration. It also makes it tough to make a 7PM gig in Tacoma, say, on a Saturday night.
So, call it one-and-a-quarter jobs. Beats the alternative. :)
{yes, that was a west wing joke that just flew by. shoot me now.}
This means I suddenly have access to a bunch of things I'd missed, sometimes without even realizing it. A cheaper cafeteria. Factiva. Free MCP testing. The Client's Library. You know, stuff.
The contract is for a year (unless they change their mind, which they can do on a moment's notice). There's a slight temp-to-perm buzz, but then, I heard that last time, too. So... I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to just take advtange and get my MCDBA and MCSE certs out of it.
*^*^*
In other news, a part-time-ish job I've been slowly developing has been being a professional DJ for Pro DJs. It's run by a jock from Mix-92.5 here in Seattle, D.K. Erickson, and tends to do weddings, school dances, parties, corporate events, etc.
Saturday I did my first solo gig, having been to two training things leading up to it. It was the wedding of Brooke and Dario Rojas, held at Lord Hill Farms. It was a very religious group, it seems, so the "Lord" in "Lord Hill" is like, you know, The Lord.
Even so, it was pretty fun, even if there were two or three panic cell calls to D.K. ("Hey, D.K.... I only have one power cord for the two speakers -- now what?" Answer: Wing it, Daddy-O.) But after the clear air turbulance at the start, I mostly settled into my groove. At the end I had to go up to the groom, Dario, just to check in how well I'd done because... Remember the religious angle? Seems this group doesn't dance. Tough to judge feedback, at that point.
I'm not expecting to go great guns on this gig, if for no other reason than my new schedule with The Client: Wed-Sat, 7AM-6PM. That means three-day-weekends, true, but it also means Sunday is the only day off I have in common with Ulrika for the duration. It also makes it tough to make a 7PM gig in Tacoma, say, on a Saturday night.
So, call it one-and-a-quarter jobs. Beats the alternative. :)
