Michael Ausiello Leaves TV Guide

Many would call this man the face of TVGuide, with his quirky and light-hearted personality, stalking television and movie stars only to feed us, the buzz hungry consumer, all the best media gossip and scoop a magazine publication could offer. After eight years he is leaving TV Guide for none other than...wait for it...ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, did someone say burned? I've said it multiple times on this blog, but Entertainment Weekly, as an entertainment magazine, simply pwns, and I look forward to reading Michael's articles on the new outlet. I've been a fan of TV Guide for years, especially their online department, but for a long time now things have been going downhill. Editors Daniel Manu and Angel Cohn left more than a year ago to Television Without Pity, and now Michael Ausiello. Honestly I don't think I have any reasons to visit their site anymore, except for Maitland McDonagh's movie reviews and some of Matt Mitovich's TV commentary. Deadline Hollywood Daily also reports that people behind the scenes of TV Guide have been leaving, so I guess it's only a matter of time before this ship sinks entirely.

I must say that my favorite element of TV Guide's online community was their extensive coverage of all television shows and movies, their Comic Con coverage, and their TV Guide Weekly podcast, featuring a panel of four or more of their best online columnists in which they would discuss the week in television as well as movie reviews. Their last podcast was a few months ago, and when that went down I had to look for new places to find my TV gossip. The magazine isn't horrible, it's just that it's not exactly "breaking news" when you can read it online before the magazine is even published. To tell you the truth the only thing I check frequently in it are the sudoku and crossword puzzles in the back.

I remember the early days of TV Guide, with it's Reader's Digest sized issue which featured nothing but extended TV listings. I remember looking through it to see what reruns I could catch or what movies were airing. This actually brings up a good point; are published magazines a thing of the past? Will small LAN or wi-fi spots take the place of newsstands and will magazine journalists find new jobs as ... bloggers?!?!? Only time will tell I guess.

It's Saturday, It's Raining, What's New?

To: Lance Ray Adonis
From: Nazer

So it's been sunny all week here in downtown Boston. Everyone seemed a bit happier, clerks in stores were nicer, there wasn't any need for giant wind breakers and so on. Until today, when I woke up to the sounds of rain dripping on the railings of the fire escape, but what else is new?

Today one of the most anticipated games ever is coming out, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. For those of you who play, get ready for a ton of additional characters, new stages, new strategies to find, and honestly just more hours used beating the shit out of each other with our favorite childhood video game characters. For those of you who don't play, sorry, get ready to watch a bunch of dudes staring at a screen, the sound of clicking controllers, and a bunch of screaming for no reason.

My spring break starts March 15th, and this week I have midterms. I purposely did all my schoolwork needed so I could dedicate more time into certain things (read one paragraph up), but I should be straight for all my tests. I seriously can't wait to go home though. Even if nothing huge occurs, it'll just be nice to relax and not have to think about chord progressions and scales for a week. Plus I'll get to see my family and eat a bunch of good food since I'll be home for Easter.

Lately my snack food of choice has been Kettle Chips, of the yogurt and green onion variety. I know, instantly you think "wtf yogurt?!!?," but it adds a creamy taste to it, making it a light and refreshing potato chip, much better than shitty sour cream and onion Lays. The other flavors of Kettle chips are bomb too.

I don't know how many people here read magazines, but I have a weekly subscription of Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide that I didn't pay for, and I must say that Entertainment Weekly beats the shit out of TV Guide. The writing is better in my opinion, and they have coverage on music books and dvds as well as tv and movies. Don't get me wrong, I love listening to the TV Guide podcast as well as reading their online stories, but their magazine is just full of TV listings that I could find somewhere else.

Speaking of TV, NBCs Friday Night Lights is currently cutting deals to get renewed for a third season, so I finally started to watch it. I'm halfway into season 1, and I must say it's pretty entertaining. Check it out if you have the free time.

So that's pretty much it for now. I wanna find something incredibly unhealthy to eat, and then I'll be at Gamestop at midnight to pick up my copy of Brawl. PEACE!

The Writers Strike is Over

No I haven't been living under a rock, I know that the strike is over, but the reason I haven't posted yet is because today (Tuesday) the members of the WGA West and WGA East are voting to officially call off the strike now that a deal has been made. I held off on posting about it because the strike isn't "officially" over with, but since voting is today and many writers are already back to work I'm going to go ahead and say that yes, after months and months of picket lines, the WGA finally got a deal with the AMPTP which allows them to receive a cut on new media, basically an "if you get paid, we get paid" kind of deal.

Now keep in mind that the writers did not receive everything they asked for, but after being off work for such a long period of time, they had to come to a compromise, and that's what negotiating is, isn't it? Making sacrifices and having both sides come together to really work something out, and over the weekend that happened. Many say that the disaster that was the Golden Globes was the turning point for the AMPTP to come back to the table and get a deal going, but I'm glad that it's over. Hollywood as we once knew it is back to its usual routine, everyone is back to work, and production for many of our favorite shows is back in order.

Now it's not like we'll get new episodes of our favorite shows out of nowhere. Easier shows like 30 Rock and The Office will probably get a few new episodes airing around April/May, but giant production shows that revolve around a specific timeline like 24 won't return until January 2009. Pilot season as we know it will most likely not happen, and new shows that came out this year (Dirty Sexy Money, Pushing Daisies, Chuck) will probably wait till the fall for new episodes to air, but that all depends on how production goes. TV Guide keeps an updated list on the status of shows which can be found here.

So the important thing coming out of all of this is that the WGA, as well as all of the United Hollywood, fought for what they deserved, and for the most part it worked out. So now I'm going to eat the thai food I just bought and watch some reruns of Gossip Girl, PEACE.