NBC’s 'Day One' could be so bad it’s great

With the television networks now airing summer reruns and reality TV filler, I’m already looking ahead to the fall TV season.
The CW’s “Nikita,” a remake of the French action film “La Femme Nikita” (1990), and the CBS reboot of “Hawaii Five-O” look interesting.
But last year I was interested in seeing an NBC show called “Day One.” It has yet to air and may never air, according to EW and Movieline.
Movieline called “Day One” the “expensive series so bad even NBC wouldn’t air it.” After all, this is the same low-rated network that basically abandoned primetime TV last fall by airing “The Jay Leno Show” five nights a week at 10 p.m. ET.
NBC first announced a midseason premiere for “Day One,” an apocalyptic adventure show, and a 13-episode season. Later they slashed the order to four episodes to air as a mini-series. Then they trimmed it to a two-hour TV movie. Then NBC just scrapped the show entirely.
“Day One” must have been astoundingly bad for NBC to cancel the show after filming the two-hour pilot. The trailer for the show looked like “Melrose Place” meets “War of the Worlds.” It probably had a lot of sappy melodrama, angst-ridden characters and idiotic science fiction. Also, it likely was “crap-tacular.”
“Day One” could have been so bad it’s great. (i.e. unintentionally hilarious.) I’d love to see it. Chances are that NBC will find a way to burn it off as a direct-to-DVD movie for Redbox and Blockbuster or air it on the SyFy channel or something.
I started following the blog and Twitter account of “Day One” creator Jesse Alexander, who also worked on “Heroes,” hoping he would shed some light on the fate of “Day One.” But he’s been completely mum on the topic.
Maybe he’s embarrassed about the whole thing too.

Yahoo ignoring core users; Glitch goes unfixed for months

A couple of months ago, I e-mailed Yahoo tech support about an annoying glitch in Yahoo Finance. I received a response at the time stating that they were aware of the bug and were trying to fix it.
Fast forward to today and the glitch is still there.
Yahoo Finance is one of the web portal’s crown jewels. You’d think they’d care enough about it to fix an obvious error. But no.
I keep track of dozens of publicly traded companies as part of my day job. I group them into portfolios on Yahoo Finance to monitor stock action and news.
When I click on a portfolio, I get a grid of stock information for the companies followed by “Recent News.” At the bottom of that list of news headlines is a web link to “View More Recent News.”
If you click on “View More Recent News,” it takes you to another page of headlines. This page includes mostly headlines that were on the previous page, but that’s not the glitch to which I’m referring.
At the bottom of this second page is a link that reads “More headlines …” If you click on this link, it takes you to a blank webpage and gives you an error message in the header that reads “Request URI Too Long.” (See screenshots above.)
The fix is simple. Just delete the “More headlines” link. Because two lines lower there’s a link for “Older Headlines” that actually works.
Really. How long does it take to fix a dumb glitch like that, Yahoo?
Have you just stopped caring?

Update (7-6-10): Yahoo has fixed the glitch. It's about time.

Favorite websites in review, part 2

These websites all have been featured on Tech-media-tainment. So they bear the TMT stamp of approval.
The first batch of favorites, Nos. 1-25, was posted on Jan. 23, 2010.

26. At the Movies
27. Apple iTunes Movie Trailers (trailers.apple.com)
28. I Watch Stuff
29. Hollywood Bitchslap
30. Geek Tyrant (geektyrant.com)
31. Running from Camera (runningfromcamera.blogspot.com)
32. Hot Chicks at Art Openings
33. Sad Guys on Trading Floors (sadguysontradingfloors.tumblr.com)
34. People of Walmart (www.peopleofwalmart.com)
35. My Parents Were Awesome (myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com)
36. Avalanche Software Art Blog (avalanchesoftware.blogspot.com)
37. LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)
38. New 7 Wonders (new7wonders.com)
39. Twitter (twitter.com)
40. Theme Park Brochures (themeparkbrochures.net)
41. Con Artist Hall of Infamy
42. OnlineSchools
43. Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
44. The Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com)
45. Listverse (listverse.com)
46. TopTenz (www.toptenz.net)
47. Internet Adult Film Database (iafd.com) - Warning: Contains nudity, mature content
48. TV Series Finale (tvseriesfinale.com)
49. Instantwatcher.com (instantwatcher.com)
50. Netflix Instant Play Picks of the Moment (netflixinstantplaypicks.blogspot.com)

Art: Photo from Hot Chicks at Art Openings.

Cool niche websites on TV shows, movies

Lately I’ve been praising specialty websites.
So I thought I’d mention a few that I like related to television shows and movies.
TV Series Finale is an interesting website devoted to TV show endings, reunions and revivals. It’s one of the places I check when I’m trying to find out whether a favorite, low-rated TV show is being canceled or not.
Instantwatcher.com is dedicated to helping people find the best movies available on Netflix’s instant-viewing service. It offers scads of genres and useful lists to peruse. I particularly like the list of movies certified as “fresh” by Rotten Tomatoes.
Netflix Instant Play Picks of the Moment by Paul J. Marasa highlights a good new movie every few days that’s available on Netflix streaming video.
There are more, but that’s enough for now.

Specialized websites sometimes short-lived

The Failed Promise of Digital Content, Part 12

Among the unsung heroes of the Internet are people who devote their time and efforts to a specific expertise and share that knowledge with others online.
They create and maintain specialized websites devoted to covering one subject in a thorough and exhaustive manner. They become the go-to resource for information on their special niche.
I’ve written about several such focused websites that I admire, including Future Rock Legends (coverage of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and eligible artists), Theme Park Brochures (an extensive collection of amusement park maps and brochures), and most recently the Internet Adult Film Database (a NSFW database of porn movies, performers and directors).
But maintaining such websites involves tremendous commitment and dedication. As a result, many specialized websites don’t last. Their creators lose interest or no longer have the time to work on them.
I’ve seen a number of interesting specialty websites get abandoned or disappear. Some are no longer updated, but linger like ghosts. Others are now just broken weblinks or direct to different websites.
During the Great Recession, which started in December 2007 and might have ended in July 2009, several websites popped up to track job cuts and retail and tech company closings, but they’re now dead.
Among the deceased websites are FuckedStartups.com, Screwdd.com, LayoffBlog.com and Timely Demise.
In some cases, their data and articles are archived. In others, the information is gone.
And we’re all less for it.

McDonald's has gone to the birds

Just the other day at the McDonald's restaurant in Norwalk, Conn., my kids and I watched birds go wild over a spilled bag of French fries. It was like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" -- if the people were replaced with delicious thin cut fried pototoes. OK, so it was nothing like that movie. But it was fun to watch.

Internet Adult Film Database: A fine example of niche expertise online

The beauty of the Internet is that people with specialized knowledge can readily share their expertise with anyone.
A good example is the Internet Adult Film Database. It is to pornography what the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is to mainstream movies. The porn industry is a multibillion-dollar enterprise, so regardless of your personal feelings about it, it should not be ignored. (Warning: IAFD is not suitable for work. Contains adult images.)
The IAFD lists 104,302 titles and 99,391 performers and directors.
The IAFD has an all-volunteer staff of 12 editors who do research and data entry, says the site’s webmaster Jeff Vanzetti. The website is the premier resource for information about the U.S. porn industry, although it has been adding more European titles to the database.
The IAFD was created by Peter van Aarle, who died in September 2005 at the age of 42 from a heart attack, according to Wikipedia. Vanzetti and others continue his legacy.
In an e-mail interview, Vanzetti told me his favorite part of working on the IAFD is knowing that he’s “giving something back” to the community. “I think that’s what drives most of the editors; knowing we’re part of something larger than ourselves and we’re helping the fan and the consumer make informed choices,” he said.
The IAFD includes both gay and straight porn movies. The database has significantly more porn actors than actresses recorded. It notes 58,004 actors and 35,958 actresses. That’s a lot of people having sex on camera.
The database also lists 5,429 directors. Of those directors, just over 2,300 (42%) were performers themselves, Vanzetti said.
As with any extensive database, a lot of interesting information can be mined from it. Vanzetti was kind enough to run the numbers for me for some fascinating statistics on the porn industry.

Q: How many active performers are there in the porn movie business today?

Assuming an active performer has had a movie released in 2009 or 2010, the Internet Adult Film Database lists 6,295 male performers and 3,642 female performers. There also are 682 active porn directors.

Q: What’s the average career length for people in the porn movie industry?
Two years for performers and three years for directors.
The typical female performer makes 10 adult movies. The average for male performers is six movies. Directors average 13 movies.

Q: What’s the average age for actresses and actors doing porn?

The IAFD’s birthday data are incomplete, but what there are shows that, on average, female performers start at age 23, males at 26 and directors at 32.
Female performers tend to quit porn acting by 27, males by 32 and directors by 37.

Interesting stuff.
Thanks again to Jeff Vanzetti for helping out with this article. He also assisted my posts on porn parodies based on real-life events or public figures and the cleverest titles for porn parodies of Hollywood movies and TV shows.

Netflix thinks I’m gay … still

I don’t get it. Netflix supposedly has improved its movie recommendation system to better match movies with the tastes of its subscribers. But based on the movie lists it thinks I’ll enjoy, the service must think I’m gay. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
Four of the 20 movie lists it’s giving me now are gay themed. (See screenshot above.)
In November 2008, I noted that five of the 20 movie lists it selected for me were gay themed. A year later, just two of the 20 movie lists were gay themed. Now we’re up to four (or 20% of the movie lists presented).
Maybe it’s all the princess and Barbie movies I’m renting for my daughter. Or my continued choice of movie musicals and Marilyn Monroe movies for my queue. For whatever reason, Netflix continues to get me wrong.

Big productions highlight E3 2010

The 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, is in the books. This year’s show will be remembered for its theatricality.
Cirque du Soleil produced a lavish show for Microsoft’s Kinect controller-free video game system for the Xbox 360 console.
Eminem, Usher, Rihanna and other stars performed for Activision at an over-the-top concert at L.A.’s Staples Center.
Nintendo, Electronic Arts and Sony also staged dramatic events for the media at the annual E3 show, which ran June 15-17, with pre-show events starting Sunday night June 13.
Nintendo trotted out a hundred attractive women, in the style of “Deal or No Deal,” each holding one of the company’s new Nintendo 3DS handhelds. They walked off the stage and into the crowd of media and analysts to show off the device.
EA showed off its new “Medal of Honor” game by having 24 players on stage demonstrating the game’s online multiplayer mode.

Best crowd-pleasing event

Activision’s amazing concert spectacle included not only A-list music acts, but high-profile DJs, dancers and fireworks. Huffington Post and USA Today had good coverage of the epic three-hour concert. The Gamer’s Temple posted the official press release.

Weirdest event

Microsoft’s Cirque du Soleil show was just bizarre. French acrobats pranced around as tropical primitives in awe of the magic of technology. At least, that's what I think was going on.

Best celebrity cameo

Not Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana at the EA press conference or Olympic gold medal snowboarder and skateboarder Shaun White at the Ubisoft media briefing. The best celebrity cameo at E3 was Kevin Butler, a fictional Sony executive played by actor Jerry Lambert. He brought the house down with his hilarious put-downs of Microsoft and Nintendo.

Best video game

“Dance Central” by Harmonix, a unit of Viacom’s MTV Networks, was the best new game introduced at E3 in my opinion. First off, it takes full advantage of Microsoft’s Kinect full-body motion control system and can’t be replicated with Sony’s Move or Nintendo’s Wii, which use handheld controllers. It has the potential to be a breakthrough game and cultural phenomenon.
CNBC, TheStreet.com and Silicon Alley Insider posted their views on the hit games of the show as well.

Working hard at the E3 video game show

It was all work and no play at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles this week, as evidenced by the photo above.
Here I am with two Playboy playmates: Miss December 2005 Christine Smith (left) and Miss September 2009 Kimberly Phillips (right). They were helping Take-Two Interactive Software to promote the release of “Mafia II.” The game is scheduled for release on Aug. 24.

4 interesting tech industry lists

Thought I'd share some more interesting lists -- this time about the tech industry.
Enjoy!

10 software developments that changed the face of computing (Listverse; Sept. 2, 2008)

100 oldest registered .com domains (Whois.com)

How 13 tech behemoths came up with their names (Business Insider; March 24, 2010)

Top 10 funniest tech ads ever made (ARN; April 16, 2010)

Photo: Apple iPhone 4. See list of how tech companies, like Apple, got their names.

Lingerie Football League: Fringe sport favorite prepares for its second season

Pretty soon it will be football season again. Athletes will put on their shoulder pads, helmets and sexy lingerie and hit the gridiron.
Of course, I’m talking about the Lingerie Football League, not the NFL.
Launched last year, the LFL is preparing for its second season. The league is holding its all-star game in Monterrey, Mexico, today. The LFL will show the game on its website, LFLUS.com, for free at 9 p.m. EST Friday June 18.
The LFL survived its inaugural season despite launching during the Great Recession and doing a poor job promoting its sport. At the end of last season, I wrote about changes that the LFL should make.
The LFL needs a national cable TV deal. It needs the exposure that advertiser-supported television can offer. That would generate interest among potential fans and likely would raise attendance at games. So far, LFL games only have been available on pay-per-view.
The LFL is doing a lousy job keeping fans informed. It’s always late posting scores, stats and news and doesn’t provide detailed game highlights or analysis.
The league failed at something as simple as posting the outcome of the 2010 championship game in February. As the blog Nerve noted, you couldn’t find the results anywhere on the Web after it was over.
The LFL has a decent Facebook page, a woefully out-of-date MySpace page (still lists the failed New York Majesty and Denver Dream franchises as active teams), and a pretty good blog, LFL Unlaced, for feature stories.
The LFL needs to be more open and encourage coverage from independent sports blogs. That’s where the good coverage is coming from. The mainstream press has largely ignored the LFL. And the league has to accept negative coverage as part of the deal.
The Bleacher Report had a good story recently about struggles some LFL teams were having. It also published a critical story about technical problems with the Lingerie Bowl.
And lighten up, LFL. Putting two players on probation for wearing too much during a photo shoot for the New Times of South Florida was a low blow. The Huffington Post covered the story as well.
The LFL has two new teams this year: the Orlando Fantasy and Baltimore Charm. Unfortunately none of the 10 teams are in the Tri-State Region, so fans around New York City are out of luck.
Single tear running down cheek. Sniff.

Silly Bandz: This year’s kid craze

This year’s biggest kid craze has got to be all those funny shaped silicone bands from Silly Bandz and other companies. My 7-year-old son has gone to school with a dozen or more of the brightly colored bands around his wrist. They come in numerous shapes (animals, sports, vehicles, etc.) and colors. Some are glow-in-the-dark and others are scented. Kids collect them and trade them. They’re sold in themed packs of 12 for about $2.50 or 24 for about $5. Some schools have banned them from classrooms as a distraction, which has only added to their appeal, according to the New York Times. A handful of companies sell competing products under such names as Silly Bandz, Zanybandz, Crazy Bandz and BandzMania. Come fall the Silly Bandz craze may have run its course, just like other kids’ crazes like Webkinz, Beanie Babies, Tamagotchi, Pogs, and Pokemon cards. When I was a kid, humorous sticker cards like Wacky Packages and Odd Rods were hot. Baseball cards were a big deal too. Photo: My son’s forearm wrapped in Silly Bandz.

Taiwanese spammers invade blog comments

Tech-media-tainment is huge in Taiwan, judging from the location of people posting comments on the site.
Since March, I’ve had about a dozen posts in the comments section of the blog that are written in Chinese and link to adult websites in Taiwan. I’ve since deleted them.
As much as I’d love to have people commenting on my articles, these comments are nothing but unwanted commercial advertisements. So they had to go.
I checked out who owns the domain names for the various sites and most belong to the same company in Taipei – Avshow. The company posted links to six of its websites in the comments area of my blog. All were created this year and registered through GoDaddy.com. They include sites like Sexy258.com, 333chat.info and MeiMei-video.com. (“Mei mei” means girlfriend in Chinese.)
Two other adult websites that have spammed the comments section of Tech-media-tainment were registered through GoDaddy.com to Sool Suum of Taipei.
So as much as these businesses want to love me long time, I have to turn them down.

Photo: Screenshot of Taiwanese adult website Sexy258.com, one of several services spamming the comments section on Tech-media-tainment.

United Football League preps for season 2; Hartford Colonials set to debut

Connecticut will get a professional football team this fall in the Hartford Colonials of the United Football League.
As a Connecticut resident, I plan to support the fledgling league and new sports franchise.
The tickets are a lot less expensive than NFL games. Colonials tickets range from $15 to $30. By comparison, New York Giants tickets cost $85 to $700 each. Ouch!
But I’ll have to drive a little further to see the Colonials play. Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Conn., is 66 miles from my home in New Canaan, Conn. By comparison, New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., where the Giants and New York Jets both play, is 49 miles door-to-door. But traffic’s worse in the New York metropolitan area so it’s probably a wash.
My only wish is to see some quality football.
The UFL’s inaugural season last year was kind of a disappointment. Attendance was low and the league didn’t get much coverage from the traditional media.
I’ve written quite a bit about what I call “fringe sports” and how difficult it is for them to break through to a mainstream audience. Factors that help this transition include television coverage, superstar players and uniqueness. (See earlier post.)
Last year, UFL games were broadcast on the Versus cable network and HDNet. This year a third TV network might be added, according to UFL Access.
In its first season, the UFL had four teams and played six games each. This year, the UFL has five teams and an eight-game schedule.
The Las Vegas Locomotives and the Florida Tuskers of Orlando are the only returning teams. The California Redwoods of the San Francisco Bay area relocated to Sacramento, Calif., as the Mountain Lions. The New York Sentinels moved to Hartford, Conn. The newest team is the Omaha Nighthawks.
San Francisco and New York City already have two NFL teams each so they never should have gotten UFL franchises in the first place. The UFL says it’s focusing now on markets not served by the NFL, which is a smart move.
The rosters of the UFL include many ex-NFL players and those who were overlooked by the NFL draft.
The hope for the UFL is that it becomes a minor or developmental league to the NFL. Some players even made the jump from the UFL to the NFL last season.
The Hartford Colonials kick off their season with a Sept. 18 home game against the Sacramento Mountain Lions.
Here’s hoping that the Colonials do better than the Sentinels did last year. The Sentinels went 0-6 and were the worst team in the UFL. No place to go but up!

Porn movies based on real-life events or public figures

Here's a safe-for-work gallery of porn movies based on real-life events or public figures, including Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eliot Spitzer, Marilyn Monroe, Tiger Woods and Lindsay Lohan.

Top 20 porn movies based on real-life events or public figures like Tiger Woods, Sarah Palin

“Law & Order” doesn’t have a monopoly on story lines that were “ripped from the headlines.”
Porn studios have now gotten into the act.
Not content to parody just mainstream Hollywood movies and TV shows, porn studios have gotten more brazen by parodying the lives of celebrities and other public figures.
Porn makers used to be a little cautious when naming their productions after real-life people. For instance, in its first parody of former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Hustler spelled her name Paylin. But it dropped all pretenses for later movies featuring the character and spelled her name correctly.
One studio played it safe with a movie based on the Tiger Woods sex scandal by naming its pro golfer character Tyler. Other films just used his actual name.

Here are the top 20 porn parodies based on real-life scandals or public figures. (A word of warning: I have not seen any of these movies, so I can’t vouch for their quality.):

At least three porn movies have been produced making fun of the sex scandal involving professional golfer Tiger Woods. They include “Tyler’s Wood” (2009), “Tiger’s Got Wood” (2010) and “The 11th Hole” (2010), which featured his real-life mistress Joslyn James.

One of the earliest real-life porn parodies was based on President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. It was lampooned in the X-rated movie “Sex, Lies and the President” (1998).
The rumored affair between actress Marilyn Monroe and President John F. Kennedy was re-enacted for a segment of “POV Dream” (2008). Monroe lookalike Victoria Vonn stars in “Happy Birthday, Mr. President. Xoxo, Marilyn.”
Infamous Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss was featured in a movie about her prostitution ring called simply “Heidi Fleiss: Secrets of the Hollywood Madam” (2004). Her clients included many executives and powerful people in the entertainment industry, such as Charlie Sheen.

Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, caught the imagination of conservative voters and the adult film industry. Hustler Video has parodied her in a series of porn movies, starting with “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin? Adventures of a Hockey MILF” (2008). The movie, starring Lisa Ann as Palin, has spawned four sequels to date: “Obama is Nailin’ Palin” (2009), “Letterman’s Nailin’ Palin” (2009), “You’re Nailin’ Palin” (2009), and “Hollywood’s Nailin’ Palin” (2010).
Another studio, Brookland Brothers, filmed a Sarah Palin porn spoof as well. "Palin: Erection 2008" (2008) starred Raquel DeVine as Gov. Palin.
Action movie star and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was lampooned in "The Schwantzanator" (2005).

President Barack Obama, referenced above in one of the Palin parodies, got his own porn send-up in “Barrack’s Big Stimulus Package” (2009).

Hustler has created a series of videos it calls “Hustler’s Untrue Hollywood Stories.” The series has sent up Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton and Angelina Jolie vs. Jennifer Aniston.
Third Degree Films made fun of a bunch of celebrities in its parody of the gossip television show “TMZ” called “TMSleaze” (2009).

One of the more recent entries in the category of real-people parody porn is “The Sandra Buttocks & Jesse Janes Scandal” (2010). It makes light of the infidelities of reality TV star Jesse James, husband of Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock.

Special thanks to Jeff Vanzetti of Internet Adult Film Database and Don Houston of X-Critic for their help in compiling this list.

Here’s the complete list:

Tyler’s Wood (2009)
Tiger’s Got Wood (2010)
The 11th Hole (2010)
Sex, Lies and the President (1998)
POV Dream, featuring “Happy Birthday, Mr. President. Xoxo, Marilyn” (2008)
Heidi Fleiss: Secrets of the Hollywood Madam (2004)
Who’s Nailin’ Paylin? Adventures of a Hockey MILF (2008)
Obama is Nailin’ Palin (2009)
Letterman’s Nailin’ Palin (2009)
You’re Nailin’ Palin (2009)
Hollywood’s Nailin’ Palin (2010)
Palin: Erection 2008 (2008)
The Schwantzanator (2005)
Barrack's Big Stimulus Package (2009)
Hustler’s Untrue Hollywood Stories: Lindsay Lohan (2009)
Hustler’s Untrue Hollywood Stories: Jessica Simpson (2009)
Hustler’s Untrue Hollywood Stories: Paris (2009)
Hustler’s Untrue Hollywood Stories: Angelina vs. Jennifer (2009)
TMSleaze, A XXX Parody (2009)
The Sandra Buttocks & Jesse Janes Scandal (2010)

Aug. 19, 2010, update: For newer titles, check out this Flickr gallery.

April 19, 2011, update: Also see article "Top 15 real-life targets for porn parodies."