BellGab.com Archive

Quote from: Sardondi on February 28, 2013, 01:16:26 AM
...A society which intentionally broadcasts something like Honey Boo-Boo has no reason to survive.

Probably the truest statement made on this forum in months.

Quote from: Sardondi on February 28, 2013, 01:16:26 AM
1) The extreme volume anomaly

2) The commercial break formula

1 - Volume really is controlled at the station/cable company level.  However, commercial producers have learned to use compression and other electronic tricks to make the volume sound louder to the human ear.  TV engineers make a big deal of the difference - I don't think the folks at home do.
2 - Back when cable was only a few dozen channels and people still watched local stations, advertising agencies would make commercial buys so that their ad would be on all stations in a market at the same time - the same commercial.  That was even more annoying.

Quote from: UFO Fill on February 28, 2013, 05:15:07 AM
1 - Volume really is controlled at the station/cable company level.  However, commercial producers have learned to use compression and other electronic tricks to make the volume sound louder to the human ear.  TV engineers make a big deal of the difference - I don't think the folks at home do...

With everything else the FCC sticks its nose into, why not something logical and useful, like an industry volume standard? That way the consumer can rely on how loud a broadcast will be and s/he can set his tv volume wherever.

Quote from: Sardondi on February 28, 2013, 01:16:26 AM
A society which intentionally broadcasts something like Honey Boo-Boo has no reason to survive.

And we'll soon be exporting this vomitus to Europe and the rest of the world.  We should be so proud...

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2013/02/downton-abbey-honey-boo-boo-export

How the words "limited edition" are severely misused in order to mass market cheap, commoditized products.  The body wash I bought on sale for $1.50 at Wal-Mart has the words "limited edition" on the bottle.  Really?  REALLY?

Quote from: McPhallus on March 02, 2013, 12:41:46 AM
How the words "limited edition" are severely misused in order to mass market cheap, commoditized products.  The body wash I bought on sale for $1.50 at Wal-Mart has the words "limited edition" on the bottle.  Really?  REALLY?

Ohhhh shit don't open it.  Think of it as an investment.  Years from now when all of those body wash collectors come calling you'll thank me!

         People who, when driving at night, refuse to turn their brights off when they're approaching you. A lot of the rules of the road which drivers were once required to learn and practice have been lost, ranging from safety to etiquette. Ever noticed the 'tard army driving in broad daylight with their headlights on nowadays? I think they think it's a fashion statement. But the brights thing, I'll sic Bud Dickman on 'em, so help me.

Quote from: Caruthers612 on March 02, 2013, 03:27:26 AM


         People who, when driving at night, refuse to turn their brights off when they're approaching you. A lot of the rules of the road which drivers were once required to learn and practice have been lost, ranging from safety to etiquette. Ever noticed the 'tard army driving in broad daylight with their headlights on nowadays? I think they think it's a fashion statement. But the brights thing, I'll sic Bud Dickman on 'em, so help me.

The flip side of this are idiots in black/gray/silver/geezer gold cars that don't turn on their lights during storms or when there's fog. Visibility is key to staying safe out there.

Quote from: Tinfoil Hat on March 02, 2013, 04:27:44 AM
The flip side of this are idiots in black/gray/silver/geezer gold cars that don't turn on their lights during storms or when there's fog. Visibility is key to staying safe out there.

        An excellent point, and while we're at it, let's add geezers in cars.

Quote from: Caruthers612 on March 02, 2013, 03:27:26 AM


         People who, when driving at night, refuse to turn their brights off when they're approaching you. A lot of the rules of the road which drivers were once required to learn and practice have been lost, ranging from safety to etiquette. Ever noticed the 'tard army driving in broad daylight with their headlights on nowadays? I think they think it's a fashion statement. But the brights thing, I'll sic Bud Dickman on 'em, so help me.

The brights thing is one of my pet peeves. I seem to remember learning that the proper way to react is to flash your brights at them briefly in case they're just stupid, but I learned recently that is illegal, in Michigan, anyway.

The 'tard army may be driving General Motors cars made in the last couple of decades, which have the headlights on all the time (don't know if they still do it or not).

Quote from: stevesh on March 02, 2013, 05:05:45 AM

The brights thing is one of my pet peeves. I seem to remember learning that the proper way to react is to flash your brights at them briefly in case they're just stupid, but I learned recently that is illegal, in Michigan, anyway.

The 'tard army may be driving General Motors cars made in the last couple of decades, which have the headlights on all the time (don't know if they still do it or not).

       Exactly, you flash your brights at them and nothing happens. That's one of those rules of the road I alluded to in my earlier post which people used to learn. You never know whether the rectal belch in the other car doesn't know the meaning of this gesture on your part or, in keeping with the times, goes through life with a grinning Eff You attitude.
        I didn't know that about GM cars. That's totally 'tarded and not surprising coming from a company two-thirds of whose employees are retired, and yet if you buy a GM car you are paying for their ongoing salaries. Hence I rejoiced when I read a story the other day about a Canadian inventor who has manufactured a beautiful working car using 3D printing. <evil grin>

1. Years ago, when there were lots of unlighted roads in rural areas, I had an aircraft landing light mounted as a driving light.  Flipping that thing on would make any driver, geezer or not, dim his lights.
2. When driving in storms or fog, the idiots in GM cars don't realize that their automatically on lights don't include taillights.  I've almost rammed silver/grey cars in the fog because they had no rear lights on. But when I passed them, the fronts were on.  GM should be sued for this. GM has created a real noory.
3.  Geezers driving will most likely not be the ones texting while driving.

Quote from: stevesh on March 02, 2013, 05:05:45 AM...The 'tard army may be driving General Motors cars made in the last couple of decades, which have the headlights on all the time (don't know if they still do it or not).

Just another example of how nannyism has become our culture's default setting. Don't you know you're too stupid and incompetent to decide when to turn your own lights on or to remember to turn them off? So GM will keep 'em on 100% of the time for you...and if that happens to decrease headlamp life so that they have to be replaced 2 or 3 times in the life of the vehicle, well, it's a small price to pay to be completely protected from any possible danger forever.

What's worse is the all-headlights-all-the-time decision was made years before GM become Government Motors. What an embarrassment GM is. Once the world's largest and most profitable corporation by far, reduced to being propped up by the government because no one wants to buy their hideous crap. My father worked for GM for 30 years. GM fed, clothed and housed me and my family. But a more hidebound, top-heavy, luddite, stubborn and grossly incompetent upper management would be hard to find. Perhaps Sears. Even as late as the 90's GM hadn't converted to computers. It was still hopelessly mired in 19th-century-style management practices; and its administration was a virtual hell of reams of paper forms required to be read, re-read and re-re-read, and signed and countersigned by multiple levels of company bureaucrats who could no more explain what their jobs were than the employees interviewed by the consultants in Office Space.

I am annoyed at how Tiger Woods is the lead story of any golfing event no matter how he's doing.  Shouldn't the headline refer to the guy actually leading the damn tournament?  I don't follow golf, and I'm no Woods fan -- I think he's an arrogant turd, personally.  I know he was clearly once supremely talented, so for a time the fact that he was not winning a tournament was significant.  But he's been an average player for quite some time now.  I wish the media's fascination with the guy would end.  There.  Rant over.

Quote from: West of the Rockies on March 02, 2013, 02:58:24 PM
I am annoyed at how Tiger Woods is the lead story of any golfing event no matter how he's doing.  Shouldn't the headline refer to the guy actually leading the damn tournament?  I don't follow golf, and I'm no Woods fan -- I think he's an arrogant turd, personally.  I know he was clearly once supremely talented, so for a time the fact that he was not winning a tournament was significant.  But he's been an average player for quite some time now.  I wish the media's fascination with the guy would end.  There.  Rant over.

The Charley Pride of golf

Have about had enough of this shit. No good cheating gimpass bitch TomCelldick and his boy Anhydrous. Nothing but a mini-posse parade of Liberace` impersanators if you ask me and you ain't shit. Mfers

My annoyance of the moment is grossly abusive amount of commercials in tv broadcasts of movies. Have you noticed how the 2 hour tv movie is just gone now? So many today are 21/2 or 3 hours, and these are normal 100 minute-showing time movies. Case in point I dvr'd The Wolfman yesterday on the Spike Network. I knew something was different when I noticed that the first commercial break came at something like 9 minutes into the movie. On most networks the 1st break for a movie is around 20 minutes, and then they come every 10 minutes or so afterwards, and last 3 minutes or so. But Spikes's commercials were at least 5 minutes every break, and they were coming every 9 minutes or so of movie.

Afterwards I tallied it up. The movie was 103 minutes long, and Spike took 158 minutes to show it. That's 55 minutes of commercials, 103 minutes of movie. For every 1 minute and 35 seconds of movie, Spike made the viewer watch 1-minute's worth of commercial. Even with dvr I got tired of FF'ing.

Spike should be ashamed. For some reason I thought there was an FCC rule about how many commercials could be shown in a time slot. Guess I was wrong. But see if you notice the same thing with other networks.

Quote from: The General on March 02, 2013, 03:27:53 PM
The Charley Pride of golf

      Ironically, the former "Charley Pride of golf" before Tiger Woods...was Charley Pride.

Quote from: Sardondi on March 02, 2013, 10:28:11 PM
My annoyance of the moment is grossly abusive amount of commercials in tv broadcasts of movies. Have you noticed how the 2 hour tv movie is just gone now? So many today are 21/2 or 3 hours, and these are normal 100 minute-showing time movies. Case in point I dvr'd The Wolfman yesterday on the Spike Network. I knew something was different when I noticed that the first commercial break came at something like 9 minutes into the movie. On most networks the 1st break for a movie is around 20 minutes, and then they come every 10 minutes or so afterwards, and last 3 minutes or so. But Spikes's commercials were at least 5 minutes every break, and they were coming every 9 minutes or so of movie.

Afterwards I tallied it up. The movie was 103 minutes long, and Spike took 158 minutes to show it. That's 55 minutes of commercials, 103 minutes of movie. For every 1 minute and 35 seconds of movie, Spike made the viewer watch 1-minute's worth of commercial. Even with dvr I got tired of FF'ing.

Spike should be ashamed. For some reason I thought there was an FCC rule about how many commercials could be shown in a time slot. Guess I was wrong. But see if you notice the same thing with other networks.

     Bravo routinely turns 2 hour movies into 3 hour events. It's gross. As somebody who isn't susceptible to adverts, it's particularly annoying. I reflexively change the channel the very instant commercials begin, and given my attention span-there's high likelihood of my not returning to that original program.

     

The cable channels are being nice.  People are drinking more soda, beer and wine while the population is aging.  Thus, more bathroom breaks are needed.

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on March 02, 2013, 10:45:35 PM
     Bravo routinely turns 2 hour movies into 3 hour events.
   

Trying to watch Apocalypse Now on Bravo was what led to my ending my relationship with the cable company. It was during the MLB playoffs and I had little baseball players dancing at the bottom of the screen during the serious scenes (which I guess is all of them).

Quote from: Sardondi on March 02, 2013, 10:28:11 PMMy annoyance of the moment is grossly abusive amount of commercials in tv broadcasts of movies. <snip>

            Well, duh, dude, if I may say so. I gave up on that shiite in twenty years ago. You have an internet connection, so if you're watching movies old enough to be on broadcast tv, even Netflix will them.    (Note, for those of you what have used Netflix, the dig at Netflix. Thank you.) Seriously, though, get a subscription to Netflix and you can stream all your movies commercial free.

Quote from: Caruthers612 on March 03, 2013, 02:56:40 PM...Seriously, though, get a subscription to Netflix and you can stream all your movies commercial free....

Long done. But Netflix is no longer the lovey lovey outfit it once portrayed itself as: it now tries to freeze you as either a mail-only account or a stream-only account - no mixing. And since it has a mere pittance of its total inventory available for streaming, it's a bad deal to get streaming from Netflix. And I'm not going to limit my watching to what shows up every few days in my mail box. So I'll thank you to allow me to bitch about commercials. Stay the hell out of my annoyances. Or I'll find a certain pud-puller from the north of England to wear your ass out with relentless posturing posting.

Quote from: Sardondi on March 03, 2013, 03:37:45 PM
Long done. But Netflix is no longer the lovey lovey outfit it once portrayed itself as: it now tries to freeze you as either a mail-only account or a stream-only account - no mixing. And since it has a mere pittance of its total inventory available for streaming, it's a bad deal to get streaming from Netflix. And I'm not going to limit my watching to what shows up every few days in my mail box. So I'll thank you to allow me to bitch about commercials. Stay the hell out of my annoyances. Or I'll find a certain pud-puller from the north of England to wear your ass out with relentless posturing posting.

Very well stated. Exactly why Netflix has become a poor choice for movies.
Addendum:
umm except for the pud part.

Quote from: onan on March 03, 2013, 03:44:49 PM
Very well stated. Exactly why Netflix has become a poor choice for movies.

Yup. I'm on my first paid month with Netflix, and I doubt if I'll make it to two, because most of the films I want to see are only available on DVD.

Sports teams which don't put the players' names on their jerseys. Makes it more interesting for me if I know who's who, and I'm not going to memorize numbers.

Quote from: Sardondi on March 03, 2013, 03:37:45 PM
Long done. But Netflix is no longer the lovey lovey outfit it once portrayed itself as: it now tries to freeze you as either a mail-only account or a stream-only account - no mixing. And since it has a mere pittance of its total inventory available for streaming, it's a bad deal to get streaming from Netflix. And I'm not going to limit my watching to what shows up every few days in my mail box. So I'll thank you to allow me to bitch about commercials. Stay the hell out of my annoyances. Or I'll find a certain pud-puller from the north of England to wear your ass out with relentless posturing posting.

.... or a certain annoying, big-winged bird may reappear, searching for new prey. 

How do folks like Hulu Plus and do you get the latest material soon after broadcast?

Quote from: Sardondi on March 03, 2013, 03:37:45 PM
Long done. But Netflix is no longer the lovey lovey outfit it once portrayed itself as: it now tries to freeze you as either a mail-only account or a stream-only account - no mixing. And since it has a mere pittance of its total inventory available for streaming, it's a bad deal to get streaming from Netflix. And I'm not going to limit my watching to what shows up every few days in my mail box. So I'll thank you to allow me to bitch about commercials. Stay the hell out of my annoyances. Or I'll find a certain pud-puller from the north of England to wear your ass out with relentless posturing posting.

Looks you you are not the only one unhappy with Netflix.  I dropped back when they lost alot of customers because of a large fee increase.  I love Amazon Prime.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2013/03/03/amazon-rock-solid-netflix-still-struggling-with-customer-satisfaction/

Quote from: somatic hypermutation on March 03, 2013, 04:09:28 PM
How do folks like Hulu Plus and do you get the latest material soon after broadcast?

I like Hulu+. I have not really compared it to regular Hulu. But Hulu has exposed me to some very good tv. Misfits, Booth at the End, The confession, and in the last few weeks, The Following. Not to mention the treasure trove of old westerns and detective tv shows...