The Emmies were on last night. There was a lot of controversy this year over the nominees/winners, all of which you can read about here.
The really great thing about the night was the fact that Conan O’Brien of late-night fame was hosting. Watch the two hilarious opening videos found here and here.
Time for something different.
A new type of street performance has hit the streets of New York City. It’s called “Improv Everywhere”, and they really do mean everywhere. The site describes these goals of Improv Everywhere is to “causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.”
It was created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, and Improv Everywhere has executed over 50 missions involving hundreds of undercover agents.
You’re probably still wondering what they do, right?
Well, the latest mission that the team pulled off was called, “Slo-Mo Home Depot”, and is currently being made famous by none other then YouTube (is there anyone that website doesn’t help?) For a full list of their so-called “Missions”, simply click here. If you live in New York City, and want to participate in one of their experimental events, visit their contatct page.
Now who wants to start up a Toronto branch?
Here’s something interesting I read over at ComingSoon.Net. Apparently, the new season of the reality hit show, Survivor is adding yet another twist to the show. The new season, called Survivor: Cook Islands, will pit players of different races against each other. That’s right, you heard me, the show is actually going to be dividing the tribes based on their race.
The four tribes will be divided into African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic and Caucasians.
Although this is the most ethnically diverse cast of any reality show to date, it’s important we look at the implications of what the show’s producers are doing. They are literally putting different ethnic races in direct competition. No matter what happens during the duration of the show, the one feature that will be remembered about the castaway who wins will be their race. What this actually means is that we will be declaring the other ethnic groups, “losers”.
Perhaps I’m overanalyzing this. Maybe I’m the only one who thinks this is a sick, desperate plea for attention from a dying reality television show. But somehow, I get the feeling that I might not be alone in thinking that TV networks are considering doing anything for ratings.
And now for something ridiculous.
Dr. Kimberly Thompson testified just last month in front of the United States senate about the escalading rate of violence in videogames.
The funny part?
Her system for determining the violence in games was laughably flawed.
Read all about here.
(By the way, isn’t that an awesome giagantic picture I found?)
The Toronto Star brings word that 11 Universities, including Toronto, Ottawa, UBC, McMaster, and Simon Frasier, opted out of cooperating with this year’s annual Maclean’s university rankings.
The rankings have always been a a source of controversy. And with U of T complaining from the top of the heap, it’s not just the losers crying foul. Are unified rankings even useful in today’s University marketplace, where hyper-specialization is becoming the norm?
Yeah, award shows are usually biased, especially “Video Game Awards”, but it’s still neat that there is going to be a full show for the Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts. They’ve even got a statuette (they’re calling it the Elan), and a host (William Shatner)!
Peter Jackson announced that Neill Blomkamp will be making his directorial debut for the Halo movie that’s supposed to come out in 2008. We’ve noticed Blomkamp before, as director of the short “Alive in Joburg”. Blomkamp has extensive prior experience in 3D animation.
