So last night I posted my evaluation of the new FOX network shows to go along with my NBC evaluation. I THOUGHT! What actually happened was that my NBC evaluation vanished.
I think I know what happened. When I started writing the FOX material I decided to use the NBC post as a template. Using Open Writer I opened the posted NBC material, changed the title, removed all of the text that I didn’t want and then wrote in the new material. Simple. I’ve done it before although maybe not with Live Writer, the Microsoft product that Open Writer is a continuation of.
What I think happened is that when I posted the draft FOX article to Blogger to do a final edit, either OpenWriter or Blogger thought I was posting a revision of the NBC post rather than a new post. And since I was kind of tired last night I didn’t pick up on the warning signs that I wasn’t posting something new, like the little orange box saying "Update" instead of "Publish".
I’ll rewrite the NBC article later in the week and make sure it goes up as a new post. Now you’ll excuse me, I have to go spread some sheep manure.
Showing posts with label Apology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apology. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
An Apology
I seem to apologize a lot on this blog and most of the time those apologies are about my not posting on a more regular basis. This isn’t going to be any different, so I suppose I should apologize for that first.
(Hey, I’m Canadian. apologizing is in our genetic make up. Step on a Canadian’s foot and he or she will apologize for having their foot in a place where you were able to step on it.)
So I haven’t posted anything here since the piece on the first drama to be cancelled and before that postings were pretty sparse as well. Here’s what’s been going on. In addition to the usual household chores and doing the shopping for my elderly mother and myself, the months from August to the end of November were a stressful time for me as I had to cope with my dog, Chelsea, getting ill. I was quite frankly engaged in a process whereby hope was confronting reality in that I desperately hoped that she had something that her body could overcome when deep down in my guts that whatever it was was something she wasn’t going to recover from. I’m afraid that she probably suffered longer than was necessary because I simply didn’t want to acknowledge what should have been obvious, that she probably had cancer and wasn’t going to get better. At the end of November my brother and I took Chelsea to the vet to be put to sleep.
Probably no more than a week after that visit to the vet I got something that was suspiciously like the flu. It was the first time in years that I’ve vomited without inducing it myself. I thought I had overcome the illness after a few days and went back to my normal activities. I hadn’t. After one trip downtown to do some Christmas shopping I was basically out of it for the next ten days or so. It was so bad I quite literally completed my Christmas shopping as the store I was in was closing on Christmas Eve.
Of course all of this is ignoring maybe the biggest problem I’ve had in writing the blog and that is quite simply in motivating myself to do the writing in the first place. I’ll start off writing something and find that it is taking me much longer to put my thoughts in order than I had thought it would. I have several half-completed reviews of shows that are going to remain exactly that: half completed. The good news – I hope – is that I think maybe I’m about to come out of my creative funk and put some stuff together that I can be at least a little bit proud of. I’ve got a couple of ideas that will take me beyond the realm of pure review as well. Time, I guess, will tell whether or not I’m right about this. Or maybe it’s another case of hope confronting reality.
(Hey, I’m Canadian. apologizing is in our genetic make up. Step on a Canadian’s foot and he or she will apologize for having their foot in a place where you were able to step on it.)
So I haven’t posted anything here since the piece on the first drama to be cancelled and before that postings were pretty sparse as well. Here’s what’s been going on. In addition to the usual household chores and doing the shopping for my elderly mother and myself, the months from August to the end of November were a stressful time for me as I had to cope with my dog, Chelsea, getting ill. I was quite frankly engaged in a process whereby hope was confronting reality in that I desperately hoped that she had something that her body could overcome when deep down in my guts that whatever it was was something she wasn’t going to recover from. I’m afraid that she probably suffered longer than was necessary because I simply didn’t want to acknowledge what should have been obvious, that she probably had cancer and wasn’t going to get better. At the end of November my brother and I took Chelsea to the vet to be put to sleep.
Probably no more than a week after that visit to the vet I got something that was suspiciously like the flu. It was the first time in years that I’ve vomited without inducing it myself. I thought I had overcome the illness after a few days and went back to my normal activities. I hadn’t. After one trip downtown to do some Christmas shopping I was basically out of it for the next ten days or so. It was so bad I quite literally completed my Christmas shopping as the store I was in was closing on Christmas Eve.
Of course all of this is ignoring maybe the biggest problem I’ve had in writing the blog and that is quite simply in motivating myself to do the writing in the first place. I’ll start off writing something and find that it is taking me much longer to put my thoughts in order than I had thought it would. I have several half-completed reviews of shows that are going to remain exactly that: half completed. The good news – I hope – is that I think maybe I’m about to come out of my creative funk and put some stuff together that I can be at least a little bit proud of. I’ve got a couple of ideas that will take me beyond the realm of pure review as well. Time, I guess, will tell whether or not I’m right about this. Or maybe it’s another case of hope confronting reality.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
An Apology
This is for those of you who have bookmarked this site or who have it on your blogrolls and the like. I haven’t been writing a lot over the past few months. I can’t say it’s been ripping me apart but it has been very frustrating for me not to post when I have something to say.
What’s behind this? Well there are several things. I have been quite busy in my non-blogging life, and it usually comes at the same time when I do some of my writing; in the afternoons. Other things happen at night when I also write a lot.
But of course, If being busy was the only problem it wouldn’t be too bad. I could make the time to do the writing. A bigger problem is that I seem to be undergoing some sort of massive writers block which I really haven’t been able to get around. I start writing something and start to get a good flow and then after a while I’ll read what I’ve written and quite literally get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. What I’ve written feels like utter crap, and I give up on it. This happened earlier this week. I was writing a piece about why Smallville “worked” and became the longest lasting science fiction style show on TV (I attribute a lot of its success to it being about Superman and that it was on the right network, which is to say not one of the “Big Four”). The problem was that as I got deeper and deeper into it, the less happy I was with it, and as the time to run it became less and less my displeasure with it became greater and greater.
Finally I feel a rising sense of frustration with what effect I can have writing about TV. I love TV and I love writing about the medium. I don't recap shows because the medium seems to me to be a rich smorgasbord and there’s so much to try. The problem is that as I don’t get any of the preview materials that professional critics do – particularly screeners of network shows – I have to write my reaction after I see the show as an ordinary viewer. And really that’s too late, particularly if I don’t get my review written overnight. Even if the review of a new show is finished by the next afternoon – and remember I am sometimes busy or otherwise distracted in the afternoons – any ability I or anyone in my situation has to influence anyone who is reading this is gone. Television is a slave to the ratings numbers and those come out in the morning. Someone like Marc Berman of AdWeek – for whom I have a certain amount of respect even though his is a purely scientific measure of determining whether a show deserves to survive or not – is able to tell me that that show that I liked last night is doomed to die in a little while because the ratings say no one is watching it. It makes it all feel frustrating and pointless. Why bother analysing the dramatic qualities of a show; just print the numbers and declare that “this is a bad show.”
I can’t do anything about the whole ratings frustration. TV isn’t about art; it is about getting people in position to watch commercials, and the only way you can define if a show does that job is with ratings. And maybe that’s at least partly the source of the writers’ block – I don’t write because of the apparent futility of writing. Still, I can at least try to beat the writer’s block in the only way I know how: by forcing myself to write through it. To that end I intend to do a recap of episodes of a single season show from a few years back that intrigued me to the point where I want to share my views about it. Let’s see if I can power through my problem. In the meantime I’ve got another article that I could be writing, and upfronts are next week, so I’m going to have to write about those – if I can find the time.
What’s behind this? Well there are several things. I have been quite busy in my non-blogging life, and it usually comes at the same time when I do some of my writing; in the afternoons. Other things happen at night when I also write a lot.
But of course, If being busy was the only problem it wouldn’t be too bad. I could make the time to do the writing. A bigger problem is that I seem to be undergoing some sort of massive writers block which I really haven’t been able to get around. I start writing something and start to get a good flow and then after a while I’ll read what I’ve written and quite literally get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. What I’ve written feels like utter crap, and I give up on it. This happened earlier this week. I was writing a piece about why Smallville “worked” and became the longest lasting science fiction style show on TV (I attribute a lot of its success to it being about Superman and that it was on the right network, which is to say not one of the “Big Four”). The problem was that as I got deeper and deeper into it, the less happy I was with it, and as the time to run it became less and less my displeasure with it became greater and greater.
Finally I feel a rising sense of frustration with what effect I can have writing about TV. I love TV and I love writing about the medium. I don't recap shows because the medium seems to me to be a rich smorgasbord and there’s so much to try. The problem is that as I don’t get any of the preview materials that professional critics do – particularly screeners of network shows – I have to write my reaction after I see the show as an ordinary viewer. And really that’s too late, particularly if I don’t get my review written overnight. Even if the review of a new show is finished by the next afternoon – and remember I am sometimes busy or otherwise distracted in the afternoons – any ability I or anyone in my situation has to influence anyone who is reading this is gone. Television is a slave to the ratings numbers and those come out in the morning. Someone like Marc Berman of AdWeek – for whom I have a certain amount of respect even though his is a purely scientific measure of determining whether a show deserves to survive or not – is able to tell me that that show that I liked last night is doomed to die in a little while because the ratings say no one is watching it. It makes it all feel frustrating and pointless. Why bother analysing the dramatic qualities of a show; just print the numbers and declare that “this is a bad show.”
I can’t do anything about the whole ratings frustration. TV isn’t about art; it is about getting people in position to watch commercials, and the only way you can define if a show does that job is with ratings. And maybe that’s at least partly the source of the writers’ block – I don’t write because of the apparent futility of writing. Still, I can at least try to beat the writer’s block in the only way I know how: by forcing myself to write through it. To that end I intend to do a recap of episodes of a single season show from a few years back that intrigued me to the point where I want to share my views about it. Let’s see if I can power through my problem. In the meantime I’ve got another article that I could be writing, and upfronts are next week, so I’m going to have to write about those – if I can find the time.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Another Apology
Those of you who follow me on Twitter (and if you're not please, please do) know this already but for those of you who don't here goes. I was hoping to get a post on The Unusuals up on Friday, but I ran into a problem in that my Internet connection went out for most of the day, and given that it was Good Friday, I didn't even bother to try to call customer service (which is actually located here – stunning). So instead I did things that didn't involve the Net (and I confess that I loved it, at least as a change for a while). I suppose I should finish the Unusuals post today, but after that I'll probably revert to my regular post on the TV Guide Preview comments and save the reviews of Southland and Harper's Island for next week. In the case of Southland that's probably not such a bad idea, because I really need to get a better handle on that show. As for Harper's Island, it's still unviewed on the DVR (which desperately needs some content pruning and a DVR Expander, but will probably need another airing to get a real sense of it (but it features one of my favourite character actors, Jim Beaver, so that's a mark in its favour in my book). But this sort of thing (as well as what I laughingly call real life) is really throwing my TV reviewing out of whack.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sorry Folks
I was hoping to get 1972-73 posted tonight but I was working on something else for the blog and then tonight I've been nursing - unsuccessfully - a nasty headache. '72-73 will either be out Monday night or next weekend (more likely really), with my other project to follow. And who knows, I might get around to reviewing something which is what this whole thing was meant to be about. Wasn't it?
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