Matthew Wrather hosts with Mark Lee and Joshua McNeil to overthink iPhone 4 (sorry—we had to talk about it), our experiences with the World Cup, and listener emails.
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Good to know that the OTI podcast apparently found a sponsor.
Matt told me to post e-mail I’ve sent to him today.
Seriously, that was so unfunny and outside of the scope of OTI. Being developer I’m constantly raped by iThings. iThings are in my RSS feeds, iThings are in all my tech-related podcasts, iThings leak out of antisocial-web. Now OTI. I’m afraid to open my fridge.
I wish I’d thought of “Raped by iThings” as the title of the episode.
Seriously, though, you can skip about 20 or minutes in to avoid the discussion of iStuff and get to the World Cup. Which, admittedly, may be just as offensive to some of you.
Hooliganism actually isn’t as rampant in England as it used to be, except at Millwall. It appears to me, though admittedly I don’t have any definitive numbers on this, Italy has the biggest issues with fan violence when it comes to soccer, and they also seem to have a particular issue with racism at their games. Nevertheless, everywhere in the world you will find fan violence when it comes to sports.
Also, while Will and Grace may have played a large role in having gay characters on TV, the first show to have a gay character on American TV, unless this information is apocryphal, was Soap, where Billy Crystal played a homosexual gentleman. Also, didn’t Ellen’s character on “Ellen” come out of the closet at some point. I’ve never actually seen any of these shows, but I was subjected to a few minutes of Will and Grace once in which Megan Mullally’s voice came perilously close to making my ears bleed.
Speaking of tokenism, Dan Harmon, the creator of Community, has said that NBC, or whomever helped him with the casting, really, really wanted Annie’s character to be Asian or Latina, but they couldn’t find anybody so they settled on Alison Brie, who is, I feel, excellent in the show. That is my primary issue with the notion of tokenism is that it prevents things from being a meritocracy. Ideally, shows would cast whomever had the best audition for every role and let the racial chips fall where they may, provided it isn’t a role that required a specific race, of course. We don’t need Mel Gibson playing Malcolm X… or do we?
World Cup: It’s very much a ‘support your own’ type of feeling. So, if you don’t root for your home team it’s kinda weird. I get why you supported Ghana, but having grown up watching World Cup, and joshing about it with friends in foreign countries, it is a sort of odd concept to me to not support the US.
Chris is correct. Billy Crystal on Soap played a homosexual character. There is also an episode of All in the Family where one of Archie’s friends comes out to him.
The not at all offensive English chant is actually “One World Cup and Two World Wars”.
Thoughts on violence and football later when I’ve gathered them in my head properly.
iPhones are nortrious for cracking. My boss at work has gone through 7 in 3 years due to losing them or cracking the screen. The weak spot is the upper right corner, if you drop it on that edge then it just breaks into a spiderweb of cracks. Even if you have the hard casing.
I’ve seen ‘The Fall’ and I honestly have to say that it was one of the more boring films that I’ve seen. It’s more of an art house film and if you like bright colors and a sort of jumping plot then it’s right up your alley.
@Megan Is your boss also involved in a lot of high speed scooter accidents? It may be that iPhones are not compliant with scooters. In fact, I have Apple’s next billion dollar idea: the iScoot.
I just find it odd that internationally, sports championships (such as the Olympics and the World Cup) have several years between championship contests while domestic sports (at least in the US) have championship contests every year. Why isn’t there a World Cup every year?
It is very expensive to run an international competition – there’s a lot of discomfort/anger here in Britain over the cost of the Olympics, and indeed the cost of the 2004 Games is a factor in the economic collapse of Greece. A yearly World Cup/Olympics could wreck the world. In terms of Football, the continental competitions are in the other years, and they can’t be the same year as a world cup. For athletics, there are world championships in-between the Olympics, plus continental or other organisations (e.g. the Commonwealth).
@RiderIon — I think an apple vehicle would be very interesting. The UI in your average car is horrible.
Hey Wrather, have you heard of these things:
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/why/3gmicrocell/
Uh, I’ve experienced quite the opposite in terms of cars. *Lots* of lamentations about how bumpers are plastic now and cars are manufactured to fall apart. Cars being a former American institution now taken over by foreign companies is a *big* deal in the community I live in, a rural, Washingtonian one. Maybe it’s the conservative mindset that comes with the territory, but yeah. That’s a conversation I have at least once a month with locals.
I think there are different kinds of nationalism, and when it becomes blind to peace and sportsmanship is when it becomes a problem. So Josh’s brand is awesome, while, say, Nazism, is *not* so awesome. So Lee, it depends on the extent to which it goes. If it gets in the way of the relationship between the two countries, it’s a bad thing. Also, blind nationalism is bad, too. I think of nationalism like patriotism- be supportive, but don’t assume it’s always the best, be sure to acknowledge shortcomings, and come up with solutions to the problems.
How much would a keychain in the shape of Otis cost? I collect keychains, and Otis is frakkin’ adorable.
Tokenism was a big “issue” on my college campus in its push for Diversity. There were/are so few minorities at my school that a scandal popped up when it was realized they were photoshopping pictures of *former* students that had graduated into ads being sent out and on the website as “current.” When it reaches that point, it’s rather sick. But I think it’s at least admirable that there is an *attempt* being made in ads and on TV and such. I see it sort of like the strive for the Platonic ideal in the real world by making the false one of entertainment look like that ideal.
Oh, and I really enjoyed _The Fall_, myself. But I’m also totally in love with Lee Pace, so take that with a grain of salt. It’s pretty, if nothing else.
I have heard of the microcells—and thanks for being all lazyweb and doing my research for me!
I have to say, though…I just object fundamentally to the idea that I have to buy another expensive piece of electronics to make an expensive piece of electronics I already own work in the way it is advertised to work.
I also object to the idea that I have to use any part of my wired broadband connection, which is expensive, to make the wireless 3g connection—which is expensive—usable. I pay (a lot, this being Ameirca) for 3G service. It’s ridiculous that I need cable service to make it work properly.
So other than being a complete effing travesty, 3g microcells are a great idea.
@RiderIon- No she just drops it and the screen shatters.
@Gab- I love Lee Pace as well, maybe not as much as you, and I found the movie to have wonderful colors like you did but it was the plot that I had trouble following because it would jump all over the place, a number of things weren’t explained or certain plot points just stopped. That’s what made me dislike the movie.
@Wrather: Oh, you wanna know how I found out about that thing? A vlogger I follow ranted in much the same fashion as you… after showing it in the camera, of course. At least you haven’t yet succumbed to the desire for service as he has.
@Megan: Lee Pace fan club time???? I swear, hardly anybody knows who he is. Why? WHY!?
Oh, and RiderIon: I’d imagine there aren’t World Cup tournaments every year because if there were, the domestic leagues would suffer. The national teams are comprised of the top players in the professional leagues (if they exist), but if the players were always off competing internationally, they wouldn’t really be able to play domestically. I dunno, that’s my best… shot. (Get it? SHOT!?)
Either that, or maybe asking countries to “come together” and such regularly is asking too much.
You mean Lee Pace: The star of Marmaduke? Then again, I supposed the talking dog is the real star of Marmaduke, which, in a sense, makes Owen Wilson the star of Marmaduke. Not to begrudge Mr. Pace what was likely one of the bigger paychecks of his career. Plus, he starred alongside Judy Greer so if I was going to disparage him I’d have to disparage her, and that’s just not something I’m going to do.
Yes, Chris, that very same Lee Pace. His role in the movie is the only reason I’d consider seeing it. Haven’t yet, but Netflix is lurvely.
I really enjoy Judy Greer and am glad she got to play someone with their own special someone instead of the dweeby sidekick *watching* someone else get their special someone for a change. Again, haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t comment on the quality of the performance.
@Gab- Yes! You and I can start a Doctor Who/Lee Pace fan club ^-^ I fell for him in ‘Pushing Dasies’ (which got unfairly axed btw) but I didn’t see him in ‘Marmaduke’
@Cat: _Pushing Daisies_ is precisely where *I* fell in love with him, too! I have both seasons a few feet away from me. There were rumors about a movie, but they seem to have died. At least _Arrested Development_ has been making more headway. These poor shows, made of awesome and cancelled by the network fat cats…
@Gab- I hadn’t heard that there were talks about a ‘Daisies’ movie! :( too bad that it’s fallen through, although to be fair they kind of wrapped it up (somewhat) nicely with the ending of the last episode. However I would like to know how the Aunts react to Chuck showing up and how Olive went from pie to cheese ^-^
@Megan: Yeah, the last two episodes of the series are like, “Hell-OH EXPOSITION,” whirlwindomgwtfjusthappened?! A bit more closure would be lurvely. Alack, alas, ’tis what tends to happen to series that get the axe the way _Pushing Daisies_ did. Chenoweth, at least, was talking about it, as was the show’s creator, Bryan Fuller, last January. But nothing much since then, so I’m assuming it’s dead in the water.
But I also just want Ana Friel and Lee Pace to do *more*.