People keep thinking that Fox News is some vast right-wing conspiracy. Fox News Channel was designed by Rupert Murdoch to fit the ‘conservative’ niche of TV news. Murcoch realized that ‘conservatives’ wanted to hear news slanted their way 24/7. He hired Roger Ailes knowing full well what he was getting himself into, and it is Ailes that really built the network. And the ratings have been wonderful.

People who see Fox News and/or MSNBC as more than entertainment are… misguided. If people just wanted ‘the news’ they would watch CNN Headline News (before they had Glenn Beck) and The News Hour on PBS. Even NBC Nightly News has ‘Making A Difference’ segments to close out the show, which are helpful and insightful but mostly just entertaining. People don’t just want ‘the news’, they want to be entertained, Fox News entertains some people. What else do you want? Really?

It is standard practice for a political campaign to provide the press pool with at least 1 riser and access to an XLR audio breakout box of whatever is going on onstage. If you run the event and don’t provide them with an audio breakout box they will otherwise rely 100% on the mics on their cameras, which pick up a lot of background noise (you later mix this in with the audio feed from the campaign so you aren’t hearing JUST the mic on the podium).

Back during the DNC convention (and really every main event covered by all the networks since then) you may have noticed that all the broadcast networks were actually using the same cameras. It is pointless to have 10 organizations (CNN, NBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, PBS, C-SPAN, etc) fighting over the best angle to watch the podium, so they just have their trucks tap into a ‘pool’ feed of general purpose cameras.

This year was a big deal, because it was covered 100% in HD by the networks, which causes a whole host of problems when it comes to staging/lighting/bandwidth/etc. So there needed to be a member network that would coordinate this entire HD production.

And, of all the networks that could have been responsible for the HD feed of the Democratic National Convention, the network group that organized the HD feed for DNCC was Fox News.

I ordered this Samsung 50″ 1080p Plasma (model PN50A550) a few months ago after saving up for quite some time. Cost me like $2k and I thought “this is going to be awesome! I always wanted this!”

And it is.

Until part of the screen turned pink

3 service calls and a replaced panel later, no change. The same part of the screen is still pink.

I created a post about it on AVSForum and it turns out I am not the only one to have this problem.

The tint makes watching Citizen Kane unacceptable… Black & White needs to be Black and White… Not Black, White and Pink.

DAMN YOU!

I was in Denver this previous weekend and decided to leave on Tuesday… I had school and didn’t want to pay too much on housing. I had an HDTV, and thought watching Obama’s speech in HD would be just as good if not better than just being there in person.

Now I’ve fucked up BIG many, many, MANY times in my life. Hell, if you just Google “Nick4753“, “NickCatal” or “Nick Catalano” you will find more than enough evidence of my screwups.

Oh, I’ve made big mistakes in my 21 years on earth.

But coming back on Tuesday is by far the biggest one. Staying away from this convention, from that stadium last Thursday, when I had an easy way to stay longer and people who would support me if I wanted to, was a horrible idea.

An absolutely horrible idea.

And I’ll regret it for quite awhile.

Go Obama!

Alright, the guest tonight on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was DNC Chairman Howard Dean. And there was a significant delay between the Pepsi Center and Stewart’s set.

Only thing is, Stewart is filming at the University of Denver, 8 MILES AWAY

Now there is a bunch of security around the Pepsi Center… Like 4 layers of security, security… But he is the fucking DNC Chairman and they own that town. They have the security so tied up out there he could have a federal escort to the Daily Show set and back in 10 minutes…

Doesn’t make any sense to me.