Gay people are gradually becoming more and more accepted in mainstream society. I was very surprised to find out that the alternate universe known as Daytime Television just had its first Gay Kissing Scene. This happened on As The World Turns. I would have expected this to have become a normal thing ages ago.

I don’t keep up with television trends very well. I would have assumed that Queer as Folk would have come on an hour or two earlier every year until it officially became a soap opera. I guess the real soaps want to get in on the action. It’s great marketing really. Most soap fans are women. A gay kissing scene means twice as many men. It’s twice as hot and even in this day and age, it’s still a little bit dirty.

The phenomenal success of reality tv is spilling over onto the Internet. Check out this wholesome Canadian girl auditioning for a show called The Next Internet Millionaire.

Several episodes have aired already and four contestants have been sent packing. Jaime from Toronto is still hanging in there. Joel Comm is the host and executive producer of this thing. He is a successful internet marketer and the big prize in this contest is a joint venture with him. His experience, connections, and of course CAPITAL, will most likely make the winner of the show very wealthy. Even the losers in this show are learning valuable lessons in marketing. Losing on a reality show is probably less stressful than failing with a startup of your own, and possibly less embarrassing. Most entrepreneurs that are going the conventional route don’t, however, find themselves eating worms.

The comedy is not very funny and the musical performance is unconvincing lip syncing of a less than iconic Rats song. There is all kinds of creepy foreshadowing if you pay really close attention, but don’t. Just go to the YouTube page and read the hilarious description.

As one commenter stated…‘There is nothing funnier than people who take themselves seriously.’

Rest in Peace, John Candy.

Naked and American television don’t get along too well. The naked is secondary to the issue of eating meat in this case. A PETA ad that promotes vegetarianism with the use of Alicia Silverstone’s naked body has so far only been banned in Houston, Texas. The cow town claims it’s because of the naked. I say bull.

Somewhere on this blog, there are a few television commercials. Mostly they are quirky, ironic or laughably bad. My generation grew up with television advertising as one of our biggest single sources of information.

I guess that one of the observations that I usually make when I see an old advertisement from my childhood on YouTube is that the craft of making television commercials has been improved and refined a great deal in the decades since then.

Production companies like Hawthorn Direct create cable advertising that doesn’t rely on the old tactic of being bombastic. I browsed through some examples of the work that they do for products, services, charities, and even the government. I think the modern ’sell’ relies more on conveying information in a well paced, natural sounding tone.

I am familiar with many of Hawthorn Direct’s clients and I even remember some of these advertising campaigns. This company is not just into advertising. They also do things like Marketing Plan Development, Product Positioning, Offer Development and even Profitability Analysis.

I was song-tagged by a an upcoming review subject. It got me thinking about public domain music. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Wikipedia has links to sheet music for old standards. That must be great for people who can read sheet music.

I love using Wikipedia as a source for information about old music. The song that I was checking out this morning was written in 1876. The writer was named Henry Clay Work and his house was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. My Grandfather’s Clock has been recorded by musicians ranging from Johnny Cash to Boy II Men.

Here is the old television short that I always think of when I think of the Underground Railroad:

The public broadcaster in Canada has a lot of educational shorts. Many of them are better than the actual programming that they were producing. I find the acting a little bit over the top in this one, but I appreciate the information and the sentiment.

Spokepeople at MTV will neither confirm or deny the rumor that Britney Spears is set to be the opening act for their MTV Video Music Awards.

I think the best way for her to top the 2003 kiss with Madonna is to travel back in time and kidnap her former self. Old Crazy Britney could then bring younger somewhat less crazy Britney to the future and the two Britney’s could kiss each other on stage. This might have been the future event that actually set things in motion with Britney going crazy. I’m not sure what drugs she took either voluntarily or otherwise to be unsure about time travel when Kevin filmed that Chaotic outtake. Christina Aguilera knows something. Madonna, of course, knows everything.

One thing that I am not sure of is whether existence as we know it stops after the MTV Awards show.

I think that having this Berkline home theater seating in my home would inspire me to make video blogs of me being a movie critic. I think the premise would involve me making scathing reviews of movies that I have never actually viewed. I can get all the relevant facts from IMDb, and I already know that if it is mainstream it sucks and if it independent and quirky it deserves my undying praise.

I might have a hard time getting the kids to move off of the home theater seating that can be purchased from BostonTables.com. They look very comfortable. These are modular, which means you can custom order the straight or curved units to precisely fit the home theater that you have, or the one that you are planning.

I strayed a few clicks away from the News.Google.com landing page the other day and watched a video featuring Dennis Miller helping Bill O’Really recap his non interview with a US Senator.

I felt pretty repulsed by Dennis Miller. I haven’t closely followed his performances during this century. When I was a residence assistant at college in the early 90’s, I used to catch SNL in the basement TV room quite regularly. That Dennis Miller and this one do not seem to be the same person.

I was so bothered by what I saw that it really got me thinking about this man and his public persona. I started to think that it was an elaborate joke. I thought that would make for a good blog post. After a bit of research though, I found out that Whitehouse.gov made all the points I was planning to make in the form of a brilliant fake interview with Miller in 2004. I guess the only thing I can add is that his fake chicken hawk is more convincing than Stephen Colbert’s. The transparency of Stephen’s rapport is by design and very much to his advantage. Dennis Miller, the real Dennis Miller, is caught in a trap of his own making.

I love you Dennis, in that I have a love for all mankind and want us to somehow make things right (as in the opposite of wrong, not the opposite of left).

This 1984 video is embarrassingly bad. I have to post it because it features J. D. Roberts, a hip personality on Canadian television, interviewing Nash the Slash, a flash in the pan oddity who was, at the time, pretending to be American. Actually he was pretending to be running for President or something. Save yourself some agony and start watching at the halfway mark.

Nash the Slash is content to be a local artsy weirdo in Ontario. He makes an appearance in a movie I would highly recommend. It is called Roadkill.

J. D. Roberts eventually lands a sweet job in the promised land of America. Somewhere along the way, he decides to go by John Roberts.