Cherry Chocolate Rain

This is the web, and it’s gonna murder your TV

Woke up this morning and, as usual, logged on to The Tube. What I saw was incredible.

Tay Zonday, amazingly talented performer of the wildly viral internet sensation, Chocolate Rain, just issued a sequel to his hit song and is currently blowing minds across the globe. The first Chocolate Rain was released about five years ago (in internet time) and at first glance, it seems that Tay is just milking the chocolate cash cow for what little it is still worth by releasing a Chocolate Rain: Part II.

But seriously, watch the video. It is pure imagination. Although Tay may appear to be selling out large by promoting Dr. Pepper’s new Cherry Chocolate carbonated beverage, this video does bring to contemplation one very strong point – Tay’s success only solidifies the might of the internet over television.

Here’s how the showdown goes down -

Television’s retarded singing baby: William Hung.

Internet’s retarded singing baby: Tay Zonday.

William’s shining moment: a record deal with little known Kotch Entertainment, and low album sales.

Tay’s shining moment: Starring in a dope music video with rapper Mista Johnson, kickin’ it with some fine young honeys, and being splashed multiple times with buckets of chocolate while smiling stupidly.

On second thought, no matter which way you slice it, they’re still both retarded singing media babies.

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Oop, one more thing worth mentioning. Favorite line from the new Chocolate Rain: “Ohio’s agriculture’s based on grains.”

LivingWithoutTV’s 2007 Holiday Gift Guide!

Part 1: $50 and under

As if it is not already wholly apparent to you, it’s that time of year again!! The commercialized tradition of spending more than your paycheck during the fourth quarter is now fully awakened and with green eyes ablaze. And while the back corner of your local Wal-Mart Supercenter has been gearing up for this momentous holiday slaughter since about mid-March, only now has the back corner of your mind been cleared away to feel the full gravity of the situation: What the hell am I going to buy for people this year?

Fret not, ye television-less warrior. LivingWithoutTV has cleverly gathered ideas to fill your merry holiday sack with tidings that reflect your own amazing sense of individuality and thoughtfulness this season.

$50 and under

As Vanilla Ice once said, “Anything less than the best is a felony.” Just because you don’t want to spend more than $50 on any of your friends doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice quality. DVDs and T-shirts are always a treat, so don’t settle for cheap imitations.

My top picks for DVDs include:

Flight of The Conchords – The Complete First Season ($29.98)

Please tell me you have watched this show. Earlier this year when HBO aired the series and with multiple episode upload links abound, I spent countless nights laughing myself to tears. However, HBO, knowing the awesome power that is The Conchords, began to curb show uploads and now, you can only view a scant few of the episodes online. In regards to this gift giving season, though, all the more reason to buy the DVD set, which only became available earlier this month. Buy the set, along with a ton of other sweet Chonchords swag at http://store.hbo.com.

Lost – The Complete Third Season ($38.99)

I know what you’re thinking: “Why would I buy this, if I can watch every single episode from the comfort of my computer?” To which calmly reply, “Shizz. Umm, no idea. That’s some friggin’ solid logic right there.”

I do know that for anyone who absolutely loves this show, having the physicality of a box set is golden. Bonus features are always a draw for the die hard fan and liner notes are like orgasm fodder. This one won’t be out until December 11th, but preorders are being taken, so get on it now before everyone else does.

My top picks for T-Shirt Stores are:

www.BustedTees.com ($13.99 and up)

Hilarious shirt designs with a pretty large selection. But not too large, so you won’t have to worry about getting sidetracked from your mission. Actually I’ve been secretly wishing upon stars that someone would have the ingenious brain to order something for me from this store. Hint.

http://www.80sTees.com ($9.99 and up)

Nostalgia galore! If you liked television when it was good, there’s a good chance that you’re nostalgic about it now – what with all the garbage you’ve got to deal with on the tube. www.80sTees.com provides the much needed solace of reprinted insignias from good old TV-n-Movie yesteryear. Does your best friend Steve really need a classic Voltron tee, or superfly Aquaman hoodie? No. But having one would still be pretty sha-weet.

Alright, that’s about it for now. I’ll be back soon to give you the skinny on higher-priced goods, but for now, batten down the hatches: we’re in for a long holiday slay-ride.

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Oh yeah, as an aside, last month I was playing around and opened up my own low-budge Cafepress T-shirt shop. Free. Check it out.

Grounded Teen Hires Hitman to Kill Parents

Living Without TV Gets Dangerous

All I can say is, Wow. I’m pretty sure this was once an episode of South Park or something. Read the full article here:

Mother’s sting catches son, Cory Ryder, ‘hiring hitman to kill her’ (Times)

Just plain ridiculousness. Did this kid really plan to merely murder his parents and live happily ever after, sipping red bull and playing PS3? Wow.

This has got me thinking, in addition to ways of watching TV over the internet, I should start posting ideas for alternatives to television altogether. Articles like, “How to Sucessfully Chill the F*** out, Kid” or “Talking to Friends the Old Fashioned Way: NOT Over a LAN.”

GOD! If kids can’t go a measly couple weeks with no TV without literally killing someone, how can I feel my fight towards liberation of the masses from television is even worth fighting for. Jee-Zus. I think I need to lie down.

Watch Heroes Online … The Un-sponsored Video Site

Watching TV online isn’t nearly as hard as it used to be. When sites first started to realize that streaming television shows through your web browser was not only possible, but also convenient and in some cases preferred, there was a deluge of corporate “the-end-is-near” and “it’s just a slippery-slope” hullabaloo from the networks.

Now you can watch the latest episode of every major network’s top grossing shows – off network websites! (just look how you’ve grown!)

I guess once the network hot shots understood that there was really nothing they could do about the internet brutally raping them upside their primary asset-hole, they just laid back and took it.

NBC’s hit show Heroes, however, was far ahead of the rape game. I remember watching the first episode of the series (Season 1, “Genesis”) streaming on Yahoo! Video as a sponsored link – BEFORE it aired on TV!

Way to take it like a man, NBC.

No doubt this early viral release helped to quickly launch the show into the pop cultural stratosphere. Today, you can watch episodes of Heroes straight off of the NBC website, which is cool because you don’t have to pay for it, but as one who is accustomed to life of non-corporate sponsored commercial-less streaming, the brief interjection of 30-second ads for Dove Body Wash every five minutes can get irritating pretty quickly.

So how can you watch the Cheerleader save the world … commercial free? Check these out:

WatchHeroesOnline.net was a pretty easy find, especially with a domain name like that. On the upside, it usually updates pretty quickly, though on the down side, it usually lists only one link per episode. Cucirca.com is a little more comprehensive. It regularly provides at least two links per episode and actually also provides link lists for other hit shows such as Lost, Prison Break, Grey’s Anatomy, and Desperate Housewives.

Still, I wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the most recent episode of Heroes on these sites until …

This little known Heroes Blog may not have very many good links, but the most recent one works – resolution-wise – and that’s good enough for me. It’s got subtitles en Espanol, but if you can stand those, it’s a pretty minor trade off for mini-internetrical commercial breaks.

So there it is – just another advocation for we, the mighty race of viewers, Living Without TV.

Update: I stand corrected. The Heroes Blog links aren’t all that great anymore. Just check out Heroes on ol’ faithful – Alluc.org.

Video Sites that Aren’t Woth My Time

No Sir, I Don’t Like It.

I used to think that the television programming of my formative youth was much better formulated – and light years cooler – than anything they had on TV for kids today. Now that the internet has provided the super-heroic ability to travel through time and revisit shows of my past, I realized that I was just too stupid to know that what the television fed me was pure horse’s-hit. Sometimes literally.

Today I don’t settle for crap. There are literally dumptruck-loads of garbage sites out there claiming to better serve me in my TV’n'cable-less apartment journey, though few of them work well enough to be worth my time. I try to sift the litter for my readers and present at least half-way decent stuff.

Here are a few links that I have deemed “Somewhat Acceptible” or “Shows Promise in the Future” (Click the links if you want to be semi-disappointed):

OmegaTube.com

OmegaTube sucks for TV. It has a measly link list of barely 20 shows and a lot of them don’t work. Same for Cartoons. Pathetic.

On the upside, OmegaTube does have a pretty OK link list of movies with relatively high quality – so if you’ve got more than 21 minutes to kill, it might be worth your time to scroll through their movies and check out what you would be otherwise spending your hard-earned moolah on at the local Blockbuster Video (or NetFlix, if you still like that kinda stuff).

I’m pretty sure OmegaTube and Vidlist.net are in cahoots because they have very similar video players and layouts and link to each other in strategic places, so you probably won’t be any more amazed by Vidlist than you will be with Omegatube.

OmegaTube.com = Vidlist.net (different site, same mediocrity).

TIOTI (Formerly Tape It On The Internet)

I really, really wanted to like this site. Really. It’s so beautiful … and colorful … and easy-to-use. It has a very MySpace-y sense of togetherness and community, with hip little avatar spokes-cartoon-people that make you want to [heart] TV in the same unconditional way that they do. I signed up straightaway, without testdriving, and figured out pretty quickly that life on the net is not about being “cool” or “hip.”

Fact is, a lot of their links are broken. And when it comes down to it, working show links are all I really cared about in the first place. I mean, seriously, when links on TIOTI do work, they work well. But I don’t want to have to spend 30 minutes searching for ones that work. Period.

If you like, check them out in a couple of months when they get theirs-hit together.

Miro Player (formerly Democracy Player)

Finally, people have been raving and been all clenched fists all up in the air about the new Miro Player (formerly Democracy player), but frankly, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I mean I get it, the potential is there for greatness, especially with it’s simple one-click rss-ing all over the place lately.

But the thing is, most of the content you can access through the player is of the insanely low vblog and backyard digital camera vidpodcast quality. Until the videomaking community is able to truly harness the power of working together to create killer content, I might as well just the watch stupid home videos right off the sites that Miro pulls it’s search feeds from.

Anyway, don’t you worry, reader. I will not rest until I find better internet video sites and services for you to access. Your honorable actions of chucking your Television out of your apartment window and refusing to pay the cable guy have not been in vain. Patience, my friends, patience.

In the meantime, I did find an episode of Ren and Stimpy archived at Nick.com for your viewing pleasure (which is what spurned on my whole “TV of my youth” rant at the beginning of this article). Enjoy.

Conan Priest Stalker, still not on air

Apparently Conan O’Brien, who is still not working due to the current Writers Strike has recently been stalked by a dangerous deviant of society – a priest (surprise!).

Check out the full article here:

Priest Accused of Stalking Conan O’Brien (article)

I really hope this psycho doesn’t kill Conan. There has been a resurgence in the buzz lately about Conan taking over the Tonight Show in 2009 because Leno is scheduled to retire (though it doesn’t seem like Leno wants to anymore because retirement won’t support his baddass jet-propelled chopper addiction. Or his chin.) and NBC promised the show to Conan back in the day. If Conan gets murdered, this transaction definitely won’t transpire.

A lot of people have expressed that they have fallen into the safety and routine of Leno’s Tonight Show hill of crap and wouldn’t continue to watch the show if Conan steps in because his antics are ‘childish’. These people are old and don’t matter much.

What does matter is that the hoard of youthful television-viewing teens of the consumer age, who have the collective power to make instant stars and cash cows out of ‘childish’ Disney nobodies, will ultimately identify with Conan much quicker than they will with Leno – once Conan is aired in a slot that is before their bedtimes.

But again, all of this won’t be worth jack sch-crumpets if this stalker priest guy has his way with Conan. So, I beg of you, most holy psychopathic fan: Please don’t murder Conan O’Brien!

The Great Television Writers Strike of 2007! Yay!!

Ok. By now, just about everyone has heard about the Great Television Writers Strike of 2007(!). If not, here it is:

Writers Strike Sends Shows into Reruns (Associated Press)

Or you could just search “Writers Strike” in your favorite browser-friendly search-enginemobile. There are tons of people saying how terrible this strike is, especially for the writers, who will ultimately not win in the end. And abiding by my duty to head upstream against popular opinion, I stand by my opinion that a long, drawn out and worthless end to this whole debacle will be a good thing in the end.

Lord knows that the last writers strike only led to bad things. For example, Reality TV. When the writers decided to strike in the 80′s networks scrambled to find shows that didn’t require writing at all. Hence, the retarded shows we have now. Who knows what kind of ridiculous mutant rerun-alternative incarnation will be spawned from the hellfire of this current strike zone?

Whatever it is that grows in the place of quality writing this time will only be worse, and from my point of view, that’s a wonderful thing.

The tides are changing for television. The interactivity of the internet has not only made the world a smaller place, but has also proven the effectiveness of groupthinking and creation communities. Just take a look at any open forum, or the success of such sites as Threadless.com. The reason why writers are being paid less for their ideas is because ideas are no longer so hard to come by.

And why should television refuse to tap into the obvious power of community and the internet? Because of stubborn striking writers who think their ideas are god.

The current writers strike only confirms that the age of television is taking its final bows. The only possibility for an encore lies not in television’s willingness to bow down to writers’ demands, but to incorporate interactivity and the leveraging of community ideas instead.

And if not, I’m sure there will soon be more than enough willing recruits for my army of adventurers into the realm of Living Without TV.

The Office & Sidereel.com

Hey Everybody. So last night, I heard a small sliver of conversation over yonder while browsing the ~98% off section in my local Borders Books & Music & Starbucks. It went a little something like this:

“Hey did you see that new episode of The Office?“

And even though I was nowhere near being part of this conversation, my body fought passionately against the urge to blurt out – “No, I totally forgot that the new season started! G.dammit! That’s practically a whole month worth of hilarity that I’ve completely missed already!” Blame it on not having a TV.

Ok, sorry. I guess you can’t blame it on not having a TV, especially when there are fine sites like Sidereel.com to keep you up to date on all the hottest shows. Sidereel even has some HQ links for the shows and movies listed and offer about seven links for any one episode – so if you see one that’s not up to your standards, screw it and move on to the next one.

So if you have, like me, been missing the new season of The Office (or the new season of just about anything on the tube lately), you have no excuse! Go to Sidereel now – and pee your pants in high definitious joy that you will never again have to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations only to realize that you’ve been missing the timeless dramady that has been rolling out every Thursday (9/8c) since September!!

Alluc.org – Everything and More.

Alright, let’s kick this off. When I first moved into my new place about a year ago, I lived solely off an internet connection and a dream. No TV – just the sweet sounds of roadwork and freeway buzz. It’s still like that today.

In order to get my TV fix I’d go online and find sites that were streaming full episodes of old shows. There were a few sites that were technically immune to copyright lawsuits because they merely provided comprehensive link lists of other sites who did the actual infringing. In the beginning it was all about PeekVid. For awhile it was THE source for online episodes, until it started popping sh-tuff up all over the place and having ridiculously slow loading times. The site has gotten a little better since then and has a TON of episodes listed in their archive, but if it came down to it, I probably wouldn’t bet my Mr. T bobble-head on a particular link working or not.

When PeekVid reached its … well, apex, I promptly switched to another similar site: Alluc.org. Overall the layout of this site is much more easily navigated and it lists pretty much any show you would want to see (except for some pretty old ones – and they even have quite a few of those, too). Unfortunately, there are signs that posters on the site are running out of options as far as video hosts allowing copyrighted content on their servers, as many of the recently posted links are from the sometimes-reliable-sometimes-not, Japanese-based, Tudou.com.

For the current moment, Alluc.org is probably the best bet for watching your favorite TV shows online. It’s updated constantly and they’re pretty good at cleaning up broken links. But as the big bad TV corporations start to catch wind of more foul-smelling, copyright-infringing video hosts, we television abandonment enthusiasts will have to look forward to scarcer live links and longer loading times.

Oh well, we’re OK for now. Just click a link, press pause and go make your ultra health conscious Easy Mac in the micro while it loads. Then enjoy.