I admit that I like watching TV and some day I will buy a nice big TV. That way I can see great depth and amazing pictures weather it be concerts or movies. I can't afforid HD TV's or Flat screens. But even if I could I wouldn't but one of those slim flatscreen TV's for one reason alone; their adds. They also show these thin little TV's and how littlespace they take up. But they leave out the fact that to watch a movie you need a cable box, satelite box, VCR, or DVD player. Also in the adds the TVs never plug in either. Those ads really piss me off. The reason is that they are trying to sell you on how the TV looks on a wall and the picture. But the fact is that it dosn't really look like that. They really piss me off with that crap. I have seen some clever ads that I did like but those had to do with the picture its self. On another note I read a good interview of Henery Rollins in artvoice. I'm going to his Spoken word tour. I know a couple other (e:peeps) are going to. I hope to meet them, that would be cool if I did. I wonder what he will talk about. This is my first spoken word tour of anyone I've been to. I have seen comedians but that is differant.

I found this blog through nhl.com it sent me to the Sabres site. It is there starting goalie Ryan Miller's blog. I read a couple of his posts. I was there looking for hockey pictures. I would love to post some pictures of goalies making saves or being burnt or comitting roberies in net. I did think about going to last nights game. I spent money buying food and wrestling DVD's on line and I finaly bought my hatebreed ticket so I figured i had spent plenty of money so I would watch the game for free. I think the next game on TV is wendsday I think it is a special game in Rochester. I noticed some great seats open at last nights game. I don't know if they where open cause people where getting food or couldn't make it, but I would love to sit that close. One of my goals this year is to go to a game and take some pictures and even if they are crappy post them. Sports pictures (for me atleast) are very tough to take. Digital Delay is hard to guess at. For example a car is 20 feet away the camara sees it then you see it on the screen then you press the button then by that time the car might only be 10 feet away (based on how fast it is moving) then you press the button the camara waits takes the picture and the car is a foot away. I guess it is like throwing a pass you don't through the ball to where the reciever is, you pass it to where he is going to be. For me it is complete guess work some pics come out great and some not so great or at least not what I was trying to get.

This is a badly taken picture of a picture of Niagara Falls from the i think 1998 but i thought it might be older then that but it says 98 at the bottom of it. It is kinda a retrospective. Maybe I should have gone to see the wall at the knox yesterday. Oh well pregame starts soon.

Today I got to sleep in, that was nice. I walked down Elmwood and bought tickets to Hatebreed's early November show at the showplace, Opeth is playing the day after them I may go see them. Home of the Hits is a cool record store. So then I walked down to tops on Grant St. and bought some food about 40 dollars worth of frozen and canned stuff and chips and Pop for the Football games and Sabres Game tonight. That Steelers vs. Bengels game could be amazing The Greenbay game might be verry good to. I kinda want to find a cable movie to watch in a few minutes but not sure what movie I will pick. Hopefully I will be posting some more Buffalo pics soon.

I thought some of you might like to see some pictures I took on a previous walk down elmwood of some nice cars.

Ever since I have seen the first episode of South Park I have thought it was great. I liked the move they did and also thought "Team America World Police" was great also. Basketball was ok but I think the idea was good. South Park has changed over time. One thing I love is how they will put in recent issues. The shivo episode was one of my favorites. I think putting in current issues makes it funnier and it also marks it as a certain point in time. A lot of Cartoons don't do that. I know it has to be tough to come up with new ideas. I think this article interview is interesting. I wish I would have bought the first season on DVD. If you bought it from Comedy Cental they gave you CD's with there comentary track. I guess some of what they said bashed the DVD distrubtion company. I think it would have been great to hear. I hope south park can inspire others to push the envelope and be funny and get a big audiance, and continue to be funny.

In the topical world of 'South Park,' the weekly deadlines never end
By JAKE COYLE
Associated Press
10/21/2005



Trey Parker and Matt Stone, right, are in their ninth season.

NEW YORK - With the political relevance of "The Daily Show" and the huge DVD sales (and subsequent hiatus) of "Chappelle's Show," it's easy to forget about that other Comedy Central show, "South Park."
But Matt Stone and Trey Parker's crude cartoon began its ninth season this week, and it remains the network's most-watched program. It is, perhaps, the most manic thing on TV, with entire episodes created just days before they air.

With a ripped-from-the-headlines approach, it's the "Law & Order" of comedy. The first episode, "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow," tackled Hurricane Katrina - by way of the neighboring town flooding.

Parker, who turned 36 Wednesday, and Stone, 34, last month inked a deal for three more seasons and "South Park" has begun appearing in syndication in some markets - both of which assure the world of Cartman, Stan, Kyle and the rest will continue to expand.

Q: Cartman once described independent movies as "gay cowboys eating pudding." Now we have "Brokeback Mountain," an upcoming movie by Ang Lee about gay cowboys.

Stone: If they have pudding in that movie, I'm going to lose my mind.

Parker: No, if there's pudding eating in there, we're going to sue.

Q: Are you guys prophets?

Stone: No, but Cartman is. (Laughs) We went to Sundance a lot in the mid-to-late '90s, and you could just tell it was going toward gay cowboydom.

Q: It's a fast process for you, isn't it?

Parker: It is. We take a lot of time before just to come up with the broad ideas, but until the Thursday before that Wednesday, that's when we really sit down and go "OK, how can we tell this story?" And it leaves us a lot of room, too. A lot of times on a Thursday, we'll sit down and go, "Hey, have you seen this Terri Schiavo thing? This is huge, we should do a story about that."

Q: Sometimes "South Park" is quite topical.

Parker: Yeah, the reason we're able to do that is it's still just Matt and I really doing most everything. We still write, direct and edit every episode ourselves. . . . We can sit there on a Tuesday night and (rewrite the third act), run in the booth next door, record all the voices, get the storyboards together, edit it and see it in a couple hours. It's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing, too, having done it almost nine years.

Q: Does the fast process backfire sometimes?

Stone: I actually think that makes the show better in a weird way. It's kind of a punk-rock ethic. Like albums that are too produced, you can tell they produced all the magic out of it.

Parker: It's a little more White Stripes.

Q: Are you surprised at the longevity of "South Park"?

Stone: It's totally crazy. When we first did the show, we thought it would be six episodes and then we'd be done - and now we're in our ninth season and signed up to do three more years.

Q: What do you do to keep it fresh?

Parker: It's so much fun, since we still do everything, you can sort of see our growth as writers. When we started this show, we knew how to do funny, outrageous stuff, but we didn't know how to write.

Q: Is there something you're personally sensitive about or is everything fair game?

Stone: We have a really funny breast cancer episode coming up. (Laughs) I just think it's not contradictory to make fun of something and be sensitive about it. It's just the way we examine the world. "Sensitive" isn't the right word, but we actually have thoughts and feelings about all this stuff; it's not just destruction-oriented.

Parker: Just last week we were on a plane and we were pretty positive we were going to die - and we were making jokes. It really, really felt like the end, and we were making jokes.

Q: Are you thinking about another movie?

Parker: Um, no.

Stone: "Team America" almost killed us. We'd like to figure out a way to do our own movies, but not die doing them, and maybe help some other people produce their movies, like graduate to the next level because we are getting up there in age.

Q: What about a live-action movie?

Stone: Like "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo"? (laughs) That's what we should do, really.

Parker: We could make so much money if we would just write scripts like that and go shoot them and put big stars in them. But, first of all, we hate actors. And second, I just can't imagine being on a set of a movie like "Deuce Bigalow."






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I think that insentives to help get more people from canada to shop in Buffalo is a great idea. I hope that this idea is carried on for other things as well. I know the sabres have a night where Candian money is taken at Par and The Bandits Had a game like that last Season Vs. The Toronto Rock. I hear adds on the radio for travel packages to Toronto. It would be great if Buffalo did the same thing. I think mall shopping is great and gets people to spend money here and that is more tax money that goes to the government. But I think that is is even better for local places like Home of The hits, or Urban to get buisness also. I think that it could be done during the summer as well. I know in toronto they have trips to Fallsviewcasino. I think it would be great if we could get some of those people to shop in Buffalo or even in NF usa or go to a concert at the Dome Theartre. I know Musicals and Plays often go to Toronto First. But if Buffalo could get some of them to come here first we might be able to get more vistors to the area. Or if Shea's had lower cost tickets then Toronto then we might be able to get people to come see a play and do something else like go to the falls or a Sabres game or something. I think this could be the start of something great, we shall see. The article below from the Buffalo news is interesting and sounds promising.

Canadians offered $50 if they stay overnight to shop here
By MICHELLE KEARNS
News Business Reporter
10/21/2005

A new regional collaboration of hotels and shops will give away $50 shopping certificates to encourage more Canadians to come spend the night and spend more of their increasingly-valuable dollars on this side of the border.
"I thought, "What the heck, we'll give it a try,' " said Ed Vidler, president of Vidler's 5 & 10, a 75-year-old store in East Aurora known for its old-fashioned penny-candy charm. "I call 'em the bonus extra. They're wonderful to have."

Vidler came to downtown Buffalo Thursday to speak during the formal announcement of the new $20,000 "Shopping is Hopping in Buffalo" effort, organized by the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The campaign will be promoted on the Toronto CHUM-FM radio station and by the local WNED public television station, which broadcasts to Canada, in hopes of selling 500 packages before the deal ends in March.

The $50 certificate is given with a hotel booking and works in the local shopping districts of East Aurora, Buffalo's Elmwood Village and Williamsville's Main Street and three of the area malls: Eastern Hills, Walden Galleria and McKinley Mall.

Next year, the bureau plans a second campaign to sell people in Southern Ontario on the idea of making a trip for the Frank Lloyd Wright houses and the other local art, architecture and culture features.

"We think that's a prime market for us," said Edward Healy, director of communications for the bureau.

Already the Walden Galleria reports that more cars with Canadian license plates have been appearing in the parking lot - 15 to 20 percent, compared to 8 to 12 percent a few years ago.

One hotelier, of Cheektowaga's Sleep Inn, called travel agents offering the new deal and got 14 bookings at $110 a night for November, an attractive month for its traditional "Black Friday" sales day after Thanksgiving.

For Torontonian Jamie Patterson, shopping in the Buffalo-area is an easy draw. His dollars are now worth about 85 cents to the American dollar compared to 60 cents of a few years ago.

As the man in charge of travel and retail marketing for the 1.5 million Ontario members of the Canadian Automobile Association, Patterson came to Buffalo and spoke at the WNED-TV studio in support of the new package.

After it was over he walked out to his car and talked about how he found a pair of Kenneth Cole pants for $40 at the Walden Galleria. He did a rough approximation of the cost and savings and said at home the pants would have been $70 in Canadian. Patterson had also been eyeing $85 watches that would have cost about $115 at home.

The selection seems better, too, he said. The Galleria says it has 76 stores, out of 211, that are unique to Buffalo.

"It just makes good sense," Patterson said of crossing the border to shop. "It's a nice trip."


e-mail: mkearns@buffnews.com