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So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

Artifex

Familiar Face
Messages
90
Location
Nottingham, GB
Regarding metric, imperial (and my favourite: The furlong-firkin-fortnight system), I'd make an entirely different complaint.

Metric (and SI) is wonderful because so many conversion factors turn out to be trivial. A full agricultural water carrier shaped like a one-metre cube will hold one thousand litres and have a mass of one tonne. It will weigh ten kilonewtons and exert a pressure of ten kilopascals on whatever is supporting it. If you hang it from a hook, it will swing back and forth once per second. If you drop it, it will accelerate at ten metres-per-second². All that is lovely.

However, I like the lengths of inches and feet. Using metric lengths to describe things always seems to end up with either too great a precision, or too little. If every length in the metric system were two-and-a-half times bigger, it would be much friendlier. Of course, it would be even better if the entire world changed over to counting in base twelve at the same time. Perhaps I should write a letter to the ICWM, and ask them to change it...
 
Messages
12,731
Location
Northern California
The WE (Women’s Entertainment) Channel’s programming of trash reality lineup. Sure, they have Law & Order, but from the commercials they run, it appears that they believe that women would rather watch reality shows dealing with dysfunctional relationships over anything else. Stupid.
:D
 
Messages
16,814
Location
New York City
The WE (Women’s Entertainment) Channel’s programming of trash reality lineup. Sure, they have Law & Order, but from the commercials they run, it appears that they believe that women would rather watch reality shows dealing with dysfunctional relationships over anything else. Stupid.
:D

If we are complaining about cable channels, Ovation has some really good movies, but it is impossible to watch them without recording them first as the commercials run for several minutes at a time and increase in number as the movie moves along. I respect that some channels make their living with commercials, but the model of putting five or six minutes of commercials after every fifteen or so minute so movies is so off-putting that it forces viewers to the DVR.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
32,962
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
The old-chestnut sitcom reruns you get on MeTV, Antenna TV, and other de-facto old-people channels these days are generally cut down to about seventeen minutes of program content per half hour -- from an original program run time of about 23-24 minutes depending on the era of the series. That plays havoc with any show that has any kind of complex plot, let alone what it does to comic timing. It's also disqueting to jump in on a show you've seen eight thousand times before over the past fifty years and know what's coming next -- only it doesn't come next, it dissolves quick to a scene that you know comes later.

No wonder the commercials you see on these channels are all for confused-old-person stuff -- especially that one Big Pharma thing that's selling a drug designed to stop dementia-driven hallucinations. "I could *swear* Sgt. Schultz ate strudel in this scene -- but he's not even *in* the scene! I better call the doc, and get me some of them pills!"

Another big sponsor on these channels in our area is a local discount furniture joint, "The Furniture Superstore! The Furniture Superstore!" This outfit is the ultima thule of crass-and-tacky marketing. When I turned on the TV one night and saw these two fat white guys bellowing about their "Martin Luther King Mattress Special" without the slightest sense of inappropriateness, I realized we were well within sight of rock bottom.
 
Messages
16,814
Location
New York City
And for a variation on the theme, has anyone else noticed that different cable channels seem to be aligned as to when they run commercials so that you can't even hop around during the commercials to catch bits of other shows. Not that I watch any of these shows, but "a friend" tells me he watches repeats of "That '70s Show" and during the insane number of commercial breaks in that show, if he goes to "Cold Case" or "Family Guy" or similar shows on similar channels they are all running commercials at the exact same time. It can't be a coincidence.
 

Lean'n'mean

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,077
Location
Cloud-cuckoo-land
And for a variation on the theme, has anyone else noticed that different cable channels seem to be aligned as to when they run commercials so that you can't even hop around during the commercials to catch bits of other shows. Not that I watch any of these shows, but "a friend" tells me he watches repeats of "That '70s Show" and during the insane number of commercial breaks in that show, if he goes to "Cold Case" or "Family Guy" or similar shows on similar channels they are all running commercials at the exact same time. It can't be a coincidence.

They're all in cahoots to prevent zapping. ;)
 

Bruce Wayne

My Mail is Forwarded Here
The old-chestnut sitcom reruns you get on MeTV, Antenna TV, and other de-facto old-people channels these days are generally cut down to about seventeen minutes of program content per half hour -- from an original program run time of about 23-24 minutes depending on the era of the series. That plays havoc with any show that has any kind of complex plot, let alone what it does to comic timing. It's also disqueting to jump in on a show you've seen eight thousand times before over the past fifty years and know what's coming next -- only it doesn't come next, it dissolves quick to a scene that you know comes later.

No wonder the commercials you see on these channels are all for confused-old-person stuff -- especially that one Big Pharma thing that's selling a drug designed to stop dementia-driven hallucinations. "I could *swear* Sgt. Schultz ate strudel in this scene -- but he's not even *in* the scene! I better call the doc, and get me some of them pills!"
You just described me & M*A*S*H to a T.
 

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