Adam's Blog

I got scammed. I got a text message yesterday that said "Free Msg from Verizon Wireless: We have new calling plans for UNLIMITED text to anyone in the US. Requires new customer agreement. Call 877-256-XXXX. To opt out reply X." This type of message is not completely unseen on my phone network. I've gotten a few "notice"-type emails in the few years I've been with Verizon, so before I even really knew what I was doing, I quickly replied "X" and hit send. And then I saw it: "Sending message to 9000XXX03671" I realized what had happened. I had just texted 900-XXX-0036. And unfortunately, 900 numbers can charge, according to Verizon up to $25 or more for this type of thing. I IMMEDIATELY dialed 611 to talk to Verizon. Much the same way that if I complain with American Express, they can withhold payment from a merchant, I wondered, can Verizon refuse to square up on what was obviously a spam text scam? Yes and no, apparently. The helpful rep I spoke with, "Sarah," told me she could "flag" my account for a follow up when the billing cycle ends, but the agents cannot see live data and couldn't see...

Billy Corgan's greatest fear, I believe, can be summed up in one word: irrelevance. He got his first taste of that on June 12, 2005, when he released his first solo disc, cryptically entitled "TheFutureEmbrace." Prior to that misstep, Corgan was frontman of the worldwide sensation Smashing Pumpkins, a band whose contributions helped shaped rock in the 1990s. But for a short period, Corgan, who fancied himself a poet and an artist, looked more like a wannabe college art-student who believes his ramblings profound. Thus, he took out a full page page ad in The Chicago Tribune telling the world his intention to reform The Smashing Punpkins. Fast forward two years, and here were are, mere weeks before Smashing Pumpkins' album 6 (or, arguably, 7), "Zeitgeist," is released. We barely know who is featured on this album beyond Billy and his ever-present cohort, Jimmy Chamberlain, who arguably adds as much to the immediately identifiable Pumpkins' sound as Billy himself (we learned within the last week that SP now features new members Jeff Schroeder on guitar and Ginger Reyes on bass). This month, the first single, "Tarantula," was released to radio, and subsequently, the Internet via iTunes. So, what is the...

This weekend, I saw "Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End," the third, and reportedly final (but probably not final) installment in the Pirates of the Carribean franchise. Last weekend, I saw "Shrek the Third" and just weeks ago I saw "Spider-man 3." I am also excited for The Bourne Ultimatim, another "part 3." All of these movies were tremendously exciting events for me, but unfortunately, more than anything right now, I feel let down. The concept of a sequel is genius: take a storyline people love, bring back the characters for another adventure, or feature a new group of characters in the same place or going through the same challenge. Whatever the case is, most sequels are, in essence, "the continuing adventures of..." Sometimes, like with Back to the Future II, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, or The Empire Strikes Back, the story becomes richer and more intricate. Your audience appreciates this. Sometimes, though, Hollywood thinks we need to be out-thrilled, or further amazed, or that they need to entertain us beyond a quality tale story. I like to say that too often, the story gets lost amongst "the killer phrase." The "killer phrase," as I've dubbed...

There is currently a headline on Digg today entitled "LOST's Producer Breaks "Radio Silence" to Reveal Why Charlie Died and More." If you read the comment (which on Digg, are all too frequently inane rants rolled with inside jokes), you'l see the poor submitter getting roasted for his title, which includes a "spoiler." Wikipedia calls a spoiler "A spoiler is a summary or description of a narrative (or part of a narrative) that relates plot elements not revealed early in the narrative itself." In colloquial use, a spoiler is revealing something either as yet unrevealed or any major plot twist. Today is Saturday and people are complaining that the headline contains a spoiler, that Charlie died. Forget for a moment that anyone who has seen Lost in the last few months knew this moment was coming - my question is, "is this actually a spoiler?" By strictist definition, Darth Vader being revealed as Luke's father is a spoiler, despite its presence as a pop culture reference. By loosest definition, spoilers are revealed every day. First off, the submitter on Digg was quoting an article on E Online, which, for the record, shared the same title. Secondly, well over 1,000 people...

Much like the internet phenomenon "LOLcats," comes today's Fark featurette, "LOLPresidents." Check them out:

Today, blog after blog will be discussing the season finale of Lost and a great many of them will be comparing it to Heroes. So I'm going to contribute to the fray with my comparison. Read more for the details.

I post to the "sethadam1.com link blog" throughout the day. The entries are VERY brief and I am going to try to be descriptive about each link. So, if you are intested, here is an RSS feed for the sethadam1.com link blog. The link blog is also accessible here.

EW.com doesn't work for me anymore in Opera. At least, not properly. In their "TV Watch" section, the comments are an inserted iframe that is built via javascript. This is the script that does it: var boardUnrounded = Math.random() * 10000000000; var boardRounded = Math.floor(boardUnrounded); var boardDisplayPath = "http://epoche.ew.com/articles/comments?article_key=20039591&brand_key=3& article_title=Things+Fall+Apart&rand=" + boardRounded; // alert( boardDisplayPath ); document.write( '[iframe id="iframe" src="' + boardDisplayPath + '" width="0" height="0"' ); document.write( 'style="position: fixed; top: -1000px; left:-1000px;"' ); document.write( '][/iframe]' ); Notice how the alert() function commented out, but still there; some sloppy debugging left around for us. Notice how the comments are loaded dynamically. What is the purpose of this? Why the random number? Could it be to ensure refreshes on each page load? Either way, between document.write and the iframe, the page consistently renders around the comments, and then the comments come smashing in. Except in Opera, when they simple don't show up at all. There are also javascript errors by default in the normal page load, IE chokes on some ad code, and Opera modifies the javscript over and over to make it not crash, and their CSS is a mess. In short, the entire thing is ridiculous. I don't understand...

I went to camp in Pennsylvania in the late 1980s, and I was friends with many people there, most of whom are now mere memories. But several years later, I somehow found a Yahoo! Group with many of my fellow campers, and then I built a website for the camp alumni. After a server crash in December 05, one for which I was completely unprepared, sadly, I lost most of the data. So in the last week, I finally got around to rebuilding everything, but rather than host the photos, I decided to create a group on Flickr. I posted all of my camp pics. Many are of people I was once friends with, but have long since lost touch with, or worse, forgotten. Imagine my surprise when I got an email from an old counselor who wrote to tell me "the "some dude" posted in your pictures is Damon Lindeloff. The same Damon Lindeloff that is co-creator of the TV Show - Lost." (c) 1990, Adam Scheinberg, some_dude.jpg, originally uploaded by Adam and Jennifer. I thought to myself - really? So I did a quick scan over to google images to check out what Damon Lindelof looks like. Lo...

If you want an example of how NOT to write a website, go no further than the disasterous ew.com. Entertainment Weekly is a magazine to which I subscribe. It contains generally good interviews and articles about TV, movies, books, and all sorts of other cultural phenomena. For a long time, one of the more compelling aspects of the subscription was the website, which includes the oft updated "Pop Watch Blog" and the daily "TV Watch" section. First, let's examine the URLs. From time to time, I want to email someone a link to an interesting piece. It would be nice to say "ew.com/tvwatch." But alas, that doesn't work. This cryptic URL scheme is often used by big companies, but sucks for search engine standing: http://www.ew.com/ew/tv/tv_watch/0,,,00.html is a valid URL. So let's review: http://www.ew.com -> base URL /ew/ -> a servlet, perhaps? /tv/ -> a subdirectory, or an argument? /tv_watch/ -> same as above... 0,,,00.html -> why God, why? Aside from this, the webmasters decided to use two different commenting systems in the site, one for the Pop Watch Blog and one for TV watch and other articles. At least one is based on Typead, and it sucks with a capital...