TV
Tonight at Ethan's regular TV night, we saw the worst episode yet of Jeremiah, titled "Ring of Fire" or something like that. It was terrible, even by the low standards previously set by this series. Very sad; I think the premise has a lot of potential, but they're not delivering on that potential. My new strategy may be to read the blurbs for the episodes ahead of time, and not watch unless the episode's related to the ongoing big-picture story. Another strategy would be to skip the rest of the season and just watch the finale. Another would be to give up on the show entirely; I want to know how it comes out, but I'm not sure I want to know badly enough to watch more episodes like tonight's.
But afterward, Ethan showed a RealPlayer video he'd bought from the New York Times (if I could find the page, I'd point to it): an hour-plus-long interview/chat show, apparently filmed in January, in which Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Peter Jennings of ABC News's World News Tonight are interviewed by a Times critic or something (who, sensibly, mostly got out of the way and let Jennings and Stewart talk). I've always heard good things about Jennings, but now I have even more respect for him: he's got integrity, tact, intelligence, a clear strong commitment to good journalism, and—most surprisingly—a great sense of humor. (He reads The Onion!) Jennings and Stewart were both extremely funny, both quick and sharp and entertaining and interesting. And serious; the show included video clips of Jennings's original live 9/11 coverage, and of Stewart's first broadcast after 9/11 (nine days later), in which he was passionate and serious, and cried on-camera.
I've heard plenty of good things about Stewart, too, including descriptions of that episode; and given what I saw of him tonight, I'd like to see his show. He was great for the first two-thirds of this interview. Unfortunately, things got a little bogged down in the final third when Stewart couldn't seem to get off the topic of how evil 24-hours news shows are for being sensationalist and trying to be entertainment rather than news; he made several valid points, but then he made them over and over again, and it got a little old after a while. And wasn't nearly as funny or interesting as the rest of the show.
Still, well worth seeing.
In other news, I went to Arthur & Pam's bridal party in the park on Saturday; much fun, many cool people. Not much to say about it, though. More generally, not much going on in my life right now, other than work, magazine stuff, reading, occasional hanging out with friends, learning more about databases and dynamic Web pages, the usual. Nothing terribly exciting, and no, that's not a request; I can use a slow period.
Okay, now I'm really going to bed.