11-13-07

The UPS in Petaluma will be making its holiday deliveries with electric trucks from Zap.

Al Gore has become a Bay Area venture capitalist. He has joined Kleiner Perkins in financing global warming solutions. They will be funding green technology startups, and Gore will be advising on which companies and technologies are the most promising. He sees California as a model for green tech for the rest of the country to follow.

Too bad the strike is keeping the Colbert Report in repeats, I'd love to see his response to the Virginia election. He was a write-in candidate for a seat on the Soil and Water Conservation Board (but he isn't eligible to take the seat because he isn't a registered voter in that district).

Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore) is coming back to TV. She has been cast in a Fox Atomic comedy called "Ticket to Ride" about a woman who moves back home to her wacky family after college while she tries to figure out what to do next.

Pine trees are being cloned for forestry to provide disease resistant, uniform trees. This makes me nervous.

FutonCritic has a much more complete grid of the strike impact on scripted shows (# ordered, # shot, final date scheduled to air so far, # remaining).

I'm glad I don't count on CBS for my news: they are facing a strike too. The strike authorization vote will be held at the end of this week.

The FCC wants to regulate cable. They think that viewership has reached the level where the 1984 deregulation no longer applies. There is now an argument over whose statistics are correct (FCC says 70%, cable says 58%). If the FCC has their way, expect to see them push for a la carte programming, less "offensive" programming, and more control over pricing (to consumers and programmers). While I wouldn't mind lower costs and more choices over channel selection, I want them to stay away from content. I found this at both Yahoo and The Washington Post.

Next month, Buckaroo Bonzai will return as a 2-part prequel comic written by the original screenwriters.

Speaking of comics, ever wanted to read the original Spider-Man, X-Men or Fantastic 4 without tracking down and paying collectors prices for the comics? Marvel is putting them online for viewing (if you pay a monthly fee).

The Japanese moon probe has captured a great new Earth-rise photo in hi-def.

There are rumors (and massive spoilers) all over the place about the new Star Trek movie. Based on the rumors, Harlan Ellison is pissed that they are stealing his material without asking. If that isn't enough of a spoiler, you can find plot spoilers here and details of the reaction here.

DVRs for tonight:
8pm Bones
9pm House & Reaper