So I’ve already outlined how to set up your template and harvest your shows on Zap2it and how to make them look pretty.  Let’s talk about links.

There’s not really much to say.  There are 2 main sources- IMDB and Wikipedia.  IMDB has an entry for almost anything you can think of but they’re all very short and shallow.  Wikipedia has some gaps, but if there is one the entry usually contains something interesting.  To find stuff I use the internal search engines by cutting and pasting the havested titles.  They both suck.  You can do a better job with Google by preceding your search term with ‘IMDB’ or ‘Wiki’ because it’s much better at finding near matches.

What do you do when you can’t find something?  You can drop it, but having done all the work to get to this point I usually italicize it with ‘<i></i>’ and just move on.  If I have time (which I never do) I’ll use the other source and Google to chase it down, but that’s a lot of effort.  I usually find this happens with some of Turner Classic’s more obscure offerings, very new series, and Lifetime, Oxygen, and SciFi straight to TV movies.

So why bother?  Well firstly I look on it as a public service, especially during Holidays.  Since I spend so much time working on my computer and watching TV it’s very disruptive to concentrate on an unreliable TV Guide channel scroll of limited time coverage and tedious duration.

But the other reason is content.  As I’ve said many times there’s nothing sadder than a site that looks the same as the last time you visited.  This is something that you can set up somewhat in advance to cover the times when you’re too busy to do something substantial.

And now you too know how to fish.  No requirement to thank me, but attribution is appreciated.

This entry covers 6 am to 6 am.  Completed to 2 am.  Wikipedia temporarily down.  Complete.

Happy Thanksgiving.

And the Mysterons

Episode 1

Not sure how many of these are Tubed, but I ran across this one and the quality is excellent.

The news, such as it is, is mostly silly season speculation about who will be driving next year which is really the least entertaining and important part of the sport.  And at that the only real news is that Kubica’s rehabilitation may not be complete at the beginning of next season which is a problem mostly for him since his team has a deep and talented bench.

One interesting thing of note is that many of the backmarking teams spent a longer than usual time running practice laps and brought out some fiddly aero bits from next year’s machines.  This is indicative of the most pressing anti-competitive problem in Formula One which is that teams in general are not allowed to test enough because the weaker teams can’t afford to do it.

More than all the Downforce Reduction Systems and Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems in the world, if you really wanted to advance the fortunes of the non-scoring teams you’d allow them to do some real engineering and instead limit the amount of simulation time which as we’ve seen as they’ve struggled the last 2 years to integrate is no substitute.

This year was a boring replay of last year only more one sided and there is no reason to believe next year will be any different since the regulations are only changing in the direction of making the cars less durable and safe.  No tire you can put on the track is going to deteriorate fast enough to create real pit competition or a meaningful alternative race strategy.  Likewise all the aerodynamic changes are in the direction of making less downforce and the cars more difficult to steer and unstable.  Great if you like flaming chunks of twisted metal, not so good if you want lead changes and racing opportunities.

Stories to watch in the off season are the negotiation between Ecclestone and the teams on a new agreement and the continuing unfolding of big money financial scandals particularly in connection with the 2 new US tracks in Austin and New Jersey.  Bernie is already jacking Texas up for their multimillion dollar entry bribe which the Comptroller has refused to release because the contract has insufficient assurances the race will even be held.

I predict Austin is going to become the embarrassing step child and the track a billion dollar boondoggle of a white elephant.  NASCAR for good or ill (and mostly ill) dominates racing in the States supporting no less than 3 separate series in a weekend that pack the stands with boozy beer-drinking red necked boors who like their blood sport flaming chunks of twisted metal wrecks so much that they build them like bumper cars, bend the rules to force the drivers to drive them that way, and don’t care that they’re slow moving pieces of crap.

Good luck with that Bernie.

Maybe I’ll be surprised and something interesting will happen by tomorrow, but I don’t expect it.  If you want to find out more about Interlagos which if it wasn’t a track would be nothing but a malarial swamp, click the link.

A big day, with about 17 opportunities to see a dozen different games including THE Game.

There’s also some Football (9:30 am Manchester United @ Newcastle) and Formula One Qualifying (11 am).

So I’ve already explained that you should lay out a 24 hour list including the half hours that you can cut and paste your Zap2it channel listings into.  Now to make it pretty.

It may make it easier for you if you bold your time labels at that point with <b></b>, but if I’m in a time crunch (and I usually am) and updating, I find it just as well to do that as the very last thing to mark each section’s completeness.  In any event it’s best to put off any extra formatting until you’ve identified all the programs you want to highlight and pasted them into your outline.  If you’re going to do links like I do you’ll put the link square bracket shortcuts ([]) around each one as you harvest it.

Once you have a complete outline it’s time to apply your global HTML starting with your line endings.  I find using ‘Unordered Lists’ (<ul><li></li> … <li></li></ul>) creates an attractive presentation, so go to the end of your first entry line, type in the end of list element HTML (|</li>|), and copy it to your Clipboard (Ctrl-Ins).

Now use the Down Arrow and End keys to go to the end of each entry and paste (Shift-Ins).  During this pass you should also delete any unused time lables and extra lines you have used to visual seperate each block of entries.  If necessary you can stop at any arbitrary point and format the rest of your updated entries later.  For instance I’m doing this particular piece in 12 hour chunks so I stopped at 5:30 pm.

You’ll notice each channel label is bolded and ends with a dash (-).  I think the bolding makes it easier to read and the dash is so I can achieve this effect with a search and replace.  You simply load up your search with dash space, |- | (this cuts down on your false positives), and replace it with end bold HTML and your dash space, |</b>- | (so you don’t lose your dash space).

Then you get to put your start line code at the begining of each entry.  If you are bolding your channel label it looks like |<li><b>|, otherwise it’s just |<li>|.  Type it once, copy to the Clipboard (Ctrl-Ins), and use the Down Arrow and Home keys to paste it (Shift-Ins).  This goes pretty fast too.

Finally, make sure each time period list has the begining (|<ul>|) and end (|</ul>|) Unordered List HTML code at the … wait for it … begining and end.  If you don’t make sure your |<ul>| and |</ul>|s and |<li>| and |</li>|s match the results you get will be unexpected at best.

I haven’t talked yet about the links, but you do those last.  I’ll get to them tomorrow and I hope it will be shorter and less boring and detailed than today.

This covers the time period from 6 am to 6 am.  It’s currently complete until 3 pm.

Update: All done.

Reprinted from Wed Nov 14, 2007

I suppose I should come up with some Thanksgiving content but it’s kind of hard since it’s not such a big deal holiday for the Gilmores.

The menu is very traditional- Turkey, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Wild Rice, Baked Sweet Potatoes (that’s for me), Acorn Squash (also mine), Broccoli and Cauliflower (everybody likes that), Cranberry Sauce and Cranberry Jelly (the canned kind with the ridges in it, even have special serving pieces), Tossed Salad with 3 kinds of Dressing (all bottled), Jello Salad, Olives (black and cocktail), Sweet Pickles, Carrots, Celery, Cottage Cheese, and Gravy, Sour Cream and Butter.  Cheese and Crackers (at least 4 types of each), Mixed Nuts, Chips and Dip (California Onion, is there any other?) with wine and the finger food while the table is prepared, Apple and Pumpkin Pies (the audience is not at ALL the same) with Whipped Cream, Ice Cream, and Sharp Cheddar (for the Apple, really worth a try if you haven’t) for dessert.

I may have left out a couple, but I’m not as good as Emily.

Of the Turkey I get the giblets, the organ meat, which I like because they’re very different in flavor and texture from what you normally eat.  I’m not a vegetarian, I just like meatless Marinara better than ground beef Bolognese and if a meal doesn’t have meat in it that is so just not a big deal to me.

But the menus and rituals are very closely timed because it takes a while to turn out that kind of spread.  I won’t pretend the production staff is not segregated in it’s roles- Turkey preparation is ladies time from thawing it out as much as 2 days before (yeah it really takes that long for a big bird if you follow directions and do it in the refrigerator instead of cheating by soaking it in warm water- salmonela, isn’t he the Italian guy who lives down the street?).  None of that fancy Food Channel cooking neither, our Butterball is done when the thermometer pops up.

It is something of a rite of passage that moves around from house to house depending on the guest list.  My Aunty Mame will be visiting her daughter and family, so that will be a big deal, but the Gilmores are not traveling.

Nor will we be sticking to a schedule.  Since I’m currently not attached I get to do only the one on actual Thanksgiving with Richard and Emily (no Luke and the Kims for me this year).  My brother and sister and their emotional attachments will check in and out depending on their needs, one good thing about Thanksgiving food is that it re-heats real well.

So the meal will be peated and repeated all weekend until you are thoroughly sick of it, though I must admit a fondness for Turkey hash (Cranberry Sauce, Stuffing, and little broken Turkey bits in Gravy) over noodles or rice- that usually happens around Tuesday.  And the TV will suck too, all this Sports crap and Holiday Parade programming and the knowledge that it’s time to go out there and consume.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

More Holiday Memories.

Sarah Vowell thinks that Americans should be thanking the 11,000 loyal patriots who perished on British prison ships instead of some Mayflower-cruising Jesus freaks.

What?  You’re not shopping yet?  Don’t you know the whole Capitalist system not to mention our Galtian Overlords’ Rolexes depend on you spending yourself into bankruptcy?

Well good for you.

Today is the 20th Annual ‘Buy Nothing’ Day™, sponsored by Adbusters of #OWS fame, where we rebel in small ways and save ourselves a lot of aggravation and hassle by staying home and maybe watching some TV.

Each time I do this I have to remind myself what works and what doesn’t because frankly a ton of research goes into each one.

What I’ve discovered this year is that the largest amount of time goes into making the passes from one end to the other of my 40+ channel hot list, so it’s actually more efficient to cover a longer period of time than it is to break up the task into multiple segments.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that 6 am seems to be the common reset point for the day’s schedule.  Very few Marathons roll over past that point though some of the movie oriented stations will have a feature that persists through the transition.  If you can’t find it listed you might try yesterday’s effort and for immediate updates you can go directly to my source- Zap2it.

If you click on the link under the network name you see all the shows for the day.  You simply need to cut and paste the ones you’re interested in under the appropriate time label and your outline is done.  Tomorrow I’ll bore you with how to make it look pretty.

This particular schedule covers from 6 am to 6 am Black Friday.

This also is kind of a tough one.  Whom do I hate more?  The Dolphins or the Cowboys?

Cowboys.

Gee.  That wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.

This schedule will take you through your second Throwball game, dinner, and your early bird Black Friday.  It goes from 2 pm to 6 am so it covers your wake up time for regular Black Friday too.

I will have the next edition up by midnight, but I need to get my beauty sleep so I can follow Interlagos practice at 10 am Friday.

Busy weekend?  I have no idea what you’re talking about, I sit on my ass all day long.

Some things you may be picking up in medius res.  Check the previous posting.  Latest listings at Zap2it.

Updated to 6 am.