So Lou Dobbs has left CNN.  I’m not sure if this is a greater victory for Corrupt Capitalism or the Celebration of News Media.  I’m guessing he’ll show up on fox, he is a conservative and fox has been getting hammered for it’s nutters lately.  Best to sign a veteran moderate nutter to fill out the roster.

I’ve been taking in the late shows more then usual lately and while I should really sit down and pull out a blog entry just on my observations of the three shows on NBC this one is just about an interesting moment during the guest segment on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien that I saw tonight. His guests, in case you missed it, were Michael Moore and Seth Macfarlane. Michael was on first and Conan asked him some good questions allowing Michael to expand on some items from his upcoming documentary that he hadn’t been given a chance to on other shows. It showed some good researching and a familiarity with the subject matter on Conan’s and the Tonight Show behind the scenes personnel. Oddly enough, after his segment was over, Moore stuck around. This is where the awkward moment starts.

If you’ve seen as much Family Guy as I have you undoubtedly know the formula where they cut away from the main plot to tell a half related or sometimes totally unrelated joke. Well in the episode I recall and the one recalled by Moore was when Peter of Family guy has a farting contest with Michael Moore in a public bathroom. Clearly just a joke about fat people, low brow but it hit it’s mark by evolving into a musical number composed of farts. Anyway the issue came up when Conan mentioned that Seth had Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh on the show and the two had actually come on to do their own voices and Michael remarked that he was in the show but was never asked to do his “voice”.  There was some brief joking as everybody in the studio seemed to recall the bit I described earlier before Conan pushed the interview forward.

Conan went on to say that everybody wants to be in show biz, regarding Seth’s comments about Rove and Rush, Michael replied (as near a quote as I can remember it) “Sure destroy the country then go into show biz.”. Michael looked agitated and Conan, I thought I heard remark under his breath, said something like “that guy…”. It was bizarre television to say the least. Now I’ve always thought Seth Macfarlane as a person is a little creepy, a little snobby and a little to trying to be hipster, though I must say I don’t know the guy at all it’s just my natural American attitude to judge celebrities on the tiny bits and pieces I’ve seen of them. But it wasn’t his fault here. He was caught in the middle of what looked like a bait by Conan. Have a couple guests with liberal attitudes on then ask one about a gig he worked on with conservatives to get a reaction from the first guest? I’m probably reading to much into it, but it sure was some interesting viewing, abet more then a little awkward.

To end, hind site is twenty twenty but never the less, I’d have some advice to Moore on how to handle that next time.  Perhaps that’s the reason Rove and Rush peruse their feverish rhetoric, because it provides them with that show biz feeling.  An opportunity at the real thing is likely impossible for them to turn down.  They want the spot light, in whatever form it comes.

I was watching Comedy Central tonight and was really struck by a the guest on The Colbert Report. At first I was surprised that he had such a D list guest. This went along with my assumption that something must be hurting in the Daily Show / Colbert Report booking wing of Comedy Centeral as Jon Stewart had Tom Selleck on. However as I listen to Colbert’s guess speak I realize something much more is going on here.

The guest was John Fetterman Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. He spoke of the devastating decline of his district and the town that he calls home. As I write this I try to access his website http://www.15104.cc/ and undoubtedly the shear volume of users right now is causing their server to crash. As I listed to him and the real problems he faced and his commentary on how we can so easily spend so much on the financial institutions who days later slap us in the face with corporate excess on tax payer dimes I discovered something new about Colbert.

John Fetterman, Mayor of Braddock was the future of public service announcements. Steven and the staff at The Colbert Report had discovered a real American story and a real American need and used their influence through the media to bring light on this issue. I’m also sure there are many other towns, cities, villages that suffer similar fates as Braddock. I was just surprised that it has taken a comedy show at it’s roots to show us the true face of the needy here in America. It’s a testimate to how embroiled our main stream media outlets have become with ideological, partisan and sensationalist views. We are left with only one half hour, late night, on weekdays to discover news stories that demand attention.

I’ve been playing some Left 4 Dead lately and couldn’t help noticing a trend. In Left 4 Dead you can join a game in progress, a handy feature. When you do so, if you choose campaign mode, you are automatically assigned to one of the four characters, Zoey the token female, Bill the old timer, Francis the tough guy or Louis the black dude. I noticed early on that when I’d join a game in progress I was consistently assigned to Louis with the other three characters taken up by other players. I didn’t think anything of it at first. But soon it became almost a given. If I joined a game in progress I was Louis.

I decided to run a test. I joined then quit one hundred games, marking down which of the four characters I was assigned to each time and whether or not the game was full. Out of the one hundred games 71 were full when I joined (4 players) the others had at least one other player. Here are the results.

Louis 68
Francis 11
Zoey 11
Bill 10

As you can see the numbers speak quite clearly. The three white characters are consistently taken up by players while poor Louis is the odd man out. Are Left 4 Dead players bigoted? The numbers would suggest that they are. It could just be some crazy coincidence but it’s hard to argue the near 70% Louis avoidance rate. I’d like to know if other Left 4 Dead players have experienced this, are you consistently getting Louis when you join full or near full games? If so, do you play as him or switch to a different character or even go so far as to leave the game?

I’ll admit I’m not much of a morning person. However I don’t quite understand the morning talk show. Do people really begin their day by watching this stuff? Celebrities greeted with cheers as they plug their new movie, book whatever? I usually flip over to BBC America to get some real news but with my luck it’s the sports segment and their covering cricket which sounds like a foreign language to me. Yet I’ll take the gibberish about wickets and bowlers over the nonsensical chatter that passes as an interview between host and starlet.

Despite it all there are still rumors that the development of Diablo 3 is in some way going to delay the completion of Starcraft 2. This is not the case as far as we know.

“Absolutely not” said Sams when asked categorically if StarCraft II development had been postponed in favour of Diablo III development. “They are two separate teams entirely. The StarCraft 2 team is the most veteran team at Blizzard. As an example the team lead from StarCraft, the original, is one of the lead engineers on the game. I would say maybe as much as half of that team are among our most seasoned and most veteran players and developers in the entire company.”

Knowing Blizzard they don’t really need an extra reason to delay the release of a game. Their games are always delayed. Also the logic behind this rumor is a little fuzzy. Blizzard has separate teams working on all it’s different franchises, foolish to think they mix and match developers and move them from one project to another on the fly. Imaging designing a Ferrari and then being switched to building an Aston Martin, wouldn’t happen. The super car reference is deliberate as Blizzard’s games tend to be the super cars of the gaming world.