hour-long daily show

TV

Petition to make the Daily Show an hour long.

The Sunday Times Arts section chooses video filesharing as its cover story. While pondering recent developments in media control -- including MythTV (basically a homemade DVR) and Videora (basically a mix of RSS and BitTorrent) -- the article takes the now-common tone of "tv executives don't want their industry to be the next Napster." But, as usual, there's little substance on what they might be doing about it. (And not even a passing note on Google Video or Blinkx.) It also mentions EFF's Television Digital Liberation Front, a protest against the upcoming broadcast flag mandate.

Coming to a DVD nearest you: the first season of Dynasty (April 19 release).

NYT: Class issues in The Apprentice. Glad to see the grad schools are still churning out people who talk like this.

BizWeek: Microsoft May Be A TV Star Yet.

Waxy has more on the A9/OC connection, including video of the episode.

MEDIA

So you always wanted to get into the news business? Now's your chance: Al Jazeera is up for sale.

ONLINE

Elizabeth Spiers' Fishbowl NY is supposed to launch today. NYT exaggerated in calling it a "face-off" between it and Gawker. UPDATE: It launched along with other new MediaBistro sites, including Fishbowl LA, Fishbowl DC, and Unbeige. UPDATE UPDATE: Denton has launched two new ones too: Gridskipper ("urban travel") and Lifehacker (tech tips).

iPod Stories (dot-com). Wired News has the story on the man behind it. He likes the word technotranscendent. Good line: "The iPod is no longer just an instrument or a tool, but a part of myself. It's a body extension. It's part of my memory, and if I lose this stuff, I lose part of my identity."

NYT Styles puts blogging moms on the cover with a profile of Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com. And the San Francisco Chronicle profiles Anastasia Goodstein of YPulse and a recent INdTV hire.

FILM

Have you heard who's set to direct Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections? Robert Zemeckis.

In a somewhat strange case, some people think Clint Eastwood is a bigot for his Oscar-nominated Million Dollar Baby. Roger Ebert isn't one of them.

MUSIC

M.I.A. seems to be the most hyped artist of the moment. Her new album isn't even out until next month, yet she's appearing on music blogs everywhere. NYT had her do a playlist this week.

Wanna hear a track from the upcoming FisherSpooner? Sure ya do.

MUSIC VIDEOS

Another new Beck video: "E Pro". (This one's directed by Shynola, not the one that I pointed to the other day.) It rocks.

Guardian: Top 20 Music Videos Ever. "Thriller" isn't #1!

BOOKS/IDEAS

NYTBR gives the backpage to Steven Johnson to ruminate on software that helps the writing process. His blog has more info on the software. Recommended.

Bookforum takes an extensive look at copyright.

The Guardian has an excerpt of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.

GAMES

There's a lot of talk in the game industry about introducing more narrative into games. Clive Thompson at Slate.com argues the exact opposite. Excerpt: When a game has a story that "ends" after 40 hours of play, you have to throw it away -- and go spend another $50 on the next title. That's movie-industry logic, not game logic. Chess doesn't "end." Neither do hockey, bridge, football, Go, playing with dolls, or even Tetris.

Some details on Katamari Damacy 2. (I highly recommend playing the first one while very wasted.)

DESIGN

Probably the coolest Flash slideshow that I've ever seen.

POLITICS

Ever wonder what Newt Gingrich has been up to? Really, you do? Well, WaPo has a long profile for you.

LOCAL

Everyone and their daughter was at the Melodious Owl / Olympic Hopefuls / Faux Jean show on Saturday. The queue outside could have you waiting in the cold for up to an hour, but I was lucky enough to have friends sneak in the back. I guess that's what happen when there's nothing going on in January and the Strib puts you on the cover.

NYT looks at the age-discrimination suit going on over at Best Buy. Interesting tidbit: the average age of its 5,000 employees is 29.

What is the only state that has never had a tv series located in it? North Dakota.

Following a Blogumentary screening, I will be on a panel at the U of M St. Paul Campus Theater. The author of We Media, Dan Gillmor, will be there too. More details.