Want to Win a Car?

I know we're not all Conan fans here, but the dude's giving away a car. Not impressed? You're right. People give away cars all the time. There was a White Collar/Ford promo, I believe, to win one of their cars. But it's not just one car - it's twenty.

Yeah. Twenty cars. Ratings ploy? I doubt it. You don't have to watch to win. All you have to do is go to http://teamcoco.com/chevycruze and enter.

And this post could totally ruin my chances of winning. Because, you know, I'm totally going to win one of these cars. Hey, I can dream, right!?

The Prodigal Wench

I've been gone a long while, I know. Somehow I had no time over the summer, & even less now that I'm back at school. But I have returned, & hopefully I'll be able to be around more often.

Let's talk about Conan O'Brien, shall we?

He's back on TV, & it feels like he never left. In a good way, of course. It's nice to see him. The jokes & bits are funny & the guests were great. The most interesting was probably Jack White. For one thing, it's nice to see Conan singing & playing guitar because he's actually quite good, & Jack White is an interesting collaboration. Over the summer, they actually got together & recorded an album full of just straight-up rock while Conan was in the middle of his tour.

And since I wasn't around all summer, I'd like to talk about the tour a little too. He managed to do some pretty neat stuff, & not just in terms of comedy. Enjoy, & prepare for YouTube overload.

First, the funny: the tour's opening video.



And before Stewart & Colbert were holding rallies, they were having dance-offs:



Honestly, the more memorable parts of this tour very well may have been the musical ones.

"Seven Nation Army":



Eddie Vedder turns "Oh Yoko" into "Oh Coco":



And last, but not least, one of the most epic covers ever. Eddie Vedder brings it once again with The Who's "Baba O'Riley":

My 2 cents on the Late Night clustercuss

My 2 cents on the Late Night clustercuss

I haven't really gotten too much into CoCoGate on here, mainly because the internet already has plenty of commentary on it. I think that it was a dick move, and that if ratings were the issue, NBC should have shit-canned both shows instead of turning it into a giant pop culture pissing contest. But mostly I think it just shows what a colossal waste the Nielsen ratings really are. (this is what I did my senior graduation paper so nerdom ahoy!)

The Nielsen ratings really worked well when entire households sat down and watched the same thing on their one television on one of 13 UHF channels. When households had more than one set watched by more than one person and a little thing called cable in the 70s, it started making the numbers less reliable. When people don't even watch television at its regular time, cable has made the FCC basically obsolete, and most people in the Cream-Yer-Pants demographic watch most television through legal, illegal, and quasi-legal means through their computers... Well, you see where I'm going. When I did my paper way back in the Year Of Our Lord 2007, DVR recordings weren't even counted. So I'm surprised the Neilsen company adopted it so fast.... a decade after the technology came out. (and they only count it if the playback was within three days of the recording! Yikes! There's stuff on my DVR from September!)

*jumps off the high horse* So, Conan. Eh, I watched about every ep of the Tonight show, even though it was usually at dinner the next day. I guess I have the right to be mad (the "you can't bitch if you don't vote" argument), but in the end, I can't cover the streets in blood over pop culture. I think most of these grandiose Internets plans to boycott NBC are pretty naive. Here's your list of things to boycott - hope you kids won't miss Battlestar Galactica. Or, um, electricity. And for all you putting such high hopes of Fox, remember that it likes to kill good shows in their first season.

Mostly, though, I'm just kind of... proud? As my husband and I sat around for our 2nd annual "Conan leaves a show" night, I just couldn't imagine having my dream job yanked out from under me. But in a way, it's a little comforting. Somehow it made me feel a little less bad about being "not laid off per say from my first real job last year. And his speech toward the end, urging all the internet youngins to not be cynical, kind of made my heart swell.

So I'm eagerly awaiting his next show. And I guess NBC either needs to get its ass in gear or hope every advertising firm in America likes Chuck.

The Tonight Showdown

The Tonight Showdown

Well, someone was bound to say something eventually, right? Plus Conan comes on in 20 minutes & I want to see how much he shits all over NBC tonight. If it's anything like last night, we're in for a good time.

Leno's ratings aren't too great, NBC wants to move him to 11:35 & push Conan & Jimmy Fallon both back a half hour, blah blah blah. Conan's being particularly vocal about it. Now, at first I didn't really care - I'll watch Conan no matter when he's on - but now that he's spoken up officially, I am inclined to pay a little more attention. He has every right to be mad. And is it just me, or if Jay Leno was basically anyone else would NBC just have canceled outright instead of playing with time slots everyone's already all to used to?

NBC probably stands more to lose if they don't comply with Conan, especially judging by the internet backlash already. God bless the internet for making pop culture issues completely explode. The internet is probably one of those most interesting things here, because Twitter quite literally exploded with cries of Team Conan after his statement today.

Arguably the most artistic & interesting expression of all this?



That's right. imwithcoco.com.

P.S. I got Ben Folds tickets! I know, no one cares.