Wednesday, March 11, 2009

New Affiliate!

Hey everyone! Check out the latest blog to be added to the links list. It's Jamie Sobrato's. She's an awesome author of romance novels, most of which are in the Harlequin Blaze line. If you love romance novels, you will love her work. Her blog is a lot of fun to read so go check it out!

Friday, March 6, 2009

Awesome Authors

This post has nothing to do with television, celebrity stalkers, or anything else I have blogged about before. I love reading romance novels, particularly Harlequin novels. (The Blaze line is my favorite!) One thing I have noticed about the novels is that almost always the author leaves a snail mail address, email address, and/or website where you can contact them. Some also have blogs that they update regularly and converse with their readers on.

Now, these authors are I'm sure very busy people. Between writing their next great novel, editing, revising, etc their work, taking care of their families, and I'm sure in some cases, working at some sort of other job, I don't know how they have time to interact with their readers online, but they do it anyway. For that, I want to say to all of them, Thank You. You make me proud to call you my favorite authors.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Which is Smarter?

Here's a question for all of you. Which is smarter, a control-freak network executive who has no clue what the fans like and doesn't care or a dog that licks it's butt every time it takes a crap? My money's on the dog! I'm a fan of many types of shows, crime dramas, medical dramas, documentaries, and soap operas. My favorite show is a soap opera. I have mentioned before that I have met a certain daytime actress and that we have a mutual friend. The show she's on is my favorite show.

Why am I being so cryptic, you may ask? Simple, I want to protect the actress's privacy and I am about to ream the head of daytime programing at her network a new one and don't want to get sued or get her into trouble.

The executive I am talking about is a middle-aged man who seemingly makes his decisions using the wrong head. For the last few years especially, he has been dictating to the EP and the Head Writers at the shows on his network what couples are to be together and what storylines to air.

On my favorite show, he ordered the end of a couple that was bringing in fantastic ratings in favor of putting the actress back into a pairing with her real-life ex who everyone knew had cheated on her with a co-star. It was obvious, and still is to this day that there is no chemistry whatsoever between the actress and actor, and that the actor isn't even in her league talent wise. His biggest talent is having gallons of snot come pouring out of his nose on cue when a scene calls for him to cry instead of having tears come out of his eyes. The network executive, however, thinks that the pairing of this actor with the unfortunate actress who has to carry him in every scene is one of the greatest pairings in daytime history.

Another, more recent thing he has done is break up a very popular pairing, one that both the actor and actress (let's call them Actor 1 and Actress 1) in the pairing both have been very vocal about loving and the fans for the most part loved as well in favor of pairings that no one wants to see, not the two of them, and not the people they are paired with now (Actor 2 and Actress 2), for the simple reason that the two couples have been together before and there's nothing more for them to do. This decision from all appearances was made because of the talent Actress 2 has for taking off her clothes and quite possibly, even likely, her other "talents" that can't be shown on TV.

One last example of his poor decision making and obvious inability to relate to the fans is the decision he made to bring in an actress who couldn't act her way out of a paper bag and try to turn her into the female lead of the show by pairing her with the male lead, who is one of the most popular actors in daytime. A man who would have chemistry with a box of rocks, but no matter what he did, couldn't make a pairing with her believable. This actress, in what I can only call the most unprofessional, immature behavior I have ever seen went online in a chat room with her fans and called him a bastard for not ever inviting her to his home. On anther occasion in one of the popular soap magazines she insinuated that she got him, a man who has happily been with his wife for over 20 years, so hot and bothered in a scene that he had to walk away before he jumped her on set, something that is now known to be a flat-out lie by the actress told to convince people that their pairing has chemistry. This actress's unprofessionalism and total lack of respect for others knows no bounds and until recently, she was on the screen at least once in each of the six segments of the show and was inserted in nearly every storyline.

These decisions, as well as many others that he has made over the last few years have caused the ratings of the show to steadily decline, morale backstage to decline, and the fans to become more and more disgruntled because he isn't listening to what they want to see on the show, instead he is trying to "train" them to like what he wants, something I am happy to say he is failing miserably to do!

So, you tell me, who's smarter, this network executive who is driving the shows on his network into the ground or the dog who's favorite past time is licking it's butt? I still say the dog, what do you think?