Arts, Briefly: Surviving, Just
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The 16th edition of the CBS series âSurvivorâ made its debut on Thursday with the lowest ratings for a premiere in the showâs eight-year history. Nielsen estimated that the show, set in Micronesia, drew 13.9 million viewers at 8 p.m., short of the 15.4 million who tuned in for the start of âSurvivor: Chinaâ in September (which matched the previous all-time low, set by the seriesâs first episode in 2000). Still, âSurvivorâ easily won its time slot, helping CBS deliver the most viewers on average for the night. The runner-up, ABC, led the night among adults 18 to 49, with âLostâ at 9 (15.1 million) taking first in that demographic. ABCâs âEli Stoneâ (9.4 million) also managed to lead the 10 p.m. time in that group, although CBSâs âWithout a Traceâ rerun in that hour had more viewers (10.2 million). Also at 10, the premiere of NBCâs âLipstick Jungleâ drew a disappointing 7.6 million viewers; in January, ABCâs similarly themed âCashmere Mafiaâ attracted 10.6 million viewers. NBC ranked fourth for the night but tied Fox for third among the 18-to-49 set.
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Una vigilia di appuntamenti di arte, cultura e spettacolo
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Queue submissions being scarce, I suggest we all submit limericks for consideration.  Mod up your favorites.    I'm no poet, so I'll submit a favorite of my childhood:    There was a young woman named Bright,  Who traveled much faster than light    She set out one day  In a relative way    And returned on the previous night.    I'm afraid I don't remember the author.
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Sir, I hope that all city councillors saw the Country Calendar programme, Saturday January 27. The programme graphically showed the importance of wetlands. Such areas were prolific around our estuaries in 1961. The destruction of our wetlands around Tahunanui, Annesbrook and Stoke horrifies me.
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Tycho:   The foe revealed, Armadeaddon is now almost complete.  Monday will see the promised epilogue, so at this point you have very nearly survived the ordeal.  We have endeavored these past weeks to reward the true "enthusiast," that man or woman who, brow heavy, has faced such cruel abuse at our hand for the last seven years.  It is apparently our policy to honor such dedication one every decade.    Since it was announced a couple days ago, the revelation that MS would be actively courting the hardcore boardgame player is something I've thought about almost constantly.  It may be that you weren't aware there was such a thing as a hardcore player of boardgames if your last experience with the context was playing Sorry! with your sister when you were eight.  Things have progressed.   There's a million experiences in this space I could use to lure you in, but one company in particular - Days of Wonder has already decided to make electronic variants of their tabletop crack, so they occupy a twilight space between the worlds.  I hope they see an opportunity to take their (already completed!) games over to the 360, or that Microsoft offers them a locked case containing an unspecified amount of untraceable U.S. Currency, because I'd love to see this prescient move by MS turn into a new era.   Days of Wonder makes a game called Shadows Over Camelot that could quickly become a dangerous obsession, obscuring biological realities with a single-minded focus on grails.  Well, grail I guess.  There's just the one.    But it's a completely cooperative boardgame, so every player is working toward the same goals - fighting back invasions, questing, all of it.  Except there might be a traitor in the group, determined by a hidden draw, who tries to derail the effort.  He's not always there, but the potentiality of that nefarious force can create unbelievable social tension.    The gaming table's fixed coordinate in space is its asset and its obstacle - managing space and time is actually the primary challenge of any gaming group, as opposed to banishing necromancers, though that also ranks up there.  Boardgames are so rich in design that, when one of these gets dropped in front of them on Live, I think many gamers will be shocked at their sophistication.    My thumbs hurt.  (CW)TB out.
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Is the small subtle and strong cinema over? Not quite! If youÂve seen some of the non-mainstream nuggets lined up for the next couple of months, youÂd  have to agree, avant- garde cinema is alive and kicking.
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roundup Plus: More colleges get cheap online music...Glitches hit some EarthLink-hosted sites...More money for fuel cells...Linux release features Windows support.
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Comment is free: Nicholas Serota: It would be a tragedy were a decade's advances to be squandered by a cut in cultural funding.
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Saad Eskanderâs Web diary details the daily hurdles of keeping Iraqâs central library open, preserving the surviving archives and books and, oh yes, staying alive.
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There might be signs of life in the industry after all.
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Tycho:  Rhythm games aren't my forte, but I have a lot of inbuilt experience with meter which helps me fake it until I can build genuine skill.  And, as rhythm elements have crept into the entire medium, Tycho stock has been in a boom phase.  It's understandable, then, that while I soar and illuminate - and Gabriel sputters, bound to earth - tensions related to my prowess have begun to burn red-hot.  That is, until they cool again.  These things have a way of working themselves out in the fullness of time.          There's an incredible article over at Wired this month (and possibly also in the magazine?) about the Bungie's psychological approach to game design.  What a tremendous challenge it must be to retain authorial control in such a case!  As someone whose output is rarely screened by any agency, the whole thing gave me chills.  The right to fail nobly in a creative endeavor (as we sometimes do) is such a powerful luxury.  No such luxury may be extended to them, upon whose toil an entire platform rests.  God keep me from such a fate.          I keep hearing that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption isn't being promoted very well, but the person saying this always seems to know about it, and then when people share this complaint in the thread those people also seem to be "in the know."  It ships on the twenty-seventh of August, if you weren't aware - but since you almost certainly are, we needn't dwell on it.  What we should be dwelling on are the series of teaser vids that Retro has been trickling out.  Metroid's largely mysterious heroine has always been a huge draw for me, and going into deep detail about the character would actually damage the mystique.  But the universe she operates in need not be vague, which is why these clips are such a rich meal:  there's the Aurora Unit trailer that modernizes ancient Metroid canon in a classy way, and there's a treat at the end of the Valhalla trailer that ties it all together.  They both cover a setting that has gotten darker and more sophisticated, tones we don't typically associate with Nintendo.       We like to get kicks in on the post-Harmonix Guitar Hero, partly based on their "wacky" multiplayer concept - which ordinary gamers will probably love - but also out of a sort of tribal loyalty.  This having been established, they've built an authentically heroic tracklist that really has a lot of beef.  Going from the most recent Rock Band announcement out of Leipzig, both versions appear to have Radiohead's "Creep" and the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," which is something of a comfort.  After seeing different songs on each game from Metallica and The Rolling Stones, I wasn't sure if they were already traveling down the catalogues securing exclusive weaponry.  I hope that the labels in this case see the old wisdom of arming both sides.
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Sex, death and religion, artâs old stand-bys, its holy trinity, are alive, weird and living, at âKeith Edmier 1991-2007â at Hessel Museum in Bard College.
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Comment is free: Mark Lawson: Cultural prizes are under attack, but they serve a valuable role in bringing art to a wider market.
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A tip of the hat to Apple for product ruggedness: a MacBook Pro survives a gunshot during a Brazilian mugging. Plus: Teachers give Jobs the Rotten Apple award. In Cult of Mac.
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They've taken a beating, but are they down for the count?
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Weâve talked about popcorn here on Dinerâs Journal before, but today brings some actual popcorn news. For more on that, and a way to avoid becoming a news story yourself, Iâd like to present Mark Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column for the Times. I think the guyâs got a future in blogging. Take it [...].
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I guess I'm the bad boy of heart attack survivors. Mine played like low comedy from the start. It felt not like shearing pain; I had no revelations of mortality and sense of endtimes and lost opportunities. Actually, it seemed Bill Clinton was sitting on my chest playing the saxophone.