Saturday, September 28, 2013

My Flickr Page Turns 100


My Flickr page hasn't really turned 100.  I only started it in 2010.  But it has reached 100 pictures.  And I also took the time to give all the old pictures titles, which for some reason I had never done.  

I once had the idea of cross-posting my Flickr pictures on this blog, but it proved too hard. 

I feel a little bit silly posting pictures to the internet, because in recent years digital photography technology has gotten so good that everyone can take pictures of outstanding quality, even with camera phones.  But then again, not everyone bothers to actually do it. 

Anyway, check it out.  

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

On the Upcoming Season of Saturday Night Live


I watch Saturday Night Live.  I will admit that nobody over the age of twenty-two has any business watching Saturday Night Live.  But, really, what else am I supposed to do at 11:30 on a Saturday night? 

The show has never again been as funny as when I started watching it around 1990, when SNL was ruled by colossi like Dana Carvey, Mike Meyers, Phil Hartman, David Spade, and Chris Rock (and when, unbeknownst to the world, Conan O'Brien lurked behind the scenes as a writer).  However, in most of the intervening years, SNL did manage to produce one or two things worth watching. 

The three recurring elements that have been worth watching in the past few years have be the sketch "The Californians" (starring Bill Hader and Fred Armisen) and the characters "Stefon" (played by Bill Hader) and "The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With at a Party" (played by Cecily Strong).  Now Hader and Armisen have left the show, eliminating "The Californians" and "Stefon", leaving only Strong's character.

This brings us to "Weekend Update".

Since the turn of the millennium, the "Weekend Update" segment has undergone a sort of stepwise downward progression:

Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey were fairly funny.  

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were less funny.

Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers were even less funny.

Seth Meyers by himself is not funny at all.  

Meyers will probably leave the show at the beginning of next year, when he begins hosting a (presumably unfunny) talk show in the 11:35 pm weekday slot on NBC.  But it has been announced that, before he does, Cecily Strong will join him as "Weekend Update" co-anchor.  And this, I'm afraid, will spell the end of "The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With at a Party".  The character has previously been performed by Strong during "Weekend Update", and she can't perform a character during "Weekend Update" while simultaneously acting as an anchor on "Weekend Update".  And so it seems that the show may have inadvertently killed off its last remaining bit of comedy.  

No matter what, though, I will continue to watch Saturday Night Live.  I am not necessarily confident that Saturday Night Live will continue to produce worthwhile comedy in the future.  But I am confident that I will continue to have nothing else to do at 11:30 on a Saturday night.