Explore the Concrete Beach

If you watched the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien one of his first guests was Tom Hanks, who personally, I haven’t enjoyed in a movie since Big, but I find him funny in interviews like the one he had with O’Brien which he start calling Conan “CoCo” the audience loved it and people have called him CoCo since then.

In this “late night” TV ward where ever NBC show is hitting the Network hard with jokes about them (look at the SNL promos this week) it’s time to take sides. As you can tell by the title of this blog you know where I stand.

As a fan of late night comedy TV, I’ve enjoyed Conan since he took over the Tonight Show, sure some things fall flat, but it takes time to develope a show, look how long it took him to become popular on Late Night. So today I choose to side with Conan and really hope they fire Leno, because he’s not amusing, but still better than Letterman.

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Dear NBC-

Why do you carry NHL games and strive to provide the worst NHL coverage ever. And then to top it off you seem to hate hockey fans.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have set up a large screen outside the arena to watch the hockey games for the past two seasons.

Word started circling on Friday April 17 that you would not allow the Penguins to show the game on the screen which brings about 2000-4500 people to gather around and root on their home team…FOR AN AWAY GAME!

You claimed you did not know about this screen, which was a lie, as there were shots of it all last playoff season when the Penguins went to the Stanley Cup Finals. It was mentioned several times during your broadcast and broadcast from the Versus Network. To claim ignorance that you were not aware is just a flat out lie.

Will those 2000-4500 people really kill your ratings? And what about your advertisers?

Wouldn’t be a shame if people stopped buying their products because of a decision you made? Because the way I see it the screen would be an advertisers dream. 2000-4500 people with no distractions of home sitting in front of a large TV, really if I was one of the advertisers I would be pissed at this decision. NBC just took a captivated audience and placed them in their home where during commercial breaks they could be cooking dinner, going to the bathroom, running errands etc…

NBC you made a huge mistake and if/when the Penguins make it further into the playoffs it’s going to get ugly.

I hope the Penguins organization goes rouge and take up the CBC’s offer to show their feed of the game, because it take a Canadian company to truly understand hockey fans and the support for their teams.

It’s a shame how you don’t care about hockey fans and through some of the worst commentators, coverage and awful camera angles. Get rid of the end zone cam for power plays, it’s horrible and makes people nauseas.

NBC think about what your doing to a group of, not just hockey fans, but people who may watch your shows, which there really isn’t that many because your lineup pretty much relies on shows that should be cancelled, The Biggest Loser and Celebrity Apprentice such fine TV Viewing that is., but no thanks. I may be one person, but doesn’t one person with a Nielson box reflect 1,000 people or more.

Just think about that.

As I write this it’s 9:41am I can’t believe I am up at this point. Last night I didn’t go to bed until 1 and got up at 6:30am like usual. The late bed time was caused by going to the Steelers game.

It was a great game that, if you didn’t know, the Steelers won 27-10. Surprisingly, it didn’t feel cold in the stadium. I thought it felt warmer last night then it did during Sunday’s odd 11-10 (First in the NFL final score) win against San Diego.

Sitting at Heinz Field was like being trapped in a snow globe at times. The sky looked clear then all of the sudden there was snow. It started out slow then got heavy and swirled around then stopped and started again, hence the snow globe analogy.

Other great news from last night, the Penguins beat the Atlanta Thrashers 3-2 WOO! Read Seth Rorabaugh’s recap on Empty Netters.

So it was a good night for Pittsburgh sports.

When I got home I watched “30 Rock” that I recorded on my Tivo. <3 <3 <3 this show. Steve Martin guest starred on last night’s episode, he was funny, but nothing beat Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Jack McBryer. But last night Tracey Morgan made me laugh heard with his Japanese sex doll. I’m not going in more detail about it except to say they did a “The More you know” spoof at the end of the show and it was a highlight for me.

If you missed “30 Rock” watch it on Hulu or NBC.com.

In sad TV news ABC “did not order” additional episodes of “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Eli Stone” and one of my favorite and creative shows “Pushing Daisies.”

I was always hot and cold about “Dirty Sexy Money” and “Eli Stone,” but I always enjoyed “Pushing Daisies.” The cast was great, the stories were always quirky and it was shot in a really intriguing way.  I enjoyed this weeks episode with guest Fred Willard as “The Great Herrmann.” If you missed any of this years episodes watch them at ABC.com.

OK, hopefully sometime this weekend I will post the rest of the vacation stuff. I have all most all the pictures ready just to to get a few of one of the people that was there with me as he as some pictures that I need to tell a complete story.

Until then…