Dave Kellam

Here are the current all time record box-office opening weekends (the Star Wars III numbers are an estimate, but not far off).

Is it surprising that Star Wars had a great opening weekend? No, not at all considering it’s supposedly going to be the last one ever made (it probably helps that the movie is good this time around too). What surprises me is that percentage of total number– it’s at 68.5%. Nothing else in that list comes anywhere close. Everyone was watching Star Wars, talk about a cultural event.

It appears this month’s meme craze is passing a musical baton, Brandon sent it my way. So, here we go:

Total music files residing on my computer: 3397 songs totalling 16.66GB (Some weird trend going on with the sixes).

Last CD I bought: It’s been a little while, but I think it was two Ted Leo albums — Shake the Sheets and Hearts of Oak.

Song playing right now: “Staring at the Sun” by TV on the Radio

Five songs I listen to a lot / mean alot to me:

* “When I Come Around” by Green Day
* “Da Mystery of Chessboxin” by Wu-Tang Clan
* “Blimps Go 90” by Guided by Voices
* “No One Like You” by Scorpions
* “How Many Cans?” by Soul Coughing

Four or Five People I’m Passing The Buck Baton To: Tavis, Riz , Marc, Richard, Freeman.

That’s it, to those who’ve been tagged, enjoy. If you’re interested in my current listening habits, try my audioscrobbler stats.

The essay Piracy is good? explores the Battlestar Galactica phenomenon and makes a case that it has essentially destroyed the broadcast television model. The television series has been incredibly popular and has been the SciFi network’s most successful show. That’s not really cause for concern, it’s a pretty good show, the issue is how it became popular.

All 13 episodes aired on SkyOne, the BBC affiliate that partnered with SciFi to produced the show, back in October last year. Within hours, each episode made it onto the internet and into the hands of eager fans around the world, mostly through Bittorrent distribution channels. This generated a word-0f-mouth buzz that induced a lot of people to watch the US premier in January and tune-in to subsequent episodes. So, it’s an interesting new way to test out the market for a television show but it’s not really the most effective way to generate revenue for your station (who wants to download a show with commercials?).

Towards the end of the article, Mark points out that all of the ripped episodes from SkyOne had the broadcaster’s logo overlaid on the screen at all times, fairly common practice these days. That screen realestate can be ignored for the most part, but it is a constant reminder about whatever’s there. It could provide an effective means of advertising in the future, a sort of picture-in-picture thing.

Persistent advertising is nothing new, they’ve been doing it in soccer for years (unlike hockey and baskeyball, they don’t stop the clock and provide commercial time). It’s not the worst thing in the world and short of pirates blurring or blanking out the ad, you can’t really remove it from the content. In my mind it’s a step above product placement shills.

I’ve seen Battlestar Galactica, it’s damn good. Which model did I use for watching the show? The SkyOne rips of course ( I live in Canada and don’t get SciFi, so they were the next best thing). That said, the audio was pretty hollow and I can’t wait a better copy. I’d recommend the show to anyone who likes scifi, I’ll be buying it when it hits dvd. The first season is currently airing in the US. If you find yourself in my situation and already watched all the episodes, check out the production blog for some clues to where they’re headed.

Update: Part two of the article is available