It's Always Funny...

Funniest Show On Television!

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the hilarious show It's Always Sunny In Philidelphia. The show follows Mac, Charlie, Dennis and Dee, four selfish and perpetually dim characters that run Paddy's Irish Pub in South Philly. The gang deals with many serious issues facing America, including racism, abortion and Jihad. The show was recently renewed for a third season, which begins production later this month.

In keeping with fan tradition, I checked the imdb boards to see what fans have had to say. I'm typically very suspicious of posters on the imdb (even though I am one myself) because I find that most of them are reactionary little bastards that impossible to please and horribly easy to disappoint. Not only that, but they tend to take their own opinions very seriously, and will often insult those that simply disagree with them. Because It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia has had a pretty brief run thus far, I figured that it would be hard for it to "lose its touch" in the same way that many people have accused The Simpsons of doing so. However some fans, despite admiring the show overall, are dissatisfied with Danny DeVito joining the cast in the second season.

One poster writes,

"I watched 2 iTunes eps and got hooked. Downloaded the second season on instinct. I'm 3 eps in and I'm just not feeling it...I don't know why! I love Devito and I love the show. It makes no sense. Was it just meant to be 3 dudes in a bar and the chick? It seems to be that anything else disrupts the flow. I'm lost. I can't grab on to what it is. I like all involved and I can't figure it out."

The overall opinion of the show remains very high, which is unusual because the message boards on imdb are typically host to whiny little pricks get their rocks off by trashing shows they've seen once or twice and formulating opinions which have no basis in rationality. I typically don't post much, mostly because whenever I read a discussion that I might find interesting to join I have to run to the bathroom because I've chewed through my bottom lip in rage. The thing that I find the most frustrating about fan boards is that people take themselves so seriously. For whatever reason, the purpose of a discussion board, which I believe is to promote the diversity of ideas and the free-flow of opinions, is totally lost when one of these sanctimonious dickheads finds out that someone thinks Donnie Darko was a piece of shit. Which it was.

On a few occasions I've been calm enough to write a response to some idiot lacking the aptitude to distinguish their, there and they're, only to realize halfway through my post that talking to some of these people is just not worth my time. And because my time is so valuable, I'll spend the rest of my evening looking up students names I find in the UMass Police Logs on Facebook.

A blog (short for weblog) is a website set up to allow someone to post information of their choosing. I am currently at a loss of words because the terminally busty Anna Nicole Smith has apparently died. If she is creamated I don't think it would be wise to spread her ashes anywhere near water, as burnt silicon has been known to have dramatic ecological effects.

As this evolution meets revolution, the world is not changing. However, with new technology comes the ability to create a better understanding of the world. For example, the video we watched in class last week took what was an already heartbreaking story and put viewers right in the middle. The article itself was written very powerfully, but the accompanying video maximized the emotional impact of a soldier getting killed. While I think many were deeply affected by this video, I'm not sure if it actually changed anything. This is a small-scale representation of what I think the impact that technology has on the world.

In the abstract, journalism is changing because of new technology. Potentially, anyone with a cell phone camera or access to the internet could play the role of a journalist. Beyond that, I don't think that there has been any real functional change in the field of journalism. The way I see it, we just have different ways to look at the same shit.

More on Scott Bredeur

Scott Brodeur was born in Groton, Connecticut on a submarine base. He began his career in journalism writing sports, but soon turned his attention to hard news.

While living in Philidelphia, Scott wrote for a magazine as a rock critic. Since then, he has written for music publications such as The Source and Guitar World.

In 1996, he was approached by Advanced Internet and became part of a team that created NJ.com. Since then he has also set up masslive.com, where he still keeps a blog titled "Blog Beat".

In the mid 90s, Scott was doing freelance work for Prodigy, an internet service provider. It was during this time that Scott wrote a piece about Van Morrison. Readers responded to this piece, prompting Scott to respond in kind. He became fond of the kind of interpersonal discourse that only the Internet could provide. Since then, he has become somewhat of an expert in what has become known as the "blogosphere".

Scott teaches part-time at UMass Amherst and currently resides in Northampton, Ma with his wife and three children.

Who is Scott Brodeur? The first thoughts I had of Scott Brodeur came to me as I was stepping out of the elevator heading toward the OIT PC lab. I looked at my cell phone to check the time when I realized, "Shit...I'm two minutes late. Well, I hope this Scott fellow is lenient with tardies."

Upon walking into the classroom, he handed me the course syllabus without mentioning that I was late.

Good, I thought to myself. At least he seems patient.

Then he assigned the class to set up a blog, and write a 200 word post about him based on what we could pull off the Internet. Like any resourceful student, I used The Google to find out as much about Scott Brodeur as I could.

The first thing that came up was one of his blog posts about a chance encounter he had with Sen. Joe Lieberman at a rest stop outside of Worcester. The title of the piece was "Fear and Loathing outside Worcester Or: Everything You Wanted to Know About Joe Lieberman". The title of the piece told me that not only is a fan of Hunter S. Thompson (also apparent in a reference made in the story) but also of Dr. Strangelove.

Upon further research, I found that Brodeur was the founding editor-in-chief of masslive.com, and also played a role in setting up nj.com.

Drum roll please...

I, Ryan Thomas Gibbons, am now an official member of the blogosphere. I proudly join the ranks of masterbloggers such as Kos and Andrew Sullivan. While they might have a few things that I lack (talent, wit, education, readers, notoriety, money, political connections, works published in outlets other than school newspapers, etc), one advantage I have over them is street cred (no....seriously!). So consider this to be the blog from the streets: the voice of Joe Foodstamps, or Joan Crackwhore.