Hi,

On the subject of Telstra/foxtel cable being laid down in the street. I’m not sure how they used to lay it down, but when they are putting the cable down these days they put it through a tube. Our area was a broadband blackspot and Telstra decided to fix this by laying down Telstra cable (according to the bigpond website its active, though some Telstra employees say its not!) so I saw what they did. They put down a white tube first then laid the cable down that, so if they really want to replace it they can.

BTW: For me one of the things that would get me to take up digital TV would be a nice free Electronic Program guide. Only problem with this is it would always be incorrect because they stations cant keep to a guide!

Thanks

Nigel

Taking up the challenge from Ross, I looked into the history of the 555 prefix for telephone numbers in movies and TV shows. Turns out it goes all the way back to the 1950s. Here’s part of an entry from Wikipedia:

The phone company began encouraging the producers of television shows and movies to use the 555 prefix for fictional telephone numbers. In older television shows from the 1950s or 1960s, “KLondike 5″ or “KLamath 5″ was used, as at the time the telephone exchanges used letters. The Simpsons used a variation of this in some of their earlier seasons by having the phone number start out with KL5 (for example, Homer’s Mr. Plow business used both KL5-3223 as the home number and KL5-3226 as the business number. Barney’s Plow King phone number was KL5-4796 in the commercial sung by Linda Ronstadt). On American telephone dial pads, K and L are found on the number 5 button.

BB

It’s a huge week in reality TV this week with BB06 locking a bunch of strangers in the house and the Biggest Loser finally being decided tonight.

• Our super-sexy reality correspondent, Jess McGuire, takes a moment out in a busy Sydney pub to give us the rundown on what’s happening in Big Brother land;
• We’ve got not one, not two but three I Don’t Buy Its;
• Josh explains his personal dramas with Foxtel and spills some little factoids about the state of our aging cable TV system;
• AFL footy broadcast preambles are getting a little out of hand and Ross illustrates just how bad they are;
• Crap TV takes a shot at some bizarre channel 9 end credits voiceover scripts;
• And we take a dip in the mailbag, allowing Josh to backup his claim that We Can Be Heroes was the best thing on TV in 2005.

Go grab some original Boxcutters goodies at the Boxcutters store before we crack the big time and everyone starts wearing them.

Stick some RSS in your podcast app.

Click here to subscribe to the Boxcutters Feed directly in iTunes.

Or download this episode right here

Send us some more challenges for Josh to back up through the email at: hooray@boxcutters.net

A funny thing to do is, if you’re out hiking and your friend gets bitten by a poisonous snake, tell him you’re going to go for help, then go about ten feet and pretend that *you* got bit by a snake. Then start an argument with him about who’s going to go get help. A lot of guys will start crying. That’s why it makes you feel good when you tell them it was just a joke.

– Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

After Comedy Central pulled the plug on a re-run of the “Trapped in the Closet” episode of South Park, Matt Parker and Trey Stone’s attorney issued the following statement:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!

-Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu

Comedy Central’s official explanation of the event:

“In light of the events of earlier this week, we wanted to give Chef an appropriate tribute by airing two episodes he is most known for.”

and mentioned nothing about Viacom - Comedy Central’s parent company - being Tom Cruise’s corporate bitch.

Check out Defamer for more.

And while I’m here - if you hadn’t caught the news already - Katie Holmes has allegedly given birth to a 7lb 7oz, 20inch girl which has been named Suri Holmes-Cruise. Having had a wander around the interweb for reactions and come across these pics: (more…)

I’ve found it - the first promo pic from the SuperModel Reality Show from today’s breaking news.

It’s a little adult, if you know what I mean, so I’m gonna put it down there below the fold.

(more…)

We had a short week this week - with the interstate game last Friday and playing again today, which is Wednesday - I think the guys out there put in really well and it’s fantastic to see they were the best team on the day.

News in the first quarter was unbeatable in defence. Shows which should have aired on FTA networks but haven’t and therefore you might not have seen them was indispensible in the forward pocket and kicked a personal best 8 goals.

The Fall Lineups were a powerhouse in the ruck coming up to half time, assisting in 3 goals for the 28 second educational content for animated series’.

Letters to Boxcutters came off with a nagging groin in the second half (it kept going on and on with, “You never take me anywhere…”) and it was awesome to see Another weather thing kick the winning goal through the big sticks right on the siren.

Check out the replay of the whole game through the RSS feed, direct download or catch this and all the season’s games in iTunes.

You can pick up the new home AND away jumpers at the team store.

And fan mail can be sent to any of the players at hooray@boxcutters.net

Hi there, love the show.

Just a quick note regarding the recent comments about the Survivor recap show comming up on channel 9. The Survivor recap show this season actually shows ’some’ new content and gives away a few hints at what is happening in future episodes. While watching this episode isn’t necessary to keep up to date with the competition it is good to see channel 9 actually show something that might interest the fans… even if it is about a month late.

Having just caught the end of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror VI episode, with the segment where Homer goes 3D in Tron world and then gets sucked out into the real world, I was curious about where the Erotic Cakes shop was situated. Turns out it’s at 13567 Ventura Blvd - I assume that’s Hollywood, California.

Anyway, one of the pages that came up in the search results was IMDB’s Alternate Versions for The Simpsons. Many interesting differences in syndication and Australia and Canada there. But I’ve just been surprised by this note:

The DVD release of “The Complete First Season” has a slighty shorter version of the episode “The Telltale Head” than was originally telecast. Near the end of the network version of the episode when the mob is about to attack Bart and Homer, Bart makes a speech to the mob about “taking the town’s heritage for granted”, which finally convinces the mob to let them go. On the DVD release, however, this short speech is absent and it quickly jumps to the mob deciding to leave them alone — because it did not exist in the original reel of the episode that Groening and Brooks delivered to the Fox Network! The speech Bart made about the mob “taking the town’s heritage for granted” was the editorial creation of the network censors in compliance of the FCC’s 1989 ruling that every serial animated television show transmitted include at least 28 seconds of educational content.

I’d never heard of this ruling before and I wonder if it still applies? This could provide hours of trainspotting entertainment in any number of cartoons. Where’s the education in Family Guy? Or American Dad? And is that why we have the regular, “I guess we all learned a lesson here today…” lines at the end of South Park? Now that I think of it, I can’t remember many educational seconds in Ren and Stimpy… unless Powdered Toast Man’s speech about Vitamin F was actually true.

Fascinating.

BB

Well, if you were in Sydney, you’d have seen this on 7:

• 6pm Seven News
• 6.30pm Today Tonight
• 7pm Home and Away
• 7.30pm Better Homes & Gardens
• 8.30pm Genghis Khan
• 9.40pm The Passion of the Christ
• 11.55pm A Story of David

Thank freak I didn’t have to sit through that! But that must have been the TV premiere of The Passion, yeah? I wonder when we’ll get to see that here in Melbourne… and I wonder if they’ll tout it as the premiere.

BB