Lost and Found
Lately all I seem to be writing about are my animals and their daily pursuits. Unfortunately today is no different.
On Saturday night, the cats were being their usual noisy selves, playing until the early hours, meowing at random moments, with me watching a film downstairs. Katie had to work on the Sunday so she had taken herself off to bed, leaving me with “The Boys”.
Just as I was clearing up and coming up to bed, I noticed a smell coming from the kitchen. It was coming from the cat litter tray, but seeing as I had only emptied it that day, I was surprised to see that one of the cats was having a little stomach complaint in there.
It called for a midnight cleanup, so I emptied the litter and put it out in the bin, coming in to watch both cats dash outside. Not bothering to try and chase both of them indoors at such an hour, I shut the door and promptly went to bed.
The next morning, Pusskins is butting the back patio doors to get in, there isn’t a sign of Niblet, which is weird because they always hang out together. Katie and I call for him but nothing can be seen of him. I have to go to football and Katie needs to go to work, we both leave thinking the little mite will probably be waiting for us when we return.
Alas, that wasn’t the case.
I scour the neighbourhood sounding like a right weirdo as I call out “Niblet” and “Nibbles” at the top of my lungs, with a big box of Go-Cat in my hand and my mobile in the other. Again, the search is fruitless.
Then I decide to lure him in using the oldest trick in the book, food. I open a can of tuna and pour the contents into a dish. I cover the dish with foil and punch holes in the top to send smell waves of delicious tuna wafting into the neighbourhood. A Google search also suggests putting out something that smells of you, out go my sweaty trainers from football.
Hours pass and he is MIA. Katie comes home, calls out for him but she has no luck…..until a couple of minutes later we hear a scratching at the door. We open the door to find Niblet waiting there, looking as if nothing had happened.
Concluding
Letting the cats out is something we are looking to do more often, they are sent out at every opportunity. The problem we face in our neighbourhood is that it is densely populated with other cats, it has a train track 20 metres from the house and lots of foxes patrol the area. Now that we know he is a bit of a wanderer, the search will not be so hasty.
So yeah, that was a bit of fun while it lasted, Katie now fears the day I’m left alone with any kids we have for fear I will either drop them on their head or lose them.
The Future Of TV Media
Ever since LOST hit our screens, I have been downloading TV shows in order to beat the broadcast delay in the UK. Before then, American TV that I enjoyed was limited to the odd CSI or Sopranos episode.
As soon as I had downloaded the entire first series of LOST, I watched it in one night and was left itching for more decent programming. In my search, I ended up downloading four to five American releases a week, including Desperate Housewives, The O.C, One Tree Hill, Family Guy and Heroes. The common theme here is that even though I was from the UK and downloading these shows, 50,000 other people (mainly from America) were doing the same.
Online media is the way that TV and Film needs to go in my opinion. Watching TV in the past used to be a family affair where plans for your evening centred around what you watch and when. You would decide on the best order of what was going to be shown and then if you could, you would record the rest for a later viewing. But as times have changed and the target demographic is considerably more technologically advanced than their older counterparts, concessions need to be made for those who don’t stay in to watch their TV shows anymore.
In the UK, we have Sky+, a service that allows you to view a constantly updated programme schedule for the next 7 days, set reminders for what you wish to watch and then digitally record (to the set top box itself) the programmes you were going to miss. So widespread has this box become, “Sky Plussing” a programme is as synonymous with recording as “Googling” is to web search. The point here is that people love to watch what they want, when they want. Allowing people to do this and having statistics for this specific quota of people would show that viewing numbers are not decreasing, people are saving content for a more convenient time. I have no figures to back this up of course but I think a straw poll would reinforce my point somewhat.
Take my above point that viewers from the country that the programme is shown are downloading the show for later viewing. It is a high quality file, delivered straight to your desktop and it’s free. Most of the time I has the advertisements stripped out and you can watch a show in less than 40minutes instead of the normal hour when watching it on the network channel. This is not just limited to North America, people from the UK and all over the world are downloading shows from their own television networks because it is convenient and in most cases fast and trouble free (minus the legal ramifications).
Don’t get me wrong, the ability to watch these programmes online from NBC, Fox and even the BBC exists and on the most part works very well. If these networks would syndicate with the PirateBay’s, Mininova’s and Demonoid’s of this world and publish their shows in an attractive 350MB DivX or Xvid file (even with advertisements intact), not only would the viewership of each show increase, I would stake money on the fact that other countries would want to syndicate the content on their networks, thus driving profit on any particular show due to DVD sales and deals from syndication.
The current system is restricted to limiting viewing to the country in which it is aired. I can agree with that, after all you need advertisements to remain relevant and allow the consumer to feel privileged. If networks would work with overseas networks and distributors, we would have market saturation and also the ability to create worldwide buzz about their product.
iTunes does already serve LOST downloads and I have heard that it works well. I feel that if a network has accrued rights to the programme and airs it free of charge as part of their listing, the download should also remain free. Of course they need to make a profit otherwise it wouldn’t be worth promoting the said show, perhaps advertising or subscriptions to online services would put paid to that?
Don’t see this as any sort of professional insight into the industry, I just feel free and available should be what the TV networks should strive for whilst catering to their board when it comes to profits. There has to be a way, the consumer knows what it wants but the traditional outlets are still holding onto their antiquated beliefs.
Film and music on the other hand, will have to wait to another day!
