Even though I have only seen one episode of “Ham on the Street,” a clever new show on Food TV, I proclaim it a hit. George Duran, the star, does clever “man on the street” bits that showcase his talent as a chef who’s up for a laugh or good gag. As I learned later on, Duran is a former radio personality who (five years ago) went to Paris to become a trained chef. In the show I saw, he hollowed out some hot dogs using some hardware paraphernalia and filled them with cheese, peppers and other assorted goodies. He then had some hardware store employees sample the handwork, and the humor ensured. It was funnier than it sounds.

The highlight was when Duran (who is a native of Venezuela) made some Venezuelan hot dogs (topped with potato ships) and offered them to some Brooklyn Cyclone players who also were from his South American home. One guy ate six; wonder if he ran out of gas late in the game?

The promo for the next show included midnight turkey bowling in the aisles of a supermarket. Don’t miss it.

Will “Ham on the Street” challenge “Good Eats” as my favorite Food TV show? Right now, it’s a close second.

Last night, for the first time, we discovered "Crank Yankers" on Comedy Central. I had seen a few minutes here and there, but read something about the show on the Internet and decided to record an episode. I have to say, the last time I laughed so hard was when we saw Bill Cosby in concert and he did a routine based on his father telling him to pull his finger. Both times, I laughed until I cried.

In the Yankers we taped, there was a segment in which Wanda Sykes (who also is in "Curb Your Enthusiasm"—"Larry," she said, "You have to know when the play the (race) card.") calls a mechanic and informs him that the shop left a turd in the backseat of her car. I kid you not. Remember that the stars of Yankers are puppets and the dialog and staging is brilliant. Catch it for yourself. We have our DVR set to record all of them. BTW, this is low-brow, hilarious bathroom humor.

Which leads me to wondering why anyone believes Howard Stern will be successful on satellite radio; actually, I wonder why anyone would think satellite radio (another controlled content distribution environment)  would be successful. Podcasting is taking over the world. I am serious. Podcasts today range from below the home-brewed category, to some people who have talent and serious mixing skills. Podcasts allow users to download spoken word, music, talk shows or whatever to their music players (not just iPods) and listen to them at their leisure in any situation including the car. In the future, Podcasts will take over "radio" as we know it except for live sporting events and breaking news. KOMO Radio in Seattle does Podcasts, and soon, I sense others will join them.

Which leads me to Howard Stern. You want to hear people cursing and begin rude on the air? You need not wait til Stern joins XM or whatever network he’s on, because in the world of Podcasts, everyone is a shock jock, and honestly, a few are funnier than Stern.

Those in entertainment power underestimate the sheer desire of individuals to break through a politically controlled distribution system and deliver content to the masses. Everyone asks how you can make money at this. Well, that’s part of what Mike McGuire and I get paid for, and shortly, as part of our research, we will suggest some scenarios.

Stay tuned.

I have been scanning all of the news coming out of CES, and am pleased that the focus of the announcements centers on the research Mike McGuire and I wrote last year around a concept we call "Digital Media Titans." Nearly every product release and vision statement from Yahoo!, Microsoft and HP aligns with our thoughts that suggest a new construct for the media industry.

Our big question for 2005 is how do we top our work from last year? Believe me, we are up to the challenge!

I saw an article in the Arizona Republic (which I read only in locations I cannot access my PC) that previewed TV’s second-half programs. They uniformly look DREADFUL. For decades, TV programming has been built on the theory of planned obsolescence. Theatrical films are a close second in this category, but what other industry has such a low success rate? Even when you lower the threshold of "success," network (and now cable) programming is just plain awful.

This is why network television will die. It will die quickly and with a loud thud that will be heard across the fruited plain. Could I, using my PC and simple capture and editing tools, create a 30-minute TV show that would be more compelling than the swill the nets will offer up over the next several months? Maybe not, but lots of others sure can. Check out some of the better videoblogs and you’ll see what sort of "stuff" is being built in the bushes. Does a program need to be created in Hi Def with surround sound to be of interest to the masses? No. I’ll bet someone will create a web-based "American Idol" knockoff that will be far better than the original (which sure ain’t difficult),

2004 was the year of the blog? 2005 is the year that network TV begins to slip into a coma. Traditional radio as well.

Check out this cool news-vidblog.

Getting back in the swing of things. Some issues:

1. My DVD burner doesn’t seem to work. I have tried burning some Seinfeld episodes and at the end of the lengthy procedure, I get an error message that there is a problem writing to the disc. When I first burned CDs, years ago, I would get this issue with the first-generation Sony Supressa ® (external) burner. Each time I try to burn a DVD, I get the same error message, and each time I am wasting a DVD. That adds to some numbers I am compiling about the economics of personal media; I am figuring cost per movie and cost per TV episode per media (DVD vs. digital download vs. DVR). Recordable DVDs are not yet dirt cheap although coming down in price. I paid something like 70 cents per DVD that stores 120 minutes.
2. I was reading Walter Mossberg’s review of the media center in the WSJ last week. He noted the continual annoyance of the Norton Personal Firewall. I just removed mine (control panel/remove) because it popped up every few seconds when I was trying to download ORB, a new "TV anywhere" product.
3. I am having my media center "extender" box installed tomorrow. That leads to some thoughts—what will I initially stream from my media center to my TV? My TV has a DVR box, so streaming TV programs seems redundant. Burning DVDs (if I could) and then playing them on my DVD player seems redundant. These two media foraging centers (DVRs and media centers) seem to be in conflict until new and original programming appears via the Web. It’s why I think IPTV must contain some new and original programming or just be a competitive force to an already entrenched delivery channel.

Stay tuned

I have hit a snafu—cannot get the new WM machine to boot as it’s currently sitting there like a beautiful paperweight. Well, I am noodling on how to wake that baby up so I can get to my advanced video tasks, I am reflecting on the state of modern TV. If you look back to the ‘50s, in the days of the blacklists, any actor, writer or producer who even knew how to spell the word communist was kicked to the curb. The fear was triggered by advertisers who didn’t want their products associated with these pinko-Commies.

One of today’s most original shows is MTV’s "Pimp my Ride." We are huge fans and I know my wife would like nothing more than to pimp my ’92 Honda accord. Last night, we watched as XtotheZ helped a cool young man, who teaches inner-city youth, pimp his Accura. The end result was sheer magnificence.

One of the keys to the show is how X keeps his personality in tact (street cred, that is) yet somehow is accessible to the public at large. It’s sheer marketing genius on his part, MTV’s part, etc… In contrast, I was just listening to "Weapons of Mass Destruction," the unedited version of Xzibit’s new "album." Whoa. The rather provocative opening in which he takes a Bush speech and edits it to the point where The President says he’s turning weapons of mass destruction on the American people, is quite mind-blowing.

This is not a comment on the merits of X’s work. He’s talented and truly has something to say. This is to show how we’ve changed as a culture. X is the commercial pitchman for Right Guard or some similar deodorant. Obviously, the sponsor either doesn’t know of or care about X’s political bent. That's to be admired.

I recommend the film, "The Front," starring Woody Allen, for more insight into the blacklisting of the ‘50s. I guess 50 years is a LONG time

Barring other unforeseen DVR accidents, we’ll be watching all sorts of bowsers do all sorts of magical things. We’re partial to dogs that help the blind, handicapped and emotionally traumatized. Once, on "Airplane," a once-good but now lame show on A&E, about days in the life of Southwest Airlines, some kook couldn’t get on the plane without his emotional guide dog. The dog’s job was the keep the man calm and out of trouble. Alrighty, now.