You know, I'm actually one of those rare guys who will say something nice about Family Guy even when everybody is saying how bad it is, how racist the jokes are, how Seth is this or that...
But those are pretty meh. Like they are not even trying. Maybe watching all of them at once didn't contribute too...
@Bokusatsu_Tenshi: They weren't trying. I'm sure if they were giving it their all they would have actually animated something new instead of re-dubbing a couple of old clips.
@mangochutney: Or it could be that there never was any "Family Guy Windows 7 episode" to begin with.
@tande04:
I doubt Microsoft went through that much trouble to pull a dumb PR stunt like that. Those actually look like real episodes.
Microsoft most likely didn't intend to pull these from the beginning.
@doompod: I never said they did. In fact when the first person misconstrued what I said in that way I made a point of saying that wasn't what I was saying.
Those are real episodes. In order they are:
Ocean's Three and a Half
Road to the Multiverse
Lois Kills Stewie
Tales of a Third Grade Nothing.
They re-dubbed them with windows 7 parts to cross promote both windows 7 and Family Guy (see how it says what time Family Guy comes on at?). They were used exclusively as leads to actual windows 7 commercials and as far as I know only appeared during other similar shows.
They are not part of some "Windows 7-centric" episode of Family Guy. There is no Windows 7-centric episode of Family Guy. No one who bothered to read past a blog title ever thought there was. There was a live action sketch show called "Seth and Alex" which was originally sponsored by MS but they pulled their sponsorship. The show went on and aired.
There is nothing for MS to "pull" in the first place.
I've never needed a Tivo - who would pay to use a VCR?
While PCs have long been able to act as DVRs, for a scheduled event, if you're already doing something on your PC, you're going to drop frames capturing, and it will effectively make your PC unusable while recording. It would also fill up your hard disks very fast.
I just subscribe to a satellite provider that has the option of PVR receivers - that way I can record what I want when I want, even on 2 channels at once now, for no extra fee, and skip commercials instantly, pause and rewind live TV, etc... all the usual features.
...but as I watch less and less TV, I find the occasional Bittorrent download isn't exactly squashing my net connection either. It's often neccesary anyway as the networks love to play shell games with their broadcast slots.
@tande04: Actually, I looked back, and you're right. The live-action special was supposed to be sponsored by Windows 7. It got changed to a couple movies at the last minute.
@nforcer: The movies were who sponsored it? Or the live action special got turned into a couple of movies?
Yeah, thats all it was and all it ever was. Nothing was "killed", MS just pulled out from sponsoring it. I guess they were even doing their Win 7 bits when on stage 'cause they didn't get the memo.
Adapt or die. TiVo had a good product and then decided to do nothing while the cash rolled in and the good times rolled away.
The industry is moving from time-shifting to on-demand: being able to effectively circumvent what time a specific show aired by recording it has been replaced by not caring at all what the original show time was, since you can just get it on-demand. TiVo should have got itself into the on-demand business while its profits were high - imagine if Hulu was originally created by TiVo or if TiVo had made a deal to somehow get (over the TV line or the internet line) on-demand for it's service, i.e. "missed the show AND forgot to record? We still got it for you!"
But TiVo decided that the industry wasn't going to fundamentally change with the Internet so they decided to just refine their product - and now they're suffering for it.
Jason, what if you're in a family that absolutely refuses to get more than one box, and also refuses to get DVR service?
I've always considered picking up an older Series 2 Tivo and trying to 'emulate' the service like the Australians and Canadians did before the 'official' release of Tivo. It's hard to find the scripts and emulators they used to use (since they kept it all password protected and made you verify that you were an official citizen - after all, an American with the software just has the intent to steal service), but from what I've seen, a few simple Google searches gets the goods ;)
@dragon:ONE: While I don't refuse more than one box what I'm really hoping for is a tuner card for satellite (Bell Expressvu). Then I can actually have one box for everything.
For a long time (at least 6 years) I've always envied the Macs I had to work on as a designer. Stuff was just too expensive to justify getting one (plus I used stuff that was Windows only).
But, working on both everyday, I greatly prefer Windows 7. I work twice as fast on it than OSX.
Finally I feel like I'm using a windows operating system that was built this decade... and it only took the whole decade to make!
Resident Apple fanboy reporting: Windows 7 is alright with me.
Still like OS X better, and Windows 7 is still Windows when it comes down to it, but there's some neat stuff in 7 and it's great that people are upgrading. You don't have to be happy with XP anymore.
@SysRq: Thank you. People need to be more civil about this stuff. All of this fanboy garbage "MAC SUXX WINDOWS FTFW!!!" needs to go. Microsoft users need to concede that Macs are not just style over substance and Mac users have to admit that Windows products are no longer the BSODing virus happy machines they used to be.
@SysRq: Especially the media stuff. Windows Media Center is something Apple would never bother doing because they get no money out of it. They'd rather you pay for all your TV content from iTunes.
@dagamer34: I wouldn't be so sure about that last part (about iTunes, but hey, I'm no expert), but yeah, I agree that WMC is much much better than Front Row.
@SysRq: Right on, brother. I love my Mac, but I finally feel like I can leave XP behind on my Windows boxes and my Boot Camp partition now. It really is a breath of fresh air.
@(Starman) Starman: I'm not a fan of either, to be honest. I never saw the appeal of a full screen media application. Fullscreen iTunes if you want music, or fullscreeen Quicktime if you want movies, or fullscreen iPhoto if you want pictures.
11/28/09
11/28/09
11/28/09
11/28/09
11/28/09
11/27/09
Seth MacFarlane today: HURP DURP I LIEK MONEY
11/27/09
But those are pretty meh. Like they are not even trying. Maybe watching all of them at once didn't contribute too...
The spinning mac disk was funny though.
11/27/09
11/27/09
@mangochutney: Or it could be that there never was any "Family Guy Windows 7 episode" to begin with.
11/27/09
11/27/09
There never was a Windows 7 Family Guy episode planned, conceived, or in any way shape or form executed.
There were these ads which ran as they were supposed to and a live action show which MS just pulled out of sponsoring at the last second.
Nothing got killed, nothing was faked, the whole thing went as planned (with the exception of MS pulling their sponsorship).
11/27/09
I doubt Microsoft went through that much trouble to pull a dumb PR stunt like that. Those actually look like real episodes.
Microsoft most likely didn't intend to pull these from the beginning.
11/27/09
Those are real episodes. In order they are:
Ocean's Three and a Half
Road to the Multiverse
Lois Kills Stewie
Tales of a Third Grade Nothing.
They re-dubbed them with windows 7 parts to cross promote both windows 7 and Family Guy (see how it says what time Family Guy comes on at?). They were used exclusively as leads to actual windows 7 commercials and as far as I know only appeared during other similar shows.
They are not part of some "Windows 7-centric" episode of Family Guy. There is no Windows 7-centric episode of Family Guy. No one who bothered to read past a blog title ever thought there was. There was a live action sketch show called "Seth and Alex" which was originally sponsored by MS but they pulled their sponsorship. The show went on and aired.
There is nothing for MS to "pull" in the first place.
11/27/09
While PCs have long been able to act as DVRs, for a scheduled event, if you're already doing something on your PC, you're going to drop frames capturing, and it will effectively make your PC unusable while recording. It would also fill up your hard disks very fast.
I just subscribe to a satellite provider that has the option of PVR receivers - that way I can record what I want when I want, even on 2 channels at once now, for no extra fee, and skip commercials instantly, pause and rewind live TV, etc... all the usual features.
...but as I watch less and less TV, I find the occasional Bittorrent download isn't exactly squashing my net connection either. It's often neccesary anyway as the networks love to play shell games with their broadcast slots.
11/27/09
He replied "I still love Vista, baby".
11/27/09
11/27/09
11/27/09
On the other hand, those would make fairly amusing stand-alone ads. A nice change from the nauseatingly sterile advertising that we're all used to.
11/27/09
I don't think the special would have in any way shape or form resembled these.
11/27/09
11/27/09
Can't speak for you though.
11/27/09
11/27/09
I swore this was a post about Windows 7 Family Guy commercials and not how I might or might not speak in the real world.
11/27/09
11/27/09
Does that even make sense? Shouldn't it be "The dead"? or am I imagining things?
11/27/09
11/27/09
11/27/09
11/27/09
Yeah, thats all it was and all it ever was. Nothing was "killed", MS just pulled out from sponsoring it. I guess they were even doing their Win 7 bits when on stage 'cause they didn't get the memo.
11/27/09
The industry is moving from time-shifting to on-demand: being able to effectively circumvent what time a specific show aired by recording it has been replaced by not caring at all what the original show time was, since you can just get it on-demand. TiVo should have got itself into the on-demand business while its profits were high - imagine if Hulu was originally created by TiVo or if TiVo had made a deal to somehow get (over the TV line or the internet line) on-demand for it's service, i.e. "missed the show AND forgot to record? We still got it for you!"
But TiVo decided that the industry wasn't going to fundamentally change with the Internet so they decided to just refine their product - and now they're suffering for it.
11/27/09
11/26/09
I've always considered picking up an older Series 2 Tivo and trying to 'emulate' the service like the Australians and Canadians did before the 'official' release of Tivo. It's hard to find the scripts and emulators they used to use (since they kept it all password protected and made you verify that you were an official citizen - after all, an American with the software just has the intent to steal service), but from what I've seen, a few simple Google searches gets the goods ;)
11/26/09
11/26/09
11/25/09
But, working on both everyday, I greatly prefer Windows 7. I work twice as fast on it than OSX.
Finally I feel like I'm using a windows operating system that was built this decade... and it only took the whole decade to make!
11/25/09
Still like OS X better, and Windows 7 is still Windows when it comes down to it, but there's some neat stuff in 7 and it's great that people are upgrading. You don't have to be happy with XP anymore.
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
#tips
11/25/09
11/25/09
#tips
11/26/09
11/26/09