I recently finished watching the complete Firefly series on Netflix. That sounds like a lot of TV watching, but it only ran for 14 episodes before it got cancelled due to low ratings. Most geeks agree, however, that this show was a little gem, was poorly marketed by Fox, and should never have died so early. After watching it, I would have to agree.

I guess this show falls into the space-western genre, and with plenty of horses, bandits, prostitutes, and bounty hunters, I’d say it falls more into the “western” part of the spectrum. The CGI is a bit dated, but not bad for 2002. What really drives the show are the terrific characters, with particularly strong female leads, and wonderful camaraderie among the crew.

With a liberal sprinkling of romance thrown in, I can see why both genders enjoy this show immensely. The creator, Joss Whedon, played with several sub genres throughout the too-short series, with suspense, horror, adventure, and comedy providing a different mood for any given episode.

On the negative side, I’d have to say that the acting and the overall story arc is not as good as the crazy-good Battlestar Gallactica – but it would be hard for any Sci-Fi to come close. Given a chance, this show could have blossomed in its maturity. Too bad it was axed in its infancy. I will definitely be watching the follow-up movie, Serenity, which the fans basically demanded into being. A lot of questions were left unanswered, so I’m looking forward to some closure. Recently there was some talk of resurrecting the show independently and putting it out on the internet. Probably not going to happen, but there’s always hope.

This is a real job posting. I appreciate the brute honesty because it doesn’t sound like a job I’d be that interested in. But some sicko might be. And yes, they actually are looking for a “sicko”:

We want to add some talent to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune investigative team. Every serious candidate should have a proven track record of conceiving, reporting and writing stellar investigative pieces that provoke change. However, our ideal candidate has also cursed out an editor, had spokespeople hang up on them in anger and threatened to resign at least once because some fool wanted to screw around with their perfect lede.

We do a mix of quick hit investigative work when events call for it and mini-projects that might run for a few days. But every year we like to put together a project way too ambitious for a paper our size because we dream that one day Walt Bogdanich will have to say: “I can’t believe the Sarasota Whatever-Tribune cost me my 20^th Pulitzer.” As many of you already know, those kinds of projects can be hellish, soul-sucking, doubt-inducing affairs. But if you’re the type of sicko who likes holing up in a tiny, closed  office with reporters of questionable hygiene to build databases from scratch by hand-entering thousands of pages of documents to take on powerful people and institutions that wish you were dead, all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble… well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven, then you’re our kind of sicko.

For those unaware of Florida’s reputation, it’s arguably the best news state in the country and not just because of the great public records laws. We have all kinds of corruption, violence and scumbaggery. The 9/11 terrorists trained here. Bush read My Pet Goat here. Our elections are colossal clusterfucks. Our new governor once ran a health care company that got hit with a record fine because of rampant Medicare fraud. We have hurricanes, wildfires, tar balls, bedbugs, diseased citrus trees and an entire town overrun by giant roaches (only one of those things is made up). And we have Disney World and beaches, so bring the whole family.

Send questions, or a resume/cover letter/links to clips to my email address below. If you already have your dream job, please pass this along to someone whose skills you covet. Thanks.

Matthew Doig

Sarasota Herald-Tribune
1741 Main St.
Sarasota FL, 34236
(941) 361-4903
matthew.doig@heraldtribune.com

Source: A few tasteful snaps

I work on a computer all day for my writing job – it’s a plain old generic desktop with a 2.66Ghz CPU, 2.5GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive. I have dual 19-inch monitors, which is nice. I have windows XP installed. But what I really love is the new computer I have at home. It was a birthday/Christmas gift. I made the switch to apple after being a PC/windows user my whole life.

Now I have a 27-inch iMac with a 2.8Ghz quad-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 1 Terabyte hard drive. It has an ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics card with 1GB memory. It came installed with Snow Leopard and iLife ’11. I have to say it’s been fantastic so far. The screen feels gigantic at first, but after a while you couldn’t imagine using anything smaller. My previous screen was a paltry 17 inches.

I’m learning to play piano using the included Garageband lessons and the USB midi keyboard I also got for Christmas. I’ll have to post some recordings of my progress.