Lost in Space blasted off on October 16, 1997.  In all actuality, the months before this date President Bill Clinton barred funding on the research on human cloning, Princess Diana died in a car crash and on October 16 itself, the first color photograph appeared on the front of the New York Times.  So it’s needless to say that we made real strides to reach the expectations set forth by a generation fascinated in space exploration! I am super excited about all of the advancements in technology I’ve seen over the past 10 years but we seemed to have dropped the ball on some of the big picture, awesome science fiction type stuff.  I blame the government.  They ruin everything.  I should be on a space shuttle traveling the universe right now, or even better, cryogenically frozen and being transported to Alpha Centauri.

What They Thought We Should Have by 1997

Deep Space Exploration Vehicle

 What We Had But Got Rid Of

Shitty Space Shuttle that Barely Left Earth

Reality Check:  It’s not that shitty.  It was a step closer to having the awesomeness displayed above.  What are we left with?  An awesome color photo that was most likely plastered on the cover of the New York Times.

Other Freaking Awesome Form of Transportation They Expected

Jetpacks.

What We Are Ashamed To Have In Comparison

The smart car. *sigh*

What They Saw As Being A Realistic Enhancement to Household Appliances In 30 Years

A 30 second laundry machine that not only rinse, wash and dries – but also folds and packages your laundry in to neat individual packages.

What We Have

FRONT LOADING WASHERS!

What I Don’t Understand They Used When They Built Intergalactic Flying Machines

A Journal?  Come on guys.  I know it was only 2001 when you woke from deep sleep and you didn’t have access to the latest Apple products but I think you would have managed to at least come up with the concept of a netbook.

What We Have That Would Blow 1965′s Mind

The iPad.  Eat it up.

Reality Check:  We still don’t have a space ship. How’s angry birds feel right about now?

What We Both Agreed Would Be One of The Most Important Things to Have In The 21st. Century

ANIMAL CLOTHING!!!!!!!!

What They Got Right (And I Guess We Did Too :/)

An old white man as President.  No shocker here though.  Blah.

Know what?  Those aren’t the only things that were either predicted or seem to have turned out the same.  There’s an awesome theme of sexism that you don’t even need to watch for – it jumps out at you. For example, young Will Robinson treats his sister Penny just awful. ”You women are always getting lost.”  Now women don’t have the best sense of direction (they’re right about sexism in the 21st century since I’m making a sexist comment right now that I can neither prove or say that I support) but he’s pretty young to start treating women like that.  He hasn’t even learned for himself how some can be. My favorite line in the pilot by far is Will yelling to Penny, ”Quit your squakin’, I’m alright.” AFTER he yells “Penny Help!!” and she runs after him (after he falls through a wall) and merely asks if he’s alright. Even in the intro when the narrator is announcing the Robinson family, they all have very a prestigious education and a certain level of experience announced after their name (yes, mom too!) except for Judy and Penny who get almost back-handed micro bios:

Judy is postponing a career in the musical comedy field (wtf?)

-AND-

Penny has a hobby of zoology

Marking the first time in history, anyone but an adult male has passed the international space administrations grueling physical and emotional screening for intergalactic flight.

Ah.  So, going back.  I still blame the government.  I mostly blame George Bush and his wars.  I know NASA has issues too but it’s easier to blame a single white man (if only they had gotten that wrong and Sarah Palin would have gotten elected in 2000 – it would have made the sexism jokes a lot more fitting here).

To sum it up: if our society decides to retire the iPad at any point then we progressively AND officially suck. (Officially being determined by the standards set forth by 1960′s America.) Don’t get angry at me for wasting my time away watching countless Science Channel shows and repeats of Lost in Space or Battlestar Galactica until real life can fill the void in my heart left for advancements in science.

Ms. Menzel got out of the wrong side of the car, most people got out facing the red carpet and she got out facing the crowd.  I think it was intentional.  I got a really good in-person visual.  You can see her elegant golden back above.

I saw a lot of Glee stars! Yes, take a second. Awe.  So cute.  Matthew Morrison pulled an Idina and got of the car towards the crowd.  Unfortunately, I am short and not as strong as a teenage girl so most of my photos are horrible.  My Glee photos are blurry.  I was literally trying to not fall over.  I got a pretty good one of Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff though:

Last but not least, my friend Kady Chambers was a seat filler at the Tonys.  She was supposed to hook me up with that but forgot!  She did it on purpose – she got to be on TV for a hot second!

That’s about it.  Overall, not too shabby.  It for sure beat last year.  Too bad the show isn’t as good as last.  Green Day rocked the opening and I’m hoping the remaining acts are just as good.

Alliances have formed in support of #teamconan and #teamjay.  We see from the buzz that the mass is leaning towards the support of Conan O’Brien. NBC’s volume of mentions has shot up which is not too shabby for the media company who has been struggling to compete within the “Top 4” networks for some time.  At an unfair advantage, Jay Leno and NBC seem to be on the same team and ultimately, NBC will be making the programming decisions.  With that being said, I wanted to offer NBC a few recommendations that may help.

Recommendation #1:  Ratings aren’t everything and online conversations shouldn’t be ignored.  With the use of social media monitoring technology this can be done within minutes.  Tens of thousands of online supporters are on Facebook in the “I’m with Coco” group and bickering back and forth with the #teamconan and #teamjay hashtags.

Recommendation #2 :  Take a look at Conan and Leno’s Web analytics for on-site performance and insight in to which property users engage with the most.  View the top performing pages along with the average time spent on site to find out if the trend in conversation that you’re monitoring coincides with site performance.  From looking at historic data from Compete.com, my story seems to be backed up by  TonightShowwithConanObrien.com seeing a 19.87% increase in visitors while TheJayLenoShow.com saw a 19.46% decrease.  That looks like people are less interest in Jay’s site.  Am I right?

Recommendation #3:  Dive deeper in to NBC’s niche show communities and monitor the number of comments on Conan’s blog to Leno’s. As of now, Conan is seeing far more engagement with the average number of comments on blog posts around 300+ while Leno’s is only around 90.  The people leaving the ease of their favorite top social networking sites to engage in these smaller communities are probably the most influential audience members.  Embrace them.

Not looking in to the wants and needs of the public is what got NBC in to this predicament in the first place when they gave Jay Leno a prime time show.  Top executives at NBC who are on the Jay Leno bandwagon shouldn’t be ashamed if #teamconan is more convincing than #teamjay. A more Web savvy user base is what will drive NBC in to the future and from the looks of my data, the future is with Conan.

I had a hard time connecting with Nine.  It had many of my favorite aspects for a movie in it – talented performers and great music, so it shouldn’t have been so hard.  It wasn’t until the end that I really connected with the film.  The scene was with Guido setting up two actors in a scene in his latest movie that he wrote to win back his wife.  During the scene, people from his past are brought in behind him and his childhood self runs out and sits on his lap.  This all happens as he carry’s on normally, without notice.  It was touching to see everything that he struggled with throughout the movie finally serve as a sense of inspiration as he moves on with the “simple” outlook of a child.

Overall, I will stick to listening to the soundtrack rather then watching this.  It seemed like a stretch to make this theatrical piece in to a movie but I believe it was well done for what there was to work with.

I want to also give MTV props for their Twitter use.  They had iJustine on spot monitoring the number of tweets generated around the event.  With use of Radian6 Social Media Monitoring technology they were able to create this great tweet visualizer below.