| How voting became TV entertainment
Tonight [Sunday 22.4.] the Finnish public will gather in front of their sets to see whether singer Mariko Pajalahti and her dance partner Aleksi Seppänen or actress Sari Siikander and her partner Mikko Ahti come out on top in the final of the second season of Tanssii tähtien kanssa (Dancing With the Stars), Finland's own version of the BBC "celebreality" format Strictly Come Dancing. Talking of "the Finnish public" in this context may sound like hyperbole, but the exaggeration is not really that great, considering that the competition has already grabbed the biggest viewing figures of the year so far - nearly 1,450,000 Finns tuned in for one of the earlier rounds. The final of last year's first season of the show had more than 1,570,000 viewers nailed to their armchairs. A part of the programme's attraction - and that of another succesful format, Idols (a spin-off from the British show Pop Idol) - lies in the home voting, where viewers get to choose which contestants make it through and which are dropped out. The classic representative and big daddy of "TV voting shows", the results watch of the Parliamentary Elections on YLE's TV1, lost out in the ratings this year to its foreign-made challenger. The election-night coverage gathered in "only" 1.3 million viewers.
It's only game of solitaire as turtles go on missions
Superhero and cartoon characters have become integral parts of the electronic entertainment industry. Around the world, youngsters and guys who can't get dates spend countless hours in front of their computers and video-game systems.
With this in mind, I salute the meld of pop-culture characters and Silicon Valley with a look at some...
Comics plugged in
TMNT
(Ubisoft for Xbox 360, rated E+10, $49.99)
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have returned not only to the silver screen in a new computer animated film from Warner Bros. but to the video game realm, in a third-person action game. A single player controls each of the four green warriors and works through 16 missions loaded with acrobatic conundrums and packs of thugs ready to beat the heroes back into the sewers.
US Army's computer game recruiting
Anti-recruitment groups are slamming a US Army deal to sponsor a computer war game channel, charging that real war is no game. In June, the Army is set to sponsor a channel at the Global Gaming League website, a popular spot for Internet computer game lovers. "It is part of this campaign for the last 20 years to invade youth culture with militarism," Project on Youth and Non-military Opportunities co-founder Rick Jahnkow told AFP. "It affects the way young people think. It affects their world view. That is a very dangerous thing." A first-person shooter game based on the army training manual will be a centerpiece of the channel, which will feature other games in the same genre. The "America's Army" game was released about five years ago and ranks in the top 10 most popular computer games of its kind, according to McCann World Group vice president Anders Ekman, who is handling the project for the Army.
Thou Shalt Not Whine
The congregation at Christ Church Unity was complaining - again - about the music the Rev. Will Bowen chose for services at the Kansas City, Mo., church. Ask any clergy. The quickest way to engender discussion is not by veering from the sacred text but by fiddling with the liturgy.
So one Sunday last July, ushers handed out purple plastic bracelets to the 250 or so gathered. The bracelets were stamped with the word "spirit," with the idea of stamping out complaints - and not just those about church music. Bracelet-wearers were asked to refrain from whining for 21 days - about the time it takes to form (or break) a habit.
When wearers complained - and they did, lustily - they were to switch the bracelet to the opposite wrist and start again.
Bowen, who began his career as a radio station manager, has always been fond of little giveaways that reinforce the message.
Eurythmics co-founder teams with Greenpeace
EXACTLY how Dave Stewart, co-founder of the '80s pop supergroup the Eurythmics, came to launch a new multimedia venture with the environmental crusaders of Greenpeace is a story of Information Age synergy. It is a story of rock star entrepreneurship, MySpace-era interconnectivity and the ecological crisis mind-set that has seized almost every segment of culture since the release of Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
But also, it's the story of how Stewart's birthday wish turned into an Earth Day offering — a nonprofit Greenpeace "anthem" called "Go Green" that will become available for download on iTunes just in time for the observance of the global environmental appreciation holiday Sunday.
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