The Death Clock - Testament

All right, everyone over 25, you can skip this rant. Go ahead, go look at the other pages on this site. This won't interest you one bit. Ok, now that I've cleaned out GenX, let me speak to you GenYers out there. I'd like to talk to you about something from my (and other people of my generation) childhood.

Back in the olden days, when a 64k ram upgrade to an Apple IIe was a big deal, when monochrome was an acceptable way of playing games, there used to be a cool channel on cable. This channel was awesome. You could turn it on almost any time of the day and listen to, and watch, music videos.

Now, some of you out there are probably saying, "Hey, that sounds like MTV!" Well, your right, kinda. You see... there used to be a time when the videos, and yes, I know this is hard to believe, but the music videos actually out numbered the non music shows. Yes, that's right. I bet some of you didn't know that the M in MTV stood for Music.

I have to admit that I love some of the cartoons on MTV, and I've always been partial to the Real World (although it's about as real as most of the cleavage on Bay Watch), but come on. What happened to the music? Worse of all, even when they do play videos, it's normally got some kind of crap overlaying the video part. It's either some inane chatroom (I can just see the executives.. 'Yea, will put a real chatroom on the video, it will be sooo cool since Internet stuff is the best! What? We can only use AOL? Well, isn't AOL the Internet?) or some other insipid drivel.

But wait! It gets worse. MTV obviously realizes they have stopped serving their original purpose. You can now, in some markets, get MTV2, which, from what I know, actually plays videos. I'd like to know when the VJs became more important then the music? I'd like to know why MTV stopped taking chances and showing new and upcoming bands? Most of all, to paraphrase a saying from the olden days, "I want my (real) MTV."

(Note: It seems many people had trouble understanding what I wrote above about those who are 25 and older. All I'm saying is that those of us who are old enough to remember MTV when it started remember how cool it used to be. I'm 29, so trust me, I'm not saying anything bad about the 25 and older group.)

Only one thing can take the reward for being the coolest item this week. I'm talking about the new Star Wars trailer of course. Those of you who know me know I am quite the freak when it comes to Star Wars. My desk is littered with miniatures and I have enough Star Wars books, comics, CD, and games to qualify as a true geek. Anyway, if you haven't spent the time downloading the trailer, I suggest doing so now. The best place to find it, of course, is http://www.StarWars.com.

Think that was nasty? Try one of the archive links below. Every new edition of the Testament will be archived here.