Backstory DVDs about Soap Characters

Something that most people know about me is that I love television. And those who don’t know that about me may have at least realized I’m interested in the medium because this is not the first time I’ve written about it on this blog. The truth is that I find a lot of things about TV absolutely fascinating and wonderful. When it comes right down to it, I love stories and there are certain storytelling genres that are completely unique to TV.

One of these genres is the Daytime Serial, better known as Soap Operas. Say what you will about soaps (bad acting, cheesy writing, repetitive, etc.), they are a completely unique way of telling stories that would not work the same way in any other medium*. The casts and crews work non-stop to produce a new episode five days a week all year round with no reruns. Even the most devout soap fans would concede that some of the criticisms are accurate, but with their demanding production schedule soaps should be forgiven if production value suffers in favor of consistency.

Despite the fast production pace and resulting inconsistent quality, there are many times when soaps achieve greatness. Whether in the form of a ground-breaking social-issue storyline or in a memorably good acting performance, the soap genre has moments when it genuinely impacts fans’ lives. Sometimes those moments even go on to impact popular culture at large. I would give examples here, but I think I have already given the impression that I am a much bigger soap fan than I truly am. My point here is not to come off as some sort of soap nut, but simply to say that the genre deserves more street cred than most people want to give it.

One of the interesting aspects of soap operas is the history that exists between all of the characters on the shows. The most successful soaps remain on the air for decades. In that time, viewers are introduced to many changing characters and relationships: romances blossom, characters age, families grow, murders are committed, multiple personalities are exposed, long lost evil twins appear in town to destroy lives, etc. It can be exciting to see all these changes over time, but it can also be hard to keep the facts of each character’s life straight.

Something that should exist to help soap fans remember the details of their favorite characters’ lives is a series of DVD “biographies” of those characters. Long time fans would be interested in those DVDs as a way to reminisce about characters. For younger viewers, this series would help inform their viewing of current storylines, providing insight into why certain characters act a certain way toward one another. This could also work as a series on a network like SoapNet. Many see soaps as a dying genre and this could possibly help to gain new viewers or revive viewers who have strayed away their favorite shows.

Does something like this exist? Which soaps have you been exposed to?




* I’m aware that Daytime Serials started in the days of radio, long before they began airing on TV. Still, I believe the genre has evolved and enjoyed success in a way that is unique to television.

Pre-Arranged, Personalized Birthday Cards

This is a special guest entry written by one of my good friends and favorite writers, Rachael Lynch...

How many birthday cards do you receive per year? I’m talking real, live, hand-written birthday cards? If you’re anything like me, that number is nowhere near the number of cards you would like to receive. According to Yahoo! Answers, the best way to ensure that you will receive more birthday cards is to send more cards. Brilliant, right? Personally, I would love to send more birthday cards to my friends and family members. At night, I lie in bed dreaming of markers and stickers, making elaborate plans for cards. I add people to (and sometimes delete from) my mental birthday card list. And then I wake up the next morning and am unable to access my mental birthday card list. It must only exist in that blurry state between awake and asleep.

Okay, so, maybe you aren’t like me. Maybe you have signed up for one of those internet services that send you a reminder days before a loved one’s birthday – gives you plenty of time to give them a quick call, or short text, or the obligatory Facebook wall post. Because we all know how wonderful it feels to get a facebook wall post on our birthday, I can hardly describe the overwhelming feeling I get when I log in on that magical day and see 142,003 identical wall posts. (I will admit that birthday wall posts do serve ONE purpose – allowing me to compare my relative popularity to that of my friends based on the number of people who posted.) Frankly, a facebook wall post is just not good enough for anyone who is more than a Birthday/Christmas friend.

That being said. I am busy. You are probably busy too. Work, school, TV shows, spending time with friends and family, playing Farmville – these things are all really important. We all want to be better friends, send more cards, call each other more. We just don’t. We are unable (or perhaps unwilling) to make the time for it.

There has got to be some way to bridge the gap between wanting to send more personalized birthday cards and having the time, energy, and foresight to actually do it. I quickly Google-ized “birthday card sending services” and found a variety of services that purport to take care of this problem. Sure these services are fine if you want to send everyone the same dumb card, or you want to choose from 3 or 4 different designs that are all perfect for your grandmother, or if you want to type a generic message online and have it typed in the card (some sites even let you choose color and font!). It seems to be that these services aren’t much better than FB wall postings. They lack humanity. They lack hours spent in the card aisle finding just the right card for that special someone. They lack scented markers.

What should exist is a birthday card sending service that gets it right. One with an enormous selection of cards – every card in existence would be great and maybe even an option to upload a pic and create your own card. These cards would be wonderfully organized by keyword, so it would be easy to find a birthday card about wine for your wino best friend, or one about fishing for your dad. Finally, the service would have many different options that will work for anyone. I envision being able to pick out cards for the entire years worth of birthdays, have them shipped to me in about 3 installments during the year, I would then fill out the cards as I wished and mail them back to the company. The end. Well for me anyway. The service would then make sure the cards were sent with perfect timing to arrive before (but not too much before) that magical day. Sounds great, right?

Does this already exist? Would anyone actually use a service like this?

Terms and Conditions Interpreter

There’s no better way to start this post than by just admitting something. You know those boxes you’re supposed to check whenever you sign up for a website or download a new program onto your computer or pretty much do anything at all online anymore? Those ‘Terms and Conditions’ pages appear everywhere in my computer-based life, but I must admit that I never actually read the terms of service.

Actually, I do feel guilty about it. I consistently click the box declaring that I did, indeed, read the terms and conditions. It’s technically dishonest, but what worries me more is that it could possibly be dangerous. If I continue to agree to terms without knowing what they are then it seems more than likely that at some point I could be agreeing to something entirely unsavory.



I tend to take for granted that I am not the first person to sign up for whatever service and that if there was a problem with the terms then they would have been addressed long before I reach that section of the registration. Furthermore, I don’t always trust myself to read the ‘legal mumbo jumbo’ that makes up what amounts to fine print in my opinion.

These are just excuses though. Truly, the responsible thing to do would be to actually read and understand the terms of service. But I know I am unlikely to ever start being so responsible.

As a compromise, I think there should be some sort of service, probably a website, that analyzes and compares the terms and conditions for many different websites and software packages. The service would summarize the terms into a much shorter form and it should break down the terms into language that is easily understood by people who are not legal experts. In addition, I think this service should tell me what possible implications these terms could have.

Now I hope everyone who reads this notices the inherent irony in the above idea. This kind of a service would inevitably have fine print of its own that you must read. Since the whole point is to avoid having to read and interpret so many terms and conditions, it seems slightly counterproductive to add one more service that requires it. Perhaps the site could even use its own terms and conditions as an example for potential users. It could provide the full version and then summarize and analyze its own terms for users who may not wish to even read those.

I may agree that it is irresponsible to claim I agree with terms I have never read, but I also want it to be easier to understand those conditions. Even with a site like the one I suggest above, there is an amount of trust involved. In the end it comes down to balancing risk with reward. It may be risky to pay absolutely no attention to terms and conditions, and this idea would be a good compromise solution.

How often do you read ‘Terms and Conditions?’ Do you know of any service or website that already does this?