This is actually the third run of "Local Ad": 9PM Thursday, April 3. Its first rerun was after the state of the union speech in January.

The Dunder Mifflin group in Second Life, created for the filming of the episode, has grown to over 1000 members based on word of mouth, and Clear Ink will once again open up its backlot on Channing for fans of "The Office" to gather after tonight's episode airs.

In October, the original airing of "Local Ad" followed by a day the premiere of Second Life as a major component of a story in CBS's "CSI:NY". That episode was the first of a two-part story that was to have concluded in February. Due to the WGA strike, the concluding episode did not air until last night, once again the night before "The Office" episode. However a funny thing seemed to have happened on the road to part to of "CSI:NY". For the most part, the Second Life tie-in went away. There was no mention of Second Life or virtual worlds, and the brief scene of the villain in a virtual world was very un-Second-Life-like. This may have been planned all along, or the conclusion was revised. I won't speculate here, but that story will probably be told (link to follow).

If you missed the "Local Ad" episode of "The Office" on April 3, you can always catch it here on hulu.com.

You can also catch part 1 or part 2 of the CSI:NY episodes at cbs.com.

When the writers strike began yesterday, I thought at least we'd be treated to some creative strike chanting - hey, they're writers!
But when I tuned into a report on the radio, here's what I got:

What do we want? A contract! When do we want it? Now!

Whatever the merits of their grievances, shame on the writers for not giving us something more original on the picket lines.

Hey, hey! Ho ho! Tired old strike chants gotta go!

Update: OK, so the New York Times story mentioned that the crew Tina Fey was striking with was shouting:
No money? No downloads! No downloads? No peace!

Now accepting via comments: other clever strike slogans you heard, read (or you think should be chanted!)

Crank up the betamax, wake up the kids. NBC's "The Office" is on its way to Second Life tonight (October 25) at 9PM EDT/PDT. (Check your local listings). This was a fairly quick-turn Clear Ink project, and I'll follow up with a post recapping what we did, what made it to the show, and who in the Second Life community made it all possible. (Even at this time, I'm not sure what the final cut will include).

Those of you with Second-Life-on-TV day-after withdrawal get a second chance for another fix.

TV is dead. Or it will be dead unless it evolves drastically. I came to this conclusion sometime in 2002-2003. That was the point when I was abruptly weened off religiously watching television. Since then, only a few shows have caught my attention enough to actually turn my TV into a TV, and not just the screen for my XBOX(/DVD player). However, I have seen a new direction for TV, and it came from NBC of all people. Their great show last season got me hooked into a new way to watch TV shows. Online viewing. And boy am I hooked. No cable service to buy, no expensive equipment to buy or lease, no endless commercials. Its just great. I can watch when I want, pretty much anywhere I want to and the commercials are minimal. I like it so much I even got my technologically-limited mom to start watching this way and its amazing how quickly she caught on.

Commercials are the real thing I wanted to blog about though. While watching Heroes online, I did get some commercials, but strangely, it seemed to be the same commercial every 10 minutes. But it was only one commercial every 10 minutes it seemed like so I could deal with it. Yet I found myself wanting more commercials, or at least more relevant commercials. This was a strange feeling for me, having always changed the channel or went and did something else while commercials were on.

Being online so much, I am always looking for more to do, more to see. I usually have at least 4 different programs running, some with 2 or more viewable things each. Call me ADHD if you will, but only call me that because the Internet made me that way. So when I said I wanted to see commercials, I was serious. I wanted something to focus my attention and keep me on that one screen. While watching Heroes, I would switch it to take over my whole monitor, one of them anyway, and I wanted something to fill the space the inevitable commercial would take up. I don't think I am alone in this feeling either.

TV execs, if you are reading this, take note. Give me options. Give me choices. You already do it by giving me the choice of which TV show to watch, so why not extend that to commercials. Here's a simple way to do it online that benefits you twofold and is very simple thing to do. Give me categories of commercials to choose from such as movies, cars, technology, food, etc. This benefits you because then I would be interested in the commercials and would probably watch them. It also benefits you because then you would know what I wanted to see and you can tell your advertisers: "See? He wants to see your content. Give us more money and we pretty much guarantee your ad will get the placement you are aiming for." After all, isn't that what advertisers want to hear, guaranteed product placement?