Network Television really upsets me

Here I was all ready to see the third episode of That Was Then, and it's another hour of garbage of people with their cam-corders (funniest home videos).I just don't understand how the major networks make any money. They are constantly shifting shows around to different nights and times and then yanking something after two weeks' performance. And what is the big deal about Scrubs? It's really bad but NBC keeps touting it as some sort of incredible breakthrough. well, at least I can flip the channel to the WB for DO Over. Yes, even though it has almost the same premise as That Was Then, they are radically different. Do Over is a half hour comedy while That was Then is a One hour comedy drama. So ABC's website lists That Was Then on hiatus. yeah, right.

Another piece of Atlanta history bites the dust

I'm not positive about it, but I think the mural on Peachtree St is gone. It wasn't anything spectacular, just really nice to look at. I think it was painted in the late 80's because it had Prince, Jack Nicholson as The Joker in Batman, and some other recognizable faces/characters on it. It was originally painted to go with the restaurant whose parking lot it shared. Some sort of movie/entertainment themed place that went bankrupt a few months after it opened. There were other things that took its place. An Indian place, a Chinese place etc., but no one ever touched the mural. While driving down Peachtree on Tuesday night, I noticed a lot more contruction going on. Even though there's absolutely no market for condos right now, these companies continue to build them. There used to be a record store on Peachtree St. nearby that was called Peaches. Several recording artists put their footprints in the concrete in front of the store. When it closed, someone came along and jack-hammered those footprints out of the sidewalk. The space where Peaches was would have made a great nightclub. It would have been so appropriate to have the foot prints out there. Oh well.The first dentist I ever went to had his office on W. Peachtree St. About 10 years ago, they had turned his office building into dorms.My Dad's first law office was right next to the original location for TBS. When my grandfather had to sell the building because of financial woes, Ted bought it and used it for his people. It was really strange to revisit those offices and to see Braves stuff in the office where my Dad used to work. They had never redecorated so the 70's motif still wreaked from that area.Cable Atlanta bought that space from Turner along with the old TBS studios. Then it changed hands about 4 or 5 times while the different cable conglomerates tried to make up their minds as to who was going to be the cable system for the city. (don't even let me get started on AT&T). I guess what upsets me now is that the building is probably going to be torn down soon.Contractors tore down the Columbia theatre to build a parking lot. The old building for the Limelight was given a similar fate. They took a beautiful structure (the old Harlequin Dinner Theatre), tore the whole thing down, and seperated the floors to build a "World Market". It's a trinket shop like Pier One. It frustrates me to no end when things are torn down--unofficial historical locations, in favor of building more crap that we don't need. In the late 80's, it was strip malls. I am a capitalist at heart, but I just didn't see the need for all of these new malls when they couldn't fill the old ones.The North 85 Drive-In bit the dust in 1999 so that we could have 24 screens showing 12 of the same movies. Hell, most of the movie chains have filed for bankruptcy because of their constant over-building mentality. The Georgia theatre company did a lot of damage in the 80's to Lenox Square theatre. It still is beyond me how the could take a grand auditorium, twin it, the turn the concession lobby into a theatre, turn the hallway from the outside into the mall into a theatre, and then add on an extra screen. It's really unfortunate because you have a 1 in 5 chance of seeing a movie in the giant hallway there. If you do luck out and get the 'big screen', the projectionist (and I use that term lightly) will exhibit the entire panavision (rectangular) picture on a square screen because he's never heard of moving the black masking out of the way.but I digress....Phipps Plaza 16 used to be home to 3 large screens. Two downstairs and one upstairs. I saw Alien at Phipps. I also saw The Empire Strikes Back there. Most of these theatres today can't hold a candle to the old ones. Phipps has a got a whacked out system now. The screens are not perforated to have speakers behind them, so instead they put speakers above. Films there look grainy, and there's just something inherently wrong with hearing sounds coming from above.still I digress...I just don't get it. Why do these people insist on tearing down Atlanta history or remodeling or building stuff that we don't need? Why doesn't anyone think logically anymore? Never mind the fact that there's a strip mall across the street from you that can't lease, go ahead and build another strip mall. Build more offices in downtown Atlanta. Build more offices in Alpharetta. let's all contribute to the traffic and polution problem. I also get a kick out of these new apartment and housing communities. For some reason, it's impossible for contractors and developers to build AROUND the trees. They raze the whole area and plant some saplings in front to take their places. WHAT ABOUT SHADE? This is the south dammit! It gets hot during the summer and you come in and 'develop' the land.oh well...off my soapbox