Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 January 27

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January 27

DVD sound: "5.1/2"

I'm trying to get the Mystery Train article to featured status, and have run aground on a detail about the sound on the DVD release. The Allmovie page lists the sound as "5.1/2". What does this mean in layman's terms? Thanks in advance,  Skomorokh  01:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a typo? 5.1 sound refers to the configuration of speakers in a surround sound system. Surround sound configurations are notated as X.Y, where the first number X is the number of discrete/directional channels and the .Y is the number of "non-directional" bass/low frequency channels, sometimes called Low Frequency Effects or Low Frequency Enhancement. So a 5.1 system would feature 5 speakers, usually three in front and two behind and one LFE speaker. A 5.2 system would have 2 such LFE speakers, since I don't know what 1/2 a channel would mean (either the channel is encoded in the sound info or its not), the notation 5.1/2 probably means that the sound is compatable either with 5.1 or 5.2 surround sound systems. --Jayron32 02:17, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The Amazon page for the DVD lists the sound as "Dolby Digital 2.0", but I've known Amazon product information to be wildly inaccurate. That said, perhaps the DVD offers both Dolby 5.1 and Dolby 2.0 as options, which might mean that the Allmovie information is meant to read as 5.1 OR 2.0. I know that's lot of speculation and original research on my part, but that's all I've got for right now. --LarryMac | Talk 17:59, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Fewest number 1s in a year?/Most weeks at No.1 in a year for one performer?

Two linked questions-what's the fewest number 1 singles in a calendar year on a national chart?I'd got Billboard(2005)with 8 different ones,and German Top 100 from 1959 with 7,but then found there were only four here.Can there surely be less than that for a mainstream singles chart? Albums is easy-South Pacific only one for whole of 1959 in UK. And in List_of_French_number-one_hits_of_1957 Dalida has 40 weeks at number one in the year-any advances on that? Lemon martini (talk) 02:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't know, but there are good sources of international charts here and here if you'd like to spend some time browsing them. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:13, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding list of films

Who so ever has the list of movies and their supporting details please conduct me . e.s.kesavanATgmail.com kesavan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by K7smart (talk • contribs) 07:04, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

All movies? That'd be a pretty long list. Narrow down your criteria so we can help you. TomorrowTime (talk) 09:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Try the Internet Movie Database. It's pretty comprehensive.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Another comprehensive source is the Catalog of Copyright Entries: Motion Pictures, published by the Government Printing Office, which begins with the 1894-1912 volume. Pepso2 (talk) 12:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

SF short story featuring Pac-Man?

Hello, it may be 20 years or more since I read that story where the protagonist, on his 1st crack of the Pac-Man high score, is congratulated by The President and presented with a new, more complicated game. After winning that, protagonist is congratulated by an alien. It all is embedded in an espionage/love story frame. What's the author/title of that ingenious piece? --Ayacop (talk) 09:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I do recall reading a similar story - the name and author of which I don't remember - which may or may not be what you're thinking of. If it is, my description might help someone identify it.

In this story a computer-game programmer and/or enthusiast receives a disk in the mail from an anonymous sender. The disk contains a new game, which the recipient sells as his own work. The game is a "fight the alien invaders" type that appears to reconfigure itself to get harder as the player gets better. (This story is probably quite old, predating any modern games, so this concept was quite radical in the story.) The game is very popular and lots of people play it and get quite good at it. Then one day all the games stop with a message to the effect that "phase 1 complete, prepare for phase 2". A few days later, real aliens - just like those in the game - invade the earth. (It's also possible that a distinct "phase 2" was in the game, and that "'phase 3" was the real invasion.) Mitch Ames (talk) 09:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

A vaguely similar thing happens in Ender's Game where Ender thinks he is training on a 3-D space battle simulator, but is actually controlling real ships in a real battle against real aliens with whom Earth is at war. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

While the answers are interesting, it's not what I'm looking for. The protagonist is a simple guy playing in a gaming hall. No personal computers. In fact, I just remember he has the maintenance job there. Any takers having read stories from the 80s? --Ayacop (talk) 10:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

A little Googling suggests that the story may be "Pac-Man" (1982) by Rudy Rucker. Does the description of part of it here (search the page for "Rucker") ring any bells? Deor (talk) 11:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

A couple of close hits from my memory. The Last Starfighter was a movie based on a very similar idea; there is a video game which is actually a training device for a starfighter. When some down-and-out kid beats the game, he is whisked away by Aliens to be one of their starfighter pilots. In the film Nightmares (1983 film), a "twilight zone" ripoff movie with 4 vignettes, Emilio Estevez plays a kid who becomes the first to beat a video game, and as a reward is sucked into the game and plays it "for real". I have no idea if either of these was based on earlier works; they may have been. The Last Starfighter had a novelization, according to our article, so the OP may have read that. --Jayron32 13:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, Rudy Rucker was it! Thanks all. --Ayacop (talk) 14:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

How did it occur ?

Last night on New Zealand television I once more watched the thriller The Perfect Tenant, then decided today to look up the movie on IMDB. To my surprise, although less so these days, I found that one of the actors - who ironically played one of the characters killed in the movie - had died later the very year the film was released, at the age of only 28. This was Christopher Burkott. I actually didn't think he looked that old. Another film he did was realeased after his death, but there is no information on how he died. I checked Google, and all the biographies of him on different sites say nothing, only that in 1996 he made a large political contribution. My only understanding was that it occured in Atlantic City. This happens often, since last night, after watching Die Hard Three, did I find that one of its cast, Anthony Peck, the son of Gregory Peck by his second marriage, had died back in 1996, and all this time I was not aware. One day you miss the news, and you never know who dies, assuming they are famous enough to be considered newsworthy. All of them are, but there you go. There have been many stars who had died, and for years I thought they were still alive - and shockingly, vice versa. I only found out Pernell Roberts passed away when my mother told me, but never saw it on the TV news. If anyone can find out, then thanks. The Russian Christopher Lilly 13:00, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the vice-versa case is perhaps more common. "Joe Bloggs? Didn't he die years ago?" No, he's very much alive, and about to make his next movie, Terminator XVII.

If you're asking how it occurred that you missed the news of Christopher Burkott's death: we have no way of knowing.

But if you're asking how his death occurred: I have no idea, but somebody here might. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 13:25, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Since the first two actors you mention are redlinks, they are quite likely not to be sufficiently well known for their deaths to make the national news. You can keep up with actors' deaths to some extent by reading Variety. We also have a page dedicated to recent deaths.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I searched a couple of on-line archives and couldn't find anything beyond a death date of Aug. 20, 2000 in Atlantic City. No wonder you missed the news; it seems there was no coverage of Christopher Burkott's death at the time. The cause of death is not addressed anywhere I could dig up either. --Xuxl (talk) 16:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

i was a childhood friend of Chris Burkott, i just recently looked him up after 20 years and found out he died, that was a shocked for me, i used to go horseback riding with him a few times a month, and we hung out almost every day back in 6th or 7th grade

Google News Archive Search finds exactly one article (from the Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina!) mentioning his death, but the only relevant portion that you can read for free just says "Christopher Burkott, 28, of Los Angeles died Sunday. The funeral will be conducted at 10 a.m. Saturday in Powell Funeral Home chapel in ...". Reading the rest costs $2.95, and given the way that bit is worded, it seems likely that there won't be any information about the cause of death. --Anonymous, 06:55 UTC, January 28, 2010.

Fancy that. Thank You. I guess he was not that well known, but it can always be a shame when anyone passes away, regardless of how famous they are or not. I apologise, Jack of Oz, if I worded the thing wrong, such that you might have had the impression I was asking how I missed the news. I should think you would not believe that that was what I was asking. But it appears the matter is as cleared up as it is going to be. I would rather not speculate on his manner of death - I have seen that done before, where one, making an assumption, gets the reason for a person's death wrong. The only reason I asked was my shock at assuming someone who should have outlived me was no more.

And yes, for years I thought a certain veteran of The Godfather had been dead, but I believe I got him confused with one of his co stars - I shudder to think I was disappointed to see him alive after all these years. No, I was, and remain, pleasantly surprised. It's like I have brought someone back from the dead - at least in my own mind. Others in that film and its sequels, I knew not that they had died some time ago. I guess you can only do your best to keep track of everyone. Imagine one was a Hollywood producer who demanded a long dead actor play a leading part in his next box office bomb. He in particular would look a bit stupid. It would be part of his job to keep in touch with things like that. But the rest of us, as has been noted, sometimes don't. The Russian Christopher Lilly 12:13, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

2057

Does anybody know when will the show 2057 be on discovery channel again? Will this show be on sometime in 2010? BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 19:04, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't find any evidence that they will broadcast it again, and of course we can't predict the future; there is a DVD available at the Discovery Channel store for about $10. --LarryMac | Talk 19:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

2001: A Star Trek Close Encounter of the Space Odyssey Kind, The Motion Picture.

Has anyone ever noticed a similarity between these movies? 2001: A Space Odyssey,Star Trek: the Motion Picture, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I'm wondering if they seem related because of where they were filmed or who filmed them.

They seem somewhat of a series to me having an overall theme of contact between different orders of intelligence. Their sequence would be starting with the the Dawn of Man, then Close Encounters, then the remainder of 2001, and then comes Star Trek: The Motion Picture (which I didn't like when it came out, but I so totally get it now. It's a great movie.)

On the Vejur platform, it's looks almost like the same stage as in the moon scene in 2001, where they are in the excavation area around the monolith. They even look like the same space suits between the two movies.

The central area of the Vejur cloud is the same as the inside of the monolith. When Spock enters Vejur, it is just like when Dave enters the monolith toward the end of 2001.

As far as Close Encounters and its relation to the other two films, consider all the lights (compared to the above two mentioned forays into the unknown) and as well, think about how the big 'upside-down jellyfish' spaceship at the end of Close Encounters speaks in the big deep tones having longer wavelengths than the human's keyboard. That's similar to Vejur's repeating message which has to be adjusted in it's speed in order to make sense to the humans (although it's a whole different magnitude of difference with Vejur, and reversed too from C.E., I believe).

I think what I see here is not a vast conspiracy by the film industry to keep reshowing us the same movie, although, is it really that far fetched? --Neptunerover (talk) 19:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

There have been countless movies about encounters with extraterrestrials. Richard Dreyfuss once said that E.T. was a sequel to CE3K. Visually, though, there is certainly a connection: Prior to 2001, most sci-fi movies looked like the classic Star Trek episodes - obvious models and studio-bound sets. Kubrick's production team set a new standard of realistic-looking visual effects that continues to this day. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

By the way, as far as I know the 2001 sets were demolished after production was completed. When they made 2010 they had to rebuild everything they needed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Yep, they mention it in the DVD notes on the 2010 DVD. The director (or someone) says with a hint of pride in his voice something along the lines: "Well, Kubrick wrecked the original model of the ship, because he didn't want any sequels, but we made one from scratch, and it looks exactly the same." I remember being amazed at the lack of empathy by the guy - not only does he acknowledge Kubrick didn't want sequels, he's even proud of doing exactly what Kubrick didn't want. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Kubrick was a bit of an eccentric. If he didn't want any sequels, he should have told Arthur Clarke not to write any. Also, can you imagine what those sets would have been worth in a collectors' market? C'est la vie. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, he didn't exactly pull a Shakespeare (who, obviously, killed off everyone in all of his plays to prevent sequels), but he still made it plenty clear he didn't want sequels... TomorrowTime (talk) 22:27, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Disobeying authors' instructions has a proud history. Much of Kafka would be unknown to us if his literary executor Max Brod had obeyed Kafka's injunction to burn everything that hadn't been published. We wouldn't have Elgar's 3rd Symphony if his executors had obeyed his wishes to burn his sketches. And so on. --202.142.129.66 (talk) 01:50, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

True, true. The same goes for Lovecraft, come to think of it. TomorrowTime (talk) 14:52, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I would link 2001 with A Clockwork Orange. I recall a quote (by Kubrick?) that A Clockwork Orange showed what was happening on Earth while 2001 was going on in space. Pepso2 (talk) 20:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Really? Did anyone tell Anthony Burgess and Arthur C. Clarke? --Jayron32 21:28, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I can see that. I suppose, when Dr. Floyd talks to his daughter over the videophone, she might be sitting in one of those weird A Clockwork Orange chairs. Could it be something like Hitchcock putting himself in each of his films, where Kubrick puts some of each of his films in each of his films? --Neptunerover (talk) 14:56, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that Kubrick did that so much. He did have some recurring themes. One of his visual signatures that evolved over time was perspective lines. But he tried to make each film a unique work of art compared with his others. Compare that with George Lucas, who often manages to sneak in a reference to his first major film, TXH 1138. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

One of the real criticisms leveled, at the time, of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was that it was a blatant ripoff of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The entire sequence where they travel to visit the new Enterprise is pretty much a blatant ripoff of the "Blue Danube Music Video" section of 2001, where they travel to the space station. The V-ger sequence you note is another one. Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Picture#Critical_response actually notes some of these criticisms. The poor reception of ST:TMP is actually one of the sources of the "Rule of Odds" when it comes to the quality of Star Trek movies; you'll find lots of fansites that claim that only even numbered Star Trek movies are any good; see this google search for some info on that.

As to why this sort of thing goes on, consider this quote attributed to Oscar Wilde: "Talent borrows, genius steals". Its not a grand conspiracy, its just what happens. Lots of great movies (and many more not-so-great movies) borrow heavily from earlier films. The same is true of all forms of art. Did you like A Fistfull of Dollars? Perhaps you liked it the first time when it was Yojimbo. Like C-3PO and R2D2s witty reparte in the original Star Wars? Maybe you'd like it better in its original version, from the film The Hidden Fortress. Like the scene where Luke blows up the Death Star? Stolen shot-for shot, even with almost the exact same dialog, from a sequence in the film The Dam Busters. Disney Films basically recycle entire scenes from earlier Disney films, just retouching the old bits. This article from Cracked.com covers a lot of this ground as well. --Jayron32 20:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

ST:TMP also ripped itself off, as the V-ger idea was similar to one of the Trek TV episodes involving a semi-intelligent robotic called "Nomad". Meanwhile, the bare bones of the Star Wars saga was a lot like King Arthur - which was readily acknowledged by its creators, just as they acknowledged that the Indiana Jones series was inspired by serials. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

That would be 633 Squadron, not The Dam Busters, buster. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

While I suspect that some of the resemblances may have been unintentional and due to the zeitgeist, those that Jayron32 details and doubtless a number of others were deliberate homages, which are particularly popular both in the SF literary genre and with film directors. In both contexts, individual works are not created in intellectual isolation, but often form part of an ongoing 'multilogue' that debates ideas and attitudes. Admittedly, sometimes they also feature blatant ripoffs reflecting lack of originality or overcaution on the part of publishers or producers who want 'the same but different'.87.81.230.195 (talk) 01:50, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, its not a bad thing, its just what happens. Sci-fi is filled with "concepts" that have become ubiquitous, but all started somewhere. The Laws of Robotics, even the idea of a Robot, the droid, laser guns, star fighters, the ubiqutous big-headed-alien with the buggy eyes, FTL travel workarounds, there's stuff that is so common to Sci Fi that you don't even think about it anymore, but you have to remember that at some point, someone had to be the first to think of it. Sometimes its a direct homage, sometimes its just such an integral part of the sci-fi lexicon we forget that it was once a novel idea. --Jayron32 04:26, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

It's funny someone mentioned Shakespeare, as Forbidden Planet was based on The Tempest. Meanwhile, Plan 9 from Outer Space was in some ways a reworking of The Day the Earth Stood Still, with a few things substituted: bad writing, bad direction, bad acting, bad effects, overall bad production values (due to the dollar-and-a-quarter budget). But they were both in black and white, and they were both about extraterrestrials wary of the earthlings' development of the nuclear bomb. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know that these are actually documented similarities and not my mind playing tricks.

Amazingly, I recently watched the two movies in sequence without having any idea in advance that Star Trek: TMP was 'similar' in any way to 2001. Yes, the interminable scene where they're driving around the new Enterprise is where I realized I was watching the same movie over again, and then there kept being more stuff that was the same. The guys flying in the space suits looked just like the guys flying in the space suits in 2001.

While the sequence of similar scenes is different between the two movies, the idea of mixed up sequences works perfectly in relation to the very end of 2001 when Dave switches around between himself during different sequences of his life.

My favorite part is the music that goes with the Klingon attack scene. I noticed the title in the credits but didn't write it down (some Hungarian Dance or? I don't remember). That scene is just like the hairy guys in the beginning of 2001, only this time they have warbirds from which to hurl their photon bone at the big mysterious and unknown thing. Vejur then zaps them into lightspeed, ready or not. --Neptunerover (talk) 05:37, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

That's a good piece of music. Jerry Goldsmith did the score, and it's simply called "Klingon Battle". There's a major difference in the reasoning between the very deliberate pace of 2001 and the very deliberate pace of the first Trek film. Kubrick was trying to give a sense of what it would be like to experience the various activities in the film. Essentially they're done in segments of "real time", which is why they can seem excrutiatingly tedious at times. In the case of Trek, there was huge anticipation by the fans, and the film spent a lot of time simply showing off the ship and the effects. Someone told me at the time, "I didn't care; I would have been happy just to see them fly around." The Klingon scene at the beginning was kind of gratuitous, as it was fun to see the fearsome Klingons fleeing in terror. So it was easy to please that 1979 audience. The second film, the Wrath of Khan, was a sequel to a TV episode, and was a great Trek film - action/adventure against a formidable but human opponent, rather than trying to mimic 2001 or whatever the first picture was doing. Stealing ideas is as old as dust. The early episodes of ST:TNG were reminiscent of episodes of the classic TV series, until the show found itself and produced some really excellent material. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:29, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Another thing worth mentioning is that the hotel room scene at the end of 2001 was designed in such a way as to finally pick up the pace and wrap things up. Bowman ages about 40 or 50 years in the space of a couple of screen minutes. When the Star-Child returns to earth, it just kind of sits there and stares at the planet. In the book, but left out of the film, was the Star-Child exercising his will and causing all the orbiting nuclear bombs to explode. It occurred to someone that that ending would be too much like the ending of Kubrick's previous film, Dr. Strangelove (one writer said, "We won't meet again!"), so the idea was scrapped and thus the viewer doesn't know (unless he's read the book) that the bone hurled into the air by the ape-man had seguéd to an orbiting nuke - it just looks like a benign satellite of some kind. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:39, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Some trivia in a similar vein: The script for the Flash Gordon movie was written before Star Wars, sat in development hell for a couple of years, and when it finally seemed like it'd get the green light, it was again postponed because Star Wars had just come out, and Flash Gordon seemed like a blatant rip-off, even if it was written before it. And if you watch the movie, you'll see that it really does feel like a complete rip-off :) TomorrowTime (talk) 15:02, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Pretty lame rip-off if I remember right, although every movie has it's time. I didn't think the first Star Trek movie was that great when I saw it in the theater, but now I like it. I think seeing the newest ST film made The Motion Picture cool to me, especially everything about Spock, who is by far my favorite character (even if he wouldn't care). The book is good, and a quick easy read. It's almost like they had the usual hour long Star Trek episode-length of a story that they needed to stretch out into a feature length presentation, and they did that using 2001's example. --Neptunerover (talk) 15:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

For those who know Spanish, what is this song about? Is it pillow talk?

I heard it on CBC Radio radio a few times, and have taken quite a liking to it.

The song apparently is "Pa Que Vuelva" by a “Telmary”.

I’ve been doing a decent amount of searching on Google for a video of the song but to no avail.

"Here’s a video with the artist.":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHy1OK_6GqE

Here are some audio hints.

"Concerts On Demand: Telmary Diaz & Alberto Alberto at Lula Lounge":http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cod/concerts/20090130tdiaz (click: Pa Que Vuelva) The only thing is that it’s live.

"Here’s a bit of the recorded version:":http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/Telmary (click: Pa\' que vuelva)

What are the lyrics about. (Follow up question: Is there a video I can link to?)

Thanks. Civic Cat (talk) 20:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you find them in writing anywhere? I'm not sure about the "Pa" part. "que Vuelva" would literally translate as "that turns" or something, but I suspect it's an idiom. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm at work, so I can't check the YouTube link, but a Google search yielded that the "Pa" is actually "Pa'," a contraction of "para." "Vuelva," as was kind of mentioned above, is a subjunctive form of "volver," which from my experience is closer to "return" than "turn" (or at least, it means both). So, the meaning of the title probably means something like, "So that [he/she/it] returns." My two cents.... Kingsfold (talk) 13:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you're onto it. Now all we need is the lyrics in print somewhere. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

The song is new, so I've yet to get lyrics. I'ved ask the same question in here in Answerbag and here in Fluther, with similar answers. Thanks.
:-D
Civic Cat (talk) 19:16, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

The line they repeat most of the time "No es pa'te vayas, es pa' que vuelvas", means "It is not so you go away, it so you come back" It's just that a lot of people from Cuba have a particular accent where they tend to cut the final sounds from words, so it sounds a little bit bunched up but that is what it says. The singer is saying that she believes her lover, or parter, is going to leave her, although it is implied that that person has not left yet. PabloClark (talk) 04:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Usual suspects line

In the Usual Suspects, where we first meet Redfoot, Keaton says to him that he was responsible for "shipping" someone. The conversation is something like "I'm the one who shipped him. I wanted you to hear it from me." This occurs in front of the pagoda in California. My question is, what is meant by "shipping"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.137.136.153 (talk) 22:05, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

This script claims the line is "I shivved him", which means "I stabbed him with a shiv". Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

In prison, weapons for stabbing can be referred to as shivs or shanks. Shank being a slang term for shiv, according to the relevant Wikipedia definition. I believe in that scene they are discussing prison-related details. --Neptunerover (talk) 13:34, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I've seen "shipped" used before in similar context, as in "Put'em in a box and ship'em home", so that's how I interpreted the scene here. I've seen closed captioning with both Shipped and Shivved, so it makes sense either way - at least, in my head it does. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 18:36, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Sports Allegiances by state

I was wondering if there were any comprehensive surveys of professional sports team allegiances in the United States by either state or metro area. The best I can find is Common Cnesus but that's kind of spotty in areas such as the Dakotas that would not be obvious whether they are more aligned toward Denver or Minneapolis teams for example. Thanks! Abeg92contribs 23:42, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Any survey extensive enough to make judgments about thinly populated areas such as the Dakotas would have to have an enormous amount of respondents. As you can see at Common Census, the NFL survey has nearly 30,000 responses and still doesn't provide enough information about rural areas to make it clear where their allegiance lies. One thing you could do is see what teams the local newspaper covers. Another choice would be to see whose games are broadcast to the area -- for example, does it have a member station of the Vikings or Broncos radio network? This site shows you what NFL games the local CBS and FOX station air each week, although you have to be aware that sometimes the NFL makes the decision for a local station, as explained on that website. Interestingly, the Broncos and Vikings never had a game at the same time on the same network this year, as each only plays two games a year on the other conference's network. If you look at CBS coverage from Week 1, you can see that all of the Dakotas carried the Broncos-Bengals game except eastern North Dakota, which went with Jacksonville-Indy (as did Tennessee -- I wonder why?) -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, I found that while Vikings games are broadcast throughout North Dakota and in central and eastern South Dakota on radio, Broncos games are broadcast to affiliates in the western and central parts of each state. Pierre and Bismarck appear to be disputed territory. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:12, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Central Illinois is divided between Cubs and Cardinals, with I-74 being a little like the Korean DMZ, in that very far north of it it's mainly Cubs fans, and very far south of it it's mainly Cardinals fans. On the other hand, it is said that the most popular team in Minnesota is the Vikings, and the second most popular is the Packers, with the Twins third. So it's tough to generalize. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Vermont is split between the Yankees and the Red Sox with the lone exception of my wife who is a Mets fan (yeah, I don't get it either). As far as football goes, there are a lot of Patriots fans. And in the NHL, we have a lot of Bruins fans. Dismas|^(talk) 02:43, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

This Sports Illustrated feature might be interesting. The 401 respondents from North Dakota were most interested in Minnesota teams. [1] Zagalejo^^^ 07:30, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

This illustration seems interesting regarding baseball teams. — Michael J 23:16, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a link, but I know that ESPN's Sportsnation did some research on this topic a while ago, as well. FWIW, UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 18:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)