Donald Trump yesterday at his rally in Philadelphia bragged that he was better looking than Kamala Harris, and continued to attack her, irritating some leading Republicans. Harris and Tim Walz, with their spouses, are campaigning in the same city today. Where is Melania? 
The Democratic National Convention begins tomorrow in Chicago, but city officials are poised to begin to control a pro-Palestinian protest beginning today, with a lot more tomorrow, certainly a larger goup than all the official delegates arriving for the gathering. Hamas-Israel-Gaza peace talks are supposed to continue this week, but signs do not look good at all. Read this for details on the convention, which will be televised on the usual news channels from 7-11PM all four nights, the theme being A Bold Vision for America's Future.
The speakers list is still growing, but on the final night, Thursday, with Kamala Harris, will be Adam Kinzinger, one of the two Republican representatives who served on the special House panel that nailed Trump. Another expanding list involves traditional Republicans, like Kinziger.
This group will further expand, for last week Republicans for Harris was launched. There is also an official Haley Voters for Harris. Wikipedia has another list: Republicans who oppose the Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign. Hundreds of them, with some prominent ones being: former president George W. Bush, former vice president Dick Cheney and daughter Liz, John Bolton, William Cohen, John Kelly (former Trump chief of staff), Anthony Scaramucci (who also worked for Trump), Senators Mitt Romney, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Jerry Moran, Lisa Murkowski , and Todd Young, bunch of current and former Republican House members and governors, etc.
On to the topic of the day, I yesterday posted on 100% Rotten Tomatoes reviews. But what is Rotten Tomatoes? Largely started by Senh Duong, plus Patrick Lee and Stephen Wang. Has an interesting history, largely from Wikipedia and a retrospective from Wang's (right) random musings.
- Senh Duong us ethnically Chinese, but from Vietnam, with an interlude in Hong Kong, then to Sacramento in the 1980's.
- Steven Wang was born in Ohio, but raised in Maryland, while Patrick Lee was from Los Angeles.
The three met as students at the University California at Berkeley, (Photo of Wang and Duong) and they graduated in 1997.- Senh came up with an idea for Rotten Tomatoes as a personal effort. They tolerated him.
- Wang and Patrick Lee founded their own web agency, Design Reactor, soon after graduating, and while an employee at the company, Senh launched Rotten Tomatoes on 12August1998 as a hobby project for people to get access to movie reviews.
- Design Reactor did well, with contracts from Disney.
Senh's Hong Kong film idol was Jackie Chan, so when he was about to start in his first Hollywood film, Rush Hour, devoted a lot of time to build a version of a fan page honoring Chan. His intention was to build a site for Rush Hour. However, the movie got delayed, so the first film page to go public was an aggregation of film reviews and quotes, essentially what Rotten Tomatoes was to become. Used Fresh and Rotten icons for the Tomatometer. Posted links of movie reviews to newsgroups and got response from other participants, 600-1000 daily unique visitors.
Thus, Senh, Wang and Lee officially founded Rotten Tomatoes on April Fools Day, 1April2000. The name came from watching Leolo, a 1992 French film, wherein a women believes she was impregnated by tomatoes. Click on that and watch the whole film.
Wang was concerned about the legality of using quotes. In those days, the term "Fair Use," had an indeterminate meaning. However, coming from the Orient with different views, Senh charged along at risk.- Rotten Tomatoes had a Thursday night deadline to cover Friday movie openings, Senh spent most of his time on this hobby.
Later in 1998, the main company, Design Reactor was up from 7 employees to 20+, mostly from their Berkeley Wushu group, where they practiced martial arts. The bunch was dedicated to discipline and hard work to get results, for friendship, not money.- In this environment, genius, out of the box thinking and leadership was necessary to make the crucial difference.
Senh got too obsessed with Rotten Tomatoes, so Wang and Lee asked Senh to leave the company to pursue his dream full time.- Senh moved back to Sacramento, and teamed with high school classmates from Vietnam, Binh Ngo and Bobby Lee, to operate out of Senh's garage.
But he wasn't really all that sure if Rotten Tomatoes could become a business, and in the early months, the new three decided instead to make a movie, and did not update Rotten Tomatoes. That did not work out.- Design Reactor got so successful, but Wang from Berkeley still regularly visited Rotten Tomatoes in Sacramento, 77 miles away, becoming more interested in having a company to run, rather than jump to anything from Disney.
The fatal point was the opening of Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.- This was the fourth in the series, with the first in 1977 and third in 1983, so, 16 years later, the anticipation was overwhelming.
- Filming began on 26June1997, but took nearly two years to complete.
- Movie opened on 19May1999 in 2,010 theaters, plus another 960 later in the day. Many showed it continuously.
- Reviews were average to disappointing. Expectations were too high. Everyone blamed Jar Jar Binks. I sort of identified with him. I think back now and can't remember why.
- Rotten Tomatoes only had a 52% approval rating.
- Back to Rotten Tomatoes, Sacramento had an early screening of The Phantom Menace, when Wang in March of 1999 drove there to watch with Senh, Binh and Bobby.
- They were disillusioned and noticed the dejected looks of fans walking out, a few in Darth costumes, and realized this was a huge opportunity for Rotten Tomatoes.
- Realizing the so-so nature of the film, they jumped into how Rotten Tomatoes could react.
- Wang himself felt that he now wanted to be a future part of Rotten Tomatoes, and their site exploded.
- In April 1999, Wang's brother sent him a video of The Blair Witch Project. The group's reaction ranged from hate to maybe okay. The split reaction offered yet another opportunity for Rotten Tomatoes to garner attention. The masses began to turn to their site for what to do. Roger Ebert contributed.
- Senh moved back to the Bay area to better incubate Rotten Tomatoes within Design Reactor.
In early 2020 Wang began working full time for Rotten Tomatoes. Then, the dot-com bubble burst. Leaders from left to right, Paul Lee, Patrick Lee, Lily Chi, Senh Duong and Stephen Wang.
- Some company photos showed almost all Orientals, but, not really.
In June 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired Rotten Tomatoes for an undisclosed sum.[20] In September 2005, IGN was bought by News Corp's Fox Interactive Media.[21] In January 2010, IGN sold the website to Flixster.[22] The combined reach of both companies is 30 million unique visitors a month across all different platforms, according to the companies.[23] In 2011, Warner Bros. acquired Rotten Tomatoes.[24] In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcast's Fandango ticketing company.[10] Warner Bros. retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango.[1] In December 2016, Fandango and all its various websites moved to Fox Interactive Media's former headquarters in Beverly Hills, California.[30]
In February 2021, the Rotten Tomatoes staff made an entry on their Product Blog, announcing several design changes to the site:[35] Each film's 'Score Box' at the top of the page would now also include its release year, genre, and runtimes, with an MPAA rating to be soon added; the number of ratings would be shown in groupings – from 50+ up to 250,000+ ratings, for easier visualization. Links to critics and viewers are included underneath the ratings.[35] By clicking on either the Tomatometer Score or the Audience Score, the users can access "Score Details" information, such as the number of Fresh and Rotten reviews, average rating, and Top Critics' score. The team also added a new "What to Know" section for each film entry page, which could combine the "Critics Consensus" blurb with a new "Audience Says" blurb, so users can see an at-a-glance summary of the sentiments of both certified critics and verified audience members.[35]
| Icon | Score | Description |
|---|---|---|
 | 100–75% | Certified Fresh: For this distinction to be ascribed, the bare minimum requirements are: Wide-release films with a score of 75% or higher that are reviewed by at least 80 critics, of whom 5 are "Top Critics"; films with limited releases require only 40 reviews (including 5 from "Top Critics"); for TV shows, only individual seasons are eligible for consideration, and each must have at least 20 critic reviews.[38] |
 | 100–60% | Fresh: Films or TV shows with a score of 60% or higher that do not meet the requirements for the "Certified Fresh" seal. |
 | 59–0% | Rotten: Films or TV shows with a score of 59% or lower receive this seal. |
Some gardeners see tomatoes in a rainbow of colors: red, sure, but also shades of yellow, orange, pink, green, burgundy, purple, streaked and striped, and practically black. Along with those colors come a range of flavors. There's a tomato for every taste.
- Tomatoes are berries,
- 89% of tomatoes are canned.
- Adds umami flavor.
- The majority of tomatoes consumed in the USA comes from Mexico.
- There are 150,000 seeds in a pound of tomato seeds.
- Home garden? Grow basil with tomato plants. Basil deters pest and supposedly improves tomato flavor.
China grows 36% of all tomatoes.- This not the world's largest tomato. While more than 17 pounds, it is a mash of many.
- The Guinness world's largest tomato was grown in Wisconsin...11.65 pounds. But it certainly also looks like an amalgam of many of them.
-
Comments
Post a Comment