Beginning TV Addiction [B5 – 8 February 2006]

blogiversary

For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.

In reference to my recent post mentioning my TV addiction (which I am trying to break, or at least modify), here’s the post where I admit that I gave in to social pressure to start watching “Lost”, along with the rest of America.

*****
Note: This post contains no spoilers for “Lost”.

My friend Ken * has been a fan of “Lost” since the beginning. Every Thursday morning after a new episode, he would come to work, sit down, and start out to tell me about the cool things on the show, and then realize that I don’t watch teevee. He would then proceed to pity me and belittle me, because “Lost” was not just some dumb sitcom. It was special.

I resisted watching the show for several reasons. First, probably just because of my contrarian nature – if it was popular, how could the show be any good? I did relent once during the first season, figuring if someone cool like Ken liked it, maybe it had some redeeming qualities. However, the show I ended up watching, while interesting character-heavy drama, didn’t have enough of the “Lost” mythology to project its appeal to me, and I stopped watching. I remember Ken’s disappointment the next day. “Yeah,” he admitted, “that wasn’t the best first episode to watch.”

Then, as Season Two approached, Ken began obsessing even more, joining online forums and discussing the show. I was a bit more intrigued, and when Ken bought the Season One DVD set and offerred to let me borrow it, I relented once again.

So for a couple of weeks I made my way through the DVDs, and I got a little more hooked. The mythology of the show was interesting, but more interesting to me was the characters. Seeing their backgrounds in flashbacks, compared with their current actions on the island, and watching as they developed the characters over the course of a season made me glad to have been there when all this long-form television got started. “Babylon 5”, “The X-Files”, “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”… I’ve done this before. I like the greater depth one gets for characters and situations when they’re not resolved and wrapped up neatly in 60 minutes (42 if you subtract commercials). Ken hadn’t ever gotten into those previous shows (he was off serving his country in the Air Force during most of the 90s) so I saw why “Lost” would feel so new and fresh to him.

And, honestly, the writing on the show was very good. I liked it.

So much so that, weekend after last, when I was done with the Season One DVDs, with the prospect of new episodes being aired, I did something that, until this point, I had never done before: I spent money at the iTunes Music Store. I bought the first two episodes of Season Two for “Lost”. It was the weekend, and I knew that several others I worked with were sufficiently geeky to both watch “Lost” and save it in some digital form, so I could probably find the other episodes for free… but, what the hell, I have a 5th Generation iPod capable of playing video **, so why not?

I bought and watched those two episodes, asked around at work the next Monday, waited another day, didn’t hear back, and that night splurged and bought the rest of the season. Total of 12 episodes so far.

It worked pretty well, although they take up quite a bit of space and I’ll be sure to remove them when I’m done. The screen on my iPod is actually slightly larger than my actual teevee set when I hold it at a comfortable viewing distance. Y’know… visually. So I’m not losing much by watching “Lost” on my device. Plus, it’s good to know that one more capability of my gadget is being actually used.

And using the iTMS is also good. But there was one episode that wouldn’t download. The 7th episode of the season. I kept getting my favorite ironical computer-type-error, the “unknown error”, after the little progress bar crept its way across the screen the entire way. Argh.

And I couldn’t watch these episodes out of order. That’s just not right.

I figured that in this instance, since I’ve been all legal ‘n’ stuff and paid for the privelege of viewing it, that I could justify finding a quasi-legal copy on the internets. And I did, eventually, find one, even one that had already been pre-formatted for my iPod. And it took fourteen hours to download via BitTorrent. Glacially slow. I started it at night, and by the time I had to leave for work in the morning, it hadn’t finished.

While waiting for the quasi-legal copy to download, though, I fired off an angry email to Apple about their failure to satisfy my need for instant gratification. I outlined all the things I’d tried and carefully provided the text of their irritatingly-vague error message and asked them to fix it.

I was losing valuable time – a new episode was coming soon, and I had to catch up. I still had 6 episodes to watch and less and less time to do it. The following day after work, I got home and found that both the legal download worked, and the quasi-legal download had (finally!) finished. Argh. More frustration, but no time for that. I had “Lost” to watch.

Yeah. I’ll admit it. I’ve become hooked on the show. Ken was right. It is the coolest. Ken also likes being the superior one who has already hashed out much speculation and observations about the island and the people on it… but that’s OK.

In the meantime, I got an email from Apple, apologizing for my inconvenience, and explaining that they are crediting me the cost of that download and giving me 5 free downloads at the iTMS. Yay! Now I can enter their “Billionth Song Download” contest without spending any money!

When I win, all my friends get iPods. Just sayin’.

* Yes, I’m linking to his site even though he hasn’t updated since September just because I can and because I’m trying to shame him into updating again.

** I know I haven’t blobbed about upgrading my older one but it’s an embarassing story involving me dropping my old one, the one with the Radiohead lyric on the back, into the toilet so you can understand my reticence. Just go with me, here.

Hey, new carpet

General

So yesterday my landlord emails me and asks if it’s OK for him to install new carpet this coming Monday.

He’d mentioned it a couple of months ago, and then I guess we both got busy and we each kinda, sorta half-heartedly followed up every now and then. But now he’s ready to pull the trigger.

I need the carpeting. There’s mold in here from last winter, when my water heater broke and leaked for a week and a half before the previous landlord finally swapped it out. Ugh. Mold.

But I’m far from ready to have all my shit moved out.

Guess what I’m doing this weekend? Yay.

But, y’know, hey, new carpeting.

Laissez les bons temps roulez! [B5 – 8 November 2006]

blogiversary

For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.

Helping the Democrats take control of both houses of Congress, with all the hope in having someone finally oppose the toxic Bush Administration, felt very good. And one of the early victories of that effort was seeing Donald Rumsfeld step down as the Secretary of Defense. Buh-bye.

*****
Bye, Rumsfeld!

The Donald becomes the first recipient of Lunar Obverse’s “Yellow Undies” award. I hope (oh, how I hope!) that there will be many, many more.

Don’t let an IED hit your ass on the way out!

And, sadly, Bush had to reverse himself, after defending Rumsfeld time and again. But when the Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Times and Air Force Times newspapers all join in calling for the Defense Secretary’s resignation, truly… it’s time to go.

Wait, did I say “sadly”? Sorry, it’s hard to read what I’m saying while I’m wearing this huge grin on my face.

I hope our president likes the taste of crow…

Good news comes in threes, they say. But I’ve lost count of all the good news for our country that I’ve heard in the last 24 hours. Still, if there’s more to come, I’m so ready for it.

Truly, this is the best day of my political life.

Redemption

General

For several reasons, including the tightening economy and a desire to have more wiggle room in my monthly cash flow, I have decided to dump Comcast as my entertainment provider. I say “entertainment” because I get both my broadband internet (which is vastly entertaining all by itself and is something I consider as necessary a utility as electricity and clean running water), and cable TV, which provides the standard advertiser-supported video entertainment that has been a part of the American Dream since the fabled 1950s.

My total cable internet bill runs nearly $140.00 per month. That’s a fair bit of change, and spending that amount has given me almost one hundred and forty reasons to sit down in front of my TV and watch what’s on there. I have recently come to realize that I watch a lot of TV, much more than I’m really comfortable admitting. First it was “The Simpsons”, then it included all the Fox Sunday night animation shows, two hours of ‘toons… then, on the urging of my friend, I added “Lost” and “The Office” – and “The Office” timeslot expanded to include all the NBC Thursday night comedies, from “My Name is Earl” to “30 Rock”. “Mythbusters” is always entertaining, and filled with three important things of value: science, explosions, and a brainy sexy redhead. So it got added to my rapidly-expanding viewing queue. And so on, and so on; there was always room for one more science-fiction show, or one more cute sitcom, or one more entertaining reality show.

It’s no wonder I no longer have time to read all the books I’d like. Or, for that matter, that I no longer seem to have the attention span necessary to actually write the Great American Novel.

It was time, probably long past time, to cut back.

But there was another impetus to my decision, and it involves two aspects: one practical and technological, and the other political.

Long-time readers of this space may remember my epic battles with faceless, soulless telecom Qwest over porting my landline phone number to a mobile number. In the end, after months of phone calls and complaints to various consumer-protection agencies, I counted as a victory the fact that I got out of a stupid contract without having to pay any early-termination fees, even though the number I was fighting to protect had, in fact, been lost to me in the war. And from that moment on, I swore that Qwest, out of all evil corporations, was in fact my sworn enemy.

I even briefly found myself forced to work in a building my employer shared with Qwest, face to face with the minions who embodied and enacted Qwest’s soul-sucking policies. Chilling, I know.

But… a funny thing happened. Qwest, apparently alone among American telecoms, was shown to have stood up to President Bush’s lawless acts of intrusive, illegal surveillance of American citizens. Their then-CEO, Joe Nacchio, paid a price for turning down the lucrative blood-money contract “offered” by the White House, and found himself on the wrong end of an intimidating SEC probe.

When all this came to light, I was firmly disgusted by both President Bush’s criminal activity and the compliance of the other telecom companies – including, to my shame, AT&T, the company which exclusively provides service for my beloved sexy iPhone. Yes, money is flowing from my bank account into the coffers of a company who sold out the Constitution. I know. What can I say? I can be bought by shiny baubles – as long as they’re Apple’s shiny baubles.

And then, this past summer, Qwest started installing new equipment in my neighborhood. Not simply in my neighborhood, actually, but right next to my apartment building, on the very lot on which my building stands. Right next to my front door and living room window, in point of fact. My landlord admitted that when he bought the place, he had not known that Qwest had a lien on the property which allowed them to do this work.

You can imagine my suspicion towards this turn of events. Now double that.

But this was after the revelations that CEO Nacchio had been fighting against governmental intrusion into our personal lives. So my fears were at least partially reduced.

The equipment that the installers installed was, in fact, a switch that enabled DSL in my ‘hood. Qwest had in the past said that “work was needed” before I could get DSL broadband at my address; this was that work. They didn’t do it for me, though, they apparently did it because of a new mini-strip-mall built near my apartment, just around the block. Five or six new businesses and they all probably wanted broadband, and Qwest was (finally) glad to help, in return for fat checks for “business-class broadband”.

I could benefit, too. I had earlier vowed to never do business with Qwest again, but circumstances had changed. I could exchange Comcast’s clumsy cable internet for speedy Qwest DSL. And if I dumped the TV part, I could save considerable cash monies on a monthly basis. Plus, since the switch was literally located right outside my window, and maxmimum broadband speed is dependent on how far away the switch was located – I could get amazing speed.

It has tempted me for weeks and months.

Today I pulled the trigger. Soon I will be paying less, to a company that took an ethical stand I admire (but which is likely still rotten in other ways, let’s not be naive) for faster broadband internet.

From which I will still be able to watch many of the shows I like. Have you ever heard of Hulu? And those shows that aren’t in there, I’ll still have BitTorrent…

“Role Models”

Movies

I saw “Role Models” two days ago, on my day off, and although I remember it as a generally funny movie, with several laugh-out-loud moments, and a generally sweet-but-ironic view of life… I can’t really remember enough details to write a blog post about it.

Shifting Perspective [B5 – 22 November 2006]

blogiversary

For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.

I’m single. I know, hard to believe, huh? But I date. And, more than that, I’m mystified and confused and in wonderment about the opposite sex (which would be the female gender, for those of you not keeping score at home).

And I think that pondering said mysteries, confuzlements, and wonderments has led to some of my best posts. Like this one.

*****
Walking in to work one morning with Tracy, another group of employees were heading out. One of them is a lady I’ll call H. H and her co-workers were in charge of a county work group – people working off minor crimes and misdemeanors through community service work. As such, H was dressed in grungy work clothes; baggy jeans, old boots, a sweater, down vest, hair tucked up under a baseball cap, everything looking worn out and dirty from use.

I’d talked to her before on a normal, “I’m here to fix your computer” basis, but before she started with the work crews, so I was used to her wearing business casual clothing, very conservative business casual clothing. In fact, H struck me as conservative in personality, friendly but mostly quiet and polite and practical.

Even that morning, seeing her in completely different clothes, after I had the shock of recognition, I didn’t see her as anything other than a co-worker whose computer I’d fixed from time to time. She recognized me and said “Oh, hi, Brian” and I said good morning back to her.

Tracy asked me about her, later, and after my memory had been jogged (it was eight hours later when Tracy had asked) I told her.

Tracy mentioned that H, even in no makeup, struck her as very beautiful. Tracy mentioned a resemblance to Jennifer Garner.

I gave Tracy a look, because, as I said above, I had never seen that in H at all. H was older than Ms. Garner, for one reason, and there’s a mental space that movie stars occupy that’s separate from the space everyday people occupy, which is why it’s difficult sometimes to recognize a star encountered unexpectedly on the street (have I ever told you the story about flirting with Heather Locklear?) As Tracy’s thought percolated my mind, however, I could feel my perspective shifting a little bit. Remembering H in the previous setting and clothing I knew her from, I joked, “She could probably pull off the ‘sexy librarian’ look!” Tracy agreed whole-heartedly. But eventually I shrugged it off.

The next night I had a dream about H. An intimate one. It startled me. I laughed about it the next day with Tracy, who offered me a high-five in return.

“Right! ON!” she said.

Later that day, I was leaving the county motor pool and I saw H again. She was crossing the street heading in to the parking lot. She was dressed similarly (or exactly; the clothes are so generic I couldn’t tell the difference). As she walked, her back to me, I noticed that her hair, even though it was pulled through the back of the baseball cap and held with a Scunci… it was very long, hanging down to her backside (hidden, dammit, in the oversized jeans). Again, I felt the contradictory mental images of her clashing, in this case several images: H in make-up and glamorous Hollywood clothes (like Jennifer Garner); H in generic business casual clothes (the librarian before she lets down her hair and takes off her jacket that hides her curves); H in glasses, a white blouse, and short skirt, hair flying wildly (sexy librarian post-revelation); and H as I saw her before me, in dirty grungy baggy work clothes, but with her hair falling down her back.

Trying to reconcile all these images, I nearly rear-ended a Porsche Boxster S. While driving a county car.

Damn.

A shifting perspective is a wonderful thing to experience. Even if nothing comes of it, I’m going to remember that moment when my consciousness changed how I looked at someone else. I live for those moments; they are as special to me as moments of epiphany are to a spiritual or religious person.

So much of what we see is filtered through our expectations. Change your expectations and you can literally change how you see the world.

In this case, you can learn to see a hidden beauty you had never before noticed. The value of that shift is incalculable.

Flavor-Ade [B5 – 23 August 2005]

blogiversary

For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.

From the Department of Corrections: sometimes, I just want to correct what I see as a grave error on other people’s part. I present this small correction, again, since it didn’t seem to take effect quite as strongly as I’d hoped previously.

*****
I know it’s probably pedantic, and too late to change this particular meme, but here goes my tiny little attempt.

It’s come up at work a couple of times recently, so I wanted to point out that what was served by Jim Jones to his followers was not Kool-Aid.

It was Flavor-Aid. OK?

People who are blindly following the orders of a charismatic cult leader are drinking the Flavor-Aid. Got it? Are we clear?

And, no, Kraft Foods did not pay me to make this statement.

Answers that might offend a veteran

General

Q: What did I do on Veteran’s Day this year?

A: Laundry, mostly.

If you see a vet today – offer them a hug. But don’t just hug them without asking first. It’s impolite.

All I needed to know [B5 – 7 September 2007]

blogiversary

For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.

From just over a year ago, when Barack Obama was not the favored candidate running for the Democratic nomination for President, comes this post. I attended then-Sen. Obama’s stump speech in Portland, with the hope that he would talk about the one major issue on every American’s mind at the time: the foolish and illegal Iraq War. That was, at the time, all I needed to know.

The fact that now-President-Elect Obama won both the nomination and the White House is, I believe, because he did, eventually, begin talking about the war.

*****
Barrack Obama gives a good speech. He spoke passionately about all the good things he’d do once he’s President.

But not one word about the most important issue in America right now.

Not one word about what he can do, right now, to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not one word about accountability for the men who lied us into a war.

Not one word from a leading voice of the majority party in both houses of the People’s Congress.

Apparently Congress is powerless these days. The message from the junior Senator from Illinois is that we need a good king, not the bad king we have now.

Yes, a good king would be nice. But what about all those “checks and balances” that the founding fathers put into the Constitution? I’d really like to hear more about those. That’s not Senator Obama’s message tonight.

And that’s all I needed to hear. I’m glad I went tonight.