The wife talked me into a cable DVR.
Yeah, you can call me the jet setting early adopter.
Too often we wanted to watch two shows at the same time, or kids bedtime routine intruded into the start times.
I watch shows now in pieces during stolen moments in my day.
I'm grooving on watching shows on my schedule instead of when the networks schedule them.
The wife is catching up on "Lost" and I'm grabbing all the "Pushing Daisies" and "Boston Legal" back catalog.
Netflix has reverted to a movie supplier for us, instead of tv series season supplier.
That Com 400-whatever class from back in the day is all coming true; media content user pull instead of push.
Content distribution channels can no longer control when the audience consumes the media.
Implications reside there for wary advertisers.
Now, I find it all so convenient to pause live tv for absolutely any kid related bit of importance that I want the
functionality for the rest of my life.
I think I'll put the "pause" button right next to the "mute" and "sleep" functions on my theoretical child remote control.
If Smiley can admit to being a fan of "Two And A Half Men", then I suppose I should cough up to a budding adoration of both "Pushing Daisies" and "Boston Legal".
Neither show aims for realism or authenticity, but they are believable within their own narrative.
Yes, it betrays my inner-escapist.
To a casual or short-time observer both shows might even seem to be plausible, but it takes only a few moments more of watching for something undeniably off-base to occur.
After a few more moments that niggling is confirmed by something that feels almost naughty.
Because it is the kind of thing we've been trained to expect will not happen on television.
Witty, dry, dark humor, cleverly written and fleet-footed.
It's the kind of tv that the generic 'Merican audience is not supposed to like.
I am intrigued that they dare me to have a taste for them.
This is Guinness on draft for $1 a pint on Thursdays all over again, and I'm still the only one at the table who will try it.
Privately Blues
I don't do this to be interesting
I don't do this to solve the case
It ain't like the movies or your cornball shows
It ain't like the novels, that stink ain't no rose
Private investigations are dirty
No fun with chases, dames, and games
The second it gets hairy
I turn it over to the cops
My clients don't like it
I give their case the drops
Why do I do it if I don't want the glory?
I do it for the mortgage
And the credit card bill that's late
I do it for the college loans
And I like to eat steak
If you hold on to my coattails
You're in for a tough ride
There was a message at the scene
In the cupboard in the house
An empty peanut-butter jar
With markings on the inside
"Help Me"
Drawn with a finger on the inside
Spelled out in the sidewall void
Where the peanut-butter had been
Old and crusty it had long ago dried
But the blood was still fresh on the floor
Interview the kids and what do they say?
Not her brand, and substitution not her way
It's going to be a tough ride tonight
If you hold on to my coattails
It won't make a good book, but it might pay my rent
I'm hot on the case of the Peter Pan hint.
From the long lost pilot-episode of my life:
(Still shopping it around for a network)
Sub-Dude
The car, here, is out of place
Bicycles far more the pace.
Fried potato starch stains
We'd trade the use of Daniel's lion pack
For one flat wooden toothpick seat
Button-fly or zipper today?
We're shod with iron horshoes firm
To evict their cuckoos from his nest.
Light Emitting Diodes, all systems green on zeppelin.
A pizza in my pocket, nuked
The dog was hot and bunned
Frozen fruit hookah pipe-sicle treat
The burger's cow hammed the town
This cheese, it is not yours dear nun.
Pale cow, the rider is hooded
I sat all day and nigh fortnight
Before we came upon ourselves again
Hang-nail, torn, bleeding, quick
You were there and so was I
The future played us fair
A ring repaired, but not the One Ring.
Three sets to one we were not done
So in the car you rode uphill
Mmm, Buffalo-style onion rings, crispy
Duh dizzy bunny hopped limply
Fried out from the sun
Sister fingers, sister hand, close crate door again
But your car there was out of place
so pinched me I did do
Thought in head and key in lock
In a crowd that stank with sweat
On the bus did bounce.
Expunged, expelled, the sponge that failed
And bunny, she hobbled a corner round
There under wheels was flattened.
Well, wet my nose and wag my tail
Bicycles far more the pace.
Alrighty then.
The checklist upon arrival:
Me, male, thinning hair,
check.
The wife, already successful in new corporate office,
check.
Kids, two, female, aged 3 and 1,
check.
Dogs, two, female, boxers,
check.
Vehicles, two, one sedan, one pickup truck,
check.
A not insignificant, (read "crapload") of stuff inside various sized moving boxes, (seriously, you could fit a household of stuff in there)
check.
Only snafu was the rental agent and the cable guy not being able to connect with each other before we arrived.
First available makeup appointment was yesterday.
So we've actually been here for a full week before our TV had channels and my little rectangular metal box of a gateway to the rest of the cyber-world did anything aside from an impersonation of a 3 year old in timeout.
For now, I am now going to eat pizza, drink local beer, Yazoo "Dos Perros" Ale brewed downtown in a former motorworks factory, and smoke a victory cigar.
And yes, I got carded (out of state ID and all) by a sweet young thing while buying the beer at the local store.
Maybe the hair is not so thinning after all.
Later I will share anecdotes about the size and veracity of the local insectoid population and my legendary warrior prowess with the two-handed broad-swatter.
I'm noticing something, or at least I think I'm noticing something with regard to the chemistry of the sexes.
Not the real sexes, but the ones portrayed in television and books (both real-life and the movies are a different creature.)
It appears that most writers believe in a formula to keep the reader/viewer interested that involves a slightly renegade male being teamed up / partnered / or otherwise forced to cooperate with a sensible female skeptic who doesn't believe what he does.
This conflict generates a slow burning friction between the two that never quite kindles into passion, but isn't allowed to cool either because they are forced to work together and not go their separate ways.
The male who doesn't care what anyone thinks, finds himself trying to persuade his female partner to his point of view, to the point that he DOES care what she thinks.
She is flattered that she is the only one who's opinion the renegade male values.
Flirting ensues; at an arm's length mind you, these are professional heroines after all, and hence unattainable.
The female sexes in these instances are not allowed to have love interests outside of the forced-pairing, or else the chemistry evaporates. They must be solitary, competent, strong females, which somehow makes the hope of their eventual conquest by the renegade male all the more appealing.
Prime example: The X-Files
(except that it was Mulder's baby, so something was let slip off-camera at some point.)
I'm seeing the same formula at play in the Sci-Fi channel adaptation of Jim Butcher's "The Dresden Files" series in the interplay between Harry Dresden and Detective Murphy.
Keeping with SciFi channel television, there's Stargate SG-1 with O'Neill and Samantha Carter.
Also in the Ian Rankin books chronicling D.I. John Rebus as he mentors D.C. (then promoted to D.S.) Siobhan Clarke.
Dr. Who? Hmmm, if I look hard enough, it's probably there. His companions always love him, but he's slow to reciprocate until it's too late.
The USA network show "Psych" with Sean (the fake-psychic) and the blond female detective who's Lassiter's partner (can't recall her name.)
Also on USA, "Monk" with the dependent interplay between Mr. Monk and his assistant Natalie.
Why does the formula work to hook viewers?
Any truth to this formula in real life?
Or do we watch/read because it fills a void lacking in real life?
Just take a look around to see drama mistaken for passion.
Today, I am having a blast with the kids.
Both daughters are just being perfect, and amusing me.
Most days are not like this, so I'm trying to capture every moment with my mental camera to remind myself on the not so perfect days.
Then I went to get the mail from the box at the street.
Among the clutter lurked the electric utility bill.
I noticed, upon savaging the envelope open, that they now allowed credit card payment without extra fee, so long as you sign up online and use the recurring auto-pay feature as opposed to a one-off deal.
No problem. I would have done this sooner, but previously they'd wanted to tack on a fee for the convenience.
I want all my bills on the credit card. Seriously. A percentage of our monthly purchases are deposited into a college tuition 529 plan account. Then we pay off the balance every month. So it's free money for college.
I don't buy things I wouldn't normally buy just to get the reward dollars, but if I'm going to buy something, like electricity for the house, anyway, why not earn college tuition dollars for it?
So, I set that up in a jiffy. Then I noticed the utility included a yardstick tool to compare your energy use to other American households.
We used 6782 kilowatt hours for the rolling 12 months ended October.
The yardstick tool gave us a 9.9 score out of ten.
99% of American households use more electricity than we do.
The tool estimated that the emissions to generate our power were equal to the annual emissions of one passenger car.
So, yeah, go us!
On the other hand... Never mind, I promised, sort of, that I wouldn't use this thing to preach to others what they should be doing.
I will tell you what we do to get our usage that low.
Turn off lights when you leave a room. Use compact fluorescent light-bulbs. Limit TV viewing. Limit PC time. Read more books. Go for more walks. Talk / play with each other more. Turn the air-conditioning temperature up as high as you can stand it without sweating in the summer. Turn the heater temperature down in the winter, so that you're actually a little chilly if you're walking around naked. Wear more sweaters, even inside. Turn the hot water heater temperature down, so that the straight hot water isn't hot enough to burn (We have two small children, so it's for safety as well energy conservation.) that way you don't have to fidgit with mixing hot and cold for washing hands or showers, the hot water is the right temperature already by itself, straight outta the tap.
Reduce, re-use, recycle.