caleb walker

coming attractions

Lots happening lately, but no mental energy left at the end of the day for writing.

1. I'm sporting eyeglasses now. I've worn reading glasses for a few years, but this is my first pair of real-world, honest-to-god spectacles. More later, maybe with a photo.
2. The car saga is not quite over. The old thing is parked at the house now, but the left-front tire doesn't hold air. Have to take it back to the Monro for a repair. More later.
3. The end of my job is looming like a... well, like the end of a job. I have a lot to do before leaving, and have been preparing for unemployment. More later.
4. KR spends this weekend in Philly. There were animal guts on our front steps this morning. I watched the final episode of Boston Legal last night. I have a massage scheduled for tonight. I got my first rejection note on my story yesterday. Intrepid Media is publishing a set of their best columns, and many of the included authors are buddies of mine (download it for free or buy the book like I did - at Lulu). More later.

I hope.

video monday

It's a commercial for...

...lovely stuff.

new tech in the house

I took the day off work today. Someone had to be here for the furnace guy and to sign for the TV I ordered from Amazon. I intended to do work at home--I brought home the relevant files on my thumbdrive--but the morning was pretty well taken up by the furnace guy and the setting up of the new TV. Then the afternoon was pretty well taken up by playing with the new TV.

I wasn't sure what to expect. Our old setup was a 21" tube set with rabbit ears that brought in four channels on a good day. (Yeah, no cable.) The new one is a nice 32" Sony Bravia flat thing. I plugged in the DVD player and the rabbit ears and let it search for stations. I guess my finger-crossing worked because not only did it find all of our old broadcast channels, but also digital channels for all but one of those. (Ironically, that station, the one we have the most difficulty getting clearly, is the station we can see from our house.)

Our NBC affiliate comes in three varieties. One has the normal shows, one is a 24-hour weather feed, and one seems to show just 70's reruns: The Rockford Files, Adam-12, Kojak, and so forth. PBS comes in three flavors (one has been showing just Rick Sebak documentaries).

All this just from our old rabbit ears. I had no idea.

lesson learned

I watched four episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm the other night, one after the other, and was up all night having nightmares with Larry David in them.

One at a time from now on, I swear. Or maybe two.

Update: The second I posted this I read Dooce's latest post in which she says, "I know there's nothing more annoying than hearing someone talking about a television show you don't watch, except maybe having to sit there while someone tells you about the dream they had last night..." Pardon my double-annoyingness.

blogging the strike

The best thing about the tv writers strike is that they've gone online to broadcast their funny, where they apparently don't need to answer to the people who demand high-quality, polished jokes and to those who would penalize them for using naughty words. The resulting stuff, at least at LateShowWritersOnStrike.com is the funniest stuff in the world.

the bad bad guy

We don't have the cable, so we watch cable shows via Netflix. We went through Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Battlestar Galactica, The Sopranos, and others. And now we're giving the second season of Weeds a shot. It's about a young widowed suburban housewife who turns to dealing pot to make ends meet. The wacky cast of characters keeps things interesting, but once the brother in law shows up on the suburban doorstep early in the first season, we were ready to give up on the show. He's over-the-top sleazy, creepy, rude, self-absorbed to the extent that we couldn't stand him.

A good bad guy often makes a show worth watching: Al Swearingen, Johnny Sack, Jack Donaghy, Joy Hickey Turner, Michael Scott. So it's not that the brother-in-law on Weeds is too evil a villain, too bad a bad guy. The problem, as I see it, is that he's not done well. There is no joy in seeing him be bad. It's no fun seeing him get his comeuppance. We just don't care about him, but he won't go away.

sopranos

We finished up with The Sopranos this week and I was wondering what else the cast members had been working on. Turns out Edie Falco (Carmella) and Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Meadow) both showed up on Will and Grace. Once I saw that I had to look at the others to see if Pauly Walnuts or Big Pussy ever messed around with Will or Jack. No dice, sadly.

Edie Falco also starred in the pilot for the TV adaptation of Fargo back in 2003. Fargo! Can you believe it? I could see Edie playing Marge, and I would have given the show a shot. It never made it to my tv, though.

PS: She was great in last week's 30 Rock.

PPS: Looking at the IMDB Quotes page for The Sopranos, I'm realizing how funny this show was.

a couple little things today

According to the Oxford University Press, locavore is 2007's Word of the Year. It's a good word. It means, according to Wiktionary, "One who tries to eat only locally grown foods."

We don't have the cable, so we watch a bunch of our television on DVD through Netflix. Which means we just, tonight, saw the Sopranos series conclusion. That final silence was devastating. (So what's next?)

The best television writing is no longer on television, but on YouTube, where the striking writers explain their side of the story with humor and clarity I haven't seen elsewhere.

let's talk about tv

Let's talk about tv, now that the new season has stabilized. My favorite tv time is after 11pm, with the Seinfeld reruns and the Letterman and the Ferguson/O'Brien hour, but primetime is the topic at hand. And I don't have cable, so we're talking analog broadcast rabbit-ears shows.

New Shows I Like
Pushing Daisies is just quirky enough. Sweet, funny, but not too much so. I can't take my eyes off Kristin Chenoweth for some reason. I even like the narration schtick.
I think Dirty Sexy Money would be unbearable if not for the great writing and the great performances by Peter Krause and Donald Sutherland, a guy who ordinarily gives me the creeps, but here he's perfect.

Old Favorites
My Name is Earl, The Office, and 30 Rock still make me laugh so I'm still watching.

Given Up On:
Heroes and Grey's Anatomy both grew way too tiresome, so they're dead to me.

When I Run Across Them
I don't know when Boston Legal and House are on, but when I'm flipping around and come across one of them I'll settle in because I can't turn off William Shatner or Hugh Laurie (also loved him years ago in "Jeeves and Wooster" on PBS).

Tried But Gave Up
Chuck looked interesting, but neither of its first two episodes hooked me. (Though it stars a non-Baldwin Baldwin who was great as Jayne on "Firefly.")
I had such high hopes for Bionic Woman, but its pilot was a terrible, stereotypical spy show. Too bad, since it features Starbuck (rowr) from Battlestar Galactica.
I like magic, but good god, Phemonenon was horrible. Just a bunch of guys taking themselves way too seriously. Even Chriss (ugh) Angel accused one of them of being a faker. And it was painful to see Uri Geller take every self-serious hack so seriously.

Lots of gaps in the schedule for watching our Netflix choices.

the good neighbor

Today I came across this, a Mental Floss article on why Fred Rogers was the best neighbor ever. (I once met him.) Even now I get a little misty when I think of him. If anyone deserved to live forever it was Mister Rogers.