TV
GROSS and Thank You
Jan 20th
I am so glad that Bones is back on, but that scene was just GROSS (where they get covered in flesh/bone fragments from the drain). A drain coming back up in your face is gross enough, without dead people parts in it.
I wanted to say thank you to everyone that commented on the entry yesterday. There were some good suggestions, and it’s always nice to hear that other people have been there (or are there currently). I was just telling a friend on Facebook that I think we actually have it pretty good for the most part. The nights, even though they could be improved, could definitely be worse, and I’m thankful for the sleep we do get. Last night was better, and it’s amazing how quickly it seems like not such a big deal when you get some more sleep. Not that I don’t want to change some of what’s happening. It’s just that it seems less of a HUGE problem, and more of an annoyance.
I have to go now, because my arms and hands are getting cold being out of the blanket. It is FREEZING here.
Cutting the (cable) cord
Jan 5th
Ryan and I have talked at length about getting rid of cable. We hate how much it costs (we get internet for free from his work, and we don’t have a house phone, so we pay the unbundled prices), and we are not totally pleased with the service. It cuts out sometimes, or is jerky, and makes it hard to follow shows. That doesn’t happen a lot, but it doesn’t take much to get annoyed when you are paying a (discounted!) rate of $75/month.
Our big hold up has always been sports. Ryan is a Twins fan, and we both like the Vikings. Unfortunately, up here in Duluth, FSN is the only network that carries Twins games, and that’s only available with cable (or sattelite). He’s looked into MLB.com and their season pass, but they black out all the games that are broadcast “locally,” and Duluth counts as local to the Twin Cities (and Milwaukee apparently; I’d like to see someone make THAT commute!). So, he can’t get the games over the internet either. Another thing that gave us pause was Jeopardy. You can laugh, but we like the show, and you can not find it online. From the research I’ve done it appears that the problem is one part syndication and one part licensing of the media they use in the episodes. Either way, we aren’t home when it’s on.
The other day, though, I was thinking about it because we had to cancel a service that we had a “free trial” that had expired, and suggested that we get rid of cable on a trial basis, just for a couple months. It’s not baseball season, so Ryan’s not missing any Twins games, and we are in between regular TV seasons. It seemed like the perfect time to do it. So we did. I unhooked it the next morning, and Ryan dropped our cable box off at Charter yesterday (they weren’t open on Friday when I went by).
So far, we haven’t really noticed. We’ve been making use of the 30 day free trial of Hulu Plus ($8/month if we continue it), and we have Netflix (which I don’t count toward the monthly cost since we would have it anyway). I got Ryan an adapter for the Logitech Harmony remote we have so that he can use it with the PS3, so we don’t have to use a game controller to do everything. We’ve been watching episodes of Monk and Minute to Win It.
We have been doing some research about what other people do to make up for not having cable; we don’t have a new tv, so we need either a converter box or tivo if we want to watch anything over the air. I’m not sure, but I think we would lean toward Tivo, even though it’s another up-front purchase and monthly cost. We just like DVR too much, and with how our lives are right now we don’t ever get to sit down and watch an entire show at once; much less watch the whole thing while it’s actually on the air.
I’ll periodically update you with how things are going, and in return you should let me know if you have any questions about our method for still getting to watch tv (so far it involves a PS3, Hulu/Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Playon. And possibly Vudu).
We interrupt this series for a question:
Oct 11th
My cousin Emily tells me that I should watch Jersey Shore (because she thinks James looks like he’s fist pumping in this photo I put on Facebook:)
Let's get this party started!
So, I recorded the show the other night, and I’m watching it now. And the thing that occurs to me: this is pretty much The Real World, right? I mean, I watched that when it first started (and a few seasons after that), so I think I’ve put my time in. Maybe I’m missing something. Is this somehow better? In Emily’s defense, her college roommate looks a lot like Snooki. Really, she does (I’ve seen pictures of her). But yah…this will not get a recurring spot on our DVR. Especially since it’s on on Thursday evenings, when other shows we watch are on.
Also, I dyed my hair. Nothing drastic; a darker brown from the natural color. I think I like it. Ryan was a little shocked at first, but agreed that it isn’t as dark as it first appears (in the semi-darkness of our apartment). We’ll see. Photo to follow, because the one he took of me yesterday is not good. Double chins and such.
The 30 days of me thing will continue tomorrow. I’m having trouble thinking of particular songs I listen to in each mood.
Funny
Nov 19th
I just saw this blog entry, and I think you should check it out because it is frickin’ hilarious. Ninjas. heh.
Also, I was just sitting here, browsing the internet when Ryan says out of nowhere in a high voice, “Look! It’s my little polar bear friend!” Um…yah. On World of Warcraft he has a pet polar bear. And a pet penguin.
Completely unrelated: we are planning on doing as much of our christmas shopping online this year as possible. The stores are already insane, and so as much as we can we would like to avoid them. It’ll be a challenge, but fun, I think. And theoretically it’ll mean we’ll get things done early since we need to allow time for shipping. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I just saw another add for New Moon. I read all the Twilight books, and really enjoyed them for their escapist feel. But those movies all look kind of ridiculous. Maybe they are better than they appear, but even reading the books I was thinking “this would be almost impossible to portray in a movie without getting totally CGI/totally cheesey/whatever.” Anyway…if you’ve seen the movie/movies and thought they did the books justice let me know.
I want to talk about the books I’ve been reading, but I don’t know what I want to say right now, so maybe I’ll wait a little while.
As a final note, the commercial for Al Gore going on 30 Rock is cracking me up. “There is an old African proverb that I invented…” HAHAHA.
Football/Lazy Sunday
Oct 18th
First the Vikings win (it might have been an eked out win, but it was still a win), and now Tom Brady is breaking records with his touchdown passing (in the snow, even!), and I have him as my fantasy football quarterback. It’s a good day for football.
We are one step closer to our vacation – I rented the car today. I read up on it and used Priceline, which I’ve never done before. The websites I read suggested bidding 30% lower than the lowest price you could find. But Priceline says right on their website that you can get cars up to 40% lower than advertised. So I bid 40% lower than the lowest price I found. And we got it! According to them, I got the car for 59% lower than the lowest price their site found, but I’m even happy with my 40%. It basically paid for all the taxes and fees. So that was exciting. I’ll have to let you know how it goes once we actually go pick up the car and stuff. Saving money doesn’t do any good if the service sucks.
I baked yesterday – carrot cake and pumpkin cake, both from The Pioneer Woman’s website. I love her recipes (I really want to try the chocolate truffles on the front page right now). I used yogurt instead of oil in both of the cakes, but they still have a LOT of sugar. But they are yummy. Especially with homemade cream cheese frosting (speaking of sugar). I could eat that stuff all day. I have made the pumpkin cake with the whiskey raisins and whiskey whipped cream – I would definitely recommend it either way. But yah…we don’t need 2 cakes around here, so I cut them up and we gave some to the neighbors, I’m sending some to work with Ryan, and we kept some for ourselves.
This entry is kind of disjointed. Sorry about that.
Ryan is making dinner tonight – either meatloaf or spaghetti and meatballs. Something with the hamburger that’s been thawing in the fridge. Either one sounds yummy to me. I plan on reading my book and watching TV the rest of the evening. With maybe a quick “put laundry away” spurt somewhere in there.
And on that note…back to my book (The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny).
Pistachio commercials
Oct 10th
Do you guys get those commercials? I’m watching Good Eats right now (Alton Brown is my tv boyfriend), and they show these commercials at each break. They mostly play off of sexual innuendo (the last one I saw had a couple cracking open and feeding eachother pistachios and it said “Newlyweds do it 5 times a day). But earlier I saw one with 4 kids on bouncy balls jumping around and it said “Quadruplets do it with bounce”. Anyway, that is the ONLY one I’ve seen that isn’t some sort of sexual innuendo. And it just seems wrong to me. You need to either do a bunch of them that aren’t innuendos, or leave the kids out of it. Also, I think it’s funny how much advertising I see these days for particular foods. Pistachios, avocados, etc. Weird.
Anyway, the brownies I made are done, and Good Eats is still on. Ryan’s down at a friend’s place playing video games all night with a bunch of people (a LAN party, for you nerds out there), and so it’s just Zoa and I (we are dogsitting for Sam this weekend while he’s at a wedding). Time to get back to being lazy.
PS
Oct 3rd
Those American Tax Relief commercials annoy me. Basically those people are advertising that they only paid back a portion of what they owe the government. While the rest of us pay our taxes like we should. People that do not follow the rules annoy me. Just pay your taxes, people! Set aside money if you come into a large chunk of it. It’s not like it’s a big surprise that there are taxes on money you earned (or won, or whatever). Gah.
Can you tell I’m a rule follower?
What the f, hollywood?
Oct 1st
So I’m sure some of you have heard that Roman Polanski (Polansky? Am too lazy to look it up) finally got arrested in Europe for his 30 something year old arrest warrant in California. And apparently a majority of the people in the movie business (at least the ones that are speaking out) are of the opinion that because it was “consensual” sex with a 13 year old girl that he was arrested for, that people should just let it go and he shouldn’t have to serve any time or get in trouble.
What. The. Fuck. And please excuse my language, but seriously, this pisses me off. The entire POINT of statutory rape laws is that CHILDREN under a certain age are not capable of consenting to this kind of behavior. They aren’t finished developing emotionally or physically. They rely on the adults in their lives to help them head in the right direction. Yes, they can technically make decisions. And some of them may seem more mature than they are. Some may even try to “seduce” someone else. But he was the ADULT in the situation, and he is expected to know better.
Arg. This makes me so angry. Especially because of what it is saying to everyone out there who is already thinking about having this kind of “relationship” with someone that is WAY TOO YOUNG to make that kind of decision. And how it must make these girls or boys feel who have come to realize later on how damaging that can be. Like it is their fault, or that they should feel badly about it because it was just as much their fault (which is what calling it consensual sex essentially does). These are KIDS for God’s sake.
I have to go to work, but I am just so sick of hearing about this because every media report I see includes this stupid “well, it wasn’t RAPE rape. It wasn’t that bad,” logic. I call BS, people.
Random Stuff
Sep 24th
-I am almost ashamed to say that I love Glee because so many people actively dislike it. I completely acknowledge and agree that the racial and homosexual stereotypes are pretty bad. But I love music, and I love the characters. When Mercedes threw a rock through Kurt’s windshield and then broke into song…I just loved it. And the teacher with OCD whose name I can’t remember. I love her too. And yet I realize it’s awful. I can’t help it. I’m also ashamed to admit how much tv I watch. So I’m not going to.
-Hypothetically, if you had a pumpkin scone and cherry Laffy Taffy for lunch with milk and cheese, would that count as fruit and dairy? I’m pretty sure pumpkin is a fruit, so I guess I doubled up there. that would be doubling up, right? Hypothetically.
-We are expanding our office, which means there’s been a lot of construction going on all over the place and people moving to new desks and workspaces. They have figured out a way to get myself and the other woman who works next to me some more (much needed) space, but only after she brought it up when we found out they were planning on putting us right back where we were. Thank God she said something. It’s a little crowded back here in the corner. Unfortunately, our desks will stay the same size. Oh well.
-The pregnancy/birth book I’m currently reading is, as my mom would say, a little “hippy dippy.” Even though she lists lots of statistics and stuff to illustrate her ultimate point(s), the fact that she says her children see special colors around their siblings when they are born and that they remember being born (she asks them every year) is a little…out there for my tastes. And it makes it hard for me to take anything else seriously.
-Ryan and I are headed up north for Oktoberfest this weekend. We both have tomorrow off of work, so this is effectively Friday for me. And I am SO HAPPY about that. It should be a fun weekend all around. I will try to get photos posted, but no promises.
-I’m in a much better mood than when I wrote earlier this week. Thank goodness.
