The Plentiful Vintage

My earliest memories of television are from around the time I was in kindergarten, 1958 or so. Mostly I remember watching the kiddie shows on Channel 5 (WNEW back in those days), stuff like Romper Room and the Sandy Becker show. The only night I was usually allowed to stay up late enough to watch prime time was Saturday, when I could watch Steve Canyon, followed by the Perry Como Show and the George Gobel Show (maybe not in that order, the memory is fuzzy). It was the age of the variety show. My mom would also occasionally let me watch the Steve Allen Show with her, about which I don't remember much at all, except for this one character who my five year-old self thought was absolutely hysterical. He was this guy that Allen's reporter would try to do a man on the street interview with, and he could never remember anything about anything. That wasn't what was so funny, though. It was his expressions as he tried to remember that just killed me.

The character was played by Tom Poston, and as I grew older, any time I saw him on TV I would stop, watch, and wait for the funny. I watched a lot of crappy sit-com episodes just to watch Poston. He saved his funniest stuff for when he worked with Bob Newhart, and he even fulfilled one of lifelong ambitions by marrying Suzanne Pleshette. Rest in peace, Mr. Poston, and thanks.

Bones was fun tonight. Poco! Interesting villains. Plus, Ryan O'Neal making reference to the 82nd Airborne, which he commanded in A Bridge Too Far.

I find it deeply satisfying that the reason the Republicans are losing control of the Senate is because George Allen decided to show the world what a condescending prick he is.

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RIP, Ed Bradley, a classy guy if ever there was. I watched him last in him 60 Minutes piece about the Duke lacrosse team, and I remember thinking he didn't look good. Apparently, nobody except Bradley knew how bad it really was. What a shame.

Previously in the Plentiful Vintage...

There was a very loud noise [scene one]. The earth cooled, and primitive life crawled out of the ooze onto dry land [scene two]. Shortly thereafter, folks started hitting round objects with sticks. More recently, life has day after day of sheer boredom [scene three], punctuated by moments of financial terror [scenes four and five]. Books were read [scenes six and seven]. Also, our hero's foot hurts. No, not that foot [scene eight], the other one. (No, I don't know what I did to get this one to hurt.)

( And now, this week... )

You know what? ( Tonight's Lost... )

It's been a weekend full of odds and ends. I haven't really gotten much into the spirit of the season yet. I haven't played any Christmas music, and had only watched a few Christmassy things prior to the weekend. I haven't even done what little decorating I usually do. I hung up the few cards that have arrived so far, but that's about it. Maybe I'll go upstairs and get the wreath for my front door out when I'm done with this. I've done some shopping, but there's much more to be done. I suspect a lot of people will be getting gift cards.

Yesterday morning I finally finished designing a Christmas card. It's a bit different from others I've done in that I used an image I found on the web as a base, rather than one I took myself. Not especially happy about that part of it. I need to get out and take some photos. Anyway, I headed into work to use the color laser printer. Ya know, someday some bright engineer will design a printer that can print something from the bypass feeder without sucking an additional three sheets of cardstock most of the way through the works, too. Since it hasn't happened yet, I spent two hours feeding the blank cards through the system one at a time. Still, I got them printed, wrote most of them, printed addresses on the envelopes, and put stamps on 'em. Then I went to the post office, which turned out to have closed fifteen minutes earlier. So I put them in the mailbox out front, so they'll be whisked on their way first thing tomorrow. Well most of them. I also ran out of stamps, so I have to get some more to mail the rest.

I spent the rest of the day, and most of today fiddling with DVD authoring software. I have Nerovision Express, which came with my burner. It's easy to use in terms of adding and arranging clips and chapters, but is totally braindead when it comes to setting up the menus. I hunted around for something better that wouldn't cost me anything, but the one package I tried was harder to use, and no less braindead. I was able to find an upgrade from Nero that addressed one of the dead lobes, and that plus another workaround was able to allow me to do something close to what I wanted, so I went that way. It took a few tries to get it all right, but it worked.

The main problem with all this is that it takes two to three hours for the software to do all the encoding on each iteration of the project, so there was a lot of waiting around to do. I filled the time last night watching Christmas specials. First up was A Christmas Story, which was the first time I've popped in the DVD that came with the leg lamp my sisters got me last Christmas. (No, I do not have it set up in the front window.) Then I watched A Wish for Wings That Work with Opus and Bill. One of the best Christmas specials ever, and it's never shown. So much good stuff, including Robin Williams as a lovesick kiwi with wing envy. There are so many good lines:

I have no need for a sidekick, sir, but still he'd like to be my best buddy. But then stink bugs would like to dance the watusi in my shorts, too. I mean, you gotta draw the line somewhere.

I finished up with Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, still one of my favorites. Which is odd, because I never was a fan of the Magoo shorts. Even when I was little I never thought the one-note joke of his nearsightedness was especially funny. Fortunately, there's not much of it here. This was the first version of A Christmas Carol I ever saw, and I love it to pieces, even if it does take certain liberties. (The first time I saw the Alastair Sim version, the presence of Scrooge's nephew bothered me immensely, because he didn't appear in the Magoo version.) There are some truly memorable songs in it, too, especially Jack Cassidy doing "Whitest, Brightest Christmas." I need to go get myself a copy on DVD. I also need to watch the George C. Scott version. I haven't seen it in years. I did see Captain Picard's version for the first time a few nights ago. I didn't like it as much as some of the others.

Today I flipped on the tube just in time to catch the start of Fellowship of the Ring, and I took it as a cue to watch the extended version instead. Then I watched the Two Towers, and now I've just started the Return of the King. Another kind of Christmastime tradition. Still in love with Eowyn.

The wreath is up. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

It's been a good weekend for obtaining reading and viewing material here st Casa Machina. Yesterday there was a package from the SF Book Club awaiting me at the post office. In it were copies of Anansi Boys, Thud!, and Timothy Zahn's latest, Night Train to Rigel. I also picked up The Princess Bride and the latest Garrett omnibus to replace my paperback editions. Lots of reading ahead once I get through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. On the viewing front, I came across a used copy of the Muppet Show Season 1 at Newbury's for cheap Friday night, and I managed to get through all twenty-two episodes yesterday as I was working on the machine and following the latest Dodger drama in LA.

"Dodger drama?" I hear you ask. (I know. I know. Work with me here...) ( Paulie, we hardly knew ye... )

I am tired, but in a good way for a change. It was a nice, sunny day out, and for the first time this year I took the opportunity to haul out one of the bikes for a ride. It was just a short one, out the bike path and back at a nice easy pace. The body was creaking quite a bit, especially my right knee, and the bike (I took the old Univega, not the widowmaker) was creaking right along with it. Not being used for a year or so will do that. We were quite the decrepit combo. I felt pretty good considering my total lack of any kind of exercise in recent months. I'm sore, but it's the good kind of sore.

I was kind of surprised at how few people were using the path, just a handful of cyclists and rollerbladers, and only one person walking. Maybe the novelty has finally worn off. I can only hope. The odd thing was that despite the scarcity of people on the path, I ran into two people I knew, one a volleyball buddy, and the other my old friend, Beast, from grad school.

Anyway, it was good to get out and work off some agita. Why did I have to work off agita, I hear you ask? <crickets....> That's okay, I'ma tell you anyway. ( Computers suck... )

I did solve one problem. I downloaded a little utility that automatically syncs the clock in Windows to atomic time. No more lateness getting out the door. There's just one thing, though. The utility minimizes to the tray, which is fine, but the icon... The icon is just creepy. It's an image of a plain gold ring.

One clock to rule them all,
One clock to find them,
One clock to sync them all,
And into Windows bind them...

Actually, it's probably a wristwatch.

I downloaded the Global Frequency pilot, which was based on a Warren Ellis comic I knew nothing about, and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Part of it had to do with the presence of Michelle Forbes, whom I have loved since her days as Ro Laren, but the story itself was just... neat. I liked it a better than pretty much anything I'm watching regularly, which is a true shame, because the WB decided not to pick it up. Bother.

( Spoilers within... )

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Spent the weekend holed up in ther A/C for the most part. I did do some yardwork, and the laundry, but most of the time was spent playing Civ III. An odd thing happened last night. I got a good night's sleep for a change, with dreams and everything. The main dream was a remarkably coherent dream about the neighborhood around my old apartment, complete with Buffista friends, firemen, bikers, and a crazy man living in the little house next to the railroad who was charging a toll to let people cross the tracks. (I said it was coherent. I didn't say it made sense.)

What a lovely day. Sunny, temps in the sixties. I stopped on the way home, and picked up three different tomato plants, a three pack of canteloupes, and another package of strawberry plants (10 of 'em, all very healthy looking). I raked all the dead strawbs out of the old tomato patch, and put in a row of tomatoes and a row of strawbs. I stuck the canteloupes in the middle of the onion field. The instructions on the box the strawberry plants came in said that under absolutely no circumstances should the strawberries be planted in ground where tomatoes (and other tomato family plants such as peppers or eggplant) have been growing in the last three years. Apparently, it would be bad. Of course, I had nowhere else to put them, short of digging a new patch somewhere, something I didn't feel like doing tonight. So in they went. They probably don't really mean it.

I have finished downloading the entire original series of Connections, James Burke's wonderful series on the links among technological innovations and how technological change affects our world view, so I can finally retire my old incomplete set of tapes. Some of the material, especially about computers, is a bit dated (the series ran in the late seventies), but some of it turns out to be even more topical today (a brief discussion of sharing one's private information in order to obtain credit). Good stuff. I'm also downloading the much later second series, which I recall as not quite so good. I gave up on it after a few eps when it first aired, so a lot of it will be new.

Finished reading Whispering Nickel Idols, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Much better the the last one. Garrett investigates the disappearance of the head of Tun Faire's crime syndicate while dodging the slings and arrows of an outraged religious cult.