Zeigen

On Saturday Kimi and Sammy and Yvonne and I made our way down to the Gilroy Garlic Festival again, always one of my favorite times of the year.

A bit more traffic this year than last year, and while I love the festival I’d love to see them change things up a bit more — the same booths are always in the same location each year.

The garlic bread was just amazing this year, and I think I lost track of all the things we ate: Corn on the cob with garlic butter, garlic ice cream (you gotta eat it early so you can still the taste the garlic), Pacific Rim Garlic Chicken Stir Fry, garlic stuffed mushrooms, garlic scampi, garlic calamari in a spicy tomato broth, garlic BBQ oysters (that one was just me), garlic kettle corn (popcorn). I feel like I’m leaving some things out, too. Also some wonderful strawberry/banana/peach smoothies that — horrors! — didn’t have any garlic in them.

One of my favorite moments was when I was waiting in line for the BBQ oysters and overheard two young men standing nearby: “Hmm, look at that, they have garlic gator tails. You ever eaten alligator?” “No, but I’d like to. Too bad I’m out of money.” “Yeah, me too.” (The item they were discussing cost $5.) “Wait, I have $3 left, how much do you have?” “Umm, exactly $2.” “That’s $5! Wanna split?” “Score!” They high-fived and rushed to the end of the line.

Kimi and I picked up some nice gloves of raw garlic as well as some inexpensive jars of crushed garlic. I don’t cook often but I’m really craving more garlic this week, so maybe I’ll whip something up.

Sammy was an amazing eater — he seemed to like everything he tried. Especially the garlic kettle corn.

Unlike last year, which was a bit overcast, it was blazing hot this year. Yvonne was telling us a co-worker of hers looks at the weather forecast each year and schedules her visit on the day that’s forecast to be coolest. That’s a smart idea — we’ll try that next year.

Sammy fell asleep in my arms a bit before 2pm and, although normally a light sleeper, stayed asleep on the shuttle bus and all the way home.

John (Yvonne’s husband) was too busy with his thesis to join us this year, so we met up with him for dinner and had crepes. Yum!

Just in case you missed the news (on PVR Blog or Zatz Not Funny or Engadget or TiVo Lovers or the Unofficial TiVo Blog or HDTiVo’s blog), we rolled out a new feature this week for broadband-enabled Series2 and Series3 DVRs. Now you can order movies and TV shows directly from your DVR. Just head to TiVo Central -> Find Programs -> Download TV & Movies.

Oh, and yes — that menu item used to be called “TiVoCast.” We think the new menu item text is more descriptive.

Check out the TiVoCommunity forum for more discussion, and let us know what you think!

Most of you will see a promotional menu item in TiVo Central starting this evening that will point you to more info. Or check out what we have to say about the new feature on TiVo.com.

“DVR” is now a word. (You can see the whole list of Merriam-Webster’s new words for 2007.)

In the early days, I recall a lot of debate about what we should call the category of device for TiVo. At first we were pushing “PVR,” for Personal Video Recorder. In a 1999 management meeting (back when TiVo was small enough that every single manager, director and VP could meet in a single conference room every week), I remember Mike Ramsay, TiVo’s co-founder and first CEO, agreeing to reach out to Anthony Wood, founder of ReplayTV, to see if TiVo and Replay could reach consensus on whether the category should be DVR or PVR. I think Anthony and Mike were not on speaking terms at the time (too many lawsuits), so no consensus was reached. Which was a shame, because many stores and e-commerce web sites then went ahead and made up their own categories for us, using odd terms such as “TV servers.”

I also remember that in our manuals and interface screens, we initially had the device call itself a Receiver. (”Your Receiver needs to change channels.”) Then we switched to Recorder. Then one CE partner wanted to call it a “Unit.” (”Your Unit needs to restart.”) We didn’t want to call it a Unit; not only would the manuals and screens and customer support documentation have to change, but it was a stupid name. One unlucky program manager drew the short straw and had to write an e-mail to the CE to tell them that we hated their proposed name. Among other reasons she listed for why we wanted to reject their proposal, she told them that “unit” could be taken as obscene slang. The CE reps took a while to respond, but eventually they politely said that they had never heard of such slang usage, but even so customers would understand the word “unit” correctly in context. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard at work. Eventually a VP talked them out of “Unit” and back into “Recorder.”

Nowadays, I believe all of our units call themselves DVRs. (”Your DVR has new software!”) So it’s good that Merriam-Webster has formally blessed “DVR” with word status.

* * *

However, while the DVR definition is fine, I think many of M-W’s definitions for their inaugurated 2007 words are poorly written. (I’ve never had that much respect for M-W as a dictionary, although I do default to using their web page when I want to look up a word quickly.)

Particularly egregious is their definition of telenovela:

a soap opera produced in and televised in or from many Latin-American countries

Oh? So a soap opera produced only in Mexico but not any other country is not a telenovela? How many Latin-American countries need to be involved before it is a telenovela?

Back when I was a UC Berkeley Linguistics undergrad, in Linguistics 105, we had a unit (hah!) on writing dictionary definitions. All I remember is how hard it was to write a good definition — bang-your-head-against- the-wall-for- hours-searching- for-just-the- right-phrase hard. But it’s awfully easy to mock a bad definition.

Kimi and I saw this Friday evening (thanks to Kimi’s Uncle Tom for babysitting Sammy), after gobbling down a quick dinner from Los Portales.

We both loved Ratatouille. Technically it’s an amazing achievement, with the human character animation, camera control and lighting incredibly advanced compared to previous computer animated efforts I’ve seen. That’s some realistic rat fur. As far the plot and story and acting goes, all very good but it’s more adult and not quite as universally engaging as some of the previous Pixar work. Overall, I’d rank it above Cars but below Finding Nemo. My favorite remains The Incredibles.

I have to say that there’s something a bit unappetizing about rats working on food that’s being served to humans. As much as they tried to work past that, part of me was a little repulsed. But there’s one scene, a flashback, that nearly brought a tear to my eye. Such a beautiful moment.

I had very high expectations for Ratatouille, and I wasn’t disappointed. And for a movie bearing the Disney logo, such a daringly non-Disney movie! The very name of the movie, a hard to pronounce and spell vegetarian stew, tells you that they’re not dumbing down anything for the audience.

Bravo, Pixar.

At work today, many are sporting their shiny new iPhones.

For now, I’ve held off. A good friend of mine works at Apple and I was able to see it in action last week. I want one really badly, but I don’t NEED one. And $600 for a phone isn’t really smart for me to spend right now, what with… oh wait, I haven’t announced that yet. Stand by for that.

Anyway, it’s beautiful and elegant and I don’t mind any of the shortcomings people have written about (with the possible exception of the battery being built-in, that does irk me). I want want want. But for now I shall not indulge the Unseen Mystical Force floating all around me.

Thanks to John and Yvonne watching Sammy after a noon time tofu dog bbq (don’t ask), Kimi and I managed to see Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End this afternoon.

Short review: Kimi hated it, I kinda liked it.

Regardless, getting out of the house and being able to see a movie? Definitely worth it. We couldn’t remember the last movie we had seen together. (Apparently, according to this very blog, it was Pan’s Labyrinth.)

To be honest, I fell asleep during the first two, and this one I stayed awake through, so could follow the plot better. It’s weird how over-plotted it is, but I’m glad they aren’t dumbing it down. It still feels ridiculously overblown for an anti-historical movie (by which I mean they seem to be intentionally ignoring any actual history of actual pirates) based on a carnival ride.

The tone of the first scene is grim and realistic and not for kids. That tone has disappeared completely somewhere around the fifteenth Jack Sparrow mug for the camera (or about 90 minutes in). The climactic fight scene is so ludicrous that Ed Wood would not deign to include it in a work from his oeuvre. It is in fact impossible to watch the CGI pirates sailing around on CGI ropes in the CGI maelstrom and not have completely shattered any sense of immersion and disbelief suspension that you had held on to up until that point.

But, I did laugh out loud, and it was pleasant diversion. Keira Knightley isn’t hard to watch either.

In contrast, Kimi felt it was boring, stupid and pointless, and completely wasted the star power of everyone involved.

So, your milage may vary.

If you see it, stay until after the credits are over, there’s a bonus scene.