Zeigen

BOOM.

Saturday afternoon, there’s an explosion up the street (although we didn’t hear it), and the power goes out. A transformer has blown out a block away from us.

No harm done, or so I thought (other than interrupting the Olympics I was watching; now I’ll never see that handball match between Sweden and Denmark). I took the kids up to the tot lot to play in the sand, and later Kimi picked us up to go out for sushi boats. A power cut is certainly one way to get me out of the house.

But Sunday, when I called home, the phone just kept on ringing. Turned out our home phone system (a Uniden three-handset system I had picked up several years ago at Costco) got fried when the power came back on Saturday evening, and was stuck in a permanent reboot loop.

This morning when I called Uniden for support, they walked me through a hard reset, but no luck. They had no alternatives for me — they don’t even have a repair facility at all. It was out of warranty, so toss it and buy a new one. What a waste.

Time to go back to Costco and buy a new one, right?

Well, hold on a second. The nationwide trend is towards ditching home phone service. The National Center for Health Statistics has a very interesting article and graph showing the wireless-only trend (totally random federal agency research for the win): Wireless-only households went up from 12.6% during the first six months of 2007 to 14.5% in the last six months. So, about one out of seven U.S. homes no longer have a landline.

Meanwhile, AT&T lost a million landline subscribers in their last quarter (per gigaom).

I was all set to cancel my home phone number today (despite my geeky attachment to the phone number, which ends in 8486 — spelling out TIVO as a mnemonic).

There are certainly some advantages to a home phone:

• Unlimited local minutes. Unless you’re paying a huge amount for an unlimited cell phone plan, chances are you’re paying attention to how many minutes you spend on your cell. Families with gabby teenagers need the cost convenience of a home phone with unlimited usage.
• 911 ease of mind. Despite improvements, 911 calls from a cell are not as reliable: You’re usually calling a very remote emergency center, which has more limited ability to learn your location. Additionally, cell phones can more easily run out of battery or otherwise be unavailable for use.
• Disaster/power loss ease of mind. Assuming you have a handset that doesn’t require being plugged in, when there’s a local disaster such as an earthquake, the landline is more likely to work than the cell phone.
• Archaic requirements. Some companies that you do business with really want you to have a home phone, and don’t know how to deal with you if you don’t have one. I’ve heard that one contributor to your credit score is how long you’ve had the same landline phone number.
• Inconvenience of updating all your friends and database entries: What a pain to tell everyone you know that you no longer have a home phone.
• “Home” sense: My cell phone number is only for me, and it’s usually in my pocket. My wife’s cell phone number is hers, and it’s usually in her purse. But my kids don’t have cells (too young), and what if someone wants to reach any of us but only if we happen to be at home? (Not that my kids are old enough to answer the phone yet.) But that’s what a home phone number “means”: Anyone who’s home. A cell phone doesn’t mean the same thing — it’s for a specific person, and even today a cell phone call seems more “urgent” than a call to a home phone number.

The downside of a home phone is primarily the cost (and the cost of ownership of those power-spike-vulnerable handsets): I was paying over $30 a month for unlimited local and a certain amount of included long distance.

We certainly didn’t miss having a home phone during the four months of the remodel where we weren’t home anyway. So, like I said, I was all set to ditch the home phone number. But when I can called to cancel, not surprisingly, AT&T was very willing to make me a deal to keep me as a customer. So, sucker that I am, as an experiment, before ditching our home phone service completely, I have decided to give the home phone number an extension (hah!). I’ve reduced the cost to $6 a month (plus tax) by removing call waiting, switched to a measured rate, and removed long distance.

We can still receive unlimited calls, and we pay $0.02 per outgoing call. My estimate is we make very few outgoing calls, so that it’s not worth paying $4 a month more for unlimited local calling. If I’m wrong, I can switch back to unlimited, and still save $20 a month from what we were paying.

After several months, I’ll evaluate the bills and the usage. If we no longer need the home number, I’ll join those one out of seven households that have cut the cord.

In the meantime, I have three perfectly functioning Uniden handsets, but no base station and no answering machine. If I can find a cheap replacement for the busted base station, I may replace it. If not, well, now you know why our home phone number just rings and rings when we’re not home.

Why, we’re watching the Olympics too. We’re all watching! Your favorite shows and blogs will return after the Olympics.

Zeigen.com — returning on Monday, August 25.

And now, back to our live coverage of the prelim quarterfinal qualifications of the men’s indoor short track handball 400 meter speed dressage beach trapshooting, where the welterweight Latvian team is in the medal hunt against a field of veteran Olympic athletes, including superstar Zbgnw Klrnzxst. But first, we check in with women’s table tennis. Bob?

[Here's the latest from production specialist extraordinaire John T. --Stephen]

It’s official. I spent more time this week watching Video Downloads than actual TV. Besides Battlestar Galactica’s big “huh?” ending and Tiger’s awesome performance at the U.S. Open, was there anything else great on regular TV that I missed out on? I don’t think so. I’m working my way back through the first three seasons of Weeds in preparation for this week’s premiere (downloaded directly to my TiVo thanks to Amazon Unbox) but here’s my Top 5 Free Video Downloads from the past week:

1. “How can you not care about Skaar? He’s the son of the Hulk!” “Any guy on a dinosaur with a huge axe…yes!” Two great quotes from today’s episode of The Stack from Pulp Secret. It’s impossible not to love Alex, Justin and Pete’s thrice-weekly comic book reviews, even if Justin and Pete are getting closer and closer to choking each other.
2. Speaking of The Hulk…it seemed like the green guy was everywhere I turned this week (four of our channels referenced the release of the Hulk movie in one way or another). But when it comes to parody, you can always count on the folks at Barely Political to bring the hype back to this year’s presidential election. This week, the ubiquitous Obama Girl met her new nemesis “The Incredible McCain Girl”…and hilarity ensued. Watch for cameos by Justin and Jared from Indy Mogul and Rush Limbaugh…just because.
3. Unfortunately, we’re just one episode away from the finale of The Meth Minute 39 on Channel Frederator. This week, we looked into the future of The Meth Minute 39 Thousand…and the creative bankruptcy that accompanies it. My personal favorites: “Fire Cat” (”Don’t be on fire, OK?”) and “Stoic Squirrel and the Omniverse of Madness.”
4. GeekBrief.TV successfully combined two of my favorite things into Episode 375. First, there was a new gaming PC that could also double as housing for five (seriously, it’s huge). Second, they highlighted the addition of the Microsoft Surface to the iBar in Vegas. It’s worth a look if you’re a fan of gaming, bars or things you can touch.
5. Finally this week, there was the sad news of the sudden passing of veteran journalist Tim Russert. Today’s Veracifier does a good job of summing up the reactions across yesterday’s Sunday morning talk shows. I grew up just outside of Washington, D.C. so politics were local news for most of my childhood and I’ve been a news junkie ever since. I still remember watching Russert on Election Night 2000 pointing at the lowest of low-tech vote tabulators (that unforgettable white board) and seeing his accurate prediction that it was really all about Florida. Sunday mornings won’t be the same without him. Today’s Veracifier includes some of his best moments from almost two decades of Meet the Press.

Today I attended Jack and Andy’s fifth birthday party at Hoover park, and watched Bob get pelted by water balloons and shaving-cream-filled sponges by ten ecstatic kids. (How I escaped that fate, given I’m a co-godparent? Dunno! But I am oh so grateful.) Aunt Beth made two cakes, one a race car, and the other a chocolate volcano with lava made from melted orange lifesavers. Amazingly beautiful cakes.

* * *

While I was feting twins, Kimi took Sammy and Sophie to the Hiller Airplane Museum, which never gets old for Sammy.

Me: Sammy, what did you see at the airplane museum today?
Sammy: Airplanes.
Me: What kind of airplanes?
Sammy: Old airplanes. With wings!

* * *

Yesterday was Sophie’s eight month birthday. She babbles incessantly now, has the tiniest of teeth buds coming in, gives a smile to everyone, likes to wave somewhat erratically at people, and can roll over, but seems to show no interest in crawling. We’ve started the ferberizing to break her of her 3 a.m. feedings, and so far so good; she slept through the night for the last two nights.

* * *

Yesterday was also photo day at Sammy and Sophie’s school, and in addition, teachers’ lunch out for Sophie’s class. This semi-annual event asks the parents to donate their time and a little money for the teachers to get an escape, while parents come in during the lunch hour to watch the kids. There are eight kids in Sophie’s class, ranging from four months to almost a year old. For the noon to 1 shift where I helped out, we had five parents. When we first started our shift, the teachers had left us well-fed, happy, clean-diapered kids. Within about, oh, ten minutes, half of the kids were bawling, and most had dirty diapers. We parents just looked at each other and laughed. What a profoundly difficult job. The two teachers handle four infants each, with aplomb. We parents were having difficulty with less than two each. Things soon settled down though, and the hour ended up flying by.

* * *

While the photographers set up outside the school and we lined the kids up to have their individual and class photos taken, smoke and haze filled the sky from the nearby Santa Cruz mountains fire. Yesterday morning over 3,400 acres had burned, dozens of homes were destroyed, and the fire was less than 1% contained. Even though we were fifty miles away, kids rubbed their eyes and coughed; and the strange air reminded me of a smell from my childhood, in London: walking down the street in winter evenings, with seemingly every house having a fireplace with a blazing wood fire, smoke pouring out of chimneys, getting on your clothes.

Chim chimminee, chim chiminee, chim chim cheroo.

I was very glad to see the unexpected and unseasonable light rain today, giving the firefighters the break they needed to control the mountain blaze. The dull weather was not so much fun for five-year-olds attending a birthday party, but everything in life is a trade-off.

* * *

Earlier in the week, I caught Speed Racer and then snuck in to a showing of Prince Caspian. It took me about thirty minutes to catch on to Speed Racer’s vibe, but once I did, I loved it. I think this is a vastly underrated movie. The critical smackdown is somewhat intense; I guess most of the critics never watched the original cartoon, because I think the movie catches the goofy tone of the movie pretty much perfectly. And the visuals do not disappoint, exceeding even the hype.

Prince Caspian, on the other hand, is a dreadful bore, missing all spark of charm and whimsy of the first Narnia movie, laying the religious theme on over-thick, and really missing the point of the book (which I read probably twenty times before I was 12).

Speed Racer is over two hours but feels like 60 minutes. Prince Caspian is over two hours but feels like three or four.

* * *

Rob and I have been playing a new card game, Race for the Galaxy (which Steve and Larry introduced me to when they visited a couple of months ago). We play whenever we get a chance. I love this game. It’s a bit fiddly to learn, and the fact that you’re not directly interacting with your opponents takes a few plays before you understand how you can actually have a huge effect on your opponents’ play — but it’s such a short and intense game, I find myself even dreaming about it. Get this game!

* * *

Kimi gave me the new Flight of the Conchords CD for my birthday (among a lot of other CDs, thanks sweetie!). Although I loved the first season of the HBO show, I had thought some of the songs were hit or miss. But I was able to really listen to the lyrics (thanks to the iPhone making it easier for me to carry around music), and now I love all the songs. Buy this CD. Please mister, you won’t regret it.

* * *

There’s a friends-and-family deal at TiVo right now for a TiVo HD. If you’re a friend or family and want a new HD DVR, drop me an e-mail.

* * *

While I do aim to generate content, rather than pass along content from elsewhere, here’s a link. I have to say I applaud these two for their convictions and avocation.
* * *

Kimi: “Your blog is so random. No one likes all the content. No one!”

Guilty — variegated miscellany is what this is. I do tend to be all over the place. Everything’s connected, somehow. Just think though — there are half of the categories listed on the right not even touched by this post. But comments are what I like best, so let me know what you’d like to see more of, and less of.

One of my favorite columnists, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jon Carroll, has a column today about the new HBO series “In Treatment” starring Gabriel Byrne as a therapist treating five different patients.

If you’re interested, the first 15 episodes can be downloaded from Amazon Unbox at no charge. Just head to TiVo Central and catch the menu item promoting this series, then select “Available Downloads.”

1. Network airs a show. “New! Catch it!”
2. Some viewers watch, but not a lot.
3. Network doesn’t really give the show a chance to build an audience, and cancels the show.
4. Viewers complain a bit, but show remains canceled. “But you never resolved the story!”
5. Network airs a new show.
6. Remembering the network is prone to canceling shows, viewers don’t watch (perhaps saving them up on their DVRs unwatched). “Why should I watch this? The network’s just going to cancel it before they reveal anything.”
7. Repeat ad infinitum at step 3.

New shows these days have very little chance. (I’d follow up with some actual data, but no time.) My sense is that networks are far more prone now to cancel a show if the early ratings aren’t ginormous — but I think that has some unanticipated consequences.

My father always used to point out that a good show is not really much more expensive than a bad show. Quality remains elusive for most new shows, and good ratings even more elusive.

For this season: I liked “Journeyman,” and have been following “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” but I don’t think anyone can argue there’s a hit this year on the order of “Lost” or “Desperate Housewives” or “Heroes.”

1. The word “reality” is taken to mean “the most unrealistic and atypical situation you can possibly think of.”
2. Any “Celebrity _____” show must have a Baldwin brother.
3. Editing allows you to turn a saint into a sinner, or a sinner into a saint — but even more, you can turn a vaguely annoying person into a tyrant.
4. Don’t eliminate those annoying people early; you need them for ratings.
5. You can make an unstructured reality TV show, with video diaries — you know, the things that 20 years ago we used to call “documentaries.”
6. You can make a structured reality TV show, with contests and eliminations — you know, the things that 20 years ago we used to call “game shows.”
7. The best way to program against a competitor’s Mark Burnett reality TV show is with your own Mark Burnett reality TV show.
8. During the “letters from home” segment, crank up the maudlin piano or a Green Day ballad.
9. The winner’s reveal show should take 2 or 3 hours, never shorter, no matter how utterly bored the viewers are of these people.
10. When in doubt, pitch a random reality show title.

Yes, I created a reality show title generator. Comment with the ones you like or that don’t work at all. Hours of fun for the whole family.

The strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) by the TBGoA has taken its toll on the late night talk show hosts most of all.

I’ve not followed the negotiations closely, but it does seem like some of the disputes over contractual language really is just splitting hairs.

This is the end of my paternity leave. Back to work tomorrow. Don’t really feel ready; very tired. Making silly fatigue-related mistakes, like not noticing there was a diaper mixed in with some dirty blankets when I threw in a load of laundry. That crystallized diaper stuff is nasty and gets everywhere. Best to avoid!

Sammy’s doing a bit better with naps and bedtime, so hopefully we’re all getting back to normal. Sophie continues to be an angel; very easy baby and a great sleeper.

Been watching a bit of TV (since it’s easy to do that while feeding or burping a baby, especially with TiVo; couldn’t imagine it otherwise) and of the new shows so far I like Journeyman, am neutral on Bionic Woman, and pretty sure I won’t keep Moonlight but spared it for now. Kid Nation I’m still watching. Love the new season of Survivor. Have Pushing Daisies recorded and will check that out. The new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm is especially cringe-worthy in a way that only that show can manage. The new season of Always Sunny in Philadelphia cracks Kimi up a lot. Plus there’s Robot Chicken and CSI.

Did see Resident Evil 3 last night — and for me, zombie movies are like pizza: even when they’re bad they’re good. Was just what I needed.

We’ve launched another major partner, CBS Sports. Each week, their show “The Endzone” will be available on TiVoCast (as well as the CBS Sports homepage). The new football season is heating up, and if you’re a football fan, you’ll definitely want to check this out.

Catch The Endzone on TiVo Central Online, or head to TiVo Central -> Find Programs -> Download TV & Moves -> CBS Sports.

While you’re at it, be sure to catch the CBS Fall Preview Showcase that’s up right now — it includes a special sneak preview of the upcoming new comedy The Big Bang Theory. You can watch the entire pilot episode right from your Showcases & TV Guide menu (or if you don’t get Showcase video, you can also download it for free from Amazon Unbox). I watched this pilot at lunch today and liked it a lot. There are also previews for Cane, Kid Nation, Moonlight, and CSI. (I think Moonlight looks good and I’ll probably check out Kid Nation as well. And I can’t wait for the new CSI season; it’s still one of my favorite shows.)

We haven’t really been watching much TV this summer (well, compared to normal).

I was watching Pirate Master, a reality TV show sort of like Survivor, but it got canceled mid-stream and moved to CBS’s web site only.  I hate watching TV on my laptop or desktop, so I probably won’t see the end of that one.

I was also watching On The Lot, a reality TV show for aspiring movie directors, and it’s almost done.  The show format was really mishandled, in my opinion.  Early on it had challenges for the directors to complete, a bit like The Apprentice.  Later it became just a popularity contest, like American Idol.  It’s much more interesting to me to learn more about how movies are made than to see some random short films.  The last show is tonight; I’ll tune in for the couple of minutes required to see who won.

I also have been watching the second season of Who Wants To Be A Superhero, a reality TV show for aspiring costumed leotard wearers.  It’s fun in a dopey way.

Kimi was watching So You Think You Can Dance, and she loved it all the way through the ending last week, but that show’s not really my thing.

That’s definitely a lot of reality TV.  There’s isn’t really much else new on in the summer — we watched a couple of the new Monk episodes this season, and we enjoyed them. But now we’re falling behind. I have some other shows piling up too, but haven’t had the interest.

However, the one show that both Kimi and I reall are enjoying is The Flight of the Conchords TV show on HBO.  It’s about two singer song-writers from New Zealand.  If you search around on YouTube you can catch some of the bits, although I think their music numbers work better in the context of the larger show. Funny funny stuff. My favorite songs are Mermaids and the Bowie tribute.

I knew Tony Soprano. I worked with Tony Soprano. And believe me, John from Cincinnati, you’re no Tony Soprano.

* * *
As for the finale itself: The world seems outraged by the “ambiguous” ending to the Sopranos last night, but I thought it was perfect. In retrospect, Chase hardly could have written either ending that people expected.

This is, in my opinion, the second dumbest Survivor decision in Survivor history.

(Spoilers after the break; don’t read if you haven’t seen the Survivor episode from Thursday, March 1st.)

(more…)

We just didn’t catch the fever this year. Kimi asked me to record the Oscars, and around 6:15pm I went to set up the recording and realized it started at 5:30pm. My DVR reminded me it was a live event and I should pad it, and offered an hour. “An hour?” I thought. “It’s already 3 hours, how much longer can it run?” So I changed the post-padding to 15 minutes. That meant we missed all the important awards, since the dang thing ran nearly four hours. O wise TiVo DVR, I’ll never ignore your advice again.

So even with missing the beginning and end, and even with fast forwarding through a bunch of stuff (”Celine Dion is singing? NOOOOOOOO”) we watched nearly two hours of the thing. Sure, Ellen was pretty funny, and it’s always great to see the stars all dressed up and acting all self-congratulatory, but I feel like my IQ went down a lot. Mimes? Really?

I didn’t make any guesses this year, but I think I would have nailed about 12 of them. I would have guessed correctly for most of the biggies. I know people are all surpised about The Departed (which I haven’t seen yet) winning the goods, but it seemed like a no-brainer to me.

I wrote about watching the first nine episodes of “Heroes” previously. The other week, I went to watch the second half of the season but realized I had failed to set the Season Pass priority high enough, and one of Kimi’s shows had been recorded instead. Fortunately, NBC offers Heroes free from their site, so I was interested in trying out their experience.

First off, thanks NBC for offering full-length shows free from your site, but the experience was pretty bad. I expected ads that couldn’t be fast-forwarded, but I didn’t expect the same ad multiple times. Six times viewing the exact same ad is irksome and off-putting. If I were an advertiser, I wouldn’t be caught dead trying that — the frustration factor is too intense. I’m actually less likely to purchase the particular product being advertised now because of how annoying the ad was. In addition, the UI needs work. After each break (and each commercial), I had to re-maximize the video to full screen. I had to disable my screen saver.

And worst of all, the video was grainy, too dark, and had too much macroblocking. The streaming was faster than real time, though. And the price was right.

On a more individual level, I really didn’t like watching a full hour of TV on my computer. Wrong light, wrong chair, wrong ergonomics. I much prefer watching TV on my couch in the living room.

I can’t say any of these people made any impression on me, with the shining exception of Yau Man, who is now my pick to go all the way and may end as one of my favorite survivors ever. (He’s a chemistry professor at Cal, too, so I have the hometown angle going. Go Bears!)

Interesting that they ended up with the “rich camp/poor camp” concept that’s also the main twist for this season of the Apprentice. Sure it creates some dramatic tension, and you root for the underdogs in the rough to win back a chance at living at the luxury camp, but the main challenge of Survivor is doing well with nothing. The seasons where the survivors are given coffee makers and showers and a relatively easy time of it are less interesting than when you worry for them possibly starving to death. So the “haves” end up seeming vacuous and boring to me, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for half of the contestants to be dull.

The teams seem evenly matched, though, so I’m betting the challenges will be interesting to watch this season.

I watch about one NFL football game a year. Superbowl XLI, well, what can I say? I didn’t watch it this year, because at 4pm I was due up at Jennie’s in Oakland doing a rehearsal for our upcoming Chinese New Year play. I put it on a few minutes after it started, right before I left, so I could record it. I missed the historic kickoff touchdown return.

I might watch it later, although it’s a little anticlimactic after knowing who won (yeah, I know who won — you can’t avoid all the spoilers on the web and radio).

I care nothing for the Bears or the Colts, so I suppose I’m more interested in the commercials. We saw a couple in the fourth quarter when we switched it on briefly, and I didn’t see anything exciting. My bet is there’s nothing that I think is worth the $2.6 million price.

UPDATE: Kimi and I watched the halftime show last night (she wasn’t interested in plays or commercials, but Prince playing Purple Rain in the pouring rain was worth a watch), and then I watched most of it after she went to bed. Some impressive rain-generated turnovers and fumbles, and this morning I’m not really thinking about any of the commercials so nothing really stuck. I did laugh a couple of times. But nothing earned $2.6 million.

No matter what other reality shows come and go, the only one that I really still care about is Survivor. The challenges, personalities, cinematography and nature footage make it continually compelling for me. I remember the first season (in Summer of 2000) was promoted via our old TiVo TV show, TiVo Takes, and when we were in the midst of a huge project to migrate our financial system in August, 2000, the whole team took time out during a data load one evening to watch one of the episodes. It was a bit mystifying to some, but was compelling and is still mostly compelling now.

The new season is set in Fiji and starts on Thursday, February 8th.

Because they change the title every season, any old Season Pass you might have set up won’t work for this season. (Some day we are going to fix that…). So, set up your Season Pass for Survivor using TiVo Central Online now, while you’re thinking about it.

People tend to remember HBO’s hits (The Sopranos, Sex & the City, Big Love, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Deadwood) more than its misses (Lucky Louie, Family Bonds, The Comeback, Arliss, K Street). However, generally speaking, I’m interested in most new series that HBO decides to put on the air.

I’m also a big fan of George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. I got Kimi’s sister Tomi hooked on them too last time she was out. They’re sprawling books with multi-character viewpoints set in a meticulously detailed world, with more politics and backstabbing than magic, and Martin manages to avoid all of the fantasy cliches. The only warning would be to not get too attached to any particular character, since anyone’s vulnerable. (Sort of the opposite of this author.)

So I was thrilled to read this news. HBO plus GRRM, can’t wait. I haven’t been this excited about a TV series in a long time.

Sunday night started the new season of The Apprentice, and I could barely stay awake through it. The changes smack of desperation to try to breathe life into a format that was interesting for the first two or three seasons and then became staler than thrice-regifted Christmas pudding.

But the NBC promo folks are in full battle gear. Just check out the wacky new hijiinks! (Or don’t check them out if you don’t want the show spoiled.)

• It’s set in LA now!
• Caroline is so fired!
• Instead of her and George, there’s the strangely compelling Ivanka, who studied at Wharton and is very impressive or so her father, The Donald himself, tells us!
• The losers sleep out in a tent!
• The winners sleep in a mansion and lounge around in a hot tub!
• Eighteen candidates now! (Wait, only season 1 had 16, the rest had 18.) That’s NOT changed!
• The winning project manager continues on as project manager next week!
• The winning project manager participates during the board room firing of the losers! Although since he or she didn’t really see what the losers did, they don’t really have much they can give input on!
• Writing bullet points with exclamation points all the time is tiring!

I think I’m gonna drop this show.