Havasimy

When I'm at work I think of all the things I mean to blog about, but I don't have access to Blogger. Now, when I'm home, I forget what they are. I've said it before. I need to start writing my blog subject ideas down. The only thing I remember is that one of the things I wanted to blog about was something I originally thought about writing about over a month ago.

On things I do remember that I want to write about. I found a bar reasonably close that has Sunday Ticket so I should be able to watch the Steelers play. I need to find out if either of the two bars that are a block or so away from my place subscribe to Sunday Ticket so I won't have to worry about driving at all. Also, I was wearing a Carnegie Mellon Alumni shirt sunday night when I was unloading my car and met a fellow tenant who is also a fellow CMU alum. I also work everyday with a fellow CMU alum and a guy whose brother graduated from Carnegie Tech. Including me, that is four or five decades of alumni (and that's not even counting the 1980's) in a two block area (one block if the tenant also works at my company).

And I just remember something else I wanted to write about. The daughters of John Kerry and George W. Bush were on the MTV Video Music Awards Sunday night. Two observations:
- The Kerry sisters were there live and got booed. I don't think it was because of who they were. I think they got booed because compared to the rest of the night's calls to get out the vote, their speech seemed more like lecturing. Even though they were giving the same message, they seemed like school teachers compared to the likes of P. Diddy.
- The Bush sisters were there via videos. Since they were second, they didn't bear the brunt of the boos. The thing I find interesting is that they didn't sound like I expected. I've seen plenty of pictures and news footage of them, but never heard their voices. They, especially Jenna, sounded nothing like I thought they would.

I'm watching The West Wing right now on dvd and the episode currently playing is another example of The West Wing borrowing a plot device from Sports Night. This time, the episode centers around characters writing emails to their fathers while waiting for a filibuster that should have ended hours ago to end. An episode of Sports Night centered around a character writing a letter to his sister while waiting for a tennis match between Pete Sampras and a unknown tennis player. Sampras should have beat the guy hours ago, but the other guy kept hanging on. It is an effective plot device, but it worked better on Sports Night because the tennis match simply was more effective. Maybe it worked better because the delay was caused by a extreme underdog tennis player hanging on against a player he had no right hanging on against. The filibuster was caused by a stubborn politician.
There was also a quick joke borrowed from Sports Night, I think. And it would only be notable (and yes, nothing on this blog is truly notable) because I think the same actress is involved. In both case, the character played by the actress is jokingly said to be fourteen when she's much older and just looks younger.

Just a reminder. The Clarks are playing on Letterman tonight!!!

How come there isn't a gender-neutral term for niece/nephew? Or aunt/uncle? There's sibling for brother/sister, parent for father/mother, and child/offspring for son/daughter.

Anyway, I didn't become an uncle again this past weekend. If all goes well, I should have a new niece/nephew by friday.

I am still getting used to being in a different sports market. Today I got the annual NFL preview issue of TV Guide in the mail and was momentarily surprised to see Eagles and not Steelers on the cover.

I'll be posting details about this past weekend which was busy and nothing happened. I'd also like to talk about the movie Open Water, but the things about it I want to say, I don't want to post about because I don't want to give up any details from the movies.

(This begs the question: how much time must past after a movie opens before you can talk plot points that might spoil the movie for people who haven't seen it? Is it okay now to talk openly about the ending of The Sixth Sense? Do I still need to avoid letting slip the secret of The Crying Game? Everybody who would care should already know who Luke Skywalker's father is, right?)

Anyway, the main thing I want to post about is that The Clarks will be making their national television debut on David Letterman tomorrow (tuesday) night. They're a great band and the band I've seen live more than any other. They're probably be singing a song off their new album. It's a shame because although the new stuff is good, I don't find them as catchy as their older stuff like "Cigarette" or "Better Off Without You". Anyway, check out their website and check them out on Letterman.

I've been watching the second season of The West Wing on DVD as well as later episodes that are airing in syndication. I'm also a big fan of Sports Night. Both are Aaron Sorkin TV shows. The West Wing is a really good TV show. Besides enjoying the show on the usual levels, I'm also having fun looking for the connections between those shows. So far, only Joshua Malina seems to have made the main cast of both shows, but a number of the main cast of either shows have been guest stars on the other. Those connections are easy to spot. Then there are the style aspects each show shares, like a lot of the dialogue on both shows is done while walking from room to room, not to mention the inclusion of random facts in dialogue and characters often repeating the same line three or more time in a row. Then there are the less obvious connections, like when an actor does a short, one scene guest shot on both shows. My favorite connections so far, though, is the use of the line "...then you haven't seen Shakespeare the way it's meant to be done". My other favorite connection is the blatant re-use of a subplot. In both shows, one of the top male stars goes to a dinner specifically to talk to a woman he wants to impress. The next morning, while telling co-workers the details of the dinner, it is pointed out to him that he mixed-up two words making him look like a total idiot. He proceeds to spend time fretting on it, trying to convince co-workers, who don't really care, that he knows the difference between the two words he got mixed-up.

A couple weeks ago, I bought a package of Swedish Fish from the vending machine at work. Looking at the nutrition label, the first thing on it was serving size which it had listed as one package. The second thing listed was servings per container. For that, it had listed as "about one". This begs the question: since the package is the container, where does the "about" come in. Shouldn't it say: serving size = one package; Serving per container = one?

An interesting, if minor, positive development has turned up due to the move. The turnaround from Netflix seems to be really fast here. I put netflix dvds in the outgoing mailbox in my building lobby on Monday and it seemed that the mailman comes late (as late as 6pm one day) and yet Netflix had marked those dvds as received on Tuesday afternoon. The next two dvds were marked as shipped out yesterday with an estimated arrival date of friday. Usually, the dvds arrive the day before the estimated arrival date, but they actually came in today. So instead of the usual six day or more turnaround time, the turnaround was two days.

Pamela Anderson has a autobiography out, sorta. First of all, she happily credits her ghost writer. But the ingenious thing is, she made it a fictional novel with names changed and identities loosely veiled. By calling it fiction, she can tell her stories without worrying about fact checking or getting sued by the people she talks about. More celebrities should do that. The tell-all novel would definitely be more interesting than the average tell-all book.

Today was an interesting day. Not only did I not get a bill in the mail, I actually got a check. Seems that by getting car insurance with the same company as my rental insurance, earning me a refund on my rental insurance. If only this happened more often.

I have one comment on the whole Ralph Nader issue. The democrats are mad because Nader is taking Kerry's votes. They are mad at Nader because he's running. They should be trying to figure out why there are people on the left who won't vote for Kerry, even if it means Bush being elected again. I say people shouldn't have to settle for the lesser of two evils. That's why I admire Nader running and people willing to vote third party if they aren't satisfied with the two candidates.

One other point. I was watching watching an episode of The West Wing recently and one of the characte was complaining that the candidate a second character was supporting was stealing his candidate's votes. The second character replied that he was wrong. They weren't his votes.

Maybe the democrats should watch that scene before complaining about Nader stealing Kerry's votes.

I got my car insurance for New Jersey. It wasn't as bad as I thought. I got the original quote in late July, before my birthday. The agent I talked to knew I wouldn't be getting insurance until after my birthday, so the quote was for someone in their thirties, at least that's what I thought she told me. When I went this week, there was a different agent, and when she plugged in the numbers, she got the same number as the original quote. Then she realized that it was for someone in their twenties. Turning thirty cut over three hundred per six month off my car insurance. That's a significant amount. Of course, the discount for turning thirty equaled the amount I was paying total per six month back in PA.

Is there a grocery store chain nowadays that doesn't have a frequent shopper club and make you sign up to get sale prices? I tried out two grocery stores yesterday. First, I went to Acme SuperSaver, where I wasn't too impressed. I didn't bother signing up for their club. It reminded me on the discount grocery store back home where you have to bring your own bags to pack your groceries in. I just got the necessities I was running low on. Then, I went to the bank. On the way home from the bank, I passed a Superfresh. It seemed alot nicer, despite having a adjective for a name. I signed up for the shopper club there. I still have to try and find the Giant grocery store around here.

By the way, the phone bill thingy I complained about got settled really quickly. Basicly, my landlord told me to pay the bill and they'd take the amount equal to the installation part of the bill off my rent. It's fair, except I have to pay the phone bill before the rent. Not a big deal. Also, it feels like I'm getting ripped off somewhere. Basicly, I pay almost triple my phone bill and get just over 10 percent of my rent off. It just seems wrong, but it's not. Plus, it means the phone company doesn't need to make any adjustments, which always can be tricky.

At my last apartment, I never had a phoneline, cable or internet service. So for the last two years, I used a cellphone, watched broadcast tv, and access internet at work, the library, etc. I never got these services because I didn't want to deal with the cost nor the hassle those particular utilities bring along with them. I've had a landline phone for less than a month and already got the hassles started coming at me.
I got the absolute basic, no-frills, no-long-distance, phone service. Total cost: about $15/month. Now I understood that there would be certain extra cost on the first bill and expect that I would be paying a pro-rated partial first month plus paying for, in advance, the full second month, as well as certain one-time set up fees. But I open the bill to find a total due to be $180.
This included a one time charge for labor for inside wire installation. Now, for those I haven't told the story too. On the day my phone service was installed, I was told to be at home between 8am and 1pm for the phone guy to come. I waited in the apartment until 10:50am. Then it occurred to me that my brand new apartment is already wired. So I tried plugging my phone into the jack and found a dial tone. The guy came, got access to the room which allows access to all the various wires, then left. As far as I'm concerned, if I'm going to spend $110 for labor charges, I'd like to meet the guy who did the labor.
So I called customer service. The lady was really nice and forwarded me to the installation department. I was expecting this was going to be the start of a extremely polite run-around. Turns out the installation department operator, was even nicer and more understanding than the first operator. She talked to someone else and let me know the problem and what to do. She told me it was the responsibility of the apartment managers. The wiring that the guy did should have been done by the managers and thus their responsibility. So she passed the buck, but it made sense. She said to show them a copy of the bill and they should handle it. She must have been totally confident in the answer because she said that if the apartment managers wouldn't take care of it, I should call the phone company back and ask for a supervisor. I've never heard a customer service operator come out and suggest asking for a supervisor ever.
On the way out of the building to go to the car insurance place, I ran into the agent who originally showed me the apartment. She said that it happened all the time. The wiring was set up, but the phone company still charges the customers anyway. She told me who to talk to about it, someone at the rental office who apparently specializes in fixing phone company screw-ups.
To finish my evening adventures in hassles, the car insurance place website shows them open to 5pm every day except 8pm on wednesdays. I drove to the car insurance place where the sign of the door said the same thing, except the following note by wednesdays: "evenings by appointment only". So I drove there for nothing.
By the way, if anybody who knows the philly/nj area has any suggestions on a good grocery store, let me know. I've learned some of the franchise names, such as Giant and Acme, but I don't know how good they are. It's just weird not having a Giant Eagle or a Foodland around.

Over the weekend, the fact that I was sick mixed with my new cable-ready apartment, I got to channel-surf. I ran across the disturbing trend of televised card games. Now, I like the texas hold-em with pro players. And seven card stud isn't too bad. I don't like the seven card low-ball or whatever it's called. As far as I'm concerned, if there are no flushes or straights, then it's not poker.
Celebrity poker I also like. The player vs. player format until one person has all the money allows the personalities of the players to come through.
But I had the opportunity to watch Celebrity Blackjack. What they should call it is Celebrity BlzzzZzz. Damn, it's painful to watch. And they had celebrities I actually like. Ben Stein, for instance, is usually entertaining, but when he is the most talkative person at the table Zzz Zzz. I gave it a second chance and watch another episode. Bijou Phillips was on. I've always found her attractive. And I still couldn't watch it. It's was a extremely watchable woman in something totally unwatchable. It had to been created by the same people responsible for every recent Ashley Judd movie.

I'm back. I now have all my stuff out of my old place and into my new place. I have cable, internet and even a landline phone at my new place as well. My laptop is set up on my kitchen counter cause I don't have neither my living room furniture nor desk set up yet and my current computer cable doesn't stretch to my bedroom, so if I'm at my computer at home, I'm standing up. Last weekend was my first weekend where I actually stayed in the area and I woke up friday morning with an extreme cold. For the sake of everyone at work, I went home really early friday, which means I have to go into work this friday to make up for it. Despite being sick, I still managed to get my bedroom unpacked and set up and my kitchen partially so.

As for my new place, I'm finding it has more space and alot more usuable space than my last place. The only minuses to my new place is a 600% increase in car insurance, no real grocery store in the immediate area, and my cellphone service goes kaput if there's a concert at the nearby amphitheatre.

Of course, there's also the matter of me turning the big 3-0. Unlike some people, I have no problem with it. The way I see it, I've had so many years where there were no real change inmy life that I still have the mindset of a 20 year old. And I've treated my body so bad, I have the body of a 40 year old. So I feel it all averages out. As for some people, all I can say is: 2 months, 19 days.

And speaking of turning 30, it's that many years ago today that President Nixon resigned. That also means it's the 30th birthday of a old good friend of mine. Happy Birthday Myers.