Two Things

I meant it when I said I moved. You can update your feed by clicking this button:  

I also wrote a book! It's been published by Cruciform Press. You can read more about it at Cruciform Press.

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Whether you choose to update your feed or not, thanks so much for reading.

I've still moved!

I'm now blogging at writingandliving.net. Click on over there. And, not to be pushy or anything, but you can update your feed while you're at it.

What, you're still here?

I moved the blog to my own domain: writingandliving.net". Which is a different domain than where I moved it last week. Click on over to get the whole story. See you on the other side!

I've moved

You can find me here

I'll leave this blog up for a while, but new blogging will commence at my new site.

Thanks.

In Which I Wear the Foil Hat to Watch TV

The new channels are here. I celebrated last night by being very careful to watch programs that I hadn't been able to get before. Because I couldn't bear the thought of spending my first night with digital cable watching the ten o'clock news on a channel that I could get with rabbit ears.

I was a little worried about the installation appointment. Besides the fact that I don't like to have strangers in my space in general, my children, in anticipation of getting more channels, had doubled up on school work all week in order to spend the whole of Wednesday afternoon curdling their minds with vacuous children's programming.

I didn't mind that so much (since I was planning on spending a bit of time watching HGTV myself), but I didn't really want them to ANNOUNCE to the cable guy that they were homeschooled and were going to watch TV all day in celebration.

Just wait and let Mommy announce that on the Internet, okay kids?

But at the end of the appointment is when things went south. Because while Brian at the cable help desk was busy telling me that I sounded twenty-five on the phone, he was also telling me that I only needed one cable box. And while I couldn't understand how that could possibly work, I didn't want to strain my young-sounding voice by asking too many questions. Besides, I assumed that since he worked at the cable company help desk, surely he knew what he was talking about.

I'll pause while you laugh at my naivete.

It turns out that without the second cable box, we are unable to receive a very crucial cartoon channel on the downstairs TV. I took this very well, and was careful not to yell at the installer. Because working retail has made me very sympathetic to service people. If you yell at someone for something that they have no control over, they will go home and cry all night and eat lots of chocolate. Just like it's not fair to scream at the pharmacist because your insurance doesn't work, it wouldn't be fair to yell at the cable installer because Brian at the help desk is a silver-tongued flatterer.

I'm not sure what a service person would have to do to make me yell at them, but I think they would have to do something grievous, like spray paint obscenities on my van. And then I would probably ask them nicely not to do it again or I'll be forced to talk to their boss.

But by the end of the day, the nice local cable people had given me a new box. All I had to do was hook it up and call the 800 number to have the people at the help desk activate it. They also had to wipe out the previous owner's parental control PIN number. Since I can't remember my own PIN numbers, I certainly can't be expected to figure out someone else's PIN.

But now I'm a little freaked out about the fact that someone sitting in an office far away can reset the PIN numbers on a cable box in my family room. And even though I know that part of the problem is that I just finished reading 1984, I now remember that when I had a cable box back in days of old, I used to worry that it would be extremely easy for them to hide a camera in one of those things.

In other words, my paranoia goes way back.

Oh I kid. I'm not really that paranoid. Because everybody knows that they really watch you through your microwave.

Will Work for Food. And Digital Cable.

In my effort to wrap up the last post with something clever (and bear in mind that "clever" is often a relative term), I mentioned something about checking to see if I could add more channels to our cable lineup. Because our basic package cuts off at just three channels below Fox News, and that's just not fair.

But really, I just kind of tossed that out there. My reasoning for the bare-bones basic was that we watch too much TV as it is, why add more temptation? And since my children still manage to recite entire Spongebob episodes despite the fact that they can only watch Nickelodeon every six weeks or so a Grandma's, I didn't feel like they were really missing out on much.

I seemed to have forgotten that I can rationalize almost anything. Over the past couple of days I convinced myself that more channels meant that their limited TV time would be spent watching something they truly wanted to watch, not just settling for something just because it's on. You know, quality TV programs. Like, for instance, Spongebob.

The next thing I knew, I was chatting with Brian at the cable company. And Brian was able to put together an extended basic package that costs LESS than what we're paying now. And somewhere between Brian telling me that I sounded so very young on the phone, that I couldn't possibly be more than twenty-five, and setting up the service appointment, I was signed up for digital cable for just five dollars more a month.

Let me tell you, we've got a lot of channels coming.

I went down to tell Theodore the great news. And for the record, Theodore was not exactly standing in the way of the cable upgrade. Because nothing spells excitement for Theodore like watching reruns of PGA tournaments from the 80s on the Golf Channel.

But Theodore hadn't been talking to Brian at the Cable Company. And Brian at the Cable Company hadn't been telling Theodore that he couldn't possibly be older than twenty-five because he sounded so young. So Theodore reminded me that often they give you an introductory rate at first. And just when you've grown accustomed watching things like, say, twenty-four hour golf analysis, they jack the price up. Did I make sure this was not just an introductory rate, he asked.

Um, no. I sort of forgot. But Brian was sooo nice that I'm sure he would have mentioned something if that was the case. Ahem.

So, I told the kids, and there was much rejoicing. Let's hope it lasts.

Always Love Your Country, But Never Trust Your Government

My parents, a couple of Reagan Republicans if there ever were ones, applied his statement that "all great change in America happens at the dinner table" by turning on CNN's Crossfire while we ate. (Saturday was The Capital Gang, and Sunday was 60 Minutes. If I'm feeling homesick, the opening sequence of 60 minutes can make me tear up.) And while I made plenty of cracks about having to listen to old men argue every night during dinner, it helped shape me into the person I am today, not to mention ace every current events quiz during my school career.

So, while most people of my generation felt a pang of nostalgia at the passage of celebrities like Farrah Fawcett, John Hughes, and Michael Jackson, I feel a pang of nostalgia at the passing of CNN commentators.

We haven't had cable news for several years, and there are few network anchors that I can watch without yelling at the television, so I was pretty much out of the loop. I had no idea that Bob Novak had written an autobiography. When I went online and discovered that the library had a copy of his book, I actually thought that I needed to get there right away, since his passing would probably induce a mob of people to rush down and check it out.

Because sometimes I actually forget how weird I really am.

Fortunately, it still had no been checked out by 8:45 last night when I finally got there. I've only read up to the 1960 election, but I like it so far (it's a long book, so I've got a long way to go).

It's been a while since I've read this kind of book, and I had nearly forgotten how much I enjoy reading about political history. Ever since I read The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys in high school, and incredulously announced to my amused parents that the Kennedys had ties to the Irish Mob, I've been a sucker for the inside story. (I had been exposed enough of the media's breathless "Camelot" remembrances to actually think this tidbit would be NEWS to them).

So, I'll let you know how it goes. Right now I have to figure out how much it would cost to get cable news added to our plan.