End of year clearance.

Clearance?  Seemed like as good a title as any for the last day of the year.  I feel like clearing a few things out of my brain.

The war on Christmas.  Yeah, I'm going there, albeit a bit late.  You know by now, religion is not my thing.  So I get a bit irate by all the shit about Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays.  Allow me to break it down to show why this is the stupidest argument ever.

Everyone knows (or should by now) that Christmas traditions were adopted from pagan observances.  Christians go on and on about how this is their holiday, Jesus is the reason for the season, yada yada.  When the Christians were trying to convert the masses, they decided the best way was to roll the customs already in place into the religious holiday.  Including the date.  The Winter Solstice was the most important date to pagans, and Christians invented a mythological birthday to usurp it.  I haven't heard any scientific evidence that Jesus was actually born on this day.  Very little about Christmas is original to Christianity.  Yet, Christians claim it as THEIR holiday.

Let's go back to that line...the reason for the season.  SEASON.  Season is not 1 day, it's a series of days.  In the USA, it begins with Thanksgiving, and ends with New Year's Day. Over a month of days!  And it's not just those 2 holidays.  It's Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, and if you count Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve, there's 8 holidays in that period.  8!  Christmas is only 1 day, and to insist that we say Merry Christmas the whole time is absurd.  Happy Holidays (my preference) or Season's Greetings covers it all very well.  Say whatever you want, however you feel about it, but don't push your agenda on the rest of us.  Aren't there more important things to argue about?

Oh and one more thing.  The reason for the season...the entire season beginning with Thanksgiving...is consumerism.  You can't say Jesus is the reason until you give up the gift buying and getting, and the other pagan customs.  And if you participated in Black Thursday/Friday insanity, don't turn around and thump a bible.  Pretty sure it's not what Jesus would do.

I like to write Xmas.  Some think this is rude or lazy.  No, it's not.  Look it up.  I did.  It's actually a perfectly acceptable way to write the word based on historical facts about early language and writing.  You would think Christians would like it because their beloved cross is right there in the word.  But noooo.  They want it to clearly include the word Christ.  OK, maybe it's bit lazy in my case.  BTW - I often don't capitalize words commonly capitalized by religion, either.  It's my way of expressing my disdain for organized religion.

What else?

Haven is killing me!  Turns out I was wrong, Audrey and William were lovers, and apparently really evil people...or...  Witches?  Fallen angels?  Gods or demi-gods?  Aliens?  That's going to be interesting to learn.  Probaby witches.  We learned that Audrey was originally Mara, and the Barn made her forget her original self, I guess to redeem herself for what she and William did.  But now she remembers who she was, and the Mara persona has resurfaced.  And that's how the season ended.  Grrrr!  Gonna be a long wait to see what happens next.  I wonder if we'll ever learn what the Barn is, and who the people in charge of it (Agent Howard) are.

Doctor Who's December episodes were awesome!  Every bit as good as a Whovian could want.  We got a glimpse of #12 (actually #13) and I think he'll be a wonderful Doctor!

Remember how I ragged about Dish Network's dispute with the local carrier for CBS?  Shortly after that one was resolved and the station returned to my programming, here came another.  This time it's NBC, FOX, and CW.  I'm only getting ABC and CBS now.  For crying out fuckin loud!  So I called Dish to complain, and suggest I should get a break on my bill.  I'm paying extra for those local network channels, and also for the Hopper that was designed specifically for the 4 major networks, and I'm not getting what I'm paying for.  Well, sometimes it pays to complain.  I got a $5 discount on my monthly bill for 6 months.  Yeah, 6 months!  Even if the dispute is resolved before then (jeez I hope so!), it's for 6 months.  Thanks, Dish.

CW isn't considered one of the 4 covered by the Hopper, but it's one I'd really miss.  Happily, my package includes CW from the west coast (airs after EST prime time) so I'm not missing my shows.  I just hope the dispute is resolved soon.  It's not been that big a deal right now during holiday season.  Most shows aren't picking up again until 2nd week of Jan.

Big changes coming for me in the near future.  Let's just say I got what I wanted for Xmas, and the New Year looks brighter.  That's for another day, and elsewhere.


Happy New Year!

Politically correct nonsense

Social networks may have broken civilization.  Sure, we are all connected, but the fact that anyone can post anything they want means that many things that used to be private, and still should be, now are forever available on the net.  Some issues have become a much bigger deal than they really are thanks to everyone sending things viral.

Take bullying for instance.  In a certain Facebook community that I'm part of, some people have taken it upon themselves to expose and exploit every instance of what they perceive to be bullying.  Notice I said "what they perceive".  Don't get me wrong.  There is bullying going on and always has, and it's terrible.  My definition, and I'm pretty sure the correct definition, is a directed and prolonged attack for the purpose of degrading, humiliating, or tormenting an individual.

In this particular FB community, some adults were found to be acting like stupid mean kids in a private forum, and then mercilessly persecuted to the point of shunning (an archaic practice) and even (rumored) to have cost one of the idiots his job.  At that point, the offended parties looked more like the bullies than the idiots.  Some of the offenders publicly apologized, but that wasn't enough for a couple of the group's founders, they continue to call for blood.  I saw some of what was done, and to me, it was just stupidity.  It was a private forum so the "victims" would never have seen it if another member of the private group hadn't leaked it.  So was this bullying?  Not in my book.  It wasn't a direct attack.  It was just people acting badly.

Now I see bullying apparently also includes any form of rudeness or insensitivity.  Two more things that have always been around.  This anti-bullying group has spawned members looking for any kind of unpleasant behavior, and they are reporting these slights to the group as bullying.  Yeah, it would be nice if everyone in the world could be polite and pleasant all the time, but hey, that's human beings for you.  Not gonna happen.

On another subject...dumb games.  Apparently, there is a bizarre game roving around FB, and I have to wonder what sick mind thought of this.  I've only seen parts of it, but I guess it's a sort of "Lying Game".  Someone is given a list of things to post on their status, and they have to choose from the list.  The list sounds sick!  Like one posted "I'm pregnant".  Concerned friends (not in on the "game") immediately responded with shock or sympathy or whatever they were feeling knowing this person as they do.  My friend played, and her status was so disturbing that I had to call her to find out what the fuck was going on.  When she realized that friends were scared for her, she deleted the damn thing, and promised not to do that again.  From her, I heard a few other weird items on the list.

This is what Facebook as done to us.

Enough of that, I want to talk about TV.  Finally, Dish settled their dispute with CBS, and it's back in my programming as of yesterday.  Bout time.  The shows I watched most have always rerun episodes, so I hope that happens.  One I really missed was The Good Wife.  I'll be so far behind.

The much anticipated Doctor Who 50th Anniversary episode is this weekend, and then the Christmas special where the 12th Doctor debutes in December.  I now have the entire series (Docter #9 to present) collected on the DVR.  It took a while to gather it all, but luckily BBC ran it during the day as well as during prime time.  Everything will be going on hiatus for the holidays, so it looks like a good time for some marathons.

Still loving the Peter Pan arc on Once Upon A Time, and still ambivalent about Once...In Wonderland.  At least I've now got it straight that these are in no way connected.  The Pan character is fascinating and the actor plays it perfectly.  Now we know his backstory, and I didn't see that coming.  Spoilers.

Another of my favorites has taken a dark turn that I didn't expect.  On Haven, William has become really evil, and is somehow connected to Audrey and the Troubles.  He says they created the Troubles together.  Can't say I'm pleased with this twist.  I loved Colin Ferguson as the lovable and funny sheriff on Eureka, and I was hoping he could be a regular in Haven.  Now it looks like he has to die, so that's kind of wrong for me.

I have theories about who William is, and how he's connected to Audrey.  One is the obvious...they were romantically involved.  He has said that she loved him.  But it's so obvious, I'm not really buying it.  Their connection is physical and supernatural, so I'm favoring another theory.  They're siblings, maybe even twins.  That would explain their love and connection.  Or they are one person split into dark and light sides.  This is a bizarre universe so that could happen.  Can't wait to see if I'm right, or if there's something completely different.  It says a lot about a show that when it first aired, I wasn't sure if I'd like it, and now I'm obsessed.

Letsee, what else.  Dancing With The Stars has gone the usual ridiculous way.  Good dancers gone, and clutzy looking people surviving on sympathy votes.  I was really surprised by Snooki's run.  Yeah, that Jersey Shore trainwreck is all growed up and behaving like a responsible adult.  Good on her!  She was a damn good dancer, and a pretty cute package, but then she was gone.  The finale is next week and I don't give a shit who wins.  It no longer matters.  We're not going to see amazing dances (except maybe Corbin), and I expect the Free Styles to be meh.

Oh and can we say Saturday Night Live!  Fabulous!  I saved the one with Kerry Washington parodying "What Does The Fox Say?"  Sooo goood!  Miley Cyrus has been back, and last week it was Lady Gaga.  Someone break Gaga into acting, she can do it!  I loved the skit where they slammed Kimye (you know I hate them!), and Gaga was a hapless Apple employee.  It was just great all around.  You're missing good stuff this season if you aren't watching SNL!


Good morning.

Long time, no write

I'll start with TV.  The fall season has finally started, and the DVR is busy busy busy.

The Originals on CW is DELICIOUS!  Finally, a new vampire series for adults.  I watch The Vampire Diaries, but I'm usually annoyed by the teenage angst.  And Elena.  Even when she was bad, she was incredibly annoying.  The main reason I watch is Damon (Ian Somerholder).  He's hot, he's funny, and he has an honest soul...he's true to himself.  I never understood the Stephan character being the main love interest because I don't find him the least bit attractive.  Same for Robert Pattinson (Twilight).  I'd like to see Damon crossover to New Orleans sometimes.  Without Elena.  That would be cool.

I will add The Originals to the Library when it's released on DVD.  I really hope they include the episodes from The Vampire Diaries that told of their origins.  This family of original vampires is fascinating and sexy.  And no, TVD has not and will not be added to the Library.

BTW, what is it about Louisiana and New Orleans that's so attractive to supernatural beings?  True Blood is there, Anne Rice's vampires and witches are there.  I believe there are more I can't think of right now.

Also looking forward to the Dracula series.  Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been a crush since August Rush, which is one of my favorite flicks.  I'm not really into period pieces, so I didn't follow The Tudors, but I did watch a little to see JRM.  I think he'll make a perfectly sexy vampire.

Not sure how I feel about Once Upon A Time In Wonderland, yet.  I'm glad that Once Upon A Time seems to have returned to the original concept this season.  That being the twisted retelling of fairy tales, and weekly back stories.  It got a little unnecessary and boring in season 2.   So far, I don't see that with In Wonderland.  It looks a lot like every other version of it.  I guess it will be told, but I'm confused by the Red Queen.  We know that Cora (Regina's mother) was the Queen of Hearts, so who is the Red Queen?  One character I was hoping to see In Wonderland was the The Mad Hatter.  I loved him in Once.  He's been mentioned as being gone for a long time.  Was he really and truly killed?  We know that doesn't always mean anything.

I do like a couple twists in Wonderland, so hopefully that sort of thing will continue.  Like Peter Pan.  What a fantastic, sinister version of him, and the actor is perfect.  Tinkerbell as a fallen fairy was unexpected.  Don't care for the nightmarish Cheshire Cat, isn't he supposed to be benevolent?  And how come the White Rabbit wasn't human when he went to Real World?  That's one of the things that make it look like every other version of the story.

Actually, as I reread what I just wrote there, I realize I'm confusing the 2 series.  Yeah, that's the problem with Once Upon A Time In Wonderland.  They shouldn't have run the story lines at the same time.  How can this be happening in Once Upon A Time at the same time?  Is In Wonderland actually the back story for what's happening in Once?

Haven (Syfy) is back.  I'm so hooked on this one.  Last season was outstanding as we learned more about Audrey and the Barn.  I just wish her love interest was Duke instead of Nathan.  I really don't care for Nathan (like Stephan).  Duke on the other hand is like Damon...a sexy, funny, honest soul.

Sleepy Hollow is cool!  So is The Blacklist.  I love me some James Spader!  Look up some of his early movies, he was pretty hot when he was young, and had surfer boy hair to die for.  Boston Legal is when I fell in love with him, and I watch the reruns whenever they come around.

A series I thought would just go one season apparently is going for a second.  Under The Dome.  In the first few episodes, we wondered, is this the government or aliens?  I ran across a reference on Facebook to the Stephen King novel it's based on, and went a-googling, and found spoilers.  I don't hate spoilers, sometimes I just really want to know.  The drama was getting in the way of my knowing!  Turns out it's aliens.  It looks like the series is pretty true to the book, but I think they could have wrapped it up in one season.

Another series getting in my way is Revolution.  I want to know more about the nano-tech, and the how and why of it, but there's all that fuckin fighting going on.  I actually fast-forward through a lot of it.  It's boring and doesn't interest me.  Tell more story, less unnecessary action.

Pretty annoyed with the Powers That Be.  Dish Network is in dispute with the company that controls CBS in my area, and I'm not getting it at all.  I think Dish owes me some credit.  I'm paying extra for local network channels, and the Hopper (which I also pay for) is specifically designed for the 4 networks.  Luckily, there aren't that many shows on CBS that I miss, but there are some.  Sure hope I can catch up in reruns when they finally get it worked out.  If this dispute has anything to do with the lawsuit against Dish for the auto-hop feature, I say let it go.  I don't need this if it will end up costing me.  Still got the FF and skip buttons on the remote, and that's good enough.  Auto-hop only works on the 4 networks during prime time anyways.

What else?

I feel embarrassed to be an American these days.  We are supposed to be the most powerful and enlightened country in the world, and look at us.  I imagine the rest of the world is laughing at us, and our enemies are rubbing their hands in delight as they watch us bicker and implode.   It's just too sad.

Warning...here's my inner hippie coming out.  Why must we always be at war?  We are, you know.  When we don't have a real war we make one up.  War on Terrorism, War on Drugs, War on Christmas.  Really?  It's like we need War to define our place in the world.  We don't need a War on Terrorism because there are already laws against it.  War on Drugs, well, we know that's a bust (pun intended).  War on Christmas, ok, that's just plain silly, but the media made it a thing.

I admit I don't follow things that closely.  I just get so bored and annoyed with the media going on and on about shit to the point that it makes no sense at all.  But it seems to me the ones who are crying that Obama (the Democrats) is destroying the constitution have forgotten what the Republicans would do to it.  Sure, you'd get to keep your guns and your wars, but you'll lose personal freedoms to the conservative (religious) agenda.  To my eye, Republicans are Big Business, and Democrats are the Common Man.  Which one are you?

And again I ask.  Why are there parties in the first place?  I should look that up.  Just when did the Parties form, and who formed them?  How, when, and why were those lines drawn?


Good morning.

Update on the DVR

I went to Best Buy and got the external harddrive I needed.  Turns out it was considerably more expensive than I thought it would be so that was a bit of a drag.  So what did I do?  I procrastinated backing up the DVR.  Yeah, you probably guessed it.  It died for good on Wednesday (the day before the Hopper was coming) and I hadn't backed it up yet.  What the fuck was I thinking?  My reasoning was to clear out as much as possible (as in watching it) before I backed it up.  Murphy's Law.  Now it's all gone.  Dammit.

I was able to get the box working so I could watch tv.  Damn, how spoiled am I?  I found tv kinda boring without the ability to record it or even pause it.  I missed my late night shows that I don't stay up for.  I handled it pretty well I think.  I was resigned instead of stomping around swearing about it.  I didn't dwell on it, and watched DVDs instead.  Have quite a few I haven't watched yet so that was ok.  When I did watch tv, it was the old-fashioned way...short attention span channel surfing.

The Hopper came yesterday.  Turns out Dish Network isn't completely upfront in advertising what it can do.  Yes, it can record 6 things at once, but there's a catch.  The old unit had 2 tuners.  That's how you record 2 things at once, or record one while watching another.  The Hopper has 3, but the 3rd tuner is dedicated to just the 4 primetime networks.  ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC.  You can't pick the shows on these networks.  Your only options are the days of week and the networks, and it will only record the primetime slots.  That's 8pm to 11pm.  It records all the primetime shows on the days and channels you choose.

Now that I understand it, I can live with that.  Thursday and Sunday are the only days (at this time) that I have set up for it.  Thursday, there are things I like on all 4 networks and that worked out well last night.  I gave up some things on Thursdays with the old box.  I just deleted the ones I didn't want to watch.  Sunday, there's just the 2 networks I'm interested in.  Otherwise, I have to do as I always have...juggle time slots by setting timers individually.  That's ok, I'm pretty good at that.

There's also the Auto Hop that Dish is touting to skip commercials.  Don't know how long that will last if they lose the suit challenging it.  I tried it this morning, and it's pretty cool.  It begins the skip with the beginning of 1st ad in the commercial slot and ends at the end of the last one.  So you see snippets of the 2 ads, but the rest is invisible.  This only works on the primetime recordings set up with the 3rd tuner, and you can't use it until the next day.  It doesn't work the same day the recording was made.  It's not a deal breaker for me.  I'm used to the skip button to fast forward past ads.  Believe it or not, I do occasionally back up to see an ad that caught my attention for whatever reason.

I have to rave about the technician!  He was AWESOME!  I wish he could see this so he'd know how much I appreciate all he did for me.  I did answer the phone when Dish called for my feedback survey, and gave him all the highest marks.

He definitely went beyond the call of duty.  I mentioned that I'd like to talk about moving the dish.  It was mounted on the porch roof which is going to need rebuilding in the near future.  He said he couldn't do it today, but would be glad to come back out when he could.  He said it could be put on the pole behind the house that holds my electric service.  There was a dish there (still there as I never took it down) when I moved here, but the guy who installed my dish back then said it couldn't go there even though he tacked the Dish connector box on the pole.  Turns out it was a safety thing being so close to the electric service, not a technical issue.  And probably a lazy grumpy tech.  Quentin said he wasn't bothered by it.  Then he just went ahead and did it!  He was having trouble getting the new box to respond to the dish, and was using the process of elimination to solve the problem.  The first thing he tried was the cable coming into the house.  He replaced it all!  I helped with that by feeding it through the floor while he pulled the end outside.  Then he moved the dish (and removed the one that was there) which I didn't know he had done until he told me.  He was that fast!  Then he replaced something on the dish.  He was getting frustrated by then, and as a last resort, he forced the box to reboot again.  Voila, fixed.  But I got all that other stuff upgraded in the process.  He also gave me his personal number.  Told me to call him directly if I had any problems.  He doesn't live far from me.  He was just great!

In other tech news, I think there's a solution to my internet problem.  Verizon has been pushing this new mobile hotspot gadget.  I thought it was for wi-fi which I don't have available so I didn't look into it any further.  When I was at Best Buy getting the harddrive, I also talked with the Geek about the Microsoft Surface.  Remember, I said a while back that this was the tablet for me.  Yeah, still is.  Maybe when the back-to-school tax holiday comes around, but it's pretty pricey for what would mostly be a toy for me so I can wait to see if prices come down.  So anyways, the conversation digressed to the hotspot and apparently it is something I might need.  It's not about wi-fi, it's about sharing the internet connection between devices.  It works like the mobile broadband modem I have without the buggy software to run it, and should connect to 4G just fine.  I think it's cheaper than my current plan, or I can get more bandwidth for what I pay now.  Either way, I'd come out ahead.  I'll be dropping in the Verizon store to talk to a guy.  Not sure when my 2 yr contract is up on the modem.  It should be up.  The Best Buy guy could have set it up for me but I needed to make sure I was clear for a new plan first.  There's a closer Verizon store right here in town so I'll just go that way.

Good morning.

Electronics behaving badly.

Had an annoying couple days ago.  First, the Dish DVR had a tantrum.  This has been happening for a while.  The following could be signs your DVR harddrive is aging.

It freezes up while in just about any mode.  If I'm watching a recording, I can usually fix it by forcing a reboot (unplug it), waiting for it to go through its boot cycle which can take up to 10 minutes (grrr), and then fast forwarding past the hang up in the recording.  It occasionally freezes while watching live tv.

It pixelates.  The picture looks scrambled for a few moments...little squares like a jigsaw puzzle.  This usually happened in recordings, but sometimes while switching channels.  I noticed it happened at certain times in recordings.  When 2 events begin recording at the same time, or a 2nd one begins while another is in progress, or while I'm watching a recording when another begins.  The pixelations appeared at those points.  I don't know, this might be somewhat normal when asking the DVR to multi-task,  but it seems to happen more often lately.

It began to be noisy.  It would roar like an overworked computer.  Not all the time, just here and there.  About a week ago it froze and put up an alert that the unit was overheating.  Whoa.  Never saw that before. I went to the box and it was very hot.  My bad, the vents were clogged with dust.  Word to the wise, vacuum the vents regularly.  I did that and unplugged it until it cooled off.  Since then, the fan is roaring more often.  The unit isn't overheating, in fact, it's stayed pretty cool, but the fan is still coming on loudly.

Since I've been wanting the new Hopper (records 6 things at once!), I decided maybe I better do it before the thing fails completely.  And this day, it did.  It froze in the program guide.  The grid blinked out, leaving the little picture in the corner, and then that went away and the screen was black.  Zip nada.  That was new.  It has froze in the guide before, but not like that.  I spent the next hour or more rebooting with no results and finally called tech support, and ordering the Hopper was to be my other reason for calling.  It's only a few bucks more and I'm sure I will like it.  The technician was very nice and spent a good hour with me on the phone while we tried to get my box working again.  Finally did.  It wasn't anything new we did, I had already done all that.  It just...I don't know...got over its tantrum this time.

So the Hopper is coming Thursday, and I have a dilemma.  I have a lot of things saved on the DVR.  2 series that I haven't watched yet.  Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries.  I save the entire season to watch at once.  They're not in HD so don't take up much room on the drive, and I just enjoy these shows as a marathon.  Quite a bit of The Daily Show I haven't watched yet.  BTW...bummer!  Jon Stewart is going on hiatus to pursue another project and turning the show over to someone else for 3 months or more.  Don't know if it will be as good for me without him.  He is The Daily Show, you know.  I've saved some series finales, music videos, and random things I haven't watched yet.

I asked the tech if the installer could transfer what's on my DVR to the new unit and apparently not.  Really?  Why don't these things have that simple feature?  How hard could it be?  My only option is a high capacity external harddrive (it can do that, but not a simple transfer???), and a quick search online says it will cost over $70.  Well shit.  I don't want to lose my stuff, and I can't watch it all by Thursday.  I'll look at Walmart (cheaper, if they have it) but I think I'll be better off going to Best Buy so I can talk to a Geek and make sure I get the right one, and he should be able to explain the process.

So there was that.  Then my internet went wonky the next day.  This happens sometimes but hasn't happened in a long time.  I blame the crappy software for the wireless modem.  It's always acting up, and apparently the Powers That Be don't think it's worth fixing.  I guess because of the internet phones and tablets that more people use these days.  That's where the wireless companies put their efforts, to hell with the rest of us.  I wasn't able to get online at all, and even after going through all the protocols (open/close app, unplug/replug modem and sim card, uninstall/reinstall software) several times, it wouldn't connect.  I had to walk away from the computer after fucking with it for way too long, and then it got over its tantrum.  The next time I tried, it worked.  Hmmpf.

There was an update since I bought the modem with its original software CD, but now it won't let me download the update.  Fuckin fine.  As long as it will connect, I'll live with the old software.  I am going to drop in the local Verizon store and see if anyone there has any insight on how to make it better.  Tech support by phone has been no help.  They just run me through the protocols I already know.  Maybe my modem is aging, or maybe a different brand is better.  Oh yeah, and it's supposed to be 4G.  Haven't been able to connect to that in a long long time.  I'm chugging along with 3G.  There's a 4G signal available, the stupid software refuses to connect to it.

Then there was my personal glitch.  One of the last things I saw on the internet Friday was the reminders about Daylight Savings Time.  So I changed all the clocks before I went to bed.  I didn't do the atomic clock on the weather station.  It should update itself.  I checked it the next morning to make sure it did, and it hadn't.  Oh duh...it's Saturday, dipstick. That happens on Sunday, you know.  Wasn't changing them back, so I had to remember what time it really was when I looked at a clock.  That reinforced how dumb DST is.  It doesn't change the length of daylight, just how you relate to it.  Supposed to save energy, but I don't see how that works.  The way I see it, it's the same hour of use at a different time of day.  Anyways, I guess that was a senior moment for me.  Hey, when you're retired without a real daily schedule, everyday is Saturday.

Enjoy the hour.  Good morning.

Familiar Faces

I know it's not that big a deal, or uncommon or anything, but lately, I notice a lot of familiar faces from other tv shows on new ones.  Or even some not so new except to me.

Last time I talked about Mad Men.  Some familiar faces show up there, but the most recent for me was when I realized the Drapers' son is played by the same kid who plays Henry on Once Upon A Time.

Some more appear on Arrow.  I'm not really that invested in this show.  I was immediately turned off by the less than charismatic actor portraying Oliver Queen.  Quite bummed when I found out it wasn't a spin off of Smallville and wouldn't be played by the oh so hot Justin Hartley.  He's the only Green Arrow as far as I'm concerned.  I realize this version is probably more true to the original comic book character, but it's kinda boring.  I'm watching for the other familiar faces.

Notably, John Barrowman.  The sexiest gay guy I can think of!  Yeah, he's very openly gay, but I love him.  So handsome and what a personality!  I first learned he would be on Arrow from Attach of the Show (he was a co-host sometimes).  He plays a (probably) bad guy, and does it very well.  This week's episode had him shot almost dead, and saved by Arrow who doesn't yet know who he is.  I bet all the Whovians out there (if they watch...bet they do) were waiting for him to gasp and spring back to life.  I know I immediately thought that.

Wait, what am I talking about?  If you aren't a Whovian, you might not know.  Barrowman also played Capt. Jack Harkness on Doctor Who and Torchwood, and he couldn't die.  He always came back to life, no matter how thoroughly he was killed (one time, he was burned to ashes).  At the end of this Arrow episode, another familiar face from the Whoverse appeared as someone's mother...Alex Kingston, who played River Song on Doctor Who.

I'm a recent Whovian.  Not to the point where I'm constantly thinking about it, or collect stuff or anything.  I'm not really a fanatic of anything like that, other than collecting DVD and book series.  But I watch the episodes over and over again.  BBC runs it every weekday morning, and cycles through from the beginning.  Well, not THE BEGINNING.  The beginning as most current Whovians know it...starting with the Ninth Doctor.  I tried to watch it a while back, but it was kind of frantic to me.  The Doctor is a very animated personality, and sometimes it's hard to follow what he says.  Also, Christopher Eccleston wasn't my favorite of the 3 recent regenerations.  Then I tried again, and the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) had arrived, and now I'm hooked.  Once I was hooked, I began DVRing episodes again and again, and some I've saved on the DVR because they were pivotal.  I found, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, that you have to watch again to catch what you missed the first time.  It's that thing where the Doctor talks so fast in that thick accent, and the little innuendos that refer to other important things.  Oh yeah and the "timey-whimey" thing.  I'm no scientist and it's hard to follow some of the concepts of time travel.

I don't know if it's a false memory or what, but I vaguely remember the classic Doctor Who.  It wasn't originally aired in the US, but I believe it was at some point later on, maybe in syndication, and I must have seen it.  BBC has been airing retrospective specials on the classic version starting with the First Doctor to pacify we Whovians as we impatiently wait for the new season to begin sometime this spring.  They also include a classic episode in each special.  Very interesting, although pretty painful to watch.  These were produced in the 60's, and the technology and budget wasn't there for quality sci-fi film.  But they show the beginnings of many of the standard elements to which the current version stays true.  I love continuity in things like this.

After I became obsessed to the point of considering adding the entire series, (including the classic) to the Library, I went a-googling, and found this amazing site.  Tardis Data Core.  Wow.  Here is everything you ever wanted to know about Doctor Who and then some.  I was surprised to learn there were print versions as well.  Books and graphic novels that filled in some minor details that were only hinted at in the tv show.  You can easily spend hours reading on this site as you dig into it deeper and deeper.  I don't need to buy the (badly done) classic series to fill me in on the history and mythos of the Whoverse.  It's all right there.

Oh and Justin Hartley, he's recently been a main character on Emily Owens, MD.  This is a fluff show about hospital interns.  Sort of Grey's Anatomy Lite.  Another face on Arrow is Paul Blackthorne.  I crushed on him when he starred in the sadly short Dresden Files (got it).  I have the entire series of books (to date, currently reading one) by Jim Butcher, and that's the face I put to Harry Dresden.

A non-tv thing about familiar faces.  Do you believe everyone has a doppelganger?  I do now.  When I first moved down south, I saw faces I knew up north.  I did a lot of double-takes as I was out and about in my new environment, and still do occasionally.  Kinda eerie.

Good morning.

Memories of the 60's.

Thanks to "Mad Men".  I just recently began watching this.  I don't know why I wasn't before.  I guess I didn't notice it in my program lineup because AMC is not a channel I watch regularly.  Then it began reruns from the beginning on Sunday mornings so I began catching up with the DVR.  Then Dish Network dropped the channel for a while.  That angered "Walking Dead" fans more than anything, but I'm not one of those.  I don't get the current fascination with zombies.  They're gross and I don't enjoy being grossed out.  I have started other new series and immediately stopped when they grossed me out in the first episode.  But I was annoyed I was missing Mad Men after getting into it.  Then AMC and Mad Men were back again on a different channel number.  I think I'm mostly caught up.  At least as far as where the reruns are at.

I was a kid in the 60's.  I was 10 and in school when Kennedy was shot and remember the announcement over the PA, and later watching the funeral on tv.  I vaguely remember the racial riots in Detroit because it slightly affected my family.  You see, my dad was a boater.  We had a boat all my kid life and spent every weekend and week-long vacations on it, traveling the waterways around Michigan.  I remember we had to cut a vacation short or change plans or something to avoid being near Detroit at that time.  I really can't remember that well, but I think we may have even been at a marina there and had to leave quickly when it began.  But I don't really remember most of the major events of the 60's because I was just a kid.

Mad Men has made me remember the little things about that era.  The clothes, the furniture, the attitudes.  Smoking for instance.  The first thing I noticed when I began watching was that almost everybody smoked and they did it EVERYWHERE.  At work, in stores and restaurants.  Even hospitals.  I was really surprised to see a doctor smoking in his exam room.  Did they really do that?  At least he put down his cigarette in an ashtray when he began the exam, but it was there burning the whole time.  Pregnant women smoked (and drank alcohol), too, including my mother.  Attitudes about drinking were also pretty liberal.  They did it freely while driving and at work.  There was an episode where the Drapers had a picnic at a roadside park and just left their trash on the ground when they left.  I think people really did that kind of thing back then!  People just didn't give a shit about any of that stuff.

Many things on the Mad Men sets were in my parents' house.  The decor and artwork.  Danish Modern furniture was the trend and my folks had it.   Olive green or gold kitchen appliances, ugly wallpaper, knotty pine woodwork and paneling.  My parents had the exact same inlaid wood tribal dancers framed art on the wall.  I wanted to include the image here but I couldn't find it.  It's not been that long ago I saw the exact same pieces in a roadside antique shop so I can't believe it isn't online somewhere.  I'm sure it was cheap mass-produced art as my folks didn't have the money for finer things, and it was about keeping up with the Jones back then.  No, I wasn't tempted to buy that art when I saw it in that little shop...it's ugly and it was ugly when I was a kid.

Another memory revived by Mad Men was the total eclipse.  That was in the episode I saw this week, and the spark for this blog entry.  This also was in 1963, according to the date on a document that was shown on the episode.  I remember this vividly because I was so scared.  The other kids in school went around saying don't look or you'll go blind.  In the MM episode, a teacher was helping her students make viewing boxes.  I had to think about this memory as my teachers were no help in this, and I remember spending the weekend worrying about it.  Then I recalled how that day went for me.  I woke up that morning afraid to even look AT the window, let alone go outside.  Now I know it was a Sunday and I wasn't in school that day.  In MM, it was apparently an after-school field trip project.  I remember because it was the Sunday paper that had instructions on how to make the viewing box.  I remember how excited I was when I saw it in the comics section of the paper.  My dad helped me whip up the box in time for the eclipse, and once I had it, I was ok.  I knew I could look outside, just not at the sun directly, and I could see the eclipse reflected in the box.  Now, of course, we know we can watch an eclipse as long as we wear very dark glasses.  I had a pair of those odd little tanning eye shields the next time a total eclipse happened in my adult life and was able to watch it that way.  Don Draper on MM simply put his sunglasses on and looked up, and we saw it reflected in his shades.

Mad Men is sort of strange in the acting and characters, but I think the reason we watch is for the history of that time.  It's pretty damn accurate.


Good morning.