Random Thoughts and Observations: September 9, 2008 Edition

• I think that I’m getting to the point where I don’t actually need as much sleep as I would like to get. Hardly a night goes by when something or many things don’t wake me up throughout the night. Take two recent nights as an example:Over Labor Day weekend, my nieces, Emma and Kelsey spent Sunday Night with us. I was up off an on with them most of the night, including when Emma woke up at 4AM, and needed to know where I was. I probably woke her up, letting Lucy out to play like she sometimes enjoys doing in the very early morning hours. Somehow, I made it through that night, none the worse for wear, apparently. Last night, Bart woke me up, gnashing his teeth in my ear. Then I had to go to the bathroom and wrap my wrist because it was bugging me. When I went back to bed, Lucy was then awake and needed to potty. She then couldn’t go back to sleep, so I put her in the back yard. Just as I was finally getting to sleep I heard angry barking. Lucy must’ve found her possum friend again, so I had to let her back in the house to keep from angering the neighbors. I then got the hiccups. I never have hiccups in the middle of the night, but then my body has been all sorts of odd lately. Anyway, Lucy came back to bed with us and tried to get comfortable on me, but couldn’t due to my hiccups. So, I put her in the living room and closed the bedroom door. Finally I sort of fell asleep for a few hours. When next I awoke I checked on Lucy (because the last time I locked her out of the bedroom she ate a pen that leaked all over our carpet). She awoke again and joined us in our room, but in the floor. Somehow, I’m more awake than the dog, who stayed inside for her morning nap today, in our bed according to Bart. I don’t entirely understand it, but I’m managing, even though I feel like a nap usually in the afternoon.
• I am such a gadget whore that I’ve spent the past hour hitting the “refresh” button on endgadget.com so I can keep up with the latest Apple Event. New iPod nanos. I want one. I don’t need one, but I want one. I just hope to be able to update the firmware on my iPod Touch again. Genius looks intriguing.
• I don’t like that Facebook is going to force us to use “The New Facebook.” It’s all buggy and doesn’t work correctly. It’s too Myspaceish.
• I’ve decided to boycott all channels owned by Viacom due to the appalling way Russell Brand hosted the VMA;s on MTV this weekend. This includes the channels :Comedy Central, Logo, BET, Spike, TV Land, Nick at Nite, Nickelodeon, Noggin, The N, Nick Jr., TEENick, MTV, VH1, MTV2, CMT, and Palladia.
• I think that Arkansas is going to have their rear ends handed to them this weekend by Texas unless they play well all game and not just the fourth quarter.  I think that Oklahoma will prevail over Washington, unless the PAC 10 officials give the Huskies the game.

Why Television Is Losing the Battle and How It Can Be Saved

    According toTV Week, “On average, the networks are off the mark by 10% from last year in
total viewers and off 17% in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic.”  So, in short, May Sweeps, were a bust.  This news doesn’t really surprise me though, because in my opinion the television as we’ve known it for the past fifty-sixty years is in the process of digging its own grave, and I don’t believe that it’s just the five broadcast networks.  I think that for the most part, cable networks are alienating their own core audiences.

    Throughout the Eighties and Nineties, as more cable networks were created, many were started with a certain niche, their own special genre, and they would air shows in which the subject could be viewed as under the umbrella of their certain genre. The History Channel, now justHistory, focused on shows with a historical context.  The Discovery Channel was created to help viewers learn about the world around them. TV Land was supposed to expand on theNick at Nite of the eighties that aired reruns ofclassic TV shows likeBewitched,The Donna Reed Show,My Three Sons,The Patty Duke Show, and so many other wonderful shows of yesteryear – as well as the wonderfully nostalgicRetromercials. 

    It seems that today though, most of our niche cable networks have strayed from what brought them their core viewers to begin with.  Discovery received so much flack that they’ve adopted a policy of returning to their roots.  I only wish History and TV Land would do the same.  Both networks have been replacing their good programming with reality crap.  We get enough reality from almost every other network, not to mention the broadcast networks.  I don’t want to seeI Pity the Fool,High School Reunion,Ice Road Truckers,Ax Men, orMonster Quest. I also don’t want to see Extreme Makeover:  Home Edition or any other show aired in the past ten years on TV Land.  I want tolearnwhen I watch History.  I miss “The Hitler Channel.”  I used to love “Bloody Old England Week.”  Something is terribly wrong with things when last week I watchedVH1for the DocumentarySex:  The Revolution, a purely historical show, while History probably aired something related to music.

    Since what I want to see is no longer being aired in favor of what many consider to basically be crap, I choose to turn off my TV.  Instead I will read a book or do what many people my age are doing, watching things online, viaYou Tube,Hulu,Joost, and so many other wonderful services that let me choose what to watch, when I want to watch it.  There is also always DVR/PVR if a station actually airs something worthwhile, AND if they don’t block DVR / PVR asNBC did recently.  Boy, that was a dumbass mistake, but it is the network that pulled all of its shows from iTunes buttook them to the Zune Marketplace.  As I read somewhere, “2,000.000 Zunes sold since 2006…“  compared to the 140 million unites sold by Apple.  I, as an owner of both an 8 GB nano and 8 GB iPod Touch, will just not pay to watch NBC content, but will watch it onHulu, the one good decision NBC has made in this age of digital everything.

    In my opinion, TV Land should create spin-off networks focused solely on certain decades.  There should be a TV Land 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and Current channel.  The History Channel should create a Current Events channel to air crap like Ax Men and Ice Road Truckers just as they created The Military History Channel, even though I can’t get that because as of now, we’re not payingCox Cable for Digital anything.  We’re waiting onAt&t Uverse to debut here in NW Arkansas this fall.  I’m thrilled Cox is going to get some real competition besidesDish Network andDirect TV.  Basically, television executives need to pull their heads out of that place where the sun doesn’t shine and listen to the public, or they’ll continue to lose the battle.  If I, a twenty-eight-year-old married woman with a decent income (hello desirable demographic) am disgruntled, what about the rest of the world?

“What a cute little bunny rabbit”

    My mind has been jumping from one random place to another lately, so bear with me if it seems I’m chasing rabbits.  I like chasing rabbits, anyway.  They hop and hop, and I just want to hug them, and squeeze them, and pet them, and name them George.  I will never forget the first time I saw / read “Of Mice and Men” and realized that the snowman in theBugs Bunny cartoon, “The Abominable Snow Rabbit,” was a play on Lenny.  That was about the time that I realized most of the jokes in cartoons that I always thought were funny were actually a sort of homage to something else.  Consider the first rabbit chased while he made “that left turn atAlba-koi-kee.”

    Chasing rabbits also brings to mind Lucy’s cat and mouse, or rather dog and bird game with some robins that nest near our house.  She obviously finds them very fascinating,and I don’t know if she wants to kill them, but I do know what wants to play with them.  They, on the other hand seem to enjoy teasing my poor puppy.  They shouldn’t be mean to her though.  She’s cutting her molars and hasn’t felt too well lately because of the pain.

    The subject of rabbits also makes me think of Easter, which we celebrated this past Sunday.  As you know from an earlier post, I’m none too keen on celebrating it so early.  Nonetheless, we did, and though the day has passed, the sermon remained with me.  By chance my iPod played a song from an oldCindy Morgan CD, “The Loving Kind.“  This is a CD that was released ten years ago, but the music and especially the message are both so timeless.  The entire CD focuses on thePassion Week as seen through theGospel of John.  In my opinion, the best song is the title song, based onPeter’s experience that week, and the forgiveness that he and all of us are given so freely by and through Christ.  It reminds me of how insignificant I really am, yet Jesus still endured the pain and humiliation of the cross for me, and would have even if I was the only sinner -ever.  I tend to not think about that as often as I should.  I become too self-absorbed in my own self-importance.

    I’m not that important though. None of us is as important as we think we are, not a single person.  We are all fragile beings, and life is a gift given to us by the Creator of All Things.  we don’t appreciate exactly how fragile and precious that gift is.  We take each other for granted too much.  Ten years ago, I thought myGranny Scott would be alive forever.  I believed that I would always be able go to her house on Sunday afternoons and holidays and spend countless hours just being with my family.  It’s been almost eight years since she passed away, and I think I miss her every day.  I miss hearing the unique hum her little, yellowOlds Cutless Ciera.  I’ve never heard any other car with that distinct hum, and honestly I hope I never do because it was a part of Gran, and there’s never going to be anotherher.

    Thinking of Gran makes me think of home.  Everyone wants a place to go back to that they consider home, and IwishI had such a place.  I don’t just mean where I live now, because it is very much my home now, but somewhere that knows me.  I would love to be able to go back to the place where I grew up, to walk the grounds where I made me first steps, both literally and those first steps into life.  Last week, I was talking to Neile before the five, as we are wont to do, and we were discussing our Easter plans.  She asked is I was going home, and I let out a sad, somewhat bitter laugh.  I told her the truth, that I really had no home in which to visit anymore, at least not in the sense we were discussing.  Since I graduated high school, my mother moved from my hometown.  Since she retired, she has since moved twice more to a town I absolutley abhor.  Where she lives now has no sentimental value to me.  It never will.  Though I cannot fault my mother completely for wanting a fresh start of things, I don’t think that she understands how her moving has totally separated my sister and me from our roots.  I think for many people going home to visit parents is also a way to go home as see other people and places that you miss.  I can’t be faulted if nothing else pulls me to visit my mother, therefore I’m not inclined to do so very often.  Well, someday I’ll go home to a home that no one can take away from me.

   

"What a cute little bunny rabbit"

    My mind has been jumping from one random place to another lately, so bear with me if it seems I’m chasing rabbits.  I like chasing rabbits, anyway.  They hop and hop, and I just want to hug them, and squeeze them, and pet them, and name them George.  I will never forget the first time I saw / read “Of Mice and Men” and realized that the snowman in theBugs Bunny cartoon, “The Abominable Snow Rabbit,” was a play on Lenny.  That was about the time that I realized most of the jokes in cartoons that I always thought were funny were actually a sort of homage to something else.  Consider the first rabbit chased while he made “that left turn atAlba-koi-kee.”

    Chasing rabbits also brings to mind Lucy’s cat and mouse, or rather dog and bird game with some robins that nest near our house.  She obviously finds them very fascinating,and I don’t know if she wants to kill them, but I do know what wants to play with them.  They, on the other hand seem to enjoy teasing my poor puppy.  They shouldn’t be mean to her though.  She’s cutting her molars and hasn’t felt too well lately because of the pain.

    The subject of rabbits also makes me think of Easter, which we celebrated this past Sunday.  As you know from an earlier post, I’m none too keen on celebrating it so early.  Nonetheless, we did, and though the day has passed, the sermon remained with me.  By chance my iPod played a song from an oldCindy Morgan CD, “The Loving Kind.“  This is a CD that was released ten years ago, but the music and especially the message are both so timeless.  The entire CD focuses on thePassion Week as seen through theGospel of John.  In my opinion, the best song is the title song, based onPeter’s experience that week, and the forgiveness that he and all of us are given so freely by and through Christ.  It reminds me of how insignificant I really am, yet Jesus still endured the pain and humiliation of the cross for me, and would have even if I was the only sinner -ever.  I tend to not think about that as often as I should.  I become too self-absorbed in my own self-importance.

    I’m not that important though. None of us is as important as we think we are, not a single person.  We are all fragile beings, and life is a gift given to us by the Creator of All Things.  we don’t appreciate exactly how fragile and precious that gift is.  We take each other for granted too much.  Ten years ago, I thought myGranny Scott would be alive forever.  I believed that I would always be able go to her house on Sunday afternoons and holidays and spend countless hours just being with my family.  It’s been almost eight years since she passed away, and I think I miss her every day.  I miss hearing the unique hum her little, yellowOlds Cutless Ciera.  I’ve never heard any other car with that distinct hum, and honestly I hope I never do because it was a part of Gran, and there’s never going to be anotherher.

    Thinking of Gran makes me think of home.  Everyone wants a place to go back to that they consider home, and IwishI had such a place.  I don’t just mean where I live now, because it is very much my home now, but somewhere that knows me.  I would love to be able to go back to the place where I grew up, to walk the grounds where I made me first steps, both literally and those first steps into life.  Last week, I was talking to Neile before the five, as we are wont to do, and we were discussing our Easter plans.  She asked is I was going home, and I let out a sad, somewhat bitter laugh.  I told her the truth, that I really had no home in which to visit anymore, at least not in the sense we were discussing.  Since I graduated high school, my mother moved from my hometown.  Since she retired, she has since moved twice more to a town I absolutley abhor.  Where she lives now has no sentimental value to me.  It never will.  Though I cannot fault my mother completely for wanting a fresh start of things, I don’t think that she understands how her moving has totally separated my sister and me from our roots.  I think for many people going home to visit parents is also a way to go home as see other people and places that you miss.  I can’t be faulted if nothing else pulls me to visit my mother, therefore I’m not inclined to do so very often.  Well, someday I’ll go home to a home that no one can take away from me.