Two by Two, Hands of Blue

On the radio, there has been a commercial for Comcast. The gist of the commercial is "TV is good. Only jerks claim to not watch TV. They're missing out. So you spend 7 years' worth of your life watching television–so what? Before TV, people probably just stared at gravel."

I'm not sure how flagrantly dishonest something has to be before you're not allowed to air it. I'm guessing the qualifying word "probably" makes that last statement okay.

I haven't had access to live tv on a regular basis for the last 9 years. Sure, there's been the occasional house-sitting stint, the weekend stay in a hotel room. And of course there's the magic of my dad's DVR. But most of the time, no tv.

I'm not disappointed. I like not having access to regular television most of the time. This is not because I think I'm above it, but because it keeps me from putting my foot through a flatscreen when good shows are cancelled. One season of Studio 60. Half a season of Firefly. And yet a jillion seasons of The Bachelor? WHY!?

I didn't know Studio 60 or Firefly existed until well after they'd been cancelled. My frustration with their respective television networks was nothing—nothing!—to my likely reaction had I become invested in them as they were airing. It's different, watching them on dvd, knowing how many episodes are left, rationing them out.

When I visited the Rake a couple years ago, we watched episodes of the Dick Cavett Show on dvd. Some hoity-toity author was on the show saying that what he did was more valid because his books would be around forever, while Mr. Cavett's show was airing this one time and would soon be forgotten. I can't even remember his name now, and I've certainly never read any of his books.

Sing-a-long

Sometimes we all have weird reactions to normal situations, right?

When my mother acquired a piano, my statement to Kitten was: This is great! Now we can sing through Wicked together, then switch parts and do it a second time! 

I couldn't really play well enough for us to do so, but when I lived with Berry, she would regularly play through broadway songs and we would sing. She complained about her piano skills, but I was so grateful. Dream. Come. True. 

"I hope you're happy, now that you're choosing this. I hope it brings you bliss."
  

Poem

When I read The Hound of the Baskervilles in eighth grade, one of the assignments was to write a poem about the story. It must have been a burst of inter-unit fever on my teacher's part. Anyway, there were plenty of stipulations. The poem had to include alliteration, rhyme scheme, consistent meter, personification, repetition, and a clear reference to some element of the book. I was toiling over a sonnet about the moors (like the hilly and wild English terrain, not like Othello).

My dad came in, glanced at the assignment, and quipped:

Doggy doggy in the night, 
you can bark but please don't bite. 

It fulfilled all the criteria. I may have snapped my pencil in half.

Bowling

I swear the people who live above me fashioned their own ten pin lane. Rolling and crashing noises all the time.