• Tag Archives TV

  • Turned the Face Away

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                                          Cold Moon

    Business meeting this am.  Then more picture organizing.  Out to lunch at Osaka’s for the sashimi appetizer.  Over to Home Depot for a tour of the warehouse of the American Dream.

    Sunday is a slow day.  When Kate and I went to Osaka on this Super Bowl Sunday every one of the booths had women occupying them.  I was the only y chromosome among the customers.

    In the last year I’ve given up football, cable tv and carbs.  I say given up, but really what I’ve done is turned my face away from them.  I don’t feel a sense of denial in any of the three.  Strange, they all occupied such a substantial part of my pre-65 life.  And now they don’t.


    📂This entry was posted in Family 📎and tagged

  • What? No TV?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                     First Moon of the New Year

    Business meeting this morning.  Some drastic pruning budget wise to squeeze our spending into line with our post-retirement income.  Example:  dropped cable tv.  I know.  It feels almost unamerican.  My mom and dad raised me to watch at least three to four hours of television a night and I feel like I’m letting them down.  Not to mention CBS, NBC and ABC.

    The impetus for this came after the trip to South America.  We watched no TV over the cruise and when we got back I settled in with a good book in the evening.  We still have a blu-ray player, Netflix and I just signed us up for Hulu Plus, so we’re not leaving the big box behind in toto, just the absurdly expensive piped in Comcast version.

    The internet connection?  Well, we kept that.  There’s TV and then, there’s the internet.  No comparison.  We’re not totally TV broadcastless as it turns out.  To keep our lower rate for the internet I agreed to a $12 a month “antenna” service from Comcast.  With the broadband the total was lower than internet alone. You get a discount on the broadband if you have any other services.  Weird, huh?

    None of this feels draconian, just adjusting things to keep pace with changing reality.

    We’ve also decided that with Kate retired we can go with one car.  We’ve done that for a couple of months anyhow since the Celica blew a tire.  Again.  I’ve decided to let it set until warmer weather.  I’m gonna give it away.  It’s been a great car and we didn’t make it to 300,000 miles together, but it still feels like time to let go.  I’ve driven it since September of 1994.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Retirement 📎and tagged

  • Gadget Obsessed? Moi?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                          New (Thanksgiving) Moon

    To call me gadget obsessed might take reality a tad too far, but not much.  I saved up some money and bought a TIVO.  It took me this afternoon to get it set up and working, putting the cables in the right places, getting the codes right, creating a few channels on Pandora, wondering at the limited Netflix options when the full menu is available on my new Play Station 3, (OK, maybe it’s not quite far enough.) and deciding whether or not to ditch the cable tv subscription from Comcast, my least favorite company of the week.

    In spite of myself it looks like keeping the cable subscription is still the best way to get the most out of the TV.  I’m gonna keep checking though since new ways to watch movies and broadcast shows keep popping up.  Most of what’s on tv is low culture, but often compelling anyhow and even the stuff I like that’s not compelling entertains me. With streaming movies the content available at home on demand has increased a hundred fold.

    As a general rule, I don’t watch tv to get educated and I’m rarely disappointed.

    Even with the increased quality and options though, nothing on the tube–that phrase dates me like saying icebox–compares to the live music, open studios and visiting with friends at Art Attack last night.  Remember Alvin Toffler?  The futurist from a long time ago.  He talked about high tech, high touch and I’ve found him right on that score.  I use the internet, the facility of cable tv combined with the internet and software like WordPress and Microsoft Word to make me much more productive in the work I choose to do, but going in to the MIA and seeing my docent friends or over to Paul’s house for a Woolly meeting, a Sierra Club meeting on Franklin Avenue are equally important to me.  Without them I would be a hermit.

    A lot in the hermit’s solitude appeals to me, so I’m happy Kate and I have created a place here where we can be alone and creative, just the two of us, but I need face to face time with others, too.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Art and Culture Faith and Spirituality Family Friends GeekWorld Humanities Politics Retirement 📎and tagged

  • Crossed Speaker Wires

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    26  80%  21%  0mph SSE  bar29.64  steep fall  Windchill26  Winter

              Waning Gibbous Winter Moon

    Performed the test of the sound system today with the microphone that listens to output from the speakers and adjusts them according to prestablished program.  It sounds out whistles, clicks, rolling thunder, static and a loud rush of static.  Then it tells you if things are optimal.  First problem:  I’d crossed one set of speaker wires, the smooth to the positive instead of the ridged.  Checked all twenty connections, on speakers and on the receiver, found one set wrong and fixed it.  Second problem:  difference in volume excessive.  No idea what that meant, but one of the solutions was to move speakers around.  I did that and the next time through, pass number 3, No Errors.  This ends the first phase of the new video and sound system.  All of it is in place.  All of it works as intended.  

    Next phase will be optimization of various aspects of the receiver, the DVD player and the TV.  This will take place over time and really never ends.  Fun.  A hobby in itself.

    Watched an interesting Discovery channel program tonight on the Great Wall.  It presented the Great Wall as largely a product of one general in the early Ming Dynasty.  While the existing wall traces much of its current form to that era, wall building as a defensive strategy began much earlier, in the Spring and Autumn Period of the Eastern Chou dynasty.   Various pieces of walls got built at many stages in Chinese history.  The reason the Ming Dynasty effort was so vast lies in their resting power away from the Yuan Dynasty.  During the Yuan Dynasty China became a part of the Mongol Empire, ruled by Kublai Khan first.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld World History 📎and tagged

  • A Retreat, Then An Advance

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    19  82%  21%  omph ENE bar29.90  windchill19  Winter

                 Waning Gibbous Winter Moon

    A DVR.  Hadn’t planned on getting one, but the hdmi connection with the TV demanded it over the HD converter box alone.  Surprise.  I like it.  Already I’ve taped two movies, Cronicas and Killer of Sheep.  When I’m watching a movie, I prefer to start at the beginning and the start times of movies often don’t conform to my schedule.  In the past I would check the replay schedules and try to find a time that worked or I’d skip it.  Now I can press the record button and the DVR records the movie and I can replay when I wish.  Kate’s also used it to tape a TPT series, Jewish Americans.  Guess you never know.

    No more tours until March.  I have ten days before I go to Dwelling in the Woods, days I’ll use to finish the garden planning, edit my sermon for Groveland and produce a 1-page Transcendentalism for Brights, work on my new novel and a short story.  Also, I’ll do the various pre-trip preparations like stopping the newspaper, the mail, reserving a ride on the Airport Shuttle, packing. 

    Also have to plan a one-hour presentation to the brothers, something I want to share with them, a passion or a part of my life right now.  Could be anything.  We switched to this format last year and we liked it.  The way we’d done it before involved a focus on a theme and a common thread in what we presented:  Fathers, Mothers, Death, Myth.  Last year we had a theme, Darkness, but the suggestion was to present the theme in a creative manner.  I chose a ritual of darkness which involved reading poetry excerpts (Dover Beach, The Night by Rilke, Stopping by the Woods on A Snowy Evening that sort) and, in a room lit only with candles, extinguishing a candle with each reading.   This year, don’t know yet.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld Travel Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • OMG! Bush Lied!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    -1  72%  18% 0mph W bar30.10  steady windchill-1  winter

                           Full Winter Moon

    I now have sound going from the DVR/Cable box to the receiver and the 5 speakers.  I also have sound going from the new Blu-Ray DVD player to the 5 speakers.  This is close to total success, but I still have two hurdles remaining.  I have not been able to get any radio signals yet, in spite of connecting the antennas and I have not run the test microphone which will balance the speakers.  Still, I feel largely done with this project.

    In order to get Blu-Ray quality movies you have to get Blu-Ray discs.  Not cheap.  I watched one this evening, Beowulf and Grendel.  This movie takes a spare approach to the story and gives a backstory for Grendel.  It is gorgeous, shot in Iceland by an Icelandic director.  I liked it a good deal, though I’d not heard of it.

    The big screen, HD TV setup came from my love for movies.  This is a stunning way to watch movies at home and, with the surround sound, surprisingly close to the cinema experience.  Movies are as important to me as literature, music and the fine arts.  I’m glad to have this way to view them.

    Now:  It can finally be said.

    “WASHINGTON (AP) – A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

    The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.”

    The life and times of celebrities must be difficult.  Heath Ledger’s death today, whether suicide or accident (and I would wonder if accident isn’t suicide by another name), puts another name in the column of this felled by fame.  To those in the limelight all the time there must be a moment when you either choose life or choose self-destruction, a decision many of us face only obliquely, perhaps at the dinner table.


    📂This entry was posted in Cinema and Television GeekWorld Politics 📎and tagged

  • BMI 25.1, Blood Sugar 98. Yes!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    22  82%  28%  2mph NNW bar30.06  wincdhill21  Winter

                Waxing Crescent of the Winter Moon

    These next three weeks are, on average, the coldest weeks of the year.  I’m glad to see them come.  I love the snug as a bug in a rug feeling of very cold days, work I love and a home place to do it.

    Weighed in this morning.  My BMI is now 25.1 and my blood sugar is 98.  I’ll continue on with the nutrisystem at least for the rest of this month, then I’ll have to have a good maintenance plan in place because I will head off for the Dwelling in the Woods, then 3 weeks in Hawai’i.  Hawai’i should be ok because the fish, fruit and vegetable type menu is common there.  It would not be the same if we were headed to, say, England or Austria.  I feel good about this effort so far.  The challenge now will be a healthy long term eating plan, one I strayed from too far for too long.

    Still no joy on the sound system.  I had the DVD player sending signals through the five speaker set up, so I know I have them connected and working.  When I exchanged the Toshiba HD DVD player for a Panasonic Blu-Ray player, however, I eliminated the sound success I had made.  Since I won’t get the Blu-Ray until next week, I don’t know yet whether I can convince it to communicate with the speakers.  I know, right now, that the coaxial cable I got to connect the DVR/HD box to the receiver did not produce instant results.  Sigh.  I may have to talk with the folks at Ultimate when I go in to pick up the Blu-Ray.  This is part of the learning curve, less steep now than when I opened the first box, but steep enough to block my vision so far.

    Today is more work on the Faery Tale and garden planning.  This is the work I love.t


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality GeekWorld 📎and tagged

  • Can You Hear Me Now?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    32  72% 28% 0mph WNW  bar29.83 rises windchill32 Winter

                     New Moon

    Inching closer.  I now have sound through the av receiver and into the surround sound speakers from the DVD player.  That’s a step in the right direction.  But.  After I plugged in the HD box from Comcast, I noticed it has coaxial outlet–coax to coax on the AV receiver.  That would be the coax cable I returned this morning.  Hmmmmmm……  So, maybe one trip.  This is a lot like plumbing except I don’t understand plumbing.  This I get; it’s just more complexity than I’ve dealt with for awhile in terms of externals like wires and connections.

    Took a nap, feeling somewhat refreshed.  Gonna workout now.  Faery and the Gunflint Trail has become a fascination to me, carrying me places I didn’t know existed.  Which is the fun of writing. 


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld 📎and tagged

  • Lashed to the Mast

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    31  91%  29%  omph WSW bar29.75 rises windchill31  Winter

                                 New Moon

    There is something seductive about the large screen TV experience, seductive in an Ulysses lashed to the mast sense.  The visual image is close to movies in a theatre, though not the same.  Hard to describe, but it makes me want to keep watching.  I don’t like this part of it and will have to pay attention so I don’t fade into the couch and become one with the fabric.

    On the other hand the picture is fantastic.  The set has so many different bells and whistles that it can accomodate different formats with ease and its easy to use.   Well, sort of easy.  I’ve still got the manual to read.  RTFM as my cello playing significant other in law likes to say.  The HD DVD player upconverts and it does make non-HD DVD’s look great, not HD great, but crisp and clear.  Since DVD’s are my main interest in the large screen, not sports (though I do watch football if the Vikings co-operate and win games), this set will take my interest in cinema to a different level.

    I’ve gone down two belt notches since the middle of December when Kate and I started Nutrisystem.  I’m already scanning for maintenance after we finish with it at the end of January.  At the end of twenty-eight days I’ll get on the scale and take my blood glucose.  I expect both will show positive trends.  It’s the blood glucose level I really want to manage; so if it’s down, it will be a great reinforcer for maintaining a lower weight.

    The New Year has begun well: some weight loss, workouts going well, writing in the AM underway with a good story happening, the new TV, the video calls with the kids and plenty of snow.  That last, unfortunately, has melted some over the last couple of days.  I hope we get some more snow soon. 

     Asia tour work tomorrow, finish the speaker setup, work some more on the Gunflint Faeries.  Good night and good luck.

                           -30-


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld General 📎and tagged

  • One Good Ear, Five Speakers and A Subwoofer Later

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    39  78%  29%  0mph WSW  bar 29.60 steep rise  windchill39  Epiphany

                                        New Moon

    Worked some more this morning on Faeries on the Gunflint Trail.  This story has legs. 

    After the morning writing session, I set out on a quest to finish the installation of the 50″ Panasonic which now sits astride our Stickley coffee table turned TV stand like a colossus.  Speaker stands.  As I passed the $400 mark in post-purchase expenditures (a few really expensive cables, some new DVD’s and these damned speaker stands), I realized I hadn’t thought through this purchase quite as well as I thought as I had.

    Best Buy (near by) have speaker stands?  Oh, yes.  Stands that fit my speakers?  Oh, no.  So, instead of working on my Taste of Asia tour for next Friday, the little red car headed across country to the Maple Grove temple to I just gotta have it now and turned in at the now familiar Ultimate Electronics store.  Clutching my tiny satellite speaker I walked in and a few minutes later walked back out with the four omni-post speaker stands.

    Back home.  All the while listening to the adventures of poor Charlotte Simmons as she matriculates to Dupont University.  She’s sure out of her element in the co-ed dorm.

    Up from my nap I have renewed determination to wire up everything and those speakers pounding so I can hear the rain drops in the opening scene of the Bourne Identity which the installer yesterday assured me I could hear once I had the speakers set up.  I’m no audiophile, hell, I’m barely able to hear with one good ear and the high sounds going in that one, but those rain drops.  Soon.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld 📎and tagged