Greg’s weblog

So I watched the game yesterday, and really enjoyed the finish. The refs seemed to be calling a one sided game for the first 40 minutes or so, but then when they turned it around, the game changed quite a bit. It was capped off with a big giveaway that resulted in the death-blow score, and much celebration on one side, with bitter disappointment on the other.

I’m talking about the Habs/Penguins game of course.

The superbowl started off great too – the first quarter was very entertaining. After that though, the game was too one-sided for my tastes. Even without the interception for a touchdown, you never really got the feeling that Chicago was going to come back and win the game.

I find it interesting that there’s no talk about permanently moving the superbowl to domed stadia though. That rain really affected the outcome of the game, just like the cold affected the Vanier Cup. But that’s all I’m going to say about it.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Hey Flanders, I got us some kick-ass seats!!!” – Homer

This week has been pretty busy, and it was topped by me staying home on Wednesday to take care of Erin and the kids. Erin was very sick, and in no shape to look after a sick kid (William) and a not so sick kid (Julia.) We all managed to survive though.

At some point earlier this week – the days are a blur – the garage door opener decided to stop working. It makes a lot of noise and vibrates, but the chain doesn’t move. When it warms up some, I will have a look at it, but for the time being I wasn’t too worried about it. So I left the van in the driveway. Apparently the cell phone charger was plugged in, and drained the battery.

The dead battery was discovered last night as I went to get supper groceries, so I walked to the store instead. Then we got a boost, and I went to poker night. Poker was kind to me, if a little short because half of the regulars were out of town. And the van started up afterwards with nary a complaint.

So, as of today, everyone seems to be over the virus or whatever they had. Julia has been fine for a while, and I never got sick, so she and I will be heading out to my parents’ tonight. Meanwhile, Erin and William are quarantined for another day or so.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Poor Krusty. He’s like a black velvet painting come to life.” – Lisa

James was born last week, and we still haven’t been able to go and see the little tyke because our kids have been sick. William was sick from about 8AM Thursday until later in the day, then Julia has been sick on and off since then. Yesterday it looked like Julia was finally through the worst of it, and then this morning, William had a relapse. Since we’re supposed to wait 48 hours symptom free before venturing into the public, that means that we haven’t been to see the new baby.

Fortunately Katriona has been keeping the world up to date with pictures. Good job on that by the way.

Meanwhile, the guy in the next cubicle over has taken a new job in a different department. I get to move into his cube, which has three times the windows of my current cube, but slightly less floor space. It’s a tradeoff that I’m willing to live with.

To top off the awesome weekend we had with sick kids, the garage door opener decided to kick the bucket part way through closing the garage door when I went out for groceries. I haven’t had a chance to see what’s going on with it, but initial indications aren’t very good. That means that I’ll have to finish clearing the other half of the driveway, and start using the other side of the garage. Not a huge deal, but a pain in the butt anyway.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “The, uh, toilet is overflowing in the, uh, caveman room.” – Mayor Quimby

William is sick today. He doesn’t get sick very often, but when he does, he doesn’t mess around. Poor guy, he really wanted to go to school this morning apparently.

Last night we made various Chinese Food recipes – we spent the first half of the night cooking and the second half cleaning up. Everything we made was really good, including Sesame Chicken, Ginger Beef and a Teriyaki noodle dish. I was lucky enough to be able to bring some for lunch today too. Mmmmmmm. I think that next time we’d only do one of the meat dishes, and fry more meat for the freezer.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “You’re doing a bang-up job, Mitch.” – Bart

Last Christmas, I received “Everything Bad Is Good For You” from Erin’s Mom. I read it, and certainly agreed with a lot of the premises in the book. One of the pieces that is discussed is the increasing complexity of popular TV (or the increasing popularity of complex TV.) I watch some shows regularly, and I see exactly where he’s coming from.

Lost is an incredibly complicated situation. Somebody sitting down to watch “just one episode” wouldn’t get much out of it – there’s too much backstory required in order to fully understand what’s happening in each individual episode. Lots of overlapping, longrunning plots. Last week’s throwaway comment may very well become next weeks plot focus. The first season was very enjoyable, but it’s gone downhill since then. It’s become apparent that big mysteries will never be satisfactorily resolved – or if they are, they’ll be replaced with bigger ones. It’s like the Lost writers are trying to keep a fish hooked by force.

Contrast that with Veronica Mars – I’ve just finished watching the second season of that show – where there’s a single season story arc, and as the viewer, you trust that the writers will finish this year’s story arc in a satisfactory way. I know that after watching season 2, there isn’t a lot of well developed storylines that require me to continue watching season 3, but there are enough hints, and Season 2 was good enough, that I want to watch season 3 anyway. The viewer retention policy is to continue to produce good TV, as contrasted with Lost, where the viewer retention policy seems to be “leave so many threads hanging, that one of them will pique your curiosity.”

The implications are pretty big – in the first case, I want to keep watching, and the show has generated a positive association. In the second case, I almost want to stop watching rather than continue to wait for the show to get good again. It’s like I’ve picked up some sort of vibe from Lost that they don’t respect me, and don’t respect their own talents enough to allow the show to stand on its own merits. It’s the cost of switching being so artificially high that it’s driving me to want to switch.

All TV shows eventually get cancelled – lets face it, a lot of them live on longer than they should – and with Lost, the feeling is very much that at some point the show will be cancelled, and nothing will have ever been resolved. Why continue to watch, when you know that’s going to be the end result – choice 1) stop watching now – nothing is resolved. choice 2) watch it until it’s cancelled, and nothing is resolved. I mean, sure, there have been vague hand-wavy resolutions to some smaller mysteries, but it’s been kind of crappy thus far this season (to put it mildly.)

That whole diatribe is kind of unstructured, and hand-wavy too – I apologize for that – I just think I’m very close to having identified exactly what’s wrong with that show now, as compared to season 1. I guess it’s inevitable, they painted themselves into a bit of a corner with the whole premise. Network execs don’t like to see a successful show end before they’ve been able to suck all the revenue possible out.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Gentlemen, I have decided there will be, uh, no investigation. Now if you will excuse me I’ll go away.” – Mayor Quimby

I know, I know, I’ve been a bad little blogger. I haven’t had much to say lately, so I decided to take some time off from this site. Plus, I’ve been really busy this month.

There are a couple of topics that I want to cover at some point in the near future, we’ll see if I actually get around to it.

Meanwhile, what’s new? Well, the kids are getting bigger by the minute, and we are having lots of fun chasing them around. Shortly after Christmas, our oven blew an element. We had it on the slate to be replaced this year anyway, so we just moved that up the schedule a little, and got a new one. So far, we really like the new oven.

I survived the great blizzard of aught seven, it only took me two and a half hours to get home by bus. The transit system needs to be commended for how they handled the blizzard, because everyone I came into contact with went well above and beyond the call of duty to make sure people were safe. On the bus ride, I got to play with the PSP’s network capabilities, and manged to get to the weather network’s webpage via an open access point. Unfortunately the only open access point that I found was only in range for a short portion of the trip, and low signal strength at that. Still, pretty neat that I could get wireless internet on the bus despite the fact that the snow was blowing so hard visibility was measured in centimetres.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’m cold and there are wolves after me…” – Grandpa Simpson

Christmas was very good. The kids both enjoyed themselves to the point of exhaustion, which is a sign that they’re having too much fun. Christmas morning, William was up, and leaving the bedroom rather noisily, so Erin and I tried to shush him. He was quiet, and Julia didn’t wake up. As he was leaving, I whispered “Go see if Santa has been here.”

Julia (who was sleeping on her stomach) flipped over and sat up faster than I thought was possible, and with wide awake eyes said “Sanna?” She went from asleep to full tilt in the blink of an eye.

And then she didn’t want to open her presents ;)

I got a PSP from Erin, John and Margie. It’s a slick little piece of hardware. I’ve been busily encoding tv shows to PSP format ever since – trying to find the best compromise between file size and quality. Once I found out that the PSP will play back H.264, and how to do it, it helped out immensely. Now I just have to get the MythTV box automatically cutting commercials and encoding for me overnight, and I’ll be all set.

Julia had the most “Little People” Christmas possible – she got the beach set from Santa at the kids’ Christmas party, the Airplane from Uncle Jonathan and (soon to be) Auntie Debzilla, the school bus from Grandpa and Grandma Mitchell, a stacking circus animal set from Grandma and Grandpa B, and the Garage from us. All in all, there are a lot of little people floating around the house right now.

William and Julia got me KinderBunnies, so William has played it a few times, and quite seems to enjoy it. I got a set of wrenches and pliers from my dad, and Settlers of Cattan from both my parents. William got Lego Star Wars from Uncle Dave, which he’s probably playing, or at least asking to play right now (I mean as you read this – wherever in the world you are, whatever timezone, whatever day…) We got him a camera, Santa brought him a cool remote control car, and he got a tramampoline from Grandpa John. Grandma Margie got both kids some cool books.

So we spent Monday afternoon/evening at my parents place visiting with my Uncle Brian and Auntie Marilyn. Jonathan and Deb’s big announcement was the story of the day, so congratulations are in order to those two.

That’s it from me. Tune in next time to see what else is new and exciting.

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Bart: “Hey Homer, where’s your present?”
Homer: “D’oh! I mean… D’oh-n’t worry son, I forgot to get you a present. But I swear on my father’s grave . . .”
Grandpa: “Hey!”