.
That's a quote from P.T. Barnum, famous circus owner and all-around huckster.
It's as true today as when he said it several generations ago. My great-grandparents owned a circus until the depression, when Barnum & Bailey bought them out. The Floto Circus. Based in Wisconsin, I think, but they toured the entire country in their day. There are a few artifacts from their operation on permanent display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, so you can check it out -- I am not making this up.
About this time, the average reader may ask themselves, "What's this got to do with anything?"
Beats the shit out of me.
Oh yeah, I was thinking about eBay. I usually have a couple of random things up for auction on eBay, and lately I've been pretty busy selling and shipping all sorts of silly crap out to the hungry populace. People never seem to tire of buying stuff that I find basically useless. Pre-eBay, this stuff used to end up in our garbage cart. Sometimes so much of it that I had to tape an envelope with a $10-spot and a quick note to our garbage can. (This way Groot wouldn't charge me extra. My service plan used to be the "unlimited" plan. Turns out, the "unlimited" plan was limited to two garbage carts, or one cart plus two garbage bags. This didn't seem as "unlimited" as the name may suggest, so I switched to "basic," which allows only one cart a week. I soon learned I could leave a dump-truck full of crap at the curb, and as long as I tipped my collection dude, it disappeared without a trace. Imagine that.)
But as for eBay, I'm finding that every time I sell something, I end up buying something else, so I never seem to get ahead. And I never gain any space in my garage, either.
This week I "won" an auction for an electric ice-cream maker. But the picture didn't do it justice. Instead of a tiny little thing -- it looked pretty small in the photo -- it's the one-gallon model. About three feet tall, counting the motor. I left it in the breezeway while I looked for recipes on the internet, since it was too big to bring into the kitchen without some major counter-top re-arranging.
After a few minutes, Robin came home, passing the new appliance on the way in. She asked me whether that thing in the breezeway was a sump pump or a pool filter, or what? We don't have a basement, and unless we got a pool overnight, the filter thing didn't make sense, so WTF?
I explained my well-thought-out high-minded idea... I saw it on eBay and I was the only bidder, so I WON! Your husband's a WINNER!
And since she'll get some home-made ice cream out of this, I didn't receive the usual ration of shit that I get when I do something genuinely hare-brained (think buying a new snowmobile or the electric dog-polisher thing...) So we have a new toy around here. We'll try it out this weekend, and sooner or later, it will be back in the garage, adding to the general clutter.
And when the pile falls over, burns down or sinks in the swamp, I'll have another blog to write. I look forward to it. Now that my neighbor has taken to mowing his lawn regularly and taking his garbage cans up each week, the dick. You're going to be a good neighbor now? WTF? I need something to write about!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Pause Real Life with your DVR!
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Had a television disaster today. Courtesy of DirecTV, and our new DVR.
My youngest son, Steven, has developed a serious personality disorder, as defined by most Americans of my generation. He's a devout follower of the World Cup soccer tournament. And he had recorded today's semi-final game between the Netherlands and... and.... the Netherlands and their worthy opponent.
Steve was savoring the thought of watching the entire broadcast from beginning to end, and to kill time he had been watching a recording of the Tour de France. When that was done, he deleted it -- and to his horror the screen switched immediately to live TV -- where they were celebrating the Netherlands win over whoever they beat. So the surprise was ruined.
There was a whole lot of thrashing and swearing around here for a brief period. The remote control survived, just barely. His sister, Sarah, threw herself on it before any serious damage occurred.
I truly sympathize. It's hard to watch a recorded sports event when you know the outcome. And of course, it was a great game, fought to the bitter end, etc. etc. blah blah blah. Anyone who ever watched a sitcom knows what it's like when someone blows the ending. But it still sucks.
I did it myself the first day we had the DVR. The only reason I got it was to record the CBS shows on Monday nights, during the hockey playoffs. Robin and I don't watch a lot of TV. But we kinda got hooked on the four shows on CBS Mondays. How I Met Your Mother; Rules of Engagement; Two-and-a-half Men; and the Big Bang Theory. Even though I quit drinking, I still tend to stick to rituals. So somewhere we got into the Monday Night Is TV Night habit. We'd get come cheap chicken from Jewel (8 pieces for $5.99), eat it fast and watch TV.
But playoff Hockey was beginning to interfere, so I booked an upgrade from DirecTV, which came in the form of a free DVR. They installed it on a Monday, appropriately, and I got a whirlwind lesson in using the remote, which I promptly forgot. But it was then I became aware of the COOLEST feature of DVR -- you can PAUSE LIVE TV!
So later in the evening, we watched the hockey game while the DVR recorded our CBS shows. The Blackhawks came from behind in the second period to tie the game. The third period was a hard-fought give-and-take battle. All went well until about 5 minutes were left in the game. There was a TV time out, and Robin and I used the opportunity to do a nature break of our own. I paused the DVR. We luxuriated, happy in the knowledge that we can see the whole thing play out before our very eyes, delayed a minute -- two minutes -- whatever delay our hearts desired -- without missing a second of the action. We even had the phone turned off, so there was no chance that anyone would call us and blow the ending.
All ready now, we set the game back in motion. But it was still on a commercial. So I started pushing buttons, to fast-forward through the ads. It's a guy thing, a control thing, I don't know what.
You don't have to be Norman Einstein to guess what I did. Somehow it went to live TV -- and the Hawks were up by a goal. By the time this had sunk in, the Hawks had scored again on an open net, and the game was over.
Those of you who don't know my wife well cannot possibly imagine how angry that girl can get. I've known her 32 years, and I never before saw those veins in her neck, not even during childbirth.
I gave her the remote and asked Fido if I could bunk with him for a night or two... he said no. Smart dog.
Had a television disaster today. Courtesy of DirecTV, and our new DVR.
My youngest son, Steven, has developed a serious personality disorder, as defined by most Americans of my generation. He's a devout follower of the World Cup soccer tournament. And he had recorded today's semi-final game between the Netherlands and... and.... the Netherlands and their worthy opponent.
Steve was savoring the thought of watching the entire broadcast from beginning to end, and to kill time he had been watching a recording of the Tour de France. When that was done, he deleted it -- and to his horror the screen switched immediately to live TV -- where they were celebrating the Netherlands win over whoever they beat. So the surprise was ruined.
There was a whole lot of thrashing and swearing around here for a brief period. The remote control survived, just barely. His sister, Sarah, threw herself on it before any serious damage occurred.
I truly sympathize. It's hard to watch a recorded sports event when you know the outcome. And of course, it was a great game, fought to the bitter end, etc. etc. blah blah blah. Anyone who ever watched a sitcom knows what it's like when someone blows the ending. But it still sucks.
I did it myself the first day we had the DVR. The only reason I got it was to record the CBS shows on Monday nights, during the hockey playoffs. Robin and I don't watch a lot of TV. But we kinda got hooked on the four shows on CBS Mondays. How I Met Your Mother; Rules of Engagement; Two-and-a-half Men; and the Big Bang Theory. Even though I quit drinking, I still tend to stick to rituals. So somewhere we got into the Monday Night Is TV Night habit. We'd get come cheap chicken from Jewel (8 pieces for $5.99), eat it fast and watch TV.
But playoff Hockey was beginning to interfere, so I booked an upgrade from DirecTV, which came in the form of a free DVR. They installed it on a Monday, appropriately, and I got a whirlwind lesson in using the remote, which I promptly forgot. But it was then I became aware of the COOLEST feature of DVR -- you can PAUSE LIVE TV!
So later in the evening, we watched the hockey game while the DVR recorded our CBS shows. The Blackhawks came from behind in the second period to tie the game. The third period was a hard-fought give-and-take battle. All went well until about 5 minutes were left in the game. There was a TV time out, and Robin and I used the opportunity to do a nature break of our own. I paused the DVR. We luxuriated, happy in the knowledge that we can see the whole thing play out before our very eyes, delayed a minute -- two minutes -- whatever delay our hearts desired -- without missing a second of the action. We even had the phone turned off, so there was no chance that anyone would call us and blow the ending.
All ready now, we set the game back in motion. But it was still on a commercial. So I started pushing buttons, to fast-forward through the ads. It's a guy thing, a control thing, I don't know what.
You don't have to be Norman Einstein to guess what I did. Somehow it went to live TV -- and the Hawks were up by a goal. By the time this had sunk in, the Hawks had scored again on an open net, and the game was over.
Those of you who don't know my wife well cannot possibly imagine how angry that girl can get. I've known her 32 years, and I never before saw those veins in her neck, not even during childbirth.
I gave her the remote and asked Fido if I could bunk with him for a night or two... he said no. Smart dog.
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