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Back on the Wire

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Let me just say that the week has been every bit as ugly as I promised on Monday, and it’s showing no signs of letting up until, well, mid-December.

That said, I’m now announcing that after seven years as a satellite household, we’ve made the switch back to cable. The primary factors were cost and customer service.We’re saving a little money, getting better internet service (by bundling and ditching the DSL), and we no longer have to deal with Dish Network’s special “once we install it, you’re on your own” brand of customer support.

I have to admit the Dish Network DVR interface runs circles around Time Warner’s, both in appearance and customization options. But Time Warner has some plusses as well, like the “start over” feature on some channels (I don’t really know how well this works yet) and the ability to watch one show while recording another. And it’s also nice that we can pretty much connect as many TVs as we want to ghetto cable at no extra charge.

The switch might have been more traumatic if I watched TV more than I currently do. The biggest drama so far was that the installer spent almost eight hours wiring our house, and then made me jump start his truck before he’d leave. Glad I didn’t have anything to do on Tuesday. Oh wait. I did.

New Stuff. Sort Of.

Our front porch has a new column. Actually, it’s a restoration of an old column that disappeared sometime during the 45-year history of our house. Yes, the house is old enough that I’m speaking in terms of “restoration”.

And my mom has a new Hyundai. Which means that I’ll soon be inheriting her six-year-old, very low-mileage Buick. Which means that our garage will now house a Buick and an Oldsmobile. Which means that Mark and I are well on the way to being the old codgers we desperately so long to be.

Strangely enough, that six-year-old Buick will be the same age my 1991 Toyota was when I bought it, not to mention the same age my 1974 Firebird was when I bought it. I’m not a fan of brand new cars. I’ve only ever bought one, and it was the worst piece of shit I’ve ever owned.

Happy and Sad

There’s always a point near the end of the semester when you have that sort of breakthrough and realize that, even though you still have a ton of stuff to do, you will  get it done and live through it all. That point came at about 3:00 this afternoon for me.

Unfortunately, it was also tempered by some sad news as I found out that my friend Taylor Green had passed away this weekend. I met Taylor via email back in 1997; he’d wandered into the website and noted that we were both Greensboro expatriates, and conversation ensued. I met him in person on the 1997 US Tour a few months later, and several more times over the years, often when I was visiting North Carolina over the holidays, etc. He was a truly original sort, and at the same time something of a archetype representing much of what is intriguing about southern culture. He was fun to be around, and he’s probably the only person I’ll meet in my lifetime who knew Tennessee Williams. I’ll miss Taylor.

Unexpected Surprise

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Not to sound opportunistic or anything, but I like it when other people’s mistakes work to my advantage.

For example, last week I finally bought a copy of a long out of print book by Victor Gruen that I’d been wanting for quite some time. I’d never seen a decent used copy for less than forty or fifty bucks, but this one Amazon seller had one for about twenty. It had an intact dust cover, but the seller noted somewhat apologetically that there was writing inside the front cover from when someone had given the book as a a gift. I think that may be part of why it was priced so low.

As I looked at the book yesterday,  I noticed that the signature looked an awful lot like the name of the author, and that the inscription looked an awful lot like something an author would have written. After a quick Google search or two to verify the signature, I realized that I did in fact have a book signed by one of my favorite commercial architects of the 1950s (the designer of America’s first enclosed shopping mall, among other projects) and at a nice bargain price.

Randomly Wednesday

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Wow. Is there anything you can’t get from Sears?

More random thoughts for a rainy Wednesday afternoon:

  • This amused me far too much this morning when I was stuck in the lab with not much else to do. I’d really like to see a similar one for San Francisco, but it’s not enough of a priority that I’m going to look for one right now, because…
  • I’m off to Fresno with my mom tomorrow for an early Christmas with Mark and the in-laws (and also for breakfast at the Chicken Pie Shop). There will be a brief lunch stop to see friends in San Francisco as well.
  • As of this morning, the semester from hell is more or less officially over me. The exciting bibliography is turned in, the giant XML file is done, and my contributions to the group project are complete, at least for now. Next semester, we’ll be trying to publish the damned thing.
  • Should you find yourself inclined to acquire one, be forewarned: Time Warner’s DVRs are garbage. Biggest pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. We’ve already given up on one and returned it, and the other will probably follow soon. It’s not just the lousy interface; the actual hard drives are no good, either.The great thing about our big switch, though, is that it’s made me realize I don’t watch much TV these days anyway, freeing us to save lost of money by moving back into the land of ghetto cable.
  • Off to Dewey’s now for sugar cake and Moravian cookies.