Truth be told

As children, we're taught that telling the truth is a golden rule, something that should always be followed. As adults, we know that in practice, this doesn't always work out. "Little white lies" to "spare feelings" happen often. "Of course your baby is beautiful." "I don't mind pet snakes at all." "I love mayo on my sandwich." Little lies like this that avoid the truth, but spare the feelings of the other person, seem to become a necessity when you're an adult.

I am a horrible liar. Knowing this, I usually try and stick to the truth in situations where I don't have to pretend to like pickles on my sandwich. Recently, I went to visit family without my husband along. He was out of town at the time playing Dungeons & Dragons. When a relative asked me where he was, I simply stated he was gaming with friends. When pressed about what game he was playing, I told the truth. She gasped, and then didn't continue our conversation. Being a born-again Christian, I understood what that gasp meant: she subscribed to the belief that DnD is somehow evil.

Following this incident, we were at a family dinner, where my husband noted that the relative did not speak to him or even acknowledge his presence. I did not notice this, as there were a lot of people in the room, but I think he felt he received the cold shoulder and different treatment than he had received from her in the past.

Is this relative is treating my husband poorly based on her misguided beliefs that DnD is somehow evil? My husband is not prone to psychotic breaks or mental issues. He has a firm grasp of reality and is not a Satan-worshiper. In fact, his characters in the game are usually heroes. He also plays video games in which he creates various superheroes and fights the bad guys. He loves comic books and his favorite character is Superman -- the consummate hero. How can this possibly be misconstrued as evil? Do people really still believe that a board game is inherently evil and or people do bad things because a TV-movie told them so?

It just ends up making me feel like I should have lied and said "Scrabble". Sometimes the truth just isn't worth it, and that is a shame. The world could use more truth.

Curbside: nah, that's too easy

Change is a-comin' to the way we sort our recycling in my city. This doesn't help the problem of hundreds of cars all driving to drop off recycling, increasing pollution. We need curbside recycling, which has been proven to be the most effective for participation, and with trucks already rolling on garbage & compost, creates less pollution overall. Saint John takes the stupid route over & over again, and frankly, it's depressing.

My life is work, and work is my life, at least for now

Either way, no vacation.

Work is pretty much all I am doing at the moment, even in the evenings. I'm 3 weeks away from our go live date on the new software. I'm pretty stressed out, but I did manage to sneak away tonight to see Star Trek.

I did not have a good week in Halifax last week. Training did not go as well as hoped. I also managed to leave my purse behind on the last day of training. The people running the training center had to go to Truro on Friday, so they took my purse with them, knowing I'd be coming through Truro on my way home. Only problem with that was that I had less than $5 on me. I had enough to cross the Mackay Bridge and back to visit one of my stores. Luckily I wasn't very hungry and made it to Truro by lunchtime.

While in Halifax, I met up with Cyn. We had our usual driving adventures (fitting for the anniversary of the Van Man incident) which included ignoring the GPS in favor of Cyn's directions, only for her to realize that she usually comes from the other direction. Funny thing: the GPS liked to pronounce Halifax as "Hellyfax". Fitting.

So, I got the heck out of Dodge on Friday. My "luck" continued on Saturday when I drove to Calais to get my mother's day present. I ordered it in plenty of time, and checked the online shipping status on Tuesday night. It had already reached Maine, so I knew it would be in Calais in plenty of time for Saturday. John's DnD session was canceled, so he drove down with me. We arrived at the hardware store to find out that my package wasn't there, even though I asked twice, the guy insisted UPS didn't come until Monday. Er, ok. Drove home, checked the internet. It had been there since Wednesday. GRRRR. Now what do I do? Drive down Sunday morning, after having driven a lot the last 2 days? In the end, I rearranged my day so that I didn't exhaust myself, didn't rush my time with Mum, and still managed to see a friend's new house. I did have to sacrifice my plan to see Star Trek with friends that day, but that was the one thing I could reschedule. John drove to down to Calais today and got the wreath, so now I just need to get it to my mother. I haven't opened the box, scared to after the luck I had last weekend!

I left work "early" and was able to see Star Trek with John tonight. It was very entertaining, and I did enjoy myself, but I was left with a sense of disappointment. I am a longtime fan of the original series (TOS), and I felt annoyed that the writers re-wrote history. Spock's mother didn't die, she and Sarek visited the Enterprise in TOS. Capt Pike was totally messed up and could only beep "yes" or "no" in his wheelchair. These people didn't go through Starfleet Academy together. As a fan of TOS, it is very hard to set aside things you know not to be true. For those who don't know much about TOS, I am sure you enjoyed it much more thoroughly than I did. I'm torn because I did enjoy the movie, but think they could have done a movie with these characters that did not involve time travel and did not rewrite history. John is rubbing off on me with his dislike of time travel as a plot device.

I loved the cast. Everyone was very well cast, and I particularly enjoyed Karl Urban as Bones. Chris Pine was great as Kirk, he didn't do a Shatner impersonation, but I felt kept the essence of Kirk and made it his own. His final lines to Bones had just that right intonation that you felt you were hearing the same character.

Time to break out TOS DVDs again.

Frustrating

I am trying to knit a gift for a work friend, and I have managed to screw it up 4 times:

1. Didn't leave enough yarn to cast on all stitches
2. Dropped a stitch after 1st round and couldn't recover
3. Finally got the first section done, only to screw up after misreading the pattern, undid the 2.5 rows back down to the start of the second section
4. Followed the pattern correctly this time, only to screw it up again

At that point, I decided to put it down as I felt pretty incompetent.

After that, I managed to totally ignore the beets cooking on the stove to the point where it created a giant red mess everywhere and started to burn. My mother managed to save the pot for me, thankfully.

I realize that I suffer from perfectionism, but I just feel totally incompetent today. It's stressful cooking a meal for my mother and not having everything turn out the way I want it to. Yes, she's done it a zillion times and has likely made her share of mistakes, but that's not the point. I should be capable of remembering that something boiling for over an hour may need to have more water added. This led to me being tired & grumpy during Easter dinner.

What I am ultimately tired & grumpy about, other than a couple of failed attempts today, is that my long weekend has come to a close. I could really use another day (or week, or two, or three) off from work, but I just can't do that right now. I feel like a slave to my job. I'm on tap to go to Halifax for 2 weeks to observe training. I hate Halifax, so that's also making me very cranky. I do not want to go, but I don't have a choice; I was volun-told.

The hardest part is knowing that the worst is yet to come with this work project. Trying to get everyone on board may lead to me going to the nuthouse. I will be so glad when this is over.

Behind the [tech] times

Tech consumers frustrated by Canadian roadblocks (cbc.ca)

I feel like a "digital peasant" a lot. Even last night, I watched my husband sigh out loud at yet another site that denied him access because he's in Canada. I know he feels like he's sacrificed a lot tech-wise to move here, and he also understands how frustrating it is for me to be consistently denied things I'd like to pay to access but still cannot.

The Leno Effect

I have been following the news regarding Jay Leno's new fall show and NBC's fall format. Leno will be on 5 nights/week, at 10pm Eastern, spelling the end of "drama at 10pm".

I like Leno, but am not a big enough fan to tune in on a regular basis. The Tonight Show is also on at 12:30am here, being 1h ahead of the Eastern time zone. It's not often that I can't sleep, so I rarely am awake to watch his show. On the odd times I happen to catch it, I do enjoy his monologue, headlines, and Jaywalking. I may tune in more often now that he'll be on at a better hour for me, just as I'm heading to bed; sometimes I stop and watch a few minutes of TV before hitting the sack.

NBC is taking a big risk with this format. Will it succeed? I don't think there are enough die-hard Leno fans to keep this show at a viewership level that would be acceptable to NBC. I think the other networks are sitting back, drooling over the 10pm slot, planning to put their best efforts into destroying NBC. Because this is such a big commitment, NBC will let Leno continue for at least half a season before replacing it at midseason. One can only assume/hope that NBC has replacement shows in the wings if this gamble turns out to be a losing effort.

Perhaps the gamble will work and we'll start to see copycats. I'm not totally negative about this situation; any new show that isn't "reality" programming is a welcome relief these days. I've had enough of D-list "stars" dancing, skating, rehabbing, and slobbing their way across my TV screen.

What prompted me to dust off my blog today (in addition to it being Sunday and I actually have time to write) was this article. Since I am in Canada, my local cable company chooses an network affiliate for each US network. A few years ago, we switched from the closest US location (Bangor, ME) to various locations. My FOX comes from Rochester, NY, ABC from Detroit, CBS and NBC from Boston. WHDH is thus my NBC affiliate, and if it chooses not to carry the new Leno, the first question that came to mind is whether my cable company will give me a new NBC feed. It is the responsibility of my cable company to provide me with a US network feed that provides network programming, and if this station does not do so, will Rogers make a change?

Back when all of our networks were Bangor affiliates, the broadcast signal was unreliable and crappy at best. NBC was station to stay on the longest, but the signal reliability was so bad that eventually that station also had to be replaced with a more reliable signal. With the recent US change to all-digital programming, that is no longer an issue. I have to wonder: will we get a Bangor station back on the air in this area?

I missed having a US network affiliate that was closer to my geographic location. Though I don't live in Bangor, their news and advertisements are sometimes relevant because I visit there on a semi-regular basis. Perhaps the station has a news story about Calais, or an advertisment for a new store in Bangor that will make me want to drive 3h to shop. And don't discount the humor that comes from the "downeast" commercials from businesses such as Hammond Lumber. I may never drive to Bangor for a hardware store, but "ham and cheese, ham and eggs, Hammond Lumber" always gets stuck in my head.

John is starting to rub off on me as I am now contemplating a letter to Rogers Cable, asking if it plans on providing me with network programming and thus switching my Boston affiliate to another area, preferably Bangor. Will I actually do this? Probably not, as I don't have a lot of time on my hands, and it is a fruitless effort to try and contact Rogers about anything. But it's an interesting idea and question.

It will be a bad decision if NBC "punishes" WHDH. The station should continue with their news plan, and if viewers want Leno, they'll pummel the station with requests to the point where the station will have to make the change. Or, if Leno's show sucks and NBC pulls it anyway, at least WHDH has come up with a plan and they will be the one station in that area to have news programming during that timeslot.

More stupid things heard on 20 on 20

XM's 20 on 20, after the merger with Sirius, now has a "morning show". I blogged the other day about the parenting issues of Brendan Fraser. The next stupid statements from the DJs had to do with TiVo: a pet peeve topic for John and me. I'll recount the conversation:

"Did you catch [American] Idol last night?"
"No, my TiVo screwed it up, so I didn't catch it."
"Do you have TiVo or DVR?"
"Well, they're pretty much the same thing." (Stupid statement #1)
"No, they're not. My TiVo doesn't seem to work right anymore." (Stupid statement #2)

Having seen examples of cable company DVRs vs TiVo, I can attest that they are NOT the same thing. The principle behind the unit may be the same, but their functionalities, and especially the user interface, is quite different. The cable version I have seen is ugly, confusing, and not as user-friendly as TiVo.

This is not the first complaint I have heard regarding TiVo "not working right anymore". My MIL recently has made similar statements to the point where she decided to cancel her TiVo and go with Time Warner's DVR and cable service. Her complaints focused around not getting the shows she had requested, and when she did get the correct show, it may have been missing the beginning or end. Being on the other side of the continent from her, I can't just stop by and try to help figure out her situation.

If I was there, the first thing I would investigate was whether she was getting timely schedule updates. TiVo can only record a show if it's on the schedule, and the schedule is provided by a third party which, in turn, gets its info from the local cable company's service. Think about this for a second. If you're the cable company, and you offer your own DVR, plus you provide schedule information to a 3rd party that passes it along to TiVo, is there a lot of incentive to provide the competition with correct information? I am very dubious about this and suspect that it was part of the problem my MIL was experiencing. Since I'm in Canada, maybe my cable company is playing more fair with their schedule information than some US companies. [I laugh at the thought of Rogers being more ethical, but it is likely true. I chuckle nonetheless.]

I have never had the type of major scheduling issues that my MIL has experienced. John has had TiVo even longer and has had fewer errors or issues with scheduling, especially since changing to a broadband connection. Sure, I get the occasional screw-up; for instance, when President Bush's final address took place, there was not enough time to update the schedule. I ended up with the President instead of Ugly Betty. There have been a few occasions where we have recorded a show only to discover another show was on, but when we checked the TiVo guide, as far as TiVo was concerned, the correct show was supposed to be on at that time. If there is not enough time to notify the third party and then reload the schedule change to TiVo, then of course you won't get the correct show. However, this is not TiVo's fault, and I think TiVo gets unfairly blamed for a lot of these instances.

Another problem may be the use of a phone line connection instead of broadband in order to download the schedule. Per John's first-hand experience and the TiVo manual, the phone connection is slower than broadband, only makes a connection once per day, and is slower when the TiVo is being used at the same time as the download. Using broadband, the TiVo usually connects on average every 12h, is a faster download, and overall doesn't have as much effect when using the TiVo during the download. Logic would dictate that the person with the broadband connection would have a more accurate schedule. In addition, the broadband connection can be used to force an update at any time if TiVo deems it necessary. A phone line can only get updates when it calls in (typically around 2-3am).

A possibility, though a long shot, is also that the time on the TiVo device isn't correct. TiVo is supposed to sync its clock on the download, but if your phone connection isn't necessarily reliable or if there is some kind of sync problem, then that may be another cause for the shows to get cut off. I have never experienced this issue using my broadband connection, but I could see how it may be a possibility using a phone connection.

Another cause may be due to the fact that many networks are purposely making shows slightly longer or start at 59 minutes past the hour in an effort to hold on to an audience. CSI, ER, and House are all shows that have had slightly over an hour lengths, that, if TiVo's guide is not made aware of, means you only get the first hour and may miss the last couple of minutes. This is another area where TiVo gets unfairly blamed for something that isn't its fault.

Saying TiVo doesn't "work right" requires more investigation than simply placing blame on the box sitting on the shelf. There are many things that could be wrong, and most of them have to do with the non-TiVo players involved. Had I been able to, I would have liked to investigate my MIL's issues and perhaps saved her some frustrations. She has since moved on, switched cable and DVR providers, and seems happy with her new equipment. This was her choice, and though I don't agree with it, I hope she's happy with her decision and has a better TV recording experience. As to the DJs, I hope they will stop dissing TiVo to the nation and instead try to find a resolution to their problems.

I'm annoyed at...

• the City, for seemingly never plowing Gaelic Drive. I guess everyone on Gaelic works from home and doesn't need to be elsewhere by 8:30am? I know it's not an important street, being in a subdivision, but can you at least give it a scrape so a car can attempt to drive on it?
• our mayor, for telling people to "please shut up" in a public forum. News flash: you're not better than anyone else, and you should apologize. You should be treating people with respect, not rudeness.
  
• people who complain about winter weather AND complain about it being too hot in the summer. SHUT UP ALREADY (I'm not the mayor, so I can say that). You're only allowed to complain about one or the other, not both. If you're complaining about both, then you're obviously very unhappy here and should move.
  
• doctors' offices which expect you to call them back, but have very limited hours during which you can reach them.
• the girl currently visiting my office who is complaining that today is "the worst day of [her] life because [she's] a quarter of a century old." Old isn't bad. Seriously. I wouldn't want to go back to being 20-25, no thanks.
• people who walk on the street even when the sidewalk is plowed and clear of ice/debris. If I hit you, it's your fault for walking where you're not supposed to be.