I am happy today.  Because I have found a copy of Dungeon Keeper 2 and managed to get it to run on my Vista machine.  I can now resume building my lairs, training my monsters, and subjugating all the happy little goody two-shoes out there.

That is all.

My car got broken into the other day.  Because of the heat I've been leaving my windows cracked, and since this is a low crime city in general I never thought much of it.  But now the windows are gonna stay up.

But they didn't get hardly anything.  All they did was unlock my door, go through my console (which didn't have anything in it other than some post-its and an air pressure gauge), and then take the 2 cd-visors.  So they got about 18 burned cds of mp3 music which they can't sell, 2 normal cds that they might be able to get $5 for since there's no case, 2 cd visors, and 2 pens.  That's it.  They didn't even take the loose change I keep in the car for tolls or making change for stamp purchases from my customers.

So I'm annoyed cause this was an invasion of my property.  But I'm amused at the fact that I'm only out maybe $20 and some time to replace everything.  You'd think that if you're gonna steal stuff from a car, you'd make sure there was stuff in there worth stealing.  Of course, I'm not a crack addict doing petty theft to buy another rock, so what do I know?

These next 14 days or so will be when most of the TV networks will be airing their season finales. And as has been the trend, there's been very little worth watching.  At least from my point of view.  So here's six ideas I have that could help the networks dig them out of their holes.  Which, of course, they won't do.

1. Lose the extended hiatus for serialized shows.  I know that these are the big budget shows, and that it takes longer to finish an episode of Lost or Heroes than it does to do an episode of My Name is Earl or Deal or No Deal.  But the big break is what's killing these shows.  No one cared when Lost came back.  Heroes lost a ton of viewers over their break.  Jericho got canceled cause the break killed it.  A two to three month break on these shows kills interest.  People invest themselves into these stories, and when the stories go away replaced with <insert talent show here>, it's hard to maintain that level if excitement.  Either lose the breaks, or make em shorter.
2. Homogeny drives viewers away.  There's a large LACK of variety on network TV.  Game shows, reality TV, sitcoms, and crime dramas rule the airwaves.  On pretty much every network.  And when you've got 3 spin-offs of CSI, 5 spin-offs of Law & Order, 4 talent shows, 3 big money game shows, and countless cookie-cutter sitcoms on EVERY network, they all look alike.  People are going to Netflix or the cable networks because that's the only place you can find something slightly different, even if it is just reruns of Star Trek or I Love Lucy.  Heroes was a breath of fresh air, and Family Guy capitalizes on all the edgy potential that The Simpsons had their first 3 seasons.  Other than that it all looks the same.  If it's all the same, I've seen it before, and don't need to see it again.
3. Too many commercials.  Everyone complains about this, but it's not getting through to the networks.  I know they make their money by selling commercial time, but that's also time that we have to sit and watch a commercial for Flonase for the 8th time today.  And no, smaller commercial breaks more often isn't the answer either.  This is the one part where product placement is a good thing.  Or product sponsorship, like when Lucky Strike would sponsor an episode of the Honeymooners.  One big long commercial at the beginning, another at the end, and less inbetween.  Use that model on a good show and my ass will stay on the couch.
4. Talent means more than loyalty.  This is aimed squarely at Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, and a few other shows that have been on the air for ages.  They're staples of the network, I understand that.  But just because they WERE good doesn't mean that they still ARE good.  I stopped watching full episodes of SNL after Chris Farley died.  And I stopped watching it altogether after Will Farrel left.  It's just not funny.  I can't tell you the last time I watched a new Simpsons episode.  The shows still have good premises and promises.  But the staff is complacent.  Fire the writers, and for gods sake get Lorne Michaels away from SNL.  That man thought Rob Schneider was hilarious at the same time that he made Chris Rock entirely unfunny.
5. Bring back special episodes and events.  I'm not talking about an episode of Law & Order that mirrors whatever celebrity in legal jeopardy has the headlines this week.  Every episode of The Office it seems has been advertised as "very special", without actually BEING special.  I think it may beat the "very special" record held by Blossom next season.  TV movies and mini-series were watchable because they were either a train wreck (the legion of Amy Fischer tv movies), or were something that we would otherwise never see out of Hollywood (the several Dune miniseries on Sci-Fi).  But they were something that was truely different in the TV schedule, at least for a week or two.
6. Stop trying to compete with HBO and Showtime.  You just can't.  The rules aren't the same.  The Black Donnellys are going to feel muted, restrained, and outright censored compared to The Sopranos.  Reruns of Sex and the City without the sex neuters the show.  And Dennis Franz's bare ass on NYPD Blue doesn't make you edgy.  They're playing rugby with one decade of experience.  You're playing football with half a century of experience.  Don't pretend you're playing rugby when you know how to put on an amazing game of your own.
   

Still sick.  Getting better sloooooooowly.    My nasal symptoms have disappeared, and I don't get fatigued quite as easily now.  But I'm still coughing more than I like, and I get tired a lot quicker than I should.

I did see a doc on Saturday.  Went to a new clinic in town.  $48 for everything, including a full prescription instead of a handful of trial packs.  Only downside is that it's run by missionaries, so I had to sit through a (fortunately brief) spiel on their discipleship program.  I know they're doing a good thing with the clinic, and they think they're doing the right thing with their preachyness, but I'm in agreement with George Carlin.  I refuse to be in a group who's symbol is a dead naked man nailed to two planks of wood.

However since we now have 2 low cost clinics in town, I'm dropping my medical insurance.  As a non-full time Rural Mail Carrier, I have two options for insurance: paying the full cost for the good stuff that the full timers get (which is nearly $300 a month), or get the crappy one that they offer the rest of us for $90 a month.  I took that one since I figured it would help if I needed anything, cause I am a fairly healthy guy.  I was wrong.  When I went to the doctor a while back and used it, I had to pay everything up front, then they reimbursed me $75, which was the max they pay out for a doctor's visit, though I racked up a $150 bill.  Then when I went to the ER with a severe migraine they didn't pay for shit, and I'm stuck with a $700 hospital tab.  So if they won't pay for hospital visits and I can go to a low cost clinic when I need to see a doctor, they're just suckin my from my account for no reason.

If it weren't so friggin cold up there, I'd move to Canada.  I can live with a 3 year wait for optional surgeries if the rest of my health care is free.

I've spent almost the past entire week sick.  Not with anything major, but bad enough that I don't want to work (especially cause I have to drive at work).  And the two times I've gone out for any length of time I felt much worse that night and the following morning.  Farrah's got it even worse.  She's working on week 2 of being ill.

Whoever decided that there should be a combined cold, flu, AND allergy season at the beginning of spring needs to be drug out into the street and shot.

It's Easter.  I know a lot of you are pagans, but what the frack are you doing checking my blog?  Go out and stuff your face with chocolate.



NOW!!!!!!!

30 years ago today my mom was flat on her back pushing me into this world.  I don't think I'm ready for Carosel yet, and I hope that the Sandmen don't catch me.  But that's a different story.

I made out pretty decent on b-day loot so far.  Got money for a 2nd computer chair from my parents, $20 gift certificates to the local movie theater from one of my sisters, and Supreme Commander & the Escaflowne boxed set from Farrah.  I also got a really nifty gift from PayPal.  My money back.

For a while I've been building a new PC.  Mostly cutting edge components.  Dual Core 64 bit CPU, nVidia 8800GTX graphics card, etc.  Only problem is that the first CPU I bought, I got off of eBay.  BIG mistake.  It didn't work.  That was almost 2 months ago.  I argued with the seller trying to get my money back, and he refused.  So I escalated it to PayPal.  They took their sweet damn time, but came through.  They ruled in my favor.  I'm to ship the worthless hunk of metal back to the guy, and as soon as he recieves it I get my $465 back.  That's a nice hunk of change, and I'm trying to decide what to do with it.

Anyways I'm waiting for the UPS guy today with some better memory for my new computer that will hopefully fix all the crashes and memory related error messages I keep getting.  After that it's off to see a matinee of TMNT before the kids get out of school for the day, and a friend is taking us out to dinner.  30 isn't all that bad so far.

Apart from the increasing amount of white hairs I'm getting in my beard.