Why is it I'm always the last person to know about great TV shows. Let's take a look at my track record with some of my favorite TV shows, specifically, when I started watching them:
- Seinfeld - started watching during season 3
- Californication - started watching during season 2
- Family Guy - somewhere during the third season I caught on
- Mad Men - after season 1 ended and it won so many Emmys
- Big Bang Theory - started watching this when there was about 4 shows left in the first season
- How I Met Your Mother - started watching season 3 re-runs this year, during season 5
- Two and a Half Men - started watching re-runs of who-knows-what season during season 6
- Deadwood - watched season 1 about two years after season 3 ended
- Oz - watched all six seasons only six years after it ended (thank-you HBO Canada)
- Rescue Me - just started watching season 1.. this year.. while season 5 is currently running.
- Generation Kill - not really a TV show, but a seven-part mini-series -- but still.. I watched it a year late
I didn't complete drop the ball. There are some series I've watched during their respective first run, and some of them include:
- X-Files (I still heart Gillian Anderson)
- Six Feet Under
- Fringe (Anna Torv is the new Gillian Anderson)
- Dexter
- True Blood
- Hung
- United States of Tara
- Sopranos
- Flight of the Conchords (although, that one seriously jumped the shark after the first season)
I'll admit I'm a TV junkie but in my defense, my PVR, the blessed Internets, bit torrent, and HBO Canada are total enablers. And at least I'm not wasting my time watching craptastic "reality" shows (read: So You Think You Can Dance, American/Canadian Idol, Survivor, America's Top Model, etc, etc).
Oh, and today's strip is pretty funny.
xkcd.com/654/
I've been working in Ohio for the past two weeks, as most of you know. As such, it gets very lonely and boring night after night in the hotel room. Luckily, I have Skype and back home, Darlene has Skype too. What's even better is the Mac has a web cam so I get the added pleasure of seeing Darlene in addition to hearing her and it doesn't cost me anything.
This also allows for cheap thrills, like...
( The obligatory beaver shot )I'm stuck in Columbus, Ohio for a few months on a project for work. Wouldn't ya know it, there are no less than three Scrabble clubs that are all less than 30 minutes from my hotel, according to the NSA club listing for Ohio. There's also the official Ohio State Scrabble Club at the Ohio State University, which, according to Google Maps, is even closer -- it's less than 20 minutes away. Sadly though, I don't have a car with me. The hotel I'm staying at is walking distance from the client and short cab ride from airport, I couldn't justify a car-rental. "Scrabble clubs in the vicinity" just won't fly with my company.
This post outlines how you can use a free program called DropBox[1] to keep your Zyzzyva cardbox automagically synchronized across multiple computers. I've blogged about this procedure before but this post is more detailed.
DropBox is a program that allows you auto-sync files in a particular folder, across multiple computers. DropBox works with Windows, Mac and Linux. Its free with a 2GB account, or pay-per-use for anything larger than 2GB.
This morning Darlene decided to ride her bike to work so I thought I'd go along for the ride. We pedaled the 5km to her workplace then, rather than simply going back home, I thought I'd deviate, and go for a nice long bike ride to start my day off.
This map roughly conveys the route that I chose. Parts of my bike ride were along bike trails so I tried to map the roads closest to the trail.
All told, 22km. That's not very far for your average avid cyclist, but for an overweight, under-exercised, in-front-of-a-computer-all-day geek like me, that's a long haul. It felt good. My legs a little rubbery.
- Mood:refreshed
Well that sucks.
I just came across this posting to the digitalhome.ca forum which mentions an article that was written in the Toronto Star a few weeks back basically stating that unless you subscribe to Roger's Cable, the only way you can get season three of Mad Men (and presumably season four which has already been given the go-ahead) is to buy it from iTunes.
I. Don't. Bloody. Well. Think. So. I have three more words for that craptastic arrangement: Bit Frickin Torrent.
( Here is a bit from the forum post )Sometimes when I'm quizzing myself on Zyzzyva I'll come across an alphagram that totally stumps me and I'll stare at it for a minute or two and ...nothing. I can't find the word(s). Then I get distracted by an email or a phone call or twitter message or whatever, and when I return to the alphagram, I find the word that stumped me -- almost instantly. This doesn't happen all the time, of course, but it does happen a lot. It's like I need to look away from the letters and look at it afresh.
Now, I have a question for you regular iTunes users. If I introduce iTunes to my music library are they going to play well? Specifically, I have all my music organized and ID-tagged on an external drive. I'm incredibly anal when it comes to my music -- all files are grouped in folders by artist / album, and are they all have cover art, genre, year, etc, saved in the ID tags. Is iTunes going to screw with that in an way -- like re-structure the folders in its own asinine folder structure (similar to the bizzare folders it uses on iPods) or add/remove/change information in the ID tags?
What I want most to happen is for iTunes to read in my music library and let me play them on the Mac. That's it. I'm a little paranoid because I don't trust Apple/iTunes.
- Music:Posse In Effect (Beastie Boys)
What kind of Zyzzyva cardbox strategies do you use? For example, how many words do you put in your cardbox at a time? What word lengths? How often do you add more? Do you have a word study schedule and do you stick to it?
- Music:No Regrets (Robbie Williams)
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spherulitic :
> I've got exactly 69 unread emails. I kind of like that
On that theme, the NSC will be tournament #69 for me. I kind of like that, too!
This past weekend I attended the 5th Annual July In Toronto Tournament. Despite the city workers strike going on in Toronto (which effectively has forced the closing of community centres), the tournament was still a go, albeit in a new location. I played up for this tourney, opting to take a shot at the big boys and girls in the top division. I was second-to-last seed and I finished with 6 wins and 6 losses and ranked 12th of 22. As always, I would have loved one or two more wins, however I'm still pleased with how I finished considering how tough this division was.
Bingos
- Mine
- EN(T)IRETY
- SCORIAE
- (O)VATIoNS
- S(T)IRRING
- WaTER(L)OG
- INTR(O)RSE
- ENDEaRE(D)
- OVER(E)DIT
- sTeNCIL
- SANTiRS
- SUNDIAL
- ARENOUS
- AVOIDED
- ATTORNs
- dEPOSIN(G)
- SE(X)TARII (challenged)
- HEpA(T)IZE
- SAUtEIN(G)
- vALUATE
- RESINO(U)S
- Theirs
- SLENdER
- ADJURES
- NICOISE
- ROSEOLA
- EMBOD(I)Er
- AMRITaS
- DIAZOLE
- ERASION
- FLATTER
- UNLOosE
- RETIN(O)LS
- EATERIE(S)
- ORDI(N)ATE
- (I)NFERRED
- WHEE(D)LED
- (R)EHOUSED
- (D)ENOTIVE
- DURANCE(S)
- DOZIEsT
- MANDALA(S)
- ESOTERIC
Challenges
| Valid, challenged | Phoney, unchallenged | Phoney, challenged | |
|---|---|---|---|
| My Plays | SEXTARII | WAURS | FAUGHS |
| Their Plays | GOWANY | DORT | BEGETING |
This chart was generated by cross-tables.com. I modified the formatting was a bit.
Miscellany
I missed a triple-triple chance with V(E)NDETtA or l(E)VANTED. I wrote down the latter on my score sheet. I've seen LEVANT come up in my word studies, but I didn't know what it meant. I probably should have seen VENDETTA though. In the same game I could have gone out with GRAyOUT but I didn't see it (the word had to start with a G). I sill won the game but going out with a bingo would have been nicer.
In another game I missed (L)ATEWOOD but I didn't know that word.
Over the weekend I managed to move a bunch of sevens in to cardbox 9. Part of me thinks why bother? What's the point carrying on with words once they are passed cardbox 4 or 5. At that point, I should know those cold.
But another part me thinks, cool... cardbox 9.
I won't see those words again until the spring of 2010!
Booyah!
A little birdie IM'd me today and had this to say...
Kevin
Got some interesting news for you
Muriel de Silva has just been disqualified from Albany
I didn't get any more details, but I'm guessing she is back to her old ways!
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