Not Made for TV
Rob and I have been sharing a computer now for about a month. This means some of the evening/weekend "down-time" I would usually spend on the computer has been spent in front of the TV. I think I have watched more TV this last month than I have watched in my entire life and it seems that I spend most of my time watching commercials as I move from channel to channel hoping to find something that might grab my interest. For example, I spend five minutes watching commercials on channel A waiting to see what is on. Decide I don't want to watch that so I move to channel B and watch five more minutes of commercials to discover that program on channel B isn't to my liking either. And so forth and so on across 70 or so channels of "quality" TV programming. In the process, I've discovered that there are a great many commercials which I abhor and top on that list at the moment is the Pizza Hut "Rip and Dip" commercial. But there are also some real gems out there and I've managed to find a couple of them available for on-line viewing. Here are a few:

That's On E-Bay (Windows Media Player)
Dairy Queen MooLatte Taste Test
Office Max Rubberband Man 5.2 (QuickTime)
Geico Car Insurance - Dogs
GMC Ideas

Some commercials I could consider works of art, but most of them just give me a headache as do most of the programs. I tend to lean towards documentaries or educational programs, but what is up with the synopsis that they tend do after every commercial break? I suppose it's for channel surfers or maybe they think everyone suffers from ADD, but nothing bores me faster than wasting time listening to a narrator review the last 15 minutes of programming that I've already watched.

I suppose I'm not your average TV viewer since the program that excited me the most in this last month was a Annenberg/CPB broadcast on polypeptide molecules. The movie I enjoyed the most was on the Disney channel titled Stuck in the Suburbs and was aimed at the teenager crowd. I can understand why I was interested in polypeptide molecules, but I'm afraid to contemplate why I thought Stuck in the Suburbs was such a good movie. Maybe the fact that I was drunk and couldn't sleep might have had something to do with it, or maybe it really is a good movie - who knows?

Speaking of movies, I'm not a big movie fan. I'd much rather read a book, but Rob loves movies and once and a while we decide to do a "movie night" where we get a new DVD, hopefully one that we will both enjoy. For our latest "movie night" this week I decided to see if I could find a website that would recommend movies based on movies that I've liked in the past. There are a few sites out there like this. The first one I tried was Reel.com's Movie Match. That was a bust because every movie title I typed in was matched with movies I had already seen. The next place I went had more promise - Rating Zone. You have to register, but after rating 115 movies that I had seen and remembered well enough to rate, I got some very good suggestions. We ended up buying Memento after comparing the list of movies from the website to what was available in the store, also considering the price ($9.99 is a better choice on our budget than $24.99 no matter what the ratings or reviewers say.) The movie was interesting and something I will watch again. I wouldn't say it was great, but that fact that I would watch it a second time puts it in the "rare" category for me. I would never bother to give most of the DVDs that we have a second look. Rob, on the other hand, will watch them over and over again so they are not a bad investment.

There are some other "investments" I've been doing lately that may not be a such good idea. I've been buying Texas Lottery scratch off tickets. I'm not spending a huge amount, about $4 a week, but I'm winning absolutely nothing. Take that back, I did manage to win $5 on a $2 ticket today. Big woo. It could have been more and that, of course, is the hook. What other activity could one do that costs $1 or $2 and have the potential result of $75,000 or a grand a week for 20 years? But I can't help but think that the one dollar that I gave to the man wanting to sell me a hat today in the convenience store parking lot because he was broke and needed money will ultimately pay off more in the long run (I didn't take the hat.) Will he spend it on booze or use it to feed his family? I have no idea, but it felt like the right thing to do. That's always been the key to my decision to give some one the money out of my pocket. If it feels right, you could get the last $5 I have and I'll eat Ramen noodles for the rest of the week. If it doesn't feel right, you'll get nothing and I'll go in the store and buy a 6 pack of beer instead. But I do feel, at the core of my being, that every dollar I freely give away comes back to me. I know that sounds like some Christian mumbo-jumbo straight out of the Bible, but it's not based on that. It's not from words I've read or "teachings" I've listened to. It's just something that I know. It's a knowledge that has also been backed up by experience. And the next time I'm in desperate need of a buck, I know I'll find one, just like the man with the hat did. .