May 2005

Sometimes you just gotta see your name in lights. Especially when you feel like you can conquer the world.

I am so glad its Friday. I don’t know why I get so giddy about the weekend. It’s not like I don’t enjoy my job or anything. I actually look forward to going to work in the morning. But when the weekend roles around, I just get, well, giddy. There’s so much that I would like to accomplish on any given weekend. There’s so many places I’d like to go. There’s so many things I’d like to see.

Of course I end up not doing even half of it. Then it’s Monday and I’m looking forward to Friday again. It’s a vicious cycle.

Anyways, I took half a day of vacation today which was a nice way to kick off the weekend. Earl and I bought a futon for the music room, which was supposed to be delivered around 1:00 p.m. The nice furniture company called around 11:00 to let us know that the futon had broken in half (?) and we’d have to wait until Wednesday to have a new one delivered. Or we could take the one that broke in half for $25 off. I guess the discount was to cover the cost of the duct tape required to put it back together.

So Earl and I got the weekend starting by doing a double diner delight. Betty’s Diner for lunch (I had a “The Big Porker”) and then Anne Marie’s Family Diner for supper (I had turkey and gravy over white bread). I know, both were extremely healthy choices. I’m of the mindset of just not giving a flying fsck about what I eat. I walk two hours every morning, I’m planning on cycling again starting next week. So I look like a fat pig. At least I’m jolly.

Earl tolerated one of my road geek trips to check out the new signs in the Syracuse area. I know that all sounds dreadfully boring to most people, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

Now I’m listening to “Sirius Out Q” before calling it a night. Tomorrow night, its the obligatory trip to the movies to see Star Wars.

I took an old fashioned approach and actually mailed a letter to Mr. Leslie Moonves of CBS Entertainment in regards to the cancellation of my favorite television show, “Judging Amy”. If you are interested in saving “Judging Amy”, I urge you to do the same. Please feel free to use mine as a template, however, you may wish to remove the part about being a radio programmer, unless you really are.

I feel like an injustice has been committed and I’m quite sick of network television telling us what we should be watching when we clearly are enjoying something else. I’m also quite appalled at the lack of respect shown to the older audience (Judging Amy was skewing too “old” in demographics) because it is perceived that they do not spend as much money with advertisers as younger people do.

Mr. Leslie Moonves
President and CEO
CBS Entertainment
51 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019

Dear Mr. Moonves:

I am writing in regard to the recent decision to cancel the popular television drama “Judging Amy”. In short, I feel that you have made a terrible mistake in canceling this fine television program.

“Judging Amy” was the one show on television that I truly looked forward to watching. I realize that I perhaps do not quite fit your target demographic as a 36 year old male. As a radio programmer, I understand the importance of that coveted 18-49 target audience, the folks that allegedly spend the most amount of money with advertisers. However, “Judging Amy” appealed to a broader audience. I know people of many ages, young and old that enjoyed the strong, quality ensemble of fine actors. “Judging Amy” appealed to many types of viewers. There are those that enjoyed the escapism of peering into the lives of the Gray family. Then others appreciated the awareness the show brought to the family court system. I could wait until the weekend to watch “The West Wing” or ?Medium? off my TiVo, but “Judging Amy” deserved to be watched as it was aired, Tuesday nights at 10 p.m.

In a sea of mediocre reality shows and dubious quality sitcoms, I find it difficult to believe that “Judging Amy” was in any way tarnishing the image of CBS to the point of needing cancellation. I also find it difficult to believe that you?re filling the Tuesday 10 p.m. slot with an inferior carbon copy of the show.

I have made a point of noting the advertisers that supported “Judging Amy” and have made an effort to do business with them. I can not say that I will do the same for “Close To Home’.

Please reconsider the cancellation of “Judging Amy”. At the very least, allow the faithful viewers the dignity of a proper closure of the series.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

I had devious plans of using the wireless connection at the local Mc Donalds today during my lunch break. The plans were devious because I didn’t intend on purchasing anything at Mc Donalds during this visit, but rather just sitting out in my car surfing the internet on my PowerBook. Theoretically, the wireless connection should extend out to the parking lot unless they have a really, really cheap wireless router.

There was no connection to be found at the two Mc Donalds that are located closest to my office. And I’m pretty sure that they’re advertising free high speed. Either they don’t have it going yet, it’s not working or Mc Donalds has cleverly harnessed the connection for inside the building only. On second thought, perhaps the connection only lets you use it if you SuperSize a McBomb meal.

I’ve been running home for lunch every day for the past couple of months, save for a stray day here and there. I wasn’t really in the mood to go for a walk, since I fulfilled that obligation this morning (note my patting myself on the back here). I had to do a quick customer visit before lunch so I figured I’d just borrow some McNet.

So I’m sitting in the parking lot at work, currently connectionless, typing my blog entry in trusty TextEdit. The sun is shining beautifully. The temperature is in the mid 60s, and people are actually walking by, chatting and smiling at one another. It’s good to see people be cordial to one another, as one rarely sees that these days. The world seems to be more “dog-eat-dog” each day. People don’t take the time to exchange pleasantries anymore. As a tech support specialist, I can attest to the dismal way people treat others over the telephone.

“I’m sorry you’re having difficulty with your telephone, what’s your main telephone number so I can look up your account?”

“You figure it out! [click].”

Unbelievable. I quickly learned to separate* work for my personal feelings and ego and not get so worked up about these things anymore. I save my rage for the road these days. And don’t get me started on that.

* For those intrigued by my “Fix Birds Up” blog entry, I initially typed “celebrate” instead of “separate” when I was typing this entry. Just another example of how my brain works.

Inspired by the latest version of Mac OS X (dubbed ‘Tiger’), I’ve been using iChatAV much more lately. For those unfamiliar with Mac applications, iChatAV is the equivalent of AOL Instant Messenger. In fact, you can use AOL Instant Messenger to chat with anyone using iChatAV. Jabber and ICQ are also compatible with iChatAV.

I used to be a huge fan of Instant Messaging programs, especially back in the late 1980s when I worked for DEC. We used a program called VAXphone (I think that was the name of it) that allowed us to do the Instant Messaging thing, and allowed me to chat all night with my friends who were a long distance call away. Of course this was all at 1200-baud, so there wasn’t any image exchanges or file trading going on, nor did we use webcams because they weren’t around yet, but it was great to be able to chat away and such.

So now I’m back on the IM bandwagon again. We use IM at work to chat between co-workers in different offices. It’s an efficient way to keep in touch when you have a quick question. At home, while I’ve always been an e-mailaholic, I’m appreciating the instantaneous nature of instanting messaging. I pride myself on my rapid typing abilities, so I tend to type out complete sentences and complete words, whereas folks like my sister and motheruse these two letter abberviations that take me a few moments to comprehend.

Anyways, I’ve added a little “online” indicator once again to my blog so you can see when I’m on iChatAV/AOL IM. Feel free to drop a little line and say hello if you’re so inclined. It’ll be fun.

A Bear At Teddy’s.
Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Earl posing giddily at Teddy’s Restaurant in Rome.

Last week I made a slight change in my dietary routine in that I added bananas back to the mix. With my ongoing obsession about my health (and no body to show for it), I had been doing some reading on the internet and once again perused the benefits of five servings of fruits and vegetables in the daily diet.

Now I’m not a big banana fan. I enjoy them for the most part, but they create a great deal of stress in my life. You can’t really hide them in the “fruits and vegetables” bin in the refrigerator and then forget about it until that one day a month you clean out your refrigerator. No, they just hang there on a stick in the middle of the kitchen table, reminding you constantly that they are there, awaiting your consumption. The change color slightly, hourly, every precious minute ticking away, one moment closer to their death and your neglience. There’s a lot of stress involved in maintaining bananas. At the grocery store I always look for a bunch of five or less. I’m not one of those whacky shoppers that would pick up a bunch of eight, I’d probably work myself into quite a frenzy from the stress of having to eat eight bananas before they turned black.

Then there’s the whole “banana stomach” affliction. When I started at my job last year, early into the game I ate a banana at my desk for a mid-morning snack. My co-worker asked if I ever suffer from “banana stomach”. Apparently this is something that makes you feel slightly ill, lethargic or gassy. I can’t put my finger on the ailment because I routinely suffer from all three at work.

Anyways, after a long reprive of eating bananas, I jumped on the bandwagon last week in yet another attempt to try to maintain a health lifestyle. Since eating the bananas, I’ve added a couple of pounds to this frame. No more than three. Maybe two. Possibly seven. It’s hard to read the scale when its airborne after having been kicked across the room.

I originally was going to eat bananas only last week and then that would be my fruits and vegetables contribution to my diet until 2007 or so, but Earl did the grocery shopping last weekend and being the love that he is, picked up a bunch of six. So now I have to slurp a banana down every day until Saturday.

Maybe I’ll make them into a milkshake.

Music studio.
Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Here’s the music studio in all it’s glory. That’s a genuine platinum record up on the wall – Madonna’s “Ray of Light”. It used to hang in my office when I worked for WOWZ/WOWB (Wow FM).