This Ain’t No CNN.

Foursquare Four Squares Back.

One of the cool things about being active in the various social media platforms is that one is usually able to go back and see what they’ve done over the years. I often use this blog as a memory repository of sorts; just yesterday I asked Earl if he remembered an event that we had enjoyed together back in 2008. When I mentioned this his face lit up with the recollection of the memory, as if he hadn’t thought about that happy occasion since. It was a moment of joy.

One of the social media platforms that I have been very involved with since nearly it’s beginning is Foursquare. If you’re unfamiliar with the app/network, up until recently Foursquare allowed you to check in at a location, for example, “I’m at Dunkin’ Donuts at 123 Main Street in Anytown, USA”. You would see whom from Foursquare was also currently at the location and you could read tips and such from other users that had checked in at the same location. I was big on leaving tips and suggestions for others. If you were a frequent visitor of a location, you became “Mayor”. Some establishments would give you a little goody or discount for being the mayor. It was a loyal customer perk.

Foursquare recently announced that they were going to take the country into a new, exciting direction and focus more on location discovery. Check ins would still be part of the experience, but the whole check in process would be moved to a new app called “Swarm”. Swarm allowed you to check in and it would allow you the opportunity to see whom was at the same location, but only if that person was on your friends list. There’s no longer an opportunity to meet strangers or vie for the title of mayor with a person you don’t know. The whole mayor thing was put on hold, instead you earn stickers.

When you check into a location on Swarm and you decide to leave a tip, you get moved over to the “new and improved” Foursquare, which gives you the details of the location and the opportunity to leave a suggestion. The experience of having to move between two applications, especially when everything used to be a cohesive experience, leaves a lot to be desired. It’s clunky, it’s slow and more importantly, two apps take twice as much room on your iPhone and they seem to drain your battery faster. (Location monitoring is now done by two applications instead of one).

Users have been complaining about it like crazy on Facebook and Twitter, but Foursquare has been nearly silent on the issue. The CEO, Dennis Crowley, simply tweeted that “change is hard”, which pretty much meant that users are SOL. The user experience and input, which has been an integral part of the crowd sourcing and data mining that powers Foursquare in the first place, has been pushed aside because the company “knows better”. The fact that both applications are now averaging a satisfaction rating of 1 out of 5 stars on both the iOS App Store and Google Play apparently means little to Foursquare, they know best.

Now, it’s stuff like this that makes me absolutely insane. As a fairly rational human being, this stuff shouldn’t bother me at all; I simply delete both apps and wipe my hands clean of this social network. That has been my intent and that’s what I did. The issue is, I used to get a kick out of seeing when the last time I had been to, say, Culver’s in Michigan City, Indiana. It would spark a conversation with Earl about the last time we had been there. I liked trying to spot the mayor at Pat’s Steaks in Philly. I didn’t have the nerve to say anything to him, but seeing him there was kind of cool.

I know I’m not alone in this assessment of the “new” Foursquare. There’s been plenty of complaints on Twitter and the like. The one thing that I wonder about is why Foursquare decided to shun the input of their users and go forward with some nebulous vision that few seem to have a handle on.

Granted, there are plenty of bigger issues in the world today, but it’s kind of weird to see a company commit what appears to be commercial suicide. I had higher hopes for the 21st century.

Real.

I feel this everyday.


Today, with the Supreme Court decisions striking down DOMA and California’s Prop 8 as both being unconstitutional, my feelings have only magnified. I shouldn’t need validity of what I know to be true, but it’s good to now be afforded the same federal rights as other married couples. Should the need arise, my husband now has full access to my pension. As I mentioned on Facebook, with it he can buy a monthly nice, cold pop (that’s a whole different blog entry). Taxes will be less of a nightmare and social security will go where it is suppose to go.

Our future just got even brighter.

I didn’t think I would get really emotional about the ruling announcements today, but some tears were shed in my cube as I saw the news go across the ticker.

Congratulations to the United States for taking another big step toward equality across all of your 50 states. Welcome to the 21st century.

Thoughts, Y’all.

Last night I discovered that SkyNews was added to the Apple TV in the bedroom. A 24-hour news cable and news organization based in the UK, it’s much like CNN, MSNBC and the like except for the UK part. And the UK part is a big part of why I like the news organization. As one that follows the news with an alternating sense of urgency to an overwhelming sense of passivity, I find that I get better news coverage from organizations based outside of the U.S. The BBC, SkyNews, Al Jazeera; these are all organizations that are looking from the outside in and just reporting what they observe. While there’s always a bias present, there is less political bias from these non-American news organizations. It’s just the way things work, I guess.

The one thing that I immediately noticed is that Paula Deen’s face is not plastered all over SkyNews.


There, I made my American readers feel more comfortable by giving her a little plaster time in my blog.

CNN, MSNBC and the like are bringing up her name every seven minutes or so. The latest, breaking developments as to what her sponsors are doing are blurbed out to electronic devices from sea to shining sea, all because she admitted that she made racial derogatory remarks years ago while testifying under oath on a case that accuses her of doing the same within her company.

Here’s the deal. Paula Deen shouldn’t have done that. Using the “N” word (god I hate that term) is not very nice and shows a certain lack of compassion and understanding. I get that. I know that. As a gay man that has been called a “faggot” (what, no “F” word?) to my face on countless occasions, I understand that words can be hurtful, especially when they’re delivered with a bucket full of hostile emotions.

That all being said, I challenge ANYONE to stand up and say with a straight face that while they might not have said the “N” word, they have thought it. It’s not a good thought, by any means, and I’m not defending any sort of that behavior at all, but there’s some passage about glass houses, throwing stones, purple mountains majesty, amen that addresses this very situation.

She’s apologized. She’s human. But because she’s a fairly famous human, those that are not famous and probably irritable in many respects of their lives are anxious to tear her down, label her a sinner and, if it were still allowed, dunk in her in the nearest pond three times to see if she floated or not.

Give the woman a break. She’s learned her lesson. Hopefully it’ll sink in and she’ll learn a little more compassion and become a better person as a result of all of this. But shredding her across every television screen in a constant stream of exhausting banality is excessive. Aren’t there more important things going on in the world?

Oh yes, the Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Cuba yesterday didn’t have any alcohol. Nor did it have Edward Snowden. From what I’ve heard about Aeroflot, we should be lucky the seat had seatbelts and that both wings were attached (but that’s just based on gossip and rumor so I insert these things with an intent of wit.) I heard it mentioned many times on the news that there was no alcohol on this flight. Oh, and no Snowden.

Where in the world is Carmen Santiago, anyways?

While everyone is getting lured into the whole “find Snowden” thing, why isn’t there more focus on the fact that the government was doing illegal monitoring of its citizens’ communications? I don’t understand why that’s not the lead story in all of this. THAT is what should have journalists outraged, not the lack of crew juice on an Aeroflot flight.

Freedom.

I have been striving to include a photo or graphic of some sort with every blog entry lately, in case you haven’t noticed. I often come up with the title of my blog entry before I actually write it, and since I typed the word “Freedom”, I had to figure out what I wanted to include as a photo to represent this blog entry.

When I looked up from my seat in the Jeep, I saw that there was a United States Flag blowing beautifully in the wind right in front of me. So today, we enjoy a photo of the U.S. flag.


I have been thinking about freedom more than usual lately. It’s a word that gets bandied about in the media, during debates, in every day conversation; it’s the descriptor of what makes the United States “great”. We have the most freedom of anyone that calls themselves a citizen on the planet, so the story goes, and we take this freedom very seriously. Thousands upon thousands died as sought our freedom and millions have died defending our freedom. Millions of citizens of the United States have enjoyed the freedoms that we probably take for granted within our borders.

Why is it that more and more Americans don’t mind giving away some of that freedom lately?

By now you have probably heard the name Edward Snowden. He is the “whistleblower” that revealed details of the NSA’s monitoring of ALL phone call metadata in the United States. While the NSA isn’t listening to the content of your phone call, they do have a record of the fact that you called the pizza joint down the street and ordered your usual pepperoni, anchovy and pineapple pizza. And by the way, ew, what a weird combination of toppings!

The NSA is doing this in the name of counterterrorism efforts. They are looking for patterns in communication efforts so they can see who is connected to whom and where they are making that connection. This helps the NSA identify “trends”.

Many Americans scream, “I don’t really care that they’re doing this, because after all, I’m not doing anything wrong so I don’t have anything to worry about.” As I mentioned last week, that’s great until you inadvertently butt dial Iran and you find yourself with a drone up your ass because you’ve been deemed a threat.

The thing is, I don’t think the government should give two hoots about what I’m doing within the privacy of my own life unless they have a reason to believe that I’m doing something wrong. I’m sorry but as an American, I’m innocent until proven guilty, I am not automatically “under suspicion because I use the telephone or the internet.” I am not willing to give up my freedom just because there’s a chance that someone thinks that someone else somewhere that might be remotely connected to me (we go to the same car wash, for example) and therefore they feel that I should have my personal activities monitored. Too many brave men and women have fought to the death to protect the freedom that I enjoy and because of that, I’m not that willing to give it up. I find Edward Snowden to be a brave man who is fighting for our freedom just like the millions of soldiers have done so over the past 220+ years. I commend him for what he did, and though I do believe that the NSA should be able to conduct their intelligence gathering in secret ways in order to protect the freedom that we enjoy, I do not believe that we should be so eager to give up our freedom so that the government can broadly generalize, sweep and mine data.

There has to be a better way to gather intelligence. It is expensive, it is intrusive and it is unscrupulous to gather and store ALL the metadata of every single phone call made in the U.S. And until the NSA can do better at this by respecting that which was given to them by their Creator, they need to stop.

Freedom. It’s meant to be shared, not given away.

Debates.

A couple of weeks ago I was really interested in what was going on with the Presidential race. I wanted to know who stood for what and what money was going to whom and who was going to propose the best ideas for getting this country back on its feet, once they defined what “getting this country back on its feet” meant to them.

I think I ODed on politics.

I couldn’t bring myself to watch the debates last night. I sat down and started to watch the pre-game show on CNN, but with all the technical difficulties they were having, I got frustrated and started sending out Tweets scolding CNN for not having enough tin foil on their Rabbit Ears. But as long as John King can touch a giant iPad to do something that doesn’t really need to be done, all is well with the world, right? By the way, Wolf Blitzer still gives me the creeps and has done so for nearly 30 years. I miss the crossed eyed Bobbie Battista.

Neither candidate really excites me. Of course I’m going to vote for the one that is going to make sure that my marriage remains valid (and any gay man or lesbian that votes for someone that thinks they shouldn’t be married obviously hasn’t experienced the joy of love), but other than the same sex marriage thing, he really is the lesser of two evils. There is something to be said about personal responsibility. While I think that there should always be a safety net, I think people should do everything they can to avoid the safety net. It’s a last resort, not a lifestyle.

So instead of watching the debates last night I ended up just watching the Twitter stream, and to a lesser extent, watching the new ADN (app.net) stream. I’m becoming less of a fan of Twitter and more of a fan of ADN simply because the latter is not ad supported. I can handle $36/year for the service. My withdrawal from my Dunkin’ Donuts habit has already paid for that.

I think the biggest thing about the election for me is that everyone just bashes each other. Spectators are trying to turn it into a reality-show version of reality with everything but brawling at the debates. Candidates have nothing positive to say. They just accentuate the negatives of the opposition. “I don’t know what I’m going to do but look at what that fool did!”

It’s quite disheartening.

I’d probably have to run this by my husband, but the day someone declares my marriage nullified is the day we move out of the country. End of story. Ain’t no debating that.

Weather.

The official National Weather Service forecast has announced a high of 84F today with 0% chance of precipitation.

Weather.com has announced a high of 83F today with 0% chance of precipitation.

The weather app on Microsoft’s Bing, after it’s three crashes to a blank screen, announced a high of 84F today with 0% chance of precipitation.

It’s raining.

Motivation.

This is an article that appeared on the intranet site at work. As one who can easily be distracted at times, I found it kind of motivating.

Calling time out on work interruptions
6/7/2012
Edited from an article by Rex Huppke, Chicago Tribune

For most, the modern workday is one long series of interruptions punctuated by brief bursts of productivity.

For example, it took me 17 minutes to write that first sentence. I got an email after the word “modern,” had to send a tweet after “interruptions,” and then a co-worker stopped by after “brief” to tell me that if you sprinkled powdered sugar on Newt Gingrich, he’d look like a beignet.

The devil is in the distractions.

At a recent multi-generational gathering, we began talking about ways that we waste time. We unanimously agreed that cell phones, social media and the Internet were responsible for countless misspent hours. We were also quick to recognize that electronic gadgets weren’t the only culprits. In fact, any activity that we do too much or that interferes with daily responsibilities becomes a candidate for wasted-time status. Even supposedly lofty pastimes, such as reading, practicing a musical instrument or going to the gym can be distracting if we do them instead of completing our chores. The key isn’t condemning modern devices. Rather, it’s managing the myriad disruptions we encounter throughout the day.

Ever since work was invented, humans have struggled to avoid distraction. But at times even a passing piece of dust can be more exhilarating than writing a status report, so our attention is called in other directions.

And the interruptions have proliferated.

A study released last year by the market research firm uSamp found that 45 percent of workers make it only 15 minutes before being interrupted, and more than half say they waste at least an hour a day on distractions.

The study was based on a survey of more than 500 employees at U.S. businesses of varying sizes. Predictably, most of the interruptions, nearly 60 percent, involved email, social networks and instant or text messaging.

Many of us see our incessant toggling between tasks as proof that we’re brilliant multitaskers of a wired world. But research does not bear that out.

Every time you take your attention away from one task, it takes a little time to catch up once you return. That’s time wasted.

A 2009 Stanford University study found that people who routinely receive information from multiple sources don’t pay attention, control their memory or move from one project to the next as well as workers who handle one task at a time.

“Our human physiology has been in formation for tens of millions of years,” said Jeff Davidson, author of “Breathing Space: Living & Working at a Comfortable Pace in a Sped-Up Society.” “We are hard-wired to give our attention in one essential direction when it’s a major task or project we’re undertaking. Yet here we are, making excuses as to why we need to be interrupted around the clock.”

Part of that, I believe, is our innate desire to feel important. Admit it: When cellphones first became prevalent, you felt kind of awesome walking around with one. It meant you were someone of such value that you had to be reachable at any moment.

That vanity-driven sensibility is alive and well, with smartphones pinging throughout the day to announce urgent emails or texts.

“We have people that cannot confront solitude,” Davidson said. “They need to know who has noticed them lately in the world. We all have become hooked on the next communique. We make excuses all day long about why we need to be on all the time, wired, connected, ready to be interrupted.”
And that comes at a cost, forming what Davidson calls “a perfect Catch-22.”

We face so many interruptions that we struggle to fit our work into an eight-hour day. So we multitask, which makes it harder to concentrate on an individual task, and we’re still allowing interruptions to happen, so we’re not getting everything done. Thus we work longer hours and multitask more, and on and on.

Clearly, we would benefit from breaking the cycle of distraction. But how?

“It comes down to self-confidence,” Davidson said. “We need to get back to a state in which we say, ‘I know myself, I know how I work, I know what it takes for me to do this kind of job.’ So then you give yourself, for example, a two-hour stretch uninterrupted.”

That’s, like, five years in Twitter time. But a big part of dodging interruptions is recognizing the ones that we can control.

Julie Morgenstern, author of “Never Check Email in the Morning,” said: “It’s important to recognize how much is coming from outside and how much is self-interruption. I think we self-interrupt just as much as we’re interrupted by others.”

She called email “an interruption chute” on which you can easily close the lid. By not letting yourself check email until 10 a.m., you can secure a good hour or more to focus on bigger things.

“The temptation is, ‘Let me take care of all the little things people need from me, and then I can relax and focus,’ “Morgenstern said. “That’s kind of misguided, because the little things never stop.”

She recommends flipping that plan – tackle the big tasks first and then pay attention to the ticky-tack stuff.

Morgenstern and Davidson agree that if you introduce a no-interruption policy for a couple hours a day, your bosses and co-workers will not only understand but also might follow suit.

“Everyone is dealing with the same problem,” Morgenstern said. “You could ostensibly have a department meeting, a team meeting, a meeting with your boss and talk about how you need to balance responsiveness with individual work streams. Say, ‘Can we agree that generally speaking the mornings are for uninterrupted work, unless it’s a real emergency?’ ”

I can say from personal experience that the two times in my life I’ve focused solely on work have been fabulously successful.

But while we face a blinding array of potential distractions, it’s bound to get worse as technology grows and we start getting Googles implanted in our bionic eyes.

To that end, Davidson points out the importance of training yourself now to shut down interruptions.

“Every day for the rest of our professional lives, the pace of society, the pace of business and the pace of communication are going to speed up,” he said. “We’ve got to put our stake in the ground now and say, ‘I’ve got to establish some personal discipline here, I’ve got to carve out some breathing space.'”

The Expression of Disappointment.

I suck at debating about politics. I suck at writing about politics, too. I freely admit this. I tend to get red-faced and people tell me that I’m yelling whenever the subject of politics comes up. When I write on the subject I tend to write irrational things. My synapses don’t connect well enough for me to convey my words and they end up sounding half-baked and idiotic.

That being said, what the fuck is wrong with you people in North Carolina?

For those that don’t follow the news, yesterday the fine citizens of North Carolina voted an amendment to their constitution banning same sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships. In laymen’s terms, it is now illegal to marry someone of the same sex in North Carolina but it is still perfectly legal to marry your first cousin, as long as it’s not your gay first cousin. This new amendment passed by around 70%. The hopes of thousands of loving gay couples across the state are now dashed and they can not affirm their loving commitment to one another because a bunch of bigots voted on their equality. One has to remember that until 1971, North Carolina had a law on the books banning interracial marriage.

I’m really disappointed by this turn of events in the fight for equality but there’s a part of me that isn’t surprised. This is where the irrational words come to mind. I want to write things like “and their BBQ sucks!” and “I can’t wait to see what the hurricanes do to the god fearing citizens down there.” But other than childish outbursts of emotion, these words really serve no purpose, though I must admit that I am happy that I wrote them down. I am still a kid at heart, I guess.

I guess it just bothers me that this thing is still such a hot topic, still up for debate and that people still have their head shoved so far up a collective ass that they feel they need to spread such hate through legislation. That is what they’re doing, you know. They’re legislating hate. They are trying to redefine love to a very small definition. These folks don’t have the ability to think for themselves, so they cherry pick a few verses out of a very old book, spin them to their liking and then decree that everyone must follow this watered down formula. I think one of the greatest gifts from God is free will. It’s a shame that so few choose to use it.

I know that one of the happiest moments in my life was walking into the banquet room on October 13, 2011 and seeing all the love and support from our families and friends as Earl and I prepared to take a marital vows. That was love, right there, in that moment. It was love between Earl and me, it was love from our family and friends. I’ve mentioned a few times that I didn’t think that getting legally married would make a difference in my life, after all, Earl and I had been together for over 15 years at the time, but the truth of the matter is, it means a great deal to me to introduce Earl as my husband. When Earl was in Urgent Care a few months ago, I couldn’t get in to see him until I told the desk attendant that we were married. I can’t fathom being denied access to my soul mate when he is in need, simply because someone decided that we can’t be married. For this, I am grateful that we live in the Empire State. If someone were to take this right away from us, we would look to relocate elsewhere.

I said that I’m not good at debating and I’m not good at writing about politics. I know that when I woke up this morning and saw the vote results, I wanted to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head. Though it has absolutely no bearing on my marriage, it affects thousands of couples just like us. And that makes me very sad. It makes me fearful for the direction of our society. It makes me realise that there are many that a desperately trying to go backwards in time, to a place that never really existed.

The growing fight to move forward continues.

The Healthcare Conundrum.

Nothing gets a good politician worked up to a frothy state (see what I did there?) like the mention of the Affordable Health Care act a.k.a. “Obamacare”.

Now before I continue this blog entry, I must say that I don’t like the term Obamacare. It’s snarky. And even though the Obama administration has begun “owning” the term by using it themselves, I still think that it’s a snide way of referring to the Affordable Health Care Act. We don’t call Social Security “FDR Security” or “Roosevelt Security” and we don’t call Medicare “JohnsonCare”, but those programs were started back when people had more class and respect for one another, at least in a general sense, so we didn’t do things that way back then. “Obamacare” just rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway, I think that the Affordable Health Care Act is generally a good idea. I agree that ALL Americans, regardless of socio-economic standing should be afforded the same basic healthcare benefits. No one should be forced to choose whether or not they can treat cancer or HIV or the results of a catastrophic accident on the basis of financial standing. And quite frankly, I don’t believe that people should be turned away from insurance companies due to a pre-existing condition.

Now I fully believe in smaller government and I believe that the government is involved in way too many things that quite frankly is none of their business. But with that being said, I do believe that the government should impose regulations on insurance companies and the medical industry (the word ‘industry’ is completely on purpose) to keep costs under control so that medical care is affordable and available for everyone. Personally I think that regulation should dictate a cap on the percentage of profits made from medical care and associated services (pharmaceuticals, etc). It goes completely against my Libertarian streak but if they can’t behave themselves then someone has to reel them in.

However, there is one thing about the Affordable Care Act that just rubs me the wrong way. There’s actually a couple of things, but I’ll focus on the main thing so that I don’t sound like I’m completely ranting.

I have issue with Americans being penalized for not carrying health insurance. I had a problem with Massachusetts instituting that approach and now that it’s in the ACA I have an even bigger problem with it.

There are people in the United States that do not believe in Western medicine. Admittedly, the percentage is quite small, but there are folks that do not believe in loading up their body with man-made chemicals designed to treat symptoms of a problem. Some simply believe that they should strive to eat healthier and make healthy choices with their lifestyle instead of taking a cholesterol lowering pill that’s going to slowly destroy their liver. There may be some women that don’t believe in blasting their boobs with radiation on a routine basis. There could be men that might not want to know about the size of their prostate. Do I agree with their choices? It’s none of my business, but if they decide that they don’t need health insurance because they’re never going to use it then they shouldn’t be penalized for opting out of a plan. There shouldn’t be a tax, there shouldn’t be a fee. At no time should the government say, “you have to buy xxxx from a privately run corporation”. Sorry, I have a problem with that part of the Affordable Care Act. Most disagree with me. Some counter that it’s like paying school taxes when you don’t have kids. I get the theory behind that (investing for the future after all, the children are our future and all those other lyrics), but that bothers me too, but not as much as the mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

I’m rather anxious to hear the Supreme Court’s decision on the subject in June. I really hope that don’t throw out the entire act and do the sensible thing by ruling on just the mandate instead of ruling the whole thing unconstitutional, because in the overall scheme of things, that would be bad. As a relatively sensible individual, I’d rather see the mandate than have Americans denied health insurance based on the whims of the greedy insurance companies.

But every time that mandate part is mentioned around me, I’ll roll my eyes and sigh.

Smash.

So last night Earl and I sat down to do some catching up on the DVR. Our choices in DVRed shows has wained this television season, so the “to watch” list isn’t as long as it has been before after a vacation, but there were a few things I wanted to watch so it was good to just sit down and relax.

One of the shows that I have completely lost interest in is “Private Practice”. The original reason for my interest in the show when it premiered was because Amy Brenneman was part of the ensemble cast. There’s just something very enjoyable I find in Ms. Brenneman and her presence on “Private Practice” has been a definite attraction for me, but when blood was spilled on the floor of her character’s home for a second time, I decided that the show had jumped the shark as far as I’m concerned and I haven’t watched it since. Earl kind of wants to see how the season ends up before taking it off the DVR permanently, but I guess we’ll just let the episodes sit there until we have nothing better to do until we make the final decision on that.

We did watch “The Big Bang Theory” last night and while I found it mildly amusing, the thing I instantly noticed about the show is that they had a new laugh track that sounded completely out of control. Instead of the usual chuckles (and Lucille Ball’s mother going “uh oh”) being piped in from an audience from several decades ago, this laugh tracked laughed and chortled and screamed in hysterics in such a way that could only mean several hyenas were in heat. While there were elements of the episode that I did find funny, and I think I may have laughed out loud on one occasion, the canned audience was going absolutely nuts in a cocoa-for-cuckoo-puffs way that sounded completely out of place. I found it disconcerting. In fact, I found it as equally disconcerting as Sheldon’s new “I’m covering up my thinning hair” hair style he adopted late last year. Oh, as a quick aside, I personally find Kaley Cuoco to be the driving force of the comedy of that show as Sheldon’s character has gone way down Urkel Boulevard.

The other show we watched last night was “Smash”. Now, I have a little bit of hard time wrapping my head around this show for a variety of reasons. First of all, back in the days when I found “American Idol” mildly amusing, I found Katherine McPhee to be kind of snotty. Her snottiness actually rubbed off from her mother, whom I found takes herself way too seriously. Granted, Ms. McPhee has a lot of talent and it is being wonderfully showcased on this show, but it took me a little while to get beyond the “oh there’s the snotty girl” stage when watching her character on the screen.

Another struggle that I’m having with “Smash” is Debra Messing. First of all, I enjoy Ms. Messing and I’m glad that she’s trying to break out of being typecast as a Grace Adler (from “Will and Grace”) character, but because her character is often paired with the obnoxious gay guy I find myself looking for “Grace” moments. “She made a Grace face!” “She almost spun her finger and went ‘whoa’!” “She said the same thing to Will!” The personality of her character on “Smash” is riding a fine line of being rather similar to her character “Will and Grace” but perhaps this will change with the progression of the show. I like her, I just need to stop watching for the Grace moments.

I think the blonde character on the show is named Ivy. I get that she’s suppose to be unlikeable but I think the actress plays her way too unlikeable. Maybe that’s the rub; perhaps I’m suppose to want Katherine McPhee to stomp her bleached head into the dirt, but I don’t think that I should want to put a combat boot through our HD TV. All I hear is auto tune when she sings and on the episode I watched last night I wanted her to have some sort of hideous, grotesque side effect to the steroids she was taking so that she would be gone; I find her über annoying and if others weren’t in the room I’d fast forward through her parts.

I will say that I enjoy the premise of the show and I enjoy the music because it sounds less contrived than on that I’m-going-to-lose-my-gay-card-because-I-don’t-like-it “Glee”. The singing sounds less robotic than on “Glee”. Oh, speaking of which, I did catch a few moments of the latest episode of “Glee” and I was completely lost so apparently we were watching some alternate universe of the show or character development went in eighteen different directions at a really fast pace because people were getting married, others were pregnant and a really bad green screened truck slammed into a car in a very special episode.

Back to “Smash”. One of the things that I appreciate about the show is that based on the theatre folks I have hobnobbed with over the years, I think the show is in the right ballpark as far as the going ons in that sort of theatre setting. I’m going to give it a few more episodes to make a final determination but right now it’s still on my “enjoyable” list.

One show that I am anxious to catch up on is “Happy Endings”. We have watched a couple of episodes this season and I have thoroughly enjoyed them. I bought the entire season on iTunes so we can catch up during any rainy days this summer. I am looking forward to that!