So I've spoken a fair amount in this space about my having been off of the big TV habit for several years now. Sad to say, I can no longer claim media superiority, I'm once again a television consumer.
The new place I'm staying at is fantastic by the way. Right on the West Bay, with its own beach, which has seen its share of me either swimming or sitting and drinking beer or reading or walking or sitting around a fire pit playing guitar. However, its also got free cable. Put simply, my problem with cable (or sattelite) TV is not that its full of stupid crap that I don't want to watch. My problem is that its full of stupid crap that I *do* want to watch. I have wasted more time in the last 6 weeks on "Pimp My Ride" and "Celebrity Poker Showdown" than any human being should ever have to. I've watched Stripes! despite the fact that I have seen it at least 200 times already (from previous periods having cable).
True, part of this can be traced back to the fact that I no longer own a computer, so any of those time wasters are not really available to me. And I did spend a lot of time on the computer. But there is something very different about Internet or computer time, as opposed to TV, the primary difference being interactivity. South Park doesn't care whether I'm paying attention or not. I could be laying on the couch or eating linguine or doing jazzercise or asleep or in a persistent vegetative state or overdosing on heroin: South Park is still the same. (Of course, I may enjoy it more in some of these states than others, but the point isn't me, its the medium). Whereas, when I'm reading Slate, at least I'm involved in some way, or when I'm playing Black Hawk Down, I'm actively doing something instead of just letting the filth wash over me in complacency.
I'm not necessarily saying that the Internet experience is better. I happen to think it is, but that still remains to be seen: There certainly could be such a thing as too much interactivity. But I prefer the experience.
None of which stops me from watching. Despite all my objections I'm still an obedient TV sheep, sitting and watching whatever bounces in.
I do get to see Hockey at least, which is nice. Its a little dangerous, because one of my house mates is from Colorado and a big Hockey fan, and for most of you I don't really need to say more than that. I'm worried what sort of ultraviolence may break out when the Avs come to the Joe. But on most everything else we enjoy watching the same things.
Also a plug for The Colbert Report. In general, the reporter segments of The Daily Show were always my least favorite part. They'd had some great talent especially Mo Rocca and Steve Carrell, but in general the main goal was just to ask really stupid questions and make your interview subject seem stupid for trying to answer it. (Actually Samantha Bee is one of the best I've seen at this, which is why I really can't stand watching her. I'm not sure what was different about Rocca and Carrell, but it was different somehow).
Anyway, all of this should make The Colbert Report particularly offensive to me, as its sort of a half-hour version of the reporter segment. And yet, he's done a fantastic job with it so far. The thing that made me think to mention it was today's interview with Fareed Zakaria. While a lot of the credit goes to Zakaria, it was a fantastic interview. Part of that came from Zakaria's total willingness to play along with Colbert's "smug moron" interview technique. When Colbert asks Zakaria, "Let me put it another way: The world, why should I care?" Zakaria took the question completely at face value and explained why Colbert should care, but in a witty manner, bringing up outsourcing and the danger of "funny people in Bangalore" that could take his job. And at the end, Zakaria even managed to get Colbert to laugh, accomplishing what must be one of the most difficult tasks in show business, and for a moment breaking the facade of calm smugness Colbert perpetually maintains.
I'm not sure if he can keep it at this level, as I'm not sure how many others can really match Zakaria's wit and good humor. But its been great to watch so far, and could provide a little mindless, complacent, totally non-interactive entertainment the next time you're jazzercising on heroin.
Sorry for the continued lack of net presence, but given that I have no computer and am doing 21 credits at the Academy and working 30 hours a week on Midnights, the blog has had to slip. For those who were curious, Zuzax was hacked recently, which explains the weird ExtremeGolf period of my site. Thanks to Chet for getting things rebuilt quickly.
While rebuilding he also updated MT to the newest version which looks pretty sweet so far. Not sure what its done to the page though as I haven't looked at it yet. Anyway, a few more weeks and I should be able to post more.
The short update: Things are a little hectic, but (as usual) that's by choice and I'm doing very well. Just got back from Nirvana and Annie's wedding in Ho-town, which rocked (in a very literal way). Awesome to see Anne rocking out on the bass in her wedding gown for a seriously bad ass edition of Peter Gunn, and seeing a manRay19 reunion was outstanding. Also good to reunite with the 707 crew for a bit, as they're always a good time.
Two more weddings in October and then I may have a couple weekends to myself. One of those weekends will be used to finally get started on recording my acoustic album. I've decided to start over on it from scratch. Sid's got most of my recording equipment and is going to engineer and produce it for me, which is exciting for me, to be able to step back from that a little and concentrate on the music. So I'm gonna head down when I have some time and we'll get as far as we can and then rinse and repeat until done. *Maybe* something by X-day, though that's pretty ambitious.
Also, I'd appreciate it if the few of you out there who have gotten some of my written works before could browse around your hard drives and see if you've got anything left. I don't have a computer to store them on yet, but when I do I'd like to get as much as I can without having to recreate stuff. Some will just remain in oblivion of course (and some of it really belonged there in the first place), but there are several projects that will have to be reborn.
Anyway, I'm slipping back into obscurity now, as I've got an Oxygen cutting test to study for and plenty more. More when I can.