Calm Before the Storm
31/10/17 07:53
We've gotten somewhat accustomed to watching television shows without commercials. All I will say about that is that the internet is a wonderful tool when it comes to certain things and obtaining television shows without commercials is one of them. Television viewing is by and large a late night activity for us and seldom if ever enjoyed during the daytime. Nonetheless, there are some good shows out there and watching them without commercials is a plus. In fact, when for some other reason or other we have to see a show with commercials it is a damnable chore to have to muddle through the commercials to be sure. Producers of same must know how distracting commercials can be when rolling out a storyline where continuity is key to holding the viewers attention. Building on previous scenes without interruption is more often than not critical to the shows success.
All they can hope for is that the commercials shown are fanciful and entertaining to the viewer. Whatever it takes to keep them in their recliners until the show resumes. The fact that commercials are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator when and where intelligence is concerned is not hard to understand. They want to appeal to your base instincts after all and would likely prefer you leave your intelligence at the door. The sexier, the sassier, the more subtle, and the more sensational the commercial the better. Persuasion is the name of the game. I think it's true as well that television watching has been on the decline for years and the constant barrage of senseless nonsense they throw at you in between scenes has to be a contributing factor. Millennials are having none of it, commercials included, and the rest of us are catching up slowly but surely.
I've decided that I'd better stay away from the whole Hollywood perversion thing with Weinstein and others including the likes of Dustin Hoffman. It doesn't stop there and there are numerous others inside and outside of Hollywood fessing up in the hopes that they too will be afforded a pass of sorts as they go off to therapy. And now I'm reading about companies who are thinking twice about hiring women given that they too might find the tip of the hat, a salacious wink, or a nod in the wrong direction as not just flirtatious but downright vulgar and blantantly offensive if not criminal. It didn't help that Bill O'Reilly paid his alleged victim a princely sum of some $22 million to keep her mouth shut. That just incentivizes women to be fast and loose with the truth in the hopes that they too can shake down anyone with a reputation and a 7 figure salary who thinks they have something of value that is ultimately worth salvaging.
O'Reilly may have surmised that his reputation with the FOX network and his viewers was so above board and beyond reproach as to warrant paying a princely ransom of $22 million for keeping his alleged sexual misdeeds out of the nightly headlines. I would tell you that he probably paid too much. Bill Cosby was one of the sicker bastards of the bunch and his victims made the mistake of thinking that a jury would rightly hold him responsible for his criminal acts. They were wrong. It only took one black juror to upset that apple cart. If Weinstein and his anglican counterparts have one thing working against them it is that they are not black so justice may well prevail if they end up facing their so-called victims in court. At the end of the day it isn't about money, morality, or common law. It's about who you know and who knows you.
All of a sudden it seems like there is a lot to do before the first snowfall and I feel like I am behind the eight ball before I even get started. I think I mowed the lawn for the last time this season just yesterday. If it doesn't start to get colder soon I may well have to cut it once more before Thanksgiving. I have no job to go to so I should think a bit about pacing myself a little better. Every day I will do a little of this and a little of that and, as they say in the funnies, the tortoise can beat the hare with persistence and perseverance.
The leaves are off the trees now so I can start raking and removing the leaves in earnest. I should probably clean the bird feeders before winter comes and it's probably not too early to start looking into buying a winter bird bath for the back deck. Our garage is a bit of a mess and has been since the bathroom renovation began in early September. With the renovation largely in the rear view mirror I can restore order to the space in our garage so as to make room for our two vehicles and a supply of sorts of cord wood for the wood stove. That reminds me: I need to get up on the roof and clean the chimney before too much more time passes. Like I said, lots to do.
I was hoping to get Evan to help me put our old treadmill in the back of the car for transport to the local recycling center. It has been sitting in our garage adding to the clutter for a few months now and finding just the right moment to get Evan's attention has been a challenge. I told myself that if he could help me get it in the car that I could manage myself once I arrived at the recycling center. Asking him to accompany me to the recycling center would surely be a bridge too far. I was feeling especially energetic yesterday and to say that I was on a roll would have been an understatement. I decided to take matters into my own hands and I backed the car up to the garage and tilted the treadmill into the rear of the car and slid it in without all that much fanfare or effort.
As is usually the case, Evan popped up after I was done and offered his services. I thanked him all the same and reassured him that it wasn't all that much trouble after all. Unloading the machine at the center was equally unexciting and then it was done. The one other chore that I usually ask Evan to help me with is taking the air conditioner out of the bedroom window in the Fall. I may have embarrassed him a bit by taking care of the treadmill without his help so he volunteered willingly with the air conditioner and that was that. Thanks, Ev! I couldn't have done it without you!
I swear! The closer they get to perfection in finishing our bathroom the more the flaws stand out. They installed a new window the other day and Nancy is beside herself that there doesn't seem to be a storm window that slides down on the outside of the window jamb. I reassured her that the window looks and feels super heavy duty, double pane, and all the rest. And, it is. But, there is a screen on the outside that one would think would have to come off during the winter months so that snow and ice do not accumulate between the window itself and the screen.
Here again, we need to go to the local Home Depot to look at comparable windows to get a better sense of what we're dealing with. Did the contractors forget to include a storm window when they did the installation? Is it still sitting in the back of someone's truck? If I've learned anything in dealing with these contractors it is that you need to verify the information they are giving you at any given moment. Yes, trust but verify. And I can't have my wife being hopping mad about this sort of stuff. It's enough to drive you to distraction. I've assured her that we'll follow up on this and will, in a word, git er done.
It seems like the longer we look into the wood flooring for the front room the more we find out and more it made sense all along not to make any hasty decisions at the outset. We've come full circle on the color and make of the wood but Nancy is still undecided when it comes to the color. Maple seems to offer the least amount of variability in terms of grain and texture and it is without doubt the kind of wood we chose for our kitchen a number of years ago. There is the type of wood and then there is the color of the stain. The cinnamon colored stain seems to be a perfect match with what we have in our kitchen. We had to visit three flooring joints to reach that conclusion but a conclusion it is. And now, since the kitchen is off our front room do we do the right thing from a feng shui point of view and extend cinnamon maple flooring into the living room or do we do a mix and match? That is the question that Nancy is wrestling with at the moment. I'm good with matching them up and letting the good times roll as it were. The good news is that we will not be putting any carpeting down. For now, anyway, the jury is out.
All they can hope for is that the commercials shown are fanciful and entertaining to the viewer. Whatever it takes to keep them in their recliners until the show resumes. The fact that commercials are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator when and where intelligence is concerned is not hard to understand. They want to appeal to your base instincts after all and would likely prefer you leave your intelligence at the door. The sexier, the sassier, the more subtle, and the more sensational the commercial the better. Persuasion is the name of the game. I think it's true as well that television watching has been on the decline for years and the constant barrage of senseless nonsense they throw at you in between scenes has to be a contributing factor. Millennials are having none of it, commercials included, and the rest of us are catching up slowly but surely.
I've decided that I'd better stay away from the whole Hollywood perversion thing with Weinstein and others including the likes of Dustin Hoffman. It doesn't stop there and there are numerous others inside and outside of Hollywood fessing up in the hopes that they too will be afforded a pass of sorts as they go off to therapy. And now I'm reading about companies who are thinking twice about hiring women given that they too might find the tip of the hat, a salacious wink, or a nod in the wrong direction as not just flirtatious but downright vulgar and blantantly offensive if not criminal. It didn't help that Bill O'Reilly paid his alleged victim a princely sum of some $22 million to keep her mouth shut. That just incentivizes women to be fast and loose with the truth in the hopes that they too can shake down anyone with a reputation and a 7 figure salary who thinks they have something of value that is ultimately worth salvaging.
O'Reilly may have surmised that his reputation with the FOX network and his viewers was so above board and beyond reproach as to warrant paying a princely ransom of $22 million for keeping his alleged sexual misdeeds out of the nightly headlines. I would tell you that he probably paid too much. Bill Cosby was one of the sicker bastards of the bunch and his victims made the mistake of thinking that a jury would rightly hold him responsible for his criminal acts. They were wrong. It only took one black juror to upset that apple cart. If Weinstein and his anglican counterparts have one thing working against them it is that they are not black so justice may well prevail if they end up facing their so-called victims in court. At the end of the day it isn't about money, morality, or common law. It's about who you know and who knows you.
All of a sudden it seems like there is a lot to do before the first snowfall and I feel like I am behind the eight ball before I even get started. I think I mowed the lawn for the last time this season just yesterday. If it doesn't start to get colder soon I may well have to cut it once more before Thanksgiving. I have no job to go to so I should think a bit about pacing myself a little better. Every day I will do a little of this and a little of that and, as they say in the funnies, the tortoise can beat the hare with persistence and perseverance.
The leaves are off the trees now so I can start raking and removing the leaves in earnest. I should probably clean the bird feeders before winter comes and it's probably not too early to start looking into buying a winter bird bath for the back deck. Our garage is a bit of a mess and has been since the bathroom renovation began in early September. With the renovation largely in the rear view mirror I can restore order to the space in our garage so as to make room for our two vehicles and a supply of sorts of cord wood for the wood stove. That reminds me: I need to get up on the roof and clean the chimney before too much more time passes. Like I said, lots to do.
I was hoping to get Evan to help me put our old treadmill in the back of the car for transport to the local recycling center. It has been sitting in our garage adding to the clutter for a few months now and finding just the right moment to get Evan's attention has been a challenge. I told myself that if he could help me get it in the car that I could manage myself once I arrived at the recycling center. Asking him to accompany me to the recycling center would surely be a bridge too far. I was feeling especially energetic yesterday and to say that I was on a roll would have been an understatement. I decided to take matters into my own hands and I backed the car up to the garage and tilted the treadmill into the rear of the car and slid it in without all that much fanfare or effort.
As is usually the case, Evan popped up after I was done and offered his services. I thanked him all the same and reassured him that it wasn't all that much trouble after all. Unloading the machine at the center was equally unexciting and then it was done. The one other chore that I usually ask Evan to help me with is taking the air conditioner out of the bedroom window in the Fall. I may have embarrassed him a bit by taking care of the treadmill without his help so he volunteered willingly with the air conditioner and that was that. Thanks, Ev! I couldn't have done it without you!
I swear! The closer they get to perfection in finishing our bathroom the more the flaws stand out. They installed a new window the other day and Nancy is beside herself that there doesn't seem to be a storm window that slides down on the outside of the window jamb. I reassured her that the window looks and feels super heavy duty, double pane, and all the rest. And, it is. But, there is a screen on the outside that one would think would have to come off during the winter months so that snow and ice do not accumulate between the window itself and the screen.
Here again, we need to go to the local Home Depot to look at comparable windows to get a better sense of what we're dealing with. Did the contractors forget to include a storm window when they did the installation? Is it still sitting in the back of someone's truck? If I've learned anything in dealing with these contractors it is that you need to verify the information they are giving you at any given moment. Yes, trust but verify. And I can't have my wife being hopping mad about this sort of stuff. It's enough to drive you to distraction. I've assured her that we'll follow up on this and will, in a word, git er done.
It seems like the longer we look into the wood flooring for the front room the more we find out and more it made sense all along not to make any hasty decisions at the outset. We've come full circle on the color and make of the wood but Nancy is still undecided when it comes to the color. Maple seems to offer the least amount of variability in terms of grain and texture and it is without doubt the kind of wood we chose for our kitchen a number of years ago. There is the type of wood and then there is the color of the stain. The cinnamon colored stain seems to be a perfect match with what we have in our kitchen. We had to visit three flooring joints to reach that conclusion but a conclusion it is. And now, since the kitchen is off our front room do we do the right thing from a feng shui point of view and extend cinnamon maple flooring into the living room or do we do a mix and match? That is the question that Nancy is wrestling with at the moment. I'm good with matching them up and letting the good times roll as it were. The good news is that we will not be putting any carpeting down. For now, anyway, the jury is out.