not as eventful as the first half of my day today...consider my day involved careening across a highway moving at 60 miles per hour in a rapidly stalling car...

why can't cars speak to you and tell you when you have 2 gallons left? what's that you say? that's what the fuel gauge is for? well, fuck you and your ability to look at fuel gauges!

And let that be a lesson to you

Amen. Right On. Word.

I've always thought Sharper Image could make a fortune if they sold miniature cattle prods for situations like this.

Or on a city street. Or in the aisle of a grocery store. Or the hallway of a hospital. Or in a restaurant traverse. Or the entryway of a shop.

Hm. Guess you mean clueless self-centered people.

We call them narcissists.

I actually bumped into the female of a couple like this several months ago. I kept going, declining to apologize. They followed us into the restaurant we had been heading to, accusing me of endangering the fetus the woman was allegedly carrying. After the usual back and forth about clueless tourists and impolite New Yorkers, I got rid of them by asking the host to call the police to respond to my being stalked and harrassed by them. Their parting shot was that I should enjoy my lunch. I did, thoroughly.

Where are you? Looks pretty cloudy today. There is always tomorrow.

How the hell did that happen? I hear that HDTV's are going down in price though... My friend just bought is I think 50" for 3K.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that I never dust. I don't have 3k to spend on a television, or anything else for that matter, although I have seen some LCD HDTVs for around 800 bones. Since I'm the World's Laziest Human and despise shopping, however, it could be quite a while before I have a tv again.

Going TV-free is revelatory.

To Squeat:

Well come to think of it spending $3K on a t.v. is kind of stupid unless you're really a tv freak like my friend. Yes, my friend makes such good use of his new HDTV. For instance, just the other day, we got to watch the sun rise. On t.v. It would have taken an hour but he had tivo'd it and so we skipped through the boring parts.


To GGMora:

No t.v.? <gary coleman mode>Whachoo talkin about woman?<end gary coleman mode> But I thought t.v. was good for us. At least that's what the ads on t.v. say.

Squeat, have you had an electrician out to check the voltage in your wiring? After living in our house for 13 years w/o incident, one day I plugged in my boom box and the tv on another wall, started to smoke. Also the computer screen went jiggly. The electrician discovered our wiring was faulty and fixed some of our outlets. (I think the voltage on the wall w/tv that smoked after 13 years w/o incident was measured at 220v instead of 110v). Maybe somehow the wiring inside the plug had deteriorated and they touched, I can't remember.

Oh, I'm well-acquainted with the tv-free lifestyle, and I'm pretty much ready for another go-round, truth be told. I just calculated that in the 28 years since I left the nest, I've had a tv for a total of about 10. And frankly, I'll welcome the space (and time), once I go through the hassle of disposing of the giant corpse.

I can't even begin to tell you about the wiring in this apartment building. If I were more assertive I certainly would have the building management rewire the entire place. The wires in the walls (I discovered when I tried to put in a switch that would leave constant power on to the answering machine while switching the hall light off and on) are the same age as the building, which was built in 1926. There is no color code -- there are two white wires and a mysterious grey one, and all are wrapped in thick fabric, old-style. I can't imagine that this is up to City code. I'm amazed this place hasn't burned to the ground, the way my last apartment building did. (Not my fault, BTW.)

Absolutely no renovation has been done buildingwide (though some individual apartments have been 'updated'). It has a kind of fascination, though. For example, the kitchen sports a built-in refrigerator, vintage 1926. Apparently (and uniquely to my knowlege), the building was piped with central freon when it was constructed (the way it is still piped with gas)! At some point someone realized that was impractical, I guess, but the little built-in fridge (complete with freezer) is still there. (I store spices and oils in it.)

There's a great Bruno Schultz story about a father (uncle?) who wires himself into a flat as a doorbell. I feel that way when I start thinking about the infrastructure of this building...

TV-free for couple of years - no revelations so far

TV-free(ish) for four months. No revelations, but I do view my tv differently.

don't kill anybody. that's worse than the original parking ticket.

Were you listening to rap? My nephew started smoking after he began listening to m&m. And he dances all funny.

does he smoke brisket?

We've been TV free for a while. I guess we'll get one for DVDs, but not cable.

I watch DVD's on my laptop. It's a pretty good for just myself. Not too romantic for dates.

Maybe not a first date, but I thought it was pretty romantic when my sweetie brought over the laptop on the plane so I could watch all the Alias episodes I had missed. Very romantic. hehe

me too, and its the only thing that gets me to the gym. Much better to be on the treadmill watching Alias and West Wing than on my couch.

well it is if you have neither a TV nor, currently, a couch, and so DVDs must be watched on the laptop in bed.

I have a little plastic doohickey from Tower Records that has a channel in it that fits over the top of the CD jewelcase. In the channel is a wheel containing a razor. You zip the little thing along the top of the CD and it slashes the adhesive strip, allowing you to open the CD and more easily remove the adhesive strip. You need to get you one of these.

I have two. I keep one in my car, one next to the stereo. Guess which one gets the most use?

I have a hammer.

Do you resort to the hammer after failing with the knife and screwdriver? You must be pretty riled by then.