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I don't know what the power source of existential depression is, but let's see if we can reduce it to crystal form and make it available for use to the light-trucking industry. I've got a little pocket radio here whose AAA batteries have lasted way, way longer than they should have, and I know that's attributable to the fact that my blogger app still ain't working.
Today's disappointment: I have finally upgraded to the latest marginal upgrade of Jaguar and the latest marginal upgrade of AppleScript Studio and the new, major release of BBEdit. But -- and I readily confess that I speak with a lack of authority -- BBEdit has set a brand-new record for bitchiness. I really, really hoped that one of these three upgrades would magically solve the problem but alas, I am reminded that this life is a vale of tears and that which does not kill us makes us want to kill others, chiefly other people with working bloggers.
(Aside: Is this BBEdit's fault? Naw. It's the fault of a system that requires three major piles of code (Jaguar, BBEdit, AppleScript) and one minor pile of -- well, let's be nice to the author and call it "code," too -- to interact with each other happily under all situations. I will be writing BBEdit out of my code only because BBEdit is barking the loudest...and because I was planning to do so anyway. So this is no knock against Bare Bones' fine product (this site leaches off of BB's office T1, incidentally; I've said it before but it bears periodic repeating). End of aside.)
That's why I haven't really worked on my code, incidentally. I've been as busy as the only licensed tattoo artist at a convention of Jerry Springer fans and hoped that the amorphous conglomerate known as "those other people" would solve this problem for me. Didn't work out quite that way so I'll have to finish this whole "write BBEdit out of the code entirely" project in dribs and drabs.
'Twon't happen in the next day or two, of course. As we speak, laundry is tumbling and everything I own with more than three processors in it is having its batteries topped off. Tomorrow I board a plane for Minneapolis. As if that alone didn't fill you with a jealousy-fueled rage, Minnesota is merely a stopover on my way to San Francisco and Macworld Expo therein.
Soooo many projects had to be finished. Not the least of which was the baptism of Lilith 6. Longtime readers of this blog are familiar with the sad take of Lilith 5, who, through the cod-bending idiocy of its owner clattered to the linoleum in an Atlanta store, cracking its case and killing its DVD drive. Lilith 6 arrived nearly two months ago but prepping a new PowerBook for daily use is uncomfortably like trying to convince a mongoose to turn itself inside-out. You don't know exactly what the first step to all that is going to be, but you are fairly sure that it's going to be a long, drawn-out process and that maybe the "Do nothing and hope it all works out OK in the end" algorithm comes through for you. After all, look how well it worked for me with this whole blogger problem.
By my definition, a computer isn't a computer until it can send and receive mail and edit text so the chief hurdle to making Lilith 6 into a credible machine was getting Office and BBEdit up and running, along with over a gigabyte of manuscripts, both current and archived. Which means locating installation CDs, which also means locating registration codes, which, all told, means having to clean my office from top to bottom. So now I've re-made the bed and vacuumed out the sofa. I've located three wristwatches that I was sure were lost for good. And I have a functional, practical new PowerBook.
The last (but by no means least important) step is to make Lilith distinctive in some fashion, lest my collection of brilliant unfinished novels and hundreds of photos of naked women get mixed up with someone else's at an airport security checkpoint. Lilith 5 sported a big, bold "L5" at about the same spot where Pete Townsend used to label his guitars. The characters cost me something like $1.40 a piece and the deed was done in less than fifteen minutes. Lilith 6 has received a photorealistic walnut faux-wood finish. Took me a couple of hours and it came out so well that I'm unsure that I should go ahead and slap that Tenacious D sticker on top of it.
The final motivation to baptize Lilith 6 was, of course, that gaping maw of time I'll be spending in transit tomorrow. I'm glad I waited so long before replacing Lilith 5. Having to go six months without being able to read CDs or watch DVDs was excellent negative-reinforcement; surely Ihnatko shall look twice before sliding Lilith into the newspaper pouch of his satchel. But since May I've purchased Babylon 5 Season One on DVD, as well as all of "The Young Ones" and a bootleg of "Raiders Of The Lost Ark." I'm glad I showed the strength of character to tough out my time in movie exile, but I'm even more glad that my days of having to fill time on a flight by reading or thinking are now behind me.
Will try very, very hard to update the blog -- ugh, manually -- from Macworld Expo. This one promises to be at least slightly interesting.
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Test test test! Test!
Test!
| | Test test test! Test!
Test!
| | I am going to force the latest version of my blogger app to crash. Here are the magic words that shall make it happen:
"I think it's fixed, now."
Push the button, Frank...
| | Damn. It didn't crash. This only means that my app would like to fully exploit the advantage of surprise.
All right, then. I play along. Will it crash now?
Push the button, Frank...
| | It's toying with me. I know it's just toying with me. Oh, well. I suppose I can have fun remembering what fun this whole "posting to my weblog" thing used to be.
OK. The Super Bowl. All I can really say is, "Thank God it was an all-pirate-theme competition." This is the first year in eons that I was able to name both teams. Last year I was OK because one of the teams was the Patriots and civic-minded drunks were nice enough to yell "PATS! YEAH! PAAAAAAATSSSSS!" from the backs of pickup trucks every seventeed minutes in case anyone forgot. Every year before that, people would try to draw me into conversations about the Super Bowl and I'd have to make up a story about having missed the post-season because I was busy sharpening knives for the upcoming Grizzly-shaving season.
This year, I was one of the guys through and through. "Oh, yeah...the Buccaneers and the...the...(ok, don't panic; silver helmets...California team...) AHA! And the 'Raiders'! Well, so long as the Buccaneers don't get lose too many players in the third period due to penalties..."
I really didn't realize how little I knew about football until Friday, when I needed an authentic-sounding football penalty for something I was writing.
I've been painting a pretty poor picture of myself here so allow me to say this:
"Clemens balked with the bases loaded, tying the game."
and
"Harris got two minutes for high-sticking, starting a Bruins power play."
And how about
"Raney was held up at Wasilla by race officials, who determined that his sled was not equipped with a proper axe. Its handle was measured at seventeen inches."
Baseball, Hockey, Mushing. Three good-sounding penalties right off the top of my head. So it's not like I spend my days chasin' butterflies or nothin'.
But Football is Kryptonite to me. I don't even know enough about it to lie convincingly and I don't dare guess at the penalties. I'm fairly sure that in football, the receiver isn't allowed to pull a revolver from his waistband and shoot the defenders as he runs towards the end-zone. I know this because it was part of the opening of "The Last Boy Scout" and everyone else on the field made a really big deal about it.
Other than that? Hell, who knows. In my house, "Football" is defined as "That which makes it impossible to TiVO 'King Of The Hill' on Sunday nights." I only watch NFL football if I happen to switch on the TV and it's a close game with only a minute left on the clock. Then I'll settle into the sofa, for the first 20 minutes of what remains, anyway. Thus I lack even fundamental football-watching skills. Watching a game with friends is like attending a Catholic mass. I don't know why everyone's standing up all of a sudden, but I don't want to feel left out, do I? So I leap from my seat and start pumping my fist in the air and then the priest asks me to leave. The icy stare he fires at my back before continuing on with his sermon is only marginally less-withering than the response I get from my friends during post-season games. I keep asking very straightforward questions like "If the receiver wasn't eligible to receive passes, then why did the coach even let him get on the field in the first place? I mean, how's the quarterback supposed to know that the guy's papers aren't in order?"
This was the sort of penalty I sought as I typed "nfl.com" into my browser window. "So what makes a receiver ineligible?" I wanted to know. Alas, NFL.COM is a site full of information for people who think they know everything about football to begin with, and are just looking for evidence to back them up for tonight's barfight. It was no help at all to a newbie like me. I threw up my hands. Instead of citing a penalty in my narrative, I merely slung in a line about a player being taken off the field after one of the drywall screws securing his helmet to his skell had worked loose.
Well, thank God that's all over with. There is terrific symbolism in the fact that Spring can only arrive after football's left the building. A guy posting to one of my listservs said it best today: "I love the Super Bowl. It means that it'll only be a few more weeks before pitchers and catchers report to camp."
| | The mail arrives and with it, a set of Apple's Pro Speakers. You've seen 'em...they're old news. Acrylic spheres the size of either a bad grapefruit or a great orange. They're made by Harman, they plug into a special jack found in modern G4 towers.
This is my first shot with them and I readily admit that I asked Apple for a set only out of abject desperation. I simply refuse to believe that it's utterly flicking impossible to find a decent-sounding and ambitiously-powered set of travel speakers. The Industry would have me believe that such a thing is impossible to build and operate in Earth's nitrogen-rich atmosphere but once again, I find myself leading the Industry forward as a thoughtful pet owner drags Fido to the vet for his de-worming.
Yes, this is for an upcoming column. It started when I got a set of Sony's quite nifty and immensely packable SRS-T77 travel speakers a couple of months ago. They had lingered longly and fondly upon my consciousness, particularly through last year's Andy Ihnatko Pan-Atlantic Goodwill Tour when I went months without being able to properly froog or boogaloo to the B-52's "Love Shack." Yes, it is technically possible to at least do [that dance that the kid in the crewcut does during "A Charlie Brown Christmas"] while holding your iPod in one hand and keeping your headphones in place with the other, but a good full-body boogalooing is necessary to the proper balance of one's sang froid, particularly for business travellers in hotel rooms. If you visit Las Vegas, you'll find lots of people on the sidewalk handing out fliers attesting to this, and offering group rates.
The need for travel speakers became even sharper when I realized just how much I'm relying on Lilith for my media. Music on the iPod. Check. Nothing new about that. DVDs. Foolishly, it took me a while to acknowledge that these can be watched inside the hotel room as well as on board a plane, and most of the DVD reviews I wrote in the latter half of the year were done away from home. Now I'm nigh-addicted to the BBC4's streaming broadcasts. If I'm in for a long flight, I'll fill a MiniDisc with panel shows and comedy.
And now I've got EyeTV. EyeTV technically isn't a PowerBook accessory but given that this device will fill my hard drive with all of the TV shows I missed due to my misguided notion of Leaving The Hotel Room Occasionally, and allow me to watch "Fear Factor" during the flight home, I suspect I'll find room for it in my rollaway.
The Sony was neat. Every time a company flew into Boston to show me something they've been working on, it seems that they had a '77 sitting on the coffee table. I got it and I set it up and I liked it. It's no larger than a CD player but it pumps out very credible sound.
"But you know what would make this Sony even better?" I told the goldfish last month. "If they were tax-deductible." And within moments, the phrase "Travel Speakers" was dry-markered onto my editorial calendar.
A great topic, right? Ripe with lots of nifty devices to evaluate and report on, no question? Nuh-uh. The field has only three categories:
1) Compact speakers that sound like crap;
2) Speakers that sound great but force you to choose between packing the speakers or packing underwear. Which shouldn't be such a big deal; if you leave the hotel room you can't use the speakers and if you stay inside all week, no one will care if you're still wearing Monday's undies. But still, in a perfect world we would all have both decent audio and clean shorts. Like the late Senator Robert Kennedy, I choose to see things as they should be and ask "Why not?"
3) Speakers that sound great but can only project a bubble of sound the size a decent, 70's-style Afro. Here we have the Sony. Impressive sound comes out of a package the size of a stack of two or three CD jewel cases, but they won't help you if you're not sitting right in front of them.
See, I wanted speakers that could pass the Towel-Off test. I wanted to be able to listen to Prokofiev while making the challenging daily transition from Wet And Naked to Dry And Festooned With Places To Carry Devices. I was looking for something with a ten or twenty-watt amp.
Only there isn't one! The good folks at Sony and Yamaha et al don't want to produce travel speakers that are loud enough to annoy the people in adjoining rooms, which makes no sense at all. The beauty of hotel rooms is that (a) the rooms are heavily soundproofed and (b) there are as many as three locks on the doors, which means that angering your neighbors really isn't an important issue.
Thank God I'm arrogant. Arrogance is an unbeatable antidote to common sense and reality. Why shouldn't I write about this? The world seems to think that there's nothing in it at all, but I choose to create a reality in which I'm right right RIGHT RIGHT!!! RIGHT!!!! I can't HEAR you I can't HEAR you lalalalalaLALALAlalalaaa...
So here's the Apple Pro Speakers. They're small enough to pack. Actually, the round shape is a double-bonus: they fit perfectly into the corners of a suitcase. They're rated for 20 watts. Good. They have no built-in amp. Bad. But Griffin Technology has this new USB audio box called the PowerWave. I like it. I like the design philosophy of the thing, more than anything else. They didn't design it as "an audio input/output device."
Though that'd have been cool enough. Their iMic dongle adds USB sound input and output to any Mac. I've used it for about a year to record audio on my PowerBook. The PowerWave adds RCA inputs and outputs, and switchable passthroughs.
But they looked at the box (about the size of a thin paperback) and realized that they could probably cram a few more circuits in there. So it's also got a 20-watt amp. It's got stereo line-in and line-outs, or amped-outs. And why the hell not: it can drive a set of Apple Pro Speakers directly.
Here my eyes lit up. So am I really going to recommend to people that they buy a $100 USB sound box and then a $59 set of speakers? Hmm.
...
OK, it sure looks that way. It's the first solution I've tested that has oomph. It'd be a stretch to say that it offers Plaster-Cracking Sound, but should be possible to have it sitting on the nightstand and enjoy the "Repo Man" soundtrack while passed out in front of the minibar across the room. The sound quality is exactly the opposite of what I would have expected. The bass is rich and thumpy — a surprise, given that there's no subwoofer — and it's the highs that are a little flat. Still, the Apple Pro/PowerWave combination roundly spanks any other solution I've tried so far.
Still, the hunt continues. I've got emails out to everybody. IBM makes a nice set of amplified speakers, designed to be hung off the sides of their flat-panel monitors. Ten watts of amplified power, and reasonably flat and compact. Let's see what they sound like.
The 2003 edition of the Andy Ihnatko Pan-American Goodwill Tour begins in March and will extend to the Pacific Rim before it's over with. I haven't worked out the mileage yet but this year I might break my record. I hope to have this Travel Speaker problem solved before I set out, so if you get a hotel room in North America sometime between now and August for purposes of business, tourism, or the purchase of vending of carnal favors, and you're disturbed by the Warren Zevon reverberating through the adjoining walls, don't bother complaining. After two weeks on the road I'll be long-past caring, plus I'll have all three locks engaged on the door and I won't be able to hear your pounding anyway.
| | Oh, and I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago but I couldn't, what with suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous software and everything. So to everyone who wants to email me about my latest Macworld column ("'I' Is The Loneliest Number"):
Yes, yes yes and yes again, I know that it's possible to create a DVD screen grab by using a third-party utility like Snapz Pro or any of three or four different workarounds. My complaint isn't that it's not physically possible to do a grab from DVD Player. I just look at DVD Player -- an app that (a) is part of the whole point of owning a PowerBook, and (b) I can't get anywhere else from any other software company -- and it creeps me out it isn't the best app available.
"Best," hell, it lacks a basic feature. Any player on the Windows side can make a frame grab, including the one Microsoft gives you for free. So why can't Apple's?
DVD Player, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, iPhoto. If you're a software maker, you're a fool to try and sell a tool for playing DVDs, editing video, burning DVDs, or managing libraries of digital music or photos. You're betting against the house, all the way. I hate the lack of competition in these increasingly-vital apps. Of course, what I hate more is that I can't bitch about Microsoft's anti-competitive arm-twisting tactics with quite the same arrogant flair as I once did.
Still, I've always said that I'm ready to endorse a tin-horned dictator, so long as fascism provides an attractive alternative to democracy. And during the opening semesters of Apple's iLife apps, we sure had a dictator of whom we could be justly proud. We didn't feel like dopes. I for one was proud to take part in the annual May Day presentations, freezing my butt off in a stadium with 90,000 others, awaiting the signal to flip over the colored card I was holding and change the giant image of an Apple logo to a giant image of Steve Jobs liberating an oppressed office worker. It was the least I could do and it made for great TV.
But Apple wasn't being aggressive in maintaining the apps' technological lead. Related Windows offerings were catching up...and fast. And thanks to the fact that a Windows video editor has to compete with other Windows video editors, it's a sure bet that a stagnant iMovie would soon be eclipsed. Maybe for good.
So I was glad to see Apple deliver such serious upgrades to the i-Apps during Macworld Expo. Thanks to those new editions, iMovie still kicks butt, as does iDVD. (iPhoto remains the Fredo of the suite, but then again, my expectations weren't high. To steal that line from The Godfather, Part II, "iPhoto's got a good heart. But it's weak, and it's stupid.)
See, iMovie 1.0 was a great move for Apple because when a future buyer of a Dell or a Gateway saw it in action and asked "Well, how do I do that with a Windows machine?" the answer was "You can't." It'd be a damned shame if some day, Apple were on the wrong side of that question.
| | I love the "Arthur" show. It comes on precisely at the logical midpoint of my workday (after I've done all of the low-brainpower stuff and am desperate for something that'll lead me into the calm harbor known as Let's Not Start Any Big Projects Right Now; It's Too Close To Suppertime). It also happens to be one of only a handful of TV shows — kiddie or adult-ey — that reliably provides the viewers with stories that feature a well-thought-out Beginning, Middle and End, featuring characters with consistent and believable personalities.
I should point out that Einstein himself would interrupt important meetings by tapping his watch and scolding "Nuh-uh. Time for Beany." As in Bob Clampett's "Beany And Cecil" show. It is through such a shrewd budgeting of my daily schedule that I, too intend to be featured on a best-selling dorm poster some day.
Plus, come on, man...the people who create this show love their work. Arthur's parents need to replace their old car and head for Elwood City's used-vehicle wonderland, Crosswire Motors. Behind the scenes, we see Mr. Crosswire trying to stir up his dispirited and sluggard team of salesmen. "What am I doing wrong?" he pleads. "I even tried to motivate you with prizes for the most sales!"
Here he gestures toward a tote board and a table of prizes. The camera doesn't make a big deal about it, but the shot lasts just long enough to deliver the punchline: first prize is a framed photo of Mr. Crosswire.
Aha! But what's second prize? It's a set of steak knives.
And once the writers committed to that joke, they looked at each other and realized that they had no alternative. They could not look at themselves in the mirror the next morning unless they specified that there had — simply had — to be an empty spot on the table where one would expect a Third Prize to sit.
Here in the IhnatCorp home offices, this was good for at least a half an hour's worth of non-productivity. It was after 5:00 before I was able to stop repeating Alec Baldwin's sinister alpha-male speech to the meek and underperforming salesmen at the beginning of "Glenngary Glenross," mimicing Mr. Crosswire's cartoony voice:
"First prize is a brand-new Cadillac. You want to know what second prize is? It's this set of steak knives.
"Third prize is YOU'RE FIRED."
I only snapped out of it when I found myself at a loss for how to continue. Crosswire needs to bark out "Hey you! Put that coffeepot DOWN. Mr. Crosswire's coffee is only for people who SELL." In the movie, Baldwin directs this at Jack Lemmon but alas, the "Arthur" writers failed to give us an emotional attachment to any of Mr. Crosswire's salespeople.
So nine out of ten points to the "Arthur" people for that scene, with one bonus point for choosing the steak knives for the "Glenross" reference instead of a different prop. I like a good in-joke as much as the next guy, but if Crosswire were to suddenly produce a pair of spheres made from a certain alloy of copper and zinc...
| | How nuts am I? I've only just gotten this weblog app working again and I'm already monkeying around with new features.
Hang on. This could be ugly.
Push the button, Frank...
| | Hey, cool. There isn't a big, smoking crater where Lilith used to be.
So for the benefit of you folks who are — for lack of a better word — "enjoying" this blog via an RSS news aggregator, I've decided to start titling everything I post. I was vehemently anti-title when I built the RSS feed. I hate coming up with titles. More than half the time, my editors make up their own titles for my columns because I come up absolutely blank even after applying both frontal lobes firmly against the problem.
It's a soul-shredding experience. It's like naming your kid. You had a favorite uncle, he was the man who filled you with confidence and drive and every success you've earned in life is due in some part to that uncle. So in a fit of sentimentality and with the keen realization that the guy still has a couple hundred grand that you haven't touched him for yet, you name your first born after it.
And there it is: the kid has to go through the next eighty years of life with a name like "Bonfiglio." If the first thing you say to women, teachers, potential employers, and the carnivorous bullies of the world is "Hi there; my name is Bonfiglio Hempley" there's really no chance to make a second-impression. The child will learn how to run very, very well, and I think if rolling up into a little ball and covering up your face and groin ever becomes an Olympic event, little Bonfiglio will be right there on the Gold Medal platform. Otherwise, there's really no upside to the proposition.
My brain-lock vis a vis titles is the idea that I'll have sweat and labored to produce a True Gem of Perfect Beauty, Clarity and Wisdom but no one will ever read it. They'll judge it based on the title ("A Mouthful Of Africanized Killer Bees") and that's the ballgame.
So when I set up the RSS feed, I wrote a little code that simply builds a fake headline out of the date and time. Fortunately, in the past month I've had to build and post these entries by hand and in the process discovered that coming up with titles blog entries is actually a snap.
(The secret: I don't care. What a revelation! I'm going to try to Not Care about a whole hell of a lot of things from now on.)
Thus I have added another field to the Settings sheet of my blogger app and a little code to support it. CWOBber will still build a title for me, but if I click a checkbox and provide one, it's just as happy to just bung it in there.
Speaking of RSS readers and blogger apps, Ranchero's NetNewsWire has made a vast leap forward. They've made a lot of tweaks to its familiar features but now it'll let you post right to your Blogger, Movable Type, or Radio weblog. You can even write and save drafts for later editing and posting.
Whoof. I feel kinda dumb. I created CWOBber a year or two ago only because I couldn't find a commercial blogger app that I even remotely liked. I've been using the NewNewsWire Pro beta for a few weeks now and, Ladies and gentlemen, if I'd downloaded the beta in late November (at the height of my post-Jaguar My-Blog-App-Don't-Work-No-More Blues) I might have moved Yellowtext to a brand-new system.
It's too late for me, but not for you folks. The current beta expires at the end of January but I'm sure it'll be replaced with somethingorother.
| | Stuck on my next column, I contact my nephew, currently enrolled in the liberal-arts program of one of the finer grammar schools of eastern Massachusetts.
"Rally round, son," I commanded, without preamble. "Your uncle is in the soup and requires your counsel. Do you have any tips on writing?"
"Wellll," he said, "Sometimes I'll dilly-dally. Like, if there's only ten minutes until the bell, I'll just pretend to write until it's time to go home."
This was good stuff. Very good stuff, in fact. But there was more.
"Oh, and if it isn't close to the bell, I'll ask my teacher if I can go to the bathroom. That's good, too."
I'm off to zap an email to the boy's parents. The boy's a prodigy and they'd be commiting a grievous sin — a bona-fide, 9,000 years in Catholic purgatory sin — if they didn't encourage him to pursue a career in freelance journalism. All he needs is a fax machine and a musical instrument and he could easily get his own arts column in the local alternative-weekly.
(The former is so that you can pretend to be waiting for your editor to send you your revisions. The latter needs to be at hand so that when you hear footsteps down the hall, you can grab it and pretend that you're seeking le mot juste when in reality you were on the web searching for "Welcome Back, Kotter" fanfics.)
| | The Bic Boy was designed by well-known French graphic designer Raymond Savignac in 1961.
This factoid is courtesy of the confluence of (a) Google, (b) a workday that just won't start, no matter how often I adjust the choke and yank the starter cord, and (c) the presence of my favorite writing instrument next to Lilith...both figuratively and, at the moment, literally.
| | This was a Friday night of the damnable variety. I finished working late enough that hooking up with a few friends and spending the evening doing some crimes [cf. "Repo Man," 1984] was not a feasable option, but not so late that I could just stay inside and do laundry, either. So I went out to this coffeeshop that has live entertainment and spent a couple of hours working my way through both a roast-beef sandwich and a day's worth of rough manuscript.
(Regarding the band. When I sat down, it was just a guy with a guitar. About the time my order arrived, a bass player came through the door, plugged in, and started backing the guitarist, right in mid-song. By the time I concluded that yes, I did indeed need a piece of carrot cake and successfully bounced a rolled-up napkin off my waitron's neck, a saxophonist appeared. He fitted the various bits of his instrument together and likewise joined in without being introduced or waiting for the next number.
It occurred to me that this must be either the most professional and well-organized band in the world ("So what time do you want me there, man?" "How about right before the bridge of 'Hey, Mary'?") or the very least ("I told you and told you and told you: don't ever book me on a night when 'Celebrity Boxing' is on!!!"). End of aside.)
I packed up my mobile office and jetted out of there at 10. I wound up at Blockbuster, chiefly because I had started "Pavarotti In Concert" on my iPod and the detour would let me hear the rest of it before I arrived back home.
They had just gotten in the complete Season 1 DVD boxed-set of "The Shield."
I've been meaning to check this show out. Michael Chiklis always struck me as an actor's actor — I heartily approve of such people — and when a drama earns consistent accolades despite being broadcast on the FX Network (the channel voted Most Likely To Be Dropped From The Lineup In Favor Of A Spanish-Language Shopping Channel by the readers of Evil Bastard Lizard Scum Cable Operator Monthly), notice must be paid.
So tra-la! Blockbuster broke the four-disc set apart for individual rental, but I snagged Disc 1 without a thought. Hang the expense!
Complication 1: the clerk pointed out that there was a new three-for-$9.99 rental special going on.
OK. Good. Instead of just three episodes, I'll take home 3/4 of the whole first season.
Complication 2: you can still get a dollar back if you return the rental within a day.
"Is that a dollar for the whole set, or a dollar per disc?" I asked.
"Per disc. So if you bring them back by 11 PM Saturday, you'll get a $3 credit" she said.
So you can appreciate my dillemma. I've got about twelve hours of video here. I've got about 24 hours before 11 PM. If I finish it in time, I'll have spent $7 to preview 3/4 of "The Shield: The Complete First Season" and thus if it's really good, I can easily talk myself into buying it sometime later. If I don't finish it in time, it'll have cost me $9.99 and somehow it'll make more sense to just rent Volume 4. Don't ask me how it works out that way; I just know it does.
Oh, how I do love a challenge...
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