What can I say? The Olympics are on. Which would I rather do, stare at a computer screen or at the new HDTV and watch men in tights and men in tight bathing suits?
Speaking of bathing suits, I find it quite disturbing that I can no longer tell the men swimmers from the women swimmers. The men used to wear Speedos and were buff and cute and sometimes bald ... er I digress. Now basically the men and the women wear the same type of suit and you can't tell the men from the women without looking at the race header - Men's 200 meter, Women's 200 meter -to figure out the sex. And it isn't the suits as much as it is the size of the women? They ain't no anorexic figure skaters and that is for sure! These are women with the physique some men would envy! Yikes.
I also enjoy leering .. er watching the men's gymnastics. It's amazing how strong these guys are. I can't even imagine getting up on those rings or the high bar or erk the pommel horse. That thing is down right scary. And the vault? It constantly amazes me. And they do it in these cute outfits.
Women's gymnastics is fun to watch to, and I love the all-around where they have to compete on all the different apparatus and the floor exercise. Watching the drama queens boo-hoo after a misstep I can live without.
The other sport that really fascinates me is rowing. Especially when you have several rowers in a boat or scull. Is that beautiful or what? I don't know where I was when coordination was handed out, but to me to see all that synchronization is wonderful.
Diving. What can you say - watching these people on the platform dive and somersault and twist and pike without injuring themselves is fascinating.
But unfortunately there are some sports that I don't bother with. Beach volleyball? C'mon! Synchronized swimming is sheer idiocy and not a sport, although maybe they should get credit for not drowning. And I absolutely refuse to watch any professional athlete as in tennis and basketball (and in Winter Olympics hockey) play. In my mind, they have usurped the place of the amateur athlete so they can indulge themselves.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
How Many Times Can We Cut That Cable Line?
When we lived in Michigan during the last 18 years we lived without cable. In many ways that was a wonderful thing. We had a roto-tenna that brought us regular TV, no History Channel, no HGTV - gasp - no MSNBC morning, noon and night. And we lived without it happily until we went on vacation and were introduced to Court TV, History channel and MSNBC. And yes, in the back of our minds, we knew we would need cable if we wanted more than one TV station.
Here we are 10 months into our great adventure and 10 months of Charter cable, internet and telephone. They're fine when they work. Unfortunately, I think the people who are doing the road construction on Fairground street have inbred too much since they've cut our cable no less than 5 times in the two months since we've had the cable installed at our new home. I mean really, how many times can you cut through a cable in the same place?
Today's conversation with Charter Cable (located anywhere but here):
DH: (when finally connected to a service rep) I'd like to report an outage.
Charter: Let me help you, sir. Let's see if we can bring up your internet.
DH: Everything is out, TV, phone and internet.
Charter: There are no reported outages in your area.
DH: I'm reporting one now! This happens frequently.
Charter: Sorry, sir. The earliest we can send someone is tomorrow.
There is a reason that Charter television is the lowest rated cable system. We ran errands this afternoon to avoid staring at static tv and blank computer screens. I can hardly wait for Charter to call and ask how their service was.
Here we are 10 months into our great adventure and 10 months of Charter cable, internet and telephone. They're fine when they work. Unfortunately, I think the people who are doing the road construction on Fairground street have inbred too much since they've cut our cable no less than 5 times in the two months since we've had the cable installed at our new home. I mean really, how many times can you cut through a cable in the same place?
Today's conversation with Charter Cable (located anywhere but here):
DH: (when finally connected to a service rep) I'd like to report an outage.
Charter: Let me help you, sir. Let's see if we can bring up your internet.
DH: Everything is out, TV, phone and internet.
Charter: There are no reported outages in your area.
DH: I'm reporting one now! This happens frequently.
Charter: Sorry, sir. The earliest we can send someone is tomorrow.
There is a reason that Charter television is the lowest rated cable system. We ran errands this afternoon to avoid staring at static tv and blank computer screens. I can hardly wait for Charter to call and ask how their service was.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The Manic Ice Maker
I love ice water. Really, I do. Especially when it has a lemon wedge in it. I absolutely can not drink tap water. I am a water snob.
One thing I really insisted on when we were in the process of building our TN home was a french door stainless steel fridge with an icemaker. We'd never had the experience of an icemaker before our rented condo, and it was just so convenient. No more going in the fridge for ice and finding the ice cubes had evaporated in the ice trays. No more dribbling water on the floor from sink to fridge.
I'm sure not many people have had the enjoyment of shopping for appliances with my DH. When choosing the colors, counters, flooring, finishes for our house, he pretty much deferred to my judgement. Not so on the appliances. He set a budget for appliances without even considering that the only new appliance we bought in the last 10 years was a new dishwasher. That budget he nailed. The stove, microwave/range hood and dishwasher we had some choice on and we did change out the dishwasher. The refrigerator was another matter.
Probably the one thing about this little TN town I don't like is the lack of store competition. There are no big box stores like Target and Best Buy. We do have scaled down versions of Sears, Penneys and Kohls, an Electronics Express store and a couple independent appliance stores, and furniture shopping is a real chore here. We spent hours and he agonized over the cost.
At any rate, we made the rounds of Sears, Electronics Express, Lowes and the independant appliance store. We found a model we liked at Lowes at a price we could live with and after our builder's discount, it wasn't that much over budget.
Fast forward to refrigerator delivery day. Truck pulls up to house shortly before the asphalt people show up. No fridge on truck. Blah! Apparently Lowes sold our great deal to someone else.
Closing day finally arrives with final payoff and news that we'll have to either special order (10 days) or find something else because the store no longer has it in stock, but Lowes would make us happy. Much to Lowes chagrin, there was nothing the store that remotely went with our other appliances, had the features we wanted or that would fit in the alotted space. So we special ordered our great deal, Lowes ate the additional cost and waited another week for our fridge.
The thing I really like about the fridge is that it does not have an icemaker or water dispenser in the door. Yes, it has the requisite icemaker and the water dispenser is located on the inside of the fridge. And yes, we spent more on a french door model, but it has been very convenient except for one thing: the icemaker is possessed. No way can we keep up with the amount of ice it makes. The more we use, the more it makes. And sometimes those ice cubes come out all attached and sometimes in transporting them from freezer to glass they break apart and leave little chips of ice which become drips of water on the floor!
One thing I really insisted on when we were in the process of building our TN home was a french door stainless steel fridge with an icemaker. We'd never had the experience of an icemaker before our rented condo, and it was just so convenient. No more going in the fridge for ice and finding the ice cubes had evaporated in the ice trays. No more dribbling water on the floor from sink to fridge.
I'm sure not many people have had the enjoyment of shopping for appliances with my DH. When choosing the colors, counters, flooring, finishes for our house, he pretty much deferred to my judgement. Not so on the appliances. He set a budget for appliances without even considering that the only new appliance we bought in the last 10 years was a new dishwasher. That budget he nailed. The stove, microwave/range hood and dishwasher we had some choice on and we did change out the dishwasher. The refrigerator was another matter.
Probably the one thing about this little TN town I don't like is the lack of store competition. There are no big box stores like Target and Best Buy. We do have scaled down versions of Sears, Penneys and Kohls, an Electronics Express store and a couple independent appliance stores, and furniture shopping is a real chore here. We spent hours and he agonized over the cost.
At any rate, we made the rounds of Sears, Electronics Express, Lowes and the independant appliance store. We found a model we liked at Lowes at a price we could live with and after our builder's discount, it wasn't that much over budget.
Fast forward to refrigerator delivery day. Truck pulls up to house shortly before the asphalt people show up. No fridge on truck. Blah! Apparently Lowes sold our great deal to someone else.
Closing day finally arrives with final payoff and news that we'll have to either special order (10 days) or find something else because the store no longer has it in stock, but Lowes would make us happy. Much to Lowes chagrin, there was nothing the store that remotely went with our other appliances, had the features we wanted or that would fit in the alotted space. So we special ordered our great deal, Lowes ate the additional cost and waited another week for our fridge.
The thing I really like about the fridge is that it does not have an icemaker or water dispenser in the door. Yes, it has the requisite icemaker and the water dispenser is located on the inside of the fridge. And yes, we spent more on a french door model, but it has been very convenient except for one thing: the icemaker is possessed. No way can we keep up with the amount of ice it makes. The more we use, the more it makes. And sometimes those ice cubes come out all attached and sometimes in transporting them from freezer to glass they break apart and leave little chips of ice which become drips of water on the floor!
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