Domestic Geek

As seen on the CBSnews.com: Mo Rocca eats some crow and learns to knit.

Not much to report this week. I started working on some knit Christmas stockings for Marcus and me. I decided last year that I can no longer use my old ones. I made matching quilted/cross-stitch stockings for Marcus, myself, Ursa and Skippy many years ago. It hurts now to pull them out and not be able to hang the dog ones (I'm teary as I type this), so I retired them. I purchased the Knit Christmas Stockings book and asked Marcus to pick out which one he wanted. Of course he picks the most basic one and then picked red/green as the color he wanted. Not original, but that is OK. I asked for his input and I'm going to make what he wants. When they are done, I'll post a link to the completed project post on the craft blog.

Marcus and I are celebrating our 17 year anniversary this week (10/28). We continued our tradition of getting Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster to celebrate last evening. We had a really awesome server, it was cold and snowy outside (just the way Marcus likes it). We had a really nice time.

I realized last night that Mayor Tortimer never gave me my golden fishing rod for catching all the species of fish in the Animal Crossing: City Folk game on our Wii. Grrrrr. To say I was upset was an understatement. I searched forum and cheat sites trying to figure out why I hadn't received it. I kept trying to tell myself that it is only a game and not that big of a deal, but I was genuinely disappointed. I open the game this morning and ta-dah!...he's outside my house with my fishing rod. D'oh!

I started my Netflix membership back up, so I've been on a movie watching kick. I'm also really pissed off at network television at the moment. At the start of the season, I picked which shows I would DVR and which shows I could watch online and which shows I would just have to give in and watch live if I wanted to see them. I had a schedule with all of my bases covered...or so I thought. The stupid networks keep changing when their programs air and a couple of shows I thought had online episodes do not. Then you throw in a hour episode here that screws up the schedule or a season premiere weeks after the other shows start that I hadn't calculated into the fray. It's maddening. I understand why they do it, but it still infuriates me to no end. You can't even do like you used to — watch one show the first half of the season and then watch another show during repeats — because there is no repeat season anymore. Show a few episodes, a couple of weeks of repeats, a few new episodes. Never coinciding with any other show's schedule. Annoying.

Marcus rented Scribblenauts for my Nintendo DS from Gamefly, so I played that this past week. Interesting little game. I'll have to get that one day. I went ahead and sent it back for now, though. I've got other stuff I need to be doing instead of being addicted to yet another video game!

Well, it's that time of year to get the wishlists in order. I guess I'll start tackling that later today. The weather is supposed to be halfway decent today, so I guess I had better get the oil changed in my car before it snows again. Lots to do today, so I'd better get to it.

10/27/09 - ETA: CBS had repeats on last night — showing shows from last season. WTF is up with that? Why do I want them to show stuff that I may now already own on DVD? Lame! Network television sucks!

I'm watching the Bonnie Hunt show right now and her musical guest today is Labelle. Man, those women still have pipes! I can't believe that Patti Labelle is 64 years old. All three of those women look amazing and it's inspirational that they're still doing what they love. Patti sang the National Anthem at one of the World Series games this year. I bet that was cool.

The Big Bang Theory is my most favorite show ever! I love the geeky t-shirts they have the cast wearing on that show. I've been meaning to (for a while now) figure out where all those great shirts come from. Well, somebody did all the work for me. Check out SheldonShirts.com. Not only have they tracked down where you can get some of those cool shirts that Sheldon (and Leonard) wear, but some of the other cool things that have been in the show. They also have links to get other great geeky stuff, too. Thanks guys at SheldonShirts!

In a related vein, you can follow the show's characters on Twitter. It's kind of amusing. Here's links to their profiles: Sheldon, Leonard, Penny, Raj, Howard and Leslie Winkle. Funny stuff!

I haven't been thrilled with much that's on television this season and therefore not terribly saddened by the Hollywood writer's strike, but one show I absolutely love is The Big Bang Theory. Maybe it is the soft spot I have in my heart for geeks or because I am one, but I absolutely love this show!

I first thought the premise was stupid. I only watched it because it was sandwiched in between two other Monday night shows I regularly watch. Here's the premise: Two genius-type guys share an apartment and their world is turned topsy turvy when a pretty blond moves in a across the hall. Stereotypes abound, but I can totally believe the storylines. I've read several reviews of people absolutely hating this show. Maybe it's because they don't know any of these types of people in real life. All I know is, it's one of two shows that I look forward to every week, the other being The Ghost Whisperer.

I'm sure this show will not survive more than a season since I like it so much, though. Seems to be my luck.

I think I'm going to join Marcus in his boycott of NBC. I hit the NBC site today trying to find out why they aren't showing Law & Order: Criminal Intent anymore. I figured since they're showing L&O: SVU twice during the week that it must've been canceled. Nope, they're showing it "exclusively" on USA now. Why? How freaking stupid. They don't show any of the L&O shows on their site. Since Marcus and I downgraded our satellite to basic and since NBC/Universal (including the USA Network) is no longer putting content on iTunes, I don't have the ability to see it. I also can't get new Psych or Monk episodes once their contract with Apple expires. We can't complete the library of The Office episodes we were buying. We can't torrent everything because Comcast is cracking down on that. This is so lame.

One more reason why this country needs ala carte cable and satellite programming. I'm willing to pay for USA, Comedy Central, perhaps The Discovery Channel. I DON'T WANT Spanish-speaking stations, shopping channels, religious programming or the rest of the crap that gets bundled into the available packages. I would have gotten TBS, too, so that I could've watched the Rockies sweep the Diamondbacks these last four games instead of listening on the radio and watching the Gameday window on MLB.com. Does TBS have the exclusive contract for the World Series, too?

On a related note, I'm getting sick of network television in general. The only four shows so far this season that I'm digging is Ugly Betty, The Ghost Whisperer, The Big Bang Theory and The Office. Of course, an NBC boycott will drop The Office from my schedule. They're ruining the Vegas CSI and CSI: Miami by putting too much relationship crap into the story lines. Two and a Half Men is just pathetic. The dysfunction was funny for a couple of seasons — now it is just tired and sad. The same can be said for How I Met Your Mother. Caveman just sucked. I can do without Heroes this season, too. I did kind of enjoy that show Pushing Daisies last week, but I'm not sure if I could stomach that style every week, though.

The good news is that our PVR doesn't fill up very fast anymore. I'm certainly spending a lot less time camped out in front of the television.

I just noticed this morning that I've had the first disc of season 3 of 24 that I rented from Netflix in my possession since November 1st of 2006. I'd say chances are pretty good that after 10½ months, despite several attempts to do so, I'm never going to watch it. It's going back today.

Well, I found out today that I'm going to waste one less hour watching television. It turns out that CW's Veronica Mars was not renewed for this fall. That really ticks me off. I wish networks would let a series know before the end if it is going to be picked up again or not so that a series finale can be written if need be. I'm tired of being left hanging.