Year: 2012

This year not only do I need to register my car, but my driver’s license is expiring. Due to some federal law, the identification requirements to get a license are now much higher. They want a proof of citizenship which can be a birth certificate or passport, a proof of social security number, which can be a W-2 or Social Security Card, and proof of address which can be two different utility or bank statements. This was causing a lot of problems and long lines when it was introduced in July, but I was hoping things had calmed down now. This is a far cry from the days when one of my friends took his older brother’s birth certificate to the driver’s license place to get a driver’s license in his brother’s name with his own picture: A perfect fake ID saying he was over 21, which only failed once, when he opened his wallet and the clerk saw two licenses.
Continue reading “Car Day”

This past summer I wanted to rejoin Netflix again, but the only plan they offered was a streaming video option that you could then add DVD’s by mail to. I wasn’t really interested in streaming, but I know that Netflix has a hard time making money by mailing DVD’s in red envelopes. Their streaming plan is pretty successful, though, with one estimate saying that 25% of web traffic is Netflix streaming video (not sure I believe that).

I went to Netflix to see if I could get a DVD only plan, but I still couldn’t see any way to do it, even though the Netflix website sort of made it sound possible. The only thing I could do was sign up for streaming.

So I went looking for alternatives. I knew Blockbuster had a mail service. I found one review that said it wasn’t in the same league as Netflix where they will mail you your next DVD the same day they get one from you. Those days really make a big difference in the number of movies you can get in a month.

Then I found a YouTube video where a guy explains how you can join, then switch from streaming to DVD only. So I thought I’d try it out, but it means signing up first and giving my credit card number. I did it anyway, hoping for the best. Once I got an account, there was no way to drop streaming. When I tried to get DVD only, the link was broken! I was so frustrated. I went ahead and cancelled right away, but they said it wouldn’t be effective until next month and I could enjoy streaming until then. Grrrrrrr. I found a phone number, but this was around midnight on Saturday, so I wasn’t expecting it to work. To my surprise I got in contact with a real person almost right away. She transferred me to a DVD guy who switched my account and said that if they charged me for the first month of streaming anyway, he would give my account a credit.

So, back to Netflix again!

I know that it is important to get aerobic exercise a few times each week, but I’ve avoided getting an exercise machine because I figured the best thing for me and the dogs is to take the dogs for a walk. I think dogs can be overwalked and that is one reason Austin started getting pretty stiff legged, but when we cut back from 2 miles to 1 mile, he started doing a lot better (I was thinking he might need the same surgery Katie got, but never went through with it). Now with Katie ailing, we are lucky to get a mile, even though we probably spend more time out. So the intensity of our walks, which wasn’t great to begin with, is very low.

I really don’t like running and when I have run regularly in the past I would actually start to ache while putting my shoes on. And I’d procrastinate all night. It was terrible. So I thought an exercise machine might be good, but they are expensive and the cheaper ones maybe aren’t that great. I still have an old Nordic Track cross-country ski machine that I never thought was that good, partly because I bought the cheapest one they had. You don’t hear much about Nordic Tracks anymore. Instead it is all treadmills and elliptical trainers. Well, a treadmill is just running, so I wasn’t crazy about that. Elliptical trainers are lower impact and supposed to be better for your joints, so that seemed like a good way to go. I thought it would be good to get a used elliptical trainer that someone had bought and never used. But it wasn’t like I was pursuing this.
Continue reading “Elliptical Trainer”

I’ve mentioned this before, but my friend Jenny goes through computers like crazy. She bought a Dell in 2011 and it failed just after the 1-year warranty expired. She paid to have the hard drive replaced by Dell in May, with the repairs being warranted for 90 days. So promptly when that time was up, the hard drive failed again. I have no idea why, but when the computer tries to start up, the hard drive makes a clicking noise, which I told her is the “click of death.” Continue reading “Computer Shopping”

On July 4, SyFy ran a Twilight Zone marathon. I recorded all the episodes I could and have been watching them when nothing much else is on. Twilight Zone is one of those great shows where many of the episodes have become famous cultural icons, often imitated or referenced in other shows. One famous episode is “It’s a Good Life” featuring a little kid who sends people “off to the cornfield” (his mother is played by Cloris Leachman, who became famous on the Mary Tyler Moore Show). Another is “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” an early role for William Shatner (who would become Captain Kirk a few years later), where he sees a gremlin on the wing tearing up the plane he is in.

It had to be difficult to make a show like this. You needed a different plot, a different cast, and different sets for every show. With TV seasons much longer back in those days, Rod Serling and the other writers had to come up with an awful lot of ideas, held in check by a pretty low budget and a 30-minute timeframe. Honestly, some episodes didn’t need the full 30 minutes. One famous show, “Eye of the Beholder,” was about a horribly ugly woman whose face has been treated to make her look normal, but spends almost the entire episode under bandages. Only at the end do they remove the wraps, and in horror discover that she still looks gorgeous by our standards (played by Donna Douglas, who would become Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies), but terrible by their standards since they are all ugly (explaining why we haven’t seen any characters’ faces the entire show). That was probably a 5-minute idea stretched out to a whole show. Continue reading “Twilight Zone”