Behind the Face(book) Day 3

Another day of Facebook updates uncoded (trust me, this will get less interesting as time goes on)...

is thankful that not only did Duncan sleep in his crib all night (after we finally got him in it around 10:30), but he's still asleep. Of course, Malcolm decided to climb into our bed at some point during the night and was pretty much up by 6. You win some, you lose some.

Juggling the sleep patterns of two kids can be exhausting...

officially hates Wednesday drop offs now that I'm leaving both boys at the JCC. Malcolm needs to be there no later than 9:15, but Duncan can't be dropped off until 9:30. Those 15 minutes of extra bonding time made him miserable when they finally opened the doors. Now I'm stuck at my parents' house waiting for some workmen...bored, bored, bored...

Sure its only 15 minutes between taking Malcolm to his class and Duncan to day care...but in those 15 minutes Duncan had phone trying to jam his plastic "Bob the Builder" phone into the coin return slot of a vending machine and I kept pulling it out (much to his delight -- and the nice thing was it fit perfectly)...so by the time we could go in, he didn't want me to leave...but its one of those things you do quickly, like taking off a band-aid...and he had a great day.

has pulled the trigger and started the process on switching from Cablevisionless to Direct TV.

More on this later...

Day 3 of the Wii Active 30 Day Challenge said to rest...so I did 30 minutes on the Elliptical...I'll rest later...

I figured I'm in a groove and while I could have done a workout with Wii Active anyway by just pushing the button, I decided to change things up a bit by "resting" with the game (still filled out my journals) and doing straight cardio.

Direct TV has been ordered (thanks Liz & Darin)...earliest installation is January 21 because lots of people are jumping off the Cablevisionless ship...

We know someone in the install business that we met through doing theater. If we signed up for Direct TV through his company we'd get an extra discount. I talked at length to him about my fears that we would not be able to get a good signal because of all the trees around our house. He spoke to his tech people and they claim that this isn't much of a problem these days. Less than 1% of installs have to be aborted because of lack of signal. So I figured let's try it...worst case scenario is we have a day like the one we had when AT&T tried to install U-Verse -- a waste of time -- best case is we're out from unble the thumb of Cablevision for TV service.

The sad part is that things are only going to get worse across the boards between the distributors (Cablevision, Direct TV, etc) and the providers (the various networks). In the case of what caused us to switch, both Cablevision and Scripss (owners of Food Network & HGTV among others) are at fault. And the only people who are gonna get hurt are the consumers because everything is about pleasing the bottom line of the stock holders and has nothing to do with keeping the customer base happy. Look for more battles like this, more channels removed from various distributor's lineups, rate increases and a major overhaul in how we the consumer eventually get to the programming. Look for the internet to help change that even more drastically over the next few years.

just had the best (or maybe second best) tamale he's ever eaten (which I believe brings the total in 40 years to like 4 -- 3 in the last 7 years).

Our cleaning lady brought us tamales she made over the holidays and they were yummy...almost as good as or maybe better than my sister-in-law's...of course, its hard to keep track of how good things taste when there's at least a year between eating them...but they are good.

isn't sure if it's funny, ironic or just plain stupid that 45 days after the failure of AT&T to get U-Verse into my house, they've sent me a postcard about how "my rates" are going up as of February 1. I'm gonna go with just plain stupidity. And now to watch an all new ABC Comedy line-up (just wish "Ted" were part of i...t, but we got a nice double dose last night).

Of course its just a blanket postcard that AT&T sends to all of its customers, but I found it pretty funny.

Meanwhile, ABC has finally gathered together an almost perfect night of shows on Wednesdays. "The Middle" is a funny show about a middle class family who lives in the middle of nowhere just trying to get by in life. The situations they find themselves in are easy to relate to, especially if you have kids. Patricia Heaton's voice overs are cliche, but you get used to them. The show would work just as well without them. "Modern Family" is probably the best comedy currently on TV. This "documentary" about the lives of an extended family has a top-notch cast and is always funny. "Cougar Town" should be something I dislike (not a big Courtney Cox fan), but it works well because of her supporting cast and the writing. And now they've added "Ugly Betty" to the end of the night, possibly saving it from the death it was experiencing on Friday nights. The show isn't as fresh as it once was, but it is still enjoyable.

Now all ABC has to do is find one more 30 minute comedy to plug the hole left by "Hank" (someday Kelsey Grammar will get a good show that people will want to watch again). I'm hoping they just move "Better Off Ted" onto Wednesdays. Its dying a painful death paired with the revamped "Scrubs" (which I have been referring to as either "After Scrubs" or "The Shitcom Formerly Known As Scrubs" because itis that bad). "Ted" is as funny as "Modern Family" but in a different and more surreal way. This office comedy takes a huge poke at the corporate workplace with a cast of quirky characters who wind up in unreal situations. Funny stuff.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times... who are all you people?

Occasionally I like to use quotes from various sources as a staus update -- sometimes to see if someone gets the reference, sometimes because of my mood -- This one comes from the TV series "The Critic" and was uttered by Jay Sherman's father. No reason in posting it other than finding it funny (and yet somewhat appropriate for a social networking site where I don't necessarily really know everyone I'm "friends" with).

Be seeing you.