Archive for the ‘Pop Culture’ Category

• 24: I’m so lost

  Date: 2010.05.25 | Category: I'm just saying, television | Response: 5

  I spent the day being sick. My sinuses are all congested and my food tastes funny. But of course, the day I’m sick is the day the cleaners come and it just felt too weird to be laying on the couch (dying) so I went up to Panera to have a cup of coffee and read my book.

  I came back around 10 am and they were gone so I took up camp on my couch for the rest of the day. I watched The Bachelorette and let me tell you, those guys are all idiots. Except for Frank, I kinda like Frank. I wasn’t too impressed with Ali either, but then again she was given a few zingers that I probably wouldn’t have even known how to respond to.

  Then I watched some of the 24 finale. I’m so lost. It seems that I’ve been falling asleep over the last five or six weeks of 24 and my plan was that I’d figure it out next week. Yeah, that plan is not working out too well. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s the very last episode ever I’d probably just delete it from my DVR and call it wrap. But, I’ve still got 40 minutes left to suffer through.

  I read my book, The Forgotten Garden, watched a little of the French Open (that’s tennis folks, one of the grand slams), took a nap, read a little more, took another nap, and then I finally sat up and plowed through the last 200 pages of the book. It was a really good story. I’d absolutely recommend it.

  Do you know what would make being sick on the couch so much better? An iPad. I’m just saying.

• I <3 AT&T U-Verse

  Date: 2010.03.21 | Category: I'm just saying, television | Response: 4

  That’s right, I heart AT&T U-Verse. It took a few days, and a lot of phone calls, but I can finally say that I love it and that I’m happy that I switched from Time Warner Cable.

  The problem was that for some reason I was set up on a 1 HD / 3 SD profile (that’s 1 high definition and 3 standard definition profile). I don’t know why. I’m not sure what the reason was. But you can bet that I raised a lot of hell until the situation was fixed. Go on, shake your head, you know I made AT&T’s life miserable until my profile was 2 HD/ 2 SD.

  I called on Monday while I was crying over Phoebe dying and my husband was all: IS THIS REALLY THAT IMPORTANT TO YOU? And I was all: RIGHT NOW IT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO ME. AT&T told me that I was too far from the main box in my neighborhood to get the 2 HD channels at once.

  I called on Tuesday and was told that by the time I got home from work the problem would be resolved, all I had to do was reboot the U-Verse box.

  I called on Wednesday and was told that if I downgraded my internet speed then maybe I’d be able to upgrade the high definition streaming. I have no idea if that worked or not because the AT&T agent never called me back on Wednesday morning like she said she was going to.

  I called on Thursday morning and the agent said that while he was sure I could get 2 HD streaming, he doubted that the reception would be good enough. This is when I got pissed off and the next thing I knew there was a repair technician calling to see if I could meet her at my house so she could check all of my wiring and signal strength. Oh yeah, I was home in 15 minutes flat to let her in. It turns out that my wiring was excellent and my signal strength was impressive (of course it was). She called her manager and then it was a done deal. I would have 2 HD within hours or I could call the repair tech’s mobile phone and she’d come over and take care of it.

  And someone in the billing department gave me a $50 credit on next month’s bill.

  If I couldn’t have gotten 2 HD channels I would have definitely gone back to Time Warner Cable — sure I could watch TV in standard definition, but on an HD TV why would I want to?

• Kansas

  Date: 2010.03.14 | Category: theater | Response: 1

  

  The set of The Wiz at First Stage Children’s Theater.

• And then they rang my doorbell and I said yes

  Date: 2010.03.03 | Category: I'm just saying, television | Response: 3

  Remember my internal debate between AT&T U-Verse and Time Warner Cable? I ended up doing nothing, and then over the summer I decided to bundle everything with Time Warner Cable. Since then TWC has had the nerve to raise my rates, and their phone service sucks. Not that we use the house phone very often. It’s more the kid’s line than anything, because her friends are the only ones who ever call it. In fact, tonight the phone rang and she asked me, “Can you get that for me?”

  Ummm, yeah.

  So I answered it for her and it was a recorded message from Scott Walker. He’s running for the governor of Wisconsin. I hung up on him. I’m not a fan of the recorded message.

  ANYHOW.

  Last night my doorbell rang and when I answered it there stood a very nice lady from AT&T and she wanted to know if I’d wanted to switch to AT&T U-Verse and I said yes.

  I guess all I needed was someone to come over and ask me.

• Two Trains and a Hot Chocolate

  Date: 2010.02.07 | Category: family, theater | Response: 1

  Zoe and I went out for coffee and hot chocolate on Saturday morning. She was very impressed with the design in her drink.

  

  We were at Vino Cappuccino, which is right next to the train tracks in Brookfield. On our way to the car there was a train going by, so I took a picture of it.

  

  For lunch we went to Cafe Hollander in Wauwatosa, which is also by the train tracks and wouldn’t you know there was another train.

  

  Saturday was rounded out at First Stage Children’s Theater where we saw The Thief Lord. It was pretty good, although the bar was set VERY HIGH at the last play we saw there: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.