Wednesday, March 30, 2011

I admit I had to look it up, but I know O'C won't have to.

Things continue nuttily on the home and DJ fronts, the former being a little eased by the need to wait and evaluate, and the latter being heated up in nothing but good ways (projects I’ve wanted to do finally happening, that sort of thing). Since the debate season continues to rapidly wrap up, at least I’m not too conflicted. Lacking enough hours in the day, perhaps, but that is better than too many, in my experience.

Tying up the loose ends of the District tournament has not proven as boringly administrative as expected. Yes, they expect you to send them both copies of the Goy electronic data and the printouts from the data, for reasons only a systems analyst in pon farr can explain, not to mention that this goes here and that goes there for reasons that might actually make sense, but there has been a glitsch that keeps the congress speaker data from taking. (Oh, the horror of not immediately being rewarded with congress speaker points; if that doesn’t bring on pon farr, nothing will!) Whatever. At least they haven’t come to my house in the night and beaten me with sticks. Although I do gather that the executive committee had put that on the agenda.

Last night the Sailors heading for the State finals congregated at the chez. NoShow Junior explained in brilliant detail how he managed to miss Districts (he claimed to have screwed up, an excuse one could not argue with), and everyone explained why working on their cases would have brought on the vapors, and my internet winkled out, but I think it might have something to do with my cutting back on my cable service, because it only lasted a little while. As did the meeting. So as we await the blizzard of ’11 the Sailors are as ready as they ever are. Where did these forecasts of 5 to 10 inches come from? Sunday golf doesn’t look very likely, I’ll say that.

Cutting back cable service is the most modern thing I’ve done since eliminating my landline phone. I watch little TV as such, but I’ve been paying as if I’ve been glued to it. A light diet of old shows or the occasional movie on DVD and I’m full, plus a couple of times a year (or whenever it’s on, whichever comes first) I watch the Superbowl to try to figure out what a down is. Fortunately our cable provider has a dynamic website overflowing with options. If you drill down for a couple of months you will discover the option for reducing your service. The service rep was nice enough about it (he didn’t threaten to come to my house in the night and beat me with sticks), and the deed is now done. So don’t be coming over to the chez to watch any of them newfangled channel networks. Or much else, actually. I’ll be happy to play you a tune on the piano, though.

Speaking of technology, Amazon will now allow me to buy music and store it in the cloud. Whatever. I am a big Amazon buyer versus iTunes because they have more deals and freebies, but that may not last, especially if MobileMe goes both free and musical, since rumors are that you’ll be able to store all your music rather than just some purchases. I have to admit that neither is terribly compelling to me at the moment. At home I already have my music, and on the road I don’t necessarily have internet access (you try hanging around in high schools and see if your experience is any different), nor do I really need to only have my music. Sometimes I like to listen to music I don’t have. Hence Pandora & c. It’s interesting how this business keeps changing, though. It used to be if you wanted to hear a Mozart quartet, you became Mozart’s patron and had him move into the castle with three other musicians. Nowadays it’s a bit different. And I don’t think it’s anywhere near over yet.

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