Window Shopper

Welcome back!

Have you ever had that opportunity? You can sign up online to become a Nielsen family for several things. But we got a call from the Nielsen folks a couple of weeks ago asking us if we would like to be one of the families to do a television diary for them. Of course, we loved the idea and told them yes!! The man on the phone assured me that they were grateful and that it would be for “sweeps week” which is really exciting too.

We received the diary a couple of days before the big start which was last Thursday (November 13th). All we had to do was list all of the channels we could watch, who is in the house, how many televisions we have (they send out a diary for each set regardless of whether it even comes on or not). And then the big day came. Of course, Thursday is not the greatest day for us since we often don’t watch anything but Stargate SG-1 on the Sci-Fi channel. Friday, ditto. Saturday and Sunday are great days to watch movies that we already own or others that are rented. Sometimes we do rent though not very often.

But our brightest day, television wise, is Monday. Those shows are awesome. We always either watch or tape to watch later. And we love the shows so much. Whoever would think of a secret agent working in an electronics store in the mall? Chuck is an intersect, called that because his so-called best friend (who is secretly…what other kind is there???…a secret agent) sends him a disc. He plays it on his computer and all of a sudden has the top secrets of the country in his head. The disc then was destroyed in classic Mission Impossible style. Now Chuck is being guarded by two agencies of the government, the FBI and the CIA. One is a guy and one a lady, both very good at their job. We love this show!!!

Next up is what I can only call a strange but really fun show called Heroes. An eclipse happens and suddenly some people have abilities they never had before, some quite harmful, others good. You are allowed to see into the lives of some of these heroes. Actually, not all are heroes as you soon find out. Some are villains with evil in their hearts those abilities help them with their evil deeds. They are in the third season. Excitement is still high. We still want to know what is about to happen next. Both of those shows are on NBC.

Finally, we look in on Boston Legal. For years, we have watched as Denny Crane and Allen Shore take on the world, so to speak. The combo is good with William Shatner in the role of Denny Crane who has “mad cow” disease. He has little trouble telling people about it and less trouble showing it. The reality is that he might have Alzheimer’s disease, his worst fear. His comedy sidekick, though he announces that he is the star of the show (they do that whole “fourth wall” thing which is totally hilarious), is Allen Shore who is a brilliant attorney who takes a different road. He definitely does not do the normal. If I had a lawyer like that, I would have sued at least a couple of places and people in my life and won! Backing up those two are some sane lawyers who also have unconventional ways but tend to win their cases. All in all, a really good show. The sad part is that ABC has canceled the show at the end of the season. We disagree and say so on the diary. We are assured that the network people look at that.

On to Tuesday where we have one favorite show there called Eli Stone. This show is in it’s second season and I hope it runs for many years. Another lawyer show, this one is highly unusual in that Eli has found out he has an aneurysm in the brain that, apparently allows him to see future and could be future events by putting him into the vision. At first, he thought he was in the activity in the vision but realized, somewhat after ducking an airplane that wasn’t really there and acting in court like he saw things that were not there, that those were future events and not reality. That changed his life. Seeking help, he finds a man who does acupuncture. The really strange part of that is that the man used to be a friend of his father’s who also had such visions. This is an awesome show and I hope they don’t take it off the air for a lot of years.

Wednesday, the reprisal of Knight Rider with Kitt, the car that talks, brings all the technology with it and puts it into the car. Updated abilities of the car and the new characters are what make it as exciting, and often more exciting than the original show we loved so much. Knight Industries have come a long way, baby! Kitt and company are up to their fenders in dangerous missions each week. Kitt now has the ability to change his appearance so much that you would not know it’s really a mustang. He can change color, change into an SUV or an attack vehicle. Just say the word. But he has his “human” side too or is trying to learn it. That is somewhat reminiscent of Data on Star Trek, The Next Generation, the android that wanted so much to be human. Kitt does not take it that far but is trying to understand humans.

So, on Wednesday night, we will finish up the diary, seal it and send it off to the Nielsen people. We will have our say in what people watch. I love that. Haven’t you sat there watching a show you wish they had never made? Or watching one you just know they will cancel but wish they wouldn’t? We can hope that our opinions matter.

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Yes, I admit it. I watch Texas Holdem on television. Frankly, I love the strategy of the professional players. This is high stakes poker since many of the tournaments have over a million dollars as prize money. They start out with 2000 players and narrow it down to the last nine. Then they take it to a final table. The play is fantastic. I love it.

When you see these men and women dueling it out for the top prize, it gets exciting. And the thing is, they hold these tournaments in all sorts of casinos with all the glitz like all those las vegas hotels. I saw a tournament recently where the last man standing (yes, man since a woman has yet to get to the top prize. They have made it to the final table though.) won a cool 12 million. That’s a lot of chips!

I asked myself what would I do with 12 million dollars. Easy, give a lot to the ministries that feed the hungry, then buy a house and new car. Very necessary right now. Share with my extended family. Invest so that my dollar can work for me. And last but not least, have some fun. I think that would work nicely.

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There was a time when I wanted to sit down and watch one of the most popular reality shows on the tube. It was good because, in this case, people were getting a lot of help for their families. I’m talking about Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It still comes on on Sunday nights but we don’t watch anymore. This is difficult to say but they got to be pretty much the same thing each week. Yet, I believe that they are doing a great thing. I am just not sure I could put my family through what they go through to get on that show. Whew!

So many times, though, they are helping people with such heavy problems. There were the ones where the returning vet gets help for him and his family because he was wounded and could no longer provide for the family. There were others who had a member of the family that was sick with some very heart wrenching disease like mesothelioma cancer that comes from being exposed to asbestos or another thing where a girl could not stand to be out in the sunlight. Something bad happened to her skin. I cannot remember. But what I did remember is that each and every family that was helped got a new or reconstructed home to live in when the crew was done. Now I think that is worth the effort, don’t you? I just couldn’t watch the pain part anymore.

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A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I had won a prize associated with the new A&E remake of The Andromeda Strain. What I didn’t really get into was talking about the movie itself. Now, I have seen the original move by the same name. I always liked it very much. Good Sci-Fi stuff. Also liked the book by Michael Crichton. The fact is that it’s a great story.

If you like it as much as I do, you will want to see the newest version of The Andromeda Strain, a made-for-tv movie that aired on A&E a couple of weeks ago. The DVD is now out or will be soon and it is awesome! It begins with a scoop from out in space that has fallen into the earth’s atmosphere, landing near a small town. Two young people out on a date pick it up and take it to the local Mr. Fixit. Unfortunately for all of the town, they open it exposing themselves to something that is killing everyone.

The worst part is that the rate of death is almost 100%. There may be survivors so a team goes into the town and sees what the Andromeda Strain is really capable of. Scary stuff. It is packed up and brought back to an underground facility where there are numerous checks and balances to keep anything contained….but it doesn’t…stay contained, that is.

This is a must see for all who love Michael Crichton books or just love the first movie. The purists will probably want to see the first movie and compare but I believe that they each stand on their own merits. I really liked the remake very much. And with a cast of these folks, how could it miss. The cast consists of Benjamin Bratt (Law and Order), Eric McCormack (Will and Grace), Christa Miller (Scrubs and Drew Carey), Daniel Dae Kim (Lost), Viola Davis (Law and Order), Ricky Schroeder (Strong Medicine and NYPD Blue), Andre Braugher (Mist and Rise of the Silver Surfer…I first saw him in Homicide: Life on the Streets). This awesome cast gives a wonderful performance and you believe that this could happen some day. Good movie.

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We gather around, the four of us, to watch whatever movie comes up on the stack. Most of the time, that means a “chick flick”. Now the truth is that most guys do like these, some really do not. But I believe that more guys like chick flicks than they are actually willing to admit. My husband is a guy who really likes them. How do I know? From the moment we were married, he watched the girlie movies with me. I thought, at the time, that he simply was trying to impress me with his willingness to watch them and then I would have to watch the gory ones with him. Not so.

And now, as I said, we sit and watch for a couple of hours. But you know what? I have problems there. While we are sitting at home and because of that we must be comfortable, I am not usually that at all. Frankly, we need new livingroom furniture. I am not too proud to say that. Our couch and love seat are early trailer park, no kidding. The recliner used to….recline that is…but now is sort of just sitting there. We have unfinished bookcases that are jam packed. The tv is sort of sitting in the room by itself.

Not the greatest setup in the world, I know. But I thought about and the thing is, it would be great if we could have some home theater chairs for when we watch the movies. I know. That would not work when we need the rest of the furniture so badly but we have a bedroom that isn’t exactly one. That could hold the chairs until we needed them….every night right now. I think I want to think about this some more but the idea has merit.

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When I came across this contest at Simply Stating the Obvious, I figured out that it’s got a fantastic prize package. And you get the benefit of being able to see the new Andromeda Strain on AETN. It’s a two night television show called “The Andromeda Strain” which airs in High Def Monday, May 26th and Tuesday, May 27th from 9pm to 11pm ET/PT. You may remember the movie and the book by Michael Crichton. This is a four hour original A&E television movie.

Andromeda is reeking havoc again in a small town when a U.S. military satellite crashes into the street. Two people survive when the deadly Andromeda Strain is unleashed. Of course, the military gets into it, quarantining the area. And there is a nosy reporter trying to find out the truth. A great cast stars; Benjamin Bratt, Eric McCormack, Ricky Schroder, Andre Braugher, Christa Miller, Daniel Dae Kim and Viola Davis.

For more info on this new aetn event, please click on Andromeda Strain!

Hey, I forgot to mention the prizes:

1) The Andromeda Strain t-shirt,
2) The Andromeda Strain DVD Collection featuring both the 2008 A&E miniseries and the Oscar-nominated 1971 film
3) The Andromeda Strain novel by Michael Crichton

Thanks for reading and hope you take the time to enter today!

UPDATE ON THE CONTEST: We WON!!! It is a fun contest!! Thank you to Simply Stating The Obvious for her wonderful blog and thanks for choosing us!

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Charlton Heston died last night. He was 84. During his very long career, he made over 100 movies. Frankly, he seemed bigger than life after having made the films “The Ten Commandments” and his Academy Award winning role in “Ben-Hur”. These films gave him star status in the 1950s. In the 60s, he ran with the apes in “Planet of the Apes” and teamed with Henry Fonda in “Midway”, an epic movie of WWII. Of course, he was in a not-to-be forgotten movie like “Soylent Green” as well as many others.

It is not possible to write down all the attributes of such a person. His life was spectacular just as his film career. I could give you the stats for the man but you can read those in other places. But this man had Christian values that he portrayed in many of his films as well as making movies that included the Bible.

We will miss such a film maker and actor because it is unlikely that there will be another like him. And rather than give the details of his death, I would rather just say goodbye to him and that we will miss him.

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There were a couple of times lately when I looked around at the DVDs coming out and wondered just how long it would be before there were going to be more or less things besides HD and Blu-ray. It just seemed to be sort of an overkill, really. We have a standard DVD player and really had no intentions of changing that anytime soon. But then we found out that HD and blu-ray were at war, trying to curb the market on movies. It was a nightmare to me.

In comes the Japanese who have decided to drop the manufacture of HD DVDs. Hurray! And more recently, like today, Microsoft pulled the plug on making HD as well. That is great. The problem I see is that before, there was a choice but that choice was going to mean some movies were on blu-ray, some on HD DVDs and some on standard DVDs. Our choice would naturally be standard DVD. I could see the nightmare happening though. In order to get all the movies you wanted, you would be forced to have three types of player…standard DVD, blu-ray and HD. Ridiculous.

At this point in time, I am wondering several things. One is…what are those poor people who bought HD players going to do now since absolutely no one will make DVDs in that type? And are we still going to be divided as to whether we get blu-ray or standard DVDs because that looks like I cannot have the movies I want if I have to choose. Hmmmm. This is going to be an interesting year, for certain.

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This Friday and Saturday, ABC family channel has some pretty nice movies that they are offering. And for once, they aren’t so bad that we decided to watch them. On Friday, they had two cheerleading movies called “Bring It On”, “Bring It On Again” on Friday night. Tonight they showed “Bring It On: All Or Nothing”. Each of these movies represents an amazing amount of time and effort by girls and guys who are the unsung heroes of their schools.

These people are athletes just as much as the football players and the basketball players. They work incredibly hard to do what they do. And if the squad is good enough, they go to the national finals in Cheerleading. Tomorrow night, they will be airing a new cheerleading movie called “Bring It On: In It To Win It”.

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We live in a rural area of the Ozarks in Arkansas. Because of that, there are three ways to receive a television signal. First, there is the outdoor antenna. You can find them at electronics supply places. We have a couple here. The ones that would work in a rural area are those that reach for the sky, in other words, very tall. Those are pretty much going to cost about $150 and up. Anything shorter and you have nothing.

Second possibility is a satellite dish. Not bad there. They aren’t that expensive, get a lot of channels…depending on your package and so on. Not bad. I am not talking about them tonight.

Third, you can get cable. In our area, cable is available and we have a subscription to it. With cable service, you do not have to put your financial info out there for all to see and if you are strapped for cash, this is the way to go. We have plenty of channels and pay a bit to see them all but our service has been really great. In fact, we have had the satellite service before and every time it snowed or rained, we got service interruptions. We do not get that with our cable company. I believe that we have had the service interrupted a couple of times since 2005 when we got it.

However, we have had a problem with our current company, Charter Communications. In the beginning of our service, we received what appeared to be an older receiver box and remote that the installer said was new. When my husband asked for a manual on the box and remote, he laughed and walked out the door. Sigh. But the one thing we did see was that the channels came in clearly and steadily.

For these years of service, we are pleased…except for one thing. When we started with Charter, the programming guide on the screen was extremely helpful. It showed us almost 4 days ahead with what was on. We loved that. During the years since, the guide slowly shrunk to about 2 days of programming but that was just fine. We were very happy with that too. Quite recently, they put in a new programming guide. We waited with anticipation because of the promises of better service and quicker loading.

Hmmm, things did not pan out quite the way they promised. Our guide never went any farther than about 2-4 hours on any day. You could not get the thing to go past about 5 hours, even with the “to be announced” announcement. This was aggravating, to say the least. So, what do we do now?

My husband chose to call the customer service repair line. He did get someone who was willing to track down the problem but he worked on the weekend and we needed someone during the week to help us. When he called back during the week, he talked with someone who pretty much refused to work with him in any way. My husband then asked for a supervisor who essentially told him that since the guide only showed 2-4 hours, that’s what ya get….get over it and live with it.

Uh no. We chose not to live with it. My husband was mad so he blogged about it. After he published the post, he received a comment from someone who works at Charter Communications and gave a phone number to contact them. WOW!!! He did that. The next day, a man called and asked what the problem was. My husband told him and this man agreed that the current situation was not acceptable. He scheduled a trouble shooter to come to our house and fix the problem.

Today, the man came and replaced the box, which he said was 25 years old, with a much younger model!!!! He told us that the guide should show about 2 days ahead. At this time, it is showing much farther than the other one did. We can expect the guide to fill in for a day or so more. Oh yes, the original caller from Charter Communications called back to be sure the guy showed and that he was able to help us. We gladly told him that things were better. He then told us that if we had any other problems or if that one is still not resolved…to call him!!!

The result here is that you do not want to assume that each employee of the company is willing to be nice and work with you. Some are definitely not. But if you keep talking, most companies do care about their services and are willing to work out some arrangement to your satisfaction.

Kudos to Charter Communications for their help in solving this problem pretty quickly!!! YAH!!!Thanks, Charter!!!

UPDATE: The onscreen guide now goes for about 4 days and is quite thorough. We are pleased. We would like to thank the gentleman at Charter Communications in St. Louis who took the time to look into this problem for us. We also would like to thank the lady who first saw my husband’s blog and contacted him to give him the phone number for St. Louis which is the corporate office of Charter Communications. Every penny we paid them these years has been worth it! Thank you!!

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