My Cancer…
has been in remission for five years! I did have a bit of a scare a month ago and ended up back at the oncologist on June 16 – five years to the day that I originally started chemo. But it was a false alarm and I am still healthy as a horse.
I would’ve written something about it sooner, but I have been negligent in my blogging duties. This article at NPR provided the necessary kick in the rear:
Halfway House
We’ve got walls and everything! About a month to a month and a half left until we can move in.
My sister and I checking out the construction.
New Home Construction
Doesn't look like much yet. Just a square of cement at this point.
After a frantic month of putting our home on the market, selling it, packing, and moving out – all in the midst of Thanksgiving/Christmas, Emily and I are now homeless. We’re currently living in my mom’s basement (insert joke here) and having to make a much longer drive to work, but I’ve gotten used to it pretty quickly. Having an abundance of podcasts to listen to helps quite a bit.
The good news is, the construction on our new house in Spring Hill started last week. According to the builder, it should be done in 60 to 70 days, which is pretty incredible. I like not having a mortgage payment, but it will be nice to have the home done so quickly.
WARNING: Sesame Street may be dangerous for your child
Posted by Lane in Entertainment, Nostalgia, TV on December 4, 2007
One of the items I put on my Amazon Wish List (go ahead – click the link and buy me something…. I’ll wait) this year was Sesame Street: Old School, a DVD compilation of shows from 1970s-era Sesame Street. Back when The Count was actually scary, Mister Snuffleupagus was still invisible to everyone except Bird, and LONG before that Grover-wannabe Elmo took over the show – that’s what’s on these DVDs.
Little did I know that this supposedly “educational” TV show was actually causing damage to my young impressionable brain. Yes – that’s right. Bert, Ernie, and Mr. Looper are responsible for the hollow shell of a person I have become! Those old Sesame Street episodes are now considered unsuitable for children. From The NY Times Magazine:
Sunny days! The earliest episodes of “Sesame Street” are available on digital video! …
Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”
Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room…What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated…
Nothing in the children’s entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times. Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but… well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.
It all makes sense now. The Gen-X stupor of the 1990s wasn’t a result of grunge, disaffection or lack of direction, but those monsters at Children’s Television Worship!
I asked Carol-Lynn Parente, the executive producer of “Sesame Street,” how exactly the first episodes were unsuitable for toddlers in 2007. She told me about Alistair Cookie and the parody “Monsterpiece Theater.” Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. According to Parente, “That modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — “so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.”
I always wondered where my penchant for devouring pipes originated; now I know. Thanks Sesame Street. Thanks a lot.
(In all seriousness, nothing in those early shows can hold a candle to the disturbing “Snuffy’s Parents Get a Divorce” – a canceled episode that was supposed to be aired in 1992.)
Habits of Happy People
Posted by Lane in Health & Fitness on October 4, 2007
Joie de vivre. We all know people whose engagement with life can only be described as joyful. Fittingly, nature rewards these happy-go-lucky types: Being optimistic in middle age increases life span by at least 7.5 years—even after accounting for age, gender, socioeconomic status, and physical health, according to a large Yale University survey. What’s behind their hardiness: They minimize the destructive effects of stress.
"Of course, optimists get stressed," says David Snowdon, a professor of neurology at the University of Kentucky who studies aging. "But they automatically turn the response off much more quickly and return to a positive mental and physical state."
Here are four habits that longevity experts say are at the heart of a sunny disposition—and that you can adopt, too.
How Cable Should Be
Posted by Lane in Politics & Religion, TV on October 2, 2007
If you’re tired of paying for cable TV networks you don’t watch and find offensive, visit HowCableShouldBe.com – It lets you vote for the networks you watch and are willing to pay for. It tells you how much you could save if we were allowed to choose. It also lets you send your vote to your representatives in Washington so they can help make Cable Choice a reality.
I would certainly welcome this. We’re currently paying for Dish Network’s “America’s Top 200″ package – for one station (Discovery Health). Even the Top 100 package has far more channels than we ever actually watch. And I would just as soon completely get rid of all the sports channels, Bravo, Fuse, MTV, etc.
The Atari 2600 celebrates 30 years of low-rez fun
Posted by Lane in Entertainment, Gaming, Nostalgia on October 1, 2007
As my 35th birthday approaches, an old friend is celebrating 30 years… the Atari 2600! Retro Thing is doing an “Atari Week” feature, with several pieces about the first device that defined “video game” for the majority of us thirty-somethings.
The Atari 2600′s impact upon the gaming world was immense. No less than eight variations were produced over its stunning 14 year lifespan, along with three Sears-branded models and over a dozen clones. The system sold in excess of 40 million units, and AtariAge lists well over 1300 different game titles. This is all the more incredible because the system was envisioned to have only a two or three year lifespan before being replaced by something more sophisticated. That day never came. Even though Atari made repeated attempts to surpass their initial design, the 2600 remained the pinnacle of the company’s console gaming success.
Christmas morning, 1980
Many fuzzy memories:
- Begging my parents to drop me off at John Arnett’s house to play his 2600 before my piano lessons.
- The hilarity of Basketball’s square ball.
- Being awed by the ability to play Space Invaders without having to drop a quarter at the arcade. (and the syncopated rhythm when there’s only four attackers left)
- Finally getting an Atari of my own for Christmas. Thanks Mom and Dad! Uh, I mean, Santa!
- Staying up all night at John Merritt’s house to beat Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- Playing, enjoying, and beating E.T., years before the internet told me I was supposed to hate it.
- Checking out my friends’ latest acquisitions each Saturday at the Cub Scout meeting. Including Journey Escape – Now THAT game was a stinker.
- …and finally giving it up for the Commodore 64 [links to an archive of my C64 site from several years ago]
The Atari 2600 seems so quaint in comparison to what we have today, but it was capable of some truly amazing things given it’s limitations. It had a meager 128 bytes of memory – to put that in perspective, this blog post alone is 20 times that. Your average home computer today with a gigabyte of memory can hold over 8 million times that amount. The ability to create anything with those limitations, let alone some of the classics that were produced for the 2600, is nothing short of incredible.
Google Launches 'The Google' For Older Adults
The popular search engine Google announced plans Friday to launch a new site, TheGoogle.com, to appeal to older adults not able to navigate the original website’s single text field and two clearly marked buttons.
“The Google will have all the same information currently found on regular Google, but with the added features of not stealing your credit-card numbers or giving your computer all kinds of viruses,” said Rick Tillich, The Google project director. “All you have to do to turn the website on is put the little blinking line thing in the cyberspace window at the top of the screen, type ‘thegoogle.com,’ and press ‘return’ – although it will also recognize http.wwwthegoogle.com, google.aol, and ‘THEGOOGLE’ typed into a Word document.”
Tillich added that he hopes the site will soon replace Yahoo Internet Website.com as the most popular search engine for users over 55
New WordPress
Hmm… looks like the new version of WordPress has borked a few things. Tags == good. Converting categories into tags then deleting the categories == bad.