nette’s weblog

I am addicted to Trading Spaces. It’s on at 4:00 every day, and while I don’t watch it every day, I do watch it often enough that I’ve seen most of the episodes. I think I’m going to go crazy once I have a house, planning to repaint all the walls and things. They are now selling the Trading Spaces shirts at the Discovery Channel store in the mall. I’m very tempted to get one. I think I might if I’m ever planning on painting anything. Daniel pointed out to me the other day that Trading Spaces is a “reality show”. Since I have professed to hate all reality shows, I have to explain that the TLC/Discovery Channel/History Channel shows are vastly different from the network reality shows. Admittedly, Trading Spaces has very little, if any, educational value. I have learned how to make an ottoman out of a garage-sale coffee table, and how NOT to decorate a room, but those aren’t exactly essential skills in life. However, Trading Spaces (and similarly Junkyard Wars and other shows like that) is not pure trash like Survivor or The Bachlor. I don’t think the network shows even TRY to have any substance. They just use sex and money and people fighting with each other to make people watch. Also, they’re ALL THE SAME. One Survivor thing was a hit, and so they keep doing it over and over and over. Plus, they bill all these shows as reality shows, but they’re not really all that real. I mean, it’s not exactly real to have a bunch of spoiled Americans out in some foreign place with “nothing” having to play really stupid games and then vote each other out. The only thing real is that it’s not scripted. Maybe they should call it an improv show. But then, that might taint Whose Line is it Anyway, which is another of my favorite shows.

Oh, on a totally unrelated note, I can now put smileys into these entries. Isn’t it cute?

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I’m being bad. I still haven’t written anything in the story blog. I had time to do it the other day, but I didn’t feel like writing anything. I was just feeling lazy, I guess. And then I didn’t add anything to THIS blog yesterday, either. I’ve been very neglectful. I mean, part of the point of the blog is that it gets updated on a regular basis. But I don’t think a whole lot of interesting things happen to me on a daily basis, so it makes it hard to write something not boring. Sometimes I do think of things that might be good to talk about in the blog, but it usually seems to happen when I’m busy doing something else.

Hmmm… They Might Be Giants are on The Screen Savers today. I don’t know any of their stuff except for Flood. I’m curious to hear it, though. Their music is really werid, but funny.

Okay, for the story blog, since these entries are written in HTML, I can’t do normal paragraph formatting with tabs and things without a lot of work. Therefore, I have to come up with another way that is easy to do and legible. This is what I was planning:

“Hi,” said Janette. “This is how I’m planning to do paragraph formatting in the story blog. What do you think?”

Janette glared at the third person. “Did I or did I not say that I can’t do it the normal way because this is HTML and tabs are a pain to do?”

So, that’s the idea. It won’t all be in italics in the story blog, but I wanted to differentiate that part from everything else here.

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When hockey playoffs roll around, we always end up watching a lot of games on CBC. The announcers are so much better than the ESPN announcers it’s not even funny. One of the interesting side effects of the CBC viewing is that we get to see (or have to see) Canadian commercials. A lot of the same companies that sell us things in the US have Canadian markets as well, but there are frequently differences in the commercials. For example, Ford has the slogan “Made for life in Canada” in the Canadian commercials, which are completely different than the US commercials. One of the more interesting things we’ve seen recently is the commercial for what in the US is called “DiGiorno” pizza. I’m sure you’ve seen the “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno” commercials. Well, the Canadian commercials are exactly the same, except that they call it “Delissio”. So they say, “It’s not delivery, it’s Delissio.” Why they changed the name for the Canadian market, I don’t know. Weird, eh? One more really strange one. There’s this other commercial, and I’m not sure what it’s for, but they say, “We’re a country that really understands the value of a loonie.” Personally, I find this extremely funny, since it could be taken to mean that lots of Canadians are insane.

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So, this weekend I played a couple of events with Alumni Pep Band. We played at a softball game on Friday night, and then at a baseball double-header on Saturday. These games served to remind me why I hate baseball. It’s amazingly boring. It’s kind of cool when someone actually hits the ball, and then you’re either rooting for them to get out or to get on base, depending on who’s at bat. And when it’s the very end of the game and you want your team to either score or strike out the batter so you can win, it’s almost exciting. But most of the time is just waiting while nothing is happening. There’s an amazing amount of down-time between each batter, and especially between each half-inning, when they have to all switch places and then the pitcher gets to warm up for a while. Now, I did have fun at these games, but I also got to play during a lot of the breaks, and throughout the game we were all talking and joking and stuff, so I didn’t actually have to pay a huge amount of attention to the game itself. Also, it was fun to try to follow the foul balls that were hit out of the stadium to see if they landed on anyone’s car. (If you do ever go to a Michigan baseball or softball game, park a little ways away from the stadium.) I think I would get really, really bored if I were to go just on my own, however. The best part of all three games I saw this weekend was when Penn State’s manager got thrown out of the game in the second half of the double-header for throwing one hissy-fit too many. The ump made the whole “yer outta here” signal and everything. I found myself wanting to watch The Naked Gun afterwards. (“It’s Enrico Pallazzo!”) So, that was my baseball experience. Basically, I’m going to keep going to play games with Pep Band (which is only a few each year), but other than that I’m pretty much going to avoid baseball. Oh, on a somewhat related note, the Houston Texans drafted Drew Henson. So it’ll be interesting to see if he sticks with baseball (if so, he’d better hurry up and get good really fast) or comes back to football. We’ll see what happens.

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So, they said on the Screensavers that William Gibson isn’t going to blog anymore because he thinks it ruins his writing. I think this is weird. I don’t think blogging ruins my writing or disrupts my creative process or anything. Of course, I don’t bother to try to write well when I’m blogging. That’s not the point. The point is just to say stuff so people can read what I think about whatever I happen to write about. This isn’t to say that I’m going to start using terrible grammar or anything in my blog. But it’s certainly informal. Of course, when I write something “serious”, a lot of it is informal anyway, because a lot of it is what characters are saying or thinking, and people don’t always talk with proper grammar. Well, some people do, but not everyone. Anyway, I just think it’s weird that anyone would think blogging ruined their writing, so I wanted to comment on it.

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Well, that was fast. Anaheim scored (grrr…) less than a minute into the fifth period. So it stays as only the 4th longest game in history. Not as cool as the one a couple years ago. Time for bed.

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Overtime. It can be some of the most interesting hockey in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It can also go on forever. Right now, Dallas and Anaheim are about to go into the fifth overtime. It’s the 4th longest game ever. A few years ago I watched Philadelphia and Pittsburgh play in what ended up being the 2nd or 3rd longest game ever. We’ll see how long this one ends up going. I hope it doesn’t go all night. I do need to sleep at some point. It’s interesting to watch how the game progresses through the overtimes. The players get more and more tired, and they start skating slower and falling more easily. I’m impressed that they can even stay upright after playing so much. I’m sure there are fans at the arena sleeping in their seats. It’s my bedtime now, and I really should be going to sleep, but I’m going to stay up, just in case this ends up being the longest game ever. Plus, I want to see who wins. You know what the best part of overtime is? There’s no commercials. Wow… the fans are doing the wave. Maybe they’re not asleep. Anyway, the fifth overtime is about to start, so I’m going go watch. I’ll let you know later who wins and how long it takes.

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Yes, you are all right. There is nothing in the story blog. I apologize for this. See, we went ahead and set up the story blog, but I wasn’t ready to put anything in it. I only had a very vague idea for a story. Now, the plot isn’t a problem, as it’s a romance novel, so that makes that part easy. But I at least have to settle on a few things before I can write it. 1) I need to pick a specific time period. 2) I need to name the main characters. I have been thinking about this, so hopefully soon I will write something. When I do, I will mention it here, and then you can all go read it.

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Well, after lots and lots of waiting, my Spike action figure is finally here. So I guess that means I don’t have to go and complain to the people that it hasn’t arrived yet after all. He’s very cool and comes with some neat weapons. The only problem is that he doesn’t have the little railroad spike that the first version of Spike had. Hmm… I wonder if the vampire face Spike will come with that. Now I’m considering getting a version 1 Buffy and turning her into a “Prophecy Girl” Buffy (i.e. Buffy in a prom dress). Also, I saw on the internet this one person said they had a custom BuffyBot, so I’m trying to think of how I could make one of those, because BuffyBot is great. She’s as cool as Vampire Willow (who will be out this summer — yay!) Depending on how the Willows look, I might end up with 3 of them (regular, vamp, and evil), so I think I need at least one other Buffy to balance it out. Also, it’s just fun to have the toys. I haven’t collected any set of anything since I was little (we have every original Star Wars guy), so I really like buying the Buffy toys. I’m also debating getting a Giles, because he comes with the “Vampyr” book, which is really cool, and I could probably get him for $10 or less. I want them to make an updated Xander and a Dawn, since right now they’re two of my favorite characters. (I’m hoping for a Xander/Dawn/Spike/Andrew spin-off.) Hmmm… I think I need a Drusilla, too. She’s cool and I don’t have any bad guys. Okay, Spike, Angel, Faith, and Cordy have all been evil at some point, but they’re not *always* evil.

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I love comedy. Our Tivo records more Comedy Central than any other channel. Our DVD collection is largely comedy as well. Right now we’re watching a Dennis Miller special on HBO. He’s very funny. I like him because you have to be smart (or at least knowledgeable) to get his jokes. He’s always making all kinds of bizarre references. He can be kind of political, but he doesn’t really seem to have any particular bias for any particular group. He just has his own specific opinions on things, rather than somebody else’s set of opinions. Very refreshing. I think he’s more conservative than a lot of comedians — pro Iraq war, for instance. It’s nice to hear somebody on that side. I like to get a nice mixture in my comedy. I think making fun of Democrats is just as funny as making fun of Republicans, for instance. It can get boring if everyone makes fun of the same people. That’s why I like the late night talk shows, I think. They make fun of everybody. I’m an equal opportunity comedy watcher. This weekend we’re going to see a comedian at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase. We’ve seen her on Comedy Central, and she’s really funny. It’s fun to see the people we’ve seen on TV in person. It’s like going to a concert instead of just listening to the music on CD. It’s just more fun live. Any comedy is good, though. Laughing just makes me feel good. Even when I’m sick or unhappy or something, comedy can always make me feel a little better. I think a lot of people take life too seriously. People who can not only laugh at other people but can also laugh at themselves are the happiest, I think. Or at least, I make fun of myself and I’m happy.

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