Oh, by the way, the cable post from a couple of days ago prompted some response. From Cool Bohemian Aunt Role-Model Elaine:

Try Animal Planet channel, "Emergency Vets" and"Breed all about it". Do you get Bravo? Lots of good movies. And of course there's "South Park" and "The Jiminy Glick" (?) show. I only watch the big 3 channels for "West Wing". Also -- "Nero Wolfe" on A&E, and "The Sopranos" on HBO. You can tell I watch mucho TV.

You can also tell we're related, by volume of TV alone.

And Hunter, a friend of Rich's, had this to say:

Wish I could give you good news, but my cable sickness runs so deep that I followed Rich's lead and got a TiVo for Father's Day. So the best I could offer is someone to commiserate with, and possibly point to and say "Yeah, but I've not fallen nearly as much as that guy!".

Beware The Learning Channel, The History Channel, etc. They lure you in with fairly intelligent programming and the occasional interesting special and all of a sudden you're watching Pet Surgery or something like that.

I will keep your warning in mind, Hunter, but if Elaine is anything to go by, I'm genetically predisposed to pet surgery shows. Alas.

Digression -- Why is no one in the Midwest names Hunter (and do you go by Hunt?)? I went to school with folks names Tripp and Hunt and Beau and all the rest, and you just don't run into it here. Is it a "Lo, we've had this name for many generations" thing? (I know that's the case with Tripp, which is what you call thirds -- which makes me wonder, what the hell do you call fourths? Quad?) Does the East Coast just attract folks with names like that? Are they hounded out of the plains states? Hmm. Something to ponder.

I am officially a big geek. How big a geek am I? Some friends gave me the Buffy the Vampire Slayer board game -- board game! -- and I can't wait to play it. You can be good or evil, there's a phases of the moon device, there's a research skill component ... Cool!

Geek. Big geek.

I am not, however, as big a geek as Rich, who is going to a "LAN party." I'll let him explain:

Essentially everyone involved brings along a computer full of videogames that can talk over a computer network, and then you plug them all together and do so. For 18 hours a day. It's a blast.

Yup. Between that and the TiVo thing, he's a much bigger geek than I am. I bow to your superior geekiness.

So if Rich is the ubergeek amongst my circle of aquaintences, why am I always proclaiming Wendy the Geek Goddess? Well, because despite her protests, she is pretty geek savvy. And she's here. Rich isn't. When I have a stupid technical problem (and I think I've mentioned that I'm a word person, not a code person), all I have to do is be pathetic and go downstairs. Plus, I've found that it's wise to suck up to the tech people no matter where you are. It's very convienent.

I'm trapped. I'm doomed. Dear god, what have I done?

About three years ago, I rid myself of the scourge that is cable. They'd taken it to far -- charging me, then losing my payments, then charging me interest. I'd had enough. I cut it off. I went cold cable turkey. It was tough, but I was happier woman for it.

Now, alas, the Cable Cabals have me in their thrall again. How did they do it? They took Buffy off the WB (which I can get reasonably clear reception of at all times) and moved it to UPN (which I can only get via antenna if i stand on the roof during a thunderstorm, which makes it difficult to see the TV.) Buffy and Angel are my TV indulgences -- I'll actually turn down invitations and clear my schedule to watch them. When Buffy moved to UPN, I knew they had me. The bastards.

So I got cable. At first, I was good -- I only watched Buffy and Angel. The recpetion was better, and I was ok with that. Life is good, right? Well, then I found myself flipping channels, and I stumbled across the Crocodile Hunter. (Yeah, Mary, I know, I'm about three years late to this party.) I watched Croc Week. I couldn't help myself.

No big deal, I thought. All is not lost. I got hooked on a special event week. I can quit at any time.

Then I started watching Witchblade on TNT. Stupid show, but amusing. And it's on Tuesdays. So really, it's just a placeholder til Buffy comes back on, right? Nothing serious. I've got it under control.

The Mists of Avalon. Well, I pretty much had to watch that -- feminist fantasy and such. Come on. Special circumstances. I deserve a break on that one, right?

Well, dammit, I just realized that I'm coming close to rock bottom. I just watched the Def Leppard story on VH1, and, god help me, I liked it. I liked it, you hear me! It was silly, and overblown, and the camerawork was annoying as hell, and the makeup was pretty sad, and, and, and,..... I can't help myself. It was good, stupid fun. I liked it. Cable has me in its grip again. Sob!

I've come back to the Dark Side. God help me.

Hmmm. I'm actually feelng a little too normal. I took the same personality disorder test Rich and Mary and Andy (who, as far as I know, hasn't posted his results -- c'mon, Andy, what are you hiding?) took, and I actually came out as.... normal. Non-disordered. Sane, even. Moderately avoidant, and otherwise ok. That can't be right.

I guess these last few years of therapy have actually worked! Or at least taught me how not to answer leading questions....

Take the test youself to figure out just how sick and twisted you really are -- in a non-diagnostic sense, of course.

Just read Andy's post on Dubya's decision to give him back some of his tax dollars. Interestingly enough, I got my refund the week of my birthday, too. I wonder if it's on purpose? And I'm jealous you're getting the full refund. I didn't. I always knew George liked you best!

I'm thinking my check is going to Planned Parenthood.

Mists of Avalon -- eh. I did like the second part better, although that may have been because Wendy wasn't there and we weren't feeding off each other with the snarky comments. I do feel that Arthur would have been better to have just discreetly killed Mordred when he showed up and started being nasty, but I suppose that would be very un-Arthurian. But hell, he engineered a three-way with Guinevere and Lancelot, so he does give way to at least some moral expediency. Whatever.

Along those lines, I dug up Lotti's reaction to our Girls' (and Boys') Night Out to A Knights Tale earlier this year.

Ten things I've learned about life from watching "A Knight's Tale":

10. Never piss off someone with red hair. They will make angry, mugging faces and usually punch you in the nose.
9. Any lesson to be learned is best learned through wacky montage.
8. Bad people are cowards and always cheat, but you can still beat them in the end through plucky self-determination and "forgetting" that your arm is broken.
7. Curtains make the best play clothes.
6. Key moments in life are more special and memorable when set to "Takin' Care of Business" and/or "The Boys Are Back in Town."
5. Jousting is COOL.
4. Sex can occur even if (a) you don't know the guy’s real name/station of birth and (b) you're betrothed to the bad man.
3. Sometimes you get really mad at the people you love the most and can't tell the audience why, and that's ok.
2. Chicks make the best smithies, oh yeah!

-- AND FINALLY --

1. Chaucer demands to be called "P. Diddy" for the rest of eternity. All copies of The Canterbury Tales shall reflect said change immediately.

We like bad movies. They're fun.

I'm getting ready to settle down and watch Witchblade, my stupid guilty pleasure for the summer. Newton sent me a lovely link to the Liberation Journal, what I can only assume is a seriously wacked-out libertarian-plus-mega-conservative-gone-nuts organization that apparently equated any vaguely physical woman with something that incites rape. Huh? Well, here's what they say (all spelling mistakes are from the original):

Portrayals of amazon freaks denigrate and pervert women and attack feminine identity and incite in men a lust for sexual violence. These shows are extremely obscene, many are pornographic, they display dominatrix whores who incite lusts for sexual violence, and are an attack on womin, the family and civilization.

and here are some prime descriptions of "misogynist" TV shows:

Charlie's Angels (80s) - Sexy chics with guns. The show was criticized not for the violence but because of the way the women looked. In this society, violence is promoted to women while sexuality and non-violent, moral courage is criticized. Among the many barbaric and obscene shows, one featured women playing tackle football.
Because god knows, nothing is more barbaric and obscene than a woman defiling the sacred ideal that is Football.

Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (90s) - Dumbass teen bitch's obsession with violence. Femininity exploitation show. They create a "cutesy" teen character to use to attack feminine identity using anti-feminine stereotypes as straw men to fight against, the idiotic vampires are just the excuse--their real enemy is femininity.
Um, what? Are you offended because Buffy is cute and kicks ass? And why no mention of Willow and Tara? Surely that is worth some bile-spewing from this site. Or could you not even bring yourself to acknowledge their relationship?

Xena: Warrior Princess (90s) - Pornographic dominatrix amazon whore, a crazed, violent bitch. Extreme, obscene violence that provokes in men an overwhelming, obsessive lust to rape and slaughter these bitches. It's obvious intent is to incite females to be violent, to hate, to become socially hostile and to suffer the inevitable consequences of increased violence against women. The makers and participants in this all deserve to die the violent deaths they playact. Stations who show it and its sponsors must be boycotted. Anyone who watches it should be ostracized from civilized society. Parents should not allow their daughters to date boys who watch it. Parents who encourage their kids to watch it should be jailed for child abuse.
Someone's got a Xena fetish, and hasn't quite figured out how to deal with it.

Witchblade (2001) (TNT) - Glorifying evil. Another violent bitch provoking violence against women.
Hey, it's a cheesy show, but that hardly equals glorifying evil. It may provoke violence against your television set at some of the story lines, but that's one of the perils of summer TV viewing.

I guess the rationale behind all this is that men seeing women actually stand up for themselves, be athletic, pursue "male professions," etc. makes real men angry and they take it out on the women in their lives. So the solution is to make sure women don't stray from the roles that these men say they should be following? Well that's back-assward. If the men are committing the crimes, surely it's their behavior that has to change. Sigh.

Newton, where do you find these things?

By the way, Andy, one of the sites they link to is iFeminists, the site you built back when you were in the thrall of the libertarian not-for-profit folks. Hah!

I checked out the handy-dandy Citizen ICam, the Chicago Police Department's database of reported crime, about the police action I mentioned a few weeks ago. Apparently it was a case of "Property (Domestic) -- Criminal Damage", which, according to their definitions page, entails:

Knowingly or recklessly damaging another's property, setting a fire on another's property, injuring another's domestic animal, and/or setting a stink bomb or other offensive-smelling compound on another's property.

Apparently there were firetrucks, so I'm guessing it was a spot of unauthorized flame-throwing or something. Fireworks gone awry? Possible. There seemed to be too many police officers there for it to be a stink bomb or something. At any rate, I haven't noticed any more massive gatherings of law enforcement officers, so I'm guessing it wasn't too major.

I'm more than a little wigged out by Mary and Andy's encounter with the Ethyl Burger, a four-pound behemoth of ground beef, condiments and bread. Part of me is very much "ewwww," while another part of me recognizes that I can binge with the best of them, thank you very much. I still find it foul -- and very much wonder what my eating-disorder-therapist sister would think of it -- but I can't claim immunity. Alas.

Off the watch the end of The Mists of Avalon on TV. Liked the book very much, but I'm finding the TV presentation very easy to mock. I've been watching with Wendy, who isn't all that up on her Arthurian legendry. She didn't know about the whole Morgaine/Arthur/Mordred connection, so that was a bit of a shock to her. It is a truly horrible concept -- accidental incest -- and I can't quite imagine why Morgaine would have anything to do with Avalon ever again after that, but it's been a while. We'll see if the second half makes any sense to me.

I've been incommunicado for the last couple of days because I was organizing and helping to run the big-ass garage sale we put together for Chicago Choral Artists, a choral group that I am on the board of. Who knew that garage sales were so exhausting? First there was much schlepping about the city and suburbs by myself, Sean and his minions to pick stuff up, then last weekend pricing, then picking up more stuff in Brookfield -- nice zoo, lousy drive -- then setting up and selling.

The sharks were circling as soon as the garage door opened on Friday -- I was not there to witness this, being stuck on the expressway -- and Lynn and Gary had to basically beat people away with shovels just so they could get stuff out of the garage and priced. We had one woman put something on hold so she could go get money, and another woman swooped into try to buy the item while she was gone, yelling at me that she'd pay more. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to go back on my word to someone. Sheesh. Friday was a zoo, and Saturday was comparatively dead, but we raised some money and that's what we needed. Lynn and Gary were fabulous for giving up their garage/house/privacy for the weekend. Huzzah.

Last night went out with the Girls' (and Boys') Night Out group to see Swordfish, a truly stinky movie. The first bit, with the spontaneously focusing camera, made Kat lean over to me and say "We really should shoot the cinematographer," but he/she made up for it all with the next scene. Then it all went downhill. Comments from the group:

1) Hackers don't look like that. If they did, they'd have groupies.
2) Hackers don't get "serviced" like that. If they did, there'd be a hell of a lot more hackers.
3) He's typing. That's what hackers do. They type. No amount of funky music or flashing lights or actorly histrionics can disguise the fact that he's JUST TYPING, DAMMIT. Stop trying to make it exciting. It won't work.
4) Did John Travolta piss off the Facial Hair Gods or what?
5) Halle Berry's golf swing apparently wasn't that great. No one noticed.
6) Halle Berry's topless scene was poorly staged and fully gratuitous. However, if I had breasts like that, I'd agree to poorly staged and fully gratuitous topless scene at the drop of an imaginary hat.
7) Why get undressed with the door open?
8) Oh. Well that was stupid.
9) That was subtle
10) Oh. I guess subtlety wasn't really the point.
11) The helicopter pilot is toast.
12) No child that young should be wearing lipstick and eye shadow. I don't care if she does have a goddamned porn king for a stepfather.
13) And that furry vest is reason enough to grant Stan custody.
14) Yeah, she'd still be hanging on the the giraffe, or whatever it was.
15) Yeah, he'd still be hanging on to the gun.
16) Hugh Jackman in a towel. Thank you.
17) Don Cheadle -- what was it, alimony? Back taxes? God, I'm sorry, man. Try temping next time instead. It leaves fewer lasting effects.

Overall -- Big Stinky Piece of Cheese. Just the kind of movie that the G(aB)NO group likes. We apologize to anyone in the theater who was trying to take the movie seriously but come one. If you weren't laughing at the typing music and the bus and such, you obviously have been brainwashed by the Evil Hollywood Establishment.