Frickin' AT&T Broadband.....

In other news, check out Terrorist or Not? Very cool.

Other sites I've been checking out:

Little. yellow. different. thanks to Mary for showing me this site.

Mighty Big TV. God, I love these people. They recap shows, and they're all so frickin' funny. One day, I hope to attain that level of snark.

The Onion God bless The Onion. Long may it wave.

The Brunching Shuttlecocks: A thing of beauty. Addictive. I live for The Ratings.

I'm still -- still! -- having problems with my cable modem. I'll be going over the libel section of my AP Stylebook at home, but until then, I know I can state facts:

Fact: My cable modem was non-functional for 5 days.
Fact: My cable modem has been only intermittantly functional for the past week.
Fact: My cable modem service is provided by AT&T Broadband.
Fact: AT&T Broadband is seriously pissing me off, to the extent that
Fact: I'm seriously considering starting an
UNSUBSTANTIATED RUMOR: AT&T Broadband is run by mutant warthogs who are trying to drive me insane.

(I've got to check on the legality of that last bit. I hold that it falls under the "commentary" rubric, and is therefore protected speech. And hell, can you think of a better explanation for why they can't get this right? Email me if you have any other plausible explanations. I'll post the best ones.)

So I was watching TV the other night (shock! Surprise! You must be joking!) (Yeah, well, give me a break, it was after getting my ass -- actually back, chest, biceps and tricps -- kicked at the gym by <Yuppiescum alert>my trainer</Yuppiescum alert> -- I was too damn tired to do anything else except moan and try not to move my arms while the cats pretty much mugged me.) .... Sorry, I digressed. As I was saying, watched Enterprise and Wolf Lake last night, two gloriously cheesy -- in different ways -- bits of tv. One of them will probably be around for a while. The other... well, let's just say I'm amazed it made it to four episodes. But on to the snarky commentary!

Enterprise: First, you must share my pain. I can't give you the full effect, as I can't find the music to link to, but here is the godawful -- again, commentary, protected speech -- and fact, for that matter -- sorry, I'll stop digressing soon -- look! Shiny! -- Diane Warren-penned Enterprise theme song:

It's been a long road
Getting from there to here
It's been a long time
But my time is finally near.
And I will see my dream come alive at last
I will touch the sky and they're not going to hold me down no more no
they're not going to change my mind
'Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
No one's going to bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith
I've got faith
Faith of the heart.

Trust me, the music just makes it worse.

Otherwise, it's been a fun, cheesy show thus far. They've got a cute dog (Awwwwww.....) and people with silly accents, and fun stuff like that. Capt. Archer is of the Shatnerian mold, expect he can act and isn't annoying. They've yet to explain why they had the weird interregnum of miniskirted StarFleet officers, but otherwise, fun. Plus, plus! next week it's the standard "In Space, no one tells you to use contraceptives" storyline, where the randy engineer with a southern adccent -- his name is Trip, which makes me laugh -- gets pregnant, apparently. Maybe this will explain the genesis of not only the wildly bonking starship crews, but also the Universal Prophylactic that Kirk apparently had developed to avoid leaving a bunch of very odd offspring...throughoutthe ... universe ...who couldn't string a ..sentence TOGETHER ... inacoherent... fashion. Or maybe it's just me.

The other show, Wolf Lake, is just bad, bad, bad, but appealing in an odd way. I haven't been able to tell what way, yet, but I'll enjoy it til it gets canceled (which will happen any day now....) It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

One of the things that really annoyed me last night in my tv-viewing/post-workout stupor was the number of commercials that were basically saying "We've suffered a horrific attack against the foundation of our nation --nay, against our very way of life! (Pause) Now go buy stuff." I know that Chrysler, Chevy and Saturn were doing it. Does anyone else find it ... really distasteful? Enraging, even? Apparently I'm not the only one, as the Washington Post ran this article on the subject.

Random thoughts:

Who else called the surprise bit of Buffy last night? I was so afraid that that's where they were going. Is it irrational to feel guilty for causing the suffering of a fictional character? I sort of think that Joss Whedon is trying to drive us all a little nuts. How much hell (literally) can he put these people through before we protest?

If you've taped the ep. and haven't watched it, skip this bit, ok?

My god, why would any of us think that Buffy would have been in hell? "She saved the world a lot." Surely she would have gotten what she deserved on death, which was rest and comfort. And she did. But the Scoobies -- and the audience -- needed her back. They couldn't let her rest. So they dragged her back in, for their own desires, by their own selfishness. And then they expected her to thank them. And she's still protecting them! "They can never know." God, how awful. I wept.

After the premiere I was thinking "Well that was dark, but well executed. Still, I'll probably need that light and kicky musical episode when it comes around." After this week, I'm half afraid that it'll be a musical along the lines of the second act of Les Miserable, where it's all death and destruction. I don't know if I can stand it.

Well, that's my rant on Buffy. I still think it's the best show on TV, but god, it's brutal right now.

On a different note, a couple of funny sites. I was pretty upset by the hoax photo of the tourist on top of the twin towers secods before the attack. This site, however, makes it funny.

Also, some bizarre images from around the world. Check out the lower right-hand side on this poster. Yes, it's real. Check out the article on this site (Warning -- it's a slow load. But it's worth it.)

So I've been light to moderately paranoid about renewed/expanded attacks after yesterday's air strikes. One thing I'm not so worries about anymore is attacks on airplanes. Why? Take a look at this: Basically, this guy freaks out on a plane to Chicago, starts screaming and breaks into the cockpit screaming "Save the Tower!" He actually got the cokpit door open, but was ahem, "subdued" by a couple of the pilots and a half-dozen passengers. Turns out the guy had a history of mental illness and basically needed his medication.

Why is a crazy guy storming the cockpit a reason for optimism? Because he didn't get real far. Half the plane was on top of him. I have a feeling anyone who tries to pull anything on a plane anymore --- armed with knives, aerosol cans, anything -- will have a bunch of pissed off people who've just figured out how to assuage their feelings of helplessness jumping on his head.

Now, however, I have to worry about flying to Australia next month <Gloat>Did I mention I'm going to Australia next month? I'm going to Australia next month!</Gloat> and having the entire plane looking at me crosseyed when I have to go to the bathroom (I'm thinking of making an announcement to my fellow passengers -- "Just taking a piss, all is well, I'm unarmed and will be back in my seat shortly!") Hmmm. Perhaps Depends are on option. Or .... not.

The other bit that makes me pause is that fact that a couple of F-16s "escorted" the plane to the runway. One the face of it, that's great -- our military protecting us, right? Yeah, well, if called upon, they would have protected us by shooting the plane down. Note to self: Make sure the pilots on my flight to Australia play nice with the military folks.

Other things that made me happy today:

The sites I did for MutantX finally went up! Yes, Wendy, the Geek Goddess, is in charge of the web sites for tribune TV shows. The Trib seems to produce a lot of syndicated sci-fi, so she gets to muck around in all sorts of different universes. Sometimes they need help. For the new show Tribune Entertainment just brought out, MutantX, Dean, the guy heading up the project, needed a bunch of "member sites" for his community, GenomeCities, a group of people interested in genetics and suchlike. I built two of them. Can you tell which ones?

Also, the ex that shall remain nameless until/unless he gives me the ok to slander him by name again, gave me The Power on the message board attached to is site. So I'm semi-omniscient (seminiscient?) and get to be snarky and such. it's loads of fun. Yes, they're talking about Northern Ireland and NI Politics (and naked Ginger Spice, which disturbs me....). You have been warned....

Well that was screwed up. Sigh.

Cable tech came, went away, came back, drilled another hole in my wall, ran another huge thing of cable (by the way, I really need to move my couch and sweep there more often -- I could have built about a dozen cats with the hair under there. Bleh) around my house, and got my modem working again. Huzzah! And then it stopped. Again. Grrr. AT&T Broadband, you're really pissing me off. I'm thinking the Sprint dish deal just ain't so bad.