Reel Estate

Wow, is this a bad television ad. As a person currently in the process of buying a house, I can say that a bully of a wife and a scheming real estate agent are exactly what I am glad I do not have to deal with during what is an unavoidably stressful time. Scary. Another great reason for TiVo.

Dire Aspect

Are you watching the Olympics? Not without TiVo, I hope.

Two questions:

1. Why does the NBC logo in the corner look like some clunky, pixelated Atari 2600 graphic?

2. And how pissed would you be if you were the Ladies Figure Skater performing as the network does its little thigh-widening info-pop-up-at-the-bottom-of-the-screen-aspect-ratio-stretch thingy?

Hook Up?

TUAW.com reports that Apple is considering buying Tivo. This would be very good news. TiVo a great product that is foundering from a lack of consumer understanding, and I can't think of a better company to improve TiVo's shortcomings and integrate the PVR into the home.

Yes, Apple, I will buy another box from you.

Scoop My Eyes Out

We don't watch live television. We just don't. We're on our third TiVo, because we will not go even one day watching live television. When you try to tell us about that “funny commercial” you saw, we will smile and nod like pod people, because we have no freaking idea what you are talking about. It's bliss.

And that is why it is so damned painful to be in our current situation. The evildoers at network programming have moved two of our shows to the same time slot. This means that we have to watch one of our shows in real time. C'mon‚ we watch like four shows! Why why why? The most distressing part of watching these commercials is that we have discovered we are apparently in the same demographic group as people who:

• might be interested in seeing what wackiness ensues when two husbands swap wives
• might want to hear why this giant pickup is a better one than that other giant pickup truck
• might be enticed by a pizza that (this is true) is specifically designed for easier dipping into ranch dressing.

I realized something tonight, and this is not off topic: Bloglines is TiVo for the web. This, I now understand, is why I love Bloglines. If you don't already use Bloglines, or don't understand why you should, please ask me to explain it to you.

I want you to be happy.

The Games Begin

Have you been watching the Olympics? Kendra was a swimmer, so we watch a lot of swimming. My favorite is the Dutch swimmer Pieter van dem Hoogenband. I don't know anything about him. I just love saying it, and so do the sportscasters. Pieter van dem Hoogenband. Pieter van dem Hoogenband. Other swimmers have nicknames: The Thorpedo, The Russian Rocket. Not Pieter van dem Hoogenband. I think that the commentators, having practiced Pieter's name for hours until it trips off their tongues, wouldn't use a nickname anyway, so there's no point. Play this game: watch van dem Hoogenband compete, and take a drink every time they say his name. You will out-drink the people playing the Michael Phelps version two to one.

Because we have Tivo, and because I am married to Kendra, I am able to watch more Olympic coverage during these games than I ever have before. There are so many sports, and so many permutations of each. When I mentioned to Kendra that I thought there were too many different swimming events, she gave me a look of scorn. It was as though I had asked "but why do they have to do this in the water?" All the different strokes and distances are the point, duh. But on synchronized diving she agrees with me. See, synchronized diving is like regular diving, but with two divers. My friend Kathryn defends synchronized diving: it's so much harder than regular diving. Um, yeah. So much harder that they don't even look that synchronized. What other sports can you think of that could benefit from the synchronization approach? Synchronized shot put. Synchronized weight lifting.

We've also been following the gymnastics events. The guys all look like friendly simpletons, and the women look like runners up in a pageant sponsored by a bass boat manufacturer. Meetings of the International Gymnasts Association must look like Christian Jazz Camp. But you have to be amazed at what these kids can do. Kendra and I have been cheering for the Romanians. We think it's great that a country with a GDP of about 90,000 dollars can compete at this level. Of course, they have an additional motivator: if you screw up, they change the locks on your apartment before you get back home.

I love the Epcot-Center feel of the Olympics. The World's Fair architecture. Have you seen outfits for fencing with sabre? They look like robots from Logan's Run. The swimmers in their mirrorshade goggles: simultaneously so dorky and yet–a little bit cool. And I think it's great how the host country has to completely redesign the event pictograms each time the games roll around. I imagine seminars in the off years: "Badminton Logos: Theory and Execution." But I think the 1972 pictograms will always seem like the "real" ones to me. That was the year the guy from the men's room signs posed for the icons.

The Olympics don't seem quite so exalted to me as they did back then. Maybe because I'm so much older than all the athletes. But I'm very glad we do this stuff. It seems important. And optimistic.