And Now The Weather--No Wait!

Many people say that my daughter Julie is related to me. When they say this they are meaning that she is very much like me. It seems that I tend to do things a lot like her. Or more precisely, she does things like me many times. We can be watching TV and hear someone say something that is less than intelligent and both of us will often comment about it at the same time.

Last night we were watching the local news on KWTX-DTV, the local CBS affiliate. When the broadcast begins each evening the anchor does their teases for the news, weather, and sports before going to their first news story. One of the teases they announce each evening is their signature "No Wait Weather". Last night Julie commented, "Why do they call it "No Wait Weather" and then make you wait before they do it?

Along those same lines this same station tends to have a difficult time with some of their broadcasts. There are many times that we are watching the local news on this same station and will see captions misspelled or the pictures running have nothing to do with the story being presented.

And now for something completely different. We were watching some episodes of "How Do They Do It?" yesterday that I had recorded on the DVR. In one episode the show was telling about how solid rocket boosters are tested. Because the test facility is in Utah the story was describing the wide open countryside and during the description they were showing a rancher with an extremely long handle bar mustache riding on horseback. Good! A later episode was explaining how silicon chips were made at Texas Instruments at a plant in Texas. As a lead in to all things being big in Texas they showed a close up of the very same above mentioned rancher and his handle bar mustache. Or maybe it was his twin brother, or perhaps sister!

Nah!!!

Probably just never thought someone would notice.
© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Get 'er Done! Yeah Right!

Since we got the DVR with our cable I have found that I started to schedule my favorite shows to record and then watch them in my spare time. I also do this with new shows so I can watch them later. This is good. Especially if you need to waste your time and not be very productive.

Well, I have now found a newer and much better way to waste time and be even less productive. (Chris is not happy about this.) I have now found online streaming videos. No not YouTube or the like. This is actual TV stations with movies and cartoons and such.

Some of the links I have found are to: Beeline TV . At Beeline you can choose from bajillions of stations from around the world. Well, actually 238 stations today. There is also StreamKick TV that has a lot of links to stations to watch. Then there is FreeTube. If you go to FreeTube and click on the Entertainment tab on the left sidebar and scroll down a bit you can find some good cartoon stations streaming classic cartoons from the 40's and 50's.

Perhaps my favorite site is America Free TV. At America Free TV the have 15 channels streaming various types of entertainment. All of it clean, from what I can tell. Their cartoon channel plays a lot of Merrie Melodies and Popeye. I've seen Three Stooges on one of the movie channels and I watched "Meet John Doe" last night.

A couple of other sites worth going to are In2TV-AOL Videos, TV4U, Entertainment Magazine On-Line, and for classic commercials try Classic TV Ads. All of this is available 24 hours a day which means I can waste the entire day.

Each of these sites use one or more viewers. Some use Windows Media, Apple Quicktime, or some other embedded viewers. Depending upon the viewer and the web-site you may or may not be able to watch the program full screen. And, you may or may not be able to watch without commercials. Some have you watch an ad at the beginning, end or at various spots in the program. And then others make you watch on a small screen and they keep advertising up on the page around the viewer. None of this matters to me. I can tune out the advertising if there is a show I really want to watch.

In many cases much of what I find online is better that what I get off network television. Let's face it, most network programs stink. I'll take most programming from 50 years ago anyday. With one exception. I love to watch shows about how things are made. Enter How It's Made and other shows that are similar. That's OK. I have them covered also with Cool Stuff Being Made.

Now I need to get a larger monitor and better sound and I can just pitch my 42 inch LCD HDTV I bought recently. Won't Chris be excited???

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Allergies Still; Or Maybe It Should Be Steal! Plus other Nonsense

As mentioned yesterday my allergies have really kicked in. I have been out of most of the day due to the medicine. (It's amazing what Benadryl does. Dries you out and puts you down. Then you wake up like a rock hard sponge.) From what I understand today was beautiful. I wouldn't know. In a way it feels as if I have had today stolen from me. I have spent the bulk of the day in the recliner with the remote. I have been clearing off movies from the DVR. Watching some, sleeping through others. Now in a few hours I will have another hour stolen when I change the clocks for Daylight Saving Time. How I hate Daylight Savings Time. I am sure there is a good reason for it, although I don't know what it is. In the deep, dark recesses of my mind I believe that it is an insidious Communist plot to rob the American workers of their sleep and therefore bring down civilization as we know it. I mean after all, if the days are getting longer anyway why do we have to make them any longer? Does the sun stay in the sky longer because we moved the clock?? I'm convinced that there is treachery afoot here. Or maybe it's just the Benadryl. © 2008 Barry T Horst


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Last Night Was 1936, 1938, and 1959

The movie, "Joy of Living" 1938, came on TCM on December 20th. I was busy that night preparing for the last day of school before Christmas holidays so Chris recorded it on the DVR. Well last night we watched it. It was a cute movie which Irene Dunne and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Irene Dunne played a Broadway star whose family sponged off of her. Irene fell in love with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. who wanted her to leave the stage if they married. Of course, the family was against this. Hilarity ensued as they went back and forth. The movie was very enjoyable and definitely worth another look. However, the real reason I am writing is this...If our lead character was an actress and she fell in love how could the object of her love tell if she was sincere or merely acting?

I suppose you would call this one of life's imponderables. Here are a few more of Life's Imponderables:
Why do we sing "Take me out to the ball game" when we are already there?
Doesn't "expecting the unexpected" make the unexpected expected?
Why is it called "after dark" when it really is "after light"?

Moving right along,

Chris and I watched two more good movies that were DVR'd from TCM earlier in the week. They were "The Next Time I Marry" 1938 and "Petticoat Fever" 1936. "The Next Time I Marry" starred Lucille Ball, who incidentally was also in "Joy of Living". Lucille played an heiress who must marry "a plain American" in order to inherit a fortune. "Petticoat Fever" starred Irene Dunne and Robert Montgomery. He portrays a wireless operator in Labrador that falls in love with a woman, Irene Dunne, that is stranded at his wireless base only to have his fiancee' show up. Both are great and are highly recommended.

Finally, after the old movies I popped in a DVD, Perry Mason-Season 2, Volume 2. I watched Episodes #21-23. What a great night; Old Movies and Old TV Shows.

© 2007 Barry T Horst



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