Tuesday, March 29, 2005

The Revolution Will Be Televised -- on TiVo

Saw an interesting, off-beat little movie called "The Ballad of Jack and Rose" tonight. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis and was written and directed by his wife, Rebecca Miller. It's about a dying hippie who lives alone with his teenage daughter on what used to be a thriving commune. Their perfectly balanced life is thrown off when Jack invites some "normal" people to live with them as part of their family.

D.D.L. turns in a typically intense performance as a Father coming to grips with the mistakes in his life.

It made me think a lot about my Mother -- who certainly was a free-spirit -- and how our relationship and home was affected by the "normal" people she brought into it.

About a year ago I finally bought a TiVo. It has really changed how I watch television. Being able to watch the shows I want to watch when I want to watch them is a radical change. Originally TiVo included a feature that allowed the viewer to skip commercials. Under pressure from Hollywood, TiVo changed it's available technology to allow viewers to fast forward through commercials -- but not really to skip them. I bought my Tivo after the cool skipping feature was removed.

Earlier today on the internet I found the programming steps to enable the skipping feature on my TiVo. Sorry advertisers -- I'm loving it. (If you need to know how to do it go to: www.bigmar.net/how/tivo30secondskip.html.)

I'm fascinated by the site meter I've added to this blog. I'm flabbergasted to have had over 25 hits in the last 48 hours. I know that's not much for most websites -- but it's a lot more than I expected here. Now I'm feeling some pressure to be really careful about my spelling and punctuation.

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