What else I like or Fun with DVR

A little less than two months ago, we ordered DVR through our cable company. Installation problems aside, it's been a brilliant service and works the way we expected. At first, we kept forgetting to use the features available - for example, pausing a TV show we were watching before running to the bathroom or fastfowarding through the commercials on recorded shows. I think it has significantly changed how we watch TV. We no longer watch whatever crap that happens to be on, for one thing. When one of us is coming home late, the other records our favorite shows to watch later. Some shows I watch only through recordings anyway.

One such show is Spaced, a British comedy that ran for a couple of seasons in the late 90s. I had never heard of Spaced before Bravo had a marathon of episodes in January. I had heard of the series' creators, Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, in backwards sort of way. When we were in London last April, posters for the movie Shaun of the Dead, which was written by and stars Simon Pegg, were everywhere. Even without knowing the star, I desperately wanted to see it, as I am fan of such films as Evil Dead and Night of the Living Dead and English humor in general. Unfortunately, it wasn't released to theatres until after we had left London, so I had to wait until the summer when it was released here in the States. But it was well worth the wait.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find out about the series, Spaced, and equally glad to have the DVR unit in order to record all the episodes. We've been working our way through them slowly, and I am frightened at how well it captures the Gen X experience in the 90s. Pegg and I are about the same age and what he writes about in the series could have come directly from my life:

- Working at a comic book store: check
- Collecting comics: check
- Playing video games: check
- Friend who wants to write/draw his own comic: check
- Friend who skateboards: check
- Club kids and "rave" culture: Oh, god help me, yes.
- Friend who is a militaty nut with guns: (Please, shoot me now) Yes.
- Obsession with the first three Star Wars movies: Absolutely
- Conversations desperately trying to create meaning in vapid pop culture: Of course.
- ...and then devolve into silly arguments about trivia: Guilty.
- Aspiring writer who never writes and has yet to be published: Yes, indeed, sir.

The premise behind the show is that two acquaintances, Tim (Pegg) and Daisy (Stevenson), are desperately in need of new apartments. Tim was thrown out by his ex-girlfriend and Daisy was living in a squat with junkies. They find a great place, but the ad specifies married couples only. So, Tim and Daisy pose as a married couple to get the apartment. Luckily, the show downplays the zany Three's Company element and instead focuses on the daily lives of the characters intertwined with pop culture references and over-the-top, wacky adventures. Besides slacker Tim, a comic book store employee and aspiring comic book artist, and Daisy, an aspiring writer/journalist, the other misfits include: Marsha (Julia Deakin), the nosy and eternally horny landlady, Brian (Mark Heap), their tortured artist neighbor, Twist (Katy Carmichael), Daisy's vain and fashion-obsessed best friend, and Mike (Nick Frost), Tim's military and gun-obsessed best friend.

Had I caught the series when it was first run, I would have been RABID for it. As it is, I am still a pretty big fan. It's very funny and clever, and although it's only a few years old, I'm surprised at the nostalgia it invokes in me. It reminds me of the Friday nights we used to spend playing D&D after hours in the comic store.

50 Book Challenge and the Viral Nature of the Internet

I belong to a lot of Yahoo Groups on a lot of different subjects: reading groups, magick groups, D&D groups, Comic Book groups, you name it. Very often, someone on a group will write, "Hey, check out this [web site/forum/service/book/group]." Of course, being a curious person, I'll have to go check out the web site/forum/service/book/group, along with anyone else who received the same email. Now, I'm not talking about the email that says something like "Ultra low prices on Viagra!" or even the annoying emails from well-meaning people who are trying to increase traffic to their web site or other Internet entity. Personally, when I find something cool online, I email people I think will care about it and might enjoy using it. Then they do they same thing, sending the information out and infecting others with the mostly benign virus of pop culture. That's what I'm talking about. There is no cure and we have been assimilated, like it or not.

So if you're here, it means you like some of the things that I like. Here's a list of things I've found that I like that therefore you might like, too:

http://bibliophil.org/default.asp

Keep track of your book collection, rate and review books, swap books, make friends with other book lovers.

http://www.hsx.com

The Hollywood Stock Exchange is an online game. You buy (pretend) stocks in real actors, films and directors and the stock values are based on real movie deals. I've been trading on the exchange for a couple of years now. I'm losing big on the Harry Potter movies, but my Keanu Reeves stock is making a killing. Who knew?

http://www.livejournal.com/community/50bookchallenge/

The 50 Book Challenge is Live Journal Community that challenges members to read 50 books in a year, which is more than 4 books per month. I'd better get on it!

Gmail and Firefox

I am a big fan of both services. Gmail is such a great free email account that I've stopped using all my other personal email accounts. I love being able to use Google to search my emails, I love having emails sorted by threads and I especially love having 1 gig of storage space for my emails.

I was skeptical of Firefox as a browser, because it was surrounded by so much hype. But after a serious virus problem on our computer, we switched and I have no regrets. It has neat add ons, like the weather updates on the bottom tool bar, keeps visited on web sites on tabs in the same window for easy reference and is just easy and convenient to use.