mostly unimportant – Page 9

September 16, 2011

Any Given Friday

The crisp, cool air of September typically brings up some of these memories. Fourteen years ago now, a Friday night in September meant that I was walking out onto a football field in mid-Missouri to play a marching show. To this day, the fondest memories of high school involve that uniform and that snare drum, the same one I had all three years at Hickman High School. I’m sad I’ve lost track of a lot of the people I marched with, but I do think of them from time to time and wish I could get that kind of experience back again.

More than likely, I’ll have to wait until Meg’s in a similar uniform someday.

But until then, I can relive the memories, thanks to transfer technology from VHS to DVD, and from DVD to YouTube. Thus, on this Friday in September, I present to you my marching shows from high school for your viewing enjoyment.

“Western Perceptions” – 1997

“The Music of Shakespeare” – 1998

“Homage: Three Tapestries” – 1999

And for those that want Kristen’s shows, I’ve got those up on YouTube also. “The Music of Stravinsky,” “The Wind and The Lion,” and “Journey Through A Dream.”

September 8, 2011

On Netflix

There has been a reasonable amount of vitriol on the interwebs with regards to Netflix in recent weeks. First, it was the price increase and separation of DVDs and Instant Queue into separate plans. Then, Starz pulls out of negotiations to keep their content on the streaming service, including Disney movies and TV shows, meaning that a lot of content will disappear in February. Finally, today, it comes out that Netflix will begin enforcing its rule to only allow streaming to a single device on an account at one time (or two devices if you have a two-DVD plan, and so on).

I’ll read comments from folks on blogs saying that they’re going to cancel their accounts over all this. That Netflix isn’t adding enough new content to justify their $8/mo. That they are screwing over their consumers.

Well, folks. Get used to it. The cost of doing business with Netflix will keep going up, and they aren’t alone.

Hulu famously created “Hulu Plus,” a separate entity that you pay $8/mo to use. Hulu carries shows from ABC, FOX and NBC, as well as many of their affiliates. Some shows appear the day after airing on TV. Other shows appear after 30 days. Hulu Plus gives you the ability to watch some of these shows on your television, but the nature of the deal that Hulu was able to work with The Powers That Be dictate that not all of Hulu’s content can be sent to your TV. They still want you to watch that content on a TV, through your cable provider, rather than do it through the internet.

Oh, and Hulu Plus still contains ads. You pay $8/mo extra for different content than you get through their website, and you still get ads. All just so you can watch it on your TV. Because an LCD TV is different than an LCD monitor, apparently.

The content providers in the motion picture and television industry want a large piece of the proverbial pie, and they have entrenched interests with the cable providers that have built and “maintained” that infrastructure for decades. They see upstarts like Netflix to be a threat. A company that provides a really nice service to their customers that the vast majority of people are happy with.

Netflix has almost single-handidly destroyed the DVD industry. In the early-2000s, I bought tons of DVDs, but now that I have Netflix, I have no need. I can order a DVD and have it the next day, any time I want to see a movie. Half the movies I own are on Netflix Streaming. I still prefer the video quality of popping the disc in rather than using the internet to watch it, but still: if I want to see it, I can with only the most minimal of planning. There was a time where I would rarely walk out of Wal-Mart without a DVD in town. Now, I can safely enter and browse DVDs without fear of actually buying one.

Thus, these companies will charge Netflix exorbitant amounts of money to license movies and TV shows. They will keep increasing the licensing costs, not because the content is actually worth that much, but because they want to destroy Netflix and keep their business model intact.

This is all aside from the fact that cable seems to have less and less that I want to watch. Whenever Brooke and I are at our respective parent’s houses, we’ll flip on the TV and see what’s on. Invariably, the answer is a resounding “nada.” The only thing I miss having is the occasional sporting event. So if I cared about sports more, we’d have to have cable. Other than that, we just don’t watch much on TV anymore, at least stuff that isn’t available digitally through Hulu or TV.com, or that will eventually be available through Netflix in some form or fashion. Part of me wants to get the basic “Family Package” of 30 channels when we move just so I don’t have to deal with bunny ears anymore, but thankfully, St. Louis gets a good number of channels over-the-air, so even that isn’t as big a deal.

Netflix provides me with a good service. I have almost no desire to return to cable. I can watch what I want and there’s plenty of material available, with new content arriving frequently. My Instant Queue has 63 items in it, and it should be longer except that I know I barely have enough time to watch what I already added.

Keep on going, Netflix. I’ll continue to support you. And I imagine most people will, too.

August 22, 2011

Of Movie Ratings and “Black Swan”

We grabbed “Black Swan” from Netflix this weekend. The film was directed by Darren Aronofsky, a guy whose movies I can’t say I’ve been particularly fond of (“Pi” and “Requiem For A Dream,” specifically). Unlike those previous flicks, I can safely say that I enjoyed this movie, though it was definitely weird. I can understand that it probably isn’t everyone’s cup o’ tea, but it is more suspenseful than I expected and the story worked on a variety of levels, which I always appreciate.

I only write about this because I had to think a bit about how to rate the movie on Netflix. They let you rate movies on a 5 star scale, which then helps them suggest more movies for your viewing pleasure. I tend to struggle with such things because, in some ways, you’re trying to think about Netflix’s rating system and assess what you think about a movie and what you want them to think you think about the movie. For example, I love me some “Army of Darkness,” but by most accounts, it’s a terrible movie. Perhaps it’s best not to rate a movie based on whether you believe it deserves critical acclaim for technical accomplishment and performance by the actors, but instead on whether you’d see it again or not.

Thus, I have settled upon the following system:

5 Stars: I’d watch this movie again and again for all eternity. I’d buy the DVD and the Bluray if I could.
4 Stars: Great movie that I’d watch again, but I don’t need to own it.
3 Stars: Good movie. Glad I saw it. Don’t really need to see it again.
2 Stars: Not very good. I’ll never watch this again and I’ll steer others clear of it.
1 Star: Minutes of my life were taken by this movie. It’s almost worth buying a copy so I can burn it. In a barrel. “Battlefield Earth,” I’m talking to you.

Under this system, I think I’ll give “Black Swan” 4 Stars. It’s a pretty great movie, I think. I need to see it again just to see what I missed during the somewhat difficult-to-follow plot line, but I really like where the writer went with it. I’d say more about the story, but I’m afraid I’d give too much away. I definitely recommend you see it.

August 12, 2011

Fish Fry

A new fish place recently opened off of Mark Twain Avenue in Hannibal that my father-in-law, Mark, has started to frequent. The proprietors go fishing on the Mississippi River daily, haul in their catch, clean it all for you, and open for business around 10:00 am. So if you want fresh catfish in that general area, this is apparently the place to go.

Anyway, Mark decided he wanted to host a fish fry this past weekend, so many of us descended upon Hannibal, MO to have a mix of catfish and buffalo fish, among other things.

fish_fry_1 — Edie is hoping Mark drops one of those fishes on the ground...

Mark borrowed the equipment, but basically, we were outside heating up canola oil in a dutch oven over an outdoor propane burner. This one is very similar to the one I just got for my birthday to use in beer brewing. It took a little while to heat the oil up to the desired temperature, but he had an issue with the candy thermometer we were using. As in, it wasn’t working properly, so the first few fish didn’t quite fry correctly.

fish_fry_2 — Wish I could remember which seasoning packet he used. They were pretty perfect when they came out of that fryer...

After he turned the burner down a bit, things improved. It only took a few minutes for each fish fillet to be cooked through. I was kind of amazed how the smell of fried fish permeated the air surrounding the frying rig. I mean, you can smell fried fish in a restaurant easily, but that’s an enclosed space. This was very easy to smell from 30 feet away. Mmmmm…

fish_fry_3 — Catfish, buffalo fish, and hushpuppies.

The buffalo fish isn’t one I’d ever had before: it’s the “wavy” one in the picture above. The catfish looked like your typical filet, so nothing too special there…except for the flavor, of course. Brooke also made hushpuppies, and those were pretty spectacular. The hushpuppies didn’t go in until after the fish was done, so as to not mix the flavors too much.

fish_fry_4 — Brooke tried her hand at some corn fritters.

Brooke really wanted to try corn fritters, though. They’re similar to a hushpuppy, but not quite. She made up the corn mix and took it out with a little scooper, dropped it into the fryer, and they turned a nice, golden brown. I think they were a bit softer and less dry than a typical hushpuppy, but in the end, they’re pretty similar entities. Is there a reason to have both? Probably not. But hey, they were both spectacular, so I didn’t complain.

fish_fry_5 — They were done once they were floating. You can see the individual kernels of corn on the fritters.

In all, the food was excellent. I can’t say I get fresh catfish very often, especially fish that was caught on the same day. I think I preferred the catfish over the buffalo, personally, but they were both really good. I think the corn fritters went over best with people, but the hushpuppies were almost gone by the end, too.

I don’t think we’ll have to try too hard to get Mark to make this a yearly (monthly?) event. 🙂

August 10, 2011

An “Auction-packed” Afternoon

IMAG0204 — Mark, watching intently as artwork was auctioned off.

I haven’t attended a ton of auctions in my time. Most of them have been for family members that passed away, so the kids were trying to get rid of all the stuff they had around the house. Old toys. Old magazines. Especially old farm tools and implements, many of which were rusted beyond any usefulness.

This past weekend, Brooke’s Dad and I went by an auction hosted by a guy getting rid of some collectibles, among other things. So, in some ways, this was my first auction for things I could actually have some interest in owning. He had an assortment of different items available, ranging from movie posters and artwork, to yard equipment, to two boats and a van, and so on.

IMAG0205 — I don't know what it sold for, but it was in nice shape.

It was very interesting seeing what people pay for things, especially prints. One guy spent $20 on a framed picture of Marilyn Monroe. Not signed. Not a particularly nice frame. Just a picture. Signed posters of sports “stars” (as in, I’d never heard of these people) from a car dealership in Independence, MO ranged from $10 – $30 or so. An oil-on-canvass portrait of some random guy sold for $300 to a man who looked slightly older than me. Surely he had some idea of what that thing was really worth, as the tears and condition of the painting made “$300” look like “too much.”

We arrived after most of the cooler things had already sold. The Corvette shown above had a photocopy of a magazine listing values for such things, placing the car in the $15,000 to $24,000 range. No clue if it actually sold for anywhere near that. It was a Pace Car in the 70th Indianapolis 500 and looked like it was in pretty good condition. There were a few small children’s cars that had already sold, as well. I didn’t take pictures, as they were being loaded up by the time we got there. They were your “Flintstones“-type vehicle, where your feet would propel you forward as you sat in this metal and wood contraption. Looked cool and was surely antique.

IMAG0206 — This would be nice next to my bar someday.

I think Mark was interested in the Betty Boop waitress statue. It was maybe 5 feet tall and looked to be in great shape. We couldn’t tell how much it eventually sold for, but we were told that someone called in a bid of $2000 for it. Not the kind of money I would pay, but still…good to know how much I need to save up if I eventually want something like it.

All in all, it was a worthwhile experience. We were only there for maybe 30 min, and that was all we needed to tell that most of the interesting stuff had already sold, and most of what was left wasn’t worth much to us.

It’s just interesting to know that what isn’t worth anything to us is worth something to someone else.

July 28, 2011

Who’da thought?

As Brooke is out of town most of the week, I’m generally left to my own devices, yet I still have to tend the garden. My Mom frequently reminds me that she finds this baffling and amusing, as I’m probably the last person she ever thought she’d see gardening.

Especially green beans.

I’m somewhat notorious for my dislike of green beans. To be fair, I have found them progressively more acceptable in my old age, but they are still the last vegetable I could ever want to see on my plate. That said, getting them fresh from the garden, and somewhat “crispy,” is probably the best way to have them.

Mom picked some beans last week, amassing not quite an ice cream bucket full of them. While she was picking, she pointed out which ones were probably good enough and which ones should stay on for another day or two before picking. Using her imparted wisdom, I picked green beans for the first time ever, so far as I know. We had some beans last year, but if I recall, Brooke picked them every time. As you can see above, I ended up with almost two buckets full this time, and we’ve got quite a few more ready to pick in another few days, depending on how much sun they get (it rained some last night and is supposed to again over the next few days).

Being the wonderful husband I am, I even cut them and bagged them. Now, this is definitely the first time I ever did this part of the job. Brooke usually processes and cans the beans, but that’s right about where I draw the line. I’ll stem them, since I can watch TV while I do it. I won’t be canning them, though, so these will remain in the refrigerator until someone comes up here to eat them.

Brooke will return on Thursday night, so I’ll probably go out again and try to pick some more that night and leave them for her to process on Friday. Considering how many beans were still on the plants, I think she’ll have more than enough to make it worth canning.

As a brief aside, the tomatoes are looking pretty awesome, with a few large ones turning a darker green color. I imagine we’ll have a pretty huge crop of them in the next few weeks!

July 25, 2011

Glee-king Out Over Little Things

After we finished up most of our regular season television programming, Brooke and I decided it was about time to see what this whole “Glee” thing was all about. The first season has been up on Netflix Instant Queue for awhile, and will hopefully be followed by the second season once it releases.

For the uninitiated, “Glee” follows a ragtag group of high school students from Ohio as they attempt to get first place at the otherwise nondescript “Regionals.” As it is a show focusing on high school, it tends to alternate focus between characters, looking at their lives, troubles and growth as individuals, and as a singing group. The difference from other high school dramas, however, is that each episode is marked by musical numbers from a variety of sources, including Broadway and classic and modern pop. The show has also featured guest stars, from Olivia Newton-John to Josh Groban to Neil Patrick Harris.

I think Brooke likes the show a bit more than I do, which is somewhat counter-intuitive in that I tend to like musicals more than she does. For me, I think my main problem comes from the somewhat “rough-shot” execution of the whole endeavor. For example, some of the kids do a much better job lip syncing than others, and it’s really obvious to the point of distraction. Also, the background story thread about budget cuts constantly threatening to shut down the glee club flies in the face of the elaborate musical numbers utilizing huge sets, expensive lighting and professional-grade sound systems. Some episodes feature an inner-monologue a la “Scrubs,” yet others don’t use one at all. The perspective in each episode could be third-person, or it could become first-person mid-episode, only to switch around again 5 minutes later. Finally, musical numbers tend to feature either a guy on a piano, or the school’s apparently awesome jazz band…yet you can pick out solos and effects in the music that the instrumentation presented are incapable of producing.

These are all complaints that Brooke can move past, as she will continually remind me that “it’s fictional.” I dunno. I watch a good deal of science fiction and I can get past some things, but for some reason, I think it’s the lack of consistency episode to episode that annoys me most.

That all said, the music is pretty good. I do enjoy hearing different versions of familiar songs performed in context with the story outlined in the show. You find yourself pulling for them as they deal with their disparate struggles throughout the season, despite the fact that the story really isn’t all that complex or revolutionary. I guess I’d just like some of those rough edges trimmed a bit, not necessarily to make it more believable, but at least make it consistent from episode to episode.

We’ll watch the second season once it releases on Netflix streaming. Not sure we’ll get it done in time for the third season to start on live TV, but we’ll try. Until then, we have “Mad Men” premiering on Netflix Instant this Wednesday, so we’re excited to finally jump on that train a few years late as well.

Oh, and speaking of shows we’re just now getting to, we rented “Modern Family” and watched its first season, as well. Here’s an example of a show that is unbelievable, yet is consistent enough that I don’t pay attention to it. 5 stars for that one, folks. Hope the second season is as good as the first one.

July 15, 2011

Garden Update

We put in a decent amount of time in the garden last week, though Brooke’s been out there most days this week weeding. Needless to say, with a garden this size, it’s almost a full time job if you really want to keep all weeds out of it. For the most part, we’ve just kept weeds out of the western portion of the garden and are letting the corn go, as it’s getting big enough that we can barely get between the rows anymore.

Here’s the second half of the pea crop. Last year, the peas did absolutely nothing, so getting just about two buckets like this is an improvement. Took us longer than expected to shell all of this while watching “Modern Family” last night!

In the future, we’ll probably have to plant peas even sooner. These went in the ground in early May, but it probably needs to go in even sooner, even with the risk of an Iowa frost. Hopefully Meg still loves peas next summer!

The tomatoes are starting to come on, with small little green ones like this on practically every plant (pictured in the top image…we’ve got something like 16 of them, in various varieties). Nothing edible yet, but we’ll have plenty soon enough!

The beans (green ones to the right, soup beans to the left) are doing alright. The plants aren’t all that large yet, but we’ve got buds on the green beans, so they’ll start producing relatively soon. Brooke spaced these rows apart pretty well, so it’s somewhat easy to get in there with a hoe and take care of weeds. And believe you me, we see plenty of weeds between those rows…

The corn got its “tassels” this week, but still isn’t as tall as Brooke’s parents’ corn down in Hannibal. This is our first year trying to grow corn, so anything we get will be a “bonus,” so far as I’m concerned. We’ve got 4 rows that we planted earlier than the two on the right (tassel-less), so hopefully that spreads out the corn harvest a tad bit. We’re starting to see a corn stand or two as you drive around the area, so it appears that other people’s garden crop aren’t too far behind.

This is a “Meg,” growing beneath the broccoli. While Meg is developing pretty well, the broccoli isn’t doing as well as I’d like. We have a row of plants this big, but we only have one plant that we’ve found so far that has any actual broccoli on it. Brooke’s parents had some fresh broccoli off their plants over the July 4th holiday that was wonderful, but ours doesn’t appear to be doing that well.

Regardless, the garden is doing alright. As per last year, the tomatoes will probably do the best out of everything, but we’re starting to see some results from the crop as a whole!

July 11, 2011

A Good Weekend

Stu has been meaning to come up and visit since we moved up here over a year ago, so now that he’s shifting jobs and moving in the next few weeks, he was able to get some extra time for the 4.5 hour trip from Columbia to Swisher. We time this such that Meg was in Hannibal for last week with her grandparents, then Brooke went down Friday night to get her. Needless to say, Stu and I got into only a little bit of trouble…

Mostly, the weekend was taken up by games, BBQ and frolfing. Lots of frolfing. I haven’t played this much in years.

Jason joined us for Saturday’s romp around Cedar Rapids. We hit up Jones Park first, followed by Shaver Park. Both were 18-hole courses, where the first (picture above) had a good number of open spaces, while Shaver Park was almost entirely in thick forest. Thankfully, we played Shaver second, as it was getting rather sunny and hot out. On Sunday afternoon, when it was infinitely more hot and humid out, we “only” played another 18-hole course, Legion Park. I guess you could say that Legion offered the most variety of the three courses we played this weekend, but it was so disorganized that it was probably the worst experience we had the whole time. The signs were few and far between and the holes didn’t seem to be organized in any logical order (i.e. we played through hole 6, couldn’t find hole 7, found hole 10 after doing holes 11-14, and play hole 17 and 18 before finding 15 and 16…ug…).

Regardless, my legs are pretty tired after all that. Good times, though.

The weather held together pretty well the whole weekend. We BBQed Friday night while the ladies were out of town, then again on Saturday night after they returned from Hannibal. Brooke’s thus far unnamed chicken even came over to visit while we were sitting by the grill. This is the first weekend we’d seen the chicken venture that far from the coop, but it was nice to see her out and about.

IMAG0151-1 — Margaret Jean Linsenbardt, circa 1932

Meg was mostly in good spirits, but she needed to “reset” her sleeping clock after a week with grandma. She slept until around 6:15 am on Sunday morning, but made it until around 7:30 Monday morning, so it didn’t take too long to get her back on our usual schedule. Now that she’s “toddling” much more effectively, she’s also getting in to things we don’t really want her to. Case in point, she has discovered Brooke’s pots of dirt, and loves tossing them in the air and on herself. I grabbed this picture above and Stu suggested a “sepia hue” to pull out the dust bowl aesthetic. I think it worked pretty well.

Not sure how this makes her parents look, though…

IMAG0156 — There's a game controller beneath that tail...

Otherwise, much console gaming was had. We really weren’t up all that late playing, which is probably just a testament to the fact we’re getting older…or the copious amounts of beer we were having… We played through almost all of Killzone 3 in the co-op campaign, only to have the save file get corrupted at the second-to-last chapter of the game. Grrrrr… Otherwise, we played quite a bit of Mortal Kombat and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, so I think we did a good job scratching the “heavy game session” itch.

In all, a pretty spectacular weekend. Thanks for visiting, buddy.