So Pithy » tv

Let them eat cake

Jason — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 01:19:27 +0000

One might not expect me to have an opinion, but I do: I think the best cake decorator in the country is Bronwen Weber (her poor showing in Food Network’s “Last Cake Standing” notwithstanding–when she’s on she can’t be beat.) And I think the funniest is Geof Manthorne (of Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes“.)

Funny thing is, I don’t eat cake that often. Not even at the birthday party I was at yesterday. Didn’t even have one of the cupcakes. But I do love me some pancakes. That’s why every Tuesday and Saturday around these parts it’s pancake day.

Can’t wait for tomorrow morning.

Home and garden television

Jason — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:55:08 +0000

Unlike, say, MTV, HGTV has done an excellent job of staying true to its roots. Turn it on at any point during the day and you’ll almost certainly find a show about either homes or gardens. Good luck finding something about music on MTV, let alone music videos.

Sadly, there’s a lot on HGTV that is crap. Incidentally, there’s also a lot that’s Canadian. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, either. But one show that is Canadian and simultaneously isn’t crap is Income Property. The gist? Host Scott McGillivray helps homeowners renovate a rental space (say, a basement) to provide extra income and lower (or eliminate) mortgage payments. Each episode McGillivray presents homeowners with two renovation plans to transform the space to a greater or lesser extent. After the choice is made, work commences, and by the end of the episode a gorgeous new apartment is revealed.

One oddity, at least in our household: McGillivray’s insistence on listing the resulting spaces as “legal” apartments. To our ears that just sounds more suspicious, not less. Maybe it’s just because we’ve never lived in a big metro area, or maybe the focus on “legal” apartments reflects Canadian zoning issues (like the requirement of windows but not necessarily windows one can fit through in bedrooms.) Whatever the case, it’s a great show. Unlike, say, My Big Amazing Renovation; somebody must have told the announcer that dropping the “g” from “-ing” words would make him sound more casual, because he is constantly overdoin’ it.

Parks and Recreation

Jason — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:37:06 +0000

I feared NBC’s Parks and Recreation would be little more than a thinly veiled rehash of The Office. Turns out my fears were unfounded: the show’s creators decided to forgo the veil entirely. The Office has its moments–enough of them that I continue to watch–but not so many that I need to see them reproduced elsewhere.

Adventures in soldering

Jason — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:54:53 +0000

Deb’s sister gave us her old Pioneer TiVos with built-in DVD burner, but one of them had a major problem: the RF in jack had come loose, spinning freely whenever I tried to attach coax cable and failing to provide signal to the tuner.

Opening up the case, I saw the problem: the connection from the jack to the tuner had broken. So I headed off to Lowe’s for a soldering kit. Faced with several choices, I went for the kit that, for the same price, also functioned as a mini-torch.

I failed, however, to notice the print on the underside of the box that informed me that the kit did not include butane. The kit was not only “refillable”–filling was mandatory.

So I headed out again, this time to Wal-Mart for some butane. Got it home, filled the soldering iron, and made the repair. Or so I thought. But after hooking it up, the TiVo still couldn’t tune any channels. So I disconnected it.

Then, while reconnecting the other TiVo, I noticed that it couldn’t find a signal either. That’s when I realized: in my efforts to prevent the RF jack from breaking again, I had switched cables to one that I could connect easier, but I had plugged that cable into the wrong wall jack.

So my repair probably worked. Sadly, while disconnecting the TiVo I was less than careful, turning the jack hard enough to break the connection again and leave the jack spinning freely. Meaning I get to repeat the whole process all over again.

The “Not History Channel”

Jason — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:04:19 +0000

“The prehistoric reptiles known as dinosaurs…” Exactly! Prehistoric. So why is the History Channel featuring a show about prehistory? Please, it’s bad enough that it’s the “Hitler Channel” half the time.

In brief: if it’s from a time before written records, it’s not history anymore, it’s prehistory. Archeology, anthropology, paleontology, etc. all apply, but not history. Leave shows about prehistory to the Discovery Channel.

Germany vs. Turkey live feed

Jason — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:59:55 +0000

The television feed of Germany’s dramatic victory in Euro 2008 was disrupted during the game on account of a power outage in Vienna. Per UEFA contracts all international TV feeds went through Vienna. The Swiss, however, had their own, separate, local feed for the game (since it was in Basel) and at least Germany (perhaps other European countries, too) managed to tap into that feed until the situation in Vienna was resolved.

At least that’s what ZDF told viewers after the game.