What TV show(s) will you be watching this season? Why?
Submitted by ducnly.vox.com.
24. After a season or two of complacency, the last two have been stellar.
Lost. This well-written show always has these crazy season-ending cliffhangers.
The Office. Because it's the funniest sitcom on these days.
Grey's Anatomy. Despite Meredith's incessant whining, it's a lot of eye candy.
Battlestar Galactica. They did such a good job with the re-creation of this show.
My Name Is Earl. It's such a goofy, silly show but with a underlying good message.
Good Eats. It's like 'Bill Nye the Science Guy' for food.
Scrubs. Still one of the funniest shows on air.
Studio 60. I heard the pilot was great.
Without a Trace. Poppy Montgomery.
CSI. One of my old favorites, I lost touch with it last season.
30 Rock. Tina Fey is a great writer, and I am curious to see her post-SNL work.
House. House's sardonic demeanor. And dood, did you see that teenage girl? Rawr.
Six Degrees. I'd like to see how this show's widely-known premise plays out.
Heroes. I really want to see if this is simply 'X-Men' Lite.
American Idol. It's the only reality show (aside from Big Brother) worth watching.
Nip/Tuck. Too much fluff now. And no more Famek Janssen.Standoff. Pilot didn't impress me, despite the attractive redhead.Cold Case.Numb3rs.ER.CSI: New York, Miami, Schenectady, Alburquerque.
Amen for TiVo.
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Yes.
Who didn't love The Matrix? Who doesn't love The Muppets? This is a really well done CG version of the movie trailer. The only thing that could have been cooler would have been if it were real life Muppets.
Back in the 80s, I totally loved watching McGyver. He made being an ingenious scientific nerd cool. Well, cooler. I mean, he used to stop nuclear reactors from overheating with chocolate bars, and fix helicopter turbines with Pez and belly button lint. I used to (and sometimes still) want to be as resourceful as he, so I get excited whenever I have a MacGyver Moment.
This weekend I went on a long bike ride. Normally for these long rides, I bring extra things like an extra water bottle and an extra tube in case I get two flats on a ride (which has never happened). I was riding on the Stevens Creek Trail and passed a volunteer group cleaning garbage off of the trail. I got a flat tire and has to stop to change it. Normally I can change my tire in about 4-5 minutes, but it had been awhile since I had done it and some curious little boy named Cliff was watching me and asking me questions. I was a little distracted patiently explaining my bike and what I was doing to him. When I put the wheel back on and pumped it up, it promptly flatted again! I hadn't checked the outer wheel well enough, and whatever caused the first flat was still embedded in there, causing the second flat.
I had no more tubes and it was a 6-mile walk home. I thought for a minute and then looked around. I asked one of the nearby volunteers if I could sift through their garbage. Embarrassing, yes, but it was worth it. I rummaged for awhile and came up with an answer: an old, used, dried-up ketchup packet. Much to the horror of the volunteers around me, I squeezed what was left of the crusty ketchup onto the tube around the area that had been punctured. I then took the foil packet and wrapped it around the tube over the puncture like you'd wrap a band-aid around your finger. The dry ketchup acted as an adhesive as I pumped the tire. The pressure of the ketchup packet "patch" between the air-pressured tube and the outer tire kept it in place. Amazingly, it sealed the flat!
Cliff witness this and said it was "gross" and "cool" at the same time. Hey, that's me. Anyone who knows me knows that I know just about every jingle and theme song from the 80s. And whenever I have a MacGyver Moment, I can't help but sing the theme song to MacGyver. Well, at least the chorus. Imagine me riding away humming that. Well, I did! Albeit tentatively at first, I was able to make it home at full speed on the tire fixed with a used ketchup packet.
Sure I didn't save the world or anything. That's why I don't have my own TV show.
Because I've done it on 3 different bikes, it's not 100% accurate. But I've been keeping an Excel-based log of my cycling for the past three years so I can track my progress with a high degree of certainty. Yesterday I reached 10,000 miles.
What's your motto?
Over the years, I've had several mottos I tried to live by. The more recent being:
"We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give."
"It's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than halfway up one you don't."
But the one that has remained tried and true for the past 15 years:
"Be excellent to each other."
I've made it a short term goal to start participating in a lot of bike rides. Not races. Rides. If I'm ever going to do a triathlon, I need things to shoot for. Runs can come later as I'm ramping up on running, but I've got to keep my cycling level up in the mean time. Besides that, I want to have a collection of ride/run bibs plastering the wall of my home office.
Some of the rides I'm eyeing:
29 Sep, Eddy Merckx Ride, 35 miles with the most famous cyclist in history
01 Oct, Mt. Diablo Challenge - 10.8 miles up and INSANE hill
14 Oct, Coyote Creek Classic - 50 miles
21 Oct, Gilroy Bonfante Harvest Ride - 64 or 100 miles
11 Nov, Le Tour de Foothills - 64 miles if I can find time to go to LA
10 Feb, Tour de Palm Springs - 100 miles
03 Mar, Death Valley Double Century - 200 miles (total wishlist ride)
31 Mar, Cinderella Classic - 64 miles
That's right, I think I'm going to train for a double century. 200 miles in one day. The farthest I've ridden in a single day was 110 miles. I've got 6 months to train for this. I basically have to average about 16mph for 12 hours. Shat I'm scrrrd.
Just read an entertaining little article in the Economist.
In-flight announcements are not entirely truthful. What might an honest one sound like?
"Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero."
