Problems with reality

Sometimes, I see something on TV, and I’m not sure what degree of a gag it’s supposed to be. There were a couple examples today. Watching Make, they ran a piece on a treadmill bicycle. You walk on it like a treadmill, it moves like a bike. Going to the website., it becomes clear that it’s not that serious, but it is genuine. You can get one of your own for about $2500.

During Mythbusters, they had an add showing a woman on what appeared to be a really bad blind date, and it turns out that it’s with her husband. Then they directed you to AshleyMadison.com, with the tag line “When divorce is not an option.” I thought I was smart. Told my wife “I bet I know what that is. I bet this is a teaser ad for a movie about someone you can hire to have your spouse killed.” Got that wrong. Turns out it is a very legitimate site for a not-so-legimiate function; it’s basically a dating site for married folks looking for a little side action.

Netflix steps up

This morning, I got a note from Netflix, saying that they’d received my latest disk, and my next disk would go out on Monday. Which I thought was interesting — they’re receiving stuff on Saturday, when they used to be closed — but if they’re still not shipping stuff until Monday, it doesn’t gain me anything.

But now I get a note, they’ve sent the next disk. Now that’s significant. Used to be that when you sent a disk in on Friday, the mailman might deliver it to them on Saturday, but there’d be no one to process it until Monday, and you got your next disk on Tuesday. That was the  longest wait in the Netflix turnaround, waiting 4 days for your disk… and now it’s down to three.

Thing is, it costs Netflix real money to do this. The faster they turn disks around, the faster the disk gets watched and returned. Every added turnaround costs them in paying postage, paying for the mailer, paying for processing, and wear and tear on the disk itself. On the other hand, this seems to close a rather blatant opportunity for a competitor to claim better service.

With the post office considering cutting back to 5-day-a-week delivery, it may soon be moot.

I am virtually awesome

I Wii-bowled a 278 tonight! (At a friends’ place; there is no such device here.)

Spared the first frame, then 9 straight strikes, then spared the extra frames. That long line of bowties sure looked nice.

The surprise and the confession

The surprise was discovering that David Paymer, whom we rather like as an actor here at Nat’s TV or Not TV, is a director, and has been directing episodes of TV for years. Even things I watch, I just haven’t noticed the director name before.

The confession? I noticed this whil watching an episode of Privileged. Yes, I’m still watching that fluffy bit of teen silliness. It, well, it never bothers me.

In the category of "failing up"

Bob Saget had a sitcom, Surviving Suburbia, which was slated to run on The CW, as part of the lets-rent-out-Sunday experiment which died a quick, ugly death. So instead, it’ll air Monday nights on ABC, after Dancing With the Stars.

Not really meatloaf. Meatballs.

Had a Super Bowl party today (a good day for it.) Had a 28″ pizza and lots of snicky-snacks for everyone, but one person I knew was coming has problems with gluten, and that ruled out almost everything we had. So I made some meatballs.

• Ground turkey breast
• rice
• raisins

Had wee Allison help me ball them up, then threw it all in a crockpot, covering them with Trader Joe’s low-sodium tomato and red pepper soup. The meatballs could’ve used a little spice (I’d considered adding some garlic, which would’ve been right), but overall, quite edible. Went over well.

Make

For the nerds among us, for the Mythbusters crowd, for those who like me sometimes find themselves missing Junkyard Wars and Battlebots, there is Make. This is a spinoff ofa nerd magazine that launched a coupla years back thikning they would reach out to the small base of modern DIYers, people who like to see what they can build from what there is to be had. The magazine was an unexpected blatant hit, becoming the Popular Mechanics/Electronics of the modern age. The show is a half hour magazine, mixing demonstrating what people make (giant flaming statues, pedal-powered amusement rides, whatever) with some how-to examples that are, frankly, a bit beyond what I would choose to do, but it’s still interesting to watch. This half-hour is airing at odd times on random PBS stations. Check it out — or watch it online.