20 December 1997: Getting Connected

Saturday, 20 December 1997:

Getting Connected

Yesterday was a typical Friday at work, pushing through stuff, having a meeting to plan the rest of our VB3-to-VB5 conversion, and generally looking forward to going home. I also called my landlord company to find out where the cable TV jack in my apartment is. I wasn't able to find it, and since this building is only 3 years old, it's not possible it's not wired for it. I'm pretty sure that it's behind an unmarked electrical plate, which of course is on the opposite wall from my TV.

I haven't had cable TV since I lived with my Mom - quite a few years ago. I don't watch much television, and don't have much interest in watching more. However, I'm breaking down so I can watch Babylon 5 when it moves to TNT next month. I'm not sure if I'll keep it after the season ends; we'll see.

When the Sci-Fi Channel started a few years ago, I would have gotten cable then, except that our local system, TCI (a.k.a. "the evil ones"), decided not to carry it. By the time they finally did get it, two years later, I wasn't very interested. Partly I haven't had cable because I loathe the idea of giving money to TCI. Ah, well.

I slept in - really in - this morning. I must get to bed earlier tonight. However, I did do some cleaning, and then went downtown to do some shopping. Mostly I needed odds-and-ends: Contact lens stuff, some new ball-point pens, a pencil case for my art supplies (I found a nice one from ArtBin), and some Magic cards (I picked up a cheap Clone, a Land Tax and a Blessing) as well as some plastic sleeves for my cards, or at least for the ones I use most often.

Then I came home and tinkered with my cards for a while. A pretty useless day, but kind of fun nonetheless. I plan to go down and continue reading the Armageddon Rag tonight. Sometime soon I might sit down and re-read all the George R. R. Martin books I have; he's really quite a good writer. I rather wish he hadn't digressed into "shared world" novels, television, and now fantasy. His straight SF stuff was so good in its own right!

Well... off I go!

Michael Rawdon (Contact)