It's Like Nerd Nirvana!

I am in the midst of a (for me) very busy work stretch... 12 days of work in 15 days and counting, so I'm afraid the ol' blog has suffered a bit from neglect! I will attempt to make up for it a bit - in part by stuffing this mutha with videos!

We start with this little gem - a mishmash of LOST, Star Trek, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Back To The Future... in other words - a nerd's paradise! Enjoy!

A Personal Power Outage

Late last night, as I was watching the season finale of LOST, about half of the lights and outlets in the house went out. I didn't think too much of it at first, because frankly, I was too immersed in watching Jack and Sayid conspiring to blow up the island with a nuclear bomb... but I digress.


When Robin came upstairs and told me the garage door wouldn't open, and the washing machine was stuck in the spin cycle, and none of the bathroom lights worked, I realized we had an issue, so I went downstairs to the circuit box and looked inside. There was, indeed, a breaker that had flipped, so I turned it back on and... nothing. Damn.


Next stop - the computer. Fortunately, it was plugged into an outlet that still worked, so I googled "circuit breaker repair" to see if this was something I could do myself. The verdict came back that yes, I COULD replace a circuit breaker - if I semi-knew what I was doing. Now, I am semi-handy with a screwdriver. I used to work in construction, and I have replaced ice makers and garbage disposals, but electricity scares me. The last thing I want is for one of the kids to come home and think Dad made hamburgers for lunch, then come downstairs and see me charred and broiled on the basement floor!


After determining we needed a professional, Mrs. Matthews quickly volunteered that one of her kindergarten's students' Moms' sister-in-law's husbands was an electrician, and that we knew these people through one of our former neighbors when we lived in our last house five years ago. Maybe they'd be good!


I sincerely doubted this "six degrees of electricity" game would yield us any kind of monetary break, but I didn't have any better connections, so at 6:20 this morning, I dialed the office number that the electrician had posted on his website. A woman answered, and was largely unimpressed by the "Who's Who in Montgomery County" explanation that I offered. She was, however, able to get her brother-in-law to stop by less than an hour later.


The doorbell rang (hey, the doorbell works!) at 7:15, and within 10 minutes, the friendly electrician had diagnosed the problem. There was nothing wrong with the wiring in our house... the problem came from outside - Somewhere, the local power company, Pepco, must have blown a fuse, because only half of the electricity that should be coming into my house is actually coming in.


I was thankful for the diagnosis, but not the bill. The ten-minute service call, in which nothing was repaired, cost me ten bucks a minute. Sigh. I don't begrudge the electrician, and in fact, I'm thankful because they did a great job of getting to me quickly. But that doesn't ease the pain that I dropped a hundred bucks for something that ultimately was the power company's fault.


I called Pepco and received automated service over the phone. Some disembodied entity will be fixing the problem sometime today. And while this repair will not (I hope) cost me any additional money, I do not expect to receive any apologies or offers to cover the cost of diagnosing the problem to begin with.


I guess you really DO get what you pay for! (grumble, grumble, grumble...)

LOST And The Art Of DVR Etiquette!

Season five of LOST (the best show on TV) debuted last night on ABC, and I devoured it eagerly! It was virtually the first new thing on my TiVo since the middle of December when the first half of the TV season dried up for the holidays.

The season premiere was a 2-hour event packed full of new twists and turns, and I would love to tell you all about it, but I have already been waved off by some of my Facebook friends who have yet to watch it. Here's how the exchange went, starting with my status update:

John is still trying to wrap his head around last night's episode of LOST! 7:07am

Claire Meyerhoff at 7:28am January 22
Do not say another word! It's on my DVR and I haven't seen it yet!

John Matthews at 7:32am January 22
Claire - I'm not doing any spoilers this morning, but if you want to avoid them, I'd log off NOW. This place is rife with LOST fans!

Ann Wog at 7:32am January 22
SAME HERE!!!!!!!!!

John Matthews at 7:32am January 22
Is it a spoiler to say it was GREAT, by the way?

Claire Meyerhoff at 7:36am January 22
I'm going to watch it with my coffee instead of watching Morning Joe!

Don't worry, folks - I am not going to spoil anyone's day just yet, but it kind of makes me chuckle over how the fast-changing digital world we live in today has really changed the way things are done.

Back in the day, TV shows were the top watercooler topic at school and in the office... People couldn't wait to get to work to share thoughts about what happened on their favorite shows the night before. Now, it's the exact opposite... Someone will want to strike up a conversation about LOST or "American Idol", and they'll be stopped dead in their tracks by someone who has the show waiting for them on their DVR at home!

So now, there is apparently an embargo on discussing anything on television... I know this has been a point of contention in talk radio, where the hosts need to be current and timely - especially in morning drive. How can these hosts wait an extra day to discuss what was on TV the night before? The thing is - they can't! So if you missed last night's TV show, you need to miss this morning's radio program and stick to the ipod. Bad business for radio!

So how long is the appropriate chat ban on a popular TV program? I would think that it's certainly no longer than 24 hours, though your mileage may vary.

Ironically, just as we're building this "24-hour" delay into the social fabric, our world of social media has completely erased the concept of waiting to strike up a conversation with friends. Why wait until the next morning when you can text your reaction to a friend tonight, or get on Facebook and post your reaction on your wall?

Because you'll get messages from your time-shifting TV watching friends telling you to shut up, that's why!

So I won't chat what happened on LOST last night, but I will play a cool clip from the episode. Click on it at your peril! And buy a TiVo - the greatest invention EVER!

"Heroes" - A Worthy LOST Substitute!

Here's one more item that I had meant to include in the previous "Odds and Ends" post... I just finished watching seasons one and two of "Heroes", the NBC sci-fi series about a group of otherwise-normal people who discover they each have a unique set of superpowers. I had managed to ignore the Heroes phenomenon when it debuted, but with the regular TV season over in May, I needed something to satisfy my boob tube sweet tooth, and Heroes did the trick.

Now, some people have compared Heroes to LOST, the best show on television. "Heroes" is not as good as LOST... Its story arcs are shorter and not nearly as intricate as those on LOST. However, the two are similar in that they tend to end each episode with a cliffhanger that leaves you anxious to watch the next episode, and with Heroes returning to NBC's fall schedule, it will make a nice substitute as I await LOST's return in February. And until Heroes returns, I'll have "Mad Men" to keep me going! Kinda like methadone filling in for heroin, huh? All the same addiction without those nasty withdrawal symptoms!

Get MAD This Holiday Weekend!

The best new show on television (as opposed to LOST, which is the best show on TV, period) comes out on DVD today - I'm speaking about "Mad Men", the drama that takes us to Madison Avenue, circa 1960, when men were men and women were sex objects, and when excessive smoking and drinking were encouraged in the workplace! What makes this show so attractive for baby-boomers is that this is how we remember our parents - especially in the scenes in the suburbs... The lead character, Don Draper, takes the train home every night to a wife who greets him with a drink in hand and dinner in the oven - kinda like the Dick Van Dyke show, but with real-life pressures.

I was surprised to find out recently that many, if not most, people I've spoken with had not heard of "Mad Men"... Perhaps because it aired on AMC, and it debuted as a summer series. The show's pedigree is impeccable - it's creator was one of the Executive Producers for "The Sopranos", and you can see some of the same familiar touches. The show has a highly stylized look (1960 modern - just like my living room growing up), and it uses music to make subtle points, just as the Sopranos did.

Check out this clip, then get on Netflix and check it out! You can thank me later.


Season Two begins July 27th, so now is a perfect time for you to get caught up!

Still Looking For A Summer Getaway?

Have I got a vacation deal for you! The only catch is - you might have to be a bit flexible on when - or if - you'll return!


Hope you enjoy this little post-season "LOST" tribute that I found on youtube... I especially enjoyed seeing some of those characters who died or disappeared YEARS ago! I probably should have blogged today about Obama winning, but I've been there, done that. Just waiting now to see who his veep will be!

How's This For Retro? I'm Making Mix Tapes!

Regular readers of "Life On The Beach" know that I drive a 1997 Honda Civic that recently passed the 100,000 mile mark. I love that car.... It gets me where I want to go, and in the $4.00 a gallon era, it gets nearly 30 miles to the gallon, so I love that too! However - there is one drawback. Because of its vintage, the Honda has a cassette deck, and NOT a CD player.

This creates a problem. As also previously discussed on this blog, I recently launched an alumni website for my college choir. The reason I launched that website was because my single old choir cassette had finally gone to the magnetic media graveyard, and I needed to reach out to my old school mates to save the music we recorded on analog tape thirty years ago from meeting the same fate.

For the past several days, my fellow choir alums have generously donated their cassettes to me, which I have been lovingly transferring to my hard drive and editing into individual tracks, which folks could then listen to online, or download and turn into their own CD's. No more worries of their analog cassette sound gradually devolving into mud!

Except for me. I could burn a CD or two to put in the family minivan, but do you think my wife is going to let me play "memory lane" in HER car? Think again. No - if I want to hear this recently-saved-from-certain-time-erosion-death music, I need to play the splendidly digitized files on my computer, and record them back onto cassette! Yes, I'm down to the point of creating mix tapes again!

Maybe I should put together some Bread and Dan Fogelberg cuts, create a make-out cassette and slip it under the Missus' pillow... then we could really go back to the 70's!

"Destiny, John, Is A Fickle Bitch!"

The title of this blog entry is a direct quote from this week's episode of Lost, the TV show that I have declared to be the best program on Planet Earth. I won't bother trying to explain the meaning behind the quote... It would be lost on you non-Losties anyway. However, I will say the quote has a deeper meaning for me personally as I go through my current state of unemployment. The one constant I have been hearing since my position was eliminated is that "for every door that's closed, another one opens", or "there is life after WMAL" or "everything happens for a reason". I have been using those phrases as my mantra for the past 10 weeks now, to little apparent effect. If positive change is indeed my destiny, it's taking it's sweet ass time getting here! Perhaps destiny IS a fickle bitch!

LOST Update!

I made the claim last Friday that "Lost" is the best TV show on Planet Earth. Well, Entertainment Weekly has not gone QUITE that far this week, but it has come darn close. By the way, for all of you Losties out there, I highly recommend EW.com as a regular source of news, reviews and mild spoilers for not only Lost, but also Survivor, Dancing With The Stars, House and most other popular TV shows... Don't leave the couch without it!

If "Lost" Has Lost You As A Viewer, That's Your Loss!

The best TV show on Planet Earth returned to ABC last night after a five-week break, and it no doubt will suffer in the ratings because of the strike-induced hiatus... But who cares? Those of us who are still devoted to "Lost" have moved well beyond TV ratings. We no longer need Nielsen families to validate our faith in the program. Because "Lost" has survived its initial tentative years as a cultural phenomenon and journeyed safely into the realm of cult TV, ABC will stay with the show to its conclusion. And that's all I care about.

I have many friends who ventured to "Lost" with me nearly four years ago... watching the program every week and dissecting it ad nauseum in the office the next day. That lasted through season one and into the first half of season two.... After that, however, many of my friends figuratively "left the island". They grew tired of not having their questions answered.... They wanted "Lost" to be like every other show on TV. In this short attention span world of ours, they wanted the conflict raised before the first commercial break, and resolved by the end of the hour. Thank God the producers didn't go for that, because Lost would have never survived.

I do have a couple of friends who managed to jump in late to the game, thanks to DVDs... Watching "Lost" by DVD is like mainlining heroin, though. You spend a couple of weeks watching episodes back to back... then once you get caught up, you go through excruciating withdrawal immediately. Even in-season, you only get a fix once a week... and then once May comes, you have to wait another eight months!

Anyway - for those of you who once watched and have now fallen off the wagon, let me assure you that "Lost" is alive and well. If your justification for falling off the bandwagon was that the show left too many plotlines unresolved, I can assure you that your justification still works. But I will also tell you that the "Lost" experience is as rich as ever for those of us still watching. We have placed our faith in the producers of the program to guide us to its conclusion in another 41 episodes. If I see a polar bear running on the beach, I will not ask why. I'm confident the show will tell me why it its own time.

Google tells me it was Faust who said "It's not the destination, it's the journey that matters"... I don't know - I thought it might have been Arthur Frommer who said it... but it any case, when it comes to "Lost", it's the truth. No matter what happens at the end of the program, it certainly won't be as sweet as the ride on the rollercoaster that will get us to the end.

And with all that said, here's a tasty taste of next week's fix:

I Found The Island From "Lost" - It's Oahu!