I Haven't Forgotten You - I've Just Forgotten How To Manage My Time

It seems like every so often I feel the need to apologize. It must be the Canadian in me but, hey some of my ancestors have been here since before Little Jimmy Wolfe climbed to the top of the Plains of Abraham with a bunch of his Anglais pals and beat up on Montcalm. In fact, if some of the stories are true there were other relatives of mine who weren't exactly pleased when Samuel de Champlain decided to overstay his welcome by a few hundred years. So I AM Canadian. But that doesn't really matter.

No what I'm apologizing for this time is not exactly being timely in writing my reviews. I've been more than a bit exhausted lately which takes away from some of my writing time, and then there have been a couple of computer problems this week which meant that some other projects that I was working on "ceased to proceed" as the saying goes - usually after I'd written most of what I had to say but had saved little or nothing of it. I'm getting a handle on most of this stuff although the program that I use to do my bowling statistics is behaving in a maddening manner (it refuses to calculate handicaps for teams) but I'll tame it. Plus, in a rare occasion I will have this Monday to work on a review or two (it's Canadian Thanksgiving and the state of the bus system on a holiday in this city means I won't be bowling - I'll roll off instead). I've got an idea of what I want to do this weekend and beyond - whether I can do it or not is a whole other question.

Wish me luck!

I'm Back!

After I replaced the 300 Gig Hard Drive that I loved but couldn't use with a 100 Gig Hard Drive at the same price (boo) I thought my troubles were over.

Wrong!

When I restarted the computer to format the new disk and install Windows I discovered that my keyboard was dead. I really liked that keyboard! The next day - Thursday - was my Uncle Al's memorial service but I was also able to borrow a keyboard from my younger brother. Everything should work right?

Wrong!

Testing the keyboard using a small hard drive I discovered that it was behaving as if the Control key were permanently depressed. When I tried to use it to at least format the hard drive it did nothing more than make the computer go *beep*. So on Friday I walked to the nearest Source by Circuit City location which isn't that far away, and bought the cheapest keyboard they had - if there were some sort of systemic problem, I wasn't going to waste a lot of money on a keyboard that was going to die soon anyway. But fortunately the keyboard is working fine.

And the rest of the system? So far so good, except that Windows refuses to install my DVD-ROM drive, but at the moment I could care less - I'll get around to it after I manage to restore a lot of other things.

But man do I hate this keyboard!

Explanation

Here we are at the start of the roll-out period for most networks that aren't Fox and I haven't been posting. Here's the explanation. The day after I fixed my CPU cooling fan problem by hard drive died, taking with it just about everything. I bought a new hard drive; a 300 Gig Drive that was on sale for $109. Unfortunately my version of Windows doesn't support large hard drives. I've been fighting with Windows since I bought the thing and I've been loosing ... badly. I can't partition the drive and load Windows onto it without Windows repartitioning the drive and then not running, and I can't use the the Windows Installer to pput more than one partition on the drive after which it won't recognise that there is anything beyond that partition. I managed to cobble something together that works adequately but I can't get access to the whole drive so it goes back to Future Shop tomorrow to be replaced - one way or the other - with a 100 Gig drive that will work. That's cheaper than buying a new version of Windows XP. I should be back posting by Thursday or Friday.

Metapost - An Apology

I really had intended to give you a review of Standofftonight but circumstances conspired against me, to the point where Tuesday was not one of my better days. Here's something of a timeline.

10:20 a.m.: Computer is on, I'm getting ready to sign up for a poker tournament.
10:25 a.m.: Computer suddenly goes into reboot mode then refuses to do anything at all including turn off. I immediately suspect the Hard Drive so attempt to boot from an Ubuntu (Linux) Live CD. Nothing.
10:30 a.m.: I now think it's either the CPU or the cooling fan. Open up the side of the computer. Turn on the computer. Fan not spinning, but is CPU gone too? Let CPU cool down.
11:30 a.m.: Turn on computer first with Ubuntu then with Windows. No problem but I turn the computer off - better safe than sorry.
11:45 a.m.: Proceed to do a number of unimportant things, including having lunch and watching my tape of most of the premier episode of Deadwood (cable company got some of the times wrong). It's showing on History Channel here and is basically one of the best things on TV and why people get to stand up at awards shows and proclaim that this is the "New Golden Age Of Television." Too bad it got cancelled after three seasons.
1:45 p.m.: Off to get a new cooling fan for my Athlon 2200+ processor. Set out on my bike for the nearest computer store. It's a ways away but the last time I was there they had just about everything.
2:10 p.m.: Arrive at Compusmart and after several minutes of waiting for the employees of the store to notice me I finally accost the two people standing at the single cash register talking and going over some papers. They can help me so the call for one of their sales staff. The first guy can't help me because he's got a guy looking at TVs. He goes in the back and gets a second salesman without even asking what it is I need. The second sales man is older but so utterly clueless that he literally takes me to the opposite side of the store from where I know the CPU fans to be (they're behind a counter which is why I couldn't help myself. He instructs me to try a place about 8 blocks up on Faithful Avenue.
2:23 p.m.: I begin to realise that the salesman's knowledge of the area and of retailers in his business is about as weak as his knowledge of the stock in his own store. I can't find the place he mentioned and certainly not in the area he mentioned.
2:45 p.m.: Head for the Staples store in the area. I recall in the past seeing computer equipment including parts like CPU fans there. They have tons of ink cartridges, no CPU fans.
3:10 p.m.: Heading home hot and frustrated I remember another store in the vicinity. Divert there. They've been out of business since August 15th.
3:30 p.m.: Arrive home. Down a can of iced tea without actually tasting it. I just need something cold and wet. Decide to do what I should have done in the first place and call until I find a place that has what I need.
4:02 p.m.: Having found a place that has what I need I decide to take the bus. It stops about four blocks from where I live and in an amazing bit of serendipity also stops four blocks from the store with my part.
4:15 p.m.: Discover several things. All of the busses in the city are running late. 25th Street is a parking lot from 3rd Avenue to the top of the University Bridge, and since virtually all of the busses in the city use 25th Street and the University Bridge this could be the explanation.
4:40 p.m.: Manage to complete my trip without strangling anyone although the temptation is great. Get my part and a bit more - they don't sell the fans without a heat sink, but fortunately you can take the fans off.
5:00 p.m.: Catch a DART bus a block away from the store. It's air conditioned and on a day like this I need it. My only regret is that the trip is too short. 25th Street is still a parking lot but only the eastbound lanes.
5:34 p.m.: Drag my sad and sorry butt home. Decide to have pot noodle for supper.
6:00 p.m.: Watch season debut of House. Good.
7:00 p.m.: Watch series premiere of Standoff. Will write about it next week but suffice it to say that this is not a show that will have people standing up at awards shows and saying "this is the New Golden Age Of Television."
8:00 p.m.: Install new cooling fan. This also included a series vacuuming of the interior of the computer and in particular the heat sink which is so disgusting that it makes me wish I was also installing the new heat sink.
9:00 p.m.: My God, the damned thing works.
10:30 p.m.: Discover that the poker tournament I've been looking forward to all day has been cancelled - They're doing system maintenance.
2:15 a.m.: The computer stops functioning again. Turns out that the power bar switch that I turned off and on repeatedly in the morning finally decided that it was in the "off" position... fourteen hours later!

Hapy Birthday to umm Me

Not to make too big of a deal out of it but the little guy in the upper right hand corner of the sidebar has passed out of the "key 18-49" demographic today. Yep, today, August 15th is my 50th birthday. Or as Jack Benny - who is still one of my favourite comedians - would put it I'm 39, but I have 50 year old corpuscles.

And Cue The Soup Shot

Some time ago Mark Evanier tried to start or continue (I'm not sure which) the tradition of bloggers posting a picture of a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup when they're going to be unable to post for a while. Check that - when they know they aren't going to be able to post for a while. Well who am I to argue with tradition. I'm going to be away from the computer for about a week. My brother Greg is taking a well deserved break from repairing the traffic lights here in the city and is flying down to Windsor to watch the Boston Red Sox - oh yes and visit his aunt and uncle, but with Greg it's about the Sox - and I have to house/dog sit for him while he's gone. I'll be able to get back to the computer from time to time during this week, but not enough to be able to do any serious writing. On the bright side, Greg has a grey market Direct TV dish so I'll be able to see some shows that I don't normally get to see and write about them when I get back. Or, you know, not.

I Have A Little Problem

I have a dog. I like my dog even though she's not exactly the pet I'd have chosen if it was up to me. I sort of inherited her from my brother when he got married - his wife, my now ex-sister-in-law didn't like the way that Bounder was jealous of anyone getting close to Greg, including her and besides she had grown up around bigger dogs. When they got married I basically got the dog, but although she's lived with me for almost 10 years she's still my brother's dog whenever he comes around.

Here's the problem. She's poodle and like all poodles has a discharge from her eyes. This has cause an infection that could ulcerate on the skin around her eyes. The vet has given me a tetracycline ointment to put into her eyes which will then wash down into the infected area. The problem is getting it into her eyes. She doesn't like anyone getting close to her face and has a habit of nipping or biting. The biting isn't much of a problem - her teeth aren't in the best shape so she isn't exactly going to hurt you but she does move pretty quickly when she wants to. To reduce the problem I've bought a cloth muzzle but after being able to get it on her once, my subsequent effort proved less than successful and I have the sore thumbs to prove it.

So here's the problem: how do I get the muzzle on the dog so that I can put the ointment in her eyes - preferably three times a day for a week? Alternately how do I get the ointment in her eyes without the muzzle? If you've got an answer, please reply to my email address: brentmckee@gmail.com.

It's My Blogiversary!

One year ago I made the first two posts in this new blog. The first post expressed my raison d'etre for starting the blog: "What this Old Fart brings to the table is summed up in the description I gave to this blog - "I know what I like" and I like television. I don't like all of the shows and will say so which makes me a critic in the same way that it makes all of us critics. And in the end why shouldn't I have a blog that lets me be a critic. For that matter why shouldn't you?" The first post was fittingly enough about my current favourite show, The Amazing Race, which was about to have the final episode of the sixth season that night. I was hoping that Kris and Jon would win. They finished second behind the team I least wanted to win, Freddy and Kendra. Other topics covered in the first week included The West Wing, The Apprentice and Star Trek: Enterprise.

If I were to rate the first year of this blog, I'd have to give it a B-. The problem is my own and it primarily concerns getting things written in a timely manner. I had hoped to write material about shows in a clear and timely manner, but that just hasn't worked out. For example I still haven't written a review of The Office (although I did manage to review the first and only episode of Emily's Reasons Why Not - it vaguely amazes me that it got cancelled before Jake In Progress when it actually got better ratings than the latter show) although I'll tell you right now it's one of the best shows on TV. There is a long list of shows that I haven't reviewed, and that vexes me.

On the other hand there are things that I've done well. I'm reasonably happy with my writing - something that would shock an old professor of mine (known around the University of Saskatchewan campus as Red Ed Mahood because of his involvement with the campus Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)) who said I wasn't a very good writer. Then again I tended to find the books that he recommended to be leaden, virtually unreadable tomes. Admittedly I tend to like run on sentences and my paragraph structure is sometimes poor, but it's a personal quirk. Another thing that I'm happy with is that I've followed in the lead of Tom Sutpen and Stephen Cook's blog by making better use of pictures. Blogger has been helpful in this by making adding images easier - you don't know how many times I fought to use the Picassa and Hello! combo - but I still had to learn not to fear my door being battered down by copyright holders and their lawyers. I'm also happy with the way that I've tried to handle breaking news stories, most recently the decision to merge UPN and The WB into a new network called The CW (and what an awful name and logo it is). The TV on DVD thing is another logical idea although I must admit I'd be happier with getting it out on time.

Things I'd like to accomplish in the next twelve months. Well the obvious thing is adhering more closely to a deadline when it comes to getting reviews published. Even though outside interests restrict the work sometimes I have to say that it's my responsibility to "git r done" as Larry The Cable Guy would put it. I want to improve on that in the coming year. The other thing is that I'd like to develop a better template. This is more complicated and something that I'm about 50-50 in terms of actually accomplishing it. I like the "basic black" Blogger template, but I'd really like to go to a three column layout which would allow me to have links to the left side and other material on the right, hopefully all of it readable when you launch the page. Of course from my experience in publishing a Diplomacy zine I know that I have to balance my desire to have things visible with the reader's need for ease in actually reading the content. The eye needs white (or in the case of the current template black) space to make the content easy to read and too many designers - both of publications and web content - forget this. Besides that I'd like to jazz up the look of the page a bit, but not too radically. In a lot of cases style overwhelms substance - just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Of course to get this done - since I can't afford to hire a pro to do the design and it seems rather silly to do so anyway - I'll need to learn HTML which is why I'm probably 50-50 with regards to accomplishing anything.

Finally there are some people I'd like to thank. There are a lot of people on my blog roll, most of whom have been helpful. Special mentions go out to Tom and Stephen, Tim Gueguen, and Ronniecat for inspiration; to Ivan Shreve, Sam Johnson and Linda for steadfast friendship and support; to Bryce Zabel for not dismissing an amateur critic out of hand; to Tele-Tart and Tele-Toby for being there too; and to Tony Figueroa for not giving me as much grief as he probably could have for using a similar title to his. And finally there's you gentle readers who actually bother to read the blasted thing. I literally couldn't do it without the knowledge that there were people who actually spent a few seconds actually reading the blasted thing.

Man, that was almost as bad as an Emmy speech. At least I don't have an agent to thank!

An Off Topic Anecdote

Mark Evanier has a little tale in News From Me about trying to get what he ordered from a fast food restaurant. I think we all have these stories about bucking the robot like mindset of the people behind the counter. Here's mine.

We went to MacDonalds a couple of weeks ago after a morning of trainspotting - my nephew at age 2 1/2 is nuts about trains and my brother knows all the right places to see them - and as usual I am responsible for ordering for my mother and myself. On this particular day I had the Oriental salad but my mother, who isn't a heavy eater wanted a cheeseburger with onions but none of the other stuff they slather on it, fries and a drink. I ordered a cheeseburger Happy Meal (which has everything she wanted plus it's cheaper and there's a toy involved which I though would go to my nephew; it's a rather nice cast figure of Donald Duck and it's now sitting on top of my computer because Brian doesn't like those according to his dad). I told the server that I wanted "a Cheeseburger Happy Meal with nothing on it but onions". Unlike Mark we weren't eating in so it wasn't till we got to my brother's house that we discovered what had happened. The cheeseburger had no cheese on it, just the onions - and a pretty pathetic sprinkling of them at that. Obviously I am too stupid for MacDonalds. I believed that when I said that I wanted a cheeseburger the clear implication was that it would have actual cheese on it. How after all can you have a cheeseburger sans cheese? Back when I was a kid we called that a hamburger with onions, which if I'm not mistaken MacDonalds also sells. Apparently the people at MacDonalds believe that believe that if you say you only want onions on a cheeseburger you mean that you want onions and no cheese.

Last weekend I went to Wendy's instead.

What I Was Watching - September 1969

A few days ago when I posted the picture of myself as a real "Child of TV" I got a comment from King Blowhard asking what percentage of American programs I watched as a kid as compared to American shows. I figured that the percentage was about 60/40 American but that was skewed a bit because the local channel was a CBC affiliate. The more I thought about it the more intrigued I got and so I decided to find out what I could.

I wasn't able to go much before 1969 - at least not yet - since 1969 is the earliest TV Guide that I have. It was in fact the 1969 Fall Preview issue but it still presented a few problems. For one thing there was no listing of the shows that the two Canadian networks, CBC and CTV, were running. In those days there was no specific "Canadian" TV Guide; the main pages were produced in the United States and the listings were produced in Canada, but they were just listings. As a result the breakdown of programming isn't what it would be for the regular season. This particular week - the week of September 13-19 - included two prime time CFL football games, a Montreal Expos baseball game and two news specials which wouldn't be on during the main part of the season.

I decided to look not just at the one local station but also two Winnipeg stations, one owned by the CBC and the other a CTV affiliate. I've also defined prime time as running from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. meaning that the week includes 35 hours of programming. British produced programming is defined as Canadian since at the time Canada's Board Of Broadcast Governors (the regulatory predecessor of the CRTC) described both French and British produced shows as Canadian. There are some cases where there's just no information of what was shown at a particular time of a particular night. With this in mind here are the results.

	CBC	CTV	CFQC
Canadian	48.6	27.2	41.4
U.S.	42.8	72.8	51.4
Unknown	8.6	0.0	7.2

What accounts for the difference between the CBC owned station in Winnipeg and the CBC affiliate in Saskatoon? The regulations were - and still are - that the first station in a market has to be a CBC station even if it is privately owned. Until 1972 Saskatoon was a one station market (the CBC had plans to build a station in Saskatoon but these were halted by a couple of influential members of cabinet, one of whom had been the head of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, the private station owner's group which had and still has a tremendous hatred of the CBC). However privately owned affiliates had a certain amount of leeway as to how much of the CBC's programming they would air. It wasn't a huge difference but there were times when CFQC could put on a show of their own choosing. There were Canadian Content regulations in place but they only required about 55% Canadian Content total and nothing specific about prime time. Regulations on things like that would come later.

So what was I watching that week in September 1969? Let's see, there was My Three Sons and The Beverly Hillbillies on Saturday, Tommy Hunter (a Canadian country music show that would run a total of 27 years) and My World And Welcome To It on Sundays, a rerun of The Ghost And Mrs. Muir and The Name Of The Game on Mondays, The Bold Ones (this one with Burl Ives) on Tuesday, an Expos game and a Dionne Warwick special on Wednesday, The Johnny Cash Show, The Doris Day Show, and The Bill Cosby Show Thursday, and Julia (with Diahann Carroll) and Rowan & Martin's Laugh In. What wasn't I seeing? Well among the series debuting that September some of the memorable ones which weren't immediately available in the Saskatoon market were Medical Center, Room 222, and something called The Brady Bunch. On the other hand I also never saw such wonderful programming as The Survivors with Lana Turner, or The New People which seems to have been Lost 35 years before Lost. And of course who could forget Jimmy Durante Presents The Lennon Sisters Hour? Well just about everyone apparently.

This has been fun and I think I might delve into other years if I can find the time to do the research.

Found This The Other Day

Yep. That's me, back when I really was a "Child of Television". I must have been about 3 1/4 or 4 1/4 back when that picture was taken. Back in those days they used to have the date (at least the year) on the white border of the film but for the life of me I can't tell you if it was the date when the picture was taken or when it was developed. The date on this one was 1960 so that would mean Christmas of 1959 or 1960. Probably 1959.

What would I have been watching back then? There was quite a bit of local programming of course. There was a local early morning kids show host (and for CFQC early morning meant about 11 a.m. - in the summer they sometimes didn't come on until 2 in the afternoon) named Helen Hays who later became Helen Lumby and in the 1970s did Size Small shows for Canwest Global where some of the old hands from CFQC ended up. There was a local ladies' show host named Sally Merchant who would later be elected to the Provincial Legislature and would, years later, be followed into the Legislature by her son Tony (Tim Gueguen will know exactly who I mean). Network kids shows would include Maggie Muggins which I think was a carryover from CBC radio, The Friendly Giant with Bob Homme and Rod Coneybeare providing the voices of Rusty the Rooster and Jerome The Giraffe, and Chez Helene with Helene Baillergeon which was an early attempt at bilingual education. It was a good time for cartoons. The standbys were Ruff and Reddy, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and Quickdraw McGraw. The local station had a good news department, largely fuelled by the radio side which won a number of awards for local coverage. Network shows? From around this period I remember things like Maverick, Bonanza, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke and Wagon Train (there were a lot of westerns on the air at the time but these really stand out), The Untouchables, The Jack Benny Program, and of course Ed Sullivan.

Old memories are rosy. It may be that the stuff I remember wasn't that good and I simply remember it as being better than it was. It does say something about it that I remember it at all though, particularly when you think that I can remember the names of only a couple of the kids I grew up with when that picture was taken. Television was a big influence for me in the same way that it was for everyone else in my generation. I can't help but wonder what my nephew will remember in the same way. Will it be his Thomas The Tank Engine DVDs and looking at the website for The Wiggles "on the coputer"? I don't know.

Oh, and by the way, that plane that's sitting on the floor beside me? I still have it. It had a friction motor which meant that if you pushed it on the floor the propellers would spin. Somewhere along the line the nose wheel got lost and in a fit of childish verisimilitude (probably inspired by seeing airplanes on TV) I cut off the tips of the propellers, but I still have it.

Happy Birthday ... To Me!

Today, August 15, is my birthday. I won't tell you how old I am, but suffice it to say that when I was born people still Loved Lucy and Liked Ike enough to give him a second term a couple of months after I arrived on the scene. Oh yeah, and Marilyn Monroe hadn't met a Kennedy yet nor had she had a one night stand with Joan Crawford. She had just married Arthur Miller though. I share my birthday with Napoleon, Sir Walter Scott, Ethel Barrymore, Rose Marie (from the Dick Van Dyke Show), Mike Connors (Mannix), Princess Anne, and Ben Affleck. All of which is proof positive that Astrology is hokum, at least in my case.

Happy Birthday!

My mother - Mayme Louise Borisko - turns 76 today. She had a couple of health scares over the past 12 months (a bowel cancer diaganosis which fortunately turned out to be a misdiagnosis, and an eye problem which unfortunately has not turned out to be a misdiagnosis but which is being managed) and she's pretty much had to give up driving, but she's been enjoying my nephew, her one(and probably only) grandchild, so on the whole things aren't too bad.

So I'm No Bob Vila

This is just a short, off topic, post to explain why this isn't a longer, on topic, post.

I had planned to do another post on the PTC, following up on last week's post about the Paris Hilton ad, and hopefully I'll get it written tomorrow. However my mother is getting the carpet guys in on Tuesday to do the dining room, which means that the old carpet (which I helped install about ten or fifteen years ago) had to come up on Friday and the old floor had to have any of the padding that remained stuck to the original, 1950's vintage, asphalt tile floor scraped off using a chemical formulation that I refer to as "Gunk" to loosen the glue. Because of course it wouldn't do to leave all this to the last minute like Sunday and Monday.

The Gunk is, according to its label, so environmentally friendly that it can be cleaned up with soap and water. I also smells - strongly - of lemons. It took me about five minutes to get heartily sick of the smell of the Gunk, and about ten minutes for the smell of the Gunk to give me a raging headache. Of course you need to let it sit to really loosen the glue that's holding down remnants of the underpad; a half hour seems to be the ideal length of time. That's half an hour of dealing with that smell. And you have to do small areas because doing it all at once would cause a mess. It took me about two hours to finish that dining room and by the end of it all I had a raging headache and was feeling downright irritable.

Which brings me around to my feelings about DIY. Certain jobs can be done by the amateur but if you're smart you'll get a pro to do it. I don't like painting but I can do it fairly well as long as it doesn't involve heights. I'm relatively proficient with plumbing although I've reached an age where spending extended time under sinks is becoming very uncomfortable. When the carpet is in I'm considering replacing the quarter-round in the Kitchen and Dining Room and the hall leading to the bedrooms, because quite frankly the old stuff is showing it's fifty years. With my brother's miter saw and a rented nail gun, that job shouldn't take that long. I'm even willing to tackle (very) minor electrical jobs. However after several bad experiences with flooring I'm here to tell you all that hiring professional installers is the way to get a good looking job that's going to last. Of course that could just be me.

My First Meme!

1. What time did you get up this morning? 10 a.m. thanks to my alarm clock. It's just lucky it's on the other side of the room from my bed.

2. Diamonds, pearls or silver? So boring. I like something with colour like rubies, emeralds or saphires. Still, if I have to choose from this list I'd say pearls, but only if they're the rarer coloured ones. The golden pearls that I saw a few weeks ago on The Apprentice are among the most stunning things I have ever seen.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. It's just too much of a hassle to go downtown to a movie and spend $10 or whatever it is here now, particularly when I can buy a movie I really want to see for the same amount of money if I go to the right place.

4. What is your favorite TV show? Currently The Amazing Race. I know it's a reality show but on the whole there isn't the backstabbing that you see on Survivor or The Apprentice. I used to like The Mole as well but it died when they put celebrities on it. Looking back a bit I liked Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and Crime Story. Oh yeah, and there's also the new version of Doctor Who.

5. What did you have for breakfast? I so rarely eat breakfast that it's criminal. Actually about the only time I eat breakfast is when I'm traveling which happens less often than I'd like.

6. What is your middle name? Strictly speaking it's Brent. I share - or rather shared - a birthday with my great-uncle Stan. He was born in 1916 (roughly; his birth records were about the worst I've ever seen - for his pension we found that the only record anyone had for his year of birth was a newspaper item for when he enlisted in the army and that could have been 1916 or 1915) so we were about 40 years apart. No one has ever ever called me Stanley or Stan, and they'd better not.

7. What is your favorite cuisine? I don't really have a favourite kitchen (snicker) but as far as styles of food, I'm pretty flexible. (Cuisine - French for Kitchen. High school French strikes again.)

8. What foods do you dislike? Don't like liver and I'm not crazy about any fish that looks back at you, but the absolute worst is Steak and Kidney Pie. I don't mind the steak part but to me the kidneys taste like the end product of what they process.

9. What is your favorite chip/crisp flavor? For potato chips Miss Vickie's Sea Salt and Vinegar. On the other hand Doritos has just come out with a Dill Pickle Tortilla Chip which may be the best chip to cross my lips. Going beyond chips a bit, Hawkins Cheezies have been a staple with me since before I can remember.

10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? I so rarely use my CD player that I can't really answer. Besides, my taste in music is thoroughly archaic. Just as an example I have the Swing Canada series on a private label that hasn't produced any more.

11. What kind of car do you drive? I don't drive. In the winter or wet weather I take the bus or get a ride with someone. In weather like this I ride my bike when I want to go somewhere. In just about any weather I walk a lot.

12. Favorite sandwich? Corned Beef, preferably on Winnipeg Rye but I'm willing to settle for a Kaiser Roll if that's all I've got. I also like Peanut Butter and Dill Pickle (slice the pickle into thick rounds and put between two pieces of white or whole wheat bread with peanut butter - preferably crunchy - on both).

13. What characteristics do you despise? The combination of greed, selfishness and dishonesty is the worst.

14. Favorite item of clothing? A sweat shirt.

15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? I've always wanted to take a cruise around South America. The old Britannis used to do a circumnavigation but she's been gone for a few years.

16. What color is your bathroom? A sort of beigy pink, with some faux white and blue tiles. I need to do something about it.

17. Favorite brand of clothing? I don't really worry about brands.

18. Where would you retire to? The Monterey Peninsula of California - not too hot, not too cold. I hate temperature extremes.

19. Favorite time of day? Evenings, a bit before dusk.

20. What was your most memorable birthday? In truth none stick out. That's really sad.

21. Where were you born? Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Canada.

22. Favorite sport to watch? Curling. I haven't watched Hockey much since well before the strike, and I'm off of baseball since the Expos moved south, but ask any Canadian and he or she will be able to talk about raises and draws even if they've never played the game.

23. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? Did I happen to mention that I'm a meme virgin. I know Sutpen would ignore it - not sure about his blogging partner Stephen Cooke though.

24. Person you expect to send it back first? No one, but I wouldn't mind seeing answers from Tim and Ronniecat.

25. What fabric detergent do you use? I don't do the washing myself (my mother lives with me and does it) but I believe the preference is for Tide.

26. Coke or Pepsi? Coke, but the Canadian kind please (it has sugar not - or more likely in addition to - corn syrup). In the U.S. apparently the only way to get sugar in your Coke is to buy Kosher Coke around Passover. Actually I prefer a Double Gulp Dr. Pepper but my neighbourhood 7-11 closed in January and I haven't found a replacement yet.

And Here I Thought I Was Being Original

As It turns out, entirely without my knowing about it, there is another blog with a name almost identical to this one. Child Of Television is written by Hollywood-based stand-up comedian Tony Figueroa, and I have to admit, he writes better than I do. To make matters even more scarily coincidental - and it is entirely a coincidence - the first sentence of his first post is "I am a child of television." Until he emailed me I was entirely unaware of his, or his blog's existance. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this as I am rather fond of the name and coming up with it has temporarily exhausted my supply of creativity. In this, at least, I am not unlike a lot of people who work in Television.

So Why Do I Think I Know Anything?

I grew up with television in my life. Indeed, in the city where I live television and I are almost exact contemporaries. When I was born in August 1956, the one local TV station had been in operation for just over a year and a half. Television as a mass medium in Canada had only existed for four years. Colour television would only appear in Canada nine years after I was born, and it didn't become the choice for another five years. I remember when the second station opened in Saskatoon in the early 1970s, when cable appeared later the same decade, and when the third station opened in the mid-1980s.

As far as shows go, I can't say that I've seen them all - you don't in a one channel town that doesn't have cable - but I have seen a lot of the memorable ones when they first appeared. I remember seeing and hating Doctor Who in 1964 (the hatred was largely because the show had replaced The Bugs Bunny Show - never get between a kid and his cartoons). I remember when westerns and private eye shows dominated the airwaves. My oldest memories are of watching television. In other words I'm an Old Fart.

What this Old Fart brings to the table is summed up in the description I gave to this blog - "I know what I like" and I like television. I don't like all of the shows and will say so which makes me a critic in the same way that it makes all of us critics. And in the end why shouldn't I have a blog that lets me be a critic. For that matter why shouldn't you?