Arbitron

"Arbitron" has been calling my house multiple times a day for the last two weeks. Who the heck is Arbitron?

Tonight they called when I was actually at home. I answered since I want to know who keeps calling -- especially since it was now 9:45 pm. 

A guy says hello, then hangs up on me. WTF.  

 I am guessing, based on a quick Google search, this is some sort of survey.  

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_Audio

Apparently they would prefer to listen to my voicemail message rather than speak to an actual person.  

Good job with the data gathering, guys. Hope you are getting a lot of helpful information from my generic, preprogrammed voicemail recording. 

Poetry Time

I was up in the attic, starting the laborious process of unpacking the heavier winter clothes and storing way the summer ones.  As I was shifting boxes around, I found my memory box.  My mother kept all sorts of papers, art projects, etc. that my brother and I had done when we were in school.  A few years back she gave me my memory box, and I put it in my attic for safe keeping.

When I happened across the box this evening I stopped to take a look through it again.  What started out as a bit of procrastination turned into nostalgia.

Allow me to share with you one of the treasures I found this evening.  My poetry book, which I think was made when I was in fourth grade, judging by the date.

Like the artwork?  I do not know why the rabbit in the corner looks satanic.  The first poem in the book is entitled Easter, so I assume that is meant to be an Easter Bunny.  I think I might have read Bunnicula a few too many times before I drew that.  

And now, without further ado, my fourth grade masterpiece poem entitled Easter  (all grammar and punctuation from the original):

Eggs very brightly colored

Red, Orange and polkadot smothered

Baskets filled up with candy

Look just nice and dandy

The Easter Bunny hops around

To all the houses in the town

Who belong to good girls and boys

Sometimes he gives them toys

Time to wake up early

To see some candy looking nice and pearly

Time to go to church

Happily birds gaily perch

Can't wait until next year

Maybe I will get a gear

So that I can fix my plane

And fly all the way to Maine (to see my parents)

I've got no explanation for that last bit.  We have never lived in Maine, my parents are not divorced so it wasn't like I was going to visit one of them, I didn't go to boarding school, and I most certainly did not know how to fly a plane.  I'm not sure that I had ever been to Maine when I wrote this.  My best guess is that the poem had to be a certain length, and Maine was an easy word to rhyme.  

Barring the bizarre ending, it was a pretty good poem for a fourth grader.  Fourth grade and I was using the phrase "polka-dot smothered"?  Go me!

Binge-watching Netflix Can Lead To Disappointment

aka I'm Going To Whine About My Trivial Problem Now

As you may or may not recall, my television at some point became self-aware determined that it was going to have the final say on what programs I watched.  The tl;dr version for those who don't want to click the link: with no parental controls set of any kind, my television will randomly not allow me to watch shows -- even those rated PG or TV-14.  I cannot fix it.  Verizon cannot fix it.  Since my television still works fine (well...mostly fine), I refuse to buy a new one.

To give you a few recent examples of my television's fine viewing decisions:

South Park -- watch all you want

Saturday Night Live -- absolutely not

Sleepy Hollow --  go right ahead! No problem with this show!

The Mummy Returns -- a PG-13 movie, edited for television?  Nope.

So let's flashback a short time to when the first season of Twisted was airing.  I was actually able to watch the first couple of episodes, and I loved it.  I was hooked! Is Danny really a murderer?  I was vacillating back and forth.  

Turns out I would get to wonder for many, many months.  When the third episode aired, my television decided that I would no longer be allowed to watch that show.  I don't have a DVR, so no skirting the issue that way.  I tried to go in and watch the episodes "On Demand", but was still blocked.  

So imagine my joy when, a few nights ago, I discovered that Twisted was on Netflix.  YES!!  I have no idea how long it has been available on there.  It never even crossed my mind to check for it.  I had accepted my fate of never knowing whether Danny Desai was really a murderer. 

I watched the entire season in a couple of days.  Talk about a cliffhanger ending!  

I needed more!  I had become a Twisted junkie, and I needed my fix.

Maybe the second season is starting in the Fall?  I'll go somewhere else and watch it if my television is still misbehaving. I hit Google up for the answer.

Tragically, my search results told me that the show was cancelled.  Why, why are you doing this ABC Family?!  So now I am back to being bummed out over Twisted again. 

Silver lining: Avan Jogia will be playing Tut in a series/event to air on Spike next year.

 I am going to try very hard not to express any excitement about this, as I don't want to jinx it and/or him.  Maybe if the TV Gods do not think I have any interest in it whatsoever it will all go well, and my television will let me watch it when the time comes.