Robo-James Has Left the Building
OK suckers, funtime's over. Flesh-James has returned from vacation.
The Tuned In family went to California, where, it being California, we rented a Toyota Prius. My two favorite features of the car: (1) You turn it on by pressing a power button, which makes it like driving a Macintosh; (2) There's a dashboard monitor displaying, in real time, how much power the car is using from the battery and what MPG it is getting at that moment, so that, any given second, you know exactly how smug you are entitled to feel. Come on people, let's be people, now!
In other busman's-holiday news, I held a TV critics' summit (where "summit"="a beer at some cafe in Berkeley") with San Francisco Chronicle critic and blogger extraordinaire Tim Goodman. Because the East Coast vs. West Coast critics' bloodshed has to stop. Increase the peace! And I flew for the first time on Jet Blue, an airline after my own heart because it provides seatback satellite TV. This made flying cross-country with two kids much easier, though at one point Tuned In Jr. Jr. asked me the mind-boggling question, "How do you turn it off?" This, apparently, was an unanticipated consumer request, because as far as I could tell, there was no off button, although you could simulate the effect by turning the brightness down to zero.
It's one of those little design choices that unintentionally tells you everything you need to know about America. Why would you ever want to turn off a television?
And now I return to Labor Day weekend non-labor, as well as catching up on all the shows I missed while I was off looking at seals and crap. Actual non-vacation-related content coming up any day now.
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Hello James,
Sorry for being off topic. I wrote the article about censorship in Russia. If it could be interesting for you, please, let me know.
Thank you so much for your time,
Anna
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Welcome back! Why did I know that Cranky Pants was writing about you when he said he had a beer with another TV critic? It was just too good to be true. Oh, to be a fly on the wall....... Bet you had a great time. Melissa169a
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Welcome back and am looking forward to your blogs once again.
richard
p.s. I love my Prius up here in northern Ontario.
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4
And you know it's true, Melissa. His pants are extremely cranky. Well, I think he was wearing shorts, but they also seemed pretty ticked off.
Richard, I believe you were officially the 10,000th commenter on Tuned In. If only there were a way to make this thing drop balloons and confetti.
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On Jet Blue, if I didn't want to watch anything, I would just turn the channel to that map that charts the progress of the plane.
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Best way to spend time until the new season (or at least until new TunedIn entries): The Friday Night Lights DVDs. The eps are even better the second time around. Not a lot of extras, but the deleted scenes are worthwhile.
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Its about time you got back. That damn Robo-James was dropping nuts and bolts on the floor, leaving wires in the sink and there were empty oil bottles all over the place. I won't even bring up how he constantly kept hitting on the TIVO. You may need to upgrade before the next vacation.
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@Keith: LMAO!
@James: Welcome back! Glad you had a wonderful time in Cali. Missed you for the Big Love Finale Watch. Had to resort to reading Swampland troll posts at work. I still can't get the dirt out from under my fingernails.
- poniewozik Loved the season. Mrs Tuned In wd have put u on the main list RT @boredtodeath Thank u for incl us in Time's Top 10. We'll take hon mention. - 5 hours ago
- poniewozik @carr2n Virgin is the best, LAX-JFK - 6 hours ago
- poniewozik Did NPR interview abt multiscreen multitasking. After, automatically reached for iPhone in pocket. Like don draper wd have for cigarettes. - 7 hours ago
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