one journey

 

Once again, our local PBS affiliate, KETC, has gone begging.  The pledge drives are so frequent now, that I think they’ve passed the 50% mark…at least it feels that way…every time I turn them on, it’s more likely they’ll be broadcasting Celtic Woman for the 300th time than the regular show I’d like to see (the KETC website calls them “five exceptional new Irish stars”…new?  Excuse me?  I’ve seen them more these past two years than I’ve seen most of my friends!  Lovely voices, but enough already!).

I know PBS needs funding.  But three to four weekends of pledge programming alternating with four to six weeks of regular programming?  And why two extra weekends of fund drive after the weekdays have gone back to regular programming?  Why are we “weekend watchers” punished so?  I’ll bet if they charged a nominal fee to all the parents who use Sesame Street to babysit their kids, their financial worries would be over.  I’m at the point where I’d encourage them to start taking in advertising money by airing commercials, but they’ve already done that.  And they don’t even try to make it look like program sponsorship any more.

I’ve always watched KETC mostly for the weekend programming…gardening, cooking, painting, travel, stuff like that.  These days there are a lot more places I can find that type of programming…I could get cable with Discover, HGTV, The Food Channel and a travel channel, and never turn on KETC again.  Seems to me that they need to be finding ways to pull in viewers, and pre-empting the programs every four to six weeks is NOT the way to do it.  There are other ways to raise funds.  Really.  Add this incessant repeating of “Member Favorites” programming/begging (and their pledge breaks aren’t even live most of the time now!  And some are not even local!!) to their reluctance to show anything that might be the slightest bit controversial, and you end up with a milquetoast mush of programming that I don’t think I could bring myself to support, even if I were financially capable at this time.

At least I have two channels of home shopping to watch any time I want.

Vote…today!   If you don’t use it, you just might lose it.

Well, I’ve decided that the chances of Quidam ever getting back to St Louis are very slim, so I bought a ticket to see it one more time…tomorrow night.  I’m really hoping to hear “Let Me Fall” this time around…definitely my favorite song of the Cirque canon.  On the video it’s during the “Aerial Contortion in Silk” act, which was not included in the show last week…

So, tonight was my debut with Cirque du Soleil in “Quidam.”

You’ve seen people get pulled out of the audience and act like they had no idea they were going to get pulled up on stage?  Chances are very good that they really had NO IDEA they were going to get pulled up on stage until about three seconds before it happened.  Trust me.

I have to admit, though, it was kind-of fun…And Guillermo “Toto” Castineira is my new favorite clown…

Apparently it’s Saturday in India.

First thing this morning, it’s AT&T/SBC on the phone, coming to fix my phone and DSL.  They weren’t supposed to call until Saturday.  Still, opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, so I stuck around here while they fixed it, until I got the all clear that I was safe to leave.  Apparently the wiring three blocks from here was crumbling, and it actually fell apart when he touched it.  That, and some crossed line problem at the main office, or some such tomfoolery.

Everything SEEMS to be working now…I can actually hear the person on the other end of the phone now, sans static.  And so far, my DSL connection hasn’t puked.  Whoo hoo!

 

Although, I must wonder why the guy who was here two months ago didn’t catch these problems when he fixed my disconnected line?  Hmmmm…

So, for about the last two and a half weeks, my SBC DSL has been CRAP.  I’m online mostly late evenings, and I’m lucky these days to keep a connection longer than 10 or 15 minutes  (of course, in the morning when I leave for work it’s all happy green lights).  There’s a lot of static on the phone too, but that’s been like that for as long as I can remember.  I’ve called tech support several times now and about half-way through the automated “say yes or no” dealiebob it’s magically reconnected (through no effort of theirs, I’m sure)…well, tonight it wouldn’t, and I got all the way through to talking to a real live “Bob.”  Or whatever American name he has assumed.  I’m 95% sure he was in India…judging by the accent, his politeness, and the glorious smell of curry…oh, wait, I must have imagined that.

Anyway, he had to keep putting me on hold while he ran “tests.”  My DSL is now back up, though I’m not convinced it was his doing, and I’m not convinced it’s going to stay up.  He did put in a request that the “people there in Missouri” run some tests on the lines” for me on Saturday. 

 I probably won’t be here when they call.  Sigh.

So, here’s where I’ve been in the Unites States in my life so far.  Might have been in North Carolina once, but I’m not positive we crossed over from Tennessee. And we might have passed through Montana on that Mt. Rushmore trip. I’ll have to check on that.

And here’s where I’ve been in Europe.

I believe the only other places I’ve ever been are Mexico, when I was 4, and a brief refueling stop in Iceland once when flying back from Europe.

 

create your own personalized map of the USA
create your personalized map of Europe

The sixth album of the Enigma series comes out later this month…can’t wait!

Click for a write-up that was posted at www.enigma-fanclub.com .

(more…)

…I’d like to balance my checkbook and find that I have a whole lot MORE money than I thought.  Sigh.