TV at last!

I know it is fashionable to claim that one does not watch much TV, but in the words of Dr. Greg House -- everyone lies! I LOVE TV! Never more so than when I don't have it. Finally, though, television service has been restored at my house. It wasn't easy.

I won't ramble on as I did in my last post about my lovely cable company, but let me just say they're still not making my Christmas card list this year. I told you that I was promised a guy on Friday, with a distinct possibility of a Thursday repair, seeing as how they'd royally screwed up my repair job. Well I didn't get the guy on Thursday or Friday! Finally, though, a guy did show up on Saturday. That guy, though, thought he was just coming out to check for a problem with my cable box. He was quite surprised when I told him I had no service at all. After getting over his surprise (and I suspect displeasure at having to do an outside repair in 95-degree June heat), he did manage to restore service for me and I was most appreciative. I'm much happier now and I think my stats students might send him a bonus for making me less grumpy.

Okay other than TV, what's been going on? Well I'm teaching stats right now. I've never taught that in the summer and I'm finding it difficult. Stats is built on students doing homework, but we cover so much material each class that it seems homework is due almost every class. The students don't like that and I sure don't like having to deal with homework that frequently. I may have to try to come up with a compromise solution.

Anything else? I'm only teaching one course right now, so of course I'm reading a lot. I finally made it through a Richard Powers book and I was underwhelmed. It was an okay book, but I was expecting more. I mean the guy won one of those $1 million "genius grants" and the book was a National Book Award winner, so I think I was expecting a little more. My overall judgement ... Not a bad book and I'd read something else by him, but it wasn't anything spectacular. Now I'm actually reading some non-fiction: Justinian's Flea. It's the story of the (sort of) end of the Roman Empire and the role that the bubonic plague had in the empire's fall. It's a novel concept and I'm enjoying the history, but the author has way too much love for Justinian. He's obviously biased when it comes to reporting any sort of criticism of the emperor and that makes me a little suspect. Still, it's a much more gripping read than you'd expect from a combination of Roman history and flea life cycles.

Oh, and I have seen a few movies of late. I don't remember if I wrote about it, but I went to see Iron Man and I thought it was very good -- one of the best of the genre. I also saw the new Indiana Jones and I wasn't disappointed. It wasn't as good as the original (obviously), but it wasn't bad. I know a lot of people have trashed it, but reading between the lines I suspect many of those folks had made their minds up to hate it before they ever went to the theater. I also saw a couple of quirky flicks on the small screen -- Martian Child and Lars and the Real Girl. The first was a warm, fuzzy film with just enough oddness to make it interesting. I like John Cusack in just about anything, but I was disappointed that Amanda Peet didn't have a meatier role. She was very cardboardish in the film. Lars and the Real Girl, on the other hand, was excellent. It reminded me a lot of another favorite film, The Station Agent. If you liked Station Agent, I guarantee you'll like Lars. If you haven't seen either, go watch them.

Okay, I guess I really didn't have much to say. I just wanted to update things and let y'all know I hadn't fallen prey to any more disasters -- so far!