Plasma TV Blog

I was in transit flying back to the US and our flight stopped for a few hours in Korea. I had some time to kill so I explored the shops in the airport, checking out the multitudes of newfangled digital cameras, Hello Kitty dolls, and strange-looking jars of mysterious alcoholic beverages. I wanted to try some but my mom warned me never to drink something out of a bottle that has a big snake in it.

Korea, if the airport is any reliable indication, is a pretty snazzy place. Plasma tvs beam a constant stream of CNN and Korean pop music into every corner of airport waiting room. I didn’t know which way to turn my gaze, so many flashing signs were competing for my limited attention span.

I finally just plunked myself down on one of those uncomfortable long sofas you find in every airport lobby; the one’s with the sections split up by multiple armrests. The only way you can catch any shuteye is to kind of wriggle yourself under the armrests and snuggle into the well-used vinyl seating. It works if you exert enough concentration, but if something wakes you suddenly you can give yourself quite a bump on the head.

In my case I didn’t sustain any bumps from my stopover in Korea. I did quite the opposite – I slept so long I missed my flight.

I have my whole video, audio and computer system integrated in the entertainment area of my apartment. It feels like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, there’s so mush gadgetry all linked together. The only problem is that I have three roommates. Two of them are cool, but one guy I don’t know real well, so I installed a keylogger on my system, just in case he decides to use my stuff without asking me first.

So far I haven’t noticed any problems with my equipment. But in a few months I’ll have a bit more peace of mind about the whole living situation anyway, as I’m moving into my own apartment. The new place has a hi-tech security system, and if I wanted I could get a dog. Right now that’s out of the question because my current rental contract prohibits pets, but in the new building it’s fine.

You really have to wonder if technology can get any better than this. I mean, now we have plasma televisions, I-Pods, dvds, and presonal computers that actually look cool. I remember back in 2000 a lot of people were grumbling because, well, here we were in the much-hyped Year 2000, and nothing much of note was going on - besides the release of the new Volkswagen Bug, and the then ubiquitous “Millennium Bug”.

Come to think of it, I think the biggest preoccupation everybody had in 2000 was learning how to spell “millennium.” 2000 really didn’t seem to live up to the futuristic image we’d all been hearing about. Even the “Millennium Bug” turned out to be just another minor blip; clocks were reset, and life rolled on.
But things have finally started moving towards that sci-fi movie image of 2000 most of us have been eagerly anticipating.

Just looking around my own apartment provides some evidence of those changes. Back in 2000 I was still listening to analog cassettes, and using a massive, ugly wordprocesser; my living room looked more like a high school metal shop than the bridge of The Enterprise. I just wish I could find a way to whittle myself down to just one remote.

I’ve been pulling a lot of all-nighters at work recently. It’s good just to come home and unwind, sit in front of the tube, and just veg. I’m pretty bushed ,but all in all things are looking better than they were three weeks ago when I had to help my younger brother find a personal injury lawyer. Luckily that’s all settled since we decided to go with Chicago lawyers Power Rogers & Smith. Now I have some time for myself again.

Last night I watched that Ewan McGregor science fiction dvd “The Island” on my plasma television. It was actually not bad. I had low expectations because although I used to be a big fan of his, I was really disappointed by his performance in the Star Wars movies. Somebody should charge George Lucas with Crimes Against Entertainment for those films. What was he thinking?

But “The Island” was pretty good for a big budget Hollywood movie. The story is familiar – Ewan McGregor plays the hero, the smart guy who begins to sense things are not what they seem in a future society, and unravels a conspiracy. Unfortunately, I can’t give you very many details without spoiling the movie, because the plot is really simple.

But despite its simplicity “The Island” has some great moments. I especially liked McGregor’s acting; he gets to show off his ability to do both convincing American and Scottish accents. And the stunts are outstanding.

The film’s director, Michael Bay, also did “Pearl Harbor”, and “The Rock”, two other big budget blockbusters, heavy on special effects, and light on story. I’ve seen both those movies as well, and I can say that of the three films I’d recommend “The Island” the most highly.

I was just kicking back, aboard my boat The Diversion, when the boat line went off. A lovely young lady, Doris Treelaine, had come down to interview me for an article she was doing about local wineries. I had plumb forgotten she was coming. The Diversion was a mess – pillows,comforters,duvet covers and blankets lay strewn about the place; tell-tale signs of the previous night’s madness. I hastily went about clearing them awy.

After running a comb through my matted hair, I stuck both my feet over the stern and gave them a wash. I couldn’t for the life of me locate my shoes, and I didn’t want Ms. Treelaine to suffer any more on account of my disheveled appearance than absolutely necessary. After a brief check in my pocket mirror I agreed to put the matter to rest. A man should be concerned with his appearance only insofar as it affects his ability as a seaman or host.

Ms. Treelaine had interviewed my business partner Robert J. Shore some hours before at the Wild Bore Club, a local society haunt. Shore, she informed me, arrived at the interview with his niece Clara, the zoologist. Clara kept interrupting and after twenty minutes of this Ms. Treelaine asked to speak to Mr. Shore privately. At this point, far from politely acquiescing to Ms. Treelaine’s request for privacy, Clara challenged Ms. Treelaine to a fist fight.

Looking none the lesser with her shiner, Ms. Treelaine accepted my apologies and a case of my 2001 Tuscany red. Shore was really more of a silent partner in the operation anyway, I reassured her. Plus, writing about a fight with Clara would certainly up her street cred in publishing circles. I was sure she had shaken Luck’s hand after all. She seemed pleased.

I had returned home tired and somewhat disoriented from my week long hike into the cold and hostile Icelandic backcountry to discover that my wife had left me and taken most of what I thought were my earthly possessions. Our marriage had grown dull and lust less over the past few years. The spark in our eyes had dimmed and was but a twinkling shard of glass from a bottle of pain-drowning-moonshine buried in a landfill reflecting the light of a flashlight looking for a way out. I had never before been interested in exploring the mountains I saw everyday through my window. Covered in snow and sparsley populated by unknown and thus potentially dangerous fauna I thought it would be best to stay away and never think about them as more than a beautiful painting of some distant land hanging on my wall. I did envy for a long time the painter who could see such beauty in such as scary place, and was brave enough to it venture.

That was only until about a month ago when I turned from my plasma on a commercial break during a Rambo marathon on TBS that the snow that covered those mountains looked soft and light and more inviting than my bed where my wife laid heavy every night. Her skin I hadn’t touched in years but it looked dry and rough. The peaks of the mountains, reaching for the sun looked warmer than her peaks which over the years had been slowly sinking into the undulating valley at her center. I drink a bottle of South Co. as I write this. The asperous, sweet taste mixes with the vile from my stomach that sneaks up my esophagus due to my hiatus hernia almost inducing a gag reflex with every gulp I take. My life had gone down the pipes and I could almost hear the neighbors whispering about it. I should feel ashamed and maybe that nausea is partly caused by the stink of my life, but really, I feel relieved, lighter. I don’t quite have a face to show my friends and family at the moment but in the mirror, my face looks not as long, not a gray and dare I say, not as ugly as before. I have life ahead of me. I may now find joy and pleasure in the booze and women I sought before for distractions from the pain. In truth it was the dregs of society that I acquainted myself with those nights when I couldn’t face the inhospitable place that had become my home.

My plasma, which sits in a corner of the living room rejected by my wife for she probably couldn’t bare to carry or benefit from that device which she blames for the miseries in her life, had been my truest link to the outside world. Or at least a world not painted in hues of gray and tears. For years now, this being Iceland and my wife being my wife, I hadn’t seen the knees of a woman except for that show with the anorexic lawyer let alone any other more appealing parts like the ones I could see on MTV as they were abundantly displayed on those spoken word videos about the blinb-bling and hoes… whatever those things might be. My plasma had been my escape and the only thing keeping me from burying myself up to the neck and having my milk goat stomp me on the head to death. My bottle of liquor is almost finished and I begin to think that being friendly would cause the world to be friendly in return, but I know that is just an intoxicated fantasy.

I do however realize I am now free to see the exoticisms of the world in real life. Such strange things to Iceland as that flowery tavern, the Copacabana, which has events where the short and tanned owners would be bringing you sexy micro bikinis and sexy Brazilian thongs and swimwear since 2003! Until today, I had only seen the pictures on the advertisements on the local newsletter I used to put underneath the pillow case of my wife’s pillow to safe keep it from her drool. And much like the mountains outside my window, those pictures I thought would be better left as just that. Today; however, after tapping out the last drops of South Co. into my gullet I felt something in my pants I hadn’t quite experienced for some years now. It was a clue and it pointed there, to the Copacabana, to the neon lit street just outside town… to the air yard where I may shoot some disoriented ducks that came here looking for a warmer place… stoopid Canadian ducks.

Are there any Nine Inch Nails fans out there? I had kind of given up on them after their last two disappointing releases, but I just picked up their new album “Year Zero,” and it’s quite good. I actually purchased the CD, which is odd, I know – nowadays everybody I know is just downloading everything off the Internet. There are so many programs and formats it’s hard to keep track of what is going on out there. I have been using Ares P2P File Sharing for getting my music library organized recently. It supports Bit Torrent and Shoutcast, among having a number of other useful features.

I have made the decision to stop buying CDs a number of times in the past and just download, but since I’m a musician I feel a bit guilty about doing it all the time. But I bought the new Trent Reznor release for another reason besides feeling guilty about downloading it – it’s unusually good.

I think one major reason other than price that most kids are just downloading music is that most CDs are usually uneven, with maybe only 2 or 3 good tracks featured on an entire CD. While the Nine Inch Nails CD is good, even it suffers from the current pervasive state of creative laziness to be found in the music industry: Out of the album’s 16 songs, the first 8 are awesome .Jettison the rest. Sadly, they are space trash.

Can you imagine if Picasso or Van Gogh had had plasma tv sets? I think they were okay and everything, but technology has just come so far since the time when they walked the earth. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be watching “Rocky” on my 42 inch Hitachi than dragging myself around some pretentious gallery listening to some nerd tell me why Picasso was so important. Besides, I am dead sure if Picasso or Van Gogh had had tv sets like we have today, they’d have never left the house either. Am I right?

My girlfriend is kind of artsy and sometimes she looks down her nose at me and my friends just because we think her art stuff is boring. I’ll admit that she does know more about “art” than I do, but then she also likes They Might Be Giants, and believes a secret government is running the USA. I put up with her because I figure nobody’s perfect. I figure maybe she’ll mellow out after we get married and have kids.

But despite our different artistic tastes we sure do spend a lot of quality time in front of my plasma set. And I don’t hear much complaining from her when we’re watching one of her favorite Merchant Ivory productions.

Just a few weeks ago I was having my Plasma TV & Home Theater installation done by this guy who a friend had recommended. Some recommendation! This stupid moron came alone to do the installation after I told him I had the 52inch Sony that was to be mounted on my bedroom wall. He said it was no problem and not to worry. I was like are you sure you don’t want some help lifting it dude? He was like ‘nah mate I got it’.

So I left this guy and was chilling in the backyard with a few friends playing Frisbee and drinking beer when we hear this huge crash. We were like ‘what the f@ck’? We quickly ran into the bedroom and discovered this guy had dropped the bloody thing right on top of himself and was knocked unconscious. We tried to wake him up with some cold water but he wasn’t moving.

In the end we had to call an ambulance and the medics snapped him back into life. I guess he was lucky to have the screen fall on himself because if he’d been conscious after he’d dropped it, he would have got a beating from my friends and me. Anyway, his company ended up buying me a replacement and did the installation for free. Not bad I guess. I saved a few hundred dollars but did miss some serious sports for a few days.