Free Candy For Everyone

The fall TV season is a time of great excitement and a bit of stress for me. Every year, I eagerly anticipate my Entertainment Weekly Fall TV Preview issue. It goes over all the new and returning shows, lists their premiere dates and gives awesome little calendars of all the air times. I flip through that issue many times to plot out what I’m going to TiVo.

But then the season actually starts and I’m recording 3 hours of tv a night. My DVR can only hold so much, so I’m held hostage by my tv shows! I must watch several hours a night so that I don’t run out of space! I’ve learned to judge a show and get rid of it swiftly.

Most of the fall shows started over the last two weeks, and the first two season passes have already been eliminated from my DVR. First to go was K-Ville. I watched one episode and was appalled.

I really wanted to like the show. It takes place in New Orleans and is actually filmed there, employing lots of people which is a good thing. It’s a cop show, and one of the leads is Cole Hauser, who I quite like. But it was just horrible. I don’t mean the acting or anything, but the plot involved selfish horrible people doing terrible cruel things. Even our heroes had horrific awful secrets, and I just couldn’t handle the darkness of it. There was no joy. Ultimately, I watch TV to be entertained and this didn’t. It didn’t enlighten, it didn’t make me think, it just made me cringe. So it is out. No more of that.

Next to go is Back to You. I rarely like sitcoms. I don’t find them funny, they frequently find humor in the humiliation of others which is something I just don’t enjoy (well, unless it’s done well, as in How I Met Your Mother, the one sitcom I really love). This show is about a news show, following the anchor people and all that. And I just find it totally unfunny. Running gags about constantly killing goldfish, not funny. A continuous humiliation of one reporter who gets no respect, not funny. Just not funny! So I’m deleting that pass today.

I still am recording more than I can keep up with. What will be the next to go? Who knows?

Maybe I’ll write about what I’m actually enjoying soon. Dirty Sexy Money was the most promising so far, as well as Chuck. We shall see which last!

As a woman engineer, I’ve been in the minority for a long time. At university I was in classes where I was the only woman. It’s been a bit of an upstream swim to my career path - I wasn’t choosing the most obvious route or doing what might have been expected of me. I’ve always been interested in making it easier for future generations to make the same types of choices I made. While I didn’t experience any blatant sexism, it wasn’t considered “cool”, or something that most women should do. I didn’t always know about all the options available to me.

When I was contacted by WGBH about being part of a web site to get girls more aware of engineering fields and opportunities, I was thrilled. This is something I’m very interested in! WGBH is a PBS affiliate in Boston, and this is a very big project, with smart women from all different engineering disciplines participating.

Check out my awesome web profile, complete with a video segment. And when you’re done with me, go check out the other accomplished women on the site! This site is just the kind of thing to provide all sorts of stellar information about how cool and exciting engineering can be!

One of my annoyances about the iPhone was that despite carefully entering many birthdays into my address book on my Mac, those birthdays weren’t showing up on the calendar on my iPhone. Turns out it was user error, not lack of a feature! A more Mac-savvy friend of mine pointed out that I had to actually turn on the birthday calendar in iCal.

I checked the little “Show Birthdays calendar” box, re-synced my iPhone and now all the birthdays are showing up on my calendar. Thank you Apple! Yet another awesome convenience, ready to go. I guess I’m a fan-girl now. How did this happen?

Ok, that’s a weird thing to write about, I know. But it’s kind of tech related. I usually send all my packages to my office because I’m rarely home to sign for anything and I don’t really want them leaving packages out on the street. So, I send things to work where we have a shipping center and all is well. I accidentally had something sent to my home address last week and noticed on Friday night that I had two missed delivery stickers on my door.

I brought the slips inside and forgot to call to change the delivery location. The final delivery attempt was going to be on Monday. Sunday night at midnight I remembered the slips and called the number on them. An automated system answered. “Oh no, not one of these!” I thought to myself. But it was awesome!

It asked what I wanted to do and took me through some options, all through voice. I picked “Change delivery location”, verbally gave the new location and it repeated it back to me great. It confirmed all the details and I got my package the very next morning at the office. I was very impressed. So impressed that I thought I’d share my impressed-ness with you, my friends. Indeed!

I think we all kinda knew it was coming, but it appears to be official. PS3 gets rumble!