LarryC’s World

I have mixed feelings about so-called Reality TV. American Idle (mis-spelling intentional) leaves me cold. For one thing, letting the audience decide this popularity contest means that the most talented never win. Come on… is Taylor Hicks really the best that season had to offer? Maybe Americans would vote for him on the show, but they won’t buy his albums! On a couple of the ‘contests’, the winner was smart enough to use the show to become successful. Kelly Clarkson was not the most talented on season 1, but she listened to the judges and her advisers (at least until recently) and worked hard enough to have a successful post-idol career. While I am not a fan of country music, and did not believe that Carrie Underwood was the most talented on her season, she had the drive and clear vision of what she wanted to be successful. But those two have proven to be the exception, and not the rule.

Reality shows that put people in abnormal circumstances, like Survivor, Big Brother and their clones are not interesting to me at all. I have developed a fondness for The Amazing Race. I think the situations there are just close enough to real life that we can identify with the racers. I really prefer the reality shows that are more like documentaries, where the cameras follow people in their normal environment. The best example of this is “Deadliest Catch”. For three seasons Discovery Channel cameramen followed Alaskan King crab fishermen while they fished for crab in the Bearing Sea, in Winter!! Pretty riveting stuff. I also loved Meerkat Manor on the Animal Planet channel. But with the big changes in the Whiskers mob (the dominant family group), and the untimely death of matriarch Flower, I don’t think it will be back this year.

And then there are the contest shows. Not the popularity type with the viewers voting, but where there are a panel of judges. Bravo TV seems to have the best of these. Starting with my current favorite; . In this show, a group of contestants who work in the fashion industry (not people off the street) compete weekly in a series of challenges that are then judged by a panel of fashion experts. The show is produced and hosted by model Heidi Klum. Eventually, the field of contestants is narrowed down to three who then design a line of clothing that is shown in New York at Fashion Week. Since the New York fashion week was the first week of February, you can see the designers fashions at this link. There are 5 designers, but 2 of them are decoys. Fashion week occurred before the final competitions so to prevent any spoilers, the 5 contestants who were still in the running were there. We know that Sweet P was eliminated, and only 1 of either Chris or Rami is actually competing. Anyway, the final show will be this Wednesday on Bravo TV at 8:00 PM. Watch and enjoy.

Then starting in March, is the Runway clone “Top Chef”. This show uses the same format only with a dozen or so chefs competing each week.

It doesn’t look any different, but I have updated the software on the web site. Wordpress has released an update to the software I use to run this site (actually 2). I wait for a while until I see what bugs shake out before updating. In this case, I waited so long that Wordpress had a second update. But I only installed the first one, version 2.3.2. It seems as though every time I do update the software, something breaks and I have to fix it. The last update caused a major problem for me that took 2 days to fix. Fortunately, this update did not cause any big issues and things are humming along smoothly. Oh, I also changed the picture on the top of the site. It is a sunset photo I took last September.

I spent the better part of Sunday reading and trying to understand H.R.5140, also known as the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. After reading it, I then spent a good deal of time trolling the web, reading various and sundry analyses of the bill on different web sites. The bottom line is that this little (6 page) piece of legislation is (like all legislation) confusing. And as with most legislation, the devil is in the details. Basically, Congress (at the urging of the White House) is giving you a credit on your 2008 taxable income (the income taxes you will file in 2009). But, they authorized the Treasury department to issue tax rebates based on your 2007 income! Isn’t that special??

As you may or may not recall, back in 2001, Congress and the Bush Administration issued similar tax rebates. Then in 2002, you had to pay it back by reducing your refund on the 2002 tax return. According to this article on the Open Congress.org web site, that won’t happen this time. Of course, all of this is subject to change, and I didn’t see anything specifically in the wording which prevents that. But, who knows. If you would like to read the full text of the bill, use this link.

In any event, use your $300, $600, or amount to be determined wisely. And don’t forget that the tax filing deadline is April 15!!

It has been a traumatic week for us. Simba, the sweetest dog we have ever had passed away. Actually, we had to put him to sleep. Back in November, I ranted about his eye surgery. And he was still blind. But, after my rant, the doggy ophthalmologist assured us that the eye was healing normally, and that there was a chance he could regain some sight in his left eye. then we placed him in a kennel when we took our Paris trip. I don’t know what happened, but the dog we picked up on our return, was not the same sweet dog we left.

Ever since we came home, he has steadily deteriorated. We sought the opinion of another vet, and he said that Simba was suffering from liver and kidney failure.We tried antibiotics and medication for liver disease, but it did not help. Finally, we had to admit that Simba was not happy, he was in extreme discomfort, and didn’t seem to recognize us any more. So to stop his suffering, we made the decision to let him go. We have had dogs since we bought our first house. During that time, we have had to put more than one dog to sleep. But Simba was the hardest. Probably because we are retired now and spent so much time with him, we were really attached.

We acquired Simba from a pet adoption fair at a Saratoga Pet Smart back in 1996. We didn’t know what his birthday was. The adoption people estimated he was 2 years old. Simba had the sweetest disposition of any dog we have had. Yet, his name was appropriate. He was fearless, and was the boss of any dog (or animal) around him. That fearless streak may have been the reason his right eye was catarcted over when we adopted him. Our vet thought it was probably caused by a traumatic injury. I still remember how he bossed around our neighbor’s boxer who probably weighed 5 times as much as Simba. And, I’ll never forget the night he cornered a possum in our back yard in California.

I’ve uploaded a bunch of pictures of Simba in New Mexico. I’ve only had a digital camera since we moved here, so thats why I had pictures available to upload. We’ll miss Simba, but we’ll probably adopting another dog in the not too distant future.