Jerzei Collie's journal

I got a haircut on Tuesday.

My yearly eye exam happened yesterday. The doctor said my vision is a little better than last year. After the exam, I went to dinner in Castle Rock with one of my Meetup groups. The Vista Vino restaurant had its Happy Hour during the time we were there. I got a bowl of white bean chorizo soup and sausage crostini, a couple glasses of Riesling, and caramel mascarpone cheesecake for dessert. I drove a bit further north after dinner and used my portable TV to watch some of the diginets available in Denver.

I don't have a Toastmasters meeting this week since next Monday is Memorial Day. Tonight is the monthly "Drinking Liberally" meeting in Old Colorado City.

I picked up a couple of pizzas for the Toastmasters group potluck and got to the library around 11:40. At around 11:55, I suddenly remembered the group now meets at 1 PM instead of noon. As I started to walk out of the library, I found another group member waiting who didn't know about the later start. (She had been unable to attend the last few meetings.) Since I had about 50 minutes to kill, I went to Safeway and bought a few things the potluck usually needs but doesn't have like cups and plates. One member usually brings chicken wings for an appetizer, so I bought a package of moist hand wipes as well.

Free Speech TV called me a half-hour ago about scheduling a tour of their studios in Denver. I was supposed to be part of a meet-and-greet a couple of years ago when I made a pledge to the station. I'll be taking the studio tour next month.

I missed a meetup tonight with a local Happy Hour group. My cell phone was turned off and recharging in my bedroom, so the alarm to remind me never went off.

I hate the fact that I can't afford to start a radio or TV station, either here or in Denver. There is a low-power TV station for sale in Denver, along with an FM station east of the city and other stations throughout Colorado. I'd need anywhere from $100,000 to $2,000,000 just to buy one station.

My new modem and Prism TV service were installed Wednesday. It's nice to watch/listen to Web shows on my laptop again instead of a smaller smartphone screen. Having a super-fast connection makes for a more pleasant experience with little to no buffering.

I've been fasting since late last night for a blood test.  I'll head to the hospital in about an hour.

I took a "media mug shot" picture.  The coffee mugs are from KRCC-FM (where I work weekends,) local NBC affiliate KOAA-TV, and two online political shows I enjoy: Turn Up the Night with Kenny Pick, and the Bob and Chez Show.

PAY for Sunday, October 27: 4 hours (5-9 AM)
Monday, October 28: 3 hours (6-9 AM)
Tuesday, October 29: 3 hours (6-9 AM)
Wednesday, October 30: 6 hours (6-9 AM and 3-6 PM)
Thursday, October 31: 3 hours (6-9 AM)
Friday, November 1: 3 hours (6-9 AM)

I don't know if the membership drive will last until Friday, but I signed up for shifts just in case. My afternoon shift today will only be from 3-6 PM instead of 3-7 because the C.S. Tweetup is on the same night.

I keep getting ads in the mail for Century Link's "Prism TV" service. A couple of friends who have the service say they like it better than DirecTV (which I use.) Unfortunately, Prism TV's Web site says it's not available where I live. Looking at the pricing list, some of the channels I like to watch are in the more-expensive tiers anyway. EDIT: The Web site shows most of the channels are actually on a lower tier, but the advertisement listed them on the upper ones. Nat Geo Wild is the only channel I like that's not on a lower tier.

Weekly calorie average: 1,856.3
Days above 2,000 calories: 1 (2,060)

I got a halfway decent amount of sleep for a Saturday night/Sunday morning (about 5 hours.) I'm feeling much more relaxed this morning compared to how enraged I was last night.

"Secretariat? *ding dong* Who's that at the door?!"

I heard this morning that the creator of the "Dalek" from Doctor Who passed away. For some reason, this scene from The Young Ones popped into my head. The Dalek impression happens at 1:52:

A political discussion at work brought up memories of an old comedy song. Some co-workers were talking about political candidates Doug Lamborn and Robert Blaha. The news director said shortening the latter's name to Bob Blaha reminded her of the song "Rappin' Duke" by Shawn Brown. She said she imagined Blaha's name being sung in place of the "daa-haa daa-haa" chorus



A few others and I thought of "Bob Loblaw," Scott Baio's attorney character from Arrested Development:



After a while, I remembered I had heard "Rappin' Duke" on the 1980s TV lip-sync competition show Puttin' On The Hits.

I won't answer phones at KRCC on Friday since I have a Toastmasters meeting then. I wanted to sign up for shifts next Tuesday, but they were all filled.

I just viewed former MSNBC Live host Cenk Uygur's video from The Young Turks explaining why he left MSNBC and the events which led up to it. Uygur cited ratings which showed MSNBC Live beat the Fox News show which aired against it. Uygur said network officials told him people in Washington, DC "didn't like his tone" when he criticized politicians.

NBC in general has a long track record of hiring people for being different, then ordering them to stop being different (Howard Stern, the casts of Saturday Night Live, Conan O'Brien and Keith Olbermann.) This trend increased when General Electric bought RCA (NBC's former parent company,) and again when Comcast bought 51% of NBC/Universal. The excuse usually given is "People outside of California and New York won't get it," as if they picture the other 48 states as one giant corn field.

With the U.S. economy in the condition it's in, and with politicians trying to hold services and funding hostage to secure a budget deal, it's the job of news commentators to speak out against anything that negatively affects their viewers, whether the management/advertisers/politicians like it or not. This is why I'm glad the Internet offers alternative viewpoints from all sides. Some of them don't have the viewer numbers of the big networks, but they also don't have a group of suits telling them what to say and think.

EDIT: About that last sentence: Whenever someone hates a show (particularly a political news/talk show,) the weakest excuse anyone can give is "They only have, like, 3 viewers"or "Their ratings are sinking." Quantity and quality are not always mutual. TV shows like Arrested Development got poor ratings, but most of the people who did watch it over its three-season run (including myself) enjoyed it. Internet streams, public access cable TV shows and community radio stations are doing what larger media companies hardly ever do anymore: giving a voice to people whose views are either not heard or are drowned out by the opposition. If I like a show or agree with a certain viewpoint, why should it matter how many or how few people share that view? I'd love to start my own stream, but I know I wouldn't have enough fresh material to fill even a half-hour per day.

I watched the Larry King Live interview on CNN tonight with the Imam who wants to build an interfaith community center two blocks from Ground Zero, along with reactions from others on Anderson Cooper 360. Somehow, I think I got a different feed of the interview than some of the folks who commented on it. I read several comments on the CNN site saying "he should make it an interfaith center instead of a mosque," even though the Imam had already stated that's what the building would be.

To be honest, the panelists calling the plan insensitive came off as very insensitive themselves. One of them (a woman whose husband was a firefighter killed on 9/11) kept cutting off the others who tried to give an opposing view and even suggested the Imam "build it in the Middle East."

The jaw-dropping moment of the night, however, came from a man who objected to being called a bigot. He then suggested the interfaith center should have a Christian church on the top floor ("because Christians built this great nation,") a Jewish synagogue below that and the Muslims on a lower floor. I thought for a moment I had switched over to "TV Land" and was watching Archie Bunker. Of course, this person whined that he was being "attacked" when another panelist questioned this so-called logic.

Bill Hicks was right. Some people need to "squeegee their third eye" and not blindly form an opinion without hearing both sides. Perhaps more people need to study this chart which explains things rationally:


I finished writing my Toastmasters speech after watch these programs. I'll go over it tomorrow morning and make an outline on note cards.