Amusement and bemusement

jonbaker turned on our living room set to watch the Macy's Parade. He'd rather be there, but we live over an hour away by subway instead of three blocks on foot. "TV is a distant second, " says he. "On TV, all you see is a tiny triangle between Matt and Katie." Also, it's 26F.

Except that the cablebox in the living room only transmitted the program crawl. This is the third time this has happened. We tend to watch mainly the bedroom set, so the last time, this lasted a week - long enough for me to *not* have taped 24 and Birds of Prey, the shows I tape on that set.

I tell Jonathan to call the cable company and give him the phone number. He gets trapped in menu hell, gets frustrated and hands me the phone. Two presses of a button and I'm talking to a nice, helpful human; five minutes later, Katie and Matt are smiling on our set. I do have to say...as annoying as hold music is, it's even worse to get no music at all.

My contribution for the feast came out well - I'm bringing a brown basmati rice pilaf. This is as an extra side dish for my stuffing hating/meat hating brother-in-law.

And now.

A Rant at Aaron Sorkin

( Spoilers for West Wing. )