In the Disney movie, Lilo and Stitch, when the social worker Cobra Bubbles asks Lilo, “Are you… happy?”, the little girl responds with an awkward open-mouthed smile. Lately, baby Angie and I have been enjoying a private joke in which one of us smiles like awkward Lilo, and the other responds in kind. Sometimes we stand in front of the mirror and make the face together. It’s our secret handshake.

For months, the fish tank in the kids’ room has been empty except for a Golden Mystery Snail, which has grown alarmingly large. The other day I bought 2 Red Clawed Crabs to keep the snail company. Little animal lover Ana has been faithfully feeding them each one shrimp pellet every night. I think the snail wishes they would just go away, but I’m sure it can take care of itself.

Alex and I have been watching episodes of Gilmore Girls together on DVD. He finds Lorelei Gilmore hilarious and runs out of the room during the makeout scenes. I wish I were a Lorelei, but unfortunately I’m more of a Paris Gellar.

Have you seen the order form for Star Trek t-shirts on select boxes of cereal and cracker products at the grocery store? I’ve got enough tokens to order Kevin and Alex each a shirt. They both want blue.

With only 1 week left until I return to the office, I’m finally making some headway on the work I brought home with me at the start of summer. I would allow myself to exhale, but with the amount of knocking on wood I’d have to do, I’d rub my knuckles bloody.

Categories: TV, angie, kids and parenting, pets, work-life balance
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Just read an interesting study that takes a look at the amount of time spent doing various activities and how happy a person is. Essentially, the more time a person spends doing non-work activities, the happier they are. The one notable exception in the study was television. Though people indicate enjoying TV, those who watch more TV are less happy.

Some other researchers have found evidence that suggests that different parts of the brain fall asleep and wake up at different times. When a group of cells gets tired enough, it turns off. When enough of your brain is powered down, you fall asleep. I think we need to get these researchers together because this is *exactly* what watching television does to me.

Categories: TV, memes, work-life balance
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I have a confession to make: I didn’t watch the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The reason? I couldn’t get TV reception.

I don’t really watch TV. Back when Kevin and I lived in apartments, we had several hundred cable TV channels, not that we ever took advantage of them. They were just included in the rent, and it wasn’t possible to opt out. Looking back, I find it strange that many of our neighbors also subscribed to several hundred more satellite TV channels, as evidenced by the telltale receivers on their balconies.

Then when we bought this house, Kevin installed a giant antenna on the roof just so I could watch one show, the Gilmore Girls, but reception was bad because of a huge hill that stands between us and Mt. Wilson, and after every windy storm Kevin had to climb on the roof to readjust it to make it point in the right direction. He hadn’t touched it since GG ended in ’07, so when the Games began airing, we turned on the TV and got… static.

At first it was no big deal. I’m not a sports fan anyway, so I made do with Internet photos, videos, and recaps via blogs and Tweets. But I did feel a little bummed after hearing just how spectacular the opening ceremonies were. Then, after the Games, I started ruminating on how much I might be missing by opting out of synchronous TV viewing experiences…

I’ll leave the philosophy for another time. The short story is, we bought a $25 digital TV converter, and now suddenly we have over a dozen broadcast TV channels. On Friday we watched the Presidential debate, and so did a lot of other people. Next Thursday we’re going to watch the Vice Presidential debate. We don’t have TV viewing plans beyond that at this point.

Categories: TV, politics
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RIP, Estelle Getty.

Categories: TV
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For someone who doesn’t watch TV I’m sure guilty of abusing a lot of these TV catchphrases.

Categories: TV
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