Thank you

[Fairlight]

Confusious (Walter Vaughan) say:
>
> We *never* watch live TV. Okay maybe weather on the 8's from the weather
> channel.

See, now there are pretty much only a few things I'd want cable/satellite
for, besides decent reception (we can't even -get- NBC in one room, ok?  I
mean, the EM around here is -really- bad):  NASA Select, so we wouldn't
have to rely on the web feeds for launches [which may or may not ever
happen again], and either UK Gold or BBC America, whichever is available.
Oh, and SciFi channel of course.  That's pretty much all we'd really care
about on the whole.  I'd probably watch some A&E mystery stuff, but as the
Columbo seasons are being released on DVD (they're taking their sweet
bloody time with Season 4, dangitall!), that one isn't that big a deal, as
that was the best of the lot.

> The only *evil* network is Discover I believe. You can only fast forward
> through their commercials at 2x speed. There are actually consulting
> firms that now "fix" ads so they still can get the message out at fast
> forward speeds.

I think they call that p2p downloads.  :)  I hear there is a LOT of
Discovery channel stuff on the p2p networks, much of it mislabelled PBS.

> About as useful as perl is to a computer is a dvr to a TV. Haven't
> watched a DVD in a year it seems.

And by contrast, DVD's are all we watch.  Well, all -I- watch.  I don't
have a TV card in this system, as the reception would have made it pretty
much worthless.  I haven't even had my TV powered on in 8 months back here.
My GameCube and PS2 have lain neglected, even, since I got the new PC in
here.  Kelly watches some now and again, but not much either.  Now my DVD
collection...sheesh.  Last I checked I was creeping up on 500 discs if you
count all the actual discs in TV seasons, etc.  Even if you don't, I'm over
250 -titles- even if you just count "Stargate SG-1 Season 8" as one title.
Don't ask how many whole series we have, nor how many we have to go.  :)

But I don't even bother with the TV, and Kelly watches what little TV she
does mostly on her PC through a ViewSonic N4 video processor (nice little
thing), with the DVD/VCR combo unit as a tuner.

There's just so little in the mass media today that I'd find worth taking
the time away from work/recreational coding/gaming to bother with.  Mostly
BBC-originated material that I either can't get or that I've seen 10+ times
before within the last 5 years.  The two Stargate series are the only
current programmes I'd keep up with.  Maybe "Joan of Arcadia"...that was
written well, IMHO.  Other than that...I mean, honestly, how many CSI's do
we actually need--and those are only three of what I counted as at least
six Bruckheimer productions airing.  Then there's the whole "reality"
(NOT!) thing...don't start me.  When they say "TV Wasteland", they're
not exaggerating.  Aside from a few very select channels, more channels
would simply be more crud for me to try and ignore--why pay for it?  I'd
rather wait for the DVD's and import them if I have to, pricey as that is
to do.  A "story" [one episode as we think of it stateside, as opposed to
in the UK] of Doctor Who is $30 a pop--when you can get them!  And there
are 25 years' worth of that programme prior to the new incarnation, which
I haven't seen, alas.  But I think there are over 122 episodes (ie., 4-6
part whole stories) from rough memory, and that was back before I missed
the entire last two Doctors.  $3660ish -if- you could get them all, which
you can't even come close to because the BBC has blown through four or more
production houses and still can't settle on one, and they're releasing them
in the most half-arsed fashion you could possibly conceive.  I seriously
think they're doing it by random lottery compared to how most shows are
being sensibly released.  Literally, UPN does a better job airing Star Trek
in consecutive order, and they -don't-.  That's how bad the BBC is being
about this.

But I digress.  Aside from a very few programmes, not much interests
me that would even be worth recording.  I might catch a special on the
pyramids, record it, and not even get to it for like 9 months.  It happens
with a VCR, of which we do have one.  And that's actually happened in the
last year.  Even the stuff that interests me...it's like, do it at the
airing time or don't even bother.  Been down that road and it just doesn't
work for me to defer it.  It's useful for most people, I'm sure, but I also
know I'm not the only one that has that whole time deficit thing where you
never get the time to catch up with what you recorded.

Anyway...  :)

> If there was a PPC port of filePro on Linux/PPC I guess one could run
> filePro on one...

OB filePro, eh? :) [There will be like 5 people here that even know what
that means.]  Well, it -would- be handier to track my DVD's in fP, but I
think even the single-user license is prohibitive for that purpose, when a
flat text file will do it.  I could always feed it to *sql if I wanted, but
nahhhhh.  I remember my parents cataloging what they taped on VHS, and at
one point we had it in PFS: File on the Apple ][e.  It got to be more of a
PITA than it was worth, to be honest, and we switched to index cards.  I
keep my file alphabetical, so it's pretty easy to reference.

Actually, didn't someone say there was a PPC fP port?  What is the iSeries
running?  There's iSeries fP...  I just don't know what the architecture
is on that, not having taken much interest in them.  I thought there was a
reference that fP might run on Tiger (and any OS/X version) because it was
the same architecture.  Could be way off base here--my memory is -fried-
the last week or so.

mark->