Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

My muse went on vacation and didn’t tell me

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Might as well take a TV break, because my muse has apparently gone on vacation without letting me know. Until she (muses are always “she,” right?) returns, it’s pretty unlikely anything creative will get accomplished here.

If you’ve visited here before, you know that even though the television is always on as background noise, the only shows I always make an effort to watch are Mad Men, Rescue Me, and Sons of Anarchy. Less than two weeks to go before Mad Men is back, and Sons just about a month off.

Good thing, too, because I am getting somewhat frustrated with Rescue Me. On the plus side, the show did get a deserved Emmy nod for a killer guest star turn by Michael J. Fox as the most assholish, anti-Alex P. Keaton character ever, and now a guest appearance from Maura Tierney is showing promise (may I say how happy I am to see Maura Tierney looking pretty again and playing someone other than Abby on E.R.). But the show is still spending way too much time for me on the Tommy-Janet-Sheila triangle. It is getting very tiresome. I wanted to punch Janet in the face during her “you need me if you want to keep seeing your kids” speech, and I almost fell asleep during Sheila’s “you make me hot” speech.

The firehouse banter and the actual fire scenes still make it worth my time, though. I still love to talk with my “technical advisor” about what’s real and what’s not. I was only very slightly surprised to find out that at his firehouse, they bet on Hell’s Kitchen and other cooking competitions, rather than Dancing With the Stars like the 62 Truck boys were doing last week.

Speaking of television, how disappointing to see that the Emmy Awards are not planning to televise presentation of the major writer’s awards. Without the writers, we’d be forced to watch reality crap all day and all night long. We’re way too close to that sorry state already. The #emmysfail Twitter hashtag is quite apropos for this.

(NaBloPoMo | August ’09: 4 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 192 of 274)

Nothing much to say tonight

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I have a number of things I should be doing on the computer, both online and offline. Instead I am writing this post and watching the weekend replays of older CSI: NY, CSI: Miami and Cold Case. Well, maybe not Cold Case as I would like to be asleep by then.

Somehow I missed tonight’s CSI: NY episode, “One Wedding and a Funeral,” the first time around. The storyline sends Mac Taylor back to Chicago and as the episode closes, he is getting a mysterious phone call just after he’s looked at some of the rock pieces from famous places that are embedded into the wall of the Chicago Tribune Tower (in the CSI: NY storyline, they are clues in a puzzle that started out in New York).

My first job in downtown Chicago was in the Mandel Building, which no longer exists, but was right behind the Tribune Tower. I always enjoyed taking a minute to look at some of the rock pieces before or after work. I still don’t work all that far away from the Tribune Tower, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve been around there. I never have seen the piece of steel from the World Trade Center that is now in the wall. Maybe I’ll walk over there one day this week if the weather is nice.

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 7 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 134 of 274)

Work avoidance backfires big time

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After going in to work early today, working in full speed mode for a few hours, and then being thrown full stop into a holding pattern, I just wasn’t feeling very productive when I got home. So much so, that my work avoidance mode even included reality television.

Except for American Idol and the occasional other music or tattoo show, I don’t watch reality television. I made an exception tonight to watch I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here on the chance of seeing Patti Blagojevich have to eat bugs or something. Which she did have to eat a dead tarantula. It was not worth sitting through the show to see it, especially since that meant sitting through way too much of the totally intolerable Spencer Pratt. My God, does that man need a good ass-kicking.

I think my IQ dropped 20 points in those two hours. It’s amazing I can even string these words together into the first post of June ’09 NaBloPoMo. I don’t think we’ll address this month’s theme (heroes) until tomorrow, though. I certainly didn’t see any of those in tonight’s television viewing!

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 1 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 128 of 274)

Where do you go to talk about television?

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Where do you go to talk about your favorite television shows?

I have some good conversations at work about a few shows that all, or most, of us watch. But I haven’t found many online places, with the possible exceptions of BlogHer’s TV Rants & Raves group and Television Without Pity, that I actually enjoy reading, let alone where I enjoy participating in the discussion myself.

Maybe I’m being too annoyingly picky. I just want somewhere that isn’t too squeakily fangirlish (or fanboyish), but doesn’t swing to the other extreme of overanalyzing and being unbearably pretentious. For Rescue Me discussions, I expect badge bunnies, but not an overpopulation of same. Likewise for Sons of Anarchy discussions: I’d expect some wanna-be train pullers, but again, hopefully not an overpopulation of them.

Upon reflection, the overanalyzing criteria doesn’t apply to Mad Men. I do not believe that show can be discussed without some degree of overanalysis. Just my opinion, of course.

My personal fault is being a little too nit-picky about details of cities where I’ve lived or depictions of jobs or hobbies that I’ve been involved in. But since I didn’t start working in advertising production until the late 70s, and nothing is currently filming in Chicago or Honolulu, I can probably keep it to a minimum.

So if anyone has some good suggestions for communities or forums devoted to those shows that I might enjoy, I’d love to hear them!

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 27 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 123 of 274)

Search and you shall find

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I didn’t have this blog visible on search engines until about a month or two ago. Not surprisingly, many of the searches that lead here have “Rottweiler” in the phrase or question.

I was distressed to see that my blog did not in fact provide the answers to some of those questions. I know it might not help much after the fact, but these question cannot go unanswered forever.

Rottweilers watch television: Why, yes, they do. Freya and Axel were not happy when last year’s New Amsterdam was canceled. Main character John Amsterdam was immortal, and his dog breed of choice throughout his 400-year-life was the Rottweiler. His current dog was named “Thirty-Six” (a 1940s flashback shows him with his then-Rottweiler, “Twenty-Nine”). While watching the show, Freya and Axel referred to themselves as “Five” and “Six.” All right, I don’t know for sure whether they did that, but if they thought of it, they would have. In real life, “Thirty-Six” is “Missy,” an AKC Obedience Trial Champion: Nordike’s Misty Meadows Mischief owned by Barb Doering. The obedience trial championship, OTCh, is the highest obedience honor a dog can receive and it is not a trivial undertaking.

Rottweilers also like Entourage and “Arnold” and Kath and Kim and “Cujo.”

A favorite Rottweiler movie is the 1996 version of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Actually, I don’t know if all Rottweilers like this movie. Our dear departed Oscar loved it, though, as did the rest of the original crew. The whole idea of using human DNA in animals is kind of creepy, but the human/beasts really held Oscar’s attention.

I bet you thought they were going to say they liked The Omen, huh? They do, but they thought that answer was too obvious. Of course they’ve seen it. What Rottweiler hasn’t?

Similar animals to Rottweilers: There is nothing like a Rottweiler. No animal that will bring you so much love and joy, along with so much frustration during their “teenager” time. No animal so devoted to their people. No animal that is so very special, in every sense of the word!

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 18 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 114 of 274)