Archives for January 2008

Let me be the reason you back up your computer this week.

Turned on my main desktop last night…nothing. It had been only a year since my last crash when I had to buy a new hard drive. I lost everything last year. Now…I’ve lost it again.

Stupid me didn’t back up my main hard drive. On the “c” drive, I had my operating system, editing system software and some other files. I thought I had all of my pictures and music and video on a separate hard drive. Found out today, it was on a different hard drive all right, but the “d” drive was actually just a partition of my “c” drive.

After dropping a few hundred dollars on a new hard drive, labor and replacement RAM that somehow gave up the ghost too, I turned on my computer to find all of those pictures and about 700 songs were gone.

I’m in the process now of re-loading all of the software.

So back up Bub. You might thank me for it later.

Some football talk now. Auburn hired a new defensive coordinator today in Paul Rhoads. I found a YouTube video of the then-Pitt Panther coach talking about his coaching and defensive philosophy.

So I’m posting this here for the Auburn fans out there to see a bit of what we can expect for next season.

My wife noticed this during the first night of this season’s American Idol. Simon, Randy and Paula are being nicer to the contestants.

Last season’s early auditions seem to have been a lot more mean spirited than other seasons. I posted that the judges almost seemed like the group of “cool kids” in a high school cafeteria, poking fun and being mean to kids not in their “click” or “clique”.

Well it’s obvious someone at FOX or 19 Productions have gotten the word that some viewers didn’t like that attitude. Several times in nights 2 and 1, the judges warmed up to even the bad contestants. And several times I heard all of the judges use the word “nice”. “You’re a nice girl/guy”, or “I like you”. Even when they were giving them the heave-ho, Simon and Randy were being kind, not cruel.

Producers seem to be making an effort to keep things civil in the audition room. There’s been none of that hateful and hurtful gibes at the contestants who think, wrongly, that they can carry a tune. I haven’t seen the show take advantage of contestants who seem to be emotionally or mentally challenged.

Anybody else notice this? And if so, or if not, is the show as entertaining with kinder, gentler judges?

The premiere was Idol’s lowest rated in 4 years, but I doubt it’s because of the changes in attitudes. I think it’s because the families who’ve helped make this show such a big hit have turned off the television due to a lack of quality programming. Simply put, families didn’t see anything to watch over the last several months and have found other forms of entertainment. When Idol came back…they didn’t.

My 2-cents only.

at least get the annoying information right.

We’re watching an episode of COPS on the G4 network. We dvr’d this one because it’s in Memphis.

This is the first time I’ve watched the show on G4 so I didn’t know the bottom third scroll was going to stay on the screen through the entire program. This lower third is the most annoying thing I’ve seen on tv in quite some time. It has tabs for “trivia”, “expert”, “i-witness”, “chat” and “facts”.

The thing is…the folks at G4 don’t have their facts straight.

The first trivia question blocking a third of the show was: “where is Memphis located in the state of Tennessee?” and the choices were: a: northeast, b: northwest, c: southeast, and d: southwest.

the brainiacs at G4 told us the correct answer is C: southeast.

We haven’t watched network television since last Sunday night’s “Amazing Race”. Every night this week, my wife and two kids and I have sat down at 7 with the remote and scrolled through the options. Each night, we settle on something old (“Sanford and Son” the other night), something Tivod (“House of Payne”, “Twilight Zone”) or something from our own DVD collection.

In fact, I cannot honestly think of the last network sitcom or drama that we’ve watched as a family. Tonight, we stopped the remote at VH1’s “Web Junk”. They’re running down the funniest clips of the past year and what is #25 but a segment from WMC, Newschannel 5.

Most of the folks in Memphis have probably already seen this, but the clip was news to me. In one newscast, Channel 5 had a news report that showed people how to break into a house by tapping a key in the doorknob lock.

VH1 showed Donna and Joe introducing the piece and then a brief part of the story. Of course, then VH1 had about a half-dozen comedians making fun of the story and the fact that a tv station would show people how to break into a house.

The story ranked close behind Miss Teen South Carolina and in front of “Leave Brittney Alone! guy crying in bed”.

The clip has had nearly 7 million hits.

Funny isn’t it. The best show on television this Friday night was actually a show about what you can see on the internet.

One of my favorite “gotchas” was back in Memphis when filling in on the morning show for Joe Larkins.

Mary Beth and I were anchoring and there was a story about somebody getting a new recording deal with some music publisher. This was back in the days when anchors were allowed to chit-chat with each other and actually have a little personality.

Coming out of the story I said “you know when I was just out of college I signed a contract with a record company”.

Mary Beth’s eyes widened and she said “I didn’t know that!”. I went on with the story, about how I didn’t know much about the music business but this was one of the bigger music companies, BMG…and after talking with my dad it seemed like it was a pretty good deal.

Well, Mary Beth bought the whole thing. Just before we tossed to the break, I said “yeah…I got 13 CDs for a penny and then I only had to buy 6 more in three years.”

Well, this time…I do have some pretty cool news. It isn’t a record contract but my ministry “The ACTS Network” does have it’s own page in iTunes.

I’m turning my weekly videos into a video podcast, meaning if you have one of the newer iPods that play video, you can subscribe to my feed and have each new episode download automatically to your iPod.

I got one of the new iPods just before Christmas and I am hooked (like MB). I’ve subscribed to about a dozen podcasts and when I charge up my iPod each night, it automatically downloads new episodes and automatically erases the episodes I’ve listened to. In effect, I have on-demand tv and radio on my iPod.

I’ve done some searching in iTunes and found that nearly all of the Christian programs/podcasts were audio sermons. Those aren’t that much fun. The ACTS Network video podcasts are about 3 minutes in length and rounds up some of the more interesting news stories for Christians. I call it “News for the Pews” or “The Greatest Stories Never Told”.

I just posted my first podcast this morning so iTunes is reviewing them and I hope the folks there decide to offer it on their Religion and Spirituality podcast channels. If you’d like to see them, head over to www.actsnetwork.com/vlog The only one posted so far is one from the middle of December but I’ll be shooting a new episode tomorrow night and hope to have it on the feed and in the store by Thursday.

Now, you can help me get noticed by the iTunes folks by subscribing. Until they add it to the store, here’s what you can do:

in iTunes, click on the advanced tab and then “subscribe to podcast”. In the URL box that pops up, enter this feed address:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/ActsNetwork/vlog

it’s free and if you use one of those new iPods with video you’ll have something to watch. I’d like your feedback too.

Yeah, it’s been a while since my last post. We ended ’07 the way I don’t want to end another year.

I thought it was just me. I’d never felt depressed around the holidays but I did this year going into Christmas week. It just never felt like Christmas to me. Maybe it was because I only went to one Christmas party. Maybe it was because our Christmas tree was put in our living room and we didn’t see it often enough. I didn’t listen to a lot of Christmas music, didn’t send out Christmas cards. I didn’t do any Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve.

Christmas eve, I didn’t even leave a “note from Santa” and the kids didn’t leave milk and cookies on the table. Whatever caused my lack of Christmas spirit I hope it doesn’t return next year.

Christmas Day night, Trey started complaining about a sore on his lower back. It was really his butt. A couple of days later it got worse. A trip to the doctor Friday revealed it to be another case of staph infection, probably MRSA. Doses of anti-biotics for him. Doses of some type of ointment in our noses for the rest of us. Ammonia cleaning for the house.

A follow-up appointment to the doctor today shows the anti-biotics are working and he seems to be fine now.

And then yesterday….Trey’s hamster that he got for Christmas didn’t wake up. We buried Nibbles in the backyard this morning. I know it was just a $10 hamster and the kids only had a week to get attached to it, but it was the first pet to pass away for us. Sad to see both of your kids get hurt that way.

But today is a new year. ’08. Geez, it seems like only yesterday we turned over from 1999. We’ve got a new hamster, a $15 ‘robo-hamster’ from Petco. I head back to work tomorrow to start my third year in Nashville.

Hard to believe it’s going this fast.