Fashion Board 11-2-03 - 12-09-03

[Pinky]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I want to hear from people who have this service. I know it's a digital service provider. I know you get a dish. I think I know you can watch different channels in different rooms. What I don't know is how well it works. How responsive customer service is. What kind of problems you have with it. If it is better or worse than cable.

And does anyone have the HDTV service? (I have it on good authority that I am mainly correct when I say that someone may get me a nice HDTV for Christmas.) If so, are there enough shows shown (including sporting events) in HD that justify the extra $11 a month for the package?

Any and all other information would be appreciated. I'm sick of Time Warner Cable.

TM

I have Direct TV. I switched from Cablevison because I needed YES. You can watch different programs in different rooms. I have no complaints about service. It works well except for when it rains or snows really hard. When that happens, service may be interrupted. If it is, it's usually not out for very long. The Customer Service people that you'll talk to to get information initially are morons. But once you have service, the technical support people and anyone you deal with then are very helpful. They get back to you quickly and know their stuff.

I don't know about HD Service but let me know what you hear. I'm thinking about it too.

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I want to hear from people who have this service. What I don't know is how well it works. How responsive customer service is. What kind of problems you have with it. If it is better or worse than cable.

Any and all other information would be appreciated. I'm sick of Time Warner Cable.

TM

I have Directv and it rocks compared to digital cable--picture quality is better, less "pixelation" (where you can see the blocks like on a computer screen, especially when displaying shadows), more range of pay tv options, especially sports options--a true paradise. You can individually subscribe for the channels you want most of the time without having to get tons that you don't. As for customer service, not bad, nothing great, but they've always come through once you get through to a real person. I would recommend getting the PVR option for your main tv, I think the Tivo option is the most popular (I have Ultimate TV), and get the one with dual tuners--so you can record two shows at once, or some combination of that. It's handy. As for HDTV programming, other than maybe ESPN HD, I don't think there's really much programming. In the end, digital cable is more money, for less stuff, less quality. Since you seem like a big sports fan, you won't be disappointed, though if you go crazy on the options, your monthly fee might get a little high.

best of luck.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I want to hear from people who have this service. I know it's a digital service provider. I know you get a dish. I think I know you can watch different channels in different rooms. What I don't know is how well it works. How responsive customer service is. What kind of problems you have with it. If it is better or worse than cable.

And does anyone have the HDTV service? (I have it on good authority that I am mainly correct when I say that someone may get me a nice HDTV for Christmas.) If so, are there enough shows shown (including sporting events) in HD that justify the extra $11 a month for the package?

Any and all other information would be appreciated. I'm sick of Time Warner Cable.

TM

I subscribed to digital cable (through Time Warner) for a short time. The digital broadcasts are incredible. However, there was precious little digital programing (it was 2 years ago, so this may have changed). Another annoyance was that non-digital broadcasts came with the bars on the side of the widescreen to preserve the standard tv ratio. I was unable to use the zoom features on the tv to override this and I found it very annoying. I do not know whether it is this way with Direct TV, but this is something to ask about.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
What I don't know is how well it works. How responsive customer service is. What kind of problems you have with it. If it is better or worse than cable.

Not better than cable if all you get is analog cable. For price and picture quality, getting the analog-only cable package is a better deal. However, who other than Bilmore actually does this? DTV is far better than cable if you have the crock of shit known as "digital cable" (i.e., any pay channels, or any channels over about 80).

I can't think of any problems I've had with it, except that some of the crappy little channels I watch, especially DIY, get very little bandwidth and sometimes the picture on those channels will be inferior. But this is the price of cramming that many channels on the system and that problem is non-unique to DTV. They say the sports and movie channels always are given ample bandwidth, FWIW. Never had a problem requiring customer service. The cable company blows; how can a competitive alternative possibly be worse than cable in this dept.?

Some parts of the country experience a phenomenon known as "rain fade," which essentially means distant high-atmosphere thunderstorms block the line of sight to the satellite and cause drop outs ranging from seconds to short of an hour. I've never seen this, myself, but I live in a mild climate, i.e., what's south is L.A., so YMMV. Those who do experience it often say their cable outages, when they occurred, were always longer and more annoying.

Oh, I must say the PPV porn is a little pedestrian.

I have the DirecTivo, so I can't comment on any HD stuff from personal experience. I merely believe that every grown person in America who pays for digital cable should instead have a Tivo of some sort, and preferably a DirecTivo.

[Fugee]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Also on my "I remember them off the top of my head" list:

Girl of the Limberlost (repressive mothers and butterfly collecting in the age of bobbed hair).
Cheaper by the Dozen.
Little Women, but I couldn't stand anything else by Alcott.

You may be the only other person I know who read Girl From The Limberlost. I got books from my grandma's library and still have my copy with the most beautiful illustrations.

I also got from Grandma's library:

Daddy Long Legs (orphan girl who carries on a correspondence with the mystery trustee who sent her to college, engages in romance with rich roommate's brother, finds out they are one and the same)

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

Some 20s book about a poor girl who hangs out with rich friends (a personal fantasy of mine)

I also remember:

Pippi Longstocking
Black Stallion (and all the related books)
Black Beauty
Island of the Blue Dolphins

I coveted books as a child. I didn't want to just read them, I wanted to own them but we didn't have money for that when there was a perfectly good library. As an adult, I am a bookoholic. As long as room was a limiting factor, I was able to keep my sickness in check. However, one room of the Manor has a 13 foot wall of built-in bookshelves and I can't stop buying books. The shelves are all full, I have stacks on the floor and just packed up THREE copy paper boxes of trash romances and thrillers to sell or give away. I need a 12 step program.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by ThrashersFan
I now have an idea why I can't stand to watch nudity/sex in films.

Perhaps this is why you drink beer instead of, say, vodka.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Fugee
The shelves are all full, I have stacks on the floor and just packed up THREE copy paper boxes of trash romances and thrillers to sell or give away. I need a 12 step program.

No, fugee, you need to discover the e-bay auctions for first editions.

Choose carefully, and you can have packages showing up regularly with good and somewhat rare books for about the cost you pay for new books. Best time to buy is Sunday evenings.

(proud owner of nearly full set of first edition "Peppers")

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by greatwhitenorthchick
My best friend's parents had a book called "Show Me" that was like in large print with graphic 70's style photographs of this couple having sex.

That's more interesting than the hippie puberty book my parents used, which was entitled "What's Happening to Me?" (As the 'rents were Catholic, the title is best read in your Frightened Wail inner voice.) I am grateful to this book for teaching me early on that the carpets will not necessarily match the drapes.

I think I had my first orgasm on a horse, so I guess I learned from the animal kingdom as well.

There are well-to-do parents where I live who pay LOADS of money for equestrian lessons for their pre-teen daughters because the conventional wisdom holds that a realized interest in horses delays the onset of Boy Crazy by about five years. I think we have our explanation why.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Well, my first orgasm with another person wasn't until 22 or so.

I learned several things from our poll on learning about sex.

First, women responded. Men did not. Men are shy.

Second, the sources of our early knowledge, in rough order of importance, seem to:

1. Animals
2. Books, read clandestinely
3. The Street
4. Sex Ed

Parents do not show up in the picture at all.

Finally, it appears that the initial age of sexual knowledge is in the 7-8-9 age, but that real nuts and bolts accurate knowledge seems to wait for the immediate pre-teen and early teen years.

And, of course, the fact that first sex and first orgasm are not coterminous was driven home.

Have I missed any important observations?

--- Your friends at Masters and Johnson

[Aloha Mr. Learned Hand]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I learned several things from our poll on learning about sex.

First, women responded. Men did not. Men are shy.

Have I missed any important observations?

--- Your friends at Masters and Johnson

Only that the guys probably didn't respond en masse because most of our answers probably would be the same ---

finding dad's/older brother's/other male friend's porno mag stash...

Not all that interesting.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Thanks for all the input.

Now, follow up:

If you could get either of these tvs, which would you get? Please note that the second one, although smaller and made of a traditional cathode ray tube, has a better picture.

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...tSKU=KF42WE610

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...SKU=KV34XBRKIT

Always open to other suggestions too.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
From your list, it looks like you dig offbeat stuff -- creativity with the samples and different musical influences. Cool enough.

* * * * *

That should get you started, though. I'll be interested to read other responses.

TM

Based on your response to a similar question (from me) on the old board, I picked up some albums by The Roots, which I like. So I'm kinda curious that neither you nor anyone else recommended them (at least by 12:25 pm).

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Fugee

Island of the Blue Dolphins

I had to read this in school and remember not thinking much of it (not disliking it, just not really liking it either). But to this day I occassionally have dreams based on this book, and they are very vivid. Perhaps I should reread.

I coveted books as a child. I didn't want to just read them, I wanted to own them but we didn't have money for that when there was a perfectly good library. As an adult, I am a bookoholic. As long as room was a limiting factor, I was able to keep my sickness in check. However, one room of the Manor has a 13 foot wall of built-in bookshelves and I can't stop buying books. The shelves are all full, I have stacks on the floor and just packed up THREE copy paper boxes of trash romances and thrillers to sell or give away. I need a 12 step program.

I have this problem as well. My wife doesn't understand at all, and keeps trying to get rid of books. She has cajoled me into agreeing to go through our book collection and purge; after four hours last Saturday I had a stack of about 200 books to keep and four to toss, and found myself reading most of (coincidentally) Judy Blume's Wifey rather than moving on to the next bookcase (two down, six more to go).

I just think with each book, maybe I'll want to reread this later, or the baltspawn might need it for school someday, or this might be a good reference for that journal article I've been thinking about writing, etc.

OTOH, I once pet-sat for a family that has this problem to such an extreme to genuinely be pathological. Every wall in the house was as you described: bookcases double stacked, stacks of books on the floor, boxes of books openned and jumbled, every flat surface covered with stacks of books. The guest bedroom bed and floor were covered in books. To walk to the main bathroom one had to shuffle sideways through the narrow passage left by the bookcases on the right and the piles on the left. Their mildly overweight dog kept knocking over stacks with his tail. Until you've gotten to that stage, you're probably okay.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Pretty Little Flower
There was an obscure folk band called Ed's Redeeming Qualities that had a nice ditty about lawn darts.

Good to know. I will be sure to remember this in the event that I am out on the town with some friends who recently had an unfortunate experience with lawn darts (or other sharp playthings), and we are thinking of catching some folk music.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I thought most kids learned about sex from manuals, like I did:

So how did you all learn about sex?

I found some magazine or something with a short story that seemed (in retrospect) to involve some guy with a fetish for menstrual blood. Very, uh, illuminating, though some confusion did ensue from portions that used "magenta" to describe the color. My conception of magenta involves quite a bit of pink/purpleness.

Note that while this story is true, my representation of it as "how I learned about sex" is an exaggeration for effect. I think a friend and I snuck into her sister's room and read little booklets she'd gotten. Also learned from various novels, including but not limited to "Forever" and some book that was made into a movie starring Burt Reynolds in which he played a divorced guy. To keep with the menstrual theme, really the only part that I remember clearly is that when he met some chick he really liked, he bought new sheets because his existing sheets all had stains from one-night-stands who were, um, messy.