Solonor's Inkwell

When I was a kid, I lived in front of the TV. Nightly TV was a ritual not to be trifled with. There was a schedule to be maintained. Six Million Dollar Man, The Invisible Man, Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, M*A*S*H, Emergency!… and that was just 1975. Every year there was great care and planning put into the shows to be watched in the upcoming season.

I got better. Somehow.

In fact, it had been years since I regularly watched a television show. Sure, I’d catch Monk or Mythbusters when I thought about it. I’d sometimes watch ER or House or Simpsons, Family Guy or South Park. I remember watching a season of the X-Files off and on. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to clear time for any of them on a regular basis. The last show that I scheduled my life around was Babylon 5 (and can you believe it’s been almost 8 years since the last episode?).

With the SciFi Channel’s re-broadcasting of the new series of Doctor Who last year, the habit crept back in. I only missed one episode of that. But it was just one show, right? No worse than B5. And that hadn’t turned into anything serious? Right???

Well, I just finished watching the second episode of Heroes. And it is aaaaawesome. I’m hooked.

On top of that, I watched the Battlestar Galactica “The Story So Far”… and I think I’m hooked on that now, too!

And… and…I watched the season premiere of Smallville and was blown away. So, I think I’m going to have to watch that regularly, as well.

And…and…and… ok, that’s all. But still. Is this a trend? Someone stop me before I start watching 24 or Lost. Please?

Four years ago I went looking around these here internets for links to Maine TV personality, Eddie Driscoll. He died last Saturday at the age of 81.

Eddie was a local television icon in Bangor, putting on all kinds of wacky costumes and goofing it up for the camera in a plethora of low-budget shows, like Dialing for Dollars (a game show where he grabbed random phone numbers out of a barrel and called whoever he found, then asked them trivia questions for small cash prizes) and “Weird” (a late-night movie show that was about 40 years ahead of MST3K).

Eddie would have worn the bunny ears. That’s for sure.

Bangor’s King of Comedy, Eddie Driscoll

I never knew about John M. Ford until he died.

I probably read his work in a Steve Jackson game or a Star Trek novel, but the name apparently didn’t stick with me. I definitely did not know about all of the other wonderful things he wrote. So, now, after reading all of this amazingly funny stuff, he leaves me not only with the sad fact that he won’t be writing any more, but also with the poke in the eye that I had spent 44 years of my life (give or take) without the benefit of his words bumbling around in my cranium.

Bastard.

[ via Linkmeister ]

To me, there’s just something that seems inherently right in this progression of events:

1. Goverment decides to create a flexible, robust computer network, so that military intelligence and important communications can continue in the event of a nuclear war.

2. My wife uses the result of that research to post pictures and biographical details of Pepper, Squeak, Vanilla Bean and Smudge on Catster.