Canada’s a haven for all the evil-doers of the world when it comes to copyright, eh?

Too bad it’s not the truth.

This started off as a list of stuff that I’d seen recently. Then I realized that I’d never done a TV post before… so this is some current, and some not so current, shows.

Stargate Atlantis - Can’t wait for this to come back on, it’s something that I’m actually looking forward to. My only fear is that, since everyone loves Rodney so much, they’ll have him on much more often. Rodney’s good, but I couldn’t take a lot of him… “The Rodney Show and Some Stargate” would suck pretty hard.

Battlestar Galactica - Eh… It has its good episodes and its bad episodes… the fact that it’s apparently ending within two or three seasons leaves me feeling encouraged about the future - maybe they’ll make some real progress, instead of endlessly moving through the void. There are only so many people, how can so many continue to die senselessly??

Good Eats - Fuck yeah. Alton Brown is pretty amazing. Good food, prepared simply. He tends to focus on things where you can actually TASTE the food that you’re cooking - you don’t start with a piece of meat, and then slather it with all sorts of sauces and things. There’s a fair bit of “This is how you do something basic, really really well”, which I like (for example, he did a show on scrambled eggs), he also gives a lot of interesting facts about the food (for example, in the scrambled eggs show, he went on about how eggs are processed and graded, had a nutritionist on briefly to discuss the health benefits, looked at out-of-the-carton products, etc.) and often some good tips about things like equipment (letting you know what he would look for in a given product) and even some storylines within the shows (which are good when they don’t dominate). Also, he doesn’t tend to assume that someone has everything (I remember in one show, “If you don’t have a rolling pin, go down to the hardware store and pick up some PVC pipe; it’ll work just about as well” - I can’t see Martha Stewart sharing that pearl of wisdom). He’s become my main source for recipes and ideas.

The 4400 - This show has to get bonus points, simply because it’s one of the few shows that I know of that has episodes on during the summer. Ha ha. The basic storyline is that, over the last number of years, 4,400 people have been abducted by aliens. Then, they all appear, all at once, on a beach in the United States. The show doesn’t have aliens in it; it’s a lot of “Why are they here?” “Where did they go?” “Why are they back?”. I don’t want to say too much, as when the show starts everyone’s at the same place (both you and all the characters don’t have any answers).

Doctor Who - Half the shows are pretty good, half of them are pretty bad. If you want something that you can just sit in front of and be entertained by it, this is probably a good choice (Note that I said “Entertained” not “fascinated” or “amazed” or “enthralled”). It’s often got a good sense of humor, and a fair bit of running away from things. Story lines are so out there that even Voyager II hasn’t gotten there yet.

Torchwood - A 13 episode spin-off, that is apparently being brought back for another season. It was spun off of Doctor Who. It’s pretty good; in a lot of ways I prefer it to Doctor Who. It has a cast of, say, 5 main characters, and a consistent setting - so where Doctor Who is very much “What will happen this week?”, Torchwood has more of a continuing story, with people with personalities. Interesting bit of trivia: Every SINGLE member of the cast has at least one same-sex kiss. And there are only 13 episodes! It must’ve been in a contract somewhere, that such things had to be done…

Arrested Development A three-season comedy about some dysfunctional family. I liked it in the beginning, but it kinda wears on you… It’s like looking at a car full of clowns that slammed into a tree. I mean, yeah, they’re clowns and are therefore funny, but they’re also bleeding profusely, and some of them are sure to die, which makes it depressing at the same time.

… in a comment on an article on Slashdot (the article wasn’t very good, but the comment’s quite interesting):

Billing for service (and for backbone usage) is coming, and coming fast from a thousand different directions.

The question you should be asking is this: How much would email and internet access have to cost for you to stop using it.

Because the answer is scary. And the big corporations know it.

Sounds true to me. The trouble is that email, at this point, is deeply flawed - there’s no way to know if the people are getting a message you send them; they might all be hitting spam filters and you’d never know. I think that that is one big limiting factor on the value of email. Other then that, there’s the knowledge that there’s no commonly-used secure way to send and receive email; so everything confidential still has to come through lettermail. I mean, I know some people sign email with PGP keys and the like; but I don’t think that that will ever become a common enough thing to be relied upon for secure email.

There were some comments in the queue that I didn’t get notification about…

I haven’t been getting notified lately…

Will work on this comment thing…

… if only you could find the one you need

Aaah… Sure, Swiss Chalet has great fries, and their dipping sauce is pretty awesome. But when I was a kid, there was one thing that was far and away the best part of going there - any meal you got came with a Shirley Temple.

Yep, that red drink was fizzy, with a taste unlike any pop I’d ever had before.

The best part is that I’ve recently discovered that it’s not a very difficult drink to make - in fact, the only thing that you’re unlikely to have lying about is grenadine - but that’s OK, it just so happens that I know a great recipe for it (Same one as for the tequila sunrise). Again, I’m sure you can buy grenadine. If you’re on the hunt for pomegranate juice, you can find a 1L bottle of fresh, not-from-concentrate juice at Basics for like $3. I found that out AFTER I bought a 1L bottle of from-concentrate pomegranate juice at Sobeys. For $9.

There’re several variations of the Shirley Temple; here’s the one I liked the best:

200 ML of 7-Up (others use Gingerale or Sprite. I had 7-up on hand)
30 ML (1 Oz) of Grenadine
A splash of orange juice

I made it once or twice without the orange juice, and it was OK, but I much prefer it with the OJ in - it lends a bit of citrus, which is pretty nice.

Only problem with that recipe is that the serving size isn’t near big enough :)