"Pete Rogers" in the 21st Century?

Allow me to speak off the topic of writing and storytelling for today’s post so I may tell you what transpired this weekend.

Bart and took another step into the 21st Century. Our 52” widescreen flat HDTV arrived. Hosah. We also now have a Blu-Ray player and HD TiVo (150 hours of HD storage). To quote Napoleon Dynamite, “SWEET!”

That’s what we did on Saturday…waited beyond the “window” of time for the delivery and patiently waited for it to be set up. As you may know from the cover flap of Peter Pan’s NeverWorld, Bart and I live on the third floor. It’s a walk up. Obviously we did not want to lug it up ourselves when we could have someone used to the task do it for us. But we’re the “recipients who care” as we had coffee, orange juice, multi-flavor bagels from ‘Einstein!’ and both regular and strawberry cream cheese spread. He told us that many folks don’t even offer water!

I’m not going to typing rave about how “sweet” it is…you all either know or can imagine.

But wowsers.

As of right now, we have to wait until tomorrow evening to actually get HD channels…or even cable stations like the Food Network (a favorite of Bart, my adorable cook.) It’s because of a lack of knowledge both on my part and on the part of our cable provider. The cable provider is notorious for making “customer service” an oxymoron. [Thanks to Mission Improvisational, see post here.] However, don’t think me a moron. My misunderstanding is caused by unfamiliarity. We no longer have a “cable box.” A “cable card” slides into our TiVo and it becomes both. So the card equals/replaces the box. Completely foreign and wacky concept to me. Cable Provider had told me "oh just plug it in!" but...NO. "Lied" to, again. They need to activate it somehow and cannot do so until Tuesday because not enough people are aware of how to do it. (The technology/procedure is “foreign” to many, including their own staff.)

Having a dual tuner TiVo makes it all the more wonderful. And Bart is truly astounded and satisfied with the amazing quality of Disney’s first Blu-Ray animated feature, Sleeping Beauty. (It’s his favorite.) I gave him the Blu-Ray of it (as well as the enhanced regular DVD version) for our Anniversary this past October. So only now (then) has he been able to experience its glory. [And, yes, I too relish said glory.]

Okay. Enough about the 21st Century upgrade at our place.

The rest of our weekend (when not seeing [and learning remotes and settings and such of] the magnitude) had its share of delights. We had a lovely meal on Saturday night at the home of a family which is friends with ours.

Sunday morning we brunched with Dragonfly and Tall Boy. We had them meet us at our place first, as they had not been told about the “new arrival.” Needless to say, they Oooed and Ahhhed. We then went on to brunch, choosing a place just blocks from where we live. For the weather proved rather unwelcoming. Yes, Winter has officially come to Chicago. We braved the sleet-like rain and wind, rewarded, thankfully, with a great meal and a lovely visit. Tall Boy regaled us with some inside information on The Ville, his live theatre soap opera. Even better, he told us about the opera he has conceived. It's marvelously inventive...and it had been inspired by something Dragonfly said. How great is that? I wish could explain the premise to you, but 1) it is not place to do so with an unestablished work and 2) it's something you'd be better off discovering. It's that imaginative. "Wow," said I with utmost weight and sincerity to Tall Boy. "Yeah," he replied, "I've been thinking about this for a while now." Let us hope that he finds the time and gumption to bring it to fruition!

Meanwhile, Winter progressed to horrendous as the day wore on into a nighttime snowy, icy mess. But it looks damn pretty everywhere!

I then spent much of the rest of Sunday cleaning up the den. Before the new TV came, we had been using the television I use to play Wii, for we gave our living room TV to friends who had a television a fraction of the size of most folks. (Circa 18”) Since they have two adorable little girls, we knew they’d enjoy receiving a bigger screen, too. They also inherited our all-the-bells-and-whistles DVD player. Hooray for sharing and caring. Thus, since the TV had been removed, I took the opportunity to dust and just generally clean up and out and entire room. It had become a tangled overstuffed mess. Incidentally, the den is also where the computer is and hence, where I do my writing.

All righty, thanks for letting me ramble about my lovely weekend.

I’ll be back on track with story/writing posts tomorrow with a review of the movie we watched in HD.