Priceless gem found while cleaning up last night

Lest anyone start casing my house and contacting disreputable pawn brokers, the gem in question is a TV preview DVD put out by Warner Brothers for the fall 2005 season. What makes this so priceless, well I'll get to that. Caroline made the good call to check out the contents.

• Close to Home - Looks like a Cold Case variant, except the main character is trying to solve suburban crimes. Looked bland but tolerable. Wait, this aired on CBS??
• E-ring - Starred the late Dennis Hopper, probably the best thing it had going for it. Plot was something about how the people working in a certain section of the Pentagon protect the world. What's going on here, this show aired on NBC???
• Freddie - Irresponsible guy tracks his family down and has his sister & grandmother mother move in with him. Caroline actually saw this in Costa Rica, I may vaguely remember adds for this from '05, but it looked really bad. This aired on ABC, what's going on at the WB's marketing department????
• Hot Properties - I don't think the term cougar had made it into widespread use yet, but that's the only recollection I have of this preview, and I just watched it last night. What in the world, this aired on ABC too????? (Surely the next show will be a WB show.)
• Invasion - I actually remember the ads for this. Aliens take advantage of a hurricane to body snatch a local woman and the only people who notice are her young daughter and a couple of crackpots. I don't think the show lasted long, and it's...another ABC offering??????
• Supernatural - Finally, I know this is a WB show, I've heard of and remember the previews for. I've only ever watched one episode, but this may be the only show on the disc that didn't die a quick and overlooked death.
• Reunion - The gimick, a bunch of perfect looking friends turn out to be not so perfect. You find out how one year at a time. I bet the makeup department was sweating that one, fortunately, I don't think they had to worry about that for long. #*&^%& this is a Fox show!!!!
• Related - Looks like an attempt to recreate friends, except instead of 6 friends you have 4 sisters. I think I remember ads for this back in the day too. Finally another WB show.
• Just Legal - The only person an 18 year old who has already passed the bar can get to hire him is a burned out drunk of a lawyer. I remember the ads for this one too, but I don't think it lasted long either. At least is was another WB show.
• Twins - It had one of the Rosanne kids on it, and oh my, did it look awful!!! It's a WB show, but wow, who in the world ever green lit this. The Rosanne kid is the smart responsible one running the family business, and her twin is blonde and vapid. Oh yeah, Melanie Griffith is the mom after she looks all weird from too much plastic surgery. It's another WB show, but maybe they should have left this one out.
• The War at Home - I've actually seen an episode or two of this. It wasn't bad, and it might have lasted for more than a season, but it's a Fox show. What's up with this WB promo??????

Seriously Warner Brothers, you put out a fall preview disc, and only 4 of the 11 previews are your own shows. what were you thinking???? I don't even remember how this ended up in my possesion, but 5 and a half years later, it provided quite a bit of unintended comedy.

My Life in Concerts

I'm not a huge concert goer, so here's a quick list.

• 38 Special - KY State Fair
• Bad Company (w/o Paul Rogers) - KY State Fair
• The Violent Femmes (College)
• The Moody Blues - Jacksonville
• Jethro Tull - Jacksonville
• The Moody Blues - Jacksonville (yes again)
• The Moody Blues - Jacksonville (yes again)
• Queen plus Paul Rogers - Jacksonville (closes a circle of irony with Bad Co at the state fair)
• The Police - Wrigley Field
• The Moody Blues - Southern Indiana (yes, yet again)
• Lady Gaga - Louisville, won tickets at work

So, one thing that should be immediately apparent is that I really haven't seen bands playing in their heyday. Many of my favorite bands, The Doors, Hendrix, The Rolling Stones had members die before I was born. Others like, Led Zeppelin and The Who had members die before I was a teenager.

A side effect of this, the crowd at The Lady Gaga concert was more energetic than any I have been to so far. There were a lot more women in their thirties than I would have expected. The number of mothers their with either their daughters or a group of teens was about what I would have expected. The number of women in the 30's or 40's in the crowd was really quite surprising.

At other concerts I've been to, being dressed up was owning one of the band's t-shirt or a tie-die shirt. At this concert, fishnets and heels were nearly ubiquitous, even among guys in the crowd. Frilly little tutu things were also popular as was face paint and caution tape worn as clothing. Then there were some more exotic costumes elaborate costumes that mimicked something Lady Gaga had worn at shows or in videos.

This was also by far the biggest production at a concert I've been to. This is the only one with props, fire effects, costume changes, and dancers. Actually, there were multiple stage changes where the entire set of props in use changed.

My biggest fear was that Gaga would just phone in a performance since this was just Louisville, but she was high energy from start to finish, still jumping up and down during the 2nd encore. She was also good at getting audience participation, however, I have to confess, the Gaga claw as a form of crowd participation still mystifies me even after having seen the show. Still, the bottom line was that I was entertained. I'm glad I won the tickets and went to the show.

Childlike happiness

Caroline showed me this link this week:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

I especially like the 4 panels where the main character is happy with his purchase. The way he carries around his iPride remind me of the way my nephew Blake carried around a toy that was called Kasey the Kinderbot, or something like that. He was too young to understand most of the educational games, but he loved the idea of having a robot friend. He carried it around with him and took it to bed much like the character in the comic.

Now, the cartoon's happiness soon vanishes into a spiral of foolish materialism. However, I keep wondering what it is about kids that they can be so happy with either a favorite toy, or just playing that we seem to loose as we grow up.