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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Supernatural, Sober House, Caller ID on My Desktop

Supernatural is the best show on TV. Tonight, some low-level writer finally got his big break with his transcript of the best Call of Cthulhu adventure he ever ran (come on: it followed the classic horror movie formula [loving, semi-happy family with a troubled past moves into a new home to start over with their smart-mouthed, teenage daughter who stays on the phone too much, and etc.], not to mention that Dean read the book to find the "spell" while Sam continued the adventure in the dungeons below) - but it's Supernatural, so it worked! Granted, Sam lost his character (though he didn't do anything out of character) and it was a stand-alone episode which did almost nothing to forward the overall storyline, but they borrowed from Smallville's formula and threw in a little foreshadowing after the last commercial break.

Speaking of which, I defy anyone to watch an episode of Smallville this year and not say the magic is back! Smallville is finally exciting again! And though he may never wear a cape onscreen, the Legion most certainly assuaged all we purists' fears with their memories of times yet to come. Yet another well-scripted episode from a season that has been filled with them! According to most reports, a ninth season hinges almost entirely on Tom Welling's willingness to return, so here's to hoping he makes the right choice.

Finally, our answer to "What happened to Mary Carey?" was answered by the premiere of Sober House over to VH1. VH1 used to be MTV for our parents, but they have since surpassed the non-Music Channel with their collection of reality shows, most of which feature rock stars and movie celebrities your kids' parents know (that's you, man - you're like old now, dude). Of course, the entire episode was dedicated to Steven Adler, who showed up blasted and tried to sneak a whole kit (heroin and the means to use it) into the Sober House. I foresee great things for this show...

I signed-up for a new plan on my phone thingy, which means I get my internet cheaper, along with 30 free minutes of long distance, and now have caller ID and call-waiting. I haven't had caller ID in about 10 years, and I used to have it on my computer: whenever someone would call, the whole screen would go to the number, like a screensaver does, and you could see who was calling from clear across the house. It was annoying when you forgot to turn it off and were trying to work, but I got so used to it so quickly that it bugged the hell out of me once I moved.

I'm sure I have the program somewhere, but I doubt it would work on Vista - it was for Win98. So I'm looking for a program which will display Caller ID on my screen. There probably is one for the Windows (Aero) Sidebar, but I don't run it because it takes up too much resources.

Anyway, I have stuff to do, so I will probably be up for a minute, which means I will have another post or two for you before I finally turn-in, but you know how that goes... I could honestly sleep for a day or two and I'm sure I could use it! Go check out all those links I dropped on you up there; I don't write this stuff for nothing!

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

1 comment:

Manodogs said...

I downloaded a program that works... if I had Office installed, it would do a picture and replace the Caller ID information with what's in my Outlook, but I use OpenOffice. It even announces the caller's information! Nice program.

The problem is it isn't starting on startup, like it ought to (I set it right...) and it isn't big enough to see from across the room. It isn't loud enough to hear it, either...

I'll have to play with it.

There is a modem string value you can insert and then route the output to any file you want. I could then compile a simple read program which would print it to the screen, etc., but that's a heck of a lot of work for something so simple.

Actually, I could probably manage all of this through Vista settings alone, which I may mess with at some point. If I figure it out, I'll post about it in the Cyberculture section.