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It’s no small secret that one of my favourite TV shows of all time was The West Wing. There was a time when Wednesday nights was my absolute favourite night of the week… sure Friends and Seinfield on Thrusday nights were pretty good but man, nothing beat the whitty dialog of the West Wing.

Every other drama on the airwaves at the time had good characters, strong writing and plot lines that would keep you talking at the water cooler for days but they also had internal character conflict. Man how we hated Dr. Romano on ER. The West Wing was very much an us-vs-them type show. The main cast were all on the same side of every issue. Sure there were internal conflicts but there was no big-bad adversary that we loved to hate. I’ve always been partial to banding together as a team and having trust and faith in your coworkers/friends/family. The nature of this show just spoke to me.

Well, for the last few years, CLT has been playing episodes of The West Wing at 7pm and 11pm. The nice thing about CLT is that they showed (from what I can tell) all the episodes, in order. I had my PVR set up to record it every day and I very much looked forward to catching up on a few episodes every couple of days.

I’m sad to say that as of September, they’ve changed their line-up and stopped playing them. This saddens me greatly… for one, I won’t be able to get my daily (or bi-daily) fix of my favourite show… but the kicker is that they stopped airing the show in the middle of the last season! They didn’t even have the decency to finish out the series. For crying out loud, the stopped after playing the first half of a to-be-continued episode. It was election day and we didn’t even get to find out how it turned out… and OMG something is wrong with Leo!!!!

Now, I’ve seen the whole series and I know exactly what happens (Santos wins and Leo died… RIP John Spencer). I’ll have to rent or buy the last season just to exercise my need to see what happens. I’ve been meaning to pick up the series on DVD and this just may be the kick in the pants to do it.

I’m disappointed in TV today… and that doesn’t happen often.

~ Jason

The Pottery Barn Kids announced last week that they would be bringing back an old time favourite… Star Wars Sheets!!!! I never had this great bedding as a kid but I remember my cousin TiJean having them… and curtains too!

Well, they’re back. I’m not sure if I’m embarrassed or proud, but I can happily say that Jenny and I got a complete set. We ventured down to Yorkdale Mall this afternoon (braving the crowds of Sunday shoppers) and picked up the only set of Queen sheets they had left. Now, I ask you, what is the Pottery Barn Kids doing offering these in a Queen sized option… if not for us 30 something folks?

And, I didn’t even have to convince Jenny that this would be a good idea. Yesterday, at a house-warming BBQ at our good Friends Dave and Grace (shameless plug for www.renerd.com), the sheets came up in conversation. Jenny looked at me and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?!?”. A plan was hatched right there and then to go to Yorkdale and get them as soon as possible.

As soon as we got home, they went into the wash and now, they’re ready to be put on the bed.

How nerdy are we?

~ Jason

While waiting for the Eaton Center to open so I could get in line to wait for an iPhone (that’s right, waiting to wait), I was catching up on some podcasts. I was listening to a Quirks and Quarks episode from April and Bob McDonald was interviewing Dr. Gary Marcus, the author of Kluge, the Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind. It’s about how the human brain is built by imperfect evolutionary engineering.

If we humans are capable of abstract thought, logical reasoning, and complex language, then how come I can’t find my keys or remember what I did last Friday night?

Dr. Marcus spoke about our brains as marvelous reasoning machine built on top of an unreliable memory system. We have a hard time remembering specifics, but we’re great at making decisions and reasoning things out.

Luckily, we can and do compensate for our lousy and unreliable memories. If we absolutely need to remember to bring something to work, we hang it on the door. Decision making and reasoning overcomes bad memory.

I found it fascinating and I’m going to look for this book.

Here’s a link to the mp3 of the interview.

~ Jason

[Update: July 14th, 11:19am]  I bought the book over the weekend and I’m enjoying it very much.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.9MB)

Lately, I’ve been pondering the nature of bullshit and the nature of lies. I always new there was a slight difference between them but only recently figured it out.

The difference is in their relationship with the truth.

Lying is saying something that you know isn’t true. You know full well that what you’re saying isn’t true. Taking the last cookie, then telling your mom that it was your sister, is a lie… hands down.

Bullshit is saying something without any regard to the truth whatsoever. In this case, it’s possible that what you’re saying is actually the truth. When asked why the sky is blue and you launch into a lecture on the the particles in the upper atmosphere being more able to scatter shorter wavelengths of light (blue) and therefor making them dominant when we look up, blah, blah, blah… this could be true, or it could be wrong, who knows. It doesn’t matter, it’s still bullshit.

I’ve always been pretty good at lying and pretty good at bullshitting. I decided a long time ago that from then on, I would only lie for good and not for evil. I’ll still bullshit every now and again. And, I’ve been pretty lucky with bullshitting in that more often then not, I turn out to be right…. or at least within arms reach of the truth.

I just thought I’d share my thoughts.

~ Jason

Jenny and I moved in together! It’s been a crazy few weeks as we packed, moved then un-packed. I’m finally getting around to posting pictures of the new apartment.

We have a lovely 2 bedroom in the same building that I’ve been living in for the last year. After looking around Toronto at apartments, all we ever saw were dirty, smelly ones. Being discouraged, we simply asked our super if there were any vacancies. Luckily, there was a vacancy.

Click the picture above to see the pictures.

~ Jason