Infinite What?

So I'm going to try and play catchup with Infinite Jest this weekend. I'm about 200-300 pages behind but I've got a weekend relatively free of obligation.

It's mostly been moving, looking at houses and activities supporting those things which have occupied my time the last few weeks. But I also have another time waster.

I've been a fan of Big Brother for a number of years, I watched bits and pieces of it the first few years it was on, but really got into it starting in Season 8. I've been an avid watcher of the TV show and followed along with various blogs about the goings on of the show. I decided to take the plunge a week and half in and get the live feeds for the season. It was only 40 bucks for the whole season, about 2 months, and honestly, not that expensive comparatively speaking.

So, I'm coming clean about the fact that there's some nights I'd rather watch a bunch of strangers locked up in a mock house on a studio lot in Los Angeles then read. And that has also contributed to my lackluster showing in #infsum.

I'd been reading accounts of the live feeds and people kept saying that it was a completely different experience to watch them in conjunction with the TV show, and that is an accurate assertion. This year they also have added the flashback functionality which allows you to go back into the archives and watch old footage. This is useful particularly when there's not a whole lot going on live. There's also a whole host of web sites that provide minute by minute blows and summaries of what's been going on, so you can go back and watch.

It sounds really crazy, but it's strangely addictive, and you get to know the people. There's this theory of them being edited in certain ways for the TV show and it's totally true - there are sides to these people that they don't show too much on TV. It's hard to compress 100+ hours of house time per week into 3 hours.

All in all, it's a highly enjoyable activity and one that I'm not regretting. There's a constant source of entertainment that rarely gets boring, and can be done while doing other activities on the computer, etc.

The little things in life

I am in serious denial about Infinite Summer. I've been an average of 100 pages off the pace for some time. My first writeup is probably also going to be my last. See, this is why blogging is bad for me sometimes, I lack consistency. Maybe that's why Twitter is so much more popular in my mind.

Anyway instead I will bring you commentary about the little things in life that I'm enjoying, in bullet point format:

• My fixed coffee maker. I own a Cuisinart Grind and Brew coffee maker. It costs an absurd amount of money for such a device, but I owned a series of sub-par coffee makers prior including a couple of hand-me-downs. My requirements were a coffee maker where I could reliable set a timer, and one that was industrial enough to not start breaking or leaking water all over the place (I've owned a lot of cheap coffee makers). At any rate, the Cusinart Grind and Brew fit the bill and then some. It has a bean hopper that fits a half pound of beans and it grinds them to an exact quantity every time. This is the greatest coffee maker I've ever owned, and a few months ago it started breaking down on me. It would shut off about half way through brewing and require me to keep resetting it. It took a call to the Cusinart customer service people to realize that I hadn't ever de-scaled it with vinegar. Why it didn't occur to me sooner is beyond me (I've de-scaled plenty of coffee makers). So, I did this for the better part of a Saturday afternoon, watching limey junk shoot out of the thing for a good hour and about 6 cycles. But it's working great again. My wallet and my stomach thank me.

• Horse Racing - I've been out to the track 3 times this season and I've had a great time every time. Last Saturday was especially fun - it was the claiming crown at Canterbury Downs - lots of good horses and great jockeys. Russel Baze was there, he's the jockey with the most wins in the history of the sport (I don't think Kevin Gorg went 20 minutes without mentioning it the entire day). He was also riding a bunch of middle of the pack horses that were not favorites. Still, he managed to win two races in which we had Win/Place/Show bets and we also hit the Exacta on one of the races. (totally on a whim, I decided to bet on his horse and the exacta at the last minute). Total winnings of 140 bucks from these 2 races. Not too shabby - we basically ate and drank for free and had a good time while doing so.

• Lazy Sundays - Katie and I drank coffee, played bejeweled blitz and watched the Big Brother feeds yesterday morning and it was pretty perfect. After the storm of work on the house to get it market ready, it's nice to have some lazy weekends where we do whatever we want.

• Big Brother Feeds - as mentioned in the prior item, I got the live feeds for Big Brother this year. Totally worth it. They have a flashback option which is killer, and it's totally fun to see the whole picture. I'd been reading bloggers who were talking about all the stuff you were missing if you didn't watch the live feeds and they are totally right. They edit the show in ways they want to edit it and it's not always totally accurate as to what is really going on. My habit is to go home and watch the salient points from the prior night for an hour or two based on the various guides out there, then flip on the live feeds and watch them while doing other things.

• Podcasting: I've always been a fan, but now more than ever, I'm hooked. My favorites in no particular order are The Bill Simmons Report (ESPN), This Week in Tech, and various Public Radio shows (This American Life, Car Talk, Fresh Air, Marketplace). My only grip is that I wish my Ipod touch had an option to synch all new episodes over wifi versus always having to sync with Itunes. You can download individual shows directly on the touch, but you have to manually go in and find them.
  

It's been a great summer so far and these are just a few of the things that are contributing to that.