fractalnavel

having a very mild case of satellite tv withdrawal.  for a week or so there i was able to watch all kinds of movies and even (reruns) of primetime shows during the day.  little or none of that was stuff i had seen before.  guess it's time to get a life ;-)

scifi channel was, as usual, disappointing.  except for a few peak programming periods, they seem to run a lot of paid programming, and endless hours of marathons of obscure crap (and non-scifi stuff).  even at peaks, they do the marathon thing.  which is sometimes ok.  they did species 1 & 2, then their own 3, but it really sucked by comparison.  lousy attempts at (dis)continuity, one cliche after another. i wish they would have left well enough alone, since now their effort almost precludes a proper part three production.  i suppose there could be “part 3b”, but not likely.  i would rather have had the void, and the possibility.

which leads me to wondering what else scifi will/has fuck/ed up. i sort of dread their heavily marketed earthsea effort.  it looks to bastardize leguin's novels.  i suppose this stuff is ok for those that don't know better.  but please, don't make the mistake that you've gotten any true sense of the original(s). 

on other channels, they seem to be doing a decent job.  one odd movie was fight club.  the summaries on imdb don't do it justice, but for a first viewing, certain revelations are best left for the movie to expose.  worth watching, like the darker, realer side of “office space” (which i've never seen, and does not really interest me).

now that the home heating season is upon us, i've discovered something about my home wlan:  when the heater kicks in, the network kicks out.  well, maybe it's just that, at the moment, i'm using the original .11b card i got three years ago.  i also have one from the roadrunner folks, maybe that'll work better.  but what i really should do is go spend the eighty bucks or so for a .11g wireless “kit” (router, pci card, pcmcia card) and install that, and cancel the $5 monthly surcharge from roadrunner for their wlan equipment.  although their router seems decent.  but their solution for desktops is to use a usb device, and it sometimes takes forever to locate and connect to the access point.  and the .11g only helps with the home wlan, since the internet access rate is limited by the isp, already les than .11b rates.

even with an intermittent wlan connection, it really only affects things that need an active connection, like downloads in progress - or aol. yeah, gotta dump that eventually.  i do get some benefits from it, but perhaps not worth the $24 / month.

getting back to the wlan issue, i suppose i could relocate the access point to improve signal strength.  maybe the best place would be mounted right under the floor in the center of the house.  not that i'll do that.