This is Joey, my sister’s cat.
And that’s my sister Jennifer doing some serious cat-macking. At least the clothes are still on in this photo. I have others, but I try to keep my blog PG-13 (or at least I won’t give them away for free).
I love my Tivo. It may sound wrong to love a product that’s only purpose is to help you watch TV. But the reality is, Tivo helps you to watch TV efficiently, on your schedule and terms.
But now and then, Tivo can let you down. Last weekend ours let us down in a BIG way.
We’re big fans of the CBS Reality show Survivor here at the Casey house. It’s one of the few shows on Television that we watch together as a family. In between seasons, we look forward to the premiere of the next show with anticipation. We have a ‘Season Pass‘ set on our Tivo so that it automatically records and saves Survivor so that we can watch it together as a family. Sometimes that means on Thursday nights, when we might start watching about 20 minutes after the show starts so that we can skip past the commercials. And frequently, due to many schedule conflicts, an episode sits on our Tivo waiting for such time as we can all watch it.
That was the case last Thursday. Jenny’s folks were visiting, and her and I were both out at evening events. The show recorded, and we eventually caught it. But somehow we missed the fact that the 2-hour season finale and reunion show would be on Sunday night rather than the regular Thursday night. And here’s where Tivo dropped the ball, it DIDN’t record the season finale for us! It was only by accident we discovered this fact and manually started the recording more than halfway through the show. So we caught the last 45 minutes, and the subsequent reunion show.
I love my Tivo, but I feel like it’s a friend that let me down. Maybe I’m an idiot who can’t work his toys, it’s happened before. But I don’t think that’s the case this time. Regardless, I’m sure I’ll forgive and forget.
Hello from section 521 at RFK Stadium in DC. The Nats are up 5-4 in the bottom of the 8th, but us Cub fan have faith that a win will be ours today.
UPDATE: No joy in Cubville, the score stood and the Cubs lost. Dang.
See more photos.
After a tough loss on the soccer field (Will scored both of his teams goals) we ran into the Hollands on our way to Philly Tavern in Manassas. Here are the kids at the bar, enjoying some shots.
OK, I know it’s not Friday, but some things are too funny to wait. I’m experimenting with an online photo site I’ve heard a lot about called flickr, and I stumbled across this photo and just had to test the ‘blog this’ link to see how it worked.
p.s. Know what they call the cat in the middle? Lucky Pierre.
The Social Security Administration has released their annual listing of most popular baby names for 2004, and my own name, Christopher, remains among the top ten but has dropped from #9 to the last spot. In 1965, the year I was given the name, it was ranked 18th in popularity for boys names. But it was climbing, and by 1972, when I was seven, it had jumped four spots in one year, from 6th to 2nd place in the list. And for 23 years, from 1972 to 1995, Christopher held the #2 or #3 spot on the list, including a stretch of 16 consecutive years (1979-1994) at #2!
But in 1996, the slide began, two years in 4th, four years as #5, then three consecutive drops to #8, #9, and now to 10th. It seems apparent that “Christopher’s” shot at the top spot is quickly slipping away. What went wrong? Why did my name do so well for so long, but just couldn’t grab the gold medal!
Still, #10 is nothing to sneeze at. From 1880 to 1940 Christopher didn’t even break into the top 100 most popular boys names. The low point came in 1933 when it sank to #376. But from that point on it was a steady climb up the charts, until the recent long run at #2, and now the new downward trend.
None of my children’s names have ever reached #1 status. The strongest performer is ‘William‘ which has spent plenty of time in the top 10, but never reached the first spot. But Jennifer (my wife and sister’s name) owned the #1 spot for girls for an amazing 15-year run from 1970 to 1984. But all things pass, and Jennifer has now dropped to #38.
Oh yeah, the name that kept Christopher out of the #1 slot for all those years it was stuck at #2… Michael. But after 38 consecutive years at #1, Michael has now been stuck in second for the last six years. See how if feels Michael! Christopher will be back!
From among the 1,754 ‘never played’ songs in my iTunes library, and after ten weeks time to listen to their cumulative 4.4 days of playing time, Six O’Clock (the extended version) from Ringo Starr’s 1974 album Goodnight Vienna was the last remaining unplayed song in my library, and is the winner of iTunes Song Survivor.
The song was written by Paul and Linda McCartney and is, I think, a pretty good tune. It is a love song in which a man, lying next to his wife/girlfriend/lover? who has just fallen asleep at 6:00 AM, regretfully laments the fact that he doesn’t treat her as well as he should or could.
