Of Monopolies and the Web

Remember the great Mac ad a few years back about how Portia saved Christmas? Well, folks, this Christmas morning, Portia's family would have been mighty disappointed. Everyone opened up their brandy dandy new iPods with visions of new music dancing in their heads ... and then ... they all collectively caused the iTunes site to crash. Well, not crash exactly. It was still limping along just enough so that it would make you think that you'd get what you wanted if you were just patient enough, only to have it crap out on the third screen of the registration process. I spent about 2 hours of my Christmas day fighting with it to register my new pod, download some new music, and authorize my computer to play my husband's purchased tunes. I'd have been happier if they just put up a little "closed" sign and a message that said, "Due to the popularity of our products, we can't offer you anything this Christmas day. Please check back later... one at a time, if you please."

Similarly, the networks are now "streaming" many of their TV shows for free while they're all on hiatus over the holidays, hoping to draw in new viewers for the new eps in the new year. ABC and NBC have both been advertising this quite a lot, so last night I thought I'd sit down and watch an episode or two of Brothers & Sisters, which I've never seen. Trouble is that "streaming" must be put in scare quotes because ABC's "stream" rapidly degrades into a series of short chunks followed by frozen silence. Sometimes it works, though, so it's just enough to keep me trying. And it's during primetime, in the evenings when people would like to watch new TV while the networks show re-runs over the air, that the service just doesn't work. Is this good for business?

I don't know much about how the Internet really works, but I did enough digging to know that it's not my computer or my Internet connection that caused these problems. It's the fact that the companies offering the services cannot or have not devoted enough resources to the project to ensure that no matter how many customers log on, they can handle the load. And with a virtual monopoly on supplying these services on the web (Did you get a Zune for Christmas? Yeah, I didn't think so.) there's just not much we can do about it except wait patiently and hope that the new year brings more bandwidth or server capacity or whatever is needed here. Or maybe some real competition? Nah...

Great Service, Great Food, Great Friends

I am not particularly fanatical about food. I am surrounded by culinary whizzes of all sorts, but generally I eat for purely utilitarian reasons. I am, on the other hand, fanatical about good restaurant service and atmosphere. And if those are your criteria for a good meal, it doesn't get any better than Five Fifty-Five.

Actually, no matter what your criteria for a good meal, Five Fifty-Five is the best Portland has to offer. Most of Portland's high-end restaurants are loud and bistro-like, with tables too close together for the servers to do their jobs.

If you're going to drop more than $100 per each on dinner, the servers should not be tripping over themselves, the person at the next table (who is inevitably either your boss or someone from high school you would rather forget) should not be close enough to touch, and you should be able to hear the words coming out of your dinner companions' mouths, rather than just refining your lip reading skills. None of these problems befall diners at Five Fifty-Five.

For an added bonus, Five Fifty-Five's servers are also well-educated about wine and make helpful suggestions about food selections. They use several servers and come to your table with all the plates at once and place them down at the correct person's spot, rather than auctioning off your meal. Heck, they even have a crumb scraper between courses. Now those of you who have lived in big cities recently may not find any of this remarkable. But in Portland, Maine, it's worth saying that you don't get service like this every day.

And then there's the food. It's enough to make even a gustatory grouch like me admit that there are some things that are simply delightful to eat. The mussels at Five Fifty-Five fit in this category. They are done in a creamy, buttery sauce with pickled cherry peppers for a tiny bit of pop. The sauce left in the pan is so good, you have to ask for more bread to mop it all up (or, if you're like my dinner companions, you just reach for your spoon). I had a salad of amazingly fresh greens with just the right light touch of salt, pepper, and oil to let the taste of the greens come through. And then there were the scallops. Pepper-encrusted with a vanilla butter sauce and fennel whipped potatoes. Oh, my. Maybe I do like food after all. Our server's recommendation of the "creamsicle" (orange panna cotta and meringue) over the much-to-rich-for-the-end-of-such-a-good-meal chocolate profiteroles was brilliant. The wine was excellent, though the lady's portrait on the label was remarkably ugly. You don't get good food like this every day either, folks (even when you live as charmed a culinary existence as I do).

The great friends, on the other hand, I am blessed to have every day. Thanks for dinner, Sweenfords!

What I've Learned from Jack Bauer

Stunning jewels of wisdom from everyone's favorite counter-terrorism agent can be found in this month's Esquire magazine. My favorites:

• "If the president of the United States ever orders you to shoot your boss in the head at point-blank range in cold blood, take a deep breath, ask God to forgive you, and just do it."


• "If you shoot a man's wife in the knee and he still doesn't give you the information, he's bad."


• "Actions speak louder than words. Though shouting can also be effective."

Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything

Tom Brady is younger than I am. He's probably too young to have a biography written about him, so let's just call Charles Pierce's new book a "profile" rather than a biography. I just finished it and highly recommend it. It really is like reading a long magazine article about Brady and provides a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes at last year's season and at all the things that make Tom tick. It's a quick read with lots of good memories of better times in Patriots-land and the distinct hope that the team will rise again once Tom can find a teammate to catch his passes. Not that the 2005 season was necessarily better times, but the book leaps back in time to many prior moments of glory. I probably shouldn't be so negative about this season yet. I know we're still in it... the season's not over and we're playoff-bound, but this is probably not the year for reasons that were well explained in today's Globe article. And this just in: Brady didn't even make the Pro Bowl this year. If this snub makes you sad (and I dedicate this post to you, Fibby) read Pierce's book and feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Friday Night Lights: The Best Show on TV that You're Not Watching

So it really ought to come as no surprise to anyone that I would be excited about a show about both football and the lives of teenagers. But despite that, I didn't start this season by tuning in for Friday Night Lights because it was up against Gilmore on Tuesday nights at 8pm. (I have TiVo but only a single-tuner TiVo; I try to make it a habit never to watch TV in real-time any more, so I really can only watch one thing at a time.) Well, one week this fall, NBC moved FNL to the Studio 60 slot on Monday night so my TiVo was free to record and I was free to watch... and I was hooked. The writing is smart; the characters are intriguing; and the plots are believable. The show does a nice job dealing with the game-within-the-show challenge too... several episodes don't feature a football game at all, so it's not always about the amazing last minute touchdown or crushing loss or whatever. It's much more about the characters with football only coming to play when it actually advances the plot. So, I've been keeping up since then by streaming the shows from NBC's website. Starting in January, FNL is thankfully moving to Wednesday nights at 8, and, really, what else would you want to watch in that slot? So if you want to catch up, set your TiVo for the Bravo marathon on December 30 from 9 am to 7 pm. Then the shows will all be sitting there waiting for you, and you won't have to deal with anything akin to my 24 dilemma. What did you say? You don't have a TiVo? Really? Really? You're kidding, right?

Studio 69 on Mad TV

I don't watch Mad TV, and I can't stay up late enough to watch SNL (and never bothered to add it to my TIVO). But every once in a while one of these sketch shows does something brilliant. This is it. Imagine: Aaron Sorkin decided that instead of writing Studio 60, he would create Studio 69...behind the scenes at a show that does live soft porn in front of a studio audience for the benefit of military men everywhere. If you've ever seen Studio 60, you *have* to watch this video (from Mad TV, thanks to TV Squad for the link). Don't worry it's not actually X-rated.

The Next President

NPR wondered today whether America is ready to elect a black president. The statistics are really interesting on this question. When asked, more than 65 percent of Americans think that a black person could be elected, but among blacks the number is much, much lower. Somewhere near 50%. If you think about it, it's a very odd poll question. The question isn't: would you vote for a black candidate (although I'm sure those numbers are out there somewhere). Instead, it's about your perception about what your fellow Americans would do. I haven't seen the geographic breakdown on the poll, but it would be interesting to see whether northerners have a different opinion than southerners on this point. I have a sense that electing Obama is possible, but I really don't know how I could possibly know. I grew up in Maine and have lived in Tahoe and Vermont -- not exactly a comprehensive introduction to the improving state of race relations in the U.S. I do *hope* that Obama could be elected. He seems to be the most intriguing politician on the radar at the moment.

The 24 Dilemma

I have seen only 2 and a half seasons of 24. Do I skip ahead and start watching in January? It's really a frequent dilemma: What does one do when one discovers a good show after it has already been on for a while? Netflix and, more recently, the networks' streaming feeds and iTunes, make it easier: my solution is usually to watch all the back episodes and then catch up to the current run of episodes. I've done this with quite a few shows (including Friday Night Lights, One Tree Hill, Grey's Anatomy, and even Dawson's Creek, which had been over for several years before I found it). But even with easy ways to find the old eps, this type of catch up requires real commitment. It's ok if you discover the show during the summer -- there's nothing else to watch anyway. But, right now, it's football season and there are good shows on all the other nights...

N says, "It's in HD and Sean's going to watch it here with us." So I guess it's decided. I'll never know what happens to Jack in seasons 3-5 and how President Palmer dies (I figure he must die since now the actor has his own show!). While I ponder this oh-so-important moral dilemma, check out this amusing holiday trailer for the next seaon of 24.

Inaugural Post

So I've decided it's time to have my own blog. Seriously. I spend far too much time in the blogosphere now to not have my own blog in which to post various ramblings and links to things I run across on the Web. Plus, I'm on break from my last semester of law school as of tomorrow at 12 [or 12:30 depending upon how incompetent our new registrar turns out to be in getting my Tuesday exam started on time] and I'll probably never have so much free time again.

On this blog, I plan to talk about things I like to do... the chief things I care about at this point in time include raising a three year old, watching the Patriots (and other NFL gossip), and watching TV shows (especially ones that will make my friends and many of my readers wince -- who cares, I love 'em so deal with it!). I also plan to blog a bit about politics -- particularly as Barack's bid for prez gets underway (or not... we'll see)... he intrigues me. Despite my interest in politics and other things "serious," if you want to read my blog, you will have to deal with the fact that I will often post about Survivor or the O.C. or even *gasp* One Tree Hill if the spirit moves me. At other times, I will post about skiing with a three year old. Thus, I cannot assure you that you will enjoy all of my posts... but it's my blog... and I'll watch reality TV and teen soaps if I want to!