danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

Fifty years ago, if you had asked any American kid what the future would look like, he probably would have told you we’d have flying cars, robot butlers, jet packs, and so on.  He wouldn’t have predicted we’d all be fatter than ever, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, driving cars that look much less cool than the ones he could see cruising on his shiny new, wide-open Interstate.  None of that boy’s predictions may have come to pass, but I experienced the future last night, and it was amazing.

We went to Best Buy last Saturday and bought a Blu-ray disc player.  I had seen one at a friend’s house last year, and the picture was incredible.  But I expected it to be.  Since the introduction of the DVD player, video quality has been steadily improving.  HDTV, of course, has been the greatest leap forward.  But the Blu-ray player is much more than high-definition video.  It’s Netflix.

I must be the last of my friends to use Netflix, an online video store that sends DVDs to members through the mail, which they then watch and return.  That process is fairly low-tech, and never struck me as the most convenient way to watch movies, though I had to admire Netflix’s selection.

Recently, visiting friends, I have seen that Netflix now offers streaming video, which can be accessed via fancy game consoles or a Blu-ray player.  Harris and Kat, and Ryan and Karla showed us how they could select from a seemingly unlimited number of Netflix films to watch instantly on their TVs through internet streaming.  My prognosticating skills are apparently limited, because I never thought streaming video was the future.  That is, I thought slow internet connections and limited hard-drive space were significant obstacles.  Who, I wondered, would spend hours downloading a movie, which will take up a ton of space on his or her computer, and which he or she will have to watch on a tiny computer screen?  That’s not how it works, it turns out.

On Monday morning I hooked up our new Blu-ray player, moved around some wires so I could connect it to the cable modem, and then signed up for Netflix.  Last night we experienced the magic.  We went to the Netflix website, selected the exact movie Miriam wanted to see at that moment, added it to our “instant” cue.  Then, magically, that title appeared on our TV screen.  I pressed play, the Blu-ray player spent thirty seconds or less downloading the movie–or at least it began downloading the movie–then the film began.  The picture was widescreen, looked as good as a DVD, sounded as good, too, and played flawlessly without any skips or blips for the entire duration of the film.  I could barely believe it.  Miriam and I high-fived each other.

So, now there are countless movies and TV shows that we have ready to watch whenever we sit down in front of the television.  Plus, we can still get physical DVDs and Blu-ray discs in the mail.  I’m expecting Parsifal today.

We’re living in the future!  What does it cost?  Less than nine dollars a month.  Since we canceled the premium channels on our cable, were saving money.  Huzzah!

Filed under: Film, Friends, Musings, Technology on February 24th, 2010 | No Comments »

This website now looks better than ever thanks to Steve.  He fixed many small glitches with the code that had been bothering me since I switched to this new theme.  Now, for instance, when you select a previous month from the archive menu in the column on the right, you can see entire posts displayed.  Previously, the posts were abbreviated, disguising the presence of pictures or links.  Also, he put in an “edit” link at the bottom of posts, which, although invisible to you, is extremely handy to me.  And, he added the name of my site to the banner at the top of the page.

So, thanks, Steve.

Filed under: Friends, Website on February 9th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

My friend Jeff has had all manner of dirty, back-breaking jobs, going back to our high school days when he washed dishes at Shoney’s.  Later, he worked in the sewage treatment business, which sometimes required that he stand waist-deep in unimaginably horrible human waste.  He’s had to work long night shifts, drive all over town and outside of town, lift heavy things, and sometimes combinations of those things.  But it was always for somebody else, and I don’t think it felt very rewarding.

Several years ago, he moved to Miami.  It was a logical move.  Unless you have an advanced degree or some other special qualification,  Gainesville can be a tough place to find work.  Plus, Sandi was in Miami.

About that time, Jeff got involved in a business that is far more necessary and profitable in South Florida than it is here: animal removal.  In Miami, if somebody has an alligator or large snake in his backyard, or an opossum or raccoon in his attic, he calls a company to get rid of it.  Jeff worked for a business that did just that.  Still, it was working for someone else, and the boss was getting wealthy while Jeff did the work.

So, Jeff started his own business called Miami Animal Removal, and last week he was on TV.  Wednesday night, on a Discovery Channel show called Verminators, Jeff was shown capturing peacocks that were creating a disturbance in a residential area.  Even on TV, he seemed just like the Jeff I’ve known for years.  Sure, he fell down in slow motion, and a peacock defecated on him, but he was on TV, and he’s doing it for himself.

Filed under: Animals, Friends, Television on August 2nd, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I am not what you’d call a sci-fi fan.  I don’t go out of my way to avoid it, but I also don’t go out of my way to see it, either.   And, to be frank, there is quite a bit that seems silly to me.  I didn’t see any of the Star Wars films until I was in my 20s, so I’ve never seen what’s so special about them.  And, though I knew they were classics, I never saw an episode of Star Trek in my life.  But there was a good deal of buzz surrounding the recent film, and since just about everyone I know wanted to go see it on opening day, I went along.  It was fantastic!

I won’t go into any detail about the plot, but it was thrilling, if somewhat complicated.  I actually didn’t fully understand it the first time around, and it was only with Karla’s help that I was able to grasp some of the more sophisticated elements.  She and Ryan know a lot about Star Trek, and they thought it was excellent; I know nothing, and I thought it was great.  So it seems that the filmmakers really did something right.  Karla was mildly obsessed, and had seen the picture four times already by last weekend when Miriam and several other GRR people wanted to go see Terminator: Salvation.  I really didn’t want to see that, and, since Karla and a couple others were going to see Star Trek again, I went along.  It was even better the second time.  I understood more.

I think this film will be a classic.

Filed under: Film, Friends on May 30th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

On September 30, 2000, I went to a yard sale in front of this house.  Jeff’s then-girlfriend Britt lived there, and she and a couple other people were selling their personal belongings.  A fellow named Chris, who lived a few houses down, had some instruments for sale, and it was obvious that he needed to sell them to pay his rent (my recollection is that he lived without electricity).  I generally don’t care for yard sales, and I am sure I didn’t buy anything, but I was there because my friends were, and if you weren’t present back then, it was likely that you would miss something fun.  In fact, when this yard sale concluded due to rain, Britt and several other attendees proposed running down to the above-ground pool on SW 2nd Avenue for swimming.  I didn’t go because I was, and still am, no fun.

This house stands in a neighborhood we used to call the “Emo Ghetto”, since it was–and still is–home to some of Gainesville’s skinniest and tightest-pants-wearing hipsters.  You never knew who you’d run into hanging out there.  A fellow whom I recognized as Jeff’s neighbor was there, and with him was a girl I had never seen before.  She was dressed rather fancifully and wore sunglasses.  We didn’t speak that day, but 1,701 days later–four years ago today–we were married.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, Friends on May 28th, 2009 | No Comments »