Ever have one of those months where you think you may have run out of words?

Last week, I wrote a whole lot.

This week was supposed to be Multimedia Week on Terribly Happy. A comic on Monday, a new Mystikal Remix (with a special surprise guest star) on Wednesday and some LCP script work in between.

Then, somewhere over the weekend, I lost the words.

I couldn't figure out what, if anything, I wanted to say.

I felt like the only things coming out of my mouth were regurgitations of stuff I was reading on the Web or comments about movies/books/music I was experiencing.

Like A.I.

I saw it last night. I had very, very strong reactions to it, both positive and negative. But anything I say about it could probably be summed up in one of a hundred reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, or in Sars' excellent essay on the movie's flaws.

I saw Legally Blonde and Amores Perros, both really good in their own way. (Yes, I know Legally Blonde and Amores Perros couldn't be more different. On second thought, a dog does figure prominently into Blonde, so...)

You see?

Sometimes you wonder if by writing on your less interesting days if you make your product less interesting as a whole by way of dilution.

If I write and people have an interest in what I'm writing, does writing stuff that I know isn't that interesting automatically make my entire body of writing less interesting when averaged out?

Shit. I'm scaring myself.

Let me think of something else to write.

 

---

 

I'm not obsessive.

Really.

I didn't just spend two weeks completely obsessed with the idea of switching to the Dish Network from digital cable.

Just ask those who talk to me regularly. I haven't even brought it up.

Okay. I lie. I lie, lie, lie.

My pants. They are afired.

It's my parents. Has to be. They have always been about having the latest and greatest. We had a VCR before most people knew what those things even did. We were early adopters in computers. They had a cell phone before I did.

They instilled in me, by way of a genetic geek gene, the need, the desire to be up on what's new in electronics. It's pure luck that I have a job that allows me to revel disgustingly in that way by way of product reviews.

But lately, I had an itch that, no matter how badly I tried to metaphorically scratch, I could not reach.

I visited Pamie. I fell in love with her TiVo. I decided that this was something that would make my life easier, make my hair easier to manage and keep my nails clean and trim.

So for the weeks after my trip, I did like I always do before I make a purchase. I spent time comparison shopping, looking at Web sites, checking around, doing my quiet stealthy research thing. In the course of my studies, the TiVo company even offered to send me a unit to review, along with a DirectTV dish.

But a roadblock emerged: You have to have a phone line for the thing to dial out and get the channel listings.

I do not have a phone line. I haven't had one for about two years. I use a cell phone and that's it. A cable modem supplies me with my delicious, buttery Internet service, so I don't even need a phone to dial up.

Stop your mocking, cruel, freakish beast!

But TiVo now mocked my untethered lifestyle: "No phone!?!" it mocked. "No phone, No TiVo!"

TiVo whipped out its little orange dick and swirled it around, making slapping noises at me. I was cowed.

But I stood strong. I tried to find a way to get an adapter to make my cell phone act as a phone line. Unless I wanted to spend $200 on some new gadget that does that, it was not to be.

TiVo, the dream of her (him, it, flourescent orange dick, whatever), slipped through my fingers. I ended up giving the TiVo/DirectTV to someone else for review. Microsoft called soon after, asking if I wanted to take a look at their rival Ultimate TV box, which has a similar crippling phone line requirement. "Bastards! Why must you mock me?" I screamed into the phone.

"Um, okay, I'll just e-mail you the information," the PR woman said.

I lived that way. Tortured. Deprived.

For... so long.

 

But then hope appeared in dish-shaped form! ==>