Dryden Is Home

The Wire: Season 1

(image from HBO.com: http://www.hbo.com/thewire/)

Arjan and I finished watching The Wire: Season 1 last night (on DVD borrowed from a neighbor). Season 1 is 11 episodes of full hour long television that follows a few detectives from Baltimore's homicide and narcotics departments working together to bring down a gang of drug dealers.

If you haven’t seen “The Wire” yet, you might want to skip this post until you’ve seen at least season 1.

Ok, you’ve been warned.

Season 1 ends with a small localized triumph for the public face of the Baltimore Police department and a lot of let down for everyone else involved. Look at it this way:

• Detective McNulty is now doing some kind of Harbor Patrol for the city (definitely looks like a demotion)
• Lt. Daniels has been picked over for someone else to be the Major for “northwest”
• Detective Greggs is in the hospital recovering from multiple gun shot wounds
• Bubbles is back on the junk
• The hood named Wallace has been killed
• D’Angelo has decided that 20 years in prison is better than giving up his family
• The federal investigators gave up on crushing the drug dealers because they weren’t white collar political crimes or terrorism related
• There are just as many, if not more drugs (heroin and crack cocaine from what I can tell) on the street as there were before episode 1 of this season
• A state senator who is receiving many payments from the drug dealers continues to be in office without any investigation
• A federal re-development grant that increases property values owned by the drug dealers goes unchecked

Was anything good about season 1?

• Freamon was moved from Pawn Shop investigations to the special unit to homicide detective. This was a good move based on his skill as a detective.
• Pryzbylewski (Prez) becomes a useful officer again.
• Uh, yeah, I think that was it.

Looking forward to season 2 - - Omar is back on the scene, Avon Barksdale and D’Angelo Barksdale are in prison for a long while, Stringer Bell’s operation re-kindles, the detectives that we’ve come to know (and like and dislike) have all gone their separate ways.

Looking back it almost isn’t hard at all to see that the war on drugs is completely broken. From the beginning of the season we see that the higher ups don’t want to investigate too deeply because the money trail will lead to places where people shouldn’t go. The gangsters dollar for dollar and based on their lifespan would be better off at McDonald’s. The hard working officers are stymied at every turn.

The eradication of drugs looks impossible to stop. Should they be decriminalized? Should that money be used to stop violent crime? Will violent crime go down if the fear of black market competition is removed? Could taxes on the products be used to fund rehab programs for people who want to get free? Is the damage that drug users cause from violent activities while on the junk or violent activities while trying to acquire the junk?

There are many questions. What are your thoughts on season 1?

Radio Interview

I was just interviewed by Yuan Ye of Voices of America about not having a television at my house. He was also very interested to ask about my tv smashing habits and how it came about.

Yuan Ye is the broadcaster of "America Today" which "explores American society, social customs, trends and thinking." The show includes a youth and campus call-in and last reported was played Monday to Friday 02:00 to 03:00 and again from 11:00 to 12:00 UTC. Once it has aired it will be loaded to this website: http://www.voanews.com/chinese/ . Of course it will all be in Chinese, but you'll be able to hear my voice faded under the dubbed Mandarin.

I was told from a friend of Yuan Ye's who I am friends with about this opportunity.

I'm not really a kill your tv type of person. I'm not leading an anti-tv protest and I'm not against either the medium or the hardware. I watch some of my favorite shows either online (Lost on ABC.com, Daily Show on ComedyCentral.com) or DVD (Lost, 24). I'm just against how much of my time used to get eaten by the television. I could be volunteering, running for office, reading books, writing, creating art, traveling or going to meetings instead of watching tv. I also don't watch commercials, unless they are really good: http://www.ad-awards.com/

Here's the smash info from the past:

MakarFest 9 TV Smash page: http://544online.com/dmakar/Events/2002/November/MakarFest/

Think of it as part college re-union, part entertainment, part comedy, part showmanship, and part suburban rage. Nov. 24th, 2002 MPEG video of the smash (mostly audio as there was very little light): http://544online.com/dmakar/Events/2002/November/MakarFest/TV-Smash.mpg

Television smash pictures from November 2005's MakarFest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/tags/televisionsmash/

Four years later I still don't have a tv.

The Office: Season 1

Drew loaned my a copy of the 12 episodes of the first season of "The Office"* tonight. I just watched the first two 22 minute shows. I'm not sure if I should describe the show as fun or not, it is more of a debate on if the show is agravatingly frustrating or frustratingly agravating. Drew said he had trouble watching the show because of the characters, especially the boss - Brent.

I never worked in a place as bad as this, but I could have. I think the writers really nailed it with the interactions and the pettiness of employees who are stuck in deadend jobs. I also feel like I worked with and for a number of people who couldn't draw the line between being a manager and being a friend. When there is no respect - there is no leadership and without leadership - few are motivated to do any great work.

I worked with someone who was a nice guy and we were friends outside of the work environment and his one lesson was to be fair. You don't have to be a dickhead or a terrible person. You don't have to be unfair at all. As long as the expectations are set (verbally, socially or even documented) then there is a way to make things happen that you can both believe in. Be fair about things. Don't mess around and then try to avoid the consequences. Show respect and above all, be fair.

I don't know if I can handle watching more episodes. I guess I could if it gets too rainy here. The show definitely makes me happy that I'm no longer in an office with coworkers, bosses and rules that didn't treat people fairly. I suppose this would be a good show for those Cornell MBA's who will eventually be running the world - or at least small offices like in the first season of The Office.

*The British/BBC version from 2001

One Hundred Reasons I Don't Have A Television

This week I'm doing some house sitting and dog watching. Six visits over four days to feed and let the dog out. Of course, the house has a television with tivo and direct tv. So, I of course got drawn in and in two days have wasted about four hours or so watching tv.

• Law and Order
• The Simpons
• The Colbert Report
• The Daily Show
• The LSU/Duke Game
• The Gonzaga Game
• The Texas Game
• CSI
• South Park
• Armagedon
• The Laramie Project
• The Family Guy
• Seinfeld
• Monk
• ESPN
• ESPN News
• Car Commercials
• Food Commercials
• Local News
• Phone Commercials
• Internet Access Commercials
• Letterman
• March Madness!!!

Where's the off button? I gotta get to sleep! My Bracket is crushed! Nighty-night!

Shows I'm not watching

As you may know, I do not own a television. The last tv I had in my possesion was . . . I have no idea when I last even had a tv. I have never bought a television and maybe the last one was some time in high school when I had an old beat up UHF/VHF television and VCR in my room. This doesn't mean that I've never watched television or that I've never lived with a television. After my tv-free freshman year (though almost everyone in my hall had a tv) I lived with roommates that had televisions right up until I graduated from college (September 1995 - June 1999). Then I lived in a cabin in Ashburnham for a few months and then back at my parent's house in Berlin, Massachusetts where there have been at least three televisions for the last decade and two for the last twenty years. After college I moved from apartment to apartment, most of the time my roommates had television and cable. I watched tv. We watched until very late at night and in the mornings and when we had guests over and when it was rainy and when it was sunny and when there were many other things to do.

When I met Avery and we moved in together we decided together not to have a tv. Everyone from her mom to her dad to my parents wanted to give us the gift of television. We didn't want one. When we moved here to Ithaca we kept the tv-free life going.

What do I do now that I don't have a tv? I read a bit more (both online and offline), I go outside a little bit more, I have a few hobbies (the biggest thing TV did to me was keep me from having any real "interact with other people" hobbies), I talk to people on the phone without being distracted (usually), and I never have to schedule anything around when television is on.

I know my tivo friends from Seattle to Ithaca to Boston will say that they no longer have to schedule around television and they are right about that. However Tivo is so damned smart these days that it records your shows and the re-runs and then figures out what else you might like and feeds that to you too.

So, does this mean I haven't actually watched any tv since around February of 2004? Well, no. When I travel I watch tv in hotel rooms or at friends houses (which is a terrible thing to do after all of that travel to get to see someone in person and then you just stare into the tube or worse you try to talk to someone and keep looking at the television over and over throughout the conversation). When I spend a couple days at my parent's house (whereever they are now) I tend to watch some shows. I do miss a few shows - ER, the West Wing, X-Files mainly. I used to get hooked on Survivor and then later the Mole and then the Amazing Race, but its hard to just catch any one of those shows and have any care about what is going on.

I found a way to get the few programs that I like into my house this past spring. There's a new file swapping application called BitTorrents out there that allows you do basically download episodes almost as soon as they've finished airing (Lost airs 9pm Wednesdays, I can start the download by 2 or 3 am - or at 8 or 9 am and be done downloading in about 2-3 hours). So, here's what I'm watching blog readers and my rationalization and justification.

• Lost (Wednesdays)
• The West Wing (Sundays)
• CSI (Vegas) (Thursdays)

I like these shows, but I'm not going to review them for you. If you like them, cool, if not, that's ok too.

It takes me three to five minutes to setup a download of an episode. Then once I start the download it takes between 2 and 4 hours (sometimes longer if few people are sharing the file). Also I can only download one show at a time. Shows that appear on my computer have been edited down to 42 minutes and take about 350 MB. Since I'm still hacking away on this ancient computer I have to be a little space conscience and can't keep a ton of these shows on hand. Also, the longer I wait to download from the original air date the slower the download time (because less people are sharing it) and eventually no one is sharing the file at all (except some tv nut who is sharing over a 14.4 connection) which makes for multiple day downloads.

So now I have the show and I can watch it any time, day or night. I can stop, pause, restart anything I want. I can make each episode a cliff hanger by shutting it off 21 minutes into the show and coming back the next day.

So I am watching tv and I am getting hooked on both the mysteries of LOST, the election in The West Wing, as well as liking the individual investigations of CSI as well as a little bit of the underlying story of the csi's lives. All three of these shows have an interesting enough storyline and good enough writing to keep me watching.

Can I stop anytime? Sure! I used to watch ER every week (as well as South Park and X-Files) and I survived just fine without them. Is television starting to take over my life? I hope not, though this post alone has eaten 30 minutes of scheduled sleep from my evening.

What are your thoughts on television? Are you watching? Did you give it up? What do you miss? What do you like? What am I missing?