And now I need to write a thousand words for this. Not that I’m complaining; this is volunteer work all the way. Not that the day has been difficult or trying; lots of talking, which isn’t work at all. Podcast in the morn, video shoot at work, radio interview at night, column sent, Wards 1961 written, and I’m done. Time to sit down and relax with some Neflix!
Except!
It doesn’t work on the AppleTv since the update. Why, Netflix is not available. Really? It’s on my phone. It’s on my computer. It’s on my iPad. It’s probably on the c. 2003 LED display of the old phones. If I spread sand on my desk next to the router it would sense the powerful vibrations in the ether and spell out the NETFLIX logo. Yet the AppleTV, she no get.
Why might this be? Well, you could check the Apple TV community pages, and learn A) that lots of people have this problem, and B) there are a few solutions, and C) they work sometimes but not always, and D) Apple insists that they are at peace with Eurasia. So I called Netflix a few nights ago, and talked to a chatty sprightly young woman. Again. I always get chatty sprightly young women at Netflix. It’s like they hired nothing but Flos from the Progressive commercial, which would be bad because Flo annoys me, but they’re geeky-chic chicks who can sling the lingo and totally sympathize. It’s like the old 1-800 chat lines for guys who want to hear someone say “take out the plug, then put it back in.”
As soon as she said there were a few things that would get me right back in the swing of the streamin’ life, I said I have already rebooted the unit, the router, the modem, logged out and back in. It’s like saying let’s cut the small talk, dollface.
“Wow,” she said. “If only all the calls I took were like this.”
Rick, you’ll have to do the programming for both of us.
So I did a total wipe and reset, and the screen said ELAPSED TIME 14 HOURS and the next day I got a message saying it had failed.
So, whatever. It’s not as if there’s not other media I can consume, to use a word I hate; makes it sound like I’m shoving a thick polenta-hued tube of mealy MEDIA into my face-hole. I just don’t like the fragmentation. It’s crazy. None of it makes sense.
I can:
See a movie on TCM but I came in late, so I can search to see if it’s playing in the future OR see if it’s rentable from Netflix in DVD form OR see if TCM sells it on a custom burn
OR
I can watch a movie I recorded before on TCM OR transfer it to my other devices via Elgato EyeTV, which means plugging the DVR into the Elgato Box into the Macbook and then, after the enormous file is crunched down, moving it to the main computer so it can be distributed via iTunes to all the devices down the line
OR
Get the new release from the red box at the store, but I have to watch it tonight OR pay another dollar OR rip it and watch it tomorrow then trash the file because otherwise it’s theft
OR
Watch a DVD I own on my computer, except I want to screecap it, and the DVD player goes to checkerboard when a screen-capture utility is invoked, so it has to be ripped in TOTAL VIOLATION OF INTERPOL, WHICH HAS EXPRESSED ITS CONCERN, but if I want to continue watching it on the TV, it has to go into iTunes
OR
Hook up the Western Digital HD unit, which reads the network and identifies movies on the Network Attached Storage Device
OR
Read a book.
You know how people say “In 50 years, we’ll look back and issue pitiful, condescending laughter because we didn’t permit [controversial social change]”? That’s how it will be with media. The 3 U’s: unified, ubiquitous, and unconscious.
Unified: a single point of entry to get al the media you want. A thousand streams feed the river, but you just see the Mighty Mississippi.
Ubiquitous: all your stuff wherever you are without friction.
Unconscious: the most basic assumption, examined no more than the source of the water that comes from your faucet, is that Things Work. Open the tap. Water. Of course.
We can see it coming, which means it’ll end up being different and better - just as people who strung wires in their living rooms in the 20s to pick up radio could see the day when it would be commercialized, channeled through sets, broadcast through dedicated channels with individual identities, but they couldn’t imagine a window on a computer screen that played internet “radio” stations, recorded them, assigned individual art to the tracks, and so on. What you have to imagine now is a world in which everything that was ever made - music, movies, spoken word, the written word - is playing constantly and simultaneously, and all you have to do is tune and select.
Right now, we have ordinary miracles. I listen to satellite radio, hear a classic radio show. I get home, don’t want to sit in my car to hear the end, so I can either listen on my smartphone, which costs money, or go online, get the episode listing, pull it off archive.org and complete the story at my leisure. That’s close, but to the future it’ll seem like the guys in goggles and long scarves trying to crank a Model A that got stalled in a rutted mud road.
Window’s open; planes landing. Hear the neighbor putting out the recycling, which reminds me to do something. What? It’s on the tip of my tongue.
It’s . . .
Oh. Right. Take out the recycling. How many words? Six to 1000.
New Wards61! There. That’s a thousand.
