Thought I should add a new blog, primarily because the last one has been on forever, and no longer represents a particular issue. Mind - since I haven't written anything for ages, I don't yet know whether this will translate into one long, unformatted paragraph, so let's not be previous.. :P

As it happens, I haven't been on here much in recent months. This was not a continued reaction to the white screen (to which I have become acclimatised :oops: ), more to do with the fact that my health had improved to the point that I was no longer housebound. I've returned to work, but get home too tired to do anything beyond staring at the TV with a glazed expression. Oh - and post the odd comment on Digital Spy about "Strictly Come Dancing".

Of course, the new "new site" came as a surprise but :oops: I did it again - it works better (much quicker) on my computer, and after the garish pink of that particular forum on DS, white becomes welcome. Relaxing, even. So I appreciate this version. And it's just in time for my (miniscule) Christmas break *ducks and runs...*

So here it is... Merry Christmas!

1. The WHITE background is primarily harsh (to me) because the default fonts are too small and/ or too light. I think I could live with it if the fonts were legible without having to screw up one's eyes to see. It doesn't encourage me to linger on the site, and made it SO much easier to "go dark" on September 30th, despite the fact that I had previously spent most of the day, every day, logged onto TV.com.

2. It is rather discouraging to type up a blog in one's chosen font, colours and spacing, with one's chosen emoticons...... and to have it come out as one big shapeless paragraph in a generic font. Consider that comment retracted, if the current blog appears with formatting intact :oops:

3. It is nothing to do with the changed site (as it was happening before) and it may just be that I'm too uninteresting to merit a view, but the profile view counter remains frozen - thereby providing another disincentive to visit the site.

4. It would be nice to have the readily accessible 'new blog' button back.

5. I really miss the 'extra' emblems (I didn't have them, but it was useful seeing them on the profiles of others), the progress bar at each level and the pie chart. They may not have been "essential" but they added to the charm of the site.

I am slowly getting used to it, but that's because I no longer spend huge swathes of time on the site. I was probably spending too much time on here anyway :D

I wrote an almost positive blog about the new site yesterday - about how most of the 'formatting and other' problems seemed solved and how I felt that despite the "bright lights", the mogwai would not become a gremlin.

Not at all grateful, the site immediately ate up all my formatting, so that the whole message came out in a teeny weeny grey font. So, with all my new-found tolerance mercilessly attacked I deleted, and decided to rest my aching eyes elsewhere.

Well - contrary to my snotty comments in an earlier blog, my HD-ready TV now transmits HD - via a (previously maligned) satellite dish. Not that I've forgiven their vulgarity exactly, but I discovered that the strange-looking input wire by my computer was linked to the satellite already set up at the back of the house (access to which belongs to the downstairs flat, so I'd never seen it). It pre-existed me, is not facing the main road (and thus spares my blushes), and - above all - I wanted it!

That said, though: satellite has made little difference to my quality of life. No, wait - that's not accurate: I get to see replays of "Chicago Hope". It's been long enough that I only vaguely remember most of the plots.

I also see a huge difference between the picture one gets with HD and non-HD pictures.

But I still spend the bulk of my time at home on the computer.... Now there's a surprise! :oops: Not...

I love books! I have a stock of novels that I read during my 2-3 hour bathtimes each night. TV news today featured Sony's latest offering - a 'digi-book' that holds about 160 full novels, with a 'book sized' screen, which may eventually be able to contain 'all the books in the British Library' (i.e. millions). So space and rainforest saving!

The news arrived at an opportune time. Since moving to a flat up one flight of stairs, some of my books have lined each step in little piles. I had many, many more than I'd thought. The magnitude of the task of moving them to shelves in my bedroom overwhelmed and paralysed me....

But they constituted an obstruction: the 'neck-breaking' variety, since I am partially disabled with balance problems. I started literally to have nightmares about the mess. Finally today (a mere couple of months later J) I shelved, well..... most of them, before collapsing, exhausted and overheated, in front of the news.

But I shall not invest in Sony's new mojo. As I've mentioned before, I'm a C20 entity and books should be........ well - paper. Besides, if it fell into the bath (as at least 5 of the paper ones have done on different occasions), I'd be seriously out of pocket and seriously upset.... But it's a good idea for the non-clumsy!

Sometimes - admittedly not often - ignorance is bliss. I am seeking to invest in a new TV. Preferably one that will eventually go HD - or so I'd thought. But not too expensive - I don't really watch enough TV (or earn enough!) to justify huge expense.

Being backward in these things (as you'll spot quite quickly, if you're a 21st century person reading this!) it took me a while to figure out where to begin. I still don't know where to begin. I suspect that I want "HD ready" rather than 'Full HD" since I sort of gather that one of those will work with an ordinary digital box. I also sort of know that I want 1920 x 1080 pixels 1080p resolution, which I have found. I mean, found the 1 within my price range was not full HD.

Because my TV diet is very plain and I like it that way, since 'going digital' I have been content with 'Freeview' (the free provider of digital TV in the UK). I've had no desire for any of the pay-per-view stuff. Of course, when I say 'like it', I exclude those agonising occasions when my picture goes 'blocky'.

My research has discovered that 2 British terrestrial TV companies have launched 'Freesat' to provide a similar service for HD in 2009, so I decided that this was the thing for me........

.....Until I awakened to something that was pretty obvious had I not already been so confused already: 'sat' refers to satellite dishes and I abhor the sight of satellite dishes on houses. So tacky. So 'chav'. I loathe them so much that if that's the only way to get HD, I'd almost rather do without. My semi-wilful ignorance ceased to be bliss.

So I'm trying to concentrate on getting a really effective digital tuner. And aerial. And recorder (or can I still use my PVR?)

At least I think that's what I want, since I'll obviously never be able to get HD.

Will I? :cry:

This began life as a posting on 2 fora (er - that was the 'accurate' plural of forum before the internet age made it 'forums' ) of tv.com, but I have found that even posting about it fails fully to express my horror, so I am indulging in a genuine rant.

In the UK, only the BBC in its various digital forms is showing the 2008 Olympics. Until today I have managed to avoid any boxing events by 'pressing the red button'. Today however, I wished to see the events following it, and thus compromised by leaving the commentary to alert me to when it was over, whilst I got busy on the computer.

Alas for good intentions! I didn't watch, but still came away in fury. I don't want to offend anybody, but I have long found it shocking that people could consider this brutality to be a sport. I mentioned on both fora(ums) that my revulsion had been heighted, but not caused by my experience of an unprovoked brain haemorrhage stroke a few years back. I'll add here that there were many (medics and laymen) who considered my survival to have been a miracle. I am left with slight physical disability - an inability to balance means that I have to walk with a stick or topple over at every second step - but having hovered in a coma for 3 weeks, I got off very lightly. Except that it is a permanent brain injury, which hasn't been fun - I had to re-learn how to walk, talk, read, write and use the 'private offices'.

Hence my fury that people can imagine that the wilful brain injury of others is something to be enjoyed as a sport. Hello people? A 'knock out' win involves putting out the working of another's brain (supposedly temporarily). How is this sport? It is a pre-historic blood lust on a par with making smoking an Olympic sport.

Smoking isn't illegal and we are individually free to indulge in it if we wish, but increasingly not in public and never cheered on by baying crowds watching and enjoying our dance with high blood pressure, persistent cough, emphysema, lung cancer or death.

Boxing is not sport, and ought to be if not illegal, at least relegated to a hole-in-the-corner, behind-closed-doors pastime.

Well, not so much a rant as a :o

Despite possessing a job I enjoy, I've spent the bulk of each day of the last few weeks surfing to TV.com during what should have been work hours, because I haven't been able to drive to work. The initial culprit was a very mild, almost inconspicuous cold..... which (as many have done since I had emergency brain surgery a few years ago) spread to my inner ear. The middle/ inner ear being the 'labyrinth', the resulting viral illness is called labyrinthitis ;) . It causes severe dizziness, the queasy-making sensation of the world spinning uncontrollably and motion sickness (literal sickness if there's anything to sick up). So driving is disallowed. This year's version of labyrinthitis was accompanied by loud ringing in the ears (inspiring a diagnosis of Ménière's disease :( . I consider myself FAR too young to go deaf.... But there - I was too young to have the sort of brain haemorrhage I had, so what's age got to do with it? Um - stuff... happens).

Illnesses aren't all bad: I can summon appreciation for the time I've been able to spend getting more used to the TV.com site and for being able to watch some of the Olympics. But a virus leaves a body tired, from getting up in the morning to crawling into bed at night, and I'm tired of having this one.

It has even given birth to a vague worry: though I enjoy TV, I haven't yet reached the stage when I think about characters in my favourite dramas as 'real people', 'knowing' their thoughts and feelings (actually - come to think of it, I think one needs to have a particular sort of mind to get into that realm of unreality). But lacking the energy to do much else, my life has consisted of TV-to-website-to-TV-to-website and I sense how easy it would be to become one of those people who 'needs to get out more'. I see, for example, how one gets increasingly detached from the 'real' world and begins to exist in the 'online' world. I find it more fun, to be honest (which says something about me, I suppose :oops: ). But I see how some people write on the boards here, as though the characters in a drama series were real people. It isn't viral, but surely it isn't healthy, either?

That said though: it is probably far less harmful than other forms of non-viral manifestation, and I shouldn't have spent part of my limited stock of energy whingeing about it.

Non rant over... Bedtime. Night, all....

A website often advertised on UK television is confused.com. It concerns insurance (I think) but also aptly describes my feelings for TV.com and digital TV - both wonderful institutions (or whatever they are!), providing hours of fun - but I can't quite seem to get the hang of either!

We are told that digital tv is a wonderful idea taking up less bandwith (which I gather is something to do with physics..... which is probably why I haven't a clue what it means). When it works, it's wonderful - one can interact with one's television, and cause it to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things (I'm generally a 20th century entity). But then - signal failure, blocky pictures, 'corrupt' recordings on my PVR which are automatically deleted by it, without so much as a: "by your leave"...

Then there's TV.com. It is a brilliant website. I first started visiting for spoilers, but have spent increasing amounts of time here, reading, lurking and trying various things. But I remain confused about some things: for example - my profile assures me that I have 'written nothing about [myself] yet', but I still can't figure out how to do so! Or why. Then today I was encouraged to blog. I used a word (non-cursing - I never swear) that was forbidden because it derived from a forbidden word (that wasn't a cuss-word, either). There was an explanation given, but I was writing my first blog of all time and too flustered to take it in... Oh, and despite all my reading, I'm still not clear on the whole 'levels' scenario!

Ah well - I have hopes of acclimatising to the new Millennium. Before the London Olympics (2012) :P.