If you read the fine print on that email, it says that the Tivo HD boxes have CableCARD built-in, so you wouldn't need a set-top box anymore.

yes, this is why I want it, and not my current one. I would keep the old one because it has a DVD burner.

T. Rex discusses how tattoos are made of awesome: [link]

I need to find a way to support programs like this because for so many kids like her and her peers here in city schools, college is so much not even an option they don't even dream about it. And she's one of the lucky ones because she's got a dad who is determined she'll go to college because he didn't.

I've worked for places that do college prep stuff like this, and the way I always explained it to people is it's all the stuff that middle-class college educated parents would do as a matter of course, but these kids don't have those parents, so they need these programs.

ION, I keep meaning to go to my local live chicken place, but I never think of it when I want to cook a whole chicken!

Judy Heiblum, a literary agent at Sterling Lord Literistic, shudders at the memory of some attempted date-talk about Robert Pirsig’s 1974 cult classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” beloved of searching young men. “When a guy tells me it changed his life, I wish he’d saved us both the embarrassment,” Heiblum said, adding that “life-changing experiences” are a “tedious conversational topic at best.”

I hear her. I think I retroactively bitchslapped someone when I finally read that book.

Break up? I think if I really liked him, and liked him basically on topics the book might have to do with, it would be strange to break up with him over one. If he thought The Da Vinci Code was 42, how did I not notice this until just now?

In which case, he must be very good in bed, so I might have to keep him around.

As for food, oh that would be hard. I'd like to think that if they could take care of their own food that would be just fine--don't let their choices cut into my social life.

Practically it would never work with a vegan, but probably could with a vegetarian. Raw foodists need not even consider applying.

If you DIDN'T like the Beatles and found some fellow freak that didn't like the Beatles that might be something.

This is how I'll know.

it would have been less controversial if they'd let ita kill it.

I like to help where I can. I'll never be Nelson Mandela, but I'll do my bit.

Polgara! I have to cook and eat now and then go to bed for the night. It's way too late other way round.

T. Rex discusses how tattoos are made of awesome: [link]

That one is awesome! The last panel especially cracked me up....

I need to find a way to support programs like this because for so many kids like her and her peers here in city schools, college is so much not even an option they don't even dream about it. And she's one of the lucky ones because she's got a dad who is determined she'll go to college because he didn't.

That just about killed me when I taught high school in the East Village (Ukranian and Polish immigrants, or kids of) and they had no idea that college was even a possibility. I was so happy when I ran into one of them working years later in one of the research rooms at the NYPL.

T. Rex discusses how tattoos are made of awesome: [link]

That one is awesome! The last panel especially cracked me up....

Sir! I promise nothing!

Is that Tivo deal for current subscribers?

it's all the stuff that middle-class college educated parents would do as a matter of course, but these kids don't have those parents, so they need these programs.

And even for the parents who do have that dream, but no experience and few means or connections, it is daunting. I mean, they borrow gas money from me sometimes between paychecks. Without those programs, it would seem even more elusive.

It amazes me the expectations I took for granted, and I grew up in a pretty limited place in some respects. And the experiences. But the whole east coast public education and opportunities status was a big shocker to me. Naive of me, sure. But I got lucky in the sense that as poor as my community was, we had fucking awesome public ed.

And even for the parents who do have that dream, but no experience and few means or connections, it is daunting.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a matter of, here's when you need to sign up for the SATs and here's how you need to prepare to take them, and did you know about all of these different kinds of colleges, and let's go visit them, and do you need someone to review your application essays, and -- I mean, the stuff my parents did just as a matter of course goes on and on. Because they knew the system!

Actually, I was thinking about some of this recently, listening to some really impressive high school kids -- I hope someone is telling them to apply to expensive private schools, because they would get a lot of financial aid, but they might only be looking at the price tag and writing them off.