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Look at that whip around coverage. All the places that Hoosier fans need to see, the sports guys took them there. This is fine coverage.
And check out 25 minutes of conversation about collegiate tennis, information you didn’t know you needed it, until it was given to you.
Mostly, I like the jib work. Big fan.
News! News! It was a night for the news! Campus news, anyway. It was a television night, as Tuesdays are all fall and winter terms. (It doesn’t seem right to call this a spring term, since we’re going to have snow tomorrow. But, by that metric a substantial portion of the fall term would also be a winter term.)
Oh good, he’s talking about the weather. Again.
Yes, it is a light day, and that is what I am allowed to complain about in late February, the weather. Plus, in four or five more weeks I won’t have that.
We all agree, that can’t happen soon enough around here.
You’ve no idea, gentle reader.
Anyway, to the studio! (Because the other seven-plus hours of my day were in a featureless office!)
They brought in a campus improv group for their second show. That episode should be out tomorrow. But here’s the gist of it. The woman in white left the room and the performers solicited a person, place and activity from the crew. When she came back in, the other member of the troupe had to guess all of that. She was a therapist, you see, and all of Sarah’s inner-characters were trying to give her clues. It was amusing.
Also, the studio audio will be better than my phone’s microphone from 12 feet away. That’s because they were wearing microphones.
Also, this is interesting:
I'd like to talk about the compression of time.
At what point in this brilliant @PMJofficial video did you think "That's not exactly representative of that decade" or "They could have tried _______ for that one"?https://t.co/JYsOfX4QYq
— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) February 25, 2020
Last night Phoebe yawned at all the wrong times. And, otherwise, couldn’t be bothered to cooperate. That blanket is cozy. So cozy that this is how she wants to be cuddled.
I wonder how that will work in the spring and summer after they are accustomed to a long winter. She can’t be bothered to worry about that in between her naps though.
But dig those two little freckles on her nose.
We went to Chipotle for lunch today — this is a problem with it being a block-and-a-half away. You visit a lot. Gerald is still causing havoc:
So the last four times we’ve been there — again, a block-and-a-half away — something has been out of order here. Got my order wrong, too. Gerald’s attention to detail is catching. At least they had forks this time?
Believe me, if I knew this Gerald character was going to become a real and so blatantly reoccurring thing I would have created a full backstory for him.
He has one, of course, he’s the third shift leader in charge of drinks at the local Chipotle. The rest is going to write itself. But I should have started detailing that aloud. If this keeps up I’m going to have to, aren’t I?
Television tonight. In addition to the two shows, they had a comedy troupe do a bit of improv. So the gimmick here is that everyone is in on the bit except for the woman in white. She left the studio while the improvisational bunch got a person, place and activity and she had to figure it out based on the context clues of Sarah’s inner characters.
To see the whole thing, which should be online soon, is to get the whole joke. It’s pretty clever, really. But, mostly, I’m impressed that the show that invited them in is now doing different little things every day. Last week they had the furry exotic animals, the week before they had musicians and they did a food feature the episode before that. It’s always nice to see the student shows feeling empowered to spread their wings, and to keep doing it. Better than doing the same thing over and over.
Chili tonight. And a lot of shouting on TV. Only some of it the debate.
We’d been having a conversation, as television people, about how you might obscure the other candidate from scoring points. Because, as we know, the real impact of a debate isn’t about the night of, but about the replay, the day after. Or, these days, the social media clips and the next day’s television replays. If you’re a producer, you’re looking for glib and pithy lines that fit in an appropriate length. You want clear audio. Not a lot of crosstalk.
So, really, if you’re getting whupped on the campaign station, turn it into a continual shouting match. And the closer we get to votes that are sincerely impactful the substance of the “debates” becomes less and less substantive. Sounds like the country of late, really.
So, again, the nice thing about extending your weekend thoughts is that if you devote Monday and Tuesday to looking back and enjoying the things you might have had the opportunity to do over last weekend, you avoid the front part of the present week. And since you’re going to look forward, anyway, on Thursday and Friday to whatever you have planned in the upcoming weekend, you really only have to be confronted by the work week on Wednesday.
There are flaws in that plan. Not paying attention to detail isn’t something that can safely be done in every workplace. Mentally checking out isn’t something that every profession will allow. But if you have the opportunity — perhaps during a lull or your regular lunch break, while waiting on hold or staring at that screen willing an email reply that you know isn’t coming in a timely fashion or during a meeting where someone else clearly hasn’t done their homework — it could be worth considering. You’re already subscribing to the philosophy of Dean, Reno and Frenette, anyway.
So onto to Thursday, which is basically the prelude to the weekend, right?
Sports shows in the studio this evening. And aside from being able to pronounce sophisticated words like “Mobile” things went well:
They talked sports on the sports talk show, as well. Novel concept, I hear you say. We’re innovators around here. Tonight’s topic was baseball:
And before I realized it, they’d wrapped their two shows, returned everything in the studio to their home positions, shut down the lights and had gone on to their post-production meetings, editing, homework, parties or wherever else they may go.
I returned to my office to stare at the screen waiting for email replies. Dreaming of the weekend already.
I met this guy last night in the television studio. He took part in a nice little segment about the local petting zoo of discovery and wonder:
The handlers, for lack of a more appropriate term, were wonderful with both the animals and the students who were working the show. And some of their creatures work school and other promotional events all the time, so they apparently take it in stride.
The ladies said the animals would do better out of their carriers than in them, so after a moment of “Awwww,” and a second moment of photographs, the crew got down to work and did a nice job pulling the program together. And the hosts created a tight little segment with their furry guests.
Off-camera the lemur jumped on me. And I learned that a bengal cat will grow to be a bit larger than a domestic feline. This one was still growing. We were told that you can tell them apart mostly by their softer coat and their personality. They generally behave more like dogs, she said. But this guy was too chill to be bothered by anything going on around him. That lemur wanted to be the star, however. You can see it in here:
The news show was done after that. I missed a lot of it, trying to be useful, downstairs working on other things.
Driving home this evening, I had a nice view of the sun:
Something about the angle of it in the sky, even as it was descending toward the horizon, is starting to feel different. Like the sun is bigger, brighter, and should-be-warmer. It isn’t yet. But either some ancient neuron in my brain has begun to detect the seasonal shift or my keen powers of critical observation are seeping into my subconscious.
It still isn’t warm — nor would you expect it to be warm here just now, but on general principle I demand it nevertheless — so either instinct or perception is wrong. But there was a feeling that an optimist might ascribe to optimism.
I’m a resigned realist.
Probably I owe Phoebe a photograph. It was a rare evening, indeed, when she chose to sit on me. If she’s going to choose to cuddle with someone it will be The Yankee. (And almost always on one of the blankets.)
This is a thing she does near the end of her time cuddling. Having rolled over, she stretches her full body out. I’m not sure if she’s surveying the ground below her, or just enjoying the moment or trying to wake up or fall back asleep.
Eventually, she pushes off with her back legs and gracefully rolls toward the floor. Here’s the side view before that happens:
I think we’d now, finally, have to use three hands to count the number of times she’s voluntarily sat with me. It’s progress. Maybe she was jealous of the bengal cat. Maybe she’s noticed something about the sun, too.
