I awoke this past Sunday morning to find out that my cable provider, Cablevision, was having a slap fight with Fox, and as a consequence, had dropped all programming from this major content producer, including that afternoon's Giants football game, the previous night's NLCS baseball game, and shows I enjoy like House and Fringe.  The story goes something like this:  Fox said, "Give us more money, losers," and Cablevision said, "We're totally unfriending you," and now Congress or the FCC or somebody is trying to step in and fix things.  As Wendy said, it's like parents fighting and taking it out on the kids.  Personally, I hope both companies go out of business and lose all their money and are forced to give me free cable for a year. #entertainment

I've never heard a more annoying series of human laughs than on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.  Regular panelist Charlie Pierce sounds like one of those Muppets that sits in the balcony and heckles everything and everyone, Kyrie O'Connor sounds like she barely has the ability to get through a few seconds of laughter, and Amy Dickinson sounds like a chipmunk.  I'm not here to tell anybody how they should or shouldn't laugh, but seeing as how this is radio and the only physical sense I'm using while listening is my sense of hearing, it's hard for me to ignore things that are un-ignorable.  The least they could do is turn down the volume on the mics for panelists whose laughter makes my skin crawl. #entertainment

Sprinkle Brigade is a group of "artists" in NYC who tackle the problem of people not cleaning up after their dogs by creating works of "art" out of sidewalk-dwelling dog poop.  I posted their sprinkles on poop piece a while ago, but their gallery includes quite a few other gems.  Website Inhabitat says the group "takes turds that they find on the street and upcycles (we use the term loosely here) them into little pieces of joy."  One dog's poop is another man's art.  (via Mental Floss) #entertainment

Similar to my discovery of Brits on FlashForward, it turns out the TV show Fringe has two Australians with fake American accents:  Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) and Walter Bishop (John Noble). #entertainment

I just completed the purchase of a new HD TV (since you can no longer buy a non-HD TV, I'll henceforth refer to it simply as a TV).  Unlike most of my other big purchases, I couldn't do a product comparison matrix where I list and rank different features and choose the one with the highest rating.  TVs can have the best features in the world, but it all comes down to how good the picture looks.  And the only way to compare how different TVs look is to go to a store and stare with an open mouth at the wall covered in giant TVs, which happens to be one of the most enjoyable shopping experiences imaginable.  TV manufacturers know that consumers like to compare numbers, so they advertise things like screen size and resolution and refresh rate, with the assumption that better numbers equate to a better product.  But in reality, in my experience anyway, two TVs with the exact same features and numbers typically have completely different picture quality.  And I couldn't really rely on online product reviews, because different people see things differently.  So my experience consisted of going to several different stores, watching the sports highlights and animal videos, and choosing the TV that looked the nicest.  By about the third store with the same outcome, my mind was set. #entertainment

For some reason, the advent of digital cameras brought with it the option to embed the date on the picture itself.  The problem with this is that many people don't know how to properly set the date or time on their camera, so the pictures show the wrong date, and they do so permanently.  Plus, digital picture files store the date and time they were taken by default, so that information is there if you want it.  And honestly, it's ugly.  A beautiful picture is ruined by a big ugly orange or green datestamp. #entertainment

A quote from the TV show The Office on winning:  "Andy Bernard does not lose contests; he wins them, or he quits them because they are unfair." #entertainment

I read this book called 1959, which as luck would have it, was all about the year 1959 and the popular trends and noteworthy events that took place therein.  The space race, the cold war, some important writers and artists.  And then there was jazz.  Jazz was equivalent to pop music.  People would go to the bar and dance to jazz music.  Jazz musicians were pop culture icons.  Jazz was the thing, like Lady Gaga, but ... not. 

I have some personal experience with jazz.  I spent nearly a decade playing in a jazz band in high school and college.  I invested quite a few hours and a good deal of effort in the pursuit of this hobby.  It was enjoyable.  I don't regret it.  I even took a jazz appreciation class as an elective in college, and it was great.  It didn't involve math or physics, which was a relief. 

But it took me until about three days ago to just finally come out and say it:  I hate jazz.  I can't listen to it.  It makes my ears bleed.  I can't stand the lack of organization, the spontaneous improvisation, the fact that there's no recognizable tune to get stuck in your head or to hum to someone ("Ya know that Miles Davis song?  It starts off like blah-bluh-bloo-beep-bop.").  Perhaps I've honed my anal retentiveness in recent years more so than my appreciation for jazz.  But thinking back, I never actually listened to jazz music.  I played it.  I heard it while it was happening and I was a part of it.  But I never sat down and listened to it for fun.  Whenever I tried that, I lost interest after about five seconds.  And that never went away.  I want to like it, but it's quite repulsive to me.  It's like C-Span, or investment advice -- I'd pretty much rather jump off a cliff, or at least eat a bug. 

But I think I've reached that part of my life where I feel ok admitting I don't like things that I'm probably supposed to like.  I don't like art.  Any art.  I don't like baseball.  And I don't like jazz.  So eat that. #entertainment

The Shoebox people have a few ideas for a possible sequel to Eat Pray Love, the latest film I will never see.  My favorites:  Yawn Scratch Burp; Eat Digest Poop. #entertainment

I was at a wedding the other day, and the DJ ("DJ Freeze") played a remixed version of a Frank Sinatra song.  Now I admittedly haven't been a Sinatra fan for that long, but he's a fellow New Jerseyan, and more specifically he was born in the hometown of my alma mater.  Also, he's the man.  And upon hearing that dance club atrocity passed off as a Sinatra classic, Wendy and I agreed:  Don't mess with Frank. #entertainment