A lot goes into this thing, and there's a few points that have us scratching our heads.  For one, the contract they want us to sign would last for ten years.  One of our selectmen hit it on the nose when he said, "Looks to me that they're just taking a page from old Ron Popeil... 'Set it and forget it.'"  These days, the cable industry is moving so fast that if we get caught with plenty of new technologies, we'd have to wait until the contract was up.  I think that five years is too long in this case.  We're also trying to get them to do more coverage (they seem to think that more parts of town are covered than in actuality), more flexible service plans, better reaction time when service goes down, and plenty more.  At Channel 11, we're most concerned with our signals.  Anyone who's watched 11, 12, or 13 probably notices that the picture is pretty snowy, and it's not really our fault.  Basically, our signal goes from the station to a tower in Warren where the signal is boosted, and back to us.  However, the boosters are old and we've been trying to get them to fix them for almost a year.  Of course, money is a big part of it, too, and the contract seems to have a typo that doesn't quite tell you how much the station is supposed to get.  Our current contract gets us about $3,000 a year, and let's just say that the new one should state that we need substantially more than that (we have actual figures, but I'm not going to share them). 

So in a couple of weeks, Mike and I will try to help negotiate something new.  In fact, Mike might not even make it, so I might be the only member who'll be able to plead our case.  I'll have you know that we have the town's best interests in mind, and if Charter's offers aren't what we feel are adequate, we'll ask that the selectmen not sign and we'll keep working on it.  There's no use in boxing ourselves into a corner on something like this.  Hopefully, the guy Charter sends will be as flexible as we need him to be.

Halloween is in a couple of days and I don't feel pumped anymore.  I have Monday off (as I usually do on Monday) so I don't have to put up with the pressure of coming up with some sort of real costume, although I will probably don a silly hat or something and bug people.  I'm actually thinking of just throwing on a knit cap, trimming my beard, strapping on my guitar and telling people that I'm The Edge from U2.  Now if I can only learn how to play "Where the Streets Have No Name."

Thank God it stopped raining.  Things were really getting crazy out there.  I mowed the lawn yesterday, which was kind of a pain since there were leaves and branches and tree trunks all over my yard, but after some clearing, I had it under control.  But it felt good to mow anyway, I hadn't done it in a couple of weeks, and I won't have to do it much for the rest of the year, so things are pretty good in that respect.  I still have half a can of gas for it, so I bet I can put that in my car, sort of like "free gas."  Wait, no it isn't...  I already paid for it.  Oh well, it's free in a "weekly budget" sort of way.

I've been meaning to start playing guitar again.  I want to write some songs and amaze my friends, maybe even put some on here and make music videos.  The only problem is that I can't write music.  I'm not the most skilled player, either, so I can end up in one category or the other:  be a guy like Beck, who didn't have much guitar training and ended up becoming a great player by simply messing around for a long time, or end up like R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, a guy who plays guitar in a great band but can't play any better than me, and is still considered a "great guitarist" by the average fan. 

When you look at Beck, you see a guy who has a real style that's all his own, but it's rather simple when you analyze it.  It's complex when you first hear it, but then you realize that it's just a riff that he created because he needed one.  That's why I love all of his work, including his old, "hobo" stuff.  As for Peter Buck, he was idolized simply because he was in R.E.M.  I remember an old quote of his, which I'm paraphrasing... "I see these guys who watch my hands when I'm playing live... I hate to break it to you, but it's E, G, D."  Pete didn't really do a full-on solo until the band had been together for twenty years.  But it's that ability to play the simplest of guitar chords for twenty years and still get away with it that makes him my personal guitar hero. 

I'm not really sure what I want to model my guitar work off of, though.  I'd love to play the blues.  I love the blues more than just about anything else, and that's why Eric Clapton is my true favorite guitar player (he doesn't have to be my hero to be my favorite).  But I don't have the time or patience to try it, so I'll probably end up banging away at it Radiohead-style like I always do until I've got something that works.  For examples of "Radiohead-style" just lock yourself in a room with a copy of OK Computer on really good headphones, wrap yourself in blankets, and make a cup hot chocolate.  Listen closely to the acoustic guitar in the opening tracks (especially the "Ambition makes you look pretty ugly" part of "Paranoid Android") and observe the heated, almost percussive strumming methods used.  That's what I'm talking about, and that's how I get when I am "writing" songs.

Or I can just start a band, that way no one cares how good I am (like Pete Buck).  I really just need a bassist and a drummer, and we can be like The Police.  Wait, what am I saying?  The Police were all amazing!  Never mind I said that! 

This year it was finally a rivalry, though.  At least for me and most Yankee fans.  Before the Sox finally beat us last year and won it all, we never really looked at the Red Sox as a serious foe.  They were simply a pain in the neck for us, a nuisance we could dispatch when the time came.  Yankee fans saw teams like the Athletics, the Braves, and even the Mets as serious opponents worth putting our time into over the past decade.  The Red Sox were simply a team we could - and would - defeat.  This year, the Yankees finally took note.  Unfortunately, this October we didn't get to prove it. 

So now that both of our teams are out, I have to keep an eye on both the ALCS and the NLCS to see how former Yankees fare in these playoffs.  The White Sox have Jose Contreras now, even though I didn't care that much for him, and his fellow Cuban, Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, who I am an avid fan of.  The Angels have former Yankee prospect Juan Rivera, who's finally showing signs of what we expected out of him.  As for the NLCS, the Astros still have two of my favorite pitchers of all time, Andy Pettitte and the immortal Roger Clemens.  I have to say my support is behind the 'Stros for Andy and Roger, but the White Sox are an exciting team to watch.  Hopefully a Chicago/Houston Series is in order this year.

Meanwhile... it's still raining out.  No chance of playing any golf tomorrow.  It's getting colder.  I'm bumming out.  And there's still nothing really good at the movies.  At least Halloween is coming up, that's something to look forward to.  I got started this evening by watching some Ghost Hunters.  You should, too!

The violence in this movie is pretty brutal and quite graphic, but it's always quick.  It's made even quicker by the fact that Cronenberg draws the action out a lot, so whenever something happens, it seems to come out of nowhere, and it's over as soon as it starts.  Cronenberg has a history of making creepy, gory movies, including The Dead Zone, the very neat eXistenZ, and the Jeff Goldblum version of The Fly.  He manages to keep up his reputation here, as his "after" shots of people Viggo dispatches can be kinda gruesome.  This provided a problem as two of the only people in the room happened to be "Dude Hey" guys who would make comments like, "Dude, he just got shot in the face," or my personal favorite, "Sucks for his foot, though" when our hero got stabbed in the foot.  The kid said this twice, and was serious about it, when I thought the first time it was a joke.

Still, I have to say that A History of Violence is one of the better movies I've gone to see this year.  I know it's not saying much, but it's still true.  It's a good thriller that doesn't throw in a million twists... instead, it keeps building as the mystery of Mortensen's character unravels. 

It's raining like crazy out there, postponing baseball games and likely canceling out any golf plans I might have for later in the week.