71% More Commercials

Last evening at 5:30, having already seen, and probably more than once, anything that was available on our go-to channels (HGTV, Food or Motortrend) we wandered over to TV Land to watch a couple of episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond. Troubling thing was we joined smack in the middle of a show. A quick peek at the electronic guide revealed that the episode started at 5:10 and would finish at 5:45. What the heck? The following show ran from 5:45 to 6:20. Next was 6:20 to 6:55, etc.

There was 35 minutes between episodes. I’m fairly sure there wasn’t an extra 5 minutes of unseen footage that could be added back to the original 23 minute prime time run. TV Land had found a way to add more commercial time to the syndicated shows, in addition to slightly speeding up the video of the show and running the credits at the bottom while the top is showing the beginning of the next episode. Five divided by seven equals 71% more commercial time they could sell.

Having exhausted all the British crime shows we could enjoy, I though maybe it was time to try a much heralded show from a decade ago, Sherlock. But it turns out we just couldn’t take Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance. He was like an over the top and unfunny, Sheldon Cooper. He spoke so fast (and quietly) at times we really couldn’t make out what he was saying. So we turned on the closed captioning to see if that would help. Nope, sometimes the dialog was even faster than it could be displayed on the screen.

With all the marathons of Law and Order running on WE and Sundance, we are now on the second viewing of their episodes. While we do enjoy revisiting this show every once in a while, we’d like the gap between re-watches to to be a lot longer than 30 days…

We are now on the home stretch of watching Cheers having started the 11th and final season on Monday. We are getting tired of the show and are ready to move on. The idea of canceling Netflix and moving to Hulu, so we can smoothly segue into Frasier after Cheers, is a good one. Not only would we save a buck a month, but we could also see another Thursday night NBC comedy of that era as well, Wings.

Track, Daily, Crush

As of Monday, May 11, 2020 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Track Daily Crush
1983 Reynard 83SF 1972 Porsche 914-6* 1990 Cadillac Eldorado Touring Coupe
Because Race Car. This is poster on the bedroom wall material. This is your father’s Cadillac.

* This car is way to nice and too valuable to drive daily really, so option two would be this beautiful Porsche 356 Speedster Replica or option three could be this great example a 1995 Mazda Miata M-Edition.

Cubist Corvette

I was thinking that maybe my papercraft obsession was starting to fade, but the current edition of Car and Driver arrived in the mail today to rekindle it again. Featured on Page 7 was a papercraft Corvette. If any car could actually look good in a one sheet, low tech rendition, or what I’ve taken to calling cubist papercraft, it has to the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette.

Cubist Miata #2

Another time waster from Moss Motors: Car Cutout Challenge. I’m in. Trouble is, on their contest page all they have links to papercraft Miatas for the 1st (NA) and 4th (ND) generation. I have a 2nd generation NB, so what’s a fellow to do? Why reach back into the past and find the copy of the instruction sheet for the second gen car from his papercraft archives. Back in 2006 the Mazda Museum in Japan produce some square-ish looking templates for all three of then current, generations of Miatas, NA, NB & NC.

Like I did 14 years ago, I spent a couple hours “coloring” it in to look like my current Miata. You can see 2020’s results above. Here were the results of 2006’s Cubist Niata #1.

Happy Star Wars Day

I guess I could have redone my Darth Vader CubeCraft one, but I wanted to try something new. This is a simple one sheet R2D2. I have a 4 page, much more detailed R2D2 papercraft template, but it would have taken a lot longer to complete than I had time for. Maybe if I start on it tomorrow I could have it finished by next May 4th.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday

Not only that, but every Sunday in May is going to be Super Bowl Sunday. So, not only has Major League Baseball opened up their archive of games to watch for free, but the National Football League has too. From now until May 31st you can get NFL Game Pass for free and watch any football game from 2009 to 2019. You want to watch preseason games? Sure, why not? Every regular season game? Check. Playoffs? Absolutely. The Super Bowls? You got ’em! You can even watch the Pro Bowl games, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why you would.

The nice thing about Game Pass’s football games, is unlike MLBTV, they have nicely edited out all the commercials1. They have even chopped out half time as well. Three and a half hour football games come in a little over 2 hours.

The bit of papercraft above is called Papercraft Propaganda and was created by someone who called themselves PaperTom and it is supposed to put you in mind of an old school Soviet statue. His web site doesn’t seem to exist anymore, so if you want to create your own, download the PDF here.