It was not an easy day for the Friedmans today. I think Sierra’s scowl above pretty much sums up the overall Friedman outlook on life over this Friday. Spending an hour in a waiting room at the pediatric urologist (for Anya), battling a flare-up (for Lauren), having Anya wake up at 5, having Anya’s nap end prematurely, having Sierra leak out of multiple diapers today (likely due to Lauren’s medication for her flare-up)… It’s been a crappy day.

Scowl, indeed.

I know it’s hip and modern to kill your television. Or, at least, not have one.

That’s not our style. Lauren and I have long had an affection for (good) television, and I like to think that we don’t zone out and vegetate to the flickering boob tube when we watch; we’re often multi-tasking (i.e. computing) while we watch, and we really try to watch only those shows that reward intelligent viewing.

Until recently, we got a bundled package of movie channels — HBOs, Starz, and Cinemaxes. I cancelled those to make the cable bill less offensive to me, and continued saving (net) even after I started my Netflix subscription. 

You know about Netflix already, I know. I got a very basic plan, one DVD at a time, unlimited (or, limited by the USPS) DVDs per month. And that, in and of itself, is a great plan for us. (We’re currently working our way through the second season of Dexter on Netflix DVDs.)

But even awesomer is Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” program. Of the 100k+ DVDs in their collection, somewhere around 13,000 are available for instant streaming. I can stream to my computers, and also to my HD TiVo. You press play, and the movie starts in seconds.

I cannot underscore how awesome this is. With my plan (and all higher plans), you can watch an unlimited amount of instantly streaming content. I can have a laptop stream a movie while working in the office. I can stream via the TiVo right on the big screen. And if I start watching on my laptop and pause, and then later press play on the TiVo, Netflix is smart enough to pick up right where I left off.

Amazing. This really feels like the future. 

And I haven’t even mentioned the Mac mini portion of the setup. I have my new mini connected via HD to the TV as well. (Luckily, my TV has a lot of HD inputs.) There are some nights when there’s too much good stuff on at once, and our TiVo can’t snag it all. But if we know something will be available on Hulu, we can leave it off the TiVo’s list and watch it in streaming HD quality from the Mac the next day. The mini is a full media hub for us now. The randomized slideshows that iPhoto can put together look great on the HD screen, particularly pictures from our D70 SLR. 

If you’re paying close attention, you’ve probably realized that I can also stream Netflix movies from the mini to the TV, instead of using the TiVo. You’re right. I don’t have a strong preference either way.

Other goodness: The TiVo has a “My DVR Expander” Western Digital eSATA hard drive attached to it. This increases my disc space considerably, and means that we don’t stress about accumulating hours and hours of HD television on the TiVo; space is not at a premium anymore. Thus, we tend to give priority to Netflix DVDs, pushing them to the top of our watching queue, knowing that we can catch up on TiVo during the in-between days when we’re mailing back one disc and awaiting another. (Note that earlier this week, on Monday, I sent back a DVD. On Tuesday, Netflix received it, and on Wednesday, I received my next one. Impressive.)

We’re also using the Mac mini as our DVD player most of the time now. I find its picture is a little better than our four-year-old multidisc DVD player/receiver, and controlling it with the Apple remote is a breeze. When I need to control the mini outside of remote-based tasks, my laptop takes on the roll of wireless keyboard and mouse; I simply use VNC to share the mini’s screen and take control.

I am exceedingly pleased with our entertainment setup, and I’ve motivated multiple families now to ditch their movie channels and follow my lead. I’m so proud.

Over on Facebook, I posted this list of 100 random facts about myself. I wanted to archive it here.

No one tagged me. I’m worthless. As punishment to me — or perhaps you, dear reader — I will offer 4x the number of random facts required by Facebook’s recent meme. 

1. Though I placed 2nd, 3rd, and 1st in three consecutive spelling bees, I cannot spell “terrific” without a spell-checker. (I got it wrong at first writing this very entry.) 

2. I didn’t eat any vegetables (or non-apple/banana fruits) consistently until I was 25-years-old. I’m still learning to eat many of them. 

3. I interviewed “Weird Al” Yankovic for a youth-focused local newspaper when I was 15. I met Al again, in a different state, backstage at a concert, when I was 18. He looked at me and said: “Lex Friedman, Hershey, Pennsylvania!” I remain impressed. 

4. My favorite songs of all time include “Doctor Worm” by They Might Be Giants, “She’s An Angel” by same, and very recent addition “You Don’t Know Me At All” by Ben Folds. 

5. I attended sleepaway summer camp for nine of the most formative summers of my life. 

6. I absolutely hate shaving, and think I deserve much recognition and accolades for doing so nearly every other day.

7. I hate cats, mostly because I’m allergic to them.

8. I am always, always, always nice to customer service reps on the phone (and in person). 

9. I can do an uncanny impression of a horse galloping using only my tongue.

10. I turned down a marriage proposal.

11. In high school, I created a written list of goals for myself that included getting engaged/married by a certain time, laser-correcting my vision, and more. I completed every goal on the list with a single exception: I am not yet a cast member on Saturday Night Live.

12. I can keep a secret. 

13. The top joint of the middle finger of my right hand cracks frequently when bent. I hate it.

14. I try to close my laptop by 9pm each night, after a workday of full-time computing. I don’t always succeed, but am happier when I do.

15. If I like a band or TV show, I make it my business to own every album/watch every episode. I am a completist.

16. Of all the modern gadgets I own, the one that I think has benefitted my life the most, and brought me the most added happiness, is my TiVo.

17. I am dreading thinking up 83 more facts.

18. I am lousy at doing even relatively simple math in my head. I wish I were better at remembering numbers.

19. One of my biggest professional regrets is that my weekly comedy video show on Cracked got cancelled. I wish I’d been funnier, or more popular, or both.

20. I juggle very, very poorly.

21. I balance objects on my face fairly well.

22. I bat and do magic tricks left-handed. I do everything else with my right.

23. I still get a thrill checking the mailbox, seeing if something cool arrived.

24. I work very, very hard at my job, and always have, at each job I’ve ever had.

25. If I hadn’t promised 100 random facts, I’d be done now.

26. I hate so-called grammarians who hyper/over-correct “errors” that aren’t (like wrongly thinking that I needed to use “finished” instead of “done” above).

27. I learned 99% of the grammar I know now from Mr. Meiser in sixth grade.

28. I see mistakes (i.e., continuity errors) in movies and television constantly, and without actively looking for them.

29. Every girl I’ve ever kissed, save one (my wife), is on Facebook. Of those who are on Facebook, all but two are my Facebook friends.

30. I work remotely from my home in Jersey for a company in Santa Monica, California. I wish the entire office were, like me, Mac-based — or at least better web-cammed — so that we could more easily video chat on an ongoing basis.

31. I knew I’d love my daughters, but I wasn’t prepared for just how much.

32. I expect that “The West Wing” DVD box set (which I own), and the “Lost” DVD box set (which doesn’t yet exist) will be the last two DVD box sets I ever acquire. (Because I believe I’ll get all of my future media through various streaming online sources, legally.)

33. My brain is constantly forming jokes, about everything. Even in completely inappropriate contexts, my brain is constantly generating funny lines of varying qualities. 

34. I am 100% convinced I would make an excellent addition to the cast of the American version of The Office.

35. I’ve worn braces three times in my life: Once to correct only a massive gap between my top two teeth, once to straighten all my teeth, and once (as Invisalign) to fix my bottom teeth after my wisdom teeth came in and mucked them all up.

36. I don’t like the site of blood. Mine, yours, or anyone’s. 

37. TV/movie blood rarely makes me squeamish, if I know it’s fake.

38. Passive aggression drives me crazy.

39. I wear a size 12 shoe.

40. But I prefer to be barefoot (or be-socked) whenever possible.

41. My hair was straight until my mid-teens, when it suddenly and inexplicably curled.

42. I have an awful sense of direction.

43. I consider myself excellent at writing short stories, but I haven’t written any since college.

44. My wife is really my best friend. I would love to have a male best friend, and am close, but right now most of my local male peers (and I!) are a little too swamped with family and life obligations to evolve into true bestiness.

45. Many of my life philosophies mirror those of Penn & Teller.

46. I’ll read any book that Dave Barry writes. Same goes for Al Franken and Ben Sherwood.

47. After every movie I watch, I check its Wikipedia page and its IMDb page to learn more about it.

48. I know the fifty states in alphabetical order, the alphabet backwards, the complete lyrics to “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies, and many more things that weren’t worth memorizing — I just couldn’t help myself.

49. I prefer keyboard shortcuts to mouse utilization.

50. My freshman college roommate was unbelievably awful, comically so. I was offered a move to a single halfway through the year, and jumped at the chance.

51. I don’t think Angelina Jolie is hot. Or Julia Roberts. Or Pamela Anderson. 

52. I take oral hygiene very seriously. I floss and use mouthwash every day. (And brush, too.)

53. If my wife didn’t hate facial hair, I’d grow mine out.

54. I wish I played the piano better and the guitar at all.

55. I find swear words hilarious. They’re just sounds that we assign meaning to, and it amuses me that so many find them so offensive.

56. I regret not having gone abroad to Australia during college. Instead of going abroad separately, Lauren and I stayed at Brandeis together to pursue our relationship. Overall, I’d say we made the right choice!

57. I love honey mustard.

58. I want an iPhone, but it makes no sense with my insanely good TMobile contract, and my working from home. So I stick to my iPod touch.

59. Working from home, I can sometimes go six days straight without leaving the house (other than to fetch the mail or take the garbage out). That’s bad.

60. If I had the option to stop working and pursue other not-necessarily-profitableinterests, I’d take it in an instant.

61. I don’t listen to the radio.

62. I love performing improv comedy. Watching it, though, often makes me tense.

63. I wish I could draw.

64. I can wiggle one ear at a time.

65. I can tongue click very, very loudly. Probably louder than you.

66. My RSS reader has 295 feeds. I generally spend a combined 60 minutes/day scanning/reading those feeds.

67. I hate cubicles. 

68. I love semicolons. 

69. My fingernails grow very quickly. I cut them at least twice per week.

70. I am more than a foot taller than my wife.

71. I’m one of those people who does “the dance of not using my hands” in public restrooms. Flush with my foot, turn faucets with my elbow, etc.

72. I ate salmon skin (while eating salmon, not on its own) until I met Lauren. It grosses her out, and her repulsion grossed me out, too.

73. I only drink Dr. Pepper warm. I prefer diet sodas, but fear they’re going to give me cancer.

74. I can taste the difference between tap, Brita, and spring water.

75. My first impressions of people are accurate about 99% of the time. 

76. I sometimes fear that I’m not good enough at letting people I admire/respect know that I feel that way.

77. The number for Pizza Hut growing up was 777-7777. I was stunned to learn that other Pizza Huts elsewhere in the country had different phone numbers.

78. I don’t know what the hell it means to bring sexy back. I’m not sure I want to. 

79. Okay, I am sure: I don’t want to know.

80. My least favorite quality is condescension. 

81. My favorite is sense of humor.

82. I use different passwords for everything. I don’t use a password manager, and I’m always stunned that I remember them all.

83. If a fake URL is mentioned during a TV show, I’ll go there right away. 

84. I am certain that Neil Patrick Harris and I would be good friends, if he knew me.

85. I still get excited on my birthday.

86. The vast majority of my non-food shopping is done online.

87. Thanks to TiVo, I almost never watch commercials. Sorry, advertisers!

88. I think Davids Copperfield and Blaine are punks.

89. I drink tea most days, a habit that started in mid to late 2008.

90. I was initially resistant to some technologies — MP3s, Facebook, TiVo, Netflix — that are now major factors in my life.

91. My first non-AOL-based Internet connection was advertised as “text-only.” It was a dial-in Unix-shell. I owe much of my Unix and Internet know-how to that connection.

92. I wish I could survive on less sleep. I strongly considered switching to polyphasic sleep (napping for 20 minutes every few hours), but it’s a little too impractical for real-world living.

93. Careers I’d pursue if money were no object: Stand-up comedy, photography, TV writer, voice-over artist.

94. I don’t like superstition.

95. I’m a big fan of chocolate milk.

96. I would love to grow my hair out like Sayid’s (on Lost), but I just don’t think my hair is capable of his greatness. 

97. I’m not a fan of several popular movie series: Star Wars, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter spring immediately to mind.

98. I thought writing 100 facts about myself would take less time.

99. My full name is Alexander, but almost no one calls me that. When people ask if “Lex” is short for anything, I like to respond “Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeex.”

100. In elementary school, someone devised the nickname “Sexy Lexy,” which at the time was a Very Bad Thing. It was a major moniker of shame. In senior high school, no one would call me that, no matter how much I wanted them to.

Yes! The NFL decides non-playoff overtimes with sudden death that starts with a coin toss. The team that wins the coin toss wins the game more than 70% of the time.

Slate explains fairer ways we could decide those games.

It pains me to link to CollegeHumor, but this parody of the Fresh Prince theme — if Will had stayed in West Philly — is so hilariously profane that I had to share.

When one of your young children is crying, it’s sad.

When the other of your young children is crying, it’s also sad. 

Either one crying, then, is very, very sad. Sometimes heartbreakingly so.

But somehow… Both children crying at once? Don’t tell anyone, but it’s often absolutely friggin’ hilarious.

Because you look at your spouse, and she looks at you (feel free to change the pronouns to suit your lifestyle), and you look at the two-headed crying monster before you, and you realize that you can either run away screaming and sobbing, or just laugh your fool head off.

We choose the latter.

Too awesome. You think up the word, it guesses, and it inevitably wins. Often with no mistakes at all.

I hope Google doesn’t turn evil. Or at least, not super evil. I have handed over a large part of my life. If you were to ask me what powers my daily searches, all of my email, my calendar, my domains, the answer would be — like the song says — Just Google.

I had used Gmail to power my email for a while, but continued using Mail.app to check it. A few weeks ago, I decided to try a test, using the actual Gmail website for email management, to see how life with just web-based email would go. I was fully expecting to hate it.

I didn’t.

I quickly realized, though, that I’d need Fluid, an app that lets me create Site-Specific Browsers. So, I have an application in my dock that’s called The Friedmans, and it can only surf the Gmail account for my thefriedmans email domain. (That account is set up using Google Apps.) I have a second app that does similar magic for my work account. Fluid is smart enough that it can even show a Mail-esque badge in the dock indicating the number of new messages.

I also installed the Google Notifier, which puts a menu extra in my menu bar, and pops up a translucent window with excerpts as new messages come in. 

Gmail is excellent. The keyboard controls for the web interface are intuitive, and having instant, unlimited access to every message I’ve ever sent or received is undeniably useful. And the spam filter is better than any I’ve ever used.

I also switched my calendaring to Google Calender over iCal. I registered at a free service that promised to update/sync my iPod touch’s calendar via Exchange-based push, and it Just Works. Amazing, and perfect.

I’ve enabled all the right “extras” in both applications so that I can very easily add new events to my calendars (“Dinner with Smiths at 7pm tomorrow” becomes a true calendar event, easily add/create todo lists, “bookmark” emails, chat (even with video), and more. And Gmail’s preternaturally good date recognition is astounding: I had an email with the subject line “Poker night Thurs?” and it subtly asked beside the message whether I wanted to add Poker Night to my calendar for January 22nd. Good stuff.

So yeah, every appointment I set is through Google. Every email I send and receive is, too. All our videos of our children go on Google’s YouTube.  And virtually every Word doc or Excel spreadsheet I create these days isn’t really a Word doc or Excel spreadsheet at all; I just use Google Docs so that I (and anyone else I need) can access the files from anywhere.

Like I said… I hope they’re not evil.

I heard many* complaints about the lack of a “Lex face” photo here today. So, I’m remedying that, with a little sepia-filled goodness for no reason.

* Okay, one.**

** Unless you count the voices in my head. In which case: One.

This blog is still shiny and new, so why not decorate it with some an uplifting post about abortion? 

Obviously (at least, I hope it’s obvious), there’s no rational person out there encouraging abortions in all cases of pregnancy. Rather, there are folks who argue that abortion should be allowed for various reasons and under various circumstances, and folks who instead argue that abortion should be illegal.

Here’s a good but too-snarky article (with video!) that shows most anti-abortionists don’t have a good answer to the question: “What should the punishment be for a woman who has an illegal abortion?”

Searches on Google plummeted between noon and the completion of President Obama’s inauguration speech. That’s what happens when we’ve all found what we’d been searching for, I guess.

A story about how I get Anya to cooperate with brushing her teeth.

Anya and I are both very excited about Barack Obama’s inauguration today. 

Regardless of politics, there’s something exciting and inspirational about the transition of power. Inclusive of politics, there’s something extra exciting about it when you can finally get rid of the guys who hate stem cells, gays, women’s rights, and the middle class.

Just saying.

Frankly, Nintendo Wii, if I get to 998 steps in my ten-minute step exercise while Wii Fitting, let’s just agree that you can tell me I did a full 1,000 steps instead.

Many moons ago, I wrote a song called “William Howard Taft” for an Answerbag video contest. The video is here, although I’ve since re-recorded the vocals with a better mic.

My friend and colleague Jon Haddad was always a fan of that song, and somehow continues to find new fans for that song to this very day. Let’s all relive the WHT experience.

Band From TV is a music group made up of TV stars you’ll recognize. You’ve got Greg Grunberg and Adrian Pasdar from Heroes, Hugh Laurie from House, and more.

As this appearance from The Tonight Show proves, they don’t suck.

I love having a blog, but I hate how sucky I am at keeping this one current. Last year, I made a resolution to blog daily, and obviously that didn’t work. Since I started twittering, things have been going better, and I think perhaps at this stage of life (two kids, busy job, minimal free time), short-form is better.

Hence, a switch — at least, for now — to a shorter-form, Tumblr-powered blog.