Opinion

Pop-ups and 'wanted'

Sunday, July 9, 2006

Hi neighbors. Pour a cup of coffee and take some time to enjoy the view from your porch.

I realize the Bushwhacker Days celebration is long gone, but I wanted to catch you up on some news.

Thomas Gregory, the gentleman who portrayed a Buffalo soldier at Bushwhacker Days had called me to say how much he enjoyed being in Nevada. He commented that the people who came to his portable museum were very interested as well as interesting. He was impressed with the questions he was asked and with the Bushwhacker Days celebration in general.

He said he certainly hopes to be invited back again next year.

I hope so as well.

Whenever re-enactors or people who do historical portrayals are available to question, it is such a great thing. Where else can you ask direct questions to walking history books? It was nice that no one hesitated to get into the spirit of the event and talk to the living history reenactors as though they were actually time travelers from the Civil War period.

I wish I could find a time traveler who knew who my gr-gr-gr-grandfather was and I could spare my poor eyes and brain doing research! The Internet has made all that easier. Not as easy as asking someone who "lived" in that time period, but easier than traveling to dig through basements of distant courthouses.

Technology is a good thing. At least usually. There is one element that drives me nuts about the computer though. You know what they are -- pop-ups! We have all had to point, point, point and click, click, click on dozens of little windows of advertising. Usually most of them show up when you have limited time to view your mail or do Internet research.

New and improved software programs have helped immensely to get rid of these pesky pop-ups. However, we no sooner get them off the computer screen then they show up on our television screens! Have you been watching a favorite television show and suddenly had your attention diverted by some small person or animal running across the bottom of the screen? At first I didn't know what was going on and then I realized it was advertisements for other television shows! Pop-ups! It was bad enough when they started putting the channel logo on the screen. This little logo always stays put and you can usually learn to ignore it. But if there is something vital you want to see on the screen, or if the movie is subtitled and you have to read the lines -- the silly channel logo is always right in the way.

USA Network has the most inventive of these pop-up ads for other shows. But the pop-ups aren't as entertaining as the new commercials they are running.

I don't know why it took some television executive so long to figure out that people always wonder how their favorite characters from different shows would get along.

USA Network has started commercials for their new season's series that show main characters from different shows interacting.

My favorites, of course, are of "Monk" and "Dead Zone." Most recently they added the main actor from the new series "Psyched."

"Dead Zone" has already started its new shows. "Monk" should start this Friday or next. Attention! "Monk" is on at 8 p.m. now so the new show Psyched can ease in at 9 p.m. I'm sure they are hoping "Monk's" audience will stay put to get the new show off and running.

USA Network also started the innovative routine of starting a new season of shows during the time every other network is featuring re-runs.

We've come a long way from three channels of black and white fare. I enjoy the new selections and choices of course.

One of my cousins sent me an email the other day with black and white television characters portrayed. The email lamented the simplicity of the 50s and childhood.

It seems we only get nostalgic about things that we know can't come back. I guess we can safely talk about "the good old days" because all of us who lived through them see them through the same sentimental hindsight.

Those too young to remember will just have to take our word for it. They usually do, just as we did when our parents and grandparents related tales of their youth.

History of the "old days" is probably one of the few things younger folks think we know anything about these days.

Until the next time friends remember, Internet and television pop-ups aren't nearly as much fun as the kind filled with ice-cream that you had to push up to eat.