March 31, 2016--Heading North & A Prediction

It's coming to the end of our snow-birding for the year. It has been a little intense--the first time in nine years we've been coming here that we won't be able to say goodbye to my mother.

As a distraction, I can't resist one more political prediction--

Donald Trump will not win the Wisconsin primary.

He may even come in third.

That will herald the beginning of what will by June turn out to be an ugly, so-called "open" GOP convention. It will be anything other than open. All deals, deals, and deals behind closed doors. Think House of Cards.

January 20, 2016--What's Playing in Somalia and On Reunion Island?

I love my Netflix.

I know there is current controversy about their ratings--the company is coy about them, which suggests they are not as high as advertised. The concern about the truth is not academic or about the truth itself but about Netflix's valuation--how much it is worth and how justifiable is its current lofty stock price.

I don't care about that except that I do have an investor's interest in the so-called FANG stocks. Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. I do not at this point in my life believe in owning that many shares of individual companies, preferring broad-based securities funds, but I do own a decent amount of Amazon stock, am thinking about buying more, and am considering making an equivalent investment in Netflix.

After all, boldly last week, the CEO of Netflix announced that they are making their streaming service available in 190 large and small countries from China to Somalia.

And just yesterday Netflix announced that they are signing up surprising numbers of subscribers in many out-of-the-way places.

Now people from Madagascar to Reunion Island can catch Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards.

"They must have pretty good Internet connections," CEO Reed Hastings joked the other day when he learned that the Reunion Island folks were among the first to subscribe.

Now Netflix is scrambling to dub their shows in dozens of languages to keep up with the already burgeoning demand.

I remember back in the day, when nation-buidling still seemed to some like a good idea, that the thought was that if we could help bring versions of Western democracy to underdeveloped places such as Iraq, Syria, and Libya young people especially would clamor for MTV and once they could tune in all would be well in the world.

We see now what that culturally imperialist and naive strategy has yielded. Among other things--ISIS.

Now here comes Netflix.

To some in Yemen, seeing the evil Kevin Spacey character, fictional U.S. president Francis Underwood ensconced in the White House, will feel that what they believe to be true about our actual president is in fact true.

December 12, 2013--On Demand

We're trying to cut back on our TV watching; but with all the newfangled ways to watch, this is proving to be difficult.

Our cable systems both in New York and Maine for some years have offered On Demand as part of their basic package. It in theory allows one to watch favorite shows after their initial broadcast date, and so if you were out late on Monday night you could catch Dancing With Stars later in the week. I say theoretically because we have used On Demand only sparingly since I've not always been able to figure out how to make it work and at those times I was able to, On Demand service often was experiencing technical difficulties.

But recently, either I've gotten better at this or they have improved their service and so we've been glued to the screen more than we would like.

Homeland has contributed to our undoing.

We'd been reading and hearing about it for quite some time and, desperate to find something decent to watch, and not interested enough to even check out the Duck people or the Kardashians, we reluctantly subscribed to Showtime so we could watch the first two seasons via On Demand.

There are 13 episodes a year and we knew that if we got hooked we'd have to watch two year's worth,  26, before being up-to-date sufficiently to enjoy the current, third season.

And hooked we became even before watching half of the first episode. We fell quickly in love with Carrie, Sergeant Brody, and the Mandy Patinkin characters and stayed up until 1:00 AM, intoxicated after watching the first four episodes.

Rona said to bleary-eyed me, "How about one more? Just one more?"

"You said that at 11 o'clock, two episodes ago, and here we are and it's well past midnight. We can always . . . There are more than twenty . . ." I think those were my last words before I nodded off.

When I got up at later in the morning, about 6:30, unusually--since Rona likes to sleep to at least 8:30--she was literally lying in wait for me.

"Are you OK?" I mumbled, half-asleep.

"I'm fine. Just waiting for you to get up so we can watch a couple of episodes before breakfast."

"You've got to be kidding. Can't we wait until after we've had coffee?"

"I thought we could then finish the first season. We'd only have seven or eight to go and . . ."

"Seven or eight translates into seven or eight hours! Are you sure that . . ."

Rona was already heading downstairs to get the coffee going.

We gulped our coffee and by 7:30 I was fiddling with On Demand--which fortunately was working--and we plowed through the rest of the initial season.

"And then this evening we can get started on season two," Rona chirped.

This was two weeks ago. By now we have watched both the second season of Homeland and are up to date with this year's episodes--three to go. We are on tenterhooks to see what will happen to Brody in Iran. Will they kill him off? Will he rehabilitate his reputation by helping to overthrow the Iranian government? Will . . . ?"

And while we've been at it, to be able to tune into other TV shows we missed, we subscribed to Netflix and got our hands on all 13 episodes of House of Cards, which, as with Homeland, we joyfully watched marathon-style. Kevin Spacey is so deliciously evil.

Eager to be set for season two, I did a little googling and found that Homeland was not released in the normal way--assuming anything of this sort is normal these days. Produced by Netflix itself, not a traditional source of programs, all 13 episodes were released the same day--February 1, 2013--which meant that someone thus inclined could watch all 13 that day or in any way they wished to space them out: two at a time, one-by-one each week at the same time like a normal TV series, or whatever.

"Welcome to the brave new world of TV," Rona said when I reported this to her.

"Actually, it's welcome to the brave new world of the Internet since I'll bet most of House of Cards' younger viewers watched it on their computers."

"Or smart phones or tablets," Rona added. "Whatever those are."

I have a friend who works for a technology start up. I asked him, "Is it true that you can work whatever hours are best for you? From home as well as the office? Do they give you free snacks and take care of your dry cleaning and pets?"

"I don't have a pet; but, yes, I can bring my dry cleaning to the office and do my thing from anywhere. That's the way I work," he said, sensing I wasn't getting it.

"And the people you report to are OK with that?"

"As long as I get the job done and they like my work product. But, you know, there's a new manager who wants us to work more collaboratively, including taking breaks at the same time so we can have coffee together and chat."

Since I had been thinking about TV, I asked how much he watched.

"Quite a lot, though I don't actually have a TV. I pretty much stream everything."

"I was wondering about that," I said and told him about our experience with On Demand and Netflix.

He smiled, amused that someone as technologically skeptically and illiterate as I would be venturing into this new territory. He didn't have to add--someone from my generation!

"Here's what I worry about," he is informed and well-read for someone from his generation, "I'm concerned that these ways of working and entertaining ourselves are contributing to a generation of people who have no ability to suspend gratification--that we're becoming an on-demand world."

"That concerns me too."

"A nation of people bowling alone."

With his thoughts preoccupying me, I still can't wait to see what happens to Brody in Iran and if Kevin Spacey gets his comeuppance February 14th when all 13 second-season episodes of House of Cards will be streamed by Netflix.

"Get your rest," Rona suggested.