Snow vs. No Snow

Yesterday, it snowed. In Houston. In December. Is this another sign of the coming global apocalypse? I hope so. Of course, it's supposed to be in the 70's this weekend again. That's more like usual.

Even though I've lived in Houston the majority of my life, it still amazes me how freaked-out-excited everyone gets at the prospect of an eighth of an inch of snow. I guess it is pretty cool to get snow in this climate, but we must seem laughably quaint to people in the northern parts of the country.

But, like everyone else, I felt compelled to stand outside and watch it fall. I tried to get a few photos, but I don't think any of them turned out. Flower, our dog, completely freaked out. She's just now a year old, so this is her first real experience with cold weather, let alone snow. She was bouncing four feet in the air, doing somersaults, and darting in six directions at once at the speed of light. It was amusing to watch, but extremely frustrating to photograph.

In other news, I received the big TV yesterday. Woo hoo! Sadly, the reception is very weak with my current antenna. The interesting thing about digital broadcasts is that there's no snow. You can't get a weak, fuzzy digital signal; it's all or nothing. So even though the TV detected 40 channels, most of them only blink on for a fraction of a second. I'm hoping a new antenna I'm getting from a friend will rectify the situation.

Of course, I had to watch a movie on the new TV. Any guesses as to what it was? Believe it or not, I actually had trouble deciding which should be the first, but I guess it was inevitable that it would be Raiders. The really weird thing was, it was almost too clear. At first I had it set too bright, but even with the right settings it was just so crystal clear that it looked, well, fake.

One of the things filmmakers don't like about shooting on video, or even modern digital, was that the brightness and clarity just looked wrong. It's hard to describe, really, because film can look just as sharp, but there's clearly a difference. Anyway, with the new TV, a lot of Raiders started to look as though it had been shot on video. That was weird! The sets were too well lit and looked just like sets. Too much detail actually made it worse. There's something to be said for rough edges, items out of focus, and general murkiness in a movie.

I still have a long list of movies that I can't wait to watch on the big (home) screen. My TV isn't even that big, actually, but it's in such a small room it seems HUGE. It's great fun. I think the next one I'll watch will be either 2001 or one of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'm really looking forward to seeing Wall-E, but I think I have to wait for Santa to bring it to me.