Click images for desktop size: "Electrogoth" by Envy Since I've had access to the AppleTV i haven't even turned on a DVD player . . . odd that.
It makes me realize the importance of senses and the anthropological psychology of our senses.
Like we've all allowed to have rather lousy memories for sounds. We've all had a friend who we thought had died because we kept hearing the same song pour out of his bed room window, over and over again.
When you finally break in you find out there was nothing wrong. He just dug the tune. Couldn't get enough of it.
Or we've gotten into a car with a friend who played the same track over and over again, all the way to wherever you two were going and you were probably glad it wasn't any further.
If we'd evolved with auditory memory that matched our visual memory we wouldn't be able to do that.
Its like you can listen to a live concert of your fave band a few times without even blinking, but you'd be hard pressed to watch a video of the same show more than once or twice. You'd get bored and relate to editing gaffes instead of watching. Most often you'd end up reading and listening, or looking at anything except the image.
Its part of the power of paintings and photographs I guess, the ability to take you someplace, someplace new or the same familiar place, each time you gaze at a painting even though you know every pixel of the painting by heart. There's more than a certain genius to that, or else we'd all live in bare walled holes.
Our sense of smell is pretty terrible and we only seem to recall smells that are bad or great - a cess pool or your mom's cooking. Even though scents have a way of bringing up a bigger and wider range of emotional responses from us that come closer to re-experiencing the reality of a moment, of all moments connected to a scent.
And touch? Unless its connected to pleasure or pain who remembers a touch. Its why we can do all those cool nasty tricks with peeled grapes and things at Halloween.
All of that is why I don't get to stressed about my little blind dog sitting happily two inches from a wall, apparently staring at it happily.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Frank FrazettaWith as much effort as we put into communicating with aliens from outer space we don't put much time into communicating with the aliens we share the planet with. John Lilly, a cool enough guy, is the only one I know of who's tried to talk to dolphins.
Dolphins need talking to. There are legends about dolphins rescuing drowning people at sea. Every surfer has a story about some dolphin harassing or playing with them.
(Mine involved the dolphin with a nasty sense of humor. I was on dawn patrol when I saw a gray fin break the water line and come rushing at me. I pulled my feet up on the board and was getting ready to punch the shark in the nose . . . I read in a comic book or saw on TV about how sharks had real sensitive noses and you could not them out with the right punch! The fin submerged. I looked around fearfully and waited for panic when my board was suddenly capsized from underneath. I thought I was fish meat. When I broke the surface the dolphin was up there laughing at me. Laughing at me . . . he spent the day catching every wave I caught and being a real pain in the neck. He seemed to love it best when he could cut me off and create a wipe out . . .)
There an animal with intelligence, at least as much intelligence as the gorillas who've communicate pretty effectively with sign language.
We don't pay much attention to this except as freak show stuff, like the tic tac toe playing chicken. I think it makes us uncomfortable. We're not a very secure species, still clinging to the worries of survival and junk like it. We relate to animals best when we feel comfortably superior and can easily humanize them, at least to our conscious minds.
It seems easy to love something we are in total control of and can give ambiguous human traits to. Its a bit harder to love something that is alien to us. Like a dog.
When my little blind dog stares at the wall with a happy grin on his snuffling face he might not see the wall but I imagine he's got a world of other things to get so lost in. Smells that I can't guess at but that tell him stories and sing him songs. I'm sure he can hear noises that ell him absorbing dog stories, or else why is he so easy to startle when I call to him.
He likes to stay close to me because the other dogs don't tread on him. I'm the for sure alpha dog around this house anyway.
He knows I'm the source for food and pets. And in some canine way he loves me. That doesn't mean the blind little guy doesn't try and escape at every given opportunity. Not to run away but to go find new smells and to hear new things.
This is all the junk you think about on a rainy Sunday morning. Nasty cold day so that even the dogs don't want to go outside.
I need to heal. I think I've been tearing my body up pretty badly with all the yard work. My hamstrings are singing off key
Click images for desktop size: "Feeling My Age" by Anonymous arias to my calves and my hands are clenching and cramping begging to rest.
So it might be just time to watch a lot of movies. Consider finances.
I going to move the house internet connection from the monster monopoly phone company to an independent ISP . . . I'm nervous about this. The internet is the way I communicate, get information and survive and function, I think. Since were doing that we're also going to dump the land line and go to VOIP. I had Vonage before. The service was a tick better than acceptable. It would have been fine except the customer service department were the biggest jerks ever. Sales people should not be called customer service. It bothers me when I understand a tech better than the paid employees who are supposed to trouble shoot the problem, and keep wanting me to buy more services when I struggling with the existing services, but maybe this time it will be okay.
I have to figure out finances. Its a logistical issue with my credit cards and cash availalbe. Th savings become significant if I pay for a year in advance. I mean like over a grand for the year significant. But its hard to come up with the front money. Got to figure it out. Which isn't that big a deal. I just hope the service works well enough.
Other than that I plan to watch movies and sleep during most of the boring bits. I still haven't ordered or rented a movie through the AppleTV. It looks easy enough and maybe its time to try. The 99 cent movie special this week is "The Usual Suspects", which is entertaining enough and my eyes are bad enough to not remember enough of it so its a thought. Of course when I've got about 100 movies I haven't seen yet renting one just to check out the tech is a bit frivolous, even if it is only a buck . . .