Whenever possible, I made it a point to dedicate hours in the middle of summer sitting in from of the TV when Shark Week rolled around. The only thing that kept me from watching it was if we didn’t have cable at the time.

It wasn’t too long before phrases like “lateral lines“, “tonic immobility” and “Ampullae of Lorenzini” became familiar instead of novel and obscure. While this is a clear sign that the education aspect of Discovery’s mandate is working, it also shows that there’s a lot of repetition in the content. Given how expensive it can be to produce good content — let alone good content on the water or hundreds of feet beneath the surface — there is obvious a certain degree of give and take to be expected.

We just have to accept that there’s going to be a certain amount of repetition in the content as well as multiple shows utilizing the same file footage of the random interesting rare thing that’s only been captured by one submarine at 2,000 feet that one time. We get it and we’re forgiving. Plus, if there’s an incredibly cool clip that we get to see a bunch of times, most of us will just enjoy the engaging rerun.

That all said, here’s where my complaint surfaces — it appears that at least 50% of all of the Shark Week content all revolves around The Great White and there’s very little new content being produced for it.

Before I dig any further, I want to say that I love white sharks. Absolutely every single thing about them is incredible and mind blowing and it’s great to see them getting positive press now and again.

With that out of the way, the main problem that I see with Discovery’s coverage is that there’s very little new science coming out about white sharks these days. The content mostly switches back and forth from “don’t look like a seal or turtle” and “most attacks are mistaken identity” and “blahblahblah rogue shark”. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, we got the Air Jaws phenomena and now every time we see a white shark introduced it’s a 16-footer that’s at least half out of the water, trying to eat a rubber seal and traveling in such slow motion that Pam Anderson would even embarrass to be seen in. Now don’t get me wrong — the first time I watched white sharks breach, I was completely captivated and locked to my TV. But at this point, how much new content is really being produced? The programs that Shark Week runs aren’t even 100% new material. We have many programs airing in prime time slots that have been shown all year long.

It all boils down to this: Discovery, if you’re going to dedicate such a HUGE percentage of  your coverage to such a narrow portion of all possible topics that “shark week” could entail, then you need to generate new and captivating content to air.

While there’s a need for the occasional high-drama show like Air Jaws now and again, that documentary was still a great balance of action and scientific content. When the show ended, I felt both entertained and informed — which is the exact formula that I think all Discovery programs should strive for. The problem is that those of us that want to learn something are being hedged out by content that’s catering to those that want to see crazy great whites do crazy shark things. It feels like the only really solid scientific content I see on Shark Week comes from the reruns that I’ve already seen from years past.

My suggestion to you, Discovery, is to put more money into research and write checks to those scientists that are in the field without camera crews. The documentary expeditions that you do are great, but it’s only part of the puzzle. It’s the boring lab work and tedious field work that nobody wants to see that ultimately breeds the sort of content that makes a great program. Given this, we need to reward these people by supporting their work directly — and being a huge benefactor of their work, it’s only fair for you to contribute more and contribute directly to it.

I don’t need another animated Megalodon special. I don’t want Mythbusters or Mike Rowe as hosts. Give me real science. I want to learn something again. I want my Shark Week back.

All-in-all, I tend to prefer buy-it-now “auctions” since they’re almost always simpler, faster and you don’t have to deal with other people that bid in stupid ways. I’ve recently been buying Magic: the Gathering cards and where possible, getting multiple cards from a single seller to reduce shipping and handling costs. It’s been working out well so far.

Unfortunately, most sellers seem to not properly set up the shipping configuration properly so I always have to “request total from seller” to get the proper shipping cost for multiple items. A minor inconvenience, but nothing too severe.

For one seller, I’ve requested a proper shipping cost five separate times over the past 12 days. That’s almost two weeks with no response at all. Unless the seller simply doesn’t have the items that they’re selling, I can’t understand why they wouldn’t respond to my requests. I want to give them my money, after all!

Oh well – I hate having to get to the point of giving negative feedback, but I don’t feel that I had any other option. Lame.

That all said, in the past couple of months we’ve seen some really huge temperature swings. Today flirted with 70 degrees while Wednesday won’t hit 50. That’s a twenty degree swing in two days – at the highs. If you look at today’s high (69) with whatever Wednesday night’s low is, and it might approach a 30 degree swing in 60 hours.

This isn’t the fucking desert – this is Sparta! Boston.

Now, I love warm weather. I really do. I’m not complaining that it was almost 70 degrees today. I can definitely do with some more warm weather – especially in November. But this constant rollercoaster has to end. I’m sure it’s not good for what little local wildlife we have and it’s just annoying as hell.

Seriously – make up your damn mind already!

I was asked to take a survey in my email this morning. Surprising for only being awake 15 minutes, I felt like contributing.

Apple Feedback Survey Screen Shot

Click for a larger image.

Seriously, this is one of the biggest things that drives me nuts about the Apple store. I just want to go in and make a purchase — like any other normal store in the world. I don’t want “an experience”. I also don’t want to sit around while some young 20 something tries to make small talk with me and fails miserably.

I just want to say “this isn’t working because you’re an Apple Store employee and I’m not nor want to be one”.

…but I’m sure it’d just be a waste of time — like the entirety of the Apple Store “experience”.

The interesting bit was that when I hung up the phone, I received a message saying that I had 4 new voicemail message. Four. Seriously. And I was only on the phone for two minutes!

I’m not claiming that I’m super popular. The contrary is closer to the reality of the situation. The deal is, the oldest one was from September 20th. That’s over two weeks ago — and I’m just NOW getting the alert that I have voicemail messages.

It’s not like I’ve flown or been in any out of service areas in that time. There’s simple no excuse for not receiving a notification for four voicemail messages for over two weeks.

I’ve already been considering moving away from Virgin Mobile — this is just one more big push in that direction.

For anyone interested, the only reason I’m on Virgin is because they bought out Helio, who I was a customer with by choice.

What idiot can't spell the word for what they do for a living??

How scary is that?

Not only does this person roll up and try to screw every other piercer at the convention by underpricing (and likely selling really, really shitty jewelry), but they don’t even spell PIERCING correctly.

Positive Image Tattoos, you’re a real class act.