From the home office in the Mill-Town...

Only threefour weeks late, but hey, who's counting.

Mike hit me with another tag from new father Jorge.

The idea of this list is to give 10 things you are unable to live without. The twist is that you can not include people or animals (not that this mattered to a heartless, materialistic person like myself, but still).

So, let's give this a go.

10 Things I Can't Live Without

1. My DVR. Those on Facebook have read bits and pieces of my ongoing saga with my DVR (current status: now functioning normally, except for a small detail of not producing any sort of sound at a normal volume level). It has taught me two things: To be thankful for re-runs and that I like the convienience of just pressing the record button on the program I want to watch a little too much. With baseball and the hockey palyoffs here, the ability to rewind to be able to watch plays over again while not missing anything is key. (Trust me, I used it about 500 times while watching Dice-K's start against the Blue Jays.)


2. My laptop. When I first got my laptop, I had intended on using it to replace my 4 year old desktop, but also for travelling. Then I got it and realized that a 17" screen might be a bit too big for travel. That would be the only downside to it.


3. My favourite blogs. From Paul Wells to Andrew Coyne to Perez Hilton and beyond, I am provided entertaining and thought-provoking reads. Then there's my friends blogs, which let me know what they are thinking at a particular time. Not to mention the Hunter and the fine folks over at Two Way Hard Three. And numerous others that I am forgetting. Blogs provide a diverse range of thoughts and opinions, and can make you look at things in a different light.


4. My MP3 player. (A Creative Zen Touch, to be precise.) At work it lets me listen to my favourite podcasts, along with listening to music. It's indispensible for any sort of lengthy travel as well.


5. Air conditioning. As cold as it can get for 8 months of the year up here in Canada, the other 4 months tend to get warm and humid, which I don't like. Air conditioning lets me be comfortable indoors for 4 months of the year, which is all that I ask for.


6. Vacation. I like to travel. New places are fun to explore, while familiarl places are also fun to go back to. Getting to know a city can be its own reward as well, whether it is finding an area that I haven't seen yet, or if it is going back to a favourite place..


7. Alone time. I'm separating this from vacation, even though they are kinda related. One of the other reasons why I like vacation is that I get time to myself. It gives me a chance to recharge and refresh. And I know that I need this time, so it's always a pleasure to get it.


8. Games. No specific one, but all games. I am a competitive person at heart. Unfortunately, my athletic career (which is a term I use extremely loosely) was derailed by a combination of recurring knee injuries and assus lardius (the latin term for my particular condition). So games give me an outlet for my competitive streak. Not only that, but the also help to improve my critical thinking. 99% of all games involve some sort of decision. And the best way to approach those decisions is with a logical progression, and then look at the decision again.


9. Heroes and Friday Night Lights. This is probably better stated as "quality entertainment", but these are the best shows to have debuted on television this season. On the surface, these shows have very little in common beyond being dramas on NBC. Heroes is based on a geek reality, where people are discovering that they have superpowers and have to save the world. Each episode has many plot twists that do not feel contrived when they are revealed. Secrets exist that the fans do know know the answer to. Meanwhile, Friday Night Lights is a drama based around the coach of a high school football team. While marketed as a sports drama, it is truly a family drama at heart. While serialized, the show does not rely on cliff hangers. So why do I have them linked? Because the reason both shows work are because of the characters and their interactions. Friday Night Lights might have the most realistic characters on television. None of the characters are cliches. They are real, and their reactions ring true. Heroes has one of the all-time great characters in Hiro. The chemistry between him and Ando could singlehandedly carry the show if the writers chose. Instead, they can barely appear in an episode because the rest of the ensemble is just as strong. I highly recommend that you find a way to watch each of these shows from start to finish.


10. Baseball. Baseball is a game of contradictions. It is a team sport, but ultimately it is played as a series of 1 vs. 1 confrontations between the pitcher and hitter. It is a game that you can look at statistics and get who is good and what isn't, but you will not understand without watching many games. And that's why I can't live without it.

So, who am I going to tag for this? We're going to go the famous route again, except for one exception. I tag:

• Graham


• Jenn Sterger


• Adam Daifallah


• Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada


• Garth Turner, MP (Liberal) for Halton
• 
  

I will update this page for their responses (if any).