There are certain days in a girl's life that make you proud. Today, I beat Comcast!* Huzzah!

I finally have a cable box that works with Tivo, the TV, and the VCR (the DVD player is a separate thing completely).** And I even managed to figure out to get the picture clear again even though the Comcast lady didn't suggest the solution.

But the match was a close one: Comcast with 6 points (no On Demand for almost four years, first missed appointment, second missed appointment, Motorola DCH70 that hates my Tivo, snowy broadcast stations); Marikka with 7 points (get cable box that likes Tivo [3 points], solve connection problem [1 point], last word [3 points]). Although, technically, considering all of the problems, I feel like they won. It's one of those things when the battle is so exhausting that when you win, you don't feel victorious.

Now, off to watch the Watchmen trailer.

I should note that in spite of my many issues with Watchmen, I do want to see the movie. There is one plot point that I will never be able to get over if they keep it as Alan Moore wrote it in the book, but I have hope that they changed it. But, I should acknowledge that the issue I have with Moore's work is the issue I've had with V for Vendetta and The Lost Girls (which I know is pretty much just glorified porn): Moore either doesn't get women or he isn't a big fan of women. Evey of the book is a wuss, she's almost absent from her life and the decisions she makes, which I don't think would be true of a young woman who is in her predicament. Evey could have been a tremendously strong figure, but Moore made her so annoying that it took me months to finish V for Vendetta (and in spite of him, the movie made her what she should have been). I'll acknowledge that I'm probably not the best judge of The Lost Girls, I just didn't like it or care or find myself interested, but I just don't think I'm the intended audience. But with Watchmen, Sally Jupiter is betrayed repeatedly. Maybe that graphic novel was revolutionary, maybe it did change things, but it continued the tradition of shitting on the female characters. Sally's an interesting character until Moore does a "but guess what?" manuever. Her daughter, Laurie, is pretty much dull all of the time, but maybe she gave up because she was essentially an old blue man's sex object for years. Who's interesting in Watchmen? The guys. Hell, even the boring Night Owl is more interesting than Laurie. Anyway, I have a glimmer of hope that someone changed the big betrayal or lessened it at least.

But why can't Moore be more like Neil Gaiman? Gaiman clearly gets women and likes us. Anyway...



*Yes, I pay them an exhorbitant amount for the limited service and damned crappy customer service (the lady tonight was holding a conversation with other people while pretending to give me instructions).

**No AV center. Yes, one might simplify our lives, but I beat the whole setup, so as long as we know how it works, that's all that's necessary. And I available to setup your cords to make five boxes work together without a sixth box.