Ahh. Yes. It feels so right! I don't know why I didn't do this a long time ago. We are off the grid, baby! We no longer have cable television at our house. Which means, as you know if you live in the Twin Cities metro, we no longer have a viable way to watch current television at all. I flipped through the channels using the remote that controls the DVD/VCR combo and it's all blue, blue, blue. Instead of sitting there helplessly hoping for something worth watching to be on, I simply switched it off. For the last time.

(I also accidentally broke the actual physical item known as a cable as I was pulling it through the hole in the floor to coil it up for the rest of our lives in this house, so going back wouldn't be easy.)

Of course, we have Netflix and will likely watch an episode or four of Star Trek: The Next Generation every week. Or a movie, or The Office (American, duh. Admit it - it's better.) or Curb Your Enthusiasm or Dr. Katz…but almost always with Bride and never with commercials. Sweet.

Incidentally, this post makes internet history. It is the FIRST and ONLY time that the full name of the television show heretofore known to netizens only as ST:TNG has been spelled out completely. Mystery solved for some of you, I imagine! You're welcome.

Oak Street Cinema You Were Awesome

Several memories...

Eat The Document, the rare Bob Dylan movie that is unavailable anywhere but somehow was shown once at Oak Street

Gigantic, the TMBG documentary

David Lean's epic masterpieces Bridge Over the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia in a double feature that was four times longer than most modern movies but never, ever even close to boring.

However, my favorite has to be The Last Word, starring Matt Wilson and John Munson as the Flops and Mary Lucia as the girlfriend, also not available anywhere and prefaced with a Wilson-Munson live acoustic show I got in the second row for after I stood in line in front of Wilson's proud parents. Priceless. Thrilling.

The Last Word featured the best line ever about a music career. Wilson is asked by his girlfriend's clueless, well-meaning parents if his music is "a career or...a hobby or...?" and he replies in a total deadpan "More like a horrible disease."

R.I.P. Oak Street you were truly awesome. One of a kind.