Mediagenic Monday

mediagenic ~ able to present a good image in the media

Well, last week was certainly a week. I tell you what.

The hubby took the week off for the bathroom renovation, even going so far as scheduling the plumber to come in to do his thing. So the first day he started to take out dry wall in preparation for removing the old tub and discovered this:

Fortunately it was not the extremely toxic black mould that forces people to abandon their homes, but it did set the work back a bit. And while the strapping did need to be reinforced, it didn’t have to be replaced. Mostly what was accomplished last week was removing stuff: tub, toilet, sink, medicine cabinet (which was trickier than you’d think because the light fixture was attached to it) - and ripping out dry wall.

So last week was all about removing stuff from the bathroom and re-enforcing the floor and walls. Right now it’s pretty much just a nice empty room. A little on the small side perhaps, but there’s not much we can do about that without tearing out some walls completely.

We have the tiles for the walls stacked up in the music room, the faucet for the sink and the toilet stashed in the work room, the new (to us) tub is in a trailer in the driveway, and the sink and the faucet for the tub will hopefully (knock on wood) be here this week. I have a fistful of paint samples to pick a new colour for the walls - paint and flooring are still on the “to buy” list.

I guess that’s just the nature of renovations, they take three times as much time as expected, and cost twice as much money.

Last night I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark during an Indiana Jones marathon (the Star Trek marathon having ended). It was maybe not quite as thrilling as the first time I ever saw it, but it was still pretty awesome.

And this was before the days of CGI (computer generated images) so the special effects really were special. That was a real person holding onto the whip being dragged under a truck. All those snakes slithering around in the Well of Souls were real. And I remember reading something about the lengths they had to go to, figuring out the timing to get that truck Marion was supposed to be in to tip over.

If that movie was made today I think some of the magic would be lost because computers would have been used for so much of it. A shame really. Just because we have the technology doesn’t mean we should use it. Which brings me to the other big happening last week, I finally broke down and bought myself a tablet:

It’s a Samsung Galaxy Tab E - whatever that means. So far I have figured out how to put a password on the screen, and take it off again because when the screen goes dark after 10 seconds of inactivity it got real old real fast, having to turn it back on and put the stupid password in. Then I figured out how to make the screen stay on longer. I can check my email, even send one if I’m feeling adventurous. And I can play solitaire on it.

I freely admit to being somewhat intimidated by this little piece of technology. I seriously have to sit down and have a look at the manual - I’m sure there are all kinds of handy dandy things I could be doing with it, if I only knew how.

I remember a time when computers were my thing. I knew all kinds of useful stuff about the technology. But then I let it get ahead of me and now I’m practically a luddite. However, unlike in those early years, today’s technology is so simple even children can use it - maybe I just need to find a child to help me. ;-)

And once I’ve mastered the tablet, can a cell phone be far behind?