Tommia's Tablet

RBF – Really Bland Face

So, made the mistake of turning the television on, only to be bombarded by “Summer Finales” and “New Fall Lineups!” To hear “The best __ of the year…” becomes a dull joke after a while. It appears some movies I thought were new are only remakes of ones recently released. What some networks call ‘comedy’ I call confusing. And this is just broadcast television (forget cable)!

Then again, I knew there was a reason why I prefer DVDs from the library and Netflix for offering the familiar.

How do you feel about the ending summer series/start of fall season?

Make Mine Music by Tommia Wright

Remember the show, “Name that Tune?” Granted, how it started in the 50’s differed from the one I grew up with. Supposedly, they brought it back a few times since then. I wonder what the show might look like now…

Can you name a game show (outside of “Jeopardy”) that focuses on what a person knows, rather than trying to humiliate someone?

Trail Travel by Tommia Wright

I’ve always enjoyed Robert Frost’s Poem, “The Road Not Taken.” Hard to believe it’s been 100 years since its first publication.

And now David Orr says I (and many readers) have gotten it wrong all this time. While the essay is interesting, and the letter exchange between Frost and the original recipient enlightening, I don’t think I want to give up my initial interpretation.

Have you ever come across an essay/story that challenged you to change your mind about a favorite piece?

Music-go-round by Tommia Wright

I received my reminder of free downloads from Freegal.com – courtesy of my public library. Yes, it’s nice to have access to a large portion of the Sony Music Library, but an interesting question arose: are the artists receiving their fair share?

Mind you, I like Freegal because it is a free legal music service that lets me sample new things at no costs and most of the music I will buy will be still be on CDs. I do have an iTunes account, but make my purchases there sparingly. Yet, my brother’s introduced me to Pandora, a friend’s introduced me to Google Play – and I foolishly subscribe to the latter.

Read this on the Forbes website this past weekend: “Is $10 a month too much…” It’s a good question to consider, since public radio still exists (unless you like to subscribe to XM Sirius or something like that. I like to support my local classical music station and gladly send the monthly donation for that).

At what point is the price of music too high?