Why Continuum is my new favorite TV show

It's a rare thing, indeed, to find a television show that is smart, morally complex, surprising, supenseful, and entertaining.

It's even rarer to find said show revolving around a female lead who has power and agency and is emotionally resonant as a full human being.

That is why I love Continuum.

Here's the pitch on the show's 'about' page:

When a group of fanatical terrorists escape their planned execution in 2077 by traveling back in time to 2012, they inadvertently take City Protective Services officer Kiera Cameron with them. Trapped in a more “primitive” past, Kiera infiltrates the local police department to try to track down the terrorists before they change the course of history.

But this only tells part of the story. The brilliance of this show is in the moral dilemma it presents. 2077 is a world where the corporations have won. They control world governments and make all the decisions. It's not quite a Hunger Games dystopia--we see snatches of life from 2077 where people live the way people have always lived, but democracy is a quaint idea whose time has essentially come and gone.

The terrorists (Liber8) are people who fight against corporate control and while we clearly don't sympathize with their methods, it's hard to argue with their desperation and beliefs. They believe they are fighting for democracy and freedom.

When Kiera lands in 2013, her goals are to apprehend the escaped terrorists and try to find a way back home, both for her own sake (her husband and young son are in 2077) and for the sake of bringing the terrorists to justice.

But (and here's where the show edges into uncomfortable and important territory), she starts to see where their ideals and hopes are not necessarily the evil she has fought all her career.

The show doesn't make it easy to sympathize with Liber8. The group's members include amoral killers and manipulators, but the line between fully right and fully wrong isn't so easily drawn.

The other reason this is on my must watch list? Kiera, the lead character. She's resourceful, smart, skilled, brave, and thoughtful. Many of her actions are morally ambiguous (lying, stealing, taking liberties with her future tech to get answers) and yet we root for her. She's struggling to make the best of a difficult personal and societal situation. Plus-a-million to the showrunners for NOT doing the typical love interest story around her 2013 police partner.

So, if you're looking for a new show, you could do a lot worse than Continuum. I'm just not sure you could do a lot better. And it's been picked up for season 2. Yay!

Why I love local--a bank story

So in the continuing effort in settling our insurance check issue, I need to send the mortgage company copies of all the checks I've written to the contractor so far.

Should be simple.

We have online banking and our statements are delivered as PDFs.

So I logged in, only to find that the images of the exact checks I need (okay, not all.  To be fair, only 4/5 were not there) unavailable.

Sigh.

So I called the bank, hoping they could help me.  Hoping that I could get the copies today.

And HUZZAH! they could.  The customer service gentleman provided timely, efficient, and polite *service* (I know, what a shocker!) and copies of the checks I need will be at the branch office in 10 minutes.

No fuss, no muss, no bother.

And *that* good people, is why I bank with a local bank.

Credit, where credit is due

photo by Robert France, used under cc license

When I was in Western Mass 2 months ago, I found this mug at a little store in Northhampton.  It materialized into my cart and I bought it as a Hanukah gift for my husband.  Because it was packed away in the back of my closet, it survived the fire and I was able to make him smile during that difficult first week.

Fast forward a few weeks later, and I noticed the design was starting to peel off the mug, even with gentle hand washing.  (These disappearing/reappearing design mugs are not dishwasher or microwave safe).  I emailed the company, The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, because it was unlikely I would get back to the place I purchased the cup.

To my delight, they answered me right away, apologizing for the defect in the product, and are sending me a replacement.

It's always such a joy to find responsive, gracious customer service.

And they sell really cool stuff!

Credit where credit is due

I had to abandon my beloved Palm Zire 71 a few months ago, after the conduits broke following a windows update and I got tired of spending the several hours it took to get them working again.

So I joined 'the dark side' and now use an ipod touch as my external brain.  For the most part, after the pain of the switch and struggling to get all my data from one platform to another, I've been happy with the touch.  Certainly, having email access in any wifi area is a convenient perk.  And having all my music at hand another.

But, I still morn the loss of my week-at-a-glance view that I had with my palm.  The apple calendar app for the touch doesn't have it.  Which seems really odd to me.  After all, it's just a database that is shown in multiple formats.  They have day, month, and list views coded.  Why not a week at a time?  Making new appts on the device without that is awkward.

So I was thrilled when I found a new app that has the week at a glance view:  Calendars by Readdle.  I purchased it, and after a little difficulty actually downloading it from the itunes store (it wouldn't load via my computer, no matter what I tried, so I accessed it directly from the ipod), got it set up in no time.

Happy me--week at a glance.  Worth paying $6.99 for to make my day to day life vastly easier.

Then I got greedy.  There were things I thought would make the product even better, so I decided to contact the developer.

I went on their website, filled out the contact form with my impressions and suggestions, hit send.  Didn't think I'd hear anything back.  Certainly I haven't from other companies whose software I've bought and used.

Well, I need to eat my words.  Not only did I hear back from them within hours of my message, they have asked me for my opinions and we have had several email exchanges.

Rarely, in this brave new world, do you find such responsive companies.  Kudos to Readdle for a product that is good and will be even better as they continue to develop it.