I think we all need at least one really nice positive thing about the entertainment business every single day of the year, including weekends. Sometimes it may be something simple, like a video that showcases something fun and sometimes it may be a movie poster that embraces the aesthetic we all want Hollywood to aspire to. Sometimes it may be a long-winded diatribe. Sometimes it’ll be from the staff and extended family of CHUD.com. Maybe even you readers can get in on it. So, take this to the bank. Every day, you will get a little bit of positivity from one column a day here. Take it with you. Maybe it’ll help you through a bad day or give folks some fun things to hunt down in their busy celluloid digesting day.

1.12.11
By Joshua Miller:  Facebook

What I’m Thankful For:

My Laptop on the Airplane

There a various milestone in one’s life when a new piece of technology – whether it be new to the world or simply new to you – so radically alters/improves your life that even just a few years later you are hard pressed to remember how you functioned without it. For me their have been many:

My first bicycle
Inheriting my older sister’s private phone line when she went off to college
My first car
The Internet (I was a late adopter)
The cell phone
The iPod (how did I go to the gym before iPods?)

And more recently it has been my laptop, specifically as it serves me on airplanes.

I’ve been a laptop man since college, but only fairly recently has my laptop been light enough and had enough battery power to make watching DVDs on a cross-country flight feasible. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy reading a book when I travel, but that’s generally my time-killer of choice while waiting in the airport and taxing in the plane. Once we’re up in the air, and the pilot gives the go-ahead to use portable electronic devices, that book goes away and out comes my computer. It has completely changed my attitude towards flying. The first time I ever watched DVDs on a plane I had season 4 of The Wire, and I was actually upset when they announced the plane was landing – I was still midway through an episode! It took a moment for that to sink in, to realize that I was actually annoyed the flight hadn’t been longer.

Soon bringing DVDs onto the plane is going to seem passé. For I have tasted the future, and it is…

Free wi-fi on airplanes.

I say “free” because most airlines do currently offer wi-fi, but for an obnoxious price of roughly $15. But last month, as a Xmas gift (ie, promotion), Delta Airlines had free wi-fi, which I got to bask in as I flew back home for the holidays. It was amazing. I did a little work on CHUD. Farted around some favorite sites. I streamed some episodes of Arrested Development, and part of A Boy and His Dog before my flight ended. It was glorious; an entire lifetime of memories of trying desperately to fall asleep to make the flight go faster – gone. Now flying has become a great opportunity to catch up on a film or TV series.

So I am thankful for my trusty laptop, on airplanes and in general. It is the gun to my gunslinger.