Ah, September.

Bring on the TV...

Heroes, The Office, Earl, Simpsons, Family Guy, Battlestar Galactica, and today, while on a walk I see a bill posted for this.

The War
A Ken Burns Film
7 parts, starting 23 September 2007

I really dislike CSS.

Welcome to the newly redesigned site :-)

Editing the Blogger template was a challenge, to say the least. I haven't had to play around with CSS for quite some time and there are still some issues with the layout of the blog, but it looks pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good. If I continue to play around with it I might just figure it out. There are a few other things to edit with the blog, but it's about 90% done.

The Office season finale is tonight. Lord, beer me strength (to make it until next season).

Watching the Super Bowl in India...

...is a nice break to all of the cricket matches.

Go Hawks.

(it's Steelers 21-10 Seahawks right now)

WTF. No WRC coverage in the US this year

Speed channel is not showing WRC magazine this year. Those fuckers.

And I have no idea which network(s) is(are) showing it in Europe. I just hope someone over there is nice enough to share it via BitTorrent.

Argh!

At least the Dakar coverage on OLN this year was better than last year's.

Uhhh, Enterprise? WTF? (Spoilers)

Um, yeah, so... Remans are on Earth in the 40s apparently aiding the Nazis. Or, is it the 22nd century? I dunno. Damn confusing.

Good finale, though. I'm looking forward to the 4th season next fall. Can't wait!

Airline

Airline
A&E
Mondays - 10PM/9PM Central

Great reality show. I highly recommend it.

Great songs in commercials

So after reading one of SamTheButcher's journal entries and a comment of his regarding Bill Withers's Lovely Day being used in a Gap ad, I thought a little bit more about some of my favorite songs that have made it into ads in recent years.

Gap -- Busy Child, by The Crystal Method

Mercedes -- Whoever You Are, by Geggy Tah

Honda -- Bossa Per Due, by Nicola Conte

Apple -- Rock Star (Jason Nevins Mix), by N.E.R.D.

Apple -- Hey Mama, by Black Eyed Peas

Mitsubishi -- Days Go By, by Dirty Vegas

Mitsubishi -- Start the Commotion, by The Wiseguys


I don't watch a lot of ads these days thanks to the TiVo, so I might be missing out on more interesting music. Any suggestions?

And there was light...

It's so nice to finally see spring here in Seattle. What's not nice is that I have to be in bed by 9pm so I can wake up at 4am for work at 5am. Yeah, that sucks, especially with the long days we have this time of year.

I've been working on catching up on some video encoding I've been doing - taking every episode of the Simpsons Futurama and encoding them in 3ivx format for my own personal use. I also finally had decent enough weather yesterday to get out and mow the lawn. And, I spent some time yesterday finding a replacement light bulb for the HVAC controls on the Bernenwagen. Cracking open the center dash is interesting, but I didn't break anything. That's a first!

Speaking of lightbulbs, I had to get one for our fridge, as its bulb had burned out.

I have a doctor's appointment today at 3:15pm. I'm not looking forward to telling the doctor that I didn't get the prescription he wrote for me because my insurance won't cover the drug. I don't have $160 for prescriptions every month or two weeks or whatever. So, I have to go get myself weighed today. Eeesh. My weight seems to stay constant, at right around 380. At least it's constant. The last thing I need to do is gain more weight.

I've been watching Manor House a.k.a. Edwardian Country House. I just love how we Americans can import a show from the UK intact, yet change the name to some Americanized oversimplification, a la Junkyard Wars (Scrapheap Challenge). In any case, Manor house reminds me a lot of 1900 House. I wonder, why do I have to watch the British take these trips back in time? Isn't there anything like that here in the U.S.? Do we have enough of a past to really know what life was like 100+ years ago? Did we have the same sort of class structures that early 20th century Britain did?

And finally, a question I submitted to the P-I's Getting There column got published on Monday.

Ugh. American TV at its best...

Alright, so it's popular TV, and maybe a bit trashy, but I like American Idol. Last season's competition was pretty damn good, with some great singers. This year's been the same, although I'd say the singers are far better this year. But, from the boneheads at 19 TV Ltd (producers of the show) have banished Frenchie Davis from the show for working for an adult web site four years ago. Fucking ridiculous. This woman was probably one of the strongest singers on the show, and because she did this so she could stay in school, they fire her. Fucking ridiculous. I might stop watching American Idol altogether as a result of this. I doubt many others will follow suit, though. They might wonder months from now what ever happened to Frenchie, but the show will go on. How sad.

Kill your TV ads.

I'm so proud. I didn't watch the Superbowel this year. (Yes, that was a deliberate misspelling). Instead, I spent the morning catching up shows on the TiVo (Junkyard Wars, in particular). I caught two movies this afternoon - the forgettable cult classic The Wild One, and the somewhat interesting The War Room. I'm glad The War Room was only 96 minutes long. I don't know how much more James Carville I could've taken. I spend a lot of time watching TV, but the difference is that I'm watching TV shows, not TV ads. I've had the TiVo for about 13 months now, and in that time I'll admit that I've lost out on a bit of American pop culture. But, I still stop for the VW ads.

Speaking of TiVo, I'm heavily debating getting a TurboNet adapter. I want to get it so that I can dump my phone line once and for all. That's a cool $30 month that I won't have to spend for something I rarely use. Problem is, I've heard varied reports of success over at the AVS Forums. I'm going to have to keep researching. For those interested, I have a Series 1 Philips HDR212 TiVo, which is still stock.

Another exciting work week starts up tomorrow. Woo! At least I have this to keep me entertained until then. :-)

Ship Happens

So, this is the first entry. I'll keep it short and sweet.

Been watching The Ship on the History Channel. Quite the show. It's got its fair share of drama and intrigue, and even though I'm more of a technology lover, it holds my interest. Thank goodness for TiVo. What the hell was THC thinking, putting 3 episodes of it (2 1-hr and 1 2-hr shows) on Tuesday?