Because these are cool!

According to Zap2it, Lost had 23.2 million viewers yesterday. Veronica Mars had 3.3 million. Those numbers sound like little Veronica is on her way to cancellation, but I assure you that is a decent rating for UPN.

I’ll bet you that the 3.3 million Veronica fans are very happy about their decision, as they got to see a wildly witty and twisty premiere that was anything but a letdown for us fans of the first season. Meanwhile, the masses watching Lost were “treated” to an on-raft bickering match that screamed out “time filler”, Sawyer digging a bullet out of his shoulder with his fingers for extra added dumbness, and a tiny tiny bit of the hatch storyline, which is currently the only thing the show still has going for it. In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I watched Lost first, but that is ONLY because I had to wait until my PVR picked up the 3am showing (stupid Chattanooga) and watch it when I got home from work. I’m not really bagging on Lost, as it is still pretty engaging, but I do fear for it’s future. I fear that it is going the Alias route of having a really great first season and then putting things on autopilot.

On the off chance anyone who I haven’t convinced yet wishes they had given the show a chance, many UPN affiliates are reairing the episodes during the weekend. Check you local listings.

Who knew Chewie was a LOOGY? (That is short for Lefty One Out GuY – a left handed reliever specializing in getting one out, just so all you non-baseball people know.)

It’s odd, because he shoots righty as evidenced here:

I smell a Santa Claus type conspiracy…I mean, there is no way he can be co-piloting the Millenium Falcon around the galaxy AND throwing pitches in Fenway Park, no matter how well the hyperdrive is working.

I really enjoyed standing in line to order lunch today, especially considering that it took about twice as long as it needed to. You see, these two nice ladies, who were just SO delightful, were having a devil of a time trying to order. So many choices don’t you know? Well, after finally deciding, it was time to pay. And these lovely ladies decided that they should split the bill. With two credit cards. But the really difficult decision was how were they ever to split a bill that came to $8.41? I mean someone was going to have to pick up an extra penny, so of course this resulted in more discussion and consultation. Meanwhile they had managed to hold up the line for so long that it now led all the way outside the front door.

I wish that this kind of oblivious behavior surprised me anymore, but it doesn’t. It does however, still irritate the living bejeebus out of me.

Finally, a ring for single people!

Singelringen is a company in Sweden that basically makes products that say to the world, “I’m single.” I have mixed opinions on the subject. In a way, it is pretty cool that us single folk can finally have a ring with which to thumb our nose at the world that looks down on us. But then again, I have a feeling that those Swedes aren’t actually trying to make life easier for single people, but are trying to exploit them by convincing them to buy a $50 ring.

Either way, the proposal has to be uncomfortable and creepy. “Left hand, will you do me the honor of wearing my symbol of singledom?”

Here is a helpful tech tip to anyone out there who is an idiot. Like me apparently.

I’ve been searching for a decent free RSS reader for a while. The live bookmark features of Firefox just didn’t cut it for me, I always felt like if I’m looking at feeds in a browser, I might as well just go to the website. I tried quite a few, and it always seemed like every one I’ve tried to date has been unstable, bulky, or just crummy. I was watching Call for Help last week and Andy had a little RSS primer. Lo and behold, what program was he using to demonstrate the technology? Thunderbird.

I felt like an idiot. I had no idea that Thunderbird handled RSS, I guess because I use Outlook Web Access at home so I’ve never really messed around with it before. It just never dawned on my that an email client would have RSS built in, but I should have known better I guess. Those rascals at Mozilla think of everything.

I was out doing my weekly Sunday morning errand running today and decided to swing by the Blockbuster. I normally avoid going to Blockbuster because it is on a busy road that I hate driving on, but with all the churchies off the roads on Sunday morning it was a great opportunity to unload the gift card that has been sitting in my messenger bag for the last six months. I pulled into their parking lot at 10:03am. Their sign said that they open at 10am.

Their sign was a liar.

So I still have a $10 gift card that will probably expire before I get around to using it. Stupid lazy Blockbuster (insert sarcastic tone here) workers.

Apparently, some of our friends over in Europe have no idea what a funnel cake is. I weep for them.

Funnel cake is a county fair / carnie food staple here in the states. Carnie food is a special category of cuisine that includes Cotton candy, elephant ears, and pretty much any kind of meat on-a-stick. The funnel cake is at the center of the carnie food universe, and is usually the only motivation for going to the Berrien County Youth Fair or whatever other such event that is passing through town. A magical combination of batter, sugar and hot oil that is one of life’s great pleasures. It derives it’s name from how the cake is prepared. Batter is funneled into a vat of hot oil and deep fried. It is formed into a ring type shape, retrieved with a metal basket when the batter has cooked, put on a plate and then covered in powdered sugar. Tremendous. My favorite memories of funnel cakes were the ones I used to get at old Comisky Park when I was but a wee lad going to baseball games with my dad. They always tasted so good on those chilly April days, and were a nice diversion from sitting in the stands watching Ron Karkovice strike out.

So do not fear the funnel cake just because you don’t understand the funnel cake. And do not cast aspersions on the funnel cake until you taste one for yourself. It might just be worth a trip to the states so you can sample one for yourself.

Why has the media hype machine always tried to convince me that Teri Hatcher is attractive?

She wasn’t attractive then:

She isn’t attractive now:

She was ugly in Seinfeld, MacGyver, Tango and Cash, Lois and Clark, and even now on Desperate Housewives. Her appearance in The Cool Surface and Heaven’s Prisoners made me want to put my eyes out. Never once have I looked at her and thought she was even remotely good looking. Look, I understand that the media wants an older lady to hang their hat on, someone to act as an example that middle aged women can be sexy and desirable. My point? They should try and find someone who actually fits that description.

Like Lena Olin.

I’m watching the Lost season premiere right now, and I’m trying to decide whether or not I like it. I really enjoyed this show when it started last season, but it wore on me as it went along. Strange things happening with little or no explanation, and new characters showing up all the time on a supposedly deserted island. I’m just not too sure how much more I’ll be watching unless some the show starts providing some resolution from time to time. Weird for the sake of weird doesn’t work unless you are Twin Peaks.

On the other hand, Julie Bowen is always welcome on my TV.

Time for me to start harping on it again. Yup, you get yet another season of me blathering on and on about Veronica Mars. Jeez, one would think you people would start watching just so I would shut up about it. But you don’t, so I press onward. The season premiere is September 28th and I expect you will ALL want to tune in.

I have begun to wonder if the reason people are so skeptical about this show is that they don’t understand the premise. For example, I was having a conversation with my sister over the weekend and I asked her if she was going to watch the season one DVD’s when I get them. She told me that she had no interest in watching “those kind of shows.” So after some further explanation, I learned that she was under the impression that it was a supernatural or science fiction / fantasy show. Apparently, the name Veronica Mars gave her that impression. I tried to explain to her that it is a mystery, just like Scarecrow and Mrs. King but with 100% less Bruce Boxleitner. So let me now be clear: Veronica Mars is NOT a science fiction show. There are no monsters. No ghosts. No vampires. No wizards. Only one guest appearance from Paris Hilton (who admittedly is a bit of a ghoul.) Veronica Mars is a mystery, with self-contained episodes that regularly reveal a part of the big season-long mystery. And it is great.

So I ask you to rethink your position and give it a shot. With season two right around the corner, now is the perfect time to jump in. If you want to watch season one first, the DVD’s come out on October 11th. So maybe you can record the season two eps, watch the season one DVD’s and then catch up on the new episodes. If you just want to start fresh, but want a little background info, Mars Investigations is a great site to use as a primer. The upcoming season looks to have everything you ever wanted in a TV series whether you knew it or not: Steve Guttenberg, guest stars like Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon in bit parts, and Charisma Carpenter in a bikini. So come on all you soon to be fans, jump on the bandwagon already! If you start watching now, you won’t have to read another entry like this next season. Otherwise, well, it is your own damn fault. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Built my bins over the weekend. I made the first one and had it filled up with just the leaves from my tiny front lawn. So I made another trip to Lowe’s for some more metal stakes and built a second one. Both bins hold about 80 cubic feet of material, which I thought would be plenty. However, I haven’t even started raking the backyard yet, and I fear I may need to make two or three more bins before all is said and done. Maybe I can just fill the backyard with bins, and then the leaves will just fall into them thus eliminating the need for raking.

I have a lot of leaves. Stupid trees…

I’m going to Lowe’s after work to pick up supplies for my weekend project–the compost bin.

With any luck, the rain will stop and I’ll be able to construct something that at least partially resembles the images above. I’ll post pics of my project assuming I’m able to construct something workable so you can all see what a tremendous craftsman I am. I’m not too worried about being able to build the bin as that doesn’t seem too complex. I am worried about whether or not one bin will be able to hold all the leaves that are currently covering my back yard. I may end up with a line of bins all across my back fence and be raking leaves to fill them up until January.

Wish me luck.

I’m assuming most of you have seen it by now, either plastered on every internet news site or on one of the thousand or so commercials that have run over the last week, but I need to talk about it a bit.

The iPod nano.

My initial impression is that as a device, it pretty much rules. It has photo capability with a color screen, a click wheel, no hard drive and it is not much bigger than the shuffle. Drawbacks? It is WAY overpriced from a storage standpoint. $199 for 2gb of storage just doesn’t cut it, especially when you figure you can get a 20gb iPod for $299. I don’t think Steve Jobs is too worried about them selling though, as the Mac zealots are already lined up with money in hand. I was disappointed that they discontinued the mini, as it could have continued to be a fine product with the addition of a color screen and flash memory, but I guess they didn’t want to take sales away from their new baby.

Here are a couple of interesting takes I’ve found on the web: systm produced a video where they disassemble it to check out the guts, and arstechnica has a review that includes a stress test and autopsy.

You know I’m running out of entry titles when I start quoting Men in Black.

New discovery of the week comes from a little IPTV show, commandN. An aside, commandN isn’t necessarily a great product, but it is short, occasionally has some good tech content, and Amber is a cutie. So there. Reader2 does for books what last.fm does for music–give people an easy way to share what they are reading / listening to. I’m excited about it and hope that maybe some of you will input your reading lists to share. It is a really good way to get ideas on what book to tackle next, as well as giving you a chance to ridicule friends for some of their questionable choices.

I have links to both my reader2 and last.fm page on the right hand column, but I’ll link them in this sentence for your clicking convenience.

It will be hard to be angry today, because today is a day filled with football. Lock the door and shutter the windows, my butt is going to be on the couch. Oh wait, my couch hasn’t been delivered yet…oh well, I assure you that I will find someplace to put it.

Considering that I have been raking leaves for the past two weekends, and nighttime lows have started to hover in the 60′s, it definitely is starting to feel like fall. Football is kind of the official changing of the seasons though, and I must say that I am pretty excited. Now if I just had a gallon of Michigan apple cider sip while watching games today…

The northern-most portion of Michigan’s mitten has loaned me a couple of friends for a few days, so blogging has taken a backseat to actual socialization. It has been a good opportunity to learn more about them, for example: my friend’s wife doesn’t like Men at Work. I’m trying not to hold it against her.

Shenanigans are in progress, and with any luck this won’t be my last post and we will all come out of it OK. Think good thoughts.

Now that iTunes 4.9 has been out for a while, I figure I might as well talk about podcasts. Yes, I know that iTunes isn’t necessary for podcasts, but for a lot of people it is a really good way to get into it without being very technically inclined, as well as their introduction to podcasting in general.

My current listening list is as follows:

Brill and Eric Watch TV – The only decent general TV podcast I’ve found.
Cinecast – Excellent quality, excellent content, one of the best podcasts out there for movie buffs.
Diggnation
Ebert & Roeper – Audio of the broadcast show.
Battlestar Galactica Episode Commentaries – I’m a nerd who loves scifi shows. Even mediocre ones. Shut up.
Security Now! – An excellent technical podcast. A must for anyone in the computer industry, and should be a must for anyone using a Windows PC.
this WEEK in TECH – My absolute favorite. A tech-based podcast with old TechTV personalities. Roger Chang says “I started using it two days ago and can’t stop using it!”
Today (BBC Radio 4) – A global perspective on big news stories.
TV Guide Talk – I’ve only listened to one episode, the jury is still out.

I have found them to be a nice change of pace from listening to music, while not having to deal with normal talk radio. I have a 10-15 minute commute to and from work everyday, so many of these podcasts are a perfect length for that time frame. Commercial free (for the most part) is an added bonus. Audio quality certainly varies from podcast to podcast, from professional to downright unlistenable.

Has anyone picked up on any podcasts? I’m interested what, if anything, you are all listening to.

Comments have been broken for several days now. Sorry about that. It is completely and totally my fault.

I hate not having anyone else to blame…

I’m an idiot, it is fixed, carry on.

A clip from NBC’s Katrina relief benfit last night. “Captain Conspiracy” Kanye West with a nonsensical rant capped off by the quote “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

2.8mb .wmv file

I swear Mike Myers has the same expression on his face that he had during this “Amazing Time Savers” sketch on an old SNL episode.