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I don’t think I’m the only one who is not really taking sides in the high definition format war. I’m not so secretly hoping that neither one will last. I’m happy with my standard DVDs. I’m sure that when DVDs first came, out there were plenty of people who were content with VHS tapes, but I wasn’t one of them.

I probably won’t get my wish though. Blu-ray is out selling HD DVD and I heard somewhere that it is finally outselling VHS. The price of players is going down and it might be low enough to tempt me in a year or two. Even if I do start buying high definition discs, I won’t be replacing all of my old movies. At least that’s what I’m telling myself now.

The 4th of July was another lazy day this year, but it was still a lot of fun.

I slept late. When I got up I watched some more Jericho and read Fast Food Nation a little.

My roommate John and I finished the story mode of Rayman Raving Rabbids on the Wii. My opinion of it hasn’t changed – it’s fun, especially if you’re playing with others. We also played Super Mario Bros. 2, Justice League Heroes, and Mario Party 8.

I didn’t eat as much as I normally do on the 4th, but that could be a good thing.

Recently I started watching Jericho. In the first episode the people of Jericho see a mushroom cloud in the distance and chaos follows. I’m about 11 or 12 episodes into the season.

Man I wish I had been watching this from the beginning. It reminds me of the way LOST is at its best with all the mystery that unfolds over the course of the season. I think of the failed new shows that I started watching last fall: Vanished, Studio 60, Kidnapped, and The Nine. For some reason I never gave Jericho a chance. I guess when I hear that a show is on CBS I automatically dismiss it. When I started hearing buzz about it, I figured I would try to catch it when the DVDs came out. Then it was cancelled and I wished that I had been supporting it all along. Then it was un-cancelled and I figured I would start watching it now. There will be 7 episodes next season to wrap up unfinished plotlines. If those episodes do well, I think they may do more after that.

I’ve been watching the episodes for free on CBS.com. I found out quickly that CBS’s online video service (Innertube) is crap. I normally use Windows Media Player as my player. Each episode is divided into 5 parts. With the exception of the first episode, there always comes a point where the video starts buffering every few seconds. Usually this happens when you begin a new part. Sometimes if you start the episode over again and skip through the parts and advertisements to get back to the part you were on, everything will be ok. The good news is that if you click on settings and change your media player to RealPlayer, this problem is non-existent (knocks on wood). The problem is that I’m having issues with installing RealPlayer on my preferred multimedia machine. I have to watch the episodes on my laptop if I want everything to go smoothly and I don’t really like watching stuff on my laptop.

Anyway, I highly suggest watching this show. Here’s how you can do that:

• Buy the DVDs when they come out in September or October
• Watch it now using iTunes
• Watch it now on CBS.com (free if you have a computer and internet connection)
• Watch it on Friday nights when they start re-broadcasting the first season on July 6 at 8PM CST. (free if you get CBS)

I wanted to update an earlier post. I was slipping through the channels Friday night and noticed that we were getting The CW. YAY! I mentioned it to John and he said that he noticed a few days ago that we were getting it. Oh well. Now I can incessantly watch reruns of Girlfriends (just kidding) and Smallville in the fall. Now when is that season premiere?

I’ve never been much of a fan of Westerns, but I have seen a few in my lifetime. When I was really young, I saw Shane over and over again. I put it on Netflix recently so I can watch it again. I’m sure there was a lot of stuff on TV that I just don’t remember right now. When I got older I do remember Bonanza (or was it Gunsmoke?) coming on late at night on weekends. I didn’t watch it much, but it was good for background noise. Unforgiven was really good and now I want to watch some of those old Clint Eastwood movies.

Firefly had western elements and is probably partially responsible for my current interest in Western movies and series. What have I seen lately?

Into the West is a miniseries that I believe came on TNT. It’s comprised of 6 episodes that are an hour and a half each without commercials. It covers the American expansion into the West during the 1800s. I really liked this series. I did get a little bored with some of the later episodes, but that may be because I watched them all too close together. It’s definitely worth watching, however.

Broken Trail is a two-part miniseries. It was ok, but not that great. It’s about an uncle and nephew who rescue 5 Chinese women from a life of prostitution. Maybe I just had too much other stuff going on because I kept finding my attention drifting away.

I’ve watched the first 2 seasons of Deadwood over the past couple of weeks. I had heard so many good things and wanted to see it for myself. I didn’t like it much at first, but it grew on me. It’s still not the best show, but I’m fascinated by it. It’s an HBO show and they use a lot of bad language. It’s actually kind of annoying at times. Everybody and their mother seems to use the word “cocksucker” in every other sentence. It’s an interesting show and I’m glad that I’ve taken the time to watch it. The third and last season comes out on DVD tomorrow.

I got DirecTV a few days before The CW launched. Before then I had been without cable for about 7 months. Unfortunately for me, after The CW launched I discovered that it would not be offered on DirecTV where I live. The local CW affiliate (which I believe is in Columbus, MS) had not reached a deal with DirecTV, so I would have to do without. It seems hard to get good things in this town.

The only reason I would watch The CW is Smallville. It’s one of my favorite shows. I started watching right before the second season started and I’ve seen every episode. I have to go through more trouble than I like to see each episode and I often get way behind.

I decided to finally see if there was anything I could do about it. DirecTV has terrible customer service and the sound of this guy’s voice and the way he was breathing into the phone quickly aggravated me. He said that I might be eligible to receive one of their feeds from Los Angeles or New York. Unfortunately, he checked and told me that I wasn’t eligible. He then said that I could apply for a waiver from the local CW affiliate to see if they would allow me to receive the feed out of New York. The decision is solely up to the CW affiliate, but if they approve it, I would have to pay an extra $1.50 a month. I don’t mind paying that to see Smallville. The waiver could take up to 45 days to process. As long as it happens before the season premiere, it’ll be ok.

I hope the decision goes my way and for the first time in close to 2 years I can watch Smallville as it first airs. Has anybody else had any experience with this kind of thing?

Update, 6/14/2007
According to timeanddate.com, 45 days from this date is Thursday, July 12.

It seems like things are actually started getting back to normal after being shaken up for a while. I like it.

I saw Pan’s Labyrinth on 2 consecutive nights last week. A fairy tale for adults, huh? It’s definitely worth checking out.

We’ve been playing Rayman Raving Rabbids for the Wii. It’s a cool game. I’m not sure it’s as good as Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, but it’s a lot of fun nonetheless. Like Wario Ware, it’s more fun when you’re playing with other people. I think a sequel to this game was just announced.

Titan Quest was the game I ended up starting on the PC Friday night. I’m having fun with it. I’m not sure it’ll have the same replay value as Diablo II. I need to buy the expansion soon.

The season finale of Heroes was really good. A lot of people are complaining about it, but I don’t think they have much to complain about. There was much more closure in this episode than I’m used to seeing in season finales. Tonight is the LOST finale and maybe tomorrow I can watch the 24 finale that I missed on Monday. I hate that these good shows are ending for now, but I will have The 4400 and Kyle XY to watch over the summer.

I’ve been watching season 1 of Dead Like Me. It’s another one of those weird, good-but-cancelled shows that I find myself liking. I’ll probably be checking out season 2 soon and they recently announced that they are making a straight-to-DVD movie.

Work is going fine. I like being busy and I haven’t had anything to complain about in a while. It looks like there could be some cool new stuff coming up soon.

I think I’m launching a major household cleaning project within the next few days. We’ll see how that goes.

I changed my mind about waiting and rented the final season of Alias on an impulse. I just had to know how it all turned out.

I remember the first time I watched the opening credits during this season. I asked myself, “Who are these people?” The absence of characters that I liked and all the new characters kind of aggravated me. I didn’t really care about any of those new people. It was nice that a lot of familiar characters on the show made one last appearance.

Jennifer Garner’s pregnancy was written into the storyline. You don’t get to see her character go on many action-oriented missions for the first part of the season. That stuff was relegated to the new characters that I didn’t care about. The season was shortened, and I would guess that was also due to the pregnancy. It was a pretty good season overall though. Like the 4th season, this season redeemed itself in the end. It was a nice way for the show to go out.

I watched all 105 episodes over approximately 4 months. Not bad.

I held out for about 3 weeks before I rented the fourth season of Alias. I don’t really have a lot to say. I would say that it is the weakest of all the seasons so far. Sydney joins a black ops division and within the first 3 episodes all of our favorite characters at the CIA have been recruited into this new division. How convenient. There were some interesting storylines during the season, but there didn’t seem to any central storylines that tied together the entire season like there was in past seasons. The show did redeem itself during the last few episodes though.

One thing that Alias is good at is the season-ending cliffhanger. This season ended with another cliffhanger that makes me want to rent the next season just to see what happens. I’m already watching other shows on DVD now, so I think it really will be a while before I watch the next season of Alias.

I didn’t wait long before I jumped into season three of Alias. As expected, there were lots of twists and turns along the way. A good portion of the season was devoted to the mystery that was presented in the previous season’s finale. As with previous seasons, a few big name guest stars show up in a few of the episodes. Even though I have some complaints, it’s still a highly addictive show. One day I watched 7 episodes and on another day I watched 6.

Maybe I’m spending too much time watching TV. There’s something that’s currently being way overdone on TV and in movies. In the first scene they show the characters in the middle of some kind of predicament or important event. Then a message like “72 HOURS BEFORE” or “24 HOURS AGO” flashes on the screen and they flash back in time to show you how the characters got to the predicament that was shown in the first scene. Once they get back to that point they resolve the situation. This happened in a few episodes of season three as well as episodes of other TV shows I’ve seen lately. I get annoyed every time I see “X HOURS AGO” appear on the screen.

Other annoyances:

• How long it took to reveal mystery that I mentioned earlier
• How they can never keep the bad guys in custody
• How Syndey’s entire family seems to be involved in everything
• The stories people tell about events from earlier in their lives or earlier in the series that somehow tie into what’s going on in the present (fictional example: “When I was young my father would take me to the park blah blah blah [I zone out for a little while at this point] and since then I haven’t trusted him.”
• How they kept mentioning Sydney’s mother but never showed her
• The stuff with the mole

Things I liked:

• The guest stars
• Marshall is hilarious
• The action scenes are fun

Overall, I enjoyed the third season of Alias but I don’t think it’s the best. I will hold off for a while on season four so I won’t get burnt out on the show. There are other shows than this.