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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.

One bad thing building a new computer is having to install all the software you like to use. Usually whenever I have to reinstall Windows the first thing I do is download all those Windows updates. Then I’ll install a few programs I use a lot right away and install other programs as I need them. Traditionally the first software to get put on my machines are Microsoft Office, chat programs, photo editing software, and maybe some media players. Sooner or later I would get around to reinstalling games. These days I don’t chat online or edit photos much so I don’t have an urgent need for them. Before I replaced my hard drive at the beginning of the year, I took screenshots of my Program Files directory so I would have a list of the stuff installed on my machine. That list got neglected and eventually thrown away.

The “important” software I’ve installed so far is iTunes, Office, Gmail Notifier, Xfire, and Titan Quest. Maybe I’ll have an install marathon this weekend…or maybe not.

I graduated from high school 10 years ago this week. I’m not sure if it was on the 22nd or 23rd. Time really does fly. I haven’t heard anything about any kind of reunion.

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’m making this entry from my brand new desktop computer. I had planned on having this new machine built weeks ago, but I was delayed by slow shipment times and some complications. I tried doing something like this several years ago but I didn’t really know what I was doing and I ran into so many issues that I just ended up ordering another Dell.

I bought a new video card and processor. I used the DVD-RW, CD-RW (not sure why I still have both), RAM, and hard drive from my previous desktop. I’ll probably be upgrading the RAM very soon.

I learned a valuable lesson during my computer project: you get what you pay for. I don’t know what I was thinking. I bought a barebones kit. I was trying to be cheap and not spend a lot of money on something that may not work out right. Of course, it didn’t work out. After all the diagnostic tests, reading the manuals 50000 times, and seeking advice from others I realized that the problem was most likely crappy equipment. The good thing is that it didn’t cost much to learn that lesson. The second time I ordered more reliable parts. So far so great. The only complaint that I have so far is that the machine is a little loud.

Hopefully, I’ll be playing Oblivion, Titan Quest, or the full version of Prey for the first time tonight. I still haven’t decided. Check out my Xfire profile to see if I’m up to something.

Saturday took me to County-Line Road and the Northpark Mall area. I hit all of my favorite stores, but I didn’t buy much.

I went to see a movie (28 Weeks Later) at the theater across from the mall. Before the theater in Clinton opened, my friends and I always went saw movies there. The last time I had been to this theater was the summer after my freshman year in college when I went to see Armageddon. I got to see a 4th of July fireworks celebration at the mall after the movie. Memories…

After I been away from Northpark I headed back that way. In the parking lot, I saw a police car parked next to 2 cars. I assumed that there may have been an accident. I then noticed someone sitting on the ground and wondered if someone was injured. I looked over and saw someone on the other side of the car lying on her side. This is when I noticed that the guy who was sitting down had his hands cuffed together. An officer was reaching into the police car for some reason. I didn’t stick around long enough to see more of what was happening.

It was good seeing Jackson and Clinton again. I bought stuff for me, for my mom, and for my roommates back in Starkville. Enough shopping for now. I’m glad that I’ll be able to see Mom on Mother’s Day. However, it’ll be nice to go back to Starkville and get back off the road again.

On Friday I made what will probably be the last trip I make to Metrocenter Mall in Jackson for a long time. I think I last went there around Thanksgiving or Christmas. When I was growing up, it was the mall we went to the most. I spent so much time there. It was closer than Northpark, it had a decent selection of stores, and there were other good stores in the area. Things have really changed. It seems like more stores have closed every time I go there. It’s not that I had any hope of it getting better; I guess I just wasn’t expecting it to keep getting worse. Now I hear that Northpark is becoming the new Metrocenter.

My sole purpose of going by Metrocenter was to find a TV show on DVD that I could use to pass a little time tonight and then take back with me to Starkville. I checked Wal-Mart and didn’t find anything interesting, so the mall seemed like the next best thing. It turns out that the music/movie store (I think it was an FYE) has left since the last time I had been there. What kind of a mall doesn’t have a music/movie store? Even the mall in Columbus has one. The Waldenbooks and the cookie store that I used to always go into are still there, but I wasn’t interested in those this time.

Oh well. If only I hadn’t talked myself out of buying X-files when I was in Dogwood Festival earlier in the day. I ended up going to Blockbuster and renting Into the West, which has been in my Netflix queue for a while now.

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.

What a long name! I’m continuing my tradition of going completing single-player games that everyone else played years ago. Yesterday I finished KOTOR II. I think I started on in last fall, but stopped playing it for a while. Once I got back into it a few weeks ago, it became addictive.

I remember reading complaints that this game wasn’t innovative enough and was too much like the first game. If people liked the first game so much, then why complain if it is just like the first one? KOTOR II takes place a few years after the first game. The plot is related to the events in the first game. You visit some of the same worlds from KOTOR, but the scenery is new. A few characters make returns and you even get to travel in the Ebon Hawk again. I didn’t care much for the new characters. There was only one that was interesting to me. The missions were typical KOTOR/RPG stuff. I didn’t even bother trying to complete all of the sidequests. I can see why my friend Jason said that playing through the game was way too easy, but that didn’t bother me because it was still fun.

I took the dark side path and became a Sith lord. It was fun not having to be nice all the time. The ending seemed a bit anticlimactic considering all that I had been through, but I may have missed a longer ending because I didn’t pick the correct dialogue options at the end. In all it took about 51 hours to complete and it was well worth the time.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a real vacation. I’m talking about the kind where you go on a trip somewhere to have fun and have to spend the night away from home. The good thing about having a real job is that I have more money to spend on this type of thing. Summer is the best time of year for trips, so it’s time for me to start making plans. I’ve got all this vacation time accrued, so it’s time I start using it.

My roommate and I have talked about going somewhere together. We may end up going to a concert somewhere, but that isn’t the only option.

I also want to go to D.C. this summer. I have wanted to go for a while now, but things haven’t worked out so far. It should be a lot of fun.