Longklaw.com

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’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.

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.

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.

Last night I downloaded Punch-Out from the Virtual Console. I like playing these Virtual Console games because they give me a chance to re-experience parts of my childhood. I almost feel like a kid again.

I probably last played Punch-Out when about 16 or 17 years ago when I still had a copy of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. I kick ass at this game now. There were a couple of fights where I took some damage early on, but once I figured out their pattern or how to handle their special attack I did much better. I stopped at the point where you fight Bald Bull for the first time. I remembered all of the characters that I’ve come across so far, but part of me wonders if I beat them all myself or if I just watched my cousin beat them. Anyway, I’ll be getting back to this one soon. I wonder how much tougher it’ll be.

This has been kind of a rough week between lack of sleep and sinus stuff. I’ve had lots of fun though. I’ve spent many hours playing Valkyrie Profile 2 and may be starting Super Paper Mario tonight.

My new case and motherboard that I ordered from TigerDirect came in the mail the other day. I already received my new processor and video card. I’m moving the DVD burner, sound card, and hard drive from my old computer to this new one. Today I went to the new computer store and bought a cooling fan. I’m so eager to start putting everything today, but since I feel terrible I think I’ll hold off until the weekend.

The thing I miss the most about being a student is learning new stuff. Maybe I’ll take a class over the summer or in the fall since it would be free. I have learned a lot of new stuff at work but it has slowed down some lately. Thankfully, I’ll be getting something fresh and new to jump into within the next few days.

My roommate and I finished out second playthrough of Tales of the Abyss on Saturday. After all the time we spent on it I was definitely ready for something new. We went straight into Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria by Square Enix. We’ve played for a while and we’re already hooked. I think this will be a shorter game than TOA, but that’s okay with me.

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.