Shouzer

I’ve seen this commercial on CBS multiple times throughout the tournament. I honestly don’t know if it is a real promotion though.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Honestly, I understand Sci Fi’s desire to become more mainstream–they want to make more money.  They feel they’ve pigeonholed themselves by marketing only towards a niche audience.  But seriously, come on…  Syfy just sounds ridiculous.  And really, who’re they trying to fool?

Realistically, I suppose it doesn’t really make much difference for me.  If there’s a show I want to watch, I’ll watch it regardless of the network.  Then again, I assume I’m not the audience this new branding is suppose to attract.  Considering who it is supposed to attract, it’s probably only a matter of time before they start playing reruns of The Hills.

I tend to stay up late with the TV on, but much of the time I’m actually on the computer and not paying attention to it.  That means after something finishes playing, the TiVo will change to some random channel.  It’ll usually take a while, but eventually I realize somebody’s trying to sell me some sex pill (ExtenZe), some porn (Girls Gone Wild), or some get rich quick scheme.

After watching this shit in the background, I’ve decided I should write up some book with a bunch of weak “how to make money fast” ideas, and sell it to a bunch of bums with an infomercial.  I mean, come on, who falls for this stuff?  I saw one recently for something called “Jeff’s Shortcuts” and how it could make me a millionaire.  Seriously, you know Jeff is the only one making money here…

And I don’t really have a problem with that.  Good for him, I guess.  I’m just saying I need to get in on it.

NYTimes. Aaaron Sorkin. Obama meets Bartlet. Truly refreshing stuff.

OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

Read: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd-sorkin.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1222228800&en=007cf9e8faaaf52a&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin

I got a sweet bonus last week (I suppose all bonuses likely fall into that category), and like any good American consumer, I decided to spend a portion of it on stuff I don’t really need.  And, like any good American man, I decided to upgrade my home theater system (i.e. TV speakers just don’t cut it).

First on the short list was a decent receiver.  I went with an Onkyo TX-SR606.  It’s nothing super fancy, but it does a few things that were very important for me:

1. It has four HDMI inputs
2. It upconverts all my video and passes it out through one single HDMI to my TV
3. It supports 7.1 sound
4. It decodes Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD

Next up were the speakers.  I got the Definitive ProCinema 800 set, which is (only) a 5.1 set.  Originally I was looking for 7.1, but then I heard these at Magnolia and was thoroughly impressed.  According to CNET, they “redefined [their] expectations of what a small surround speaker system can do.”  I figure I can always buy two more later on, but I’d rather start with quality.

Unfortunately they’re not due here until Friday, but considering I got 0% interest until 2012, I’m willing to live with that.  I don’t seem to buy anything these days unless I get some 0% interest financing.  If they want to give me free money, I’ll take it.  Seriously, how can they afford that?

Oh, and of course I bought my speaker wire from Monoprice.com.  Nobody can beat them.  For real.  Nobody.

Anyway, it’s going to be awesome when I set this shit up and get some gaming in.  Nobody’ll be able to sneak up on me anymore when I’m playing CoD4.  Or, perhaps more importantly, I won’t be able to blame my deaths on that anymore… 

I rarely ever watch commercials anymore, now that TiVo’s got my back. It might sound stupid, but it would actually be pretty hard to go back to watching regular, live TV all the time for all my weekly shows.

I was made painfully aware of that this weekend while I was watching all the NBA playoff games. In the mix of typically horrible crap between the actual games, I happened to catch a few pretty good commercials. For the record, Kyle linked me to one of them first.

Here’re the links to the first, second, and third commercials.

I know I’ve been absent from the blogging world lately (*cough* Juvers *cough*) I’ve been studying hard for finals, but this deserved a post. I know Steph and Megan will appreciate the irony of this. Turns out that our chorus teacher that lasted one year was a contestant on ABC’s The Bachelor: London Calling. If that’s not funny, I don’t know what is. This woman was always complaining about having to leave “upstate New York” and move to southern Illinois. I had to check out the shows web site since I obviously did not catch the episode when it aired. Here’s a screen shot of her. I can only assume by the look on her face this is when she met “The Bachelor.”

Obviously since she is on this show her marriage to the classical saxophone player did not work out. Honestly, I’m glad. He was a real ass. Though, she must be happy out in LA now. Not in the simple, small town, rural southern Illinois. She always seemed to complain about that every day.

Anyways, gotta get back to studying. Last final is in two hours.

My TiVo flipped out on me the other day, and I have to admit…  I was scared.  I rely so much on that sucker that it would just be weird watching TV without it nowadays.  Seriously, people still watch commercials?  What’s up with that?!

Anyway, word around the campfire was that we had gotten some new HD channels the morning of the day this frightful event occurred.  Knowing that, I was surprised to see that my channels weren’t tuning.  I decided to just restart the TiVo (through the menu, of course) and hope the CableCARD would repair and give me my new channels.

Everything was going according to plan (which, in TiVo land, means waiting like 10 damn minutes for the stupid thing to boot), when out of nowhere my whole screen just turned green.  I looked up and read some goofy message about how there was an error it was going to try fix for the next three hours.  Huh?  What could really take that long?  I could wipe the whole hard drive and reinstall an OS in that time, no problem.  So what gives?

I started scouring the internet for clues and found a number of things, mostly related to people having dead hard drives.  Great, that bodes well for me.  But, suddenly and not more than 10 minutes later, the TiVo restarted itself and it’s been working ever since.  Crisis averted, I guess.

Kyle was explaning to me yesterday that oftentimes cable companies will broadcast a number of channels in HD for free. Typically this means all the major networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. As it happens, that’s the case for me with Comcast, and I didn’t even know it. I’ve had my TV for a month now, and I hadn’t watched any HD TV yet.

But late is better than never, I suppose. Right now as I type this, I’m watching the Broncos on Sunday Night Football in glorious HD. It’s really a huge difference compared to standard definition.

Now I just need the Broncos to get their heads out of their asses and finish this game out. So far it looks like they’re trying their best to lose. Two losses in a row is never a good thing, much less four.

I want to warn you this post is probably going to put the ‘ol spit glands in overdrive. You know, with the drool and such. It might not happen–it’s not really something I can promise. I just felt a warning was appropriate.

People who know me have most likely noticed I use the phrase “that’s how I roll”. So, I figured I owed it to everyone to know what that actuall entailed. This is what I came up with.

There’s my brand new 50″ 1080p plasma. It’s a Samsung FP-T5084, to be exact. It’s amazing. My buddy Ian and I beat Halo 3 on it last night, and I enjoyed every second of it more than I would have on my old 20″ RCA.

Every good TV needs a good stand, and this one is no exception. That stand is 62″ wide, and as you can see, every bit of that shelf real estate is used. From top to bottom and left to right we have a 360, PS3, Xbox, Comcast digital cable box, and my Media Center Edition PC (aka my mythbox).

Lastly is just a quick side shot to show off how thin this beast is. So far, I really couldn’t be happier with this thing. Also, I’d like to give a big “Happy Birthday!” to the K-man.

I got a letter today from my grandparents, one from my grandma and one from my grandpa. According to my grandpa’s letter, it was the first time he has written anything since he retired in 1990. I had never thought about it before, but it was the first time I had ever seen his handwriting. It was kind of cool to be the recipient of a letter from someone who hasn’t seen a need to write in 17 years.

In other news, I’m watching the Seinfeld now where Kramer has the idea to start a pizza place where you can cook your own ‘pizza pie’. Jerry claims that there is no one in an walk of life, under any circumstances, would want to cook their own pizza. Well, I disagree. I would love to cook my own pizza right now. I don’t have a kitchen here in Thailand, and I miss cooking a lot. It used to be very relaxing for me, and I really enjoy creating delicious meals. If I found a restaurant in Thailand that let you cook your own food, I’d be all over that action. There are cooking courses, but I’m get so much Thai cuisine that it’s not really worth learning to cook it at this point. Maybe I’ll take one in the last month I’m here so I can bring the goodness home.

My final tidbit is the slightly interesting fact that it is 29 C (84 F) in my apartment right now, and I’m getting cold. I guess I’ve grown somewhat accustomed to the heat here. I’m going to turn the A/C off now.

I’ve been reading that the Game 5 performance by Lebron was one of the greatest performances of NBA history. I’ve been reading this, because we still don’t have TV. My parents called DISH Network a while ago, for them to come out and install their satellites (or DISHes, as they must prefer). It was at this point that we were informed it would take about two and half weeks for them to get out here. What’s up with that, honestly?

So, I missed the game. I would have watched the game. I’d been watching a lot of NBA games at the end of school. I wanted to watch the game. But, I missed the game. Damn you, DISH Network!

I do not remember ever enjoying an NBA game quite like last night’s game one. Memo was dropping 3′s, AK47 was playing like it was 2005, Deron and Dee were doing their best Flyin’ Illini impressions, and Boozer grabbed enough rebounds to feed a small nation. Heck, even Harpring looked like he had some spring in his step. Golden State was their usual self — shooting 3′s, shooting 3′s, and then if that didn’t work, they shot some more 3′s. It would have worked, but D-Will’s testicular fortitude was put on display as he pounded the ball right at Boom Dizzle for a game deciding 3-point play in the final minute.

If you have ever cared for basketball, or if you have ever cared for sweet, sweet life itself, you need to be watching this series. I cannot stress that to you enough.

My family’s been sitting around for awhile now watching this show on the History channel (yeah, that’s how we roll) about the most likely ways for the world to end.  While some of the scenarios they mention are interesting, I find that for the most part the show is useless.  It seems that rather than spending their time describing the science behind some of the natural disasters they’ve mentioned, they’re trying to scare us.

Honestly, if a super-volcano erupts and covers the United States in eight feet of ash, I think I’m more or less fucked, no matter how much food I saved or how sturdy my bomb shelter is.  I’d much prefer them spend some time describing what would actually cause this catastrophe.  Unfortuantely, telling me that a lake of magma underneath Yellowstone is “overdue” for eruption doesn’t cut it.