Television and Movies

TiVo (14 of 30/80 of 274)

April 14, 2009 by kathi

It might come as a surprise to know that we haven’t made the move to HD TV here yet. Our television sets generally die at that inopportune moment when new technology is either too expensive or too rare to consider purchasing. Our current television is still working fine, and was purchased when HD TV was still way overpriced. We may not make the move to HD TV until this set breaks.

So I haven’t had a need to upgrade our TiVo to the HD version. In fact, I really haven’t thought about our TiVo much at all, except to program in our season passes. We have had a TiVo since the Philips Series 1 versions. The lifetime subscription cost only $199 back then, and when we bought a Series 2, they were still offering a one-time subscription transfer at no cost. Since lifetime means the lifetime of the equipment, not the owner, yes, we did pretty much luck out.

But I am not here to brag that I haven’t paid for TiVo service in almost ten years. I’m here to say how silly I feel that I hadn’t looked into, and am not making use of, many of the capabilities of my older TiVo system.

After the hell that was attempting to connect a PS/2 game console to our wireless network, I have never attempted to connect anything else that wasn’t a plain old laptop or desktop computer. That includes the TiVo, and apparently a whole bunch of capabilities such as movie downloads, photo and web video viewing, mobile access, and scheduling from the web will be available to me upon connecting the TiVo to the home network.

So I’ll be shopping around for a network adapter, and getting TiVo on our network this weekend, just out of curiosity if nothing else. Scheduling recordings from the web will be worth it, at least!

TV break (7 of 30/73 of 274)

April 7, 2009 by kathi

I’ll be playing catch-up with my 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge assignments after I get this post for NaBloPoMo in. Looks like I’ll be just under the wire with it, too.

Tonight’s big draw for me was the season premiere of Rescue Me. The 2008 season was missing in action due to the writer’s strike, so we have an extended 2009 Season 5 to look forward to: 22 episodes. So I am very happy to report that the season is off to a good start.

My favorite part about Rescue Me is the scenes in the kitchen, where they have the best conversations about some really dumb topics. Tonight’s question: would you rather lose one eye… or one ball? The firehouse banter is totally back and in great form. So is the seriously screwed up mess that is the Gavin family. And I have never seen Michael J. Fox play such an assholish character; I think he is going to be a great addition to the show.

Some things about this show still leave me at a loss. Tommy Gavin has really long hair for a firefighter. Also, with his very average looks, how would he have all those hot women chasing after him (I know, it is his show, and I guess if I ran a show, I would write myself as a major sex symbol, too, regardless of how far from reality that would be). My technical advisor assures me that being a firefighter, especially in uniform, does add to one’s sex appeal even if one is average-looking, so I will let that one slide for now. I also think Garrity and Silletti are played way too clueless. If they were that dumb, they would never have even passed the entrance exam, let alone survive as many fires as they’ve been on.

Some of you already know this: my “technical advisor” is my husband who is a firefighter/EMT-B with the Chicago Fire Department and from a firefighting family. The show is a big favorite of his, too. I often ask him if something on the show is something that would happen in real life. Usually the answer is yes. But he swears that to his knowledge, there has never been a… ermmmm…. male member measuring contest… at any of the houses he has been at. Improbable stuff does happen, including accidentally setting the firehouse on fire. It just probably wouldn’t happen all at the same house, to the same guys.

I’m glad Rescue Me is back – I missed it a lot. I have only a few must-watch shows, and this is definitely one of them.

More soundtrack of my life (24 of 31/59 of 274)

March 24, 2009 by kathi

I have quite a few songs on my playlist that are from movies featuring fictional bands. I will blame this partly on the fact that The Monkees, the ultimate made-for-TV band, were a big part of my childhood. The rest of the blame lies on the movies or songs themselves: they might not be great art, but they are great at making me smile. And even as much as I like Spinal Tap and 2ge+her (MTV’s send-up of boy bands which didn’t last nearly long enough), it’s not about satire either, at least not for this part of my playlist.

And those songs?

“On The Dark Side” from Eddie and the Cruisers: John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band got compared to Springsteen and the E Street Band a lot when this movie came out. I have been a Springsteen fan for a long time (in case it is not obvious from my domain name – brilliant-disguise.net if you are reading this on LJ). As for the movie, I love Tom Berenger (even as Aaron Noble in Third Watch, which is a stretch). And I like Michael Paré, at least in this movie and one other…

Streets of Fire which is one of my favorite movies and favorite soundtracks. The plot is nothing new: biker gang kidnaps hot chick singer and her ex is summoned home to rescue her. The visuals and casting and yes, the music, make it something special. “Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young” and “Nowhere Fast” are my favorites, followed closely by “Countdown To Love”. By the way, did any song of Jim Steinman’s from that time NOT have the sound of a motorcycle revving somewhere in the background? This movie also has one of my favorite quotes: “Everywhere I go, there’s always an asshole” which sadly is true in most places in real life as well.

“Break My Heart” from Spectacular! Yeah, I was surprised, too. Funny what turns up when you are bored and clicking the remote or the mouse. I would not generally expect to find a fun, perfect-for-the-car song like this from a Nickelodeon movie, but hey, there it is.

Two days of my schizophrenic musical taste is probably more than enough for most of you, so tomorrow will feature a new and exciting topic. Or something!

A chance to get caught up? (26 of 30)

November 26, 2008 by kathi

I’m looking forward to the possibility of a relaxing four-day weekend. Yes, it is Thanksgiving weekend, but since my husband is at the firehouse on Thanksgiving Day, I’ve opted to neither entertain nor be entertained. As you all know, my family is in Hawaii and we just got back from visiting them, so there is nowhere I’m truly obligated to be tomorrow. So I am planning to spend a peaceful day alone with the animals. For the record, I don’t like turkey anyway. Ham is my idea of a perfect holiday meal.

In fact, I have only one definite thing scheduled for the entire weekend, so it might be a good opportunity to get caught up on a few things that never seem to get done. Stuff like backing up the computer, getting rid of documents that are no longer needed for tax purposes and getting my office area organized a little better. Oh, and editing the contact list in the new BlackBerry. I probably should have edited the list on the Palm before transferring it to the BlackBerry (Palm Desktop Manager would have made it so much easier). Some of the contacts are quite dormant, but at least everyone on the list is still alive. This was not the case when I moved from Palm IIIc to Palm Tungsten E2.

Speaking of right now though, I’m not sure how I ever managed to watch TV before TiVo. I’ve been trying to watch the season finale of Sons of Anarchy since the first showing started, and between the phone and the dogs, I’ve paused and rewound so many times I’ve lost count. It’s quiet now, so I think it’s a good time to finally finish watching the show.