nanovivid

Tonight I decided to actually stop being a total recluse and sign onto the Adium. Can you believe it? I barely can. It’s been… a while. I even videochatted with Ryan! As if that alone wasn’t enough sexy excitement, I also talked to Martha and Jeremiah!

It just dawned on me (how’s this for random) that I’ve never mentioned my love, nay, ado-fucking-ration of Arrested Development. And that, my friends, is a great tragedy, since it is easily the funniest show ever.

But wait! Maybe that wasn’t quite as random as I thought! See, this past weekend, Courtney and Jenni came to visit. Since Courtney always brings bad weather to Cleveland, we ended up spending most of the day Saturday watching the whole third season. Which, of course, is amazing.

Even when we weren’t watching Arrested Development, we had fun with Courtney and Jenni, between the shopping and the eating and … dirty girl scouts? They even brought me a bottle of wine with my name on it (though they sadly couldn’t find a Bryan wine to go with it).

So, yes. I am still alive and well, and will hopefully prove that fact slightly more frequently.

♫ The Beatles - Because (Shiloh's Just For Annie Remix)

Today has been fairly uneventful. Probably the most exciting thing that happened was watching a couple episodes of MythBusters, which always makes me happy. I’ve given it three thumbs up on Mr TiVo, so he’s pretty good about recording it for me and I’ve had fun catching up on all the ones I’ve never seen.

The crazy thing about MythBusters for me is that I don’t think I’ve yet encountered an episode that I didn’t enjoy. It’s one of the most constantly interesting, engaging, and (gasp) educational shows out there. Plus, with all the big explosions, how could you possibly be bored?

Aaaand… that’s about it. I never quite got around to taking on those aliens, but there’s always next weekend.

♫ Underworld - The Misterons Mix

I’ve already outed myself as a hopeless Farscape fan, so it should come as no surprise that I am loving Television Without Pity’s Long Hot Farscapey Summer. I pretty much adore TWoP anyway (a big part of why I like watching Buffy and Angel is that I can read the recaps), so it’s two great tastes that taste great together.

While I’ve been enjoying all the recaps, it’s Jacob’s in particular that keep me coming back. He really digs into the show and brings out aspects that I had never considered. If you’re a ‘Scaper, you definitely owe it to yourself to check out the recaps he’s done. A Human Reaction is one of my favorites, both in terms of episodes and recaps. Amazing, deep stuff.

And if you think I’m being a fanboy today, just wait until I write about Underworld.

♫ Basement Jaxx - Hush Boy (Original Mix)

Last night, Bryan and I finished Farscape. We’ve been working our way through the series since last October. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and I’m pretty sure Bryan has too. Prior to renting all the DVDs (thanks, Netflix!), I had only seen parts of season two and three, so it was great to see the whole story from the beginning.

My favorite aspect of Farscape has always been the characters, which are unusually deep and well-developed. Generally, the villains even have plausible backstories, motivations, and reasons for their actions (though there is some failure in that area when it comes to the Scarans). This development is the reason I love Scorpius, who is without a doubt one of the most complex and interesting villains on any show I’ve seen. There are plenty of other great characters as well, but Scorpius always stands out to me.

The other excellent facet of the show is the storytelling. They’re never afraid to take risks with the stories or characters, and there are times when it is amazingly, relentlessly dark, but in a good way (if that makes any sense). It’s one of those shows where if you drop in during the middle of the series, you’ll probably be a little lost due to all the history and backstory. In the end, it’s a little disappointing that Farsacpe got cancelled after season four and they had to tie everything up in a three-hour movie, but at least they did get to bring closure to the main story arc in a pretty big, dramatic, and satisfying way.

If you’re thinking about watching Farscape, definitely start at season one… and hang in there. The early episodes when they’re establishing the universe and the characters can occasionally be a bit difficult to get through. Then about three-quarters of the way through season one, the main story arc of the series really kicks in and gets the story moving. From there on out, it’s pretty incredible and easily one of the best series ever to appear on television, science fiction or otherwise.

♫ Norfolk & Western - A Gilded Age

Yesterday we said goodbye to our ReplayTV and hello to a shiny new TiVo. We named him Mr TiVo. He makes cute noises.

We decided to ditch the Replay since the service is basically dead. There hasn’t been an update to the software in forever and all we were getting for the monthly fee was TV listings. It really just didn’t seem worth it anymore.

Plus, there are cool things for TiVo like this nifty TiVo widget that shows what shows have been recorded. Now I don’t have to go turn on the TV to see what’s available. With Replay I would have to fire up the rather slow DVArchive, which was a cool program, but took forever to start up and just wasn’t conducive to frequent use.

Another great TiVo feature is the online scheduling. It works from TiVo’s website or via Yahoo! TV, and can be set up as close as an hour before the program starts. Pretty awesome.

There are a few TiVo offerings on which I’m not completely sold. TiVo does recommendations based on shows you’re recording or have given thumbs up. Today Mr TiVo recommended The Rockford Files as a show we might like. Mr TiVo was quite mistaken. I’m willing to give him another chance though since he hasn’t had very long to get to know us.

I’m pretty impressed with TiVo already. It definitely beats out ReplayTV when it comes to interface and user friendliness. And Mr TiVo makes cute noises. It’s all about the cute noises.

♫ Pendulum - Hold Your Colour

As Bryan has mentioned, we have Netflix now, and it’s pretty damn cool. There are several huge advantages over normal movie rental stores.

• The DVDs are mailed right to your door.
• No more going to the store, wondering if they’ll have the movie you want to see, finding out they don’t have it, then spending twenty minutes in consultation trying to determine an alternate movie choice, only to end up with a cheesy 80s film. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
• All the movies you want to see are kept in a queue so you don’t have to keep them in your brain. Which is a very good thing for me.
• Netflix Freak. Fantastic little app with drag and drop queue reordering and a lot more.

So I’m pretty much in love with Netflix. Bryan has been using it to watch the first season of 24 (I’m probably going to do Farscape at some point) and I got Finding Neverland which I definitely recommend. Ed Wood is next, and I’m totally looking forward to it because a) it’s more Johnny Depp and b) it’s Tim Burton and c) I love Ed Wood’s movies and d) it’s Johnny Depp AND Tim Burton. Woo!

If you’re a Netflix user, let me know so I can friend you!

♫ Katoi - Touch You (Andy Manston Mix)

My big plan for the evening was to get the new site design in place. However, my Powerbook had other ideas. All of a sudden my internet access stopped accessing, but Bryan’s iMac was still working. Rebooted… nothing. After some mucking around with restarting the Airport base station and other such things, I found this thread describing the exact symptoms of my problem. I repaired permissions, and voila! All better.

Except of course for the not finishing my site.

Maybe I’ll get it done after the Real World Phily season finale. Yes, trashy TV is coming before my site. Damn you, MTV!

♫ Basement Jaxx - Oh My Gosh

One of my favorite games is Spot The Music. This is similar to Courtney’s favorite game, Spot The (Pier 1) Merchandise, except that it’s played with your ears instead of your eyes and you’re finding songs instead of novelty wicker items. I think most of the time this game is only truly interesting to the person playing it, and everyone else is just like “shut up and let me watch the show.”

Case in point: last night while watching Alias, I noticed (You All) Everybody by Driveshaft playing in the background of one scene. I found this very entertaining because Driveshaft is a made-up band from one of J.J. Abrams‘ other shows, Lost.

Bryan was not nearly so entertained. I believe his words were along the lines of, “You interrupted my show for that?”

♫ Mylo - Drop The Pressure

It’s only been a week since my last post… pretty good for me as of late, n’est pas?

Dave and Olivia came for a quick overnight visit yesterday. We had a good time hanging out and talking and watching some Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Space Ghost. It’s kind of funny that both this and last time they visited, it was for less than twenty-four hours. Hopefully someday Bryan and I will be able to spend more time with them than that.

After they left, Bryan and I took a trip to Costco and Target, spending much more at Costco than we planned (as always). People who have visited us will be happy to know that we got an electric pump for the air mattress, so no more half hour foot pump sessions. Then we spent most of the rest of the afternoon cuddling on the couch and watching Alias.

Today I also got Bright Like Neon Love by Cut Copy. Amazing album. It’s got this great New Order meets Daft Punk vibe that is just incredible. I highly recommend it.

In my (lately more limited) time, I’ve been working an an adaptation of Rokey’s POPO emotions as an emoticon pack for Adium. Check them out… I think they turned out well.

♫ Cut Copy - That Was Just A Dream

Fluxblog has excellent commentary on the VMAs. Especially look for the comments about Hoobastank (8:31), The Polyphonic Spree (10:45), and Linkin Park (11:01). Priceless.

I was personally the most confused by the MTV2 award. There are all these completely different groups thrown together simply by the virtue that MTV2 plays them. It would be more sensible to me to break them out… but whatever. Franz Ferdinand definitely should have won over Yellowcard though, regardless of the stupidity of the award itself.

During the VMAs, Bryan was inspired to expound on the things that make up a typical rap video. It’s cute. Go read it.

♫ Takashi Wada - 28° c