Watch some of the CW shows online before their premiere. If I have time, I'll watch Veronica Mars and Runaway early.

Celebrity Duets

Gecko, the tomcat and I watched Celebrity Duets last night and it was both entertaining and completely a train wreck. Lots of plastic surgery going on with the older folks. Little Richard is completely (and I do mean completely) incoherent in his reviews - we started fast-forwarding whenever he talks. Jai, the Queer Eye guy, is good. Carly Patterson, Olympic gymnast, not so good. Lea Thompson, pretty good. And there were some great musical guests, including Smokey Robinson (woo!), Peter Frampton and Gladys Knight. It was pretty funny, although if it doesn't improve, it might get dropped in favor of more exciting fall fare.

Fun with Flickr

You can now geo-tag your photos. Hmm, this could be very fun! And since it's almost September 1st, I'll have a bunch of projects to do with my photos...

See what celebrities are watching on TV; interestingly, Joey Pantoliano likes Gilmore Girls. Actually, the tomcat has only recently seen the light about GG and has started tearing through the first season DVDs which he borrowed from a friend.

And TiVo helps you track when new shows are starting...

Another columnist's reviews of what shows are worthwhile and which you should avoid.

Ongoing rumors that this season of Scrubs will be the last. It seems like Zach Braff may want to move on.

Wedding Crasher reality show

This is playing with fire: a reality show about improv actors crashing weddings. Seriously, no one should mess with a bride.

Also as a side note, I upgraded to the new google toolbar, and now I don't have the Blog This! button. I'm seriously pissed. I wonder if I can revert to the old toolbar. I guess I'll have to investigate that.

Tivo Series3 pricing?

Engadget has the scoop that the Tivo Series3 may be coming out within a few weeks, for the low, low price of $799.

The big news here is that the Series3 does HD, and apparently does it quite well. The other big news is that apparently this thing is going to cost more than an HDTV would.

Well, this is one more reason not to watch CSI. Apparently, they are encouraging K-Fed. Sigh. Whhhhy?

Yahoo! TV Fall Preview 2006

I just received a tip from our resident Yahoo! spy concerning a Fall 2006 TV Preview site that has just opened. Based on the press release, it will have the full series premieres for "Jericho" and "Heroes" and is also providing the premieres of "Vanished" and "Prison Break" which have already aired.

I browsed the site briefly and it seems to have some decent quality video with good loading times and an overly fancy animated interface. Many of the new shows mentioned on this blog thus far seem to be involved. My main hope is that this isn't as far as the site goes (I have no idea what plans are). If this could be expanded to a full, regularly updated site over the course of the season then this could be a very interesting resource. I can imagine a consolidated location for looking at trailers for upcoming episodes, archives of old episodes/clips, and whatever else the typical TV junkie (such as most of our readers) desires.

There are plenty of resources on the web already for text-based data about TV shows, such as schedules, (p)reviews, episode recaps, cast listings, or whatever else, but there are very few well-consolidated locations for video content. Youtube and other self-upload video archives used to be okay for this, but with recent crackdown by the various production companies, much of the stuff you'd want to see gets taken down quickly.

Who says the new generation doesn't read?

Apparently, there could be a MySpace magazine. Speaking of quickly failed magazines, I don't think I ever saw a second issue of the Martha Stewart Blueprint magazine... and only one issue is shown on the website. Perhaps newsstand sales weren't enough for them to do a second issue.

Game theory in action

Engagement ring as security deposit: an interesting theory (using game theory)

Tom Cruise vs. Paramount

An article on the bizarrely public breakup of Paramount Studios and Tom Cruise. Everyone loves a catfight played out via press releases and interviews in major media outlets.

TeeVee Review: Studio 60

TeeVee reviews Studio 60, and it sums up much of what I thought of the pilot, but in more detail and much more eloquently. I'll definitely watch, but Aaron Sorkin could do better.

DVR season passes

Don't forget that since either the old UPN station or the old WB station has changed (or maybe both?), you'll need to recreate season passes for some of your shows. You don't want to miss that cliffhanger resolving premiere of Gilmore Girls or One Tree Hill!

Premiere of Vanished is tonight

Fox's fall season starts tonight with the premieres of Prison Break and Vanished. Vanished is getting middling reviews, so I'm going to pass on it, in a vain attempt to cut down on the TV I'm watching. I'm down to 13 hours left on the TiVo so I'm hoping a marathon week, and continuing neglect of the Netflix, will pay off with a clean TiVo. Of course, the DS Lite is not helping things...

Behind the Scenes of TV Shows

CBS will show a behind the scenes special that looks at a number of their shows. This sounds like fun!

Scrubs musical episode

Scrubs will have a musical episode. And the songs will be done by the guy who did Avenue Q, so I'm totally looking forward to it.

Interview with Everwood's Chris Pratt ...

Here's a cute interview with Everwood's Chris Pratt. He talks about dating Emily VanCamp and his character on the O.C. I think I'm going to have to start watching the O.C again...

Funny Microsoft training videos

Ricky Gervais does Microsoft training videos, in his Office persona...

Amazing Race 10 Interviews

Interviews are up for the teams that will be on the next season of the Amazing Race

Bright + Summer!

Bright from Everwood will have a guest arc on the O.C., as a friend for Summer.

Spreading the DS Love

My roommate gecko was saddened to realize that all she is to me is additional TiVo recording capacity (because seriously, why would you live with someone if they don't expand your DVR possibilities?), so I decided to make it up to her by getting her hopelessly addicted to Brain Age on the tomcat's DS Lite. Okay, I'm not sure if she's addicted, but she was definitely still playing when I went to bed last night. I'm a swell roommate.

Two new trailers

A trailer for Material Girls, the Duff sisters movie, dropped two days before the release of the movie, and yet the trailer is far less tragic than the trailer for the Rachael Leigh ("I lack the gene for fear") Cook movie, My First Wedding, also releasing on Friday.

Football v. the Amazing Race

If you live in the eastern time zones, you should also note that you might want to pad your Amazing Race recording times, because occasionally football runs over and pushes back the start time of the prime time shows.

I'm pathetically excited about Celebrity Duets, so I'm going to go home and see if I can create my season pass tonight!

Getting ready for the fall season

Shockingly, the fall tv season is right around the corner. In fact, Prison Break starts next Monday... So what are you doing to prepare yourself? Today, the tomcat and I sat down and reviewed the fall grid, circling the shows that we'll need to add season passes for, as well as figuring out how to prioritize the season passes. I'll also have to figure out if and when I can utilize gecko's tivo to record conflicting shows. We also used this guide to determine which additional shows are worth a try, aside from the ones that are getting lots of hype like Studio 60 and Heroes. I'm looking forward to Sept 1, when I can download the Heroes pilot and figure out if it will in fact earn the season pass. Sadly, I still have not gotten to tivo zero yet this summer, which means that I may never achieve that until December or January. This has necessitated finally bumping the Netflix down to one per month, unlimited. Sigh.

CBS shows streaming online

You won't have to worry about DVR conflicts if you can just watch the CBS shows on the streaming video site, Innertube.

Tivo = Tupperware

You can evangelize Tivo by throwing a Tivo House Party. Unfortunately, most of the people I know now have TiVos and they got them before the referral system started... Maybe this Tivo House party role can become a career, much like being a candle party person or an eBay seller...

Platinum Weddings & AOL searches

WE strikes again with another fascinating sounding wedding show: Platinum Weddings. I think it's basically My Super Sweett 16, but with weddings. Damn you Comcast for not carrying this channel. I want it, but I think I'm still too ashamed to write my cable company and ask them to carry it.

This may be a bit old, but this analysis of the logs of AOL searchers is pretty funny. Thankfully TiVo aggregates their data so you can't pull out the behavior of an individual TiVo, but if they did, I might be super dork/schamltzy Tivo user 6,482 or something like that.

MI-5: Season 4

A&E will be broadcasting the fourth season of MI-5, starting September 15th.

Office Romance

Ryan the temp and Kelly (his crazy clingy girlfriend) are going out in real life. That's cute and kind of funny. (a number of items down; beware spoilers for other shows)

Interview with Kristen Bell

Apparently, Kristen Bell can drive really well backwards, but not forwards.

The CW's Mall Domination Tour

The stars of CW shows will have to go on a mall tour to promote the CW. Heh. And it's called Mall Domination. That's funny. I should go check out the madness.

XBox + Battlestar = True Love

The Battlestar series recap will be appearing on the XBox Live section of XBoxes. This does seem like marketing synergy. (via tvtattle)

No Aguliera reality shows in our near future

Christina Aguilera says that she doesn't want to do a reality show, which is probably something of a relief to most of us, since she seems nice-ish, but also a bit drrrrty. I mean, does she wear the 40s style makeup at home? That would be scary. So I'm sure I don't want to see what her home life is like (though I'm sure it's very sweet), but I'd still be compelled to watch. So thank you Christina, for saving me from myself. (via tvtattle)

Fox TV shows and Movies can be purchased at MySpace

Fox will start to sell movies and tv shows through MySpace as well as other Fox websites (via tvtattle) Hmm, maybe if this is actually a good implementation, I might start being interested in MySpace.

Dancing with the Stars and Dr. Who

The contestants for the next season of Dancing with the Stars have been announced

The second season of Dr. Who will show on the SciFi channel starting Sept 29th

Review: KIdnapped and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

My copy of the preview DVD with Kidnapped arrived last week and I finally got around to watching it. I was also quite happy to find out that Studio 60 on Sunset Strip was also on the disc so I didn't have to get the discs separately and waste two Netflix on it. Two in one! Everyone loves a good deal. I watched Studio 60 to have some comedy first, and it was pretty good. There have been a number of reviews that talked about Studio 60 being overrated, but overrated or not, it's still an Aaron Sorkin show. So, if you like Aaron Sorkin shows, which I have to admit I do, you'll enjoy this one. It was like a hit parade of people from other Aaron Sorkin shows, including Felicity Huffman, Danny Kincaid from West Wing, and of course, Bradley Whitford. It also had the ballet teacher from Center Stage. There are some sweeping shots that seem Jerry Bruckheimer-ish and a bit self-important (they worked better on West Wing), but the writing is good, and Amanda Peet is surprisingly likable. So, I'm actually really excited about the season. I give it a season pass!

Onward to Kidnapped, which was thoroughly enh. The characters and plot weren't all that compelling, and the show seemed to be trying very hard to make Jeremy Sisto seem very badass, with his resonant deep voice and unshaven scruff. I almost wonder if they redub his lines with the same thingie the Wizard of Oz used. The tomcat and I both agreed that it was pretty mediocre, so sadly, I think the preview disc convinced me that I'm going to skip the show altogether.

My Nike+iPod review

Many of you know by now that I received a huge combination present for my birthday from a set of people too numerous to name (well, I could name them all, but it'd take too much effort to come up with amusing blog names). Said gift consisted of an iPod Nano, a Nike iPod Nano armband, the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, and a gift certificate for some shoes (which I used to purchase a pair of Nike+ shoes). Basically all of my ranting about the gadgetness of this rubbed off and people got sick of it and just got me everything. Furthermore, my sister threw in a Puma jacket for good measure. Now I'm really out of excuses.

My first test run involved dragging everything across the country to New Jersey, and then doing some short sessions on the treadmill in my effort to avoid the east coast humidity, which I have managed to do for the last 9 years or so. The first thing I discovered is that the sensor that goes in your shoe starts off as being on, and you're supposed to turn it off by using a pen to press a tiny button for 3 sec. Oh, and the instruction book says that you are supposed to turn it off on the plane. Hmm.

Getting it setup was really quite easy, I just dropped the sensor into the shoe, plugged the receiver into the iPod Nano, and told it I wanted to do a 3 mile run. I programmed in my approximate weight for calorie-counting purposes, and then it asked me to walk around a bit to link with the sensor.

I set the treadmill for a medium pace and then started off, and after the first half mile I could tell that the distance calculations on the iPod were a bit off. When you set it for a distance goal, it will give you audible cues every now and then, and in this case the iPod claimed that I had run the first half mile when the treadmill said it was only about 0.45. After finishing the full 3 miles, it was clear that it was off by about 8-10%, which is fairly significant but apparently within the estimated range. There is a decent FAQ which covers most questions gadgeteers will have about this.

Upon returning home, my first action was to head to the track and calibrate the system to my stride. They allow calibration to both a run and a walk speed, and so I did both around a quarter-mile lap. After calibrating, the distance calculations seemed rock solid (at least around the track again, since it's the only place I can run where I really know how far I'm going).

Running with the whole setup is pretty fun since you can push a button at any time to get distance/time/pace, but even better than that is the ability to sync your runs to a site to track your progress. Here is some idea of what the Nike+ site looks like, it's actually a pretty nice UI (though Nyanko may have some things to say about that) with decent functionality.


This is the "My Runs" section, and you can mouseover each session to see the summary for that, then click to get details, like this:


Here you can see your pace through the whole run, with mouseover details at milestones. Note the huge dropoff in pace at the end here, this was my first run and I thought I had ended the workout already and started walking to cooldown. The screen (and I think the voice too) always says "Press Menu to end your workout" when in fact they mean "Press Menu and then scroll to the End Workout option and press the center button to end your workout."

No laughing at my small distance/slow pace runs, at least not yet. When I haven't improved in a few months then you can laugh. I think I've now fulfilled my blog quota for the next 12.4 weeks with this one.

Battlestar recap

It has been too long without a Battlestar post, so here's one: there will be a one hour recap of the Battlestar series so far

One more reason to love Rachel Bilson

How can I not like Rachel Bilson? She loves Target too! She's just like me! We'd be BFF if we met. Heh. Okay. Not really.

MySpace obsession

The tomcat has become completely obsessed with searching MySpace, and finding people he knows, and on the way, serindipitiously finding all sorts of tragedy in the pages people put up. And then he is sending me links to the super crappy pages. Happily the super powerful search is only for members, and since I'm not a member, I can't use the search, which if the tomcat is any indication, has some cracklike addictive aspects.

Dead television pilots are surfacing

Lots of pilots that did not get picked up are surfacing on YouTube. Honestly, it would be interesting to see a full batch of pilots from a network season to try and see if you can figure out why the net picked up what it.

Ranting ringtones

The thought of a Mel Gibson rant ringtone, or actual sound clips from other schizo celebrity moments is a pretty funny. Certainly better than the chicken clucking ringtone.

Who's smirkier?

Logan on Gilmore Girls has been cast as the half brother of Logan on Veronica Mars. It's going to be a snark-off. Oh wait, Logan on GG isn't that snarky. Okay, it will be the biggest spoiled rich boy-off. But that doesn't mean they're not cute and infrequently, but inexplicably likable.

Amy Sherman-Palladino's new pilot

Amy Sherman Palladino is developing a pilot about estranged sisters who reconnect after one agrees to be a surrogate mother for the other's baby. Huh. I'm sure it might be funny, but it's hard to see the super funny immediately...

Miami Vice recap

Television Without Pity never lets us down. How do I know this? Because they have recapped the Miami Vice movie. Ignore the Big Love header, if it's still on top.