Free Candy For Everyone

Happy New Year everyone! I’ve been enjoying a leisurely two week vacation to close out 2008, but it’s coming to an end and time to get back into the swing of things. My grand plans for the vacation involved a bunch of rock climbing, working my way through my giant stack of X360 games and signing up for a Netflix trial to enjoy free HD movies on demand on my Xbox. The climbing happened, the gaming and movie efforts were foiled by the cruel hand of fate.

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t fate, it was shoddy Xbox construction. I’ve been having issues on and off with my Xbox for months, but they mostly involved a failing DVD drive. I’d be playing a game and I’d hear a dread “ee-errr-eee-errr” noise as the disc drive turned and twisted and failed to seek. My game would freeze and I’d get dumped back to the dashboard and have to pull the disc out (I usually blew on it at this point for old time NES memory’s sake, not sure if that helped as much as just resetting the DVD drive, but it made me feel better). My Xbox was no longer under warranty, so I just figured I’d live with it, maybe get a new Xbox at some future date if one came out with new features or something awesome. I might have even made some flippant comment like “I only wish it would Red Ring because at least that’s covered under warranty.”

For those who don’t know, most early model Xboxs seem to eventually fail with the Red Ring of Death. It’s covered under an extended warranty, unlike all other hardware problems. So I was half wishing my Xbox would fail in that way so it would get repaired. Sigh. Silly human.

Last week I cozied myself up on my couch and decided to try out Netflix on my Xbox. I signed up for a free trial and tried to load up the Netflix app on my Xbox but it gave me an error and dumped me back to the dashboard. After a few more seconds, a load beep emitted from the Xbox itself and the whole thing froze entirely. Um. Scary! I reset the box to try again and it froze on the Xbox load screen. Tried again and the got the Netflix error, beep, freeze thing again. At this point I shut it down and decided I’d try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes and I turn on my Xbox to see 3 lit red lights - it has RROD’d. Bigger sigh. I open up my laptop to see about repair options and guess what! My laptop has gone insane! My screen is showing colored bars and bizarreness! At this point I know my plans for my vacation aren’t going to play out as intended.

I fortunately have another computer, a 6 year old PC that has seen better days. I turn it on and manage to find out repair info for my Xbox. They UPS me a box, free of charge, with a pre-paid shipping label to return it. I get an appointment to the Apple store to get my laptop repaired and head on over. Did I mention that this was all happening on December 24th? That’s right, Merry Christmas, your electronics are exploding! Or maybe imploding…

My Xbox status is still unknown, I received the box on Tuesday and it’s been sent off to hopefully a happy repair land where it will be revived and revitalized. My laptop return… well that could have gone more smoothly.

I received a call from the Apple store on Sunday at around 6:15 that my laptop was ready to be picked up. Fantastic! 5 days of using my clunker of a PC had taken its toll and I was ready to have my baby back. They closed at 7, but I managed to rush over and pick it up before they shut their doors. I zipped home and plugged in the laptop and eagerly hit the power button. Nothing. NOTHING! No whirrrr, no lights, no ANYTHING! At this point I went into a mild frenzy of “noooo!” and such. I looked online, but there was nothing about how to deal with a complete lack of responsiveness (except some battery related stuff which I tried but had no effect). I raced off to the Apple store first thing the next morning and the sales clerk there was appalled at what had happened, and promised to give it to the repair guy as soon as he showed up. In an hour.

I went back home to wait, and about 90 minutes later got a call that it was working now. Apparently they repaired it but when they put it back together accidentally pulled a wire loose or something. Come on, you don’t test it after it’s reassembled???

All in all, it was a frustrating experience. I didn’t get to do the gaming I wanted, I didn’t even really get to play that much World of Warcraft as my old PC runs the new content at, oh, 10 frames per second OR LESS. But I’m relieved I have my laptop back and eagerly await my Xbox’s return.

Now the question is do I actually sign up for Netflix since my trial will be long over before my Xbox returns? I really did want to see how the picture looks. I made do with streaming Netflix to my TiVo, but that’s not in HD and I can’t quite bear the picture quality as a long term investment.

The Sword of Truth is an epic fantasy series by Terry Goodkind which started out promisingly with Wizard’s First Rule but descended into the usual cliches and never-ending sequelitis. That said, when I heard that they were making a TV series out of it, I was hopeful. I enjoy a good sword-and-sorcery tale. It seems as though they’ve gone the Xena route with it, however, and I’ve become nervous. Regardless, it premieres in syndication this weekend. I’ve set my TiVo for a season pass, apparently they have 22 episodes ready to go, so at the very least it might be some campy good entertainment. The show is called Legend of the Seeker - check your local listings to find when it’s on! Depending on how good/bad it is, I’ll have to tell you how it goes.

I just finished watching the movie Once and it was amazing. I’d read some reviews and best of lists from last year that included this movie, but had not managed to get around to watching it yet. But whoa, is it impactful.

It’s a simple story of two musicians who find each other and make music. And the music is fantastic. The lead characters are played by musicians, not actors. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are both musicians, they actually wrote all the music in the movie. Large portions of the movie are watching them sing and figure out their music together, so if you don’t find the emotional connection in watching people sing, be warned, this movie is not for you.

But it was so much for me. I think I cried through almost every song. They were just so potent, so poignant. I’m in need of buying the soundtrack and buying it now. There was something about these songs that really hit me and hard (though I’ve been a bit emotional recently, so take that into account).

I’ve embedded a video of one of the songs, but not with movie footage because you should catch the whole thing and see it in context to really appreciate it. The camera work is a bit dodgy, but the performance is great.

Tonight I watched the premiere of Pushing Daisies. Go check out the official site for some extra info. This show is so great. The colors are vivid, the characters are interesting, there’s an awesome narrator, it’s a fairy tale full of quirkiness and it’s just awesome.

It’s created by Bryan Fuller, who co-created my favorite quirky, canceled, undiscovered show, Wonderfalls. Wonderfalls was only on the air for four episodes, but they were glorious and delightful. When it came out on DVD, I promptly went out and bought it for the full 14 episodes of awesome. Highly recommended!

But back to the show that is currently on the air right now. Pushing Daisies stars Lee Pace, who was also in Wonderfalls. The cast includes Chi McBride, Swoosie Kurtz, and the woman who played Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors! It is full of goodness.

Please please watch this show! I can’t bear to see another quirky, wonderful, offbeat, unusual show canceled before it’s given a chance.

The fall TV season is a time of great excitement and a bit of stress for me. Every year, I eagerly anticipate my Entertainment Weekly Fall TV Preview issue. It goes over all the new and returning shows, lists their premiere dates and gives awesome little calendars of all the air times. I flip through that issue many times to plot out what I’m going to TiVo.

But then the season actually starts and I’m recording 3 hours of tv a night. My DVR can only hold so much, so I’m held hostage by my tv shows! I must watch several hours a night so that I don’t run out of space! I’ve learned to judge a show and get rid of it swiftly.

Most of the fall shows started over the last two weeks, and the first two season passes have already been eliminated from my DVR. First to go was K-Ville. I watched one episode and was appalled.

I really wanted to like the show. It takes place in New Orleans and is actually filmed there, employing lots of people which is a good thing. It’s a cop show, and one of the leads is Cole Hauser, who I quite like. But it was just horrible. I don’t mean the acting or anything, but the plot involved selfish horrible people doing terrible cruel things. Even our heroes had horrific awful secrets, and I just couldn’t handle the darkness of it. There was no joy. Ultimately, I watch TV to be entertained and this didn’t. It didn’t enlighten, it didn’t make me think, it just made me cringe. So it is out. No more of that.

Next to go is Back to You. I rarely like sitcoms. I don’t find them funny, they frequently find humor in the humiliation of others which is something I just don’t enjoy (well, unless it’s done well, as in How I Met Your Mother, the one sitcom I really love). This show is about a news show, following the anchor people and all that. And I just find it totally unfunny. Running gags about constantly killing goldfish, not funny. A continuous humiliation of one reporter who gets no respect, not funny. Just not funny! So I’m deleting that pass today.

I still am recording more than I can keep up with. What will be the next to go? Who knows?

Maybe I’ll write about what I’m actually enjoying soon. Dirty Sexy Money was the most promising so far, as well as Chuck. We shall see which last!