TV Time - Way too much time, in fact.

Between Hulu and Comcast OnDemand, I may never get anything done... ever again.

Well, I'll get some things done. My ironing basket is completely empty, and I'm very close to the seeing the bottom of the hamper most days.

Watched The Dresden Files on Hulu last week, while stitching up girl and doll clothes, along with a top secret apron for my mom. Since it's on the laptop, I carried it along to the kitchen, to entertain me while I peeled veggies and such.

This week? I'm folding and pressing my way through Justified, starring Timothy Olyphant as Seth Bullock - I mean Raylan Givens. It's over the top, but so well written, directed and acted, that you just dive right on into the story. I love it!

Givens has a much better sense of humor than Bullock, by which I mean he has a sense of humor. But the righteous anger and good heart - both there. Givens seems so like Bullock, that I keep looking for him to come across Ian McShane running a rural Kentucky town. (Heck, probably at least half the state.)

One thing I've found interesting is the lack of awkwardness seen in most new series. There's an awkwardness between characters, but only in the way you'd expect to see when somebody returns to a place and group of individuals after a long absence. There's the work to feel out how each have changed, and struggle to avoid falling into old roles... it's played quite well by the ensemble.

I noticed a similar natural awkwardness about the first few episodes of Parenthood - as everyone tries to figure out how they fit in today's group in relation to the past.

Oh, dear. Here I am, typing about TV, even when not watching. Better walk away from all screens for the rest of the day, as I have a walk/run to take, and the upstairs of the house to clean.

But, hey... at least I'm a few days ahead on the laundry :)

There are no cows in space.

(***Nerd Alert***)

I had so much fun watching Monday night's episode of Castle on ABC. (Don't judge too harshly... it's a fun show. And, it has Nathan Fillion. The stories are clever and rather campy, which makes it a perfect show for kicking back and disconnecting from the chaos of a typical Monday.)

The show was everything you want a Halloween week episode to be. Supernatural references, graveyards, curious subcultures, hauntings, and extra camp. As much as I enjoyed the whole episode though, this opening made my day. From the brief flash of the gunbelt, I knew exactly what we were about to see.



And, in a brief follow up to yesterday's bookshelf post, I placed the show's tie-in novel Heat Wave in my Amazon shopping cart last weekend. With my next purchase, I'll be indulging in a bit of guilty pleasure reading about one Nikki Heat. Just out of curiousity, what do you call the fictional character in a book who is the fictional version of a fictional character?

Defying Gravity

Finally got a chance to sit - if by sit you mean fold laundry, match socks, and do the ironing - and watch the two hour pilot for Defying Gravity.

I think I like it. I'll know for sure after a couple more episodes. Need to learn more about the characters, and see how the journey develops. For right now, I'll just say it looks like one helluva road trip, and is beautiful in HD.

Full episodes are available online. I have the second and third episodes recorded on the DVR, but missed the pilot when it aired. Downloaded the pilot in HD from iTunes (Free!) and hooked it up to the television. (Yea! It worked!) It may be Saturday before I get a chance to catch the episodes saved to the DVR, but I'm looking forward to it.

Hi. My name is Joy, and I'm a Discovery Channel Addict.

And History, Military, Science, National Geographic and Travel Channels. I blame the oh-so-convenient DVR with dual tuners, which allows us to record two shows at once. In high definition. And the oh-so-wonderful Comcast HD OnDemand service.

It started a few years before the DVR, with the occasional special on ancient battles, siege weapons or metallurgy, with seasonal binges of Shark Week, ancient Rome or Egypt, and engineering wonders.

Then, we saw frozen chickens being fired from an air canon at plane windshields. Mythbusters became a family viewing event. The one night each week where we'd break normal school year bedtimes and pile in front of the television... picture The Simpsons opening.

Knowing there wasn't possibly enough time to follow everything, shows like Dirty Jobs, Survivorman, and Anthony Bourdain had to be limited to the times when viewing marathons coincided with rainy weekends.

With the advent of the dual tuner DVR, we could get those previously limited shows, and more, to watch whenever we want. The good news was that the kids didn't have to stay up late on a school night to see Mythbusters. The "bad" news was the growing list of programs we wanted to - and could - watch. Bizzare Foods w/Andrew Zimmerman, Cities of the Underworld, Man vs. Wild. Alaska Week was added to Shark Week for those seasonal binges.

And now... Doing DaVinci, Pitchmen, Out of the Wild, The Detonators, and as of last night:

Expedition Africa. One episode, and I'm completely hooked. Heck, with spitting cobras, crocodiles and Masai warriors, we all are.

Nooooo!!!! It's summer, so it's time for SciFi/BBC America series. Torchwood, Doctor Who, Eureka, and the new Warehouse 13 in place of Stargate Atlantis. I don't have that much ironing to do, unless I can convince the children to start wearing linen.

Oh. Lest I forget, Spike TV has a show called Deadliest Warrior. You know that close to friendship ending bout of bickering you could start as a kid by asking who would win a fight between _______ & _______, usually filled in with superheroes? Well, Deadliest Warrior fills in the blanks with warriors throughout history from all over the world, and answers the question. Weapons experts, biomechanical experts, emergency/trauma doctor, and a guy to crunch the numbers and run the simulations. Ninjas vs. Spartans? Shaolin Monks vs. Maori Warriors? William Wallace vs. Shaka Zulu? The first season played back to back Sunday afternoon, finishing with terrorist vs. terrorist - IRA vs. Taliban. I haven't watched it yet, but all four episodes we haven't seen are waiting behind the glowing yellow lights on the HD DVR.

I'm looking forward to Ninjas vs. Spartans. The kids are pulling for Vikings vs. Pirates to be the next episode we watch. Is it wrong to be watching the forecast and contemplating adding "one full day of rain each week" to the prayer list?

Touchy Subjects

Tonight's 20/20 John Stossel special, You Cant Even Talk About It, is tackling some of those touchy questions. Would allowing commercial breeding of endangered species for skins and body parts do a better job of saving them than current bans? Should a pregnant woman lose her job? Just in case I'm up to my neck in a family-wide Munchkin grudge match, the DVR is set.

I can't embed the teaser video clips from ABC, but here's the links:

Activists fight over how to save tigers

Stuck on a cliff? It should cost you

What if pregnancy came with a pink slip?

20/20 - Bailouts and Bull

First off, I'm so very glad we have a DVR with our Comcast service. I had to get to bed early Friday night, since the alarm clock was set to 5:30 a.m. for Saturday's race. Thanks to the wonders of dual tuners and the DVR, I was not only able to record the next-to-last episode of "Battlestar Galactica", but didn't have to miss John Stossel's 20/20 special "Bailouts and Bull".

Watched it with the kids during lunch Saturday. As with Stossel's other specials, this one was great. I'd seen most of the subjects covered, through Drew Carey's webcasts on Reason TV, but thought Stossel and his team did a great job packaging the issues together, and taking the questions to our representatives in Washington, DC.

I'm not sure how much of the segments the younger kids were able to follow. I figure it's like other grown up topics - they'll absorb as much as their brains are ready for, and ignore the rest. It's good they saw the economists who don't agree with the constant cries of crisis and calls for more bailouts. And that my daughter, who does worry and ask questions after the economy is discussed on the evening news, saw the segment showing the middle class is actually doing alright.

But... the biggest reason I wanted them to see the special was the final segment. Stossel spoke with two people who perfectly illustrate a lesson I want my children to hear at every possible opportunity.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. In it, she details her year of working a variety of low-end and minimum wage jobs, and not being able to make ends meet. At the end of the year, she had nothing to show for her labor... except for the material for her book.

Adam Shepard is also an author, of the book Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream. In the book, he details his year - no savings, no shelter, and an entry level, low paying job. Though they started out from a very similar point, Shepard ended the year with a completely different result than Ehrenreich. He ended the year with a furnished apartment, $5,500 in savings, and a used truck.

Ehrenreich's conclusion, based on her struggles and failure, is that it is almost impossible for the lower income workers to get ahead in today's economy, and extremely difficult to even just stay afloat. Shepard's message is that it's not easy, but if you are willing to make sacrifices and work hard, success isn't out of reach.

Attitude makes a tremendous difference. If you start out with "It's impossible. I can't." in your mind, you'll prove yourself right. If you start with the thought "I can. Now, what's the best way to get it done?", then you'll find a way.

It's always wonderful to have real world examples to point to during discussions of life lessons and character. I'm so glad to have seen Friday's show with the kidlets.

The Bailouts and Bull episode is available in segments on YouTube, and probably in full from ABC's website. Here's the segment I've been talking about: