Thursday, March 19, 2009

Tivo Time Machine Pt. 3

My 2006-2007 Season Passes, in order of priority:

How I Met Your Mother (NBC)
Scrubs (NBC) (changed networks, deleted)
House (Fox)
Criminal Minds (CBS)
Bones (Fox)
CSI (CBS)
Law & Order: SVU (NBC)
60 Minutes (CBS)
NUMB3RS (CBS)
Good Eats (Food)
Wishlist: Diamond Makers (There's a documentary out there somewhere, but I've never seen it)
Wishlist: Tenacious D (music/comedy duo)
Wishlist: Ozomatli (The music group)
Wishlist: Strange Luck (cancelled television show from the ... 80's?)
Wishlist: Pablo Francisco (comedian)
Wishlist: Navy Seals (deleted; too many copies of The Abyss and random Discovery Channel re-enactment shows)
Wishlist: Patton Oswalt (comedian;  except he's now doing a voiceover for a kids cartoon)
Wishlist: Tuva
Wishlist: Feynman
Wishlist: Bjork (sometimes picks up the 1954 movie Night People, starring Anita Bjork)
Wishlist: Lifestyles/Cooking "Test"
Wishlist: Themes/Music "Unplugged"
Dinner for Five (IFC) (cancelled show, should delete this)
Wishlist: Themes/Drama "The Wire" (Greatest televison show ever.  Ever)
Wishlist: Real Time Maher
Wishlist: Navy Seal (deleted; too many random movies have "former Navy SEAL" as a character)
Wishlist: Greg Geraldo (Comedian)
Wishlist: Real Sports Bryant
Wishlist: Sports/Hockey "IIHF" (Hockey world junior championships)
Wishlist: Sports Tour France (changed to Sports/Cycling Tour De France)
The Closer (TNT) (delte;  interesting, but I don't miss it)
Anthony Bourdain (Travel)
Wishlist: Kelly Clarkson (OK, that's embarrassing.  deleted)
Wishlist: Freakonomics
Wishlist: Linkin Park
Pride Fighting Championships
The Showbiz Show with David Spade (deleted; cancelled?)
Wishlist: Show Types/Series "Sleeper Cell" (cancelled.  got boring)
Wishlist: Hydroponic
Iconoclasts (Sundance)
Wishlist: "Ira Glass"
Wishlist: This American Life
Law & Order Criminal Intent (NBC)  (I think this is cable-only now)
Wishlist: Michael Pollan
Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares (BBC)
Psych (USA)
Life on Mars (BBC)
30 Days (FX)
Wishlist: Gordon Ramsay (deleted; hate Hell's Kitchen and F Word)
Namaste Yoga (FIT) (Awesome workout.  Was really into it for about 2 months)
The Class (CBS) (No recollection of this show at all.  Oh wait, now I do.  deleted)
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC) (deleted; show is canceled)
Heroes (NBC)
Dirty Jobs (Discovery)
Wishlist: Show Types/Series Dexter
Gordon Ramsay's F Word (BBC) (deleted)
Wishlist: Show Types/Delayed Kings Los
Wishlist: Robson Green
Wishlist: Ramsays (deleted; redundant)
Wishlist: Sleeper Cell (deleted)
My Boys (TBS)
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)
The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)
Eleventh Hour (BBC)
Hardware (BBC) (don't remember it, delete)
The Dresden Files (SciFi) (meh, keep it)
The Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central) (funny, but I don't miss it.  Delete)
Wishlist: Hajj (I saw a documentary once which had the most heartbreakingly beautiful "Call to Prayer" that I've ever heard)
The Riches (FX)
Painkiller Jane (SciFi) (Hey, whatever happened to this show?)
John Safran vs. God (Sundance)
Wishlist: Show Types/Series Burn Notice
Wishlist: John Cincinatti (delete)
Big Medicine (TLC) (delete)

Holy crap that's a lot of television.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Tivo Time Machine Pt. 2

Strolling through the 8(!) years of television archives on my Tivo, I'd saved the following segments of The Daily Show, because they stood out.



What's the Matter With Denmark? Pt. 1


Poll Smoking - American Education:



Al Jazeera English



Tivo Time Machine Pt. 1

Soon after I started swing dancing, about two years ago, I started having some problems with my living room television set up. Because of the system I had set up, I was able to watch DVDs but not television through my Tivo. A fairly easy solution, get the malfunctioning piece of equipment (my switch/amp) repaired. Well, I didn't have as much time to watch television, so I kept putting it off. A month or so ago.

Today I picked up the repaired unit and brought it back home to test out. And came face to face with the fact that my expanded Tivo has been recording television for me to watch for two years. With all the preferences I set two years ago.

First pass, I went through and deleted the things I knew I didn't need any more. I've watched all of The Wire, so I trashed the two seasons I had recorded. I've watched all the BBC episodes of Kitchen Nightmares (and don't particularly like the F word).

What does that leave me? Well, I'd been building up a back-log of television long before two years ago. Long before. And many of the wish lists and season passes were set to record all new episodes without deleting. It's a miracle that there were actually new television shows still being recorded. Not everything was set to stay indefinitely. The oldest recorded show is from August 2002 (A Cook's Tour: Stuffed Like a Pig; Portugal to France). There are quite a few singleton episodes of television that wasn't out on DVD yet. Season 5, Episode 14 of Angel, "Smile Time," which is has a hilarious demon-possessed Sesame Street muppet plot.  Season 3, Episode 19 of Mad About You, "Two Tickets to Paradise".  Season 5, Episode 10 of Mad About You, "Chicken Man".  The show wasn't my favorite, but these episodes... these fucking episodes... they're flat out brilliant.  There are some episodes of The Daily Show I've saved because of specific segments.  Back in the day, they weren't available online.  Now they are, and I'll note them in a separate post.  Some canceled shows (Love Monkey, Line of Fire).  Some one-offs like a re-broadcast of the Pilot episode of "Cop Rock."  A Los Angeles Kings anniversary special.  UFC 44.  "The Human Behavior Experiments."  An episode of a Fine Living Network show called "Dinner Date."  Not sure what the heck that's about.  Oh, people take a cooking class and speed date at the same time.  Or something like that.  Erased.  An IFC Short Film Showcase featuring the Ocean's Eleven spoof, "Seven's Eleven."

But the bulk of the storage is season passes or wish lists to my favorite shows circa 2006-2007.  "A Cook's Tour" and "Good Eats" from The Food Network.  "Scrubs" from NBC.   Oh man, it moved and I doubt I have the current season.  Bummer.  "America's Test Kitchen" from PBS.  "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations," from The Travel Channel.  "How I Met Your Mother," on CBS.  "This American Life" on Showtime.

And that's it.  Those shows represent over 200 hours of programming on my Tivo.  I have to admit, it feels weird to watch television in my living room.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Danceathon

I'm participating in the 24 Hour Cancer Dance-A-Thon again this year.

[EDIT]
The 2009 Dance-A-Thon is from 2 p.m. Saturday March 14th to 2 p.m. Sunday March 15th.

The goal is to raise money to donate to the City of Hope. If you have a few extra dollars rolling around that you'd like help out with it would be much appreciated:

Sponsor John-with-an-H!

The deal is, someone from the team will be dancing on the floor for every minute of the Dance-a-thon.

And as with last year, I'm not one to beg for money, but it's all going to an amazing cause (The City of Hope), so I'd certainly appreciate it if you could pitch in and sponsor me, even for $5 or $10. I believe $50 gets you a visitor's pass to the event to watch. Donate from my page, and I'll throw in 45 minutes of swing dance lessons from me for you and a partner for every $20.

Anyone have one of those vibrating foot massagers I could borrow?

SSC 26

Short Shameful Confession:

I am now facebook friends with every single girl I had a high school crush on, as well as my first kiss.

No Samantha, that's not ambitious, it's just happenstance.