#367 - Thomas Live

This afternoon, The Little Guy and I went to see Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends in a live production. As it turns out, TLG is a little shy to meet any costumed characters up close (see photo), but he enjoyed the show fairly well. It was unfortunate that the show began at his normal naptime so he was not very enthusiastic during the audience participation sections of the show... but he didn't want to leave, either. The show itself was about a circus coming to the Island of Sodor, and since TLG has never been to a circus, either, I'm not sure if he really understood the plot. But he liked seeing the trains on the stage and seemed to enjoy the music, most of which he knew from watching the Thomas TV show. I got him a new light-up toy from the souvenir stand, and he did wave it around quite a bit during the show. One funny thought: there were cookies in the meet-and-greet area, and TLG didn't want one, nor did he want any popcorn. He settled on M&M peanuts (a boy after my own heart) but blew me away with not wanting a cookie!

#291 - Beijing Trance

I do remember watching the Olympics as a kid, particularly the winter Olympics and the ice skating competitions in the early '90s with Paul Wylie, Nancy Kerrigan and the like. Good times. But I had not had any desire to watch the Beijing Olympics until today, when my friends starting talking about them at lunch today (see post, below). I read about Michael Phelps, the women's gymastics team, and the debacle with the opening ceremonies having a young girl lip-syncing, so I was able to talk about it all... but hadn't seen a single minute. Tonight, after a great date night with my hubby, I retreated to our room and turned on the 2008 Summer Olympics - and couldn't turn it off! I watched in a trance for a couple of hours, marveling at the swimmers, the women's marathoners and short distance runners, whoever came on the screen. These athletes are pretty amazing, and hearing their back stories adds to the greatness.

#288 - NFL Sunday Ticket

My wonderful hubby celebrated a birthday today, and my gift to him: I signed us up for DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket. (I told him that the "real" present wasn't the actual gift itself, but the fact that the little guy and I will give up talking to him each Sunday during the football season. Ha!)

I'd never really heard about this service in-depth, but apparently you pay a fee and they broadcast each NFL game every week for your enjoyment. We could have paid $100 extra to get one HD station and one station that would show you all 8 games and let you choose which one to listen to... but that just seemed like overkill! Then again, for a non-football-lover like myself, the entire thing seems a little like overkill. Anyway, you'll know where to find our family once the football season starts for good: in front of the TV.

#266 - Mad Men

Today, on our DVR, we recorded all 13 episodes of the first season of "Mad Men" and this evening I watched the first one. This show airs on AMC and the second season begins next week. It's about people who work at an ad agency in the 1960's, so the costumes and scenery are all very stylized, but I especially noticed the music. The first episode contained a great arrangement of the song "Caravan" as well as "On The Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady. The actors were very believable, and I know this show has been nominated for more Emmy awards than any other drama this year. I had high hopes going in, and I definitely liked it enough to watch the rest of the season.

#260 - Aliens in America

This evening, I caught an episode of the already-been-cancelled CW sitcom "Aliens in America." The show is about a Wisconsin family sponsoring a Muslim teenage boy as an exchange student, and stars Scott Patterson from "Gilmore Girls" (one of my all-time favorites). It was actually pretty funny for a show with a plot so racially-charged... I thought the teenaged actors did a much better job than some on other popular shows ("That 70s Show" comes to mind).

#162 - Lyrics Machine

Tonight, my hubby and I caught an episode of "Don't Forget the Lyrics" with host Wayne Brady. What a goofy game show that is! If you haven't seen it before, it's like karoake only the contestant has to finish the words to a randomly selected line, and the prize money gets higher for each song correctly finished. The lifelines and prize monies are arranged a la "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" and it wouldn't have been so bad if tonight's contestant wasn't totally, abysmally annoying. We were exchanging foot rubs at the beginning of the episode, but after about 40 minutes, I just couldn't take it anymore. Neither of us would be bad as contestants, mind you.

#160 - Dancing Machines

As I have for the past four seasons, tonight I watched the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars. (I didn't watch the first season at all, but I've been hooked ever since!) But tonight was different... instead of watching all by myself, my wonderful sister was in town visiting and agreed to watch with me. It was so much more fun watching with someone else than by myself! We had conversations about which of the six men participants (Adam Corolla, Penn Jillette, Cristian de la Fuente, Mario, Jason Taylor and Steve Guttenberg) was the best and the worst. That was awesome. Thanks, sister-of-mine!!!

#142 - Spring Movie Season

Tonight, I took my new issue of Entertainment Weekly, the Spring Movie Preview, and I added 12 not-even-released-yet movies to our Netflix queue. We watch a lot of movies in our house, mostly after they've been released to DVD. And I'm usually good about adding them once they're in the theaters so I don't forget about them. But since there was such a great, comprehensive list available, I thought I might just add them now. There were a few I was hoping to add that Netflix couldn't find yet, like "Pineapple Express" starring James Franco and a few other of my favorite actors from that great TV show, Freaks and Geeks. I guess I'm jumping the gun a little bit!

#116 - Catching Up on Old TV

I fell in love with the TV show "Freaks and Geeks" when it aired in the fall of 1999. At the time, everyone kept comparing it to another short-lived show, "My So-Called Life," which starred Claire Danes and was cancelled before a full season could air on TV. Having never watched that show when it aired in the early '90s, I decided it was time... so today I watched the first three episodes of "My So-Called Life" which I rented from Netflix. It seems like a decent show, and I hope I'll like it even more as I continue, but so far it doesn't compare to "F&G." I loved every minute of that show, from the opening minutes of the pilot episode on, and I've tried to follow Judd Apatow and the actors from the show through their various projects over the years. I'm so glad most of the actors from that show have gone on to do great work all over the movies and TV (Linda Cardellini is now on "ER," Jason Segal is on "How I Met Your Mother," Seth Rogen starred in two huge hit movies last summer, and James Franco has been working in movies - most visibly in the Spider Man trilogy). I will continue to watch "MSCL" and hope that it will live up to the hype.

#94 - Teevee

When I opened my big gift from my wonderful hubby at Christmastime, I had no idea how much I would love it. It's a big flat screen TV for our bedroom, and we have it wall-mounted and everything. Tonight was the first time I've sat down (OK, laid on the bed) to watch something on a giant flat-screen TV in the bedroom. I ended up watching a weird movie, "The Last Kiss" starring Zach Braff and Jacinda Barrett, which I wouldn't necessarily recommend, but the TV was awesome. Before Christmas, we had a 27" in a low entertainment center that was a little hard to see from anyplace comfortable in the room. The new one is up high where I can see it, and the picture is so clear! Hooray for new gadgets!

#84 - Dee Vee Arrrr

Today we had a HD DVR installed! I'm so excited to learn how it works... we're testing it by taping the new Elmo Christmas special tonight. This is something I've been interested in learning more about, and decided to buy it for a Christmas gift to my wonderful hubby, who loves TV as much as I do. Merry Christmas to us!

#63 - DirecTV

(Note: again, I missed posting yesterday, so I am posting two new activities today.)
For a while now, we've been unsatisfied with our cable TV service. It's very expensive and the HD picture is terrible (plus it skips). We even bought a separate antenna trying to fix the picture, and that didn't help either. We watch a lot of TV, so this was all problematic. So while I was out this afternoon, the DirecTV guy met my hubby at the house and they installed two boxes for our main TVs. We are now the proud customers of DirecTV and so far I can't say enough good things. When I got home, my hubby was already watching an HD broadcast of the Cowboys football game - and the picture quality was amazing! Plus tonight's game was broadcast on the NFL network, which we didn't receive with our old cable package. This DirecTV is cheaper than the cable was, and we still get the digital music we enjoy (only now it's affiliated with XM satellite radio). A good deal all around, and I think as we play with it more, we'll definitely enjoy it.

#3 - Watching TV on the web?

This may come as a shock to anyone who knows me, but I love TV. I know, the idea is to do something NEW. So instead of waiting for the next DVD of "Friday Night Lights" to arrive tonight, I watched an episode on the internet. Having never watched anything longer than 4-5 minutes on the web before, I encountered a few problems with this. 1) The video stopped and skipped during the show a few times. 2) There were commercial breaks during the show which you couldn't fast-forward through or even pause (totally annoying). 3) Of course, the video didn't skip during the commercials. Ummmm yeah. So I think I vote for watching TV on regular TV. Next time I'll just wait for the DVD to arrive.

P.S. - If you haven't given "Friday Night Lights" a chance yet, please do.