light 'em up

Like previous years, my TiVo and my HD-DVR got a workout on the Fourth of July as I tried to record as many fireworks shows as possible. I couldn't find any coverage of Nashville's display but there were plenty of other choices. Nashville, Knoxville and Washington DC used Pyro Shows of LaFollette to light up their skies.

The best part of Boston's fireworks came during the song "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" by Dropkick Murphys (no relation). The music and the green explosions were a perfect match. But c'mon CBS, that show needs to be in high definition like "A Capitol Fourth" on PBS.

The musical highlight of the DC show was the "1812 Overture" although it was also pretty cool to have the explosions start while Jerry Lee Lewis was on stage singing "Great Balls of Fire." The worst part was when they cut away from the fireworks to show Jimmy Smits standing at a podium. Why not just let him do his part as a voiceover? Plus the Clark Gable mustache isn't working for him.

Our local Knoxville fireworks were televised after a weather delay. Did it actually rain on World's Fair Park or was the wind enough to put the festivities on hold? The highlight of the telecast for my wife and me was seeing our friend Mike sit in with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. They had him play his accordion during a selection from the "Kit Kittredge" soundtrack. Mike plays keyboards at our church and has a day job in the symphony's business office. As nice as it is to have coverage of our local symphony, there's very little point in televising fireworks without the benefit of HD. I think the viewing audience would have been better served if WBIR had broadcast NBC's HD coverage of Macy's 4th of July Fireworks from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. They could have shown a tape of the KSO from 10:00 to 11:00 or even 11:30. As it turned out, the Knoxville fireworks didn't begin until 10:20 or so.

The music accompanying the New York fireworks had a very Broadway feel to it, whether the songs were early rock 'n' roll or from the big band era. On the song "Give My Regards to Broadway," they made a point of zooming in on an illuminated Macy's logo every time the instrumental version of the tune got to the point where the lyrics would have said "remember me to Herald Square." Okay, we get it. Macy's flagship store is in Herald Square. And there was a "Miracle on 34th Street," we know. Parts of the patriotic medley, they called it "The Nation's Overture," reminded me more of "Fantasmic" than anything else. Although the "Tennessee Waltz" put me in mind of Knoxville, the highlight for me was "Sing Sing Sing." It seemed the best fit for fireworks being shot in triplicate from three barges.

HDNet ran some hi-def fireworks on the Fourth. Except that they were from the Kentucky Derby Festival in May. To make things worse, they didn't bother to pick up the synchronized music soundtrack. Instead we heard the boom of the shells, a hint of the music in the distance and the same crazy woman whooping after every burst. Travel Channel had live coverage of the fireworks in Washington but they had no music and no HD (on DirecTV). What's the point of showing that? At least the spectators near their microphone did some normal oohing and aahing instead of all that overzealous whooping on HDNet.

For me, fireworks are made better by the addition of the right soundtrack. WENS in Indianapolis used to sponsor a fireworks show perfectly named SkyConcert. Friday's telecasts gave me two ideas that, by writing this, I will drop in the cyber suggestion box known as the Internet. The instrumental parts of "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" would make a great addition to the Boomsday soundtrack. Secondly, HDNet should bring their fancy cameras to Knoxville on August 31 to record both the audio and video of Boomsday in hi-def.

hoping for the movie

TV Squad is showing the love to "Arrested Development" this week. I just spent 22 minutes watching one of the episodes they featured in their Retro Squad department. They started on Monday with a review of the pilot and continued with a top ten list of recurring characters and the top five GOB moments.

I can get in the mood for the Bluths pretty easily. "Arrested Development" was a frequent blog topic of mine back in 2005. I often flip over to HDNet to catch a commercial-free rerun at 12:30 p.m. in high definition. Even if I turn it on late, I can jump right back into any of the complicated plotlines.

The other day I revised my Amazon.com wish list. I replaced the separate entries for the DVDs of each season with the complete set. It's more cost-effective to buy all three seasons together. With the episodes available on Hulu.com, I may not need the DVDs but I still have an urge to collect them.

not the pooch!

The new mini-series on the Discovery Channel has my inner child counting the minutes until the next episode. I am loving "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions." They have lots of NASA film footage that I've never seen before. And it's all been remastered for HD. The two episodes that were on this past Sunday covered the Mercury and Gemini missions. Like most people, I am primarily interested in the Apollo flights, which will be featured next Sunday.

There seem to be relatively few commercial breaks, unless you count the whole show as an ad for the DVD set. Maybe if you buy the set, you won't be subjected to the promotional announcements on the bottom third of the screen. At least once the graphic obscured something important in the show. A military helicopter was struggling to rescue both Gus Grissom and his Liberty Bell 7 capsule. The NASA footage showed the helicopter trying to lift the water-filled capsule. Near the climactic moment, the spacecraft was behind a big blue bar promoting the Discovery Channel's mobile phone website. Lame.

If you missed the first two episodes on Sunday, you can get caught up on Saturday.

pick it and click it

Tonight seemed like a good night to try the new DirecTV DVR Scheduler. I only learned of it recently when a short training film about it turned up in my list of recorded programs.

I was upstairs and online while my wife, son, mother-in-law and brother-in-law were all downstairs watching the HD screen. I thought I could schedule the DVR to record "Last Comic Standing" without disturbing whatever movie they had on. I logged on to my DirecTV account, chose My TV Schedule and clicked on "Last Comic Standing." Here is a screen shot:



The only choice for WBIR was the satellite-delivered channel 10. There was no option to record channel 10-1, the over-the-air digital channel that I use. The local channels have been giving me some trouble lately. Last night I recorded "American Idol." The first hour is mostly unwatchable due to digital drop-off and pixelization. I adjusted my antenna around 9:00 p.m. and at least got the second hour. I remembered to add time for the traditional Idol finale overrun.

Back to tonight. As it turned out, I had to ask my son to pause "Transformers," go to the on-screen guide and record channel 10-1 for me. After all that, "Last Comic Standing" wasn't even in HD. C'mon NBC. Get with it.

happy geburtstag

The ceremony to welcome Pope Benedict XVI to the White House was broadcast live on several TV networks this morning. I recorded two channels, hoping for the one in 13,500 chance that I might spot my daughter in the crowd. As you can see from the pictures taken by her boyfriend, they weren't too far back. She did say it was easier to see the Pope and the President when they were up on the balcony. She was pleasantly surprised to find that she happened be standing near our friend Fr. Ragan Schriver, the director of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee.



I chose to record EWTN for their complete coverage and CNN-HD for their high-definition picture. CNN was a disappointment. I wanted to see the White House in widescreen. Instead, they showed the ceremony in SD. On either side of the 4:3 image, they put pillars with the CNN-HD logo as if to rub it in. To make matters worse, anchor Tony Harris would not shut up. He must like hearing himself talk. Prior to the ceremony, he would restate his own question multiple times before letting his guest answer. Then he talked all the way through the Vatican anthem and part way through the Star Spangled Banner before realizing it and commenting on the fact that he was going to finally stop talking. It's no wonder that other bloggers have described him as "terrible" and "clueless."

As the newest U.S. Bishop, Knoxville native James Vann Johnston was chosen to read a question to the Pope at tonight's meeting at the National Shrine. EWTN carried the speech live. Bishop Johnston got his camera time at 7:15 p.m. The question was written by the USCCB and preselected by the pope as one he would like to answer. A local Missouri station only barely mentioned that their new bishop would be present. They also misspelled the word "speeches" and inserted a picture of Captain Kirk in the middle of the article.



Tomorrow I will record EWTN's coverage of the Papal Mass at Nationals Park. My mother and sister will be among the 46,000 in attendance. I don't expect to see them on camera. The Washington media have set up special pages on their websites for the Papal visit. Check out WRC, WUSA and WJLA as well as the Washington Post.

reblog, reuse, recycle

It's time to revisit a few old blog posts and check for updates. I think Oprah does this all the time. Once in a while I write a brief update in the comments section of an entry, like I did about Gentlemen's Top Cuts yesterday. Three of my past topics turned up in the news today, which was all the incentive I needed to write tonight's post about them.

It seemed incongruous to me that several cable "reality" shows are in high-definition but that "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" were not. Now we hear that the seventeenth season of "Survivor" will be the first shot in HD.

When I watched a Redskins game on the NFL Network, I was underwhelmed by Bryant Gumbel's play-by-play announcing. I wasn't alone in being relieved that he will step aside.

Shea Stadium's final opening day had me thinking about the place. All the times I was there, I never thought about breaking a seat and stealing the pieces as souvenirs. The attempt to Rickroll Shea may have failed but people elsewhere are still showing the love to Mr. Astley.

should have tried this sooner

DirecTV didn't offer any Knoxville channels in high definition when I first got my HD setup. At the time, I ordered a supplementary rooftop antenna, only to have my order canceled by the satellite company because they claimed that the Knoxville HD channels were coming in January 2007. It would be another year before they made good on the promise.

As of now, I still have not ordered my local channels from DirecTV. When my rooftop antenna order got canceled, the guys from Strickwood Communications stepped up and brought me an RCA Indoor Amplified Antenna as part of my endorsement deal. I've been using the HD rabbit ears ever since.

Everyone in the family had to learn not to walk in front of the antenna, unless we wanted the TV picture to freeze or disappear. Once I got an HD DVR, we would often find that a recorded show had been ruined by bad reception. I missed most of this year's Grammy Awards for that reason, although from what I read about the show it was no great loss. I started to write a blog entry about it that night but abandoned it because it was going nowhere. Here's how that post would have started:

Like any good disc jockey, I tuned in to the Grammy Awards tonight. Sadly, I found them to be unwatchable but only partly because of their pretentious nature. The problem is that my television gets terrible reception of WVLT.

Of all the local stations, I get the best HD signal from WKOP, the PBS affiliate. The worst signal is from WBXX, the CW affiliate. The quality of WATE, WBIR and WTNZ would depend on how the rabbit ears were positioned.

A week ago I was programming the DVR to record "American Idol," "Dancing With the Stars" and "The Riches" while I would be out at the Einstein Simplified show. I kept adjusting and readjusting the rabbit ears, trying to find a sweet spot that would work for both WTNZ and WATE. There is a dial on the base of the antenna that is supposed to help with fine tuning. Out of frustration I turned the dial all the way to the left until it clicked and the blue light went off. Had I turned off the power? Maybe I had turned my amplified TV antenna into a passive TV antenna. Here's the amazing part: for the past week, I have gotten the best reception ever on all the over-the-air channels except for WBXX. Their transmitter is out past Oliver Springs, unlike all the stations on Sharp's Ridge. I was real close to calling DirecTV and ordering the local channels via satellite. Now that the rabbit ears are working better, I can save the extra money and stick with the over-the-air signals.

I'm disappointed that the local broadcast stations aren't making good use of their digital subchannels. WVLT gets an A for effort even though I hardly ever watch channel 8.2. They fill the time with infomercials, syndicated shows, reruns and programming from myNetworkTV. WBIR runs NBC Weather Plus on channel 10.2. I wish they would put on 10News2 instead. WATE used to run weather on channel 6.2 and WTNZ used to run music videos on channel 43.2. Both of those subchannels are currently off the air. I hope they put on something because all I need is more TV in my life.

thank the academy

The Oscars are always must-see TV at our house even though I've seen hardly any of the nominated movies this year. In the past, my wife and I have made an effort to see the films nominated for the major awards. With the price of gas and everything else going up and money getting tight, I am reluctant to shell out cash for movie tickets, much less the concessions.

Lately some movies I had wanted to see in the theater have been showing on a plethora of HD channels. In the past month I've seen "Children of Men," "Pride" and "The Astronaut Farmer." None of them won any Oscars but I enjoyed them nevertheless.

I won't attempt to live-blog the awards like they're doing at Best Week Ever and elsewhere. However, I noticed a few things worth mentioning. Did Steve Carell actually curse when pretending to be upset that he was presenting the animation award instead of the documentary award? One of his "shoots" sounded like the real deal to me.

During the dead celebrity tribute, I always feel embarrassed for the people who don't get applause. Some of the deceased get carryover applause by having their name announced right after a popular actor or actress. Shouldn't they mute the microphones during the annual montage?

I thought I saw Knoxville Catholic High School alumnus Cormac McCarthy in the audience when the Coen brothers won the adapted screenplay award. Yes, it was him. They pointed him out when "No Country For Old Men" won Best Picture.

All night long I've been trying to catch a glimpse of Diablo Cody's shoes. I read that she was going to wear the million dollar pair from Stuart Weitzman. Why do I care? One year, Stuart's publicist hired me to help out during Oscar week. According to her blog, Diablo has mixed feelings about wearing them. Oh yeah, she won an Oscar for "Juno," one of the few nominated movies that I saw.

Hey, the "I Drink Your Milkshake" guy won! I look forward to seeing that movie next year when it's on HBO or Showtime.

rats, race

USA Today came close to actually calling BS on the broadcast networks yesterday. As anybody with high definition TV can tell you, everything looks better in HD. I suspect that every HD viewer has watched a show for no other reason than that it was available in high def and looked so good. Once I even watched a few minutes of a NASCAR event before snapping out of my HD-induced trance.

I still watch some of my regular shows like "Access Hollywood" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live" via the upstairs, standard definition TV and TiVo. Neither show is available to me in HD, so it doesn't matter. For shows that I watch together with my wife and son, it's more convenient to use the big screen TV in the living room. Most of the shows we watch are broadcast in glorious high def except for two glaring omissions.

As USA Today pointed out, neither "Survivor" nor "The Amazing Race" are shown in HD. The paper quotes an "Amazing Race" producer as saying that high def cameras couldn't stand up to the travel on their show. "Survivor's" EP says not now, but maybe someday they'll go HD. Both producers cited the additional cost of new equipment. Repairs could be a problem when in a remote locale too. I half expected them to start worrying about getting beach sand in the camera.

The USA Today writer then points out that several cable shows are high def including the very messy "Dirty Jobs." Best of all, the article points out that the fancy schmancy HD cameras went to the middle of the Bering Sea to film a season of "Deadliest Catch." If it's worth the risk to expose high def cameras to waves crashing over the side of the ship (and it is), they could certainly do something to make the "Race" truly amazing.

for the mighty and the bold

Seeing the word Knoxville on the Engadget HD site caused me to do a double take today. They ran a blurb about DirecTV finally offering HD versions of our local channels. I thought about trying to write a whole blog entry about this but two things have distracted me. First of all, I can't find the price for the HD channels on the DirecTV website without placing an order.

Secondly, my wife is making a batch of Oreo truffles as her dessert contribution to the casino night at KCHS on Saturday. If you're going to the Luck of the Irish Party, be sure to sample one of these delicious treats.

The smell of Oreo in the air prompted me to start singing (if you can call it that) the DSRL theme from the new Double Stuf commercials. My wife thought I was trying to sing Dies Irae which is part of several famous requiems, like Mozart's for example.

Since I was so far off tune, I registered at the DSRL website just so I could download the theme song by the Lords of the Future. I even put a copy of it on my mp3 phone. I sent the link to both of my kids too with the warning that the tune was stuck in my head. Here's my daughter's response:

...thanks? now it's stuck in my head forever...grrr
so, what the deuce was that? it sounds like someone playing Guitar Hero on Nintendo Wii. pretty whack...and not just the regular type. no, that was wiggitty-whack

big rose, small thorn

Four networks offered high definition broadcasts of the Rose Parade this morning. Two of those were commercial free. In Los Angeles, almost everyone watches the parade on KTLA with Bob Eubanks and Michaela Pereira. The rest of us could watch KTLA's coverage on either the HD Theater channel or in SD on the Travel Channel but with commercials.

Last year I wrote that I wouldn't be disappointed if Eubanks retired from covering the parade. He seemed a little better this year than last but I didn't care for the way he used his deep announcer voice to drag out the last syllable of many words. It sounded like "Wells Fargoooo" and "pinata dot commmm." As the Trader Joe's float passed by, Bob said, "I'm always amazed how these designers come up with these new ideas year after year after year." Of course he is. He can barely come up with new sentences year after year. I got a strong feeling of déjà vu while Bob was talking about the equestrian units.

Every time I flipped over to ABC, I heard the announcers remind each other that every part of the floats are covered with organic material. Yeah, we get it. Other than that, their coverage was pretty good. They had a decent camera position and their HD broadcast looked fine. NBC's picture looked nice too. I liked their coverage better last year when Billy Bush filled in for Al Roker.

The best of all the broadcasts turned out to be on HGTV. They had the first camera position along the parade route. Their picture quality was superior. I heard surround sound and stereo separation as the marching bands played. The announcing team of Robb Weller, Paul James and Jann Carl did a good job, without being annoying. My one frustration with HGTV was when they put the marching bands into a small box while most of the screen was filled with a promo for an upcoming show. The band sound was turned down during the promo too, which was a waste of their excellent microphone placement. If they need to run their promos again next year, they should only air them when an equestrian unit passes by.

Did you watch the parade? On which channel? Did you see the City of Burbank float? Isn't Emeril Lagasse starting to look like Jackie Gleason? Aren't you glad the Stanley Cup was exempt from being covered in organic material? Did you see any of that outdoor hockey game in Buffalo today? Oh c'mon. I know you were watching the Vols. I recorded the parade so I could flip over to the game.

bury, bury good

How could a movie from the 1950s be in hi-def, my son wanted to know. I was about to watch "The Trouble with Harry," which I had never seen. It was on at three o'clock this morning during an Alfred Hitchcock marathon on HDNet Movies. The answer came shortly after I hit the DVR's play button the VistaVision logo filled our plasma screen. The movie opened with images of Vermont in its autumnal glory. My wife jokingly asked if I was actually watching "Planet Earth," the renowned HD nature series. The movie looked so good that my wife and son ended up watching it with me.

Last night I caught the end of "Psycho," which, even in black and white, was spectacular. I turned it on just in time to see Arbogast arrive at the Bates Motel. My "Psycho" DVD may not be working, but I still know the movie pretty well. While we were out today, I recorded the HD broadcasts of "Rear Window" and "The Birds." One is for my wife, the other is for my son. We'll have to save the Bodega Bay travelogue for a time when she's out of the house.

fundays

Monday nights bring a plethora of TV choices. On my upstairs TiVo I record "How I Met Your Mother" and "Aliens in America." I have a large backlog of episodes of both series that will help tide me over during the writers strike.

On the HD DVR, I record four other series. My wife and I watch "Dancing With the Stars" together and sometimes vote for our favorites. To do that, we make sure to watch it on Monday nights as soon as she gets home from the weekly Knoxville Choral Society rehearsal. It's funny to see random celebrities in the audience. Florence Henderson has been there a lot. On tonight's final show, I saw Gloria Allred sitting in the front row. You don't think they'll turn up as dancers on a future season, do you?

My wife and son watch "Chuck" and "Heroes" with me. We try to stay current with both shows, meaning we usually watch them within seven days. "Chuck" has been consistently enjoyable while "Heroes" has gotten better, except when Maya and her brother are on screen. When the others are out of the room, I get to watch "Journeyman," which I have previously described as a guilty pleasure.

During the past few episodes, I felt like I missed something on "Journeyman." It's as if they left out scenes in which Dan explains his time travel to his brother. I looked online for reviews that would explain the episodes and ended up finding yet another guilty pleasure. The reviewer on a site called "The Recapist" hates "Journeyman." Absolutely hates it. But that's why M. Wilson Burdorff's reviews are so much fun to read. He eviscerates the show, pointing out all the plot holes and timeline inconsistencies. The negative reviews give me all the more reason to tune in. I don't want to miss a single reference in the recap. On last night's show, Dan traveled back to 1980 after being shot. The emergency room doctor was intrigued by Dan's iPhone. The Recapist posted a photo of that scene with the clever caption: "Steven! It's your cousin, Marvin! Marvin Jobs!"

hey dummy!

A scene from last Thursday's "30 Rock" has been replayed over and over on our DVR. My wife and I had to hit pause and watch the therapy scene again before we even finished the episode. We showed the scene to our son when he got home. He liked it too, once we had explained the "Sanford and Son" references. Over the weekend, my wife showed the scene to her brother a couple of times too. Thanks to a link I saw posted on Frank Strovel's blog, my wife can now share the video clip with all her friends.

To jump off on a quick tangent, I'm loving the HD DVR. Especially now that we're getting a ton of HD channels. An article in today's Variety will bring you up to speed.

Another Thursday night comedy was celebrated in Scranton over the weekend. Whitney Matheson's Pop Candy blog has photos and a full recap of "The Office" convention.

now showing in my head

There used to be a disproportionate amount of Food Network shows on my TiVo. I could watch almost anything they showed, especially "Unwrapped" and "Good Eats." Plus I would search for programs about BBQ competitions. Over time I found myself watching less Food Network as other shows grabbed my attention. Last night I once again felt the magnetic pull of food on TV when I tuned to a new channel on my satellite system: Food Network in High Definition. Wow. I could watch it all day. The schedules on the HD and SD channels are different. Fortunately for me, there are plenty of "Unwrapped" and "Good Eats" episodes in HD.

When I go to the supermarket I often can't resist taking pictures of food items I see. It's almost as if I had my own imaginary Food Network show. I had heard that cupcake specialty shops were a hot item in L.A. Our local stores are taking their cupcakes up a notch. I've seen some decorated to look like those dogs that resemble floor mops and some that are supposed to be cute space aliens. I was also intrigued by the birthday "cakes" comprised of many cupcakes that are all iced as one. In the photo below you can see a monster face next to a Care Bears rainbow.

are you ready for some

Today was my first day with the NFL Sunday Ticket in HD. At 1 o'clock I started flipping through channels 718 and up in eager anticipation of glorious high definition football. Just like on Wednesday, I got the dreaded error message, "channel not purchased." When I tried to call DirecTV, all I got was a busy signal. Repeatedly. Maybe I wasn't the only one having problems. I made myself some lunch and put on one of the blurry SD channels to make sure I was at least getting those. By the time I finished eating, most of the HD channels were working. The problem returned at 4 o'clock. Gradually the channels started coming on but by 5 o'clock I was still not getting channel 721. Coincidentally, the error code for "channel not purchased" is 721. I grabbed the phone and called DirecTV to find out what was happening. First I talked to a woman in the Philippines who had me reset my set top box. When that didn't make a difference, she transferred me to a guy in Montana who thought that the problem was somehow related to the September 19th rollout of more HD channels. The engineers were working on it, he said. People on the West Coast will get the new channels first. I was told to be patient as it may take several days (or longer) for them to work their way Eastward.

This was the perfect week for me to work out the bugs with my Sunday Ticket subscription. The Redskins don't play until tomorrow night. Instead of sticking with one game, I was in the mood to watch them all. They have an easy way to do just that on the ADD Channel or as they call it, the Red Zone Channel. Somebody at Sunday Ticket headquarters keeps an eye on which teams are nearing the goal line and flips from game to game for you. You end up seeing most of the scoring plays live. The rest are shown on replay very shortly thereafter. If nobody seems about to score, they show you whichever game is most interesting. There are no commercials. During today's action, there was no halftime break either. By the time the last game ended its first half, other games had already started their second half.

On Sundays that I can't be at home to watch, I can still see most games over the Internet by using the DirecTV Supercast. The games broadcast in my home market (on WVLT and WTNZ) are blacked out on the web, just like they are on the satellite. The flaw in that plan would occur if the game I want to see is on broadcast television in Knoxville while I'm traveling in an area that gets a different game. For example, I wouldn't be able to see a Redskins game on the computer if it's available on WTNZ. If I happened to be in Atlanta and if the Falcons happened to be on at the same time, I would be out of luck. Maybe there's a way to contact DirecTV if I need to travel on a Sunday and all the other chips have fallen into place. Here's a screen grab of what it looked like toward the end of today's Bengals at Browns game, except that I saw the actual game in the empty black box.

line and sinker

The guy at DirecTV said that my call was approximately the tenth he had received today asking about the same problem. My HD channels (72 through 79) were not working. The on screen message said "channel not purchased," which I knew to be incorrect. How did I know? I watch a little bit of "Arrested Development" or "Nothing But Trailers" on HDNet almost every day. Plus we pay the bill every month. The problem was easily resolved as the guy on the phone pushed a few buttons from his cubicle in Oklahoma. He speculated that it may have had something to do with some new settings because of all the new HD channels about to make their satellite debut. My new pal told me that most of them will turn up on the same channel numbers where they are now.

Before hanging up, I mentioned that I still did not have an HD DVR. I wanted to get one last December, but they were on back order. Ever since then, they have told me the only way to get the DVR would be to pay an additional $300 for it. I had refused because I know somebody who got a DirecTV HD DVR box for no extra charge when he signed up for the service. That's when the guy on the phone set the hook. They had a special offer. I could get one of the HD DVRs for no charge if I signed up for NFL Sunday Ticket. That's like telling me that the ice cream is free when you buy a piece of cake. I love ice cream and cake. I asked him to hang on while I used the cell phone to call my wife for a brief discussion about finances. Meanwhile, the DirecTV guy put me on hold while he checked with his supervisor to make sure the deal was still available. I laughed and said that I was also checking with my supervisor. Both our bosses said yes. They're supposed to deliver the DVR on September 24, just in time to solve the problem of the four Monday shows I want to watch at the same time.

look, up in the sky...

Planes towing advertising banners catch my eye. I even get a little frustrated when I can't make out the message due to the distance or the angle. On Friday night a banner plane flew over the high school football game we were attending. I joked to my wife that Pete Michaels might be trying to make a few extra bucks. The banner read "smile -- mystadiumphoto.com." I clicked over there when I got home. The site belongs to Dave Senn, an enterprising photographer who is selling aerial pictures of several high school fields and of Neyland Stadium.

The high school game had a couple of penalties that were unclear to us in the stands and a couple of big plays worth seeing again. Fortunately for me, WMAK recorded the game and broadcast it last night in HD. The announcers were in a tough spot. From their descriptions and accounts of the game, I thought that they probably couldn't see the field any better than I did from my seat in the stands. They said things like "the ball popped out, no wait it didn't... it's a touchdown." Since I had the benefit of hindsight, it was amusing to me when they praised the team that was destined to lose and when they praised the refs who were destined to make a questionable call later in the game. They gave the cameraman a hard time when he wasn't fast enough to cover one big play. Considering that there's only the one camera and no replay, I thought the cameraman did a pretty good job. After one confusing turnover, the announcers suggested that people at home hit rewind on their TiVo. Perhaps the weirdest thing was at halftime when they left the camera pointed at the band while the microphone only picked up the sound in the press box.

the sanctuary mystery

There's been a lot of Catholic stuff in the local news lately. The front page of the Fountain City Focus has a story about the grand opening of St. Mary's Medical Center North. This past Wednesday, our former bishop was installed as the Archbishop of Louisville. And the current issue of Knoxville Magazine has an interesting article about the construction of a $9 million church at St. John Neumann parish. The new church has an Old World design. The pastor, Fr. John Dowling, says in the article that most churches built in the last fifty years don't put enough emphasis on the relationship between the physical and spiritual. His comment reminded me of the small controversy at All Saints Church that I wrote about last December.

The big news at All Saints this summer is that Fr. Ragan Schriver was left in charge while all the other priests went on vacation. I suspect that whoever writes the jokes for next year's adult social will get some material out of that. In past years, there have always been plenty of laughs about Fr. Ragan's liberal use of holy water during Easter season. During Ordinary Time, he has been known to flick his wet fingers at the altar servers who hold the pitcher, bowl and towel for him to wash his hands during Mass. This morning, the server holding the pitcher poured the water for Fr. Ragan and then quickly got out of the way. I think the server saw me trying to hold back a chuckle after I saw him artfully dodge any spray.

When Fr. Ragan takes his vacation, he might want to consider a trip to the Philippines for the Feast of San Juan. In English, San Juan is St. John the Baptist. The people celebrate in the streets of Manila by spraying water on everyone they see. They use Super Soakers, hoses and even buckets to douse each other. I saw some footage from the festival on HDNet the other night. It was on a show called "Deadline," which is part of a block of shows they promote as "Guys Night In." They probably call it that because of the salty language used by the saucy host.

the monkey's got a hockey stick

Fox is burning off the remaining episodes of a funny show called "The Loop" this summer. The show has not been renewed for next season, which is a shame because it provides several good laughs per episode. The network has scheduled it at odd times. Last night they ran three episodes, one each at 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30. I gave the show a Season Pass on TiVo so that I wouldn't have to worry about the weird scheduling. As it turned out, I was able to watch the 8:30 episode in real time on the plasma screen in glorious over-the-air HD. Before going to bed, I made some room on the upstairs TiVo by deleting the episode I had already watched downstairs. First, I skimmed through it to make sure it was the same show I had watched earlier. The episode on my TiVo had been recorded in SD via cable. As usual, the picture quality from my cable company wasn't very good. I noticed that our local Fox affiliate plastered huge weather warnings over the bottom third of the screen. But when I had watched the same episode in HD, the warnings were not there. On the one had, I'm glad that my HD viewing experience wasn't interrupted by a larger-than-necessary storm warning that didn't affect me directly. But on the other hand, what if the storms were headed my way? Does my local affiliate not care about HD viewers? Or are there so few of us that it doesn't matter?

avoid rubbing

Tonight was the first time I had to miss an Einstein Simplified performance due to illness. More on that later.

As an improv fan, I like the concept of "Thank God You're Here" but I didn't love the execution. The celebrity who walks into a scene had to completely improvise but the rest of the cast stubbornly stuck to their scripted outline even if it meant denying the improviser, a cardinal sin of the genre. I started liking the show a little better when I began to think of it as a fleshed out version of an improv game called "Every Other Line." A reviewer for TV Squad pointed out several specific examples of the denials that drove me crazy.

Since I was at home tonight, I watched "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars" in real time. That reminds me, what were Lance Bass and Alfonso Ribeiro doing together in the audience during Monday night's dancing show? Maybe they were doing some belated joint promotion for their 2005 made-for-TV movie "Lovewrecked." I did a Google Blog Search and found only one other person in the blogosphere who also noticed them. During tonight's Big & Rich performance (with special guest Drew Lachey), I called WATE to complain that the broadcast was not in HD. Like any red-blooded American male, I wanted to see Cheryl Burke fill the screen. A nice man in the control room told me it was not his fault, it was a network problem. Nobody else could see the show in HD either. While I had him on the phone, I got a chance to mention a pet peeve. I told him that I didn't like the way they always switch back to SD a couple of seconds too soon before airing local commercials during "Lost."

During the commercial breaks in tonight's shows, I sent invitations to join LinkedIn to a few people whose email addresses I didn't have handy