More TV in high definition

I have DirecTV and a 42″ plasma HDTV.  I’ll watch crap programming just because it’s in high definition.  With an antenna I have in my attic, I get WJTV, WAPT, and WLBT in high def…although JTV comes in the best.  The wife was smart enough to leave me alone with my TV when The Masters golf tournament in HD was on.

I’m pretty pumped. DirecTV might start broadcasting a lot more channels in high def beginning this weekend.  Here’s the list I’ve seen:

A&E HD
Big Ten Network HD
Cartoon Network
Cinemax HD East
Cinemax HD West
CNN HD
ESPNews HD
Food Network HD
FSN New York HD
HBO HD West
HGTV-HD
The History Channel HD
Madison Square Garden HD
NFL Network HD
National Geographic Channel HD
Showtime HD West
Smithsonian Channel HD
Starz Comedy HD
Starz Edge HD
Starz Kids & Family HD
Starz HD East
Starz HD West
TBS in HD
The Movie Channel HD
Versus HD / Golf Channel HD
The Weather Channel HD

In October, DirecTV is supposed to be adding:  

Animal Planet HD
Bravo HD
Comcast SportsNet Chicago HD
Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic HD
Discovery Channel HD
Fox Business Channel HD
FSN Detroit HD
FSN Prime Ticket HD
FSN Southwest HD
FSN West HD
Fuel TV HD
FX HD
The Learning Channel HD
MGM HD
NBA TV HD
New England Sports Network HD
The Science Channel HD
Sci-Fi Network HD
Speed Channel HD
SportsNet New York HD
USA Network HD
Yankees Entertainment & Sports HD

 Yes, there is still a lot of crappy channels in there…but at least it’s more channels!!

Yes, I’ll be in a bookstore tonight

Oh, and you’re not?

I’m escorting my daughter and a friend to local bookstores for the new HP book.  We’ve got plenty of Potter events…so I don’t know where we’ll end up.  Yellow Dog Books seems ready with a quiddich tournament, lightning bolt decorations, and a 9 3/4 sign over the entrance.  Lemuria has New Stage actors doing HP scenes.  The girls will be in heaven.  Me, I’ll be reading about blogging or using a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Back home

A few weeks after the NY trip, and I’m back in the same routine in Mississippi. The car knows how to get to work, once I merge onto the I-55 one lane opportunity heading into Jackson, and it knows how to get back while sitting in traffic trying to get back to Madison.

I miss the fireworks over the Reservoir that used to be hosted by ”The Dock” nightclub.  Many years ago, my family would park on the side of the road and watch the display.   Since the place is gone, so are the fireworks. Sure, other places offer fireworks around here, but I gotta tell, they aren’t the same.  And if you’re a fan of balloon glows, not like the one at the local mall, go to Natchez in October.  Now they know how to do a balloon event!

I saw in the paper this morning that Madison was named as one of the 10 Best Towns for Families by Family Circle magazine.  Yiippee. I’m sure city leaders will use that for all it can in recruiting more people to come live in Madison. Of course that increases traffic, puts more kids in overcrowded schools,  strains the police department, and brings more strip mall shopping.  Then before you know it, the very things you moved to Madison for aren’t there anymore! Since I know they’re asking for my opinion, I suggest they stop building houses that are $400,000 if they want to get more people here. I know I can’t afford a house note like that. I’ve driven through some pricey neighborhoods and I’m seeing an awful lot of “for sale” signs in the yards of big houses. Maybe the market for million dollar mansions in MS is drying up?

And now for something completely different:  Why is it that thunderstorms always seem to come through the area right around the time I’m trying to watch Letterman? The storms block out the satellite picture, and my dog freaks out at the sound of thunder. If the dog can’t sleep, nobody sleeps. Why can’t we have the storms in the middle of the day when I’m at work? Mother Nature should consider what I want, dammit.

New York state of mind

It’s been a whirlwind of a past couple of weeks.  The trip to New York was wonderful and the weather even better.  You never know what you’ll stumble on in “The Big Apple.”  My wife and I walked up to Central Park to find 20 cop cars with lights and sirens parked along the road…but there was nothing going on.  After we got the courage to ask someone about all of it, we were told it was a training exercise to see how quickly police could respond to a certain location. Apparently they have these sorts of things all the time.  Nice to know that that next time I see so many police, there may be nothing going on.

And then we were eating dinner at Grand Central station peacefully one night.  We noticed that across the aisle from us, someone had left their cell phone and laptop on their table, as well as a bag on the ground next to their chair. No big deal, so we kept on eating.  Apparently, we weren’t the only ones to notice.  About 5 minutes into our dinner, two uniformed cops, a K-9 unit, and a military officer walked over and started asking people at the table in front of us to describe the person who left this at the table.  The dog sniffed the bags.  Finally, after about a minute of my wife and I trying not to look like we were listening in, the owner came back to the table. The police started asking him all sorts of questions.  Needless to say, they weren’t too pleased that someone would leave packages unattended at a table at Grand Central Station.  The guy looked like he was going to soil himself as the tried to explain why we went to use a pay phone and leave everything behind. All the while the story was going on, the military man keep tapping the trigger on his rifle.  After about 5 minutes of this, the cops walked away disgusted that someone would be so stupid as to do this. The pitiful guy buried his face in his hands.  Everyone else was oblivious as life went on. Who knew we could get free entertainment with our dinner?

More thoughts on New York in future posts…

CompUSA woes

I’ll admit it…I’m a closet techno-geek.  I have both a Mac and a PC….actually, several PCs and a couple of Macs.  Just owning them still doesn’t mean I know how to play with them.  And storage…I just got an external 750gb drive and lusting for more.

Anyway…I’ve purchased a lot of stuff at our CompUSA store over the years.  But like most CompUSA stores around the country, our store closed last month. I admit it, I took advantage of their liquidation prices.  I even had a positive experience in exchanging a Final Cut Pro software package because I was sold an HD upgrade…problem was the salesperson didn’t tell me I needed the original Final Cut package first.  Long story short, I got the basic bundle AND the update for LESS than the original price of Final Cut basic. But this experience was the exception, not the rule.

I tell you this because Terry Heaton, a well respected blogger, bought a camera at a Comp USA closeout last week. He got home and found that all he got was an empty box, no camera was inside.  When he politely contacted the company to get the camera, he was told that he wasn’t going to get one…it was his responsibility to open the box to make sure he got a camera.  Well, he writes about his experience and the resulting laffathon.  The happy ending is that he will get his camera and never use CompUSA again. 

Even with my one happy experience with CompUSA, I the bad outweighed the good. I had plenty of other frustrations and headaches with our store as well.  With the exception of the store’s Apple section and their incredibly knowledgable Mac expert, our local service sucked and the nightmare of trying to get your mail-in rebates honored was a huge pain in the ass. Reading about Terry’s experience reinforced that it wasn’t just our store that deserved to close…and that CompUSA, which you’d think would understand the needs of technogeeks, just doesn’t treat their customers right and deserves to be closing nationwide.

However, I am going to miss waiting for the local store to open at 9pm on Thanksgiving night to get their ridiculously low specials.  It sure beat camping out in line at the Best Buy for 12 hours in hopes of snagging one of their 10 laptops at $259.

Jericho fans get wish

Big commotion among a very small portion of the TV viewing audience this morning.  CBS changed its mind and has ordered new episodes (well, 7 anyway) of the show Jericho.  If you’ve never seen it, it is a TV rarity: a show that doesn’t insult the intelligence of its audience. I hadn’t been much of a Skeet Ulrich fan…he seemed like the Michael Pare of TV screens. It seems rabid fans sent containers of nuts to CBS headquarters in New York to vent their frustrations…over 20 TONS of the snack that is the perfect compliment to your favorite beer.  Somewhere Mr. Peanut is smiling.

And speaking of New York…I’ll be sure to wave at the CBS building when I’m in New York next week for a business/vacation trip.  The CBS plaza is where my favorite store of all time is located…the underground Apple store…accessible only by a glass elevator and a spiral staircase.

Mr. Garee’s neighborhood

I work in Jackson, Mississippi, which is the state capital and live in Madison, a smaller suburb city a few miles from the Jackson city limits.  It gives me a unique perspective…watching the radical change that Jackson is undergoing with the “white flight” to the suburbs.  Of course, it’s nothing new to many of the larger cities across the country, but it seems particularly acute here.  Despite a few brave businesses determined to stay downtown and offer some sort of nightly entertainment, there isn’t much to offer. So, with no tax base from the remaining citizens and no businesses on the horizon, city servces are terrible, schools are going downhill, and the overall quality of life for Jackson is good for only a select few (i.e. wealthier folks). 

Meanwhile, the bedroom communities like Madison are exploding…creating their own problems with traffic, energy and water systems maxxed out, and the lure of chain restaurants sprouting up for quick tax money.  Yet with the growth, it seems that the schools that are being constructed as fast as possible are already too small by the time they are completed.  But when you’ve got almost no violent crime, schools in the top performing percentage in the state, and businesses that adhere to a strict design code, then you can’t argue too much with it’s success.  It’s a scaled down version of Georgetown and Memphis (for those of you who know about the South.) But Madison too is a city of extremes. You could see a 1.5 million dollar mansion, literally turn the corner and see a shack without indoor plumbing. It is a county of haves and have-nots.

I really try to defend the area to people who aren’t familiar with Mississippi.  It is a nice place to visit and people really are friendly. It isn’t the stereotypical stuff shown in the movies.  But we sure do have a long way to go in order to get with the times.  And if you live in the state, I suggest taking a trip to San Francisco, New York, or anywhere in Europe. Seeing the life and vibrancy of these cities really gives you a fresh perspective on what this area lacks. 

So that’s a small peek at my universe.  It’s admittedly sheltered, but we can’t all be world travelers. At least I’d like to think I’m more than just a Mississippian.

Well, it’s been just a few minutes with the new blog.  Hell hasn’t frozen over, and no catatrosphes have befallen me.  I hope my good luck continues. 

 I’ll get around to posting more information about me in a little while.

Hello world!

Yes, I’m jumping into the blogosphere.  I’m starting much later than many, but starting before many other of my friends.  I’ll try to make it as interesting as possible, noting stuff that happens at work, at home and in between.