I’m curious about how you watch the shows they’ve recorded on Tivo, dvr or pvr. Do you rush to watch them, or do you let them accumulate for a mini marathon? Do you watch every bit of what you’re recorded or do you skip ahead to certain characters or scenes? Do you watch all of the commercials or do you fast forward through them? I Tivo shows because either I’m not home to watch them or because I have something else on at that time. It often seems that either there’s nothing on that I want to watch or there are two shows on at the same time that I want to watch. I watch most shows that I’ve Tivo’d in entirety. I do usually fast forward past the commercials, unless it’s a commercial I consider funny or that I haven’t seen before. I don’t always watch what I Tivo right away, either because I want to wait and watch it with hubby or because it would be more convenient to watch at another time. I often save up several episodes of a soap and watch them all in a row, while working on my laptop in the living room. So, how do you watch what you’ve recorded?

My son and I went to the movies last night. One of the trailers we saw was for Dark Knight. I was surprised how different Heath ledger looked as the Joker character. I doubt I would have recognized him had I not known it was him portraying the Joker. If you haven’t seen any of the trailers for The Dark Knight, go take a look. Three of them are up on The Dark Knight Warner Bothers site.

I did notice when I saw the trailer that we have another Batman now, which got me to wondering how he’d measure up against the rest. Hubby and I have discussed who was the best Batman a number of times. My answer is and has always been Michael Keaton. I don’t include the Batman from The Dark Knight in this answer choices to this question because the movie isn’t out yet. So, in your opinion, who’s the best Batman? The choices are - Christian Bale, George Clooney, Val Kilmer or Michael Keaton. Let’s hear it.

I’m noticing that commercials do change with the economy, and not just the fads. Gas prices are going through the roof, so it only makes sense we’re seeing less commercials for trucks. I knew the housing market has been having its troubles just from seeing houses sit on the market for months on end, as well as from seeing news stories on the subject. Have you noticed there have been less real estate commercials on television lately? Now more than ever people need foreclosure help while those real estate foreclosure commercials are starting to air again. What other changes in commercial advertising coinciding with changes in the economy have you noticed?

I realized something today. We watch a lot of television in this house. Over the years hubby and I have watched a number of shows that feature a medical setting (like ER and House), shows that feature people having medical problems and law shows that touch upon medical issues. I’ve searched my brain and I don’t recall seeing people on any of these shows ever wearing medical jewelry. Don’t you think in real life at least a few people would have been wearing a bracelet or something? I’m just curious. Have you ever seen medical jewelry worn on television?

The writers strike may be over but television viewers will be feeling the fall out for months to come. Some shows aren’t returning until next year. That strike really wreaked havoc with a lot of people’s viewing pleasure, not to mention a lot of other people’s livelihood. The show 24 won’t return to the air until January 2009. For anyone that hasn’t seen it, the show 24 is an action-adventure-espionage series that is shot in “real time”. Fans of the show are quite enamoured of it.

Degree, the deodorant, has put together an internet series called “The Rookie”, that is styled in the same fashion as 24. Despite having watched 24 twice and not caring for it, when I was asked if I wanted an opportunity to review the Degree show I couldn’t pass it up. This is actually The Rookie’s third season. I’d not seen either of the previous ones, although I had seen a television commercial containing a piece of one. the third season is called Day 3: Extraction. I watched the Day 3 season from beginning to end, which took about a half hour.

Day 3 follows an American agent named Jason Blaine, whose boss was kidnapped by a well known cruel drug boss. Day 3 begins with how and why Jason’s boss got kidnapped. Viewers watch Jason, with help from headquarters, use technology and brains to try and find his boss. I don’t want to give away any more details for those that haven’t seen it yet.

The sound quality was excellent and the video pretty clear. Once or twice my internet got bogged down and the show stopped, but it did resume in short order. The videography of The Rookie Day 3 was very much like that of 24. As I later learned, that’s because The Rookie Day 3 was directed by Rodney Charters, a director of photography on 24. The Rookie Day 3 also got a lot of help from members of the 24 production and stunt crews.

The show’s season is meant to be watched in short installments of 3-5 minutes each. I think watching it in that manner keeps it much more interesting, and more like a series instead of a movie. All of Season 3’s installments can be seen on The Rookie Day 3: Extraction channel. I do have a suggestion for the folks at Degree. I’m one of those people that can’t start watching a movie or show late because I don’t like to miss anything. It would be a lot easier for people like me to enjoy the show if we understood how it got to the point the storyline is at now. I looked all over the Degree Rookie home page and couldn’t find any past seasons or bio or anything. If you’re a fan of the show 24, or if you like espionage-adventure types of shows, you should definitely check out The Rookie. I’m including the first installment of Day 3 for you to check out for yourself.

I’ve been watching home improvement shows again, trying to get some ideas to make some decisions. (FYI for any new readers, I love watching home improvement shows.) One of the projects I want to do next is put siding on our house. I’ve already looked at siding and believe I know which color I want. But, after watching a couple of Curb Appeals, I realized there’s more we need to do to make the house look nice. One thing we should get that they seemed to do on most of the houses is new exterior shutters. Have you ever gotten any ideas for home improvements from a tv show? What were they?

I was online earlier today chatting with the members of the band Theory Of A Deadman. (Shameless plug. New TOAD cd is Scars and Souvenirs. If you like rock music, buy it. It’s terrific and has quickly become one of my favorites.) I wrote to Tyler, the singer, that I was a bit bummed they weren’t headlining the local show later this month. Why am I bummed you ask? Their new album is so good I’d love to see a whole set that would allow me to hear the album played live. Anyway. Tyler told me they are headlining most of the shows on their tour right now but that one is a “one off” and that’s why they aren’t in that case. After finishing the chat, I was talking to hubby about concerts and it got me to thinking. When a band is really big sometimes a concert will be offered on pay per view. Why wait until a band is big? Why not do it when a band is still on the new side?

Why don’t the record companies invest the money to expand pay per view type concert offerings? This would bring in more money for the bands and the labels, and offer fans more opportunities to see bands they want to see. No, I’m not saying send cameramen to every show that every band does in every location they play. Here’s what I’m thinking. A record labels could get a cable or satellite tv station. Then they’d need to outfit a couple of popular clubs in each state with cameras that can catch the show as if the person watching was in the front row. The show could then be made available for viewing to pay per view audiences.

Here’s an example. Label X gets themselves a station and place cameras in venues nationwide. New Jersey could have cameras at the Starland and the Stone Pony. Now whenever any band signed to that label plays those clubs, the label could make the shows available for pay per view viewing. So, band Y plays a club that sells out with 300 tickets at $20 per ticket. Typically, that’s it, you can’t see that show. If this idea was ever put into use it would expand the audience by countless numbers. Now people all over the country could pay $5 or $10 to see that soldout show. This idea would allow people that are totally nuts about a band to watch all of the shows from that bands tour. If anything like this were in place you can bet I’d be buying almost every show that was available from Hinder, as would all of my other fellow Hinder maniacs. I know the idea sounds costly to set up, and it might be. It would pay for itself within a period of time. But I do believe it could be made to work and make money as well. What do you think?

Have you ever found out about any incredible travel deals? I think those companies should be made to tell you the real deal. The commercials should include pictures of the real room, not the one room they shot all the brochure pictures from. And what about the fax flyers? These flyers have no pictures, and usually offer no website. It’s just a fax offering you a cruise for under $199, or whatever the case may be. No pictures, just a crummy fax with no specific info. Why shouldn’t we know the cabin is on the 50th level below the sea next to the engine room? Someone might still want to buy the deal. There’s always someone willing to buy something. Come on guys. What are you hiding?

I first visited the Diary Of A Track Bunny blog last year. I promised Karah I’d review it a while back, so here I am.

The site has a whole different look now, featuring black, white, gray and pink colors. The blog is on an attractive two column theme that loads quickly. The header is colorful but doesn’t quite fit the Track Bunny mental image. I was sort of expecting rabbits, racecar drivers or racecars. Racecars with bunny ears would be cute, no? The font size is good, but I wish the gray font color was a little darker so it would be a little easier to read.

I like the navigation on the top of the blog. It’s a constant, it’s easy to find and it looks good. Since there is an Archive page contained in the navigation I’d probably get rid of the Archives widget in the sidebar to move more content up. The idea of a back to top link at the bottom of a blog is good, but this one doesn’t go back to the top. Intrigued by the # of users online link at the bottom, I clicked it to see where it went and got a “sorry, no posts matched my criteria” message in return. I would suggest moving the RSS feed link to the top, or just adding an RSS button up there somewhere, to make it easier for people to ssubscribe.

Karah updates her blog on a regular basis and frequently includes pictures. She’s got an easy going writing style, and her articles are of varying lengths. She writes in easy to understand complete sentences. The one thing I do not like is that on many of the posts the reader has to click more to read the rest of an article. I believe that if I am fortunate enough to have visitors to my site I’d like them to say for at least a little while. I do not ask them to work while they’re visiting, which is how I look at it when I see read more. Readers are easily able to interact by leaving a comment, as it is not necessary to register or login to leave a comment. The topics Karah mainly writes about are Nascar, celebrities, entertainment, music and television.

Karah’s got a terrific blog. Go check it out, and when you do tell her that valmg sent you.