TV Guide.com Community Blog

My 10-year-old daughter has been watching iCarly. A cute show about a girl who has a web video program.

What are some "good" shows for elementary-school aged kids. Generally we don't have the tv on after dinner, but this year we started letting her watch after her sisters go to bed and she has finished her homework and practiced her music.

What else are you watching?

I've been really enjoying Freaks and Geeks on DVD. It's too bad it didn't last very long, but I feel like I'm reliving my high-school days as one of the freshman "geeks". Those were rough days, but I made it through.

Just finished watching the last episode of Rome from Netflix. Great series!

May not have been perfectly accurate historically, but I thought it gave a good sense of the time and the general history.

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Lots of TV changes going on around here. We cancelled Comcast cable and switch to Verizon Fios TV. I guess it doesn't matter who the provider since they all provide the same channels, so why not go with the least expensive? I'm saving about $10 a month on the basic cable (not a promo deal, just the regular price).

So, that's one change, but the other one is big... we decided not to pay for HBO, so we can save another $15 a month. We took that extra money and put into a Netflix subscription for $15. Now we can watch not only the excellent HBO shows (several months behind the live show), but we can now see any DVD we want.

They're really quick on their mail turnaround too. We have the two-dvd option so we can have a video for the kids for the weekend as well as something for my wife and I. We just finished watching the first season of Rome since we didn't get to see it the first time around.

The only problem with being a season behind is that I need to stay away from the blogs and boards about the show since they are always about the "current" episode.

I think we need to have boards about last-seasons shows for the Netflix crowd. Actually, I bet someone does that already.

That David Bowie song during Extras was hilarious last night. I wonder in Extras how much the celebrity guest writes of their parts. Does Ricky Gervais write their parts or do they do it themselves?

Had a great week in NY last week. Saw some great performances with the family.

1. Mary Poppins - The kids loved it, so did we.

2. The Magic Flute (shortened version) at Lincoln Center. This was a fabulous version directed by Julie Tamor which really kept the kids attention. I loved how many questions they asked afterwards. That means they were paying attention and were interested.

3. Tom Stoppards Coast of Utopia (part 1). This was just with my wife. This gave some background on the history of Russian philosophers from start of the last century. Loved the staging and the acting, it was a riveting performance.

I've watched so little TV lately.

Last weekend was my daughter's birthday and another's recital, and all four of the grandparents were in town, so it was a busy time by all. I've been keeping up with The Office and my wife is still enjoying Friday Night Lights.

I watched FNL with her the other day and thought it was much better than the last time I watched it. I now see the appeal since this episode wasn't quite as "high-schoolish" as the last one, but I just don't have time to watch a second show every week, so I'll just catch it when I get a chance.

The Office writers did it. They kept our attention just long enough to get Jim and Pam back together. At least now we see how it's all going to happen. We were getting close to the end of our patience. I was wondering how long we'd have to watch two offices. Nice way to set up the circumstances for Jim's return to Scranton.

And now we have a double triangle back at the office.

As usual, the episode was hilarious and touching.

Keep it up.


Peuclid

I haven't posted anything in a while. I've been so busy with work. I'm excited about the new projects and haven't watched many shows.

My wife really likes the new series Friday Night Lights. As I enter the link here, I see that it was also a movie once. I wonder if they are related.

No new Office this week, but I look forward to the one coming up this week. I also home Jim returns to Pam. I don't know if the show will make it through another season without them hooking up. I fear they'll drag out the "other office" thing too long. For now I'll trust that the writers have some great plots up their sleeves.

Peuclid

Now that the new season of The Office has begin, I'm looking forward to tonight's episode. Last week had me rolling on the floor during those protracted "kissing" scenes.

I was in NYC on friday for a meeting, and all was going well except, apparently, for air travel. I got back to JFK at 4:30, with plenty of time to get to my 5:50 JetBlue flight back to Boston. I looked at the board to see which gate to find my flight. The board had a bunch of DELAYED flights, and my flight wasn't even on the board. However, at the top of the list, I saw that the 2:40 flight was scheduled to depart at 5:50. My heart went out to those passengers who have been sitting waiting since 2:40 for their flight, but of course I headed to the ticket counter and changed to that flight. For $25, the woman at the counter was very happy to let me get on the "2:40" flight. She was pretty funny when I asked if she could waive the change fee. She simply said "Look, honey (she didn't really say that), you want to get back home for the weekend, $25 is a small price to pay. I couldn't really argue. I got off pretty easy and cheap compared to those who were sitting at the airport all those extra hours.

Even on that 2:40 flight, it sat on the runway at JFK for over an hour waiting it's turn to take off. I'm glad they had some TV to watch while we waited. Unfortunately, I didn't get home in time to say goodnight to the kids, but at least I got home before my bedtime.

Anyway, it was a nice weekend. My daughter played some great soccer, and her team won the game when they got one goal in the last few minutes of the game. Very exciting.

Today I framed the walls of my shed in the backyard. I love building things, and I always wanted a shed. I built the floor back in July, and then we were away for most of August, so I just never got started on that next phase. So yesterday I got a big pile of 2x4's and today I nailed them together.

Maybe before winter I'll get to the roof.

I was talking about my favorite shows the other day, and I neglected to mention The Wire. Well, I can't say I've actually ever watched it, but since I really enjoy HBO Series', I probably would like The Wire as well.

That gets me thinking. Why don't I watch The Wire? I think the answer is simple yet complex.

The short answer is that I simply don't have time to watch every great show on TV.

I don't think I am a workaholic, yet I work from home, so my hours are very flexible. I am a software engineer living on the east coast, working for a company in the west coast, so somehow I end up working hours in both timezones. I have a huge interest in our company being successful, and I get great satisfaction out of having happy customers. That doesn't mean I neglect my family for the benefit of my work. One benefit of working from home is that my wife and I can share many responsibilities with the kids.

I often take the kids to school, and pick them up. I'm able to be the assistant coach for my daughters soccer team. I can take each of my other daughters to their violin and cello lessons (I play the bass so I'm the de facto string instrument expert). I even sit down and have dinner with my whole family every night. After dinner, it's time to help with homework and practice until the kids' bedtime.

After the kids go to bed, my wife and I get to work. My wife works on her various projects, and I go to my home office and work as if it's just the afternoon of a working day. Sometimes, I finish up discussions with my co-workers in California, other times, I continue coding whatever project I'm working on. Then, once I've tied things up for the evening, I'll join my wife and relax with her.

Usually that involves watching something on Tivo. During seasons when there is a first-run show that we like, we'll catch the latest episode. If it's Deadwood and it's Sunday night, we simply watch it... live. Other nights, we'll watch yesterday's Daily Show and maybe some other show. If my wife is out at a meeting or some other function and I'm home alone, I very rarely turn on the TV. Watching TV just isn't as enjoyable for me when I'm not sharing it with someone.

So, back to The Wire. We haven't watched it because we don't watch it. It takes us some time to get hooked on a show, that means we need to invest time to get hooked. For Deadwood, we watched half of a season in a few days with On-Demand since a good friend said it was worth the investment in time to get hooked. We haven'g had that kind of recommendation for The Wire, so it simply hasn't become our show.

The reason I'm mentioning it here, is because one of my readers asked me to add The Wire to my list of HBO Shows. Well, it certainly made my list today.

Oh, that reminds me, anyone can link back to the TV Guide.com site with their shows. When you post a new Blog topic, there is a box at the bottom of the page that says "Add Links to TV Guide". Just start typing in the name of the show, and it will show you matching shows, celebrities, and movies with that name. That is how I added these links. It is also how my posts got featured back on those show pages on the TV Guide site. Try it, it's a cool way to get your posts linked from the site.