Recently in TV Category

I don't really like to do whole posts that just pimp something you can buy at Amazon, but The Boondocks deserves some special attention.

I felt that this was an absolutely amazing show. It took no prisoners. It was like listening to Public Enemy for the first time. I was instantly hooked.

Yes, it uses "The 'N' Word" a lot. Well, not really a lot, more like all the time. If that makes you uncomfortable this uncensored version is not for you. Don't buy it. Don't rent it. But do try and watch it on TV. There is a message there. Not to white people. Not to black people. Not to liberals. Not to conservatives. But to Americans. We all live here. We really should try and grok one another.

Plus, y'all ni**az are crazy...

So I'm giving Multi-Pass a shot with The Daily Show (iTunes link). I only have one episode, but here are the pros and cons so far.

Pros

• Easy (compared to tracking down a working torrent, hypothetically of course)
• Good quality (basically on par with a download, hypothetically of course)
• No commercials during the show (Comedy Central tacks one on at the end, which is no big deal)

Cons

• DRM
• Format incompatible with my DVD player, basically negated by the DRM though
• I'm paying $9.99 on top of my cable bill which already gives me Comedy Central.
• Auto-downloading doesn't seem to be working, possible because I don't save my iTunes account password and have to manually input it every time I want to purchase something.

I doubt I will renew at the end of my subscription. To me, personally, it is not worth the $10 on top of what I already pay. I might as well just pay Comcast another $10/month and get the PVR box instead. The disadvantage of not going with BitTorrent, over a PVR solution, is that I wouldn't have a TDS archive. That is, if I was using BitTorrent to get copies of The Daily Show.

ESPN still has NHL as a category in their ticker. Scott, I'm thinking of you...and laughing.

That being said, Chris Berman should be arrested for that jacket. Day-um.

He is, of course, his brilliant self.

I mean, dudes marrying isn't even in the top 10 commandments. Adultery is a top 10'er, but that doesn't seem to be, you know, an issue. It's very -- it's interesting that these type of divergents, the culture wars I think are, there's something real there, but we don't ever actually deal with that. We deal with the sort of whether or not the 10 commandments can be posted in a school. I mean, if you think the 10 commandments being posted in a school is going to change behavior of children, then you think employees must wash hands is keeping the piss out of your happy meals. It's not.

By all means read the whole thing. It's quite good. He's got some new lines.

KING: So you don't have any source of getting the results yourself? You don't employ any exit crews.

STEWART: What are you kidding me?

KING: I'm serious. I'm a little hurt by that.

STEWART: I'm wearing the same sweater I always wear. What do you think goes on at our show? I buy my own sodas.

No, we don't have any kind of a budget or anything like that. That's our excuse. What's yours?

KING: You've got a good point.

STEWART: Thank you.

Please watch House on Fox. Don't let it get cancelled. It's an awesome show. I swear.

So Ryan says that the last two West Wings were good or certainly better than the first two he claims. Considering that the first two were piles of cold dog poop, not even steaming dog poop, I don't doubt his judgment. But I decided to check out of The West Wing based on the two-part season opener.

So what now? I missed them. NBC is not going to re-run these two episodes any time soon. How do I watch them now? Well a person with scruples and a fully functional moral compass would diligently wait for the re-runs, either on NBC or Bravo. The worst case scenario would be to wait for Season 6 on DVD. Luckily I suffer from neither of these two afflictions, being a "secular humanist" and all.

Off to TV Torrents I went.

I'm not saying I'm downloading copyrighted TV broadcasts. I'm just sayin'...

All Jon, all the time!

• C-SPAN American Perspective (Oct 23 show)
• 60 Minutes (warning: may cause drowsiness)

Just a quick update. Make sure you watch the C-SPAN bit until the end, where Jon takes questions from mainstream media types. The question about kids "getting their news" from The Daily Show came up and Jon gave the best answer I've heard to that. He pointed out that in writing for the show they assume so much base knowledge that it would be impossible to get the jokes unless you already knew what was going on. People aren't watching The Daily Show for news, they're watching for "the funny."