TNGAB

11/28/07 at 2:38 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments
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I’m coming out of the closet and admitting to being a fan of “The Next Great American Band” show.  I have been watching it from the beginning and it’s fairly entertaining, moreso than the dancing show that just concluded (thank God).  My favorite band is the Clark Brothers – just awesome talent.  I talked to someone in the band at my church, and he had actually played backstage with them at a bluegrass festival and said they are the real deal. 

I would like to see Trey Bien, Dot Dot Dot and Light of Doom voted out, with Six Wire and the Clark Brothers duking it out for the championship (Denver and his orchestra are nice but shouldn’t even be on at this point).  Unfortunately, the headbangin’ longhaired schoolkids will be around until the end.  They’re an OK kid garage band, but nobody on the show seems to want to face the backlash of pointing out they are mediocre musicians who just play crunch chords and learned their stage moves from old heavy-metal videos.

My 9 year old loves them and jumps up and down every time they are announced to go on-stage.  Both his mom and I groan, and then he looks at us and can’t understand why we don’t like them.  Like “American Idol”, it’s up to the public to vote and I see a repeat of teenie-boppers with their cellphones calling in votes for the Doom-ers. Trey Bien is in a similar situation of kids/peers voting for them even though they are also not very talented.  It is supposed to be a talent contest but it ends up being a popularity contest, thus a band like Franklin Bridge has a premature exit.  So it goes …

Spud-Speak 8

11/28/07 at 2:37 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments
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–  Is it really almost December?  We already got our first Christmas card … yikes!  It looks like Christmas money will be spent on oldest boy as he has a few “pits” in his teeth that need to be filled.  Even after insurance we’re still on the hook for about $200.  Mmmph.

–  With our new HDTV, we usually find ourselves in front of the screen for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy every night starting at 7 pm.  We rarely watched those shows before with our old TV.  The picture from the HD broadcast is amazing.  There’s not that much other stuff broadcast in HD (or any network show for that mater) that I want to see.  I’m playing DVD’s through an upconverter, and while they’re nice to watch it’s not as good as an HD broadcast.  Maybe next spring we’ll decide if we want to spend the money on BluRay or HD-DVD.

–  Over the Thanksgiving break I did get to watch a few football games in HD, and it is sweet.  You see more of the field (and play) and everything is in sharp detail.  I got my early Christmas gift of watching (in HD) the bestest team in the whole world, the Chicago Bears, last Sunday in their thrilling victory over the Broncos at Soldier Field.  Now I better understand why some folks spend hundreds of dollars on the high-def NFL Gameday package.  Someday …

–  It’s our 21st wedding anniversary tomorrow, and even though that makes it drinking legal the strongest beverage we will have is caffeinated iced tea (we usually drink the decaf at home).  While Kristal would like to go to a fancy restaurant, she has agreed to go to a place where we can keep it under $25 for us two.  We are blessed with a friend who has agreed to take care of all three of our angelic savages while we go out.  Now I just have to find a $2 anniversary card somewhere that expresses my true feelings.  Or I can just write it out over a plain card.  That’s me – Mr. Romance.

Spud-Digital

11/19/07 at 3:49 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments
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The Taterbed took a giant leap into the digital world. I went last week and got me a big ol’ high-def TV: Toshiba 50″ DLP. The HHGregg store was having a grand opening sale, and I saved $100 from the regular “sale” price they’re advertising now. Yes, it’s “only” 720p and not 1080i, but with my old eyes I can’t really tell much of a difference.

For now we’re going with the antenna feed. Even though they are running specials, both the cable and satellite would run about $50/month, so we’re holding off on choosing one of those for now. After first setting it up I hooked up the regular cable to it and it was OK but nothing great. When I hooked up the antenna and then tuned in “Jeopardy!” coming it at full HD … wow! Unfortunately I’m far enough away from the big city of Greensboro where the reception can be spotty sometimes, especially for PBS.

Watching the football games on HD is great. I’m looking forward to seeing the Bears in HD, someday, even if they are stinking up the joint this season. We did get a DVD-upconverter too. I did not get an HDMI cable at HHGregg. I don’t want to spend too much on it, $20 at most, but for now all that’s available starts around $35 and goes up. Maybe there’ll be a sale on Friday …

I don’t have much experience with HDTV, so I’m not too sure on how much better the picture will be with the special cable. I’m also considering the component cables, but if I’m going to spend money I might as well spend it on what is supposed to be the best connector. I’m just hoping for some bang for the buck.

Kristal calls it a “monster”. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a chance to buy a toy. We don’t watch much TV, particularly network/cable shows. I’m set for the days off coming up during the holiday season, so now it’s a question of what movies to watch. I may go for the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, or perhaps “Lonesome Dove”. It’ll probably be the former, as the latter was a made-for-TV production so the picture quality will not be all that great.

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