Stardate 62669.14 - Calling All Nerds

I love my HD Television (Panasonic), I love my HDMI receiver (Onkyo), I pretty much love my HD DVR (Scientific Atlanta), and I am ok with our HD cable (Time Warner). But for some reason, when Gossip Girl (in HD) has been recorded from CW11 onto the DVR, we get periodic sound drops during re-play. It is driving Cheryl nuts. The only thing I found through Google was someone in New Jersey who had similar issues and they stopped when he upgraded to 1.3a HDMI cables.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? If so, what was the fix? I'm dreading contacting TWC about this because I anticipate them not being very helpful.

Thanks!!

NYC

Stardate 60909.04 - Dumping 2.5 Men

I am finally going to have to dump Two and a Half Men from my DVR line-up. I have not been happy with the way this season has started (neither has James), and it seems to be getting worse, not better. Jon Cryer's character has gone from being the lovable loser to completely unsympathetic and annoying. With Charlie Sheen's character already the lovably unsympathetic one there simply isn't room for another. And Charlie's character has gone from being merely unsympathetic to downright cruel. Additionally, as Angus T. Jones has gotten older and his "small child cuteness" factor has diminished, he has been given fewer lines and less of a role and has just become a parody of the "fat loser kid" relegated to one-liners.

I don't know if the writers suddenly changed over, or if they felt that Alan Harper having a steady girlfriend was too upbeat for the character and they needed to completely change direction or what, but I felt like this season has been a real downer and just isn't that funny. Any trace of cleaverness has been replaced by crude sex joke after crude sex joke. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the occasional crude sex joke just as much as the next guy, but you cannot build an entire episode where the only comedic moments are sex jokes only marginally related to the plot.

I feel a little bit sad because I've been watching the show since the beginning, and I was a huge proponent early on. But now I just don't enjoy it anymore, it is no longer funny, and I have other things I can be doing with that 30 minutes (or ~22 once the commercials are fast-forwarded out).

Two thumbs down (although, to be fair, Cheryl never really liked it before, but now she actively dislikes it).

If you want a really funny Monday night comedy, watch How I Met Your Mother. That is a very funny show, and gets two thumbs up from the Sawyer household.

NYC