Alan Kleymeyer

Dianne Holloway wrote an article today about the experience of watching TV shows online.  For the most part, she is right, the experience is degraded from  watching it on TV and you probably would only consider it if you missed a show and wanted to catch up.  But she did not explain the other side of the coin because the experience can be quite nice and I want  to encourage other networks to do what ABC is doing in providing streaming HD for some of their shows.  Here is the email I sent to Dianne in response to her article:

Hello Dianne,

I enjoyed your article about the state of online viewing of missed episodes.  For the  most part,  that’s why we view shows online, to catch up on shows we missed. Although MOST shows are of lesser quality than we would find on the tube, the convenience  and ability to catch up is worth it.

In the case of Thursday night, the story is different and I feel you  left out this important point in your article.  My daughter and I watch Ugly Betty religiously,  it’s a bonding thing; but our entire family of five enjoy Survivor at the same  hour on Thursday night as well.  We opt to watch Survivor live and my daughter and I will watch UG days later at our convenience. 

Now ever since I got my relatively modest 32″ HD TV,  I’ve become a HD snob and avoid regular programming whenever possible.  The experience is so much more enjoyable.  I don’t sacrifice that with Ugly Betty online because it is one of the  shows  that  ABC makes available in streaming HD!  My daughter and I snuggle up on a bed or  couch and take in UB on my widescreen  laptop, wirelessly, in beautiful HD!  Having the picture just 2 feet away in HD is actually pretty cool.   If you haven’t experienced this I recommend it.  I even have an extra long VGA cable that I can plug-in to my HD TV  and it’s  as if we were watching UB live in full HD, on-demand!  It’s a great  experience and one worth sharing with your  audience.

There probably aren’t that many folks with HD TV’s that don’t pay for  HD programming through their cable/satellite,  but I happen to be one of them.  We only have basic cable with no HD stations;  but  I receive ABC,NBC,FOX,CBS,PBS over-the-air in HD.  I hope the other networks copy ABC and we start seeing more and more streaming HD shows  online.

Regards,

Alan Kleymeyer

 

I took David paintballing this weekend.  It was a perfect day for it; overcast, and it rained a little bit.  Actually it could have been a little colder, it was in the upper sixties.

David was kinda nervous.  He mostly stayed back and shot from out of range.  He never shot anyone but managed to use up about three times more ammo than I did!

We tried Xtreme Paintball.  I had called ahead to get information. Mark and the rest of the staff were terrific.  They really seemed to focus on making sure everyone had a good time, that teams were balanced and that safety was not compromised.  I really appreciated his warning to the group that there were kids present and to try to limit bad language.   

I spent $90 for about four hours of play.  $15 covers rental of equipment & fields, free air all day and starter pack of 100 rounds.  I purchased an extra 2000 rounds for $60.  1000 rounds is $35.   $15 is cheap in my opinion so I’m happy for them to make money off the paint.  That seems fair. The more you shoot the more you spend.

It only took about 45-50 minutes to get there from Bee Caves & 71.  We may try other sites in the area just to compare and to try out new fields but I definitely see us returning to Xtreme Paintball again and again.  Thanks Mark for getting David hooked and me hooked all over again!

If you’re looking for a paintball field near Austin, or have never done it but are interested, I highly recommend Xtreme Paintball.  Tell ’em Alan sent you!

I’m working in the last levels of the campaign in Normal mode.  I actually haven’t played the campaign in co-op mode much.  Once I finish the campaign alone I want to try it in co-op on a higher level.  Perhaps I can get some friends to join David and I on a regular night.  This article explains why coop campaigns can be so much fun.

I love coop campaigns.  Gears of War offered the best coop campaign experience thus far.  David would usually lead and I would follow but we needed each other as one of us fell and needed the other to revive us.  Not to sound too corny, but it was truly a bonding experiences between David and I.

So we attended Maker Faire yesterday.  Jane called it Geek-orama from what she saw on the website.  We entered through the indoor venue and walked down to the floor of the show arena.  After taking in a few "booths" Cassidy said "You paid $25 dollars for this!  What a rip-off".  Granted the large indoor building, housing many science booths and robotics and such may not have appealed to an 11 year old girl.  It actually did but you had to find the interesting exhibits among some mundane ones.

Once we ventured out to the outdoor area, the kids perked up and got more excited.  We first watched the Live Size Mouse Trap (replica of the board game), and hooked-up with Jim afterwards.  The artistically decorated cars were interesting.  There was a real good magician, fire-breathing, sword-swallowing performer.  By far the favorite activity was the Cycle park.  There were a dozen or so modified bikes that we ALL enjoyed riding around.  We all wanted one!  Many of the bikes were provided by Cyclecide

By the time we walked out everyone was saying how much fun Maker Faire was.

Dirty Car Art:

Camera Car:

This past August marked the first anniversary of hosting XBOX night’s at our house.  Tomorrow we’ll usher in Halo 3 and introduce a challenge ladder.  Even Kristen and Cassidy have enjoyed playing Halo 3.  We try to take on David but he’s too much for us.   My strategy has been to stick together and gang up on him but he scoffs and says sticking together makes easy targets for him and he can destroy us with a single grenade!   I’ll may never be as good as he but maybe I can break into the top 5 on the ladder!  I hope to be posting some "recorded" clips of highlights now that H3 makes it easy to create them.  In the meantime here is a clip for the history books.

A show I enjoy watching is Rules of Engagement.  I think the writing is good,
but extremely adult and racy.  That seems to be the standard today, get in as many sexual references and jokes about sex as possible.  I like the relationships between the married couple and between the engaged couple, and yes, David Spade is good too.  I really liked Patrick Warburton on Seinfeld and he is terrific as the deadpan husband.  Though I recommend the show for adults, if you aren’t one to blush easily, for goodness sake, don’t let your kids watch it.

Cassidy had asked me to tape Gossip Girl, which I did, and she watched it on her own this week. When I
asked if I should continue taping it for her she mentioned casually
that it was a bit inappropriate (thank goodness). I skimmed the episode
tonight and decided it was not a show for her. I did not realize it was
much worse than I thought. Tracee over at Blog Fabulous explains why it is garbage.  I have decided to
stay away from the CW network, and to never let my kids watch a show
for the first time without supervision.

Sounds like a not-to-miss event.  October 20-21, Travis County Fairgrounds

Link to photos and a video

I finally pulled the lever and bought an HDTV.  The 32″ Samsung LCD was a modest purchase, in my opinion.  It was not going to be our main living room TV but rather an office TV where we could watch DVDs and play XBOX in HD.  It was going to replace the Sony 32″ Trinitron TV we gave away.  We don’t currently have any HD programming and I didn’t immediately plan to add any to our cable service.

The biggest surprise in the whole experience is discovering that I could recieve FREE HD signals from the three major networks plus our local PBS (whose signal really rocks!) station using nothing more than a rabbit-ears antenna!  Wow. Now I’m wondering why I even need basic cable; oh yeah, the other three TV’s in the house.

Just as I expected, playing XBOX and watching DVD’s in HD in widescreen rocks.  And I’m not sure I would have sat through a Dixie Chicks Concert on PBS but it was so beautiful in HD, I had to.

Here’s the best site I found to help you determine if you’re likely to get the OTA HD signals

Update: Our 2nd HD TV is a 40″ Samsung LNT4061FX/XAA, serial # AHBA3CSPA10261F

We had a microchip installed under Ellie’s skin.  It’s somewhere between her shoulder blades or nearer the bottom of her neck.  The service is HomeAgain.
Their phone number is 1-866-738-4324.
Ellie’s ID is 47273F4555

Update:  Erin left a comment alerting us to a potential health hazard with these chips.  We’ll ask our Vet their opinion about this.

Is it wrong to drink alcohol?
Is drinking alcohol or getting drunk a sin?
What does the Bible say about alcohol?

Bryan answers these and more

[via Richard]