First, Skype. I feel like the last guy getting on the Skype train. The last hold out. Listen. It’s not worth it. The holding out part, I mean. Skype is pretty fantastic!

We just had a baby, yadda, yadda. My Mom was in town for a few weeks to help us get settled. Having her go home was a big, big change in our little guy’s life. But check this out. Two days later, Evan got to see and hear his Grandma again. Even better, he also got to see and hear his Nanna; and his cousins Kali and Kaitlyn got to see and hear Evan for the first time.

You can only say so much about the video phone concept, and I was still on the fence until we actually tried it. I’m sold. It is intoxicating.

Second is Netflix, again. I’m an old school Netflx subscriber. I left for a while, but came back for lots of reasons. I was bummed for a while that the Watch Instantly feature wasn’t available for Macs for a long time, but they finally came around.

So, last Tuesday I got a surprise Netflix disc in the mail. When put in my Wii, I get to watch all this stuff instantly on my TV. All this content right there to browse and watch. I’m a Dish Network subscriber and have a few minor complaints. The On-Demand stuff is slow; the broadband connection has never worked right with multiple customer service calls. In general we’re happy, but the Netflix/Wii system worked flawlessly within 5 minutes of the disc being taken out of the mailbox.

The timing of these is great, what with the baby leading to us continuing our homebody trend for a bit longer.

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Currently, ABC is unavailable on Dish in Seattle and Yakima, WA; Portland and Eugene, OR; Boise and Idaho Falls, ID; and Bakersfield, CA. In its place, Dish is looping their side of the story. They have a constant pipeline into the homes of their customers. In their story, Fisher Broadcasting is asking for a HUGE increase in broadcasting fees. Dish can’t except such a large increase and is fighting for their customers.

Fisher’s story is that Dish is holding ABC’s outstanding content hostage. Fisher is only asking for a “modest increase in the low double digits”, and it’s all Dish’s fault that you can’t watch Lost or Good Morning America. I know this because I heard a random commercial on the radio while driving around town the other day. KOMO/Fisher is resorting to radio advertising to try and communicate with its Dish Network customers. How much cash is Fisher spending/losing with this type of shotgun advertising approach?

I have to say, Dish has the upper hand, and they are coming off as being more reasonable as they are broadcasting other options to get ABC shows and news (Off-Air antenna, online, news from other networks [ouch]).

There’s no telling how long this might go on. But with most well-known shows on hiatus, the most missed content for a while is going to be news and sports. News can be seen on any other network channel, so sports is the problem. There is no pro football on ABC, and hockey, basketball and others are in the middle of their long regular seasons.

I’m not sure how much ABC is going to be missed right now.

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But in watching Jane Seymour, in her little craft house, painting that same symbol over and over. Over and over. Check it out! The same design. Over and over. One continuous stroke, on multiple white canvases. This is freaking me out. It’s a little too Jack Nicholson in The Shining. All work and no play make Jane a dull girl… She needs to get out of that craft house.

First, I was glad to see the election season over so I could stop seeing political commercials. Now I want the holiday season over, so I can get a break from Jane Seymour’s manic heart painting.

Jane. For your own good. Please stop. It’s not healthy.

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He has polluted many a show that I like: New Amsterdam, Law & Order, Homicide, Kidnapped, even the movie The Usual Suspects! The moment he comes on screen, his ridiculous over-acting, over-pronunciation and faux-aggravation takes over. He ruins entire evenings for me, because he keeps getting jobs. Even in commercials for shows that I will never watch (South Beach, CSI,…), his ridiculous acting is apparent. I just don’t understand the attraction.

It’s not as if there is a mandate that this guy get a set number of jobs per year. Stop hiring him. Please? Maybe he’s smart with numbers and could go into accounting or something. I find faux irritation in accountants quaint.

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So, there’s some brand recognition there.

You might have seen a recent Levi commercial. It’s nighttime and this skinny dark haired guy is putting on a new pair of jeans. As he pulls them up, he pulls the street and sidewalk below up into his apartment as well. On the sidewalk, he notices an attractive person checking him out from a telephone booth. He and the occupant walk off into the night.

The occupant of the phone booth? That’s where the plot thickens. There are two versions of the commercial and I just noticed the second.

In the NBC NFL Football version: A very thin brunette woman.

In the Bravo Project Runway version: A hunky blonde dude.

The same commercial, but with two different target audiences. The gay themed commercial was initially airing only on MTV’s Logo network, but the move to Bravo takes it into the mainstream with a very popular show.

Levi has apparently finally noticed that straight people like Levis, too.

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I once had an English professor who talked about how she allowed her kids one hour of television a week. Huh.

I’ve about had it with the people who are telling me they don’t watch TV. Here’s my problem. Someone tells me they don’t watch TV. Then as the discussion ensues, said person demonstrates their amazing knowledge of modern pop culture by quoting Emeril’s latest catch phrase and then later tells me how they just wrapped up watching the last season of The Sopranos on DVD.

First things first. Pop culture does permeate most of the world’s existence, so it is almost impossible to be unaffected by TV. Secondly, whether you watch TV when it originally ran on TV or on DVD after a few months later, you are still watching TV.

Let’s all get over whatever negative perception of TV is out there. It is not going to end the world. There were lazy, illiterate people around before TV existed. There will be lazy illiterate people long after TV gets implanted in our brains.

There is enough going on that if you don’t like what’s going on, you can change the channel. If you don’t like it because of the commercials, get a DVR. If nothing is floating your boat, go ahead turn it off. If you have a fear of the mainstream media, get your news from somewhere else, but check out the esoteric plots on the distant channels of Dish or cable. While you’re out there, check out the range: sports, nature, movies, occasional music and if you want, you can see some sweet cussing, partial nudity and violence. But keep in mind, from my brief exposure to TV in Germany, our cussing, partial nudity and violence is much more tame than much of the world. We’re still rather prudish from a global perspective.

By no means do I love all TV. There is definitely some crap out there (I’m looking at you, CSI…). But just having stepped up to HD, you could say I am in deep affection with TV.

I watch TV and I’m not ashamed. If you want to tell me you don’t watch TV, think twice unless you want to see me dramatically roll my eyes and lose interest in the conversation.

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We subscribe to Dish Network. We’ve had a PVR for a couple of years. And the thing I was waiting for was an affordable upgrade that would allow us to get a PVR with HD. The time came: the PVR-622 The deal was essentially for a free upgrade; of course after an understandably complex rebate involving multiple forms, copies of bills and a strange 60-day process.

The unit is great. We can record two things at once or watch one thing and record another. As much as we are huge PVR fans, this is a first in our PVR experience. It’s awesome to have this capability.

And we are finally taking advantage of the Vizio in all of its HD glory. We got it just in time for the start of the football season, and the picture is so incredible. My primary question is why the heck is FOX not broadcasting their games in HD? It is great. I don’t think I could watch Grey’s Anatomy in SD again!

But! Here’s the catch: the HD service itself.

The HD service is sketchy at best. Really, really sketchy. There are a dozen or so HD channels offered from Dish Network. These are things like Monster, HDNET and HDNMV. And then there are HD versions for channels like A&E, TNT and TBS. The consistency of reception of these channels is crap! I mean like total crap. It is out, like, 50 percent of the time. I try to record or watch the Sopranos on A&E and it’s no dice. When reception goes out, you see a screen that tells you the system is trying to acquire satellite signal, then another screen telling you service is unavailable.

Fortunately, we have really good reception for the local affiliate channels of NBC et al. I’m not sure what I would have done if I had lost reception during a tense fantasy football battle. I’m not sure if my neighbor watches football, but I would have certainly found out.

So, when it is working it is sweet. The only thing that is keeping me from throwing the Dish receiver out the window is it is a sweet unit (it’s not the PVR’s fault…) and because we’re not really paying for the HD service yet. The rebates take care of that. But after a six-month period I will see a 33 percent increase to my bill.

I call to complain and the friendly customer service people schedule a service call. The service guy comes out to my house and tells me I am getting the expected reception, and then I hear some bunk about Dish trying to get by with one satellite for all of the US, and the West coast is on the very edge of the range. I call to complain again, and the friendly customer service people schedule a service call.

I’ve not reached the point where the sketchy service on the special HD channels outweighs how totally awesome it is to watch HD Football and The Office on the HD PVR. We’ll see how this develops over the next couple of months.

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But my favorite part of football season is my fantasy football team. There are certain teams that I like (Seattle, Indy, Vikings, Lions…) and teams I despise (Buffalo). But fantasy football gives me a reason to watch other games I previously would not have watched.

There are lots of ways leagues can be organized, and lots of ways you can spend money on it, but my league works like this. Fifty bucks from each of the leagues 12 team owners. We get together a couple of weeks before the season starts to pick our teams: some in person, some on the computer, one or two on the phone. Each team gets to draft two QBs, four RBs, five WRs, two Kickers and two Defenses. It kind of goes without saying that players can only be drafted once.

After the draft, a season schedule is put into place and you compete head-to-head with one other team each week. Each team plays one QB, two RBs, three WRs, one kicker and one defense. The points accrued by your players are added up and hopefully your guys score more points than your league cohort. The top four teams make it to the playoffs during week 16 and the final week of the regular season is the Fantasy Superbowl. If you make it to the playoffs, you’ll win some cash, but if you win the The Superbowl you’ll take home more than $200.

Tonight was a great example of why Fantasy Football is so great. I was playing my friend Jane. It was The Simpsons vs. the Stealthy Snuffelupagi. My quarterback is Vince Young; Jane has Drew Brees. Tonight’s Monday Night Game? Tennessee at New Orleans, Baby! Vince against Drew! I went into the game nine points down. Vince threw two touchdowns (three fantasy points each) and Drew threw FOUR interceptions. I ended up losing the game 51-49, but it was a lot of fun to watch. I didn’t want Drew to throw a touchdown, but I totally wanted Reggae Bush to score a couple of touchdowns. I kinda wanted New Orleans to win, but I wanted Vince to score all the points. I was torn, but it gave me great personal drama to watch NBC for a couple of hours tonight.

One other great thing going on in Fantasy Football is the Internet. When my league first formed in 1998, the Internet was still stagnant stodgy dial-up pages. To get your scores, team owners would have to pick up the Monday morning newspaper (Gasp!) and reference the box scores to add up your points (the Horror!!). Now, in 2007, I simply log-in to Sportsline.com and let Firefox do the addition. This has frankly got to be one of the greatest features of the web.

And I’m not the only one having a great time with this. It supposedly has become a multibillion dollar fixation. But contrary to some complaints by cynical naysayers, this is totally increasing my interest in the game. I still root for my favorite teams and players. Now, I’m just a little more interested in more of the games. In fact, I also play in a pool at my current company where I pick winners and rank my confidence in the winners from 1-16.

Spending a little bit of my cash gets me a little more interested. And having a twisted sort of personal attachment to 11 NFL players and two defenses/special teams really gets me more in tune with what is going on in the National Football League.

Now I just have to get over the fact that I’m 1-2 so far in the season.

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This season’s TV schedule is laden with the nuclear topic: Jericho, Heroes, 24… These are major network shows, so I can only assume there is a sizable audience. And I get it that people like to watch things that freak them out a little. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive. I don’t like horror movies either. In general I don’t like being scared. Happy, sad, stressed… those are emotions I can deal with. Scared is just something I don’t need in my life. And Nuclear explosions scare me. Now that I think of it, maybe seeing The Day After at the ripe age of 11 had a negative effect.

I dig the Jack Ryan movies/books: Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games and such. But the Sum of All Fears just didn’t do it for me. I know, you might saying: “But Fej, is that not just because of your natural aversion to Ben Affleck?”

I see what your saying and it is a possibility. But near as I can tell, the Affleck/Freeman saga, which involved a pretty serious nuclear explosion, is the stinkiest one of the Jack Ryan series. That is in terms of revenue at the box office and afterward. And I don’t see plans for another Affleck/Clancy collaboration.

Seeing a spaceship take out the White House is one thing. It’s a space ship, and it was a fun computer effect. Seeing a nuclear explosion take out Washington D.C. is pretty discomforting. Granted, it is still a crazy computer effect, but it is just a visual I don’t want. I don’t need to be desensitized to that. I can turn the channel to MSNBC to see about the latest plans of some crazy extremist somewhere trying to figure out how to make it happen for real.

Anyway, to all of you Hollywood producers: if you want a quick way to make me not watch your show or movie, involve a nuclear explosion. About the computer-animated babies: they will make me look the other way, but not necessarily change the channel.

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Anyway, now I’m compelled to write about one more ad campaign. Actually, I guess it’s just a commercial. Fortunately, I won’t be subject to this one much longer, because it’s for the Christmas season.

Let me give a little background. There was a lot of hype this last summer about the affect the Internet was having on entertainment and other mass media. I only mention the anti-hype from Snakes on a Plane for one. The world didn’t collapse because a movie had more attention before its release than after. Let’s not assume if the SOAP producers had successfully renamed the movie Pacific Flight whatever, it would have had any more or less success. I’m thinking even though the movie didn’t perform as some in the press thought it might, it did better overall than it would have without the Internet attention. And in hindsight, I’m kind of amused by the mass media hype that was generated by the Internet Hype. There’s some irony in there I think.

Anyway, the offender I’m choosing to complain about today is a huge beer company (HBC) that I will not mention, mainly because they don’t need it, but also because they don’t deserve it for this particular action (think: great taste, less filling…). For a commercial this Christmas, this HBC grabbed an idea for a commercial directly from a web video of last year: this insane shot of Christmas lights set to music, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, I believe. This web video came out sometime around Thanksgiving 2005, which makes me think it was actually filmed the year before. It got featured on RocketBoom, and various other Vlogs.

So, this year there are lots of copies on YouTube. Some are decent and they’re done by self-funded web monkeys, but one copy is well-funded and professionally shot and choreographed. Come on HBC!! How much did you pay an ad company to copy this web video? And here’s the big question: was it worth it since the original is so much better than your expensive rip-off? I can only guess someone went on vacation, because the man-law commercials are great…

Frankly, this is the worst of modern advertising. If you’re looking for a reason that the Internet is going to ultimately kill TV advertising and entertainment, this is it. To survive, traditional forms of media need to be more creative. Not less. If you really want to show how cool you are by attaching your brand to a web meme, play the actual video from the web.

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