My current distraction from work.

Work is aggravating me to the infinity times quadrillionth degree but it might be dangerous for my career to publicly divulge details. So instead: a post about the wonders of getting over-the-air digital TV broadcasts on my computer!

I recently bought a new laptop that has USB 2.0 and a fabulous 17" widescreen monitor. A friend in the lab had recently gotten a TV tuner for his Mac and raved about being able to watch and record TV on his wife's computer, so I got the comparable product for PCs (same hardware, different software). The software is rather unstable and can be unpredictable, but I think that I've figured out its quirks. We'll see if that's the case when I go to Washington, D.C. in December for a conference and have to program the device to record shows on different channels on different days...

Chuck

Mondays suck because the weekend is over and I usually have to go to lab meeting in the morning. But now I have something to look forward to on Mondays: Chuck! It's a strange mash-up of coming-of-age story (I really identify with the main character because I understand the feeling of being lost and not knowing my place in the world), espionage thriller and science fantasy that somehow works for me. And it always makes me happy to see a Firefly cast member back on TV.

NCIS

The resolution of the Tony/Jeanne/Grenouille storyline was remarkably unsatisfying, but it appears that the show may explore Jethro's past in the current season. Woohoo! Plus any show that uses an analogy to the Dread Pirate Roberts of The Princess Bride as a major plot device earns my eternal devotion.

Reaper

Ming turned me onto this show, which unfortunately is a show that I have to watch live because my TV tuner doesn't pick up The CW for some reason. While I enjoy it, the overall story arc has been very similar from week to week: Sam gets vessel to capture the escaped soul, Sam identifies the escaped soul, Sam attempts to capture the escaped soul and fails the first time but gets it the second time, usually attired in an outlandish assortment of hardware objects... and over the course of the episode, Sam breaks a little bit more out of his comfort zone. That being said, there have been some major twists revealed in the most recent episode: it's good after all that Sam hasn't unloaded to Andy, and Sam's dad may not have Sam's best interests at heart.

Pushing Daisies

I've really enjoyed Bryan Fuller's last two TV shows (Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me), so it's almost a given that I'd like Pushing Daisies. However, I'd say that Pushing Daisies is more absurdist than either of the previous shows and veers sharply into Amélie territory (which can be a bad thing for some people). But unbelievably, Pushing Daisies got picked up for a full season (which means it will last longer than at least Wonderfalls).

CSI

The season premiere was one of the best CSI episodes ever (and I've seen all of them except last week's and most of them multiple times, so that's saying a lot), but the second episode was horrible. I'm hoping that the next two episodes are better - for some reason, I couldn't watch them as I was recording them (the screen froze) and my cats wrecked the rabbit ears for the real TV, so I have to catch up on the recordings.

Without A Trace

I am so used to seeing James Marster with beach blonde hair (as Spike on Buffy and Angel) that it took me two episodes to recognize him in his new recurring guest role on Without A Trace (see above). He plays a detective who works with the FBI Missing Persons Unit on a human trafficking ring. On the negative side, Jack Malone appears to be drifting into shaky moral ground by condoning the torture of suspects (which once yielded life-saving info, but on another occasion didn't produce anything except a severed finger), a trend that I hope ends soon.

Shows that I am recording but not watching: Heroes (I haven't seen all the episodes in Season One yet), Bones (I haven't watched Season Two yet) and Bionic Woman (I've been initially watching Criminal Minds in that time slot, a practice which I've since ended because the show has been delving too much into the serial killer's side of the story and I really don't like having nightmares).

Disclaimer: All photos are copyright whoever owns the copyright and I'm merely using them to identify the TV show in question. This probably constitutes fair use so don't sue me plskthnx.