Sunset Vette

I just finished watching the complete series of Witchblade (the original from TNT, not the animated version). I did not realize it at the time, but there were two seasons. According to Wikipedia (I love that site):

The series ran for two seasons on TNT, for a total of 24 episodes (including pilot). The first episode aired June 12, 2001; the last episode aired August 26, 2002. In spite of its cancellation, Witchblade was ranked seventh in the Top 10 Basic Cable Dramas for 2002 (Multichannel News, February 24, 2003).

Now that I know that, it makes more sense as to why they had a big cliffhanger episode in the middle of the set of discs. It was the end of season one, even if it wasn’t noted as such.

Roger Daltrey - one of my favorite guest stars on the TV series “Highlander” - pulls an interesting set of roles in this show. In season one he plays a priest possessed by the devil. In the second, he reprises that role but also plays an over-the-top fortune teller. In drag.

Yancy Butler plays the lead role Detective Sara ‘Pez’ Pezzini in the series. She’s interesting enough as an actor, but it seemed that her police detective character was too poor to afford any shirts that reached all the way to her belt. She was always running around showing off her navel. She got to play a number of different roles including a doppleganger in the next-to-last episode. I definitely thought she was a good fit for the part as it was presented on TV.

Overall I enjoyed rewatching the series on DVD, and catching the episodes that I had not seen before. There were a few weak episodes (one where a child serial killer is released from prison comes to mind, as well as the one where they run into a shrink with multiple personalities) but strong ones as well. I’ve read some other reviews on the web that lament the series cancellation, but to be honest it wasn’t a big surprise to me. During the season finale for the first season they rewound the entire sesason using a “one-time only” feature of the Witchblade. When they started over with season two, they dropped entire plot lines (the “White Bulls”, a group of corrupt cops for one) while they explored other areas. It seemed like they wanted to pull back from the mythology a bit and try different things to see what would be a hit with the fans. As a result, if you watch the series straight through (as I did) it feels like they lacked a strong direction.

There are also some great little details that would easily be missed. In the first season Pez falls in love with an Irish singer named Conchobar (played extremely well by Kim De Lury. He has a rune symbol for his band that plays an important part in the episode. In season one he dies, but he comes back in season two because of the “rewind” that took place. Even before he comes back, however, Pez is seen in an episode with his rune on a shirt that she’s wearing. I’m sure that wasn’t an accident. At the end of season two poor Conchobar is in a coma, but at least he’s still alive. Without season three there was no way to know if they got back together or not.

Earlier this week I filled up my 80gb iPod. I had a lot of fun doing it too. Tonight I went through and removed duplicate song titles (due to “greatest hits” albums, mostly) and recovered about 4gb of space. Time to do more shopping…

I was looking at the Apple store today, thinking that at one point they had a 160gb model. It seems they’ve dropped both that and the 80gb model; the only “classic” left has a capacity of 120gb. The sales rep (the “genius”) suggested that Apple was considering phasing them out altogether in favor of solid state devices. The advantages are obvious, of course. Solid state storage requires less power (longer battery life) and is more reliable (no disk crashes). Memory is also getting much less expensive as well. I have a 4gb media card in my Blackberry that cost me next to nothing, and it takes very little space.

It will be interesting to see if Apple announces anything new in a few months.

Last night I downloaded some additional songs for Rock Band 2 including a few from Jimmy Buffett. He recorded some custom lyrics. At one point he sings something about being a couch potato, and not wanting to do anything other than play Rock Band all day.

I’ve scored my first 100% on a song… on hard. Granted it was on bass rather than guitar or drums, which seems to be a bit easier, but still. It was 100%. On hard.

A few weekends ago one of my old friends from high school came by for a visit. While here he convinced me (it wasn’t too hard) to pick up Rock Band 2 from our local Best Buy. What a fun game this is!

There’s only one problem. I can’t listen to the radio at this point without visualizing the fretbar with the colored jewels scrolling towards me anymore…

According to many folks who are supposed to know these things LSU had one of the top recruiting classes in the country this year. Who is nipping at their heels? None other than Nick Saban, who by most accounts had an outstanding recruiting class this year as well. LSU and Alabama both play in the SEC West, so only one of them can make it to the title game each year. After the season they had this year Ole Miss could be a team to reckon with next year. Arkansas closed the season strong but along with Auburn might still be rebuilding next season. That leaves Mississippi State bringing up the rear.

And how about the SEC East? Well, let’s see… they have Florida (two BCS titles in three years), Georgia, and several other teams that went to bowl games. Tough league.

Overall the SEC was 5-2 in bowl games this year. Considering few other conferences sent seven teams (the ACC somehow sent 10 teams and ended up 4-6 according to one page I found) that’s a good showing. Other “name” conferences like the Big 10 did not do well (1-5) and only the PAC 10 had a better winning percentage (5-0).

I hope LSU gets good play from their quarterback next year; they could be awesome.

I have a set of Bose QC2 headphones that are like American Express: I never leave home without them. They’ve made several trips over the Atlantic and travelled all over the US as well. On my last trip one of the earcups (the left one, if it matters) just… fell off. The plastic cracked, and there I was sitting with a set of headphones that would no longer stay attached to my head.

These aren’t cheap, so I was a bit mad and depressed all at the same time.

It turns out that for this particular model the cracking headset has become a known issue, and Bose has a process to deal with it. I returned my broken set to the local Bose store, paid them $100, and got a brand new set with the more modern construction. Since the headphones go for $300 new, and a repair would cost about $100 anyway, it seemed like a really quick and easy solution.

I am testing out the new headphones today while working at home, trying to drown out the sound of the jack hammers from the crew here working on the foundation of my house…

It’s not often that you can say the results of a game hinged on a single play. In this case, however; take away the 100 yard interception return at the end of the first half and the Super Bowl is a different game. Instead of a ten point lead the game is likely tied (10-10) or the Cardinals go into halftime with a lead (14-10). Instead it was 17-7 in favor of the Steelers.

I enjoyed the game. It’s nice to see a game that is competitive until the very end as this game was. I don’t think we can ask for much more.

I buy most of my music from used cd / dvd stores. Even when I am on trips I will often try to find out if there are stores nearby so I can see what they might have. Over the past few months I have had a few interesting finds. Some of them were even at a nice discount.

First was a cd called “Beginnings” From “Eileen” Shania Twain. It wasn’t her first disc, but it appears to be an interesting departure from her country roots. Shania is probably best known for her massive cross-over appeal based on the success of “Come On Over” and “The Woman In Me” … both of which are certified diamond (over a million units sold). However, back in 1999 she apparently released a rock album which is more of a Joan Jett / Pat Benetar style than her country / pop style. Interestingly enough, this album doesn’t even show up on her wiki page nor is it listed on her very own site. I picked it up, and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit.

If you read the reviews on Amazon.com most of them are positive, with a few folks probably surprised by the difference from her normal style. But as the main reviewer said:

it appears as if the making of this CD was an attempt to transform her into the new Pat Benatar, a kind of rock goddess specializing in the power ballad. That she had the voice for it is beyond doubt–her expressive singing is by far the best thing about this album.

Another interesting find was a disc titled “California” by Wilson Phillips. This disc was released in 2004 (the first studio album from Wilson Phillips in over a decade) and contained covers of various California-themed songs. It included works from both sides of the family with Brian Wilson playing keyboards on one song, and a cover of the Mamas and the Papas song “Monday, Monday” as well. I found this in a used cd store in Arizona while on a business trip. To top things off, what I found was the limited edition version with an extra song tacked on at the end. I popped the disc into the rental car and left it there for the rest of the trip.

Don’t worry, I remembered to remove it before heading home.

Finally, just this weekend I found a copy of the initial self-released “Broken Bracelet” from Michelle Branch. It was released before she had landed a major recording studio, and contains early (and sometimes acoustic) releases of some songs that later appeared on her first national release. This was far from a bargain; I paid more for this disc than I do for some new discs if they’re on sale. But as a curiousity I went ahead and picked it up. Part of the reason was I called my wife and asked her to do a search on amazon and ebay to see if she could find anything about it. She could not even find it listed. Much like Shania, Michelle doesn’t see fit to list this on her discography on her web site.

Those are just a few of the more interesting finds from used cd stores. It’s one of the reasons I keep going back.

LSU bounced back from a really disappointing end to their season and trounced #14 Georgia Tech in the Peach Chick-fil-A Bowl last night. Tech was favored by more than a field goal yet barely managed to get a field goal of their own while LSU racked up 28 points just in the second quarter. The final score was 38-3 and left LSU with an 8-5 record. While not stellar, at least it looks better than 7-6.

LSU got to showcase Charles Scott at running back and had an extended review of freshman Jordan Jefferson at quarterback during the game. Scott carried for three touchdowns and Jefferson showed no signs of jitters as he completed his first nine pass attempts in the game. I still think that QB is one of the biggest questions that LSU has to answer next year but the play by Jefferson (no turnovers) has to be a positive.

In other SEC action Vandy defeated Boston College 16-14. Today (Jan 1) we’ll get to see how other SEC teams like unranked South Carolina and #16 Georgia do… and tomorrow we get to watch an interesting Cotton Bowl with surging Ole Miss try to stop the scoring machine of Texas Tech.