My first observation is that I’m probably not using the proper amount of polishing fluid. The first time around the white buffing compound got used up faster than the blue. After my refill purchase I think I have them running down at about the same rate by reducing the amount of white and increasing the amount of blue that I use for each session. I don’t know if they’re supposed to run out at about the same time, but I would think so.

My second observation is that if I polish a number of discs at the same time (which I usually do, since it doesn’t make sense to get the pads wet just for one or two discs) then the machine heats up. As it gets hotter, it seems to “fuse” the blue polishing compound to the pad. That means that when I try to put additional fluid on it is fluid on top of gelled fluid instead of the buffing pad. Periodically I take a pocket knife and scrape the congealed blue fluid off of the buffing bad and that seems to help. I decided to start doing this when the first blue pad eventually wore out, and I saw how much better a new pad worked. By cleaning off the blue build-up the blue pad does a better job of polishing. The white pad does not seem to suffer from this same issue.

As expected, I use about two white pads for every blue pad. The white compound is a buffing compound, meaning it’s responsible for removing material from the disc to get scratches out. The blue compound is a polishing compound which means it uses less friction, and therefore does not wear out as fast. Instead of ordering new pads (and fluid) from the manufacturer or Amazon I found a vendor on eBay that sells the materials much cheaper. I bought pads in bulk (10 pads at a time) last time to get a better “per pad” price. If you have a lot of discs, I suggest you consider doing the same.

I now have close to 3,000 discs in my collection, and I’m pleased to say that the average purchase price has gone down since I know I can pick up a scratched or scuffed disc from the bargain bins and come home and clean it up so that it plays just like new.

There have been a few exceptions. For example, one copy of a Led Zeppelin disc I brought home would not rip no matter how clean the surface looked. Ultimately I found out the problem by holding the disc up to the light. I noticed the light shining through the disc in a couple of places, meaning the data was completely gone in those areas. It affected two of the songs, unfortunately, so that disc had to go away. Now I check my used discs for this sort of defect before I buy them. No amount of buffing or polishing will restore a defective disc.

I also purchased a J Geils Band Greatest Hits disc that was deeply scratched – enough so that I used sand paper on the disc as the initial treatment. I was able to get most of the scratches out on the bottom, but then I noticed that the top was equally scratched. Of course I can’t polish the upper surface of the disc. I’ll probably keep my eyes out for another copy of this disc that is in better shape and pass my current one on to the library.

For what it’s worth, I found it on sale at Target for about $20 one weekend. It pays to check around every now and then.

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.

On a scale of one to ten, or one to anything for that matter, Batman doesn’t rate very high for me. I think my “movie appreciation” is broken, because I just didn’t get it. For one thing, the movie was shot in Chicago. Not Gotham City, Chicago. It was obvious. The previous movies in the franchise were shot in… well, I don’t know where. And that’s the point. Gotham City is as much a part of the story as the batmobile. Even the first movie in the “Batman Reboot” was done in a more fantastical location. Chicago? Meh.

For the record, I felt very similar about “Quantum of Solace” when I saw it in the theater. That movie could have been anybody other than Bond and been essentially the same movie. It was a decent movie, but it was not (in my opinion) a “Bond” movie.

Now the movie “Wanted” was very enjoyable. And it had a number of really good twists, many of which I did not see coming. I would watch it again just to look for clues for the things I missed the first time. It clearly earned the R rating (lots of blood and violence) but it was not over done, at least in my opinion. Blood for the sake of having blood is one thing. This movie is about an elite group of assassins, so of course there will be blood.

And the ending of the movie… it was awesome. I won’t spoil it in case you haven’t seen it yet, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The teaser goes something like this:

For every day… there is a night.
For every world… there is an underworld
And for every hero… there is…. this guy?

This should be great!

Note: watch the cups.