As most of my friends know, I have a bit of a TV addiction. It all started with my first DVR. I can’t recall ever watching a series repeatedly before a DVR. I chose to instead watch sports and what not. My have things changed. The first big show that I was addicted to was Carnivale on HBO. That got cancelled but I really got into Lost after that. Now that Lost has been gone for over a year, I really needed a new show. There are a couple that are definitely in the running. Keep in mind that although I like 1 hour series, I am not into any of the law, cop, or doctor dramas out there.

Homeland on Showtime

All I can is that this show is amazing. The story line is very unique and suspenseful. For those who have not watched it, you really need to. The storyline basically revolves around a returned POW that may or may have not “been turned” and working for the other side. We have been led to believe that he has been turned but has not really shown us any evidence . This is the best show of the year.

Once Upon a Time on ABC

Like Homeland, this show has a very unique plot (probably even more unique).  It is understandable why the networks went into a bidding war for this show. Plus the show was conceived from several of the Lost writers and they have said that there are multiple allusions from Lost.  The show basically revolves around a bunch of fairy tale characters who were sent to the present under a witches spell but do not know it. A baby of Snow White’s who escaped the spell is now working with her estranged son to fix the spell which she doesn’t even really believe. Pretty cool, aye?

Terra Nova on FOX

I thought this was going to be my “it” show to replace Lost. It was promised as Lost meets Jurassic Park. I loved both so of course I would like this. The show definitely has lived up to expectations but the two above are still leading the pack for me. The shows plot basically revolves around that the current earth was dying from greenhouse gas (Al Gore was right) and people had to wear specially breather devices. Somehow, people found a hole in the space time continuum (Back to the Future reference) in which they could go back to the dinosaur days. Thus there has been like 10 waves of specially chosen people to go back in time. The show revolves around these people (and one specific family) and living back in this time with future amenities but there is an unknown twist with some outside rebels that may or may not be associated with the missing son of the leader of this new planet.

Dexter and Boardwalk Empire

Both of these shows are not new but still awesome. With that said, I would not rank them with the first two above.

New Comedies

There are a ton of new comedies and I have watched almost all of them. I am actually impressed that a lot of them got picked up for a full season. I felt like hardly any of the shows last season were picked up. New Girl has to be one of my favorite but I also like Suburgatory, 2 Broke Girls, Man Up, Up all Night (2^nd best new comedy), and Whitney. I also think Happy Ending is much better this season and is up there with HIMYM, Big Bang Theory, and Rules of Engagement.  I have basically phased all the Fox Sunday animation shows out of my repertoire which is a big surprise. Not sure why though as I do watch them once in a blue moon and still find them very funny. I guess you can only watch so much TV. Fringe is still good even though I am not sure how much longer it can last in its Friday time slot (which I feel is a death slot).

Another jammed packed weekend for Becki and I. On Friday, we went out to dinner with another couple. We tried going to Lola but it was too loud and they were going to charge us a $5 cover even though we were having dinner there which is totally wrong in my eyes. We ended up that at Bridge further down Locust. It was my first time there and I was impressed. Their dinner menu was a little on the light side but the vast assortment of cheese easily made up for it. We asked our waitress to surprise us after we gave her some suggestions on our preferences. She came back with a large spread of cheese, nuts, berries, sausages and bread that was awesome. We ended the night playing Kinect and the dance game.

Saturday was an awesome day. Downtown was packed with people for St Patty’s day. Unfortunately, Becki and I had a packed day so did not take part in the festivities. We hit the gym first then headed to Good Works warehouse to pick up a high chest and night stand. These last two items were to complete my bedroom set that I bought 3 years ago. Luckily they still had the same set available. Unfortunately, we had a problem. Upon unpacking them at Becki’s we found that the unit had some kind of mildew/mold on the bottom of it and the back. We were really disappointed. The box was clean so it had to be packaged like this from the supplier or packages wet. This is actually the second bad experience with this set as my hardware on my dresser had oxidation on it when it was unpacked and had to be replaced. The good thing is that GoodWorks is replacing the unit and offering free delivery. I’m still a fan of the store as I basically furnished my whole condo from it.

We went to a friend’s birthday party at Sol Lounge in the CWE that night. Amazing enough, it was the first time I have even been there. This is odd in my eyes because it is a 3AM bar in the CWE. You would of thought we would have gone to this while living in the area for 1.5 years. Needless to say, the place is odd. Its basically in a house that has the front entrance of a house in which you then go through a bathroom to a huge bar/night club. It is almost like it is a secret underground bar that they are hiding. Not sure why. The place is basically a larger Pepper Lounge. We did not stay late and it was pretty empty when we left but I was told it would fill up around 1AM. I guess I am getting too old but this is a kind of place I sorta phased out of my life.

Sunday was an errands day. I ran all kinds of them in prep for playing a real ice hockey game for the first time in 10 years and other things. The second to last  Big Love show was awesome too.

This weekend was a long weekend which is good. Becki and I did a little bit of everything and it was quite nice. I also got some decent sleep in too.

Friday night was a “date night.” We got some Crazy Bowls then headed back to my place. We watched Jersey Shore (which is not in HD after all) then played Kinect. I realized that I needed a rug mat after playing Kinect since my rug was going everywhere in all the jumping action. We also watched Dinner for Schmucks. This movie went well with Jersey Shore since it was also a trainwreck. It was one of those movies that made you laugh but I would never watch it again. It was so weird though that I would recommend watching it. I would give it a 6.5 out of 10.

I watched the devastating loss by MU on Saturday. They really needed that win and should have it. They missed a lot of free throws and made a lot of bad decisions. Their age really showed. I was impressed by their shooting though. The 3’s were really raining down.  We went on a couple date with Becki’s sister on Saturday afternoon/night to the Science Center for the Grossology exhibit. The exhibit sort of sucked as it was really geared towards kids but it was fun never the less. We rounded out the night with an early dinner at Drunken Fish followed up with dessert at the Cupcakery. I have been to DF a bunch but never had sushi. All I have to say is that it is expensive but it was my best sushi experience. We had 4 kinds of rolls and all were delicious. The Red Velvet cupcake was delicious too. I loved the cream topping.

Sunday was an errand day. I got that rug mat that I needed Friday night. We also watched the season premier of Big Love. This season sounds pretty exciting since the family is falling apart and a lot of secrets are going to be revealed.

This weekend was pretty jammed pack full of all kinds of fun events. I was a little worried going into the weekend since both my girlfriend and I were both sick but I miraculously recovered by Friday.

I went to a friend’s 30^th bday part on Friday. The hype around the party was that we were going to have a pizza eating contest. This contest stemmed from a conversation over NYE about one of my friends who participated in an annual White Castle eating contest at his work. My friend ate 20 for the second year in a row and the winner ate 22. I thought that was very weak and said I could easily eat 20. Well somehow the contest we did turned into a Little Caesar’s Hot-n-Ready contest.  I really did not plan on participating. Needless to say I came very close to eating the whole pizza in the 12 minutes allowed to win the contest. I was half a slice away and came in second by only a couple bites.  I should have won it though as I thought I was far behind the winner. I also struggled because I had a huge lunch of Mexican, already had a couple beers (the guy that won had zero beers at that point), I had a fatty breakfast, plus my teeth were sore from my new braces. All I can say is that I probably ate at least 6000 calories that day. We ended the night at the Tin Can in Tower Groves.

I lounged around on Saturday and ran some errands. I still can not believe that Seattle beat the Saints. What a turn around in two weeks! We went to Café Eau on Saturday night for a 30^th bday party. I was pretty amazed by the turnout. The place was packed. They had a band who I think was called King Pin. It was awesome because it was basically a live version of PaddyO’s after a Cards game. They played all the classic 80’s and 90’s songs while also playing some of the new hits. Becki and I will definitely be going back.

We did not do much on Sunday. We watched some football games and my girlfriend got the new Evo Shift 4G. The jury is still out but I was sort of expecting more out of the Android operating system (especially since this is a recently released version (2.2 Froyo). It was my first time using Android and I was not overly impressed. I liked some of the live interaction but everything seemed a little too complicated. I keep seeing that Android’s market share keeps going up thus why I was expecting a totally unique UI. It gives me new found respect for my Blackberry OS 6 UI as I think it is simple to use while delivering all my needs.  I also watched the season premier of Californication and the series premier of Episodes. Californication was awesome and I am glad it is back. Episodes was sort of boring but I will give it a couple more chances. I saved Shameless for later in the week but I liked the early season premier episode last month. I can not wait for the start of Big Love’s final season next week!

Oh, I forgot to mention that this was the first week of having Invisalign braces. As I may have posted before, I have been toying with the idea for over a year but could not bear to spend that much money since it is not covered by my insurance. I found out about the pretax flex plan which saved me money since the money is taken out before taxes so I took the plunge. Overall my experience has been good. I do get a little choked up every once in a while but I was expecting a lot worse since I have a pretty sensitive mouth. My teeth are a little sore but I really only notice it when I take my retainers in and out to eat. The main thing that I did not realize until I got them was that my diet is going to totally change. My short addiction to soda will probably die and also my snacking since I can basically only drink water when I have them in and have to brush my teeth before I put them back in. Needless to say it is going to be a long 10 months but it will be worth the pain.

This was a pretty jammed pack weekend. We braved the mall on Friday evening to do some Christmas shopping. It was dead so that was a plus. We also watched Get Him to the Greek. It was a funny movie. The P Diddy scenes were the best.

We had a trivia night on Saturday for a family at my girlfriends work. It was a fun time and we did relatively well (16 out of 40). The funny thing was that we bombed on the sports category (2 of 8 ) but did well on all the others (avg 6 of 8 on the other rounds). I have realized that I am pretty good at useless trivia. We finished out the night at The Famous Bar. I am going to go and elect that bar to be the smokiest bar in St Louis….an award previously held by Rue 13. You could smell the smoke as you approached the door. My car still smelled smokey the next day. I can’t wait for January 1 to get here so St Louis and the county are smokefree.

Sunday was a big day for home work at Becki’s. We put up the Christmas tree and decorations. The blurry picture above does not do the place justice. Her house really looks great. I also installed a new front porch light above Becki’s front door. It sounds like an easy task but not on an old house. First, I had to drill out the screws of the existing one since they used flathead recessed screws that were as soft as butter. Secondly, I now didn’t not have screw holes to install the mounting plate for the new one so used some self tapping larger screws to mount it permanently. Besides that and the fact that it was 20 degrees, it went pretty smoothly and the light looks awesome.

In TV news, Becki and I both started watching The Event. That show is sort of additicting. It is my new favorite out of the new but old season (it is actually the only new show I watch besides Boardwalk Empire).

I went out with my lovely girlfriend on Friday night for our 1 year anniversary since our first date.  We went to Vin de Set which is where we went on our first date. We ate a ton of food (our bill supplemented this). We started with a mix cheese plate, then I had a three onion soup, then we both got the beef tenderloin medallions. The main entrée was awesome. It has great mashed potatoes, asparagus and the steak was so tender.  We got a cheesecake to go which we ate on Saturday which was extremely delicious.

I had most of the day Saturday to myself since Becki was hosting her sister’s baby shower.  I caught up on Dexter and all but one episode of Fringe. Fringe was very good and I had not watched a single episode yet this season. I really like the mystery in the show. I also like the crazy technology that is shown in the parallel universe. I also watched the MU Tigers basketball and football games. The basketball team has a ton of talent. Right now, they look a little lost since they have so many scorers. Hopefully they will gel and have a great season. The football game was pretty good too. Blaine had his best game throwing in a long time (in my opinion) but they still are not very consistent. They seem to forget about the crossing patterns and short throws up the middle in which they rock at. Becki and I closed out the night watching Iron Man 2. It was a pretty good flick.

We did some shopping on Sunday. I looked at the TV that I am toying with getting. Its going to be $1500 on Black Friday. I didn’t think I was sold on the LED technology but I will now only buy one with it. Best Buy had the same two 55″ platforms next to each other (one with LED and the other just a regular LCD).  The LED LCD was so much more vibrant. I also got the Kinect but its a Christmas present so I wont get till open it for another month. I watched the Rams game too. They look pretty good but couldn’t stop Atlanta. I also have no clue who that shuttle pass was going to at the end of the game.  On the tv front, I watched the season premier of The Event and Sarah Palin’s show. The Event was pretty good and I think my girlfriend liked it too so going to play catch up if I can find a place to watch the 2nd episode since I lost it in my DVR issues a couple months ago. The Palin show is good too. It makes me want to go to Canada.

I went to Lake of the Ozarks this weekend with my girlfriend. It was a perfect weekend to visit her dad. The weather was great and there was a lot of action due to the Shootout being a couple miles from his cove.

The weekend was a relaxing time where we ate a ton of food. We got the same delicious pizza on Friday night that we got last time we were down in which I ate twice as much as I should have. We had a huge fried fish dinner Saturday and I ate KFC buffet for lunch on Sunday. I have been wanting KFC for weeks after passing it numerous times on my various weekend get aways. We also had B&G’s both mornings. Needless to say, I got to hit the gym hard this week…lol.

We went fishing Saturday morning. We at least cost something this time but no keepers. I caught a small 12″ bass that was a borderline keeper so we threw it back. We hung out in the cove most of the afternoon but did go for a boat ride. We hit up one other cove and looked at the race. The picture above is a picture from pretty far away. There was a no wake zone forever so we did not go all the way down. There was a huge amount of boats if you can not tell. We were told that it might be the busiest weekend on the lake. All I can say is that I want a boat on the Lake more than ever. I just love going for boat rides. I can so see myself owning a place down there in 5 years.

True Blood was very interesting Sunday night. I almost felt like that could have been the season finale. That seems to be True Blood’s thing. I am pretty sure that I remember them bringing a conclusion to the major plot line right at the beginning of the last episode last season. This time they just did it at the end of the second to last episode. It’s going to be a slow next episode in my opinion but a very good season so I am happy.

This was definitely a weekend where I did not get any sleep. I feel like I might have gotten a total of 8 hours between Friday and Saturday. Very disappointing since I was just coming off a sinus infection in which I was feeling very exhausted.

I went to the Cards game on Friday night. The Cards were in a huge slump and totally at the wrong time. The slump did not end for us this game either. The highlight of the night was my friend Matt eating a bacon wrapped hot dog covered in baked beans, fried onions, and pickle spears. It was pretty funny watching him eat it for the mere fact that he told us that he was cutting high sodium items out of his diet earlier in the night. We left the game a little earlier since we saw the storms rolling in so watched the rest of the game from Paddy O’s basement. The place was not as packed as normal after the game. I am guessing because of the storm front. The people who did not show up were smart because the rain and wind was pretty bad. Basically everyone under the tent got a little wet.

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning for a friend’s wedding in Muscatine, Iowa. It was for one of my friend’s from Wash U and I was really looking forward to hanging out with the group. Thus we made the 4+ plus hour trip in the morning rather than go up the night before like some of the group did. We arrived around 1 to play a little Uno and have some tasty beverages from Mike’s new employer before going to the 5Pm wedding. The wedding was pretty cool. The reception was awesome. The food was great….had a terrific piece of steak and chicken. I also loved that there was both a live band and a DJ so there was a good mix. The band even mixed in some Katy Perry so they knew what the kids liked…lol. The band also played till 1AM and they had a midnight snack of pizza planned at midnight which was awesome. A bunch of the wedding party went back to my room after the night to indulge in a fine selection of more pizza, Taco Bell, and McDonald’s.

Not much happened on Sunday. Got back in the early evening and watched some TV and caught up on the DVR. I watched Big Lake and wasn’t impressed but I will still watch a couple more episodes to give it a chance. True Blood was awesome as it always is. A little disappointed that there is only two more episodes left. It seems like the season just started. I also watched the Big C. It was entertaining and will make my tv viewing lineup.

• I am really torn about getting a new Blackberry. The Torch obviously has to be better than my first generation Blackberry Bold 9000 but the idea that it is not on the 1 GHz processor level and updated screen is not very appealing for a phone that I will probably have for another 2 years. I might hold out to see if Blackberry makes any new releases for the Bold.
• I think I am at the point where I am going to buy a media server. I want to be able to play music on my home theater system from my PC. Know of any good ones? I am tired of listening to my PC two rooms away when having parties.
• I have another weekend of being out of town. I am really looking forward to hanging out with the Wash U crowd for Ann’s wedding but also really want to sleep in since I am recovering from a sinus infection. Unfortunately that is not possible.
• I do not know what to think of the Cardinals. They seem to make a lot of costly errors, their hitters are not dependable (besides Pujols and Holliday), and the relief pitching is very shaky. I do not think we can rely on Wainright and Carpenter carrying us in the playoffs (if we even make it there).
• This summer’s cable show TV lineup has been pretty good. True Blood has been pretty awesome. They really made this year interesting although it is a little more disturbing than past years. Entourage has also been good. Throwing as many celebrities as they can in an episode seems to work. I am also interested in seeing the storyline for Weeds this series. Looks like they are moving again based on the Series opener.
• Lost Season 6 comes out next Tuesday. It is supposed to have a lot of extra scenes for the last episode. I’ve already moved Disc 5 to the top of my Netflix queue.
• Am I going to buy Halo Reach and Civilization 5 in September? I have not been playing games at all since coming back from Chile but I know I am getting Civ 5 and will be playing it a ton. I will only buy Reach if a bunch of my friends do so I can play them online.

I was sick this weekend so sort of laid low. I went to Molly’s for my grandmother’s bday on Friday evening then made my way back to my place to relax. Molly’s new expansion was interesting but I was not impressed with the food. I can not see me going back. I closed on the night with some GTL action on MTV (aka Jersey Shore).

Saturday was the Kick Ball for a Cause tournament. I was not looking forward to it at all. I was feeling horrible and  it was supposed to be 100 degrees. I was also told that this team had never won a game in the last 2 or 3 years so did not know what to expect. Needless to say we were awesome. I set the bar high by scoring our first run by kicking a home run. I also made our team’s only double play so I called myself the MVP. My girlfriend even drove me in on a homerun so I was impressed. We won our first four games and advanced to the playoffs. We had a big inning in our first playoff game and won. We lost in the semi-finals. It was our first game on a dirt infield and our players were having troubles adjusting. We made a ton of errors and none of our good hitters could make contact. It was sad to lose but we were all feeling pretty bad after being in the heat for so long. I actually wouldn’t mind playing kickball again. It was really fun. We tried to watch Hot Tub Time Machine that night but it froze up after 5 mins on Charter on Demand and never worked that night.

We finally got to watch Hot Tub Time Machine on Sunday. It was funny but I thought it got good reviews and can not see how that is possible. Besides that, I did not do much. Ran some errands, made some delicious sirloin kabobs, and watched my Sunday night TV shows, along with catching up with 3 weeks of weekend wrap ups.