This is a big week for our house: most of our favorite television shows kick off their new seasons. You know, I’d never really watched any shows religiously until I got married. I wonder if there’s something to that. Anyways, here’s our schedule for the week:

• Heroes – Monday, 9PM, NBC; we were latecomers to the series — if nothing else, it’s in HD
• House – Tuesday, 9PM, FOX; if you’re not into weekly impossible medical mysteries that are always solvable within an hour, then at least enjoy Hugh Laurie as Dr. House
• Bones – Tuesday, 10PM, FOX; here’s to hoping that this season will rise above last, and actually be entertaining again
• Private Practice – Wednesday, 9PM, ABC; a spin-off with a character from Grey’s Anatomy, I don’t have high expectations — in fact, I’ve predicted this show falling off our schedule within a few weeks
• Life – Wednesday, 10PM, CBS; total shot in the dark, but it has Damian Lewis who was exceptional as Major Winters in Band of Brothers, so I’m giving it a shot
• Grey’s Anatomy – Thursday, 9PM, ABC; perhaps Mindy’s favorite show of all time
• The Office – Thursday, 9PM, NBC; excellent comedy, and I finished catching up on the 3rd season just in time

We walked away with only a single conflict: Grey’s Anatomy and The Office are on at the same time on Thursday nights. I guess this is why God invented the PVR.

Are there any new or old shows you guys are looking forward to? And if you say Lost, take your own advice.

‘Tis Talk Like a Pirate Day, mates, so break out ye ol’ bandanner and eye patch and throw some yars ‘n arghs into yer speech.

I just got off the phone with my brother, who’s now at school out in Colorado, where he doesn’t have cable in his room. Which is funny, since I just got done installing and configuring Orb, a free Windows application that will stream live TV off a tuner card. I gave him my login, so I may actually become my brother’s cable provider.

I’m kind of jealous, actually. I’m also wondering if this somehow violates my agreement with Cox. Should it?

By the way, if you haven’t tried Orb, it’s really cool. It lets you access all the pictures, music, video, and even files (slightly disconcerting) on your machine from anywhere. I can even stream live TV to my phone (and it doesn’t work on the iPhone! TAKE THAT!).

To celebrate the 12th anniversary of Command and Conquer, EA Games is giving away the original C&C as a free download (two ISOs). If you’re an old fan, you may have already read about this, but if you’ve never played, you should download it and give it a try, just in the name of gaming history.

As the commando would say, “I’m on it!”

Speaking of enhancing the Windows Mobile UI, today I found FlowFX, a .NET Compact Framework library for creating multi-form Windows Mobile applications with some neat effects. It’s also any entry for OpenNETCF’s September coding competition to create user interfaces that, “[make] the user completely forget they’re using a Windows Mobile device.”

Hopefully there are some more entries!

I’ve finally been introduced to the madness that is HDTV. I guess I’ve been “HD-ready” for a while now — the 50-something inch projection TV downstairs supposedly supports 720p and 1080i, while the 37 inch LCD I have in my office area supports up to 1080p — but I haven’t had much high-def content. Sure, I could play Counter-Strike at 1900×1080, but that was about it.

This weekend, however, I bought a combined ATSC/NTSC tuner card for my PC. By the time I got it setup, there was about two minutes left in the football game that was on — and that two minutes completely sold me. I’m not really sure why (I should have expected it, being digital), but, more than anything, I was impressed by the fact that there was nothing lost in the “TV”->PC conversion. Because, well, there isn’t any.

Now I’m obsessed with finding shows that are available in HD. In fact, for the first time, I’m considering upgrading to digital cable to get more HD channels. Even the rabbit ears precariously balancing on top of my lap aren’t deterring me.

Yup. Very Rejected.

With the recent iPhone price reductions, it’s been hard to resist throwing away my slightly irritating Windows Mobile-based T-Mobile Dash in favor of a shiny new iPhone. And Apple’s new smartphone has lots to love– like a lovely interface, BSD subsystem, x86 architecture, and hordes of developers writing nifty applications.

Thou shalt not covet: not as easy as you might think. But in spite of all the compelling reasons to break my piggy bank, I’ve decided to stand firm and be content with what I have. Well, content might be pushing it: I’ve also decided that Apple fan-boys shouldn’t be the only ones to get pretty screen-shots and devoted myself to changing it. Or some of it, at least — I can’t help with the hand models.

My first victim is the home screen for Windows Mobile, since that’s my primary interaction point with my phone. The default home screens are — well, let’s call them professional. (That’s a nice way of saying bland.) Luckily, the home screens are simply XML and graphics; easy to change.

Without further ado, here are screen shots of the original home-screen and my first stab at creating a prettier one. I still have some work to do, but I’m pleased with how it’s coming along.

(Screen-shots taken with Smart SS.)

Tomorrow I’ll hopefully be obtaining a copy of Visual Studio .NET, so I’ll be able to start making software modifications as well. And then I’ve started on some browser-based applications. Time to change the world!

CNet has an interesting collection of photos detailing some of the drainage tunnels running beneath parts of Las Vegas. There’s also a book.

I almost want to go explore these, but the last part of the book title has me second guessing that. You know, the death part.