Timmy: “Are we gonna discover the secret of life, Mr. Wizard?”

Mr. Wizard: “We will if we’re not careful, Timmy!”

—”Mr. Wizard and Timmy” parody by Stevens & Grdnic

I’m not old enough to have seen the original “Watch Mr. Wizard” show, and I hadn’t even heard of Don Herbert‘s more recent Nickelodeon series “Mr. Wizard’s World”, but selected episodes of both are available on DVD from Mr. Wizard Studios.  I think I’ll order a few.

I watched very little television before using a DVR.  I would set my VCRs to record the few shows I watched, such as Babylon 5 and the Simpsons.  I did not like trying to view programs when the network aired them, and I *never* did any channel surfing.  At one point I had a roommate who liked to leave the television on all the time, and that drove me nuts.  I don’t want it on unless there’s something specific that I want to watch.

With a DVR, I found that I watched a lot more television, because it was so much easier to find and record interesting programs.  Eventually, I cut my viewing habit back down to a few shows a week, currently Heroes, My Name is Earl, and the Simpsons.  I now use a Linux system running MythTV as an HD DVR.  However, I actually most commonly watch the shows with a friend at his house, partly because he has a nice large screen HDTV but mostly because it is just more fun to watch the shows socially.

When I do watch TV shows or DVDs at home, I just watch them on my PC, with a 21-inch LCD monitor.  The 41-inch rear-projection TV I bought nearly ten years ago hasn’t seen any use in the last two years.  I’ve offered to give it to friends, but they don’t even want it.

• Phase 1: Lottery to sellect hundreds of candidates. Proceeds to NASA.
• Phase 2: Winnowing of candidates by TV show in “American Idol” format.
• Phase 3: Selection of actual astronauts by TV show in “Survivor” format. Parimutuel betting with NASA getting the house take.
• Phase 4: Actual Mars mission. In this phase, the astronauts will really need to make sure they pull their weight and don’t piss off their crewmates in order to avoid being voted off the spacecraft!

I normally despise “reality” TV shows (and most other TV shows, for that matter), but I think I’d watch this one.

They look virtually identical to the gravelings seen in the series “Dead Like Me” (images here and here).

Those caveats are a shame, because the best upgrade to a Tivo would be to throw away the Tivo software and run MythTV on it instead. That would give the users more features (including support for larger disk drives), but it would also have no DRM and no service fees.

I’d encourage anyone who wants a DVR to set up a system with MythTV rather than buying a Tivo or ReplayTV.

Disclaimer: I was one of the engineers that created the original ReplayTV. But I don’t have any financial interest in any DVR company now.

The pilot was funny though fairly predictable. It would have been better without the laugh track. Do they really think that the viewing audience is too dumb to know when to laugh?

I’m amazed that the studio hasn’t yet offered an official DVD. It wouldn’t be a number 1 hit, but Quark seems to have a respectable cult following, so I think they’d sell reasonably well. Certainly I’ve seen much worse junk on DVD.

I’ll have to make a copy for my friend Ficus.

Steve, Dan, and I saw “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” recently, and we really liked it. Don’t expect Jim Carrey to be as wild and crazy as in The Mask or the Ace Ventura movies; this is a more serious look at memory and relationships. That’s not to say that there isn’t a fair amount of humor as well, but I’d say that it was somewhat more thoughtful (and insightful) than The Truman Show.

I’m looking forward to the new seasons of Dead Like Me and Carnivale. I try not to watch too much TV, but those really got me hooked.