Why Heidi MacDonald is awesome:
I've read a lot of Con reports, written one of my own, but this is probably the best overview of the general "vibe" of San Diego that I've read. And she never even uses the "show with no buzz" catchphrase that has become the default description, either.

Flametrick Subs:
So it looks like I'll be heading out with some of my group of friends to see the Flametrick Subs (and Satan's Cheerleaders) on Saturday, August 6th at Beerland. I'm working until 10, of course, so I'll be arriving a little late, but the Flametrick shows are always a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to it.

In other news... leaky ceilings are no fun, whether you have them at home (the knowledge that I am going to have to replace our entire roof at some point haunts me) or work (there's a big 'ol leak in front of our counter at work). I'm just saying.

We don't need no water:
So I woke up around 11:45 (hey, cut me some slack, I was up until 3:30) and my wife is saying "If you can take a shower in about five minutes, you better do it, they're about to shut off the water."

Turns out that when they were working in our neighbor's yard yesterday, it was on the water main, and so today they're turning off the water for the whole street. So I rushed through my shower, got my teeth brushed and got dressed. When I came back in to shave (electric razor, thankfully) a few minutes later and tried to rinse out the sink... no water.

Glad I'm going to work, but I feel sorry for my wife and daughter, who are here without water for several hours. It'd probably drive me nuts, just knowing that it wasn't there if I needed it.

Monday routine:
Well, it's been almost a week since I got back from San Diego (I'm about five hours shy of when I actually landed in Austin), and I'm just about rested, recuperated and back into some sort of routine. My Monday routine tends to be putting off mowing the lawn for as long as possible, and that's part of what this posting is all about, too. It'll save me a couple minutes where I'm not thinking "I should really go outside and mow." Not sure why I put it off so much, as it's really not that hard a thing to do, especially when I put on my iPod and listen to music or a podcast or an audiobook the whole time, but I just never feel like doing it.

Also on the chores list today is balancing the checkbook, another chore I put off constantly that always takes about 10-15 minutes when I finally sit down to do it. I did get one thing done today, and that was emailing some of the folks that I talked to in San Diego to follow up and say thank you, hello or whatever. My Con coverage at Fourth Rail is now complete, and includes the Con report, my sketchbook and a review of the sketchbooks I picked up.

And now, for no reason other than I want to, a list of all the stuff I got at San Diego that is awaiting review (not counting the two that are getting reviewed tomorrow, Tricked and The King): Invincible Vol. 1 HC, Bumperboy Loses His Marbles, Passion of Da Keef, Small Favors Vols. 1-2, Arsenic Lullaby: Year of the Fetus, Rose and Isabel, Spiral Bound, aeiou, Scalawag, 1000 Steps to World Domination, Smoke & Guns, Northwest Passage 1, Gunpowder Girl & The Outlaw Squaw, The Fly Chronicles, Ballast, Solstice, Brickman Begins, Afterworks, Crowpsey, Raider 2&3, Yets!, The Travels of Gulliver, And Then One Day #s 1&4, Flytrap, Crispy Cornflakes, Slop #5-6, Hector Spector, Mort Grim, Agent 44, Horus, Sketch Crawling, Wannabee #1, Foxymoron #3-6 & X-Mas Special, Western Tales of Terror #5, Elk's Run #3, Rocketo #0, Henagi the Ninja Girl #1, Hieroglyphs, Fragile Prophet #1, Voicebox Summer Preview 2005, The Last Battle, Hero Squared #1, G.I. Spy #1, Hip Flask: Mystery City, Students of the Unusual #1, Fear Agent Preview and Burn #1-2.

This is of course on top of the roughtly 2 foot stack of graphic novels and single issues in my comp pile to review. So I'm gonna be busy reviewing for a while... but I thought y'all might enjoy a preview of some of the stuff that's going to be in the column for the next month or two.

TV Catch-Up:
Catching up on my TV from the last couple of weeks (Love ya, Tivo!) during the last couple of days. The Inside continues to be watchable but disappointing given the talent involved, so I honestly won't be too sorry to see it go. Battlestar Galactica has started off strong in season two, with some great suspense stuff involving the cylon raiding party aboard Galactica and some really excellent character stuff. Loved the confrontation of sorts between Apollo and Tigh at the end of episode two.

I've also been catching up on The Daily Show. I love the show, especially when some blowhard (such as Bernard Goldberg) comes on and just gets torn to shreds by Jon's logic and humor. I always leave the show a little frustrated with the abuses of power going on in our country right now, though... I'm continually stunned at how much shit this administration (and it's hatchet man, Karl Rove) gets away with, and even when they get called on it, they just kind of skate by and no one is punished for their transgressions. I imagine this is how the conservatives felt when Clinton just deflected every attack they made on him, except with Clinton it was about blowjobs in the White House, with Bush it's about soldiers being in Iraq and a CIA agent whose cover was blown by her own countrymen.

Podcasting:
I've been sort of getting into the idea of podcasting lately. I have subscribed to a few podcasts now that iTunes is offering them, including Indie Airplay, the Monday Show with Sara Routh, Augie's Pipeline podcast and the iTunes New Music Tuesdays podcast. I've been looking for some good comics commentary or Austin-central podcasts, but haven't found anything yet... recommendations are welcome.

I'm also toying with the notion of doing a podcast myself. Probably a sort of "week in review" for comics, maybe some kind of back and forth commentary with myself and somebody else (it'd be great to do audio Two in One reviews with Don, but he's kind of in Canada, which makes it difficult, plus we're both tremendously busy with schedules that never coincide), who knows? I've downloaded Audacity on Augie's recommendation, now I just need to look into getting a microphone for the computer and seeing how hard it is to work the software and MP3 encoding.

Chance of this actually happening: Probably about 50%. Chance of it being regular instead of fading away so I can watch more TV, play more videogames, read more comics and play more with my daughter: About 25%.

Advice, recommendations on content and presentation and offers of help greatly appreciated.

Friday Night:
Just recently picked up Burnout 3 for the PS/2, now that it's dropped to $20. I had already played the game heavily when it was rented and loved it, so I was glad to finally get the game to have whenever I feel like crashing cars. Since we weren't having our regular game this weekend (the GM is off racing his Mini somewhere), I invited some of the crew over to my place to play the game. Burnout 3, for those who haven't played it, is a racing game where you try to crash other cars, narrowly avoid oncoming traffic and even engage in a "crash mode" where you try to cause the most spectacular crashes for the most monetary damage.

You know the crash physics are good on a game when a group of five guys watch a fictional crash into a wall at high speeds and respond with a visceral "oooohhh! ouch!"

Heroes Con vs. Wizard World Atlanta:
The news of Wizard's shot across the bow of long-running comic convention Heroes Con is spreading across the web. Newsarama has a pretty good rundown of what's been said so far.

I've been meaning to get out to Heroes Con for some time, especially given that my sister and brother-in-law live down there. Given the number of pros who haven't gone in the past but who are going this year as a show of support, as well as all the good I've heard about the show, it sounds like 2006 is the year to drive down with the wife and kid to visit relatives and hit Heroes Con.

You may be able to hear the crickets on the floor of the Wizard World Atlanta Con, if this keeps going at the rate it's going. Or they'll wise up, apologize and move the Con. I've been to two Wizard Worlds (the first one in Chicago and the one two years ago in Dallas) and have always come away unimpressed in comparison to the original Chicago Comicon, San Diego, even the small press shows like SPX and STAPLE.

Weekly Comics To Come:
Every week, as part of my retail job, I run down the invoice of what's coming into the store next Wednesday. I also pull out the stuff that looks interesting to me, so I figured why not take that list, make a few brief comments and try to make that the regular Friday update on my new daily blog? Will this continue, or will it be one time only? Time will tell!

ALREADY READ:
Astro City The Dark Age #2 (Very interesting stuff about the Silver Agent)
Capote In Kansas Gn (Fantastic semi-biographical story of novelist Truman Capote, certainly one of the best graphic novels of the year and a must-buy)
Daredevil Vs Punisher #2 (Fairly standard Daredevil/Punisher material, but done with style by David Lapham)
Hulk Destruction #1 (Decent but forgettable beginning of a spotlight on Hulk foe Abomination. Peter David writing is pretty good, if a little hard to follow at times due to time jumps, Jim Muniz art is sort of OK but not much more)
Runaways #6 (Great follow-up to last issue's reveal about Victor Mancha's parentage and good finale to the first arc of the returned series)
Silent Dragon #1 (Beautiful art by Leinil Yu, not quite sold on the story yet but the futuristic Yakuza/military tale does intrigue)
Spider-Man Human Torch Im With Stupid Digest Tp (Amazing and totally overlooked Spidey/Human Torch LS by Dan Slott and Ty Templeton in cheap as hell $8 digest format - If not for Capote in Kansas, this would probably be my pick of the week)

HAVEN'T READ:
Bill & Teds Most Excellent Adventures Vol 2 Tp (First volume was kind of fun, this is the remainder of Evan Dorkin's take on the slacker duo)
Courtney Crumrin Tales #1 (Naifeh explores some of the supporting cast of Courtney, starting with warlock Uncle Aloysius)
Cute Manifesto Tp (A collection of Kochalka comics)
Dead West Vol 1 Gn (Looking forward to reading this undead western by Rick Spears and Rob. G, creators of Filler and Teenagers From Mars)
Godland #1 (Mind-blowing cosmic fun mixing Kirby with the deconstructionist style of Automatic Kafka by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli)
JLA Cyberforce (Really? Cyberforce? Isn't it 2005? And Silvestri, the only possible draw for these characters, isn't even involved)
Losers #26 (More kickass action from Diggle and Jock. Sorry to see it go in 2006, and yet happy about the notion of seeing the wrap-up)
Nightwing Year One Tp (Fun formula superhero by Dixon, Beatty and McDaniel - fits right in with the Batgirl: Year One and Robin: Year One trades by the same writers)
Previews #25.8 (Down the Line should follow next week)
Queen & Country Declassified Vol 3 #2 (First issue was terrific, looking forward to seeing more of this IRA/SAS tale)
Star Wars Republic #77 (After this, two more issues to go in the great Ostrander/Duursema run on Star Wars: Republic)
Tick Days Of Drama #1 (New Tick! It's kind of lost its luster for me, but all the Tick comics, with or without Edlund, that I've read have been enjoyable)
Usagi Yojimbo Vol 19 Fathers And Sons Tp (The finale of the Usagi/Jotaro story, as great as Usagi Yojimbo always is)
Western Tales Of Terror #5 (Contributors this issue include Steve Niles, Scott Mills, Tony Moore, Small Gods creators Jason Rand and Juan Ferraya and Tom Mandrake)

Daily Updates?
I've resolved to try and post something daily on this blog. As I am remarkably uninteresting, no doubt many of these posts will be utter nonsense. Take this one, for example.

Anyway, new blogs to add to my daily reading list (that should have been on there long ago): The Comics Reporter and Bags and Boards. These came up as I reached day two (Thursday) of my Con report, which will no doubt frighten and disgust in its length and rambling nature when I finally get it finished and posted (I'm betting on Monday) at Fourth Rail.

Still haven't really turned on the TV since getting back from San Diego, aside from watching the two episodes of Family Guy I had saved (I needed a laugh). The first episode of Battlestar Galactica second season, the latest Rescue Me and about a week and a half of The Daily Show all call to me. As do my new copy of Burnout 3 for PS/2 (purchased right before I left) and Scrubs: Season One DVD (already watched from Netflix, but would like to rewatch).

Also need to read some of the Marvel First Look stuff from next week: Runaways, Daredevil/Punisher, a couple others. Already read the DC stuff I wanted to, which meant reading Wildstorm's Silent Dragon (interesting start, though not the slam bang opener I had hoped for) and... uh... something else I've already forgotten.

See, I told you... daily = rambling. Hopefully I'll improve as I get into the groove. Or, more likely, give up and go back to semi-monthly updates.

Read So Far:
I've got an enormous pile of graphic novels and comics to read coming off San Diego, and it's going to take me a while to get to reviewing them all.

So far, however, I have read: Gunpowder Girl & Outlaw Squaw, And Then One Day #1 & #4, Small Favors Vols. 1-2, Bumperboy Loses His Marbles, Arsenic Lullaby: Year of the Fetus, The Passion of Da Keef, Invincible HC, aeiou, Scalawag, Tricked, The King, Smoke & Guns, 1000 Steps to World Domination and Spiral Bound. Reviews of all of these should hit relatively soon (next couple weeks, hopefully) but the quick hit favorites are the Invincible HC (packed with extras, so damn cool!), Tricked (worth the wait), The King (better than Three Fingers, which I loved), Smoke & Guns (insane fun) and Spiral Bound (all-ages greatness).

*sigh* I was this close to being caught up on all my comps before San Diego, now I've got a huge backlog again. Ah, well, it's all stuff I'm dying to read and review! :)

I Have Returned:
Back (finally) from the big San Diego trip, a day later than planned thanks to delays and other related BS from Southwest Airlines. This is the first time I've had major flight trouble in a while, and definitely the *last* time I'll fly through Las Vegas on Southwest if I can avoid it. While our customer service in San Diego was great, friendly and accomodating in what were unbearably difficult circumstances, we got nothing but frustration and anger from dealing with the ranking manager on duty Lance Thibodeau in Southwest's Las Vegas branch. He was of course mildly more helpful than the woman who first greeted us with a surly "That means nothing to me" when we told her we were the six misconnects from Austin and got more surly and unhelpful from there, but he was basically a sarcastic and useless tool and we had to badger him to get us the hotel rooms that had been promised us in San Diego if we wound up stranded in Vegas.

Aargh. This will of course all show up in the con report on Fourth Rail in a few days. Oddly, I just finished perusing Newsarama, which has all the news that I missed while on the floor of the Con, and realized that most of it holds little to no interest for me. It's all about DC/Marvel plans, and while there are a few intriguing bits, the big hypefest books that are going to sell don't really hold much attraction to me. Does this mean I've lost interest in comics? Well, given the stacks of graphic novels and sketchbooks I picked up in San Diego, and the fact that I'll probably go read a few more when I finish typing this, not really... it just means that I'm getting tired of bullshit hype and would rather have creators doing their thing instead. San Diego was a nice reminder that there are still a ton of people out there beyond DC/Marvel, and the reports of good sales from most everyone I talked to a welcome reminder that there's interest in this kind of thing from fans as well.

Fantastic Four:
Just as I seem to be out of step with the majority of comics buyers relating to the two event stories going on at DC and Marvel, I also seem to be somewhat out of step with the consensus on comic book movies so far.

Because honestly, I liked Fantastic Four. Certainly better than Batman Begins. Why? Well, mostly it comes down to fun. Batman Begins is dour and lifeless, Fantastic Four feels like the sort of fun I'd rather have in my comics. It is true, in a lot of ways, to the spirit of the team that was instilled by Lee and Kirby in their legendary run.

I'm not saying it was a great movie. There are any number of logical inconsistencies that add up, and if you let yourself keep asking questions about the variations in science, the bizarre flip-flops in characterization that a few characters suffer (poor Doom worst of all) or why on Earth someone thought it was a good idea to use that music at that time, you'll probably hate it.

However, if you can go with a flow and ignore some of the Hollywoodisms (and these days, to enjoy an event movie you pretty much have to ignore some Hollywoodism), Fantastic Four is a pretty fun, even action-packed take on these characters that does justice to at least 3 1/2 of them. Doom gets short shrift in the script, but it's nothing that couldn't be fixed with a sequel that has him taking over Latveria and becoming the Doom we'd all prefer, and I like to think that Julian McMahon could handle that role and that the missteps as Doom in this movie are due more to script failures. Jessica Alba is, as with Sin City, a bit miscast, as she doesn't quite make me buy into her as smart scientist Sue Storm (btw, I like changing Sue from '50s housewife to Reed's scientific equal, whether it's here or in Ultimate FF), but in general she's still pretty good. Michael Chiklis, as expected, is great as The Thing, and the effects actually work to make us believe him as the Thing. A little old school, maybe, could have used a bit more CGI touch-up maybe, but certainly not as bad as early shots would have led you to believe. Ioan Gruffudd is given the difficult job of bringing major-league stiff Reed Richards to life, and he pulls it off admirably.

Of course, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm steals the movie. He's the guy actually enjoying himself when the powers comes along, he gets some of the best special effects and some of the most effective humor and action sequences. I would have guessed before seeing the movie that Chiklis was the best bit of casting, but Evans is the real find, he just embodies everything that Johnny Storm should be. Oh, and I like the change that he is the team's pilot, not just Sue's younger brother who tagged along on the mission. I wasn't down with all the changes made in this story from the original (Doom as business tycoon feels like lazy writing, for example) but I did like quite a few of them.

Maybe it's lowered expectations, maybe I'm willing to forgive a lot in the name of fun... but unlike Batman Begins, I see myself buying Fantastic Four when it comes out on DVD. And although Batman will get a sequel and FF might not, truthfully I'd rather see that reversed, because I'd love to see these actors meet again, this time with Doom at the head of Latveria, as he should be, and with all the origin stuff pushed out of the way to make way for a stronger story.

A Good Weekend:
I don't technically get holidays at my job, but because Sundays and Mondays are my regular days off, and because many of my friends were enjoying a three-day weekend, I got to enjoy this holiday weekend quite a bit anyway.

Friday night was a DVD release party for the STAPLE DVD at Austin Books. I did the interviews with Scott Kurtz and Michael Lark on the DVD, and I thought Gary Bartos and Doug Benning did a terrific job putting the DVD together. If you've got any interest in seeing a series of interviews about a first-time (very successful) small press show, this DVD is well worth a look. For me, the coolest thing was hanging out at Austin Books with my friends Chris Nicholas, Dave Lamplugh and Nate Southard as well as out-of-towner Toby Craig and DVD director/producer etc. Gary Bartos. Much good conversation and a fun, cheap late dinner at Taco Cabana made for an entertaining evening.

On Saturday, before going in to work, I went to the Red River Cafe with Gary, Chris, Dave and Toby and had brunch. Good food, more good (if weird) conversation, lots of fun. Then on Saturday night I went with my buddy Dave Farabee to see War of the Worlds. Dave was unimpressed, but I was pretty happy with the movie, and the suspense pretty much had me hooked in throughout. The very end is a little bit too pat and sentimental, but most of the movie I liked.

My wife and daughter had been out of town on Friday and Saturday visiting relatives in Dallas, so I was glad when they returned on Sunday, which also happened to be my wife's birthday. After spending the day playing with Katy, Suzanne and I took her over to my parents' house to spend the night so we could have an evening out. We went to The Melting Pot, an *awesome* fondue restaurant. It's pricey, special occasion fare all the way, but it was just amazing food. Melted cheese and bread, apples and veggies, a "Pacific Rim" sampler of meat (which included duck, teriyaki steak, pork, chicken, shrimp and potstickers) that we cooked at the table and an amazing dessert course made up of chocolate, marshmallow fluff and graham crackers made for a great meal. Truthfully, I ate a bit too much, and regretted eating that last bit of cheesecake (dipped in the chocolate), but I couldn't resist.

We then went to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which I also liked quite a bit. Pitt and Jolie had great chemistry, Liman's direction is as sure and sharp as his work on Bourne Identity and Go and the story might have been easy to read, but the action was solid and the general writing pretty decent.

Tomorrow, we'll go over to my folks' house for burgers and brats on the grill and Katy's first experience with fireworks (Black cats and sparklers). A good weekend. And now it's almost 3:00 AM and I should really go to bed.

Batman Begins:
I'm already sick of talking about it. Working in a comic shop, everyone comes in and immediately asks "Seen Batman yet?" Apply to any other comic or geek-related movie, and you might get why I'm just tired of talking about all the geek-tainment much, much faster than most. Especially since really, I have to be a buzzkill on this one. Batman Begins is a decent flick, but it is not the great definitive Batman movie everyone is making it out to be. It seems like as comic fans, we've all become so desperate for a good comic book movie that any halfway decent comic book movie gets called great.

Don't want to spoil it for anyone, so all I'll say specifically is that the first half, the Bruce Wayne half, is pretty good, and I bought into most of it. I thought Bale did a great job playing Bruce Wayne in general. But his Batman is so over-the-top angry that I felt like Bale didn't "get" superhero acting and was almost verging on camp. Liam Neeson and Michael Caine were both terrific, and in fact their characters' relationships with Bruce were so much more interesting and believable than the one he had with Katie Holmes (who I like, but who really didn't belong in this movie... others have suggested Talia as a more obvious love influence, and a likely stronger female presence, and I totally agree). Gary Oldman was good, but his Gordon was toned down to a borderline comedic presence at times, and I think Oldman could have pulled off the badass Gordon from Year One if only the script had allowed it. Then there's the second half of the movie, the Batman vs. supervillain half, which seemed like a completely different film. The plot doesn't really make much sense, and it's like the whole thing suddenly went from ultra-real to over-the-top sci-fi, and it didn't work.

Overall, my sense was: Good casting (with a couple exceptions), good direction, weak script. Good movie, but I'm unlikely to see it again. Bale provided the best Bruce Wayne we've yet seen in films, but I thought Keaton was a better Batman. And nothing live action has even come close to touching the animated series, which got it all right in all the right ways.

Favorite superhero movies for me remain The Rocketeer and The Incredibles, with X-Men 2 trailing just behind, and X-Men and Spider-Man quite a distance beyond that.

Oh, and I'm in almost total agreement with Scott Kurtz (of PVP) and Peter Travers (of Rolling Stone, who also nailed Episode III right on in his review).

iPoooooodddddd!!!!:
Read that in a sort of Star Trek II "Khaaaaannnn!" inflection. See, I sent my iPod Photo in for repair due to battery problems a little while back and got back (in rapid time) a new iPod Photo which seemed to be working perfectly. No sign of the previous problem. The previous problem being that for some reason, even when fully charged, when I disconnected the thing from the power adapter at work and brought it to my car, it would sometimes just conk out and refuse to reset or act like it was alive. After two days or so of dormancy (when it had drained most of its remaining power), it would respond to a reset and allow me to power it up, working a few days and then doing the same damn thing.

It just did it again today. And I'm remarkably frustrated with it. I can't decide if its superstition that the work connection has something to do with it or if the iPod mini cord is somehow different than the iPod Photo cord (despite looking identical) and I've now screwed up two iPods. Hoping that when the damn thing comes back on, I can do a software reboot and fix it. If anybody out there reading this has had the same problem or has any tech advice, I'm all ears.

Next Fall Season:
I love this time of year. See, I'm one of those weird folks who loves reading the Previews of what's coming up in comics, watches the movie trailers on the Apple site about once every couple of weeks and watches pilot season with interest. I want to know what's next, because even if everything is disappointing me now (as is often the case with comics and movies at the moment, although happily not TV), something great might be just around the corner.

TV networks had their "upfronts" this week, and given that this new season gave me two new shows I loved (Lost, Veronica Mars) and some shows that impressed me again or still (24, Arrested Development, The Shield), I'm excited to see what happens next. There was only one big schedule conflict (although it is a doozy), something I always worry about when networks are shuffling their schedules, and there are a few promising shows. Also, Veronica Mars, which is probably my third-favorite show (behind Arrested Development and The Shield), wasn't even on my radar until early in the season last year, so there could still be some surprises waiting. Here's what I'm looking at for next season (not counting midseason):

Sunday 8 PM
Family Guy (FOX) - If Fox can stop screwing with the timeslot, and thus my Tivo, so that I wind up getting the lackluster American Dad instead of this show. It's been on three times, I've seen it once.

Monday 7 PM
Fathom (CBS) - Intriguing alien invasion show (third of its kind on three networks), aliens are some kind of "new sea life," but the cast and producing crew don't stand out, and there's no way *anything* could compete with:

Arrested Development (FOX) - I'm so thrilled that this show got a third season renewal, and will be watching every week.

Monday 7:30 PM
Kitchen Confidential (FOX) - I like the cast on this one: Bradley Cooper from Alias, Nicholas Brendon from Buffy, etc. I also like the premise, about "bad boy" chef Anthony Bourdain, and I want to watch the show if only because it's lead-in is AD and I'll see what FOX is pairing with that. But if it's not good immediately, I'll probably switch over to:

How I Met Your Mother (CBS) - Premise sounds dull, typical relationship type stuff but with the twist of being narrated from the future by the successful couple. The cast, however, includes Alyson Hanigan and Neil Patrick Harris. I'd rather see both of these actors on drama, because I think they're stronger there, but I'll at least check this out.

Monday 8 PM
Emily's Reasons Why Not (ABC) - Heather Graham was really good in her Scrubs guest shot, so maybe this comedy about her as an advice columnist will be funny. But I'll probably watch:

Prison Break (FOX) - A season-long show about two brothers planning a prison break? Has 24 in its DNA, and sounds like good, pulp "guy soap opera" fun in that vein.

Tuesday 7 PM
Bones (FOX) - Premise sounds too CSI, and a little boring, but it's got David Boreanaz from Angel and there's nothing on opposite that I want to watch, so I'll at least catch a few early episodes.

Tuesday 8 PM
My Name is Earl (NBC) - Jason Lee as a low-rent crook who wins the lottery and then tries to right all the wrongs of his old life? Good casting (also has Jaime Pressly and Ethan Suplee), good premise, no timeslot competition, I'll be watching. But two of those three apply to Joey, and I gave that up, so it'll have to be good to earn its place on the Tivo.

Tuesday 8:30 PM
The Office (NBC) - I like this when I watch it, so I might watch more. Or I might not.

Wednesday 8 PM
Lost (ABC) - One of my favorite shows of this season. You can bet I'll be watching, although it might be on a friend's DVR because:

Veronica Mars (UPN) - MOTHER FUCKERS! They renewed the show and put it up against ABC's ratings juggernaut? Don't get me wrong, the only thing that could get me to choose against VM is Arrested Development, but I'm not most of America, and this could easily kill the show if they're hoping to see ratings improvement. Jesus, what are they thinking?

E-Ring (NBC) - Bruckheimer-produced drama about the Pentagon. Mildly interested, has Dennis Hopper (!), but up against these two other shows? I'll never see it.

Wednesday 9 PM
Invasion (ABC) - Another "alien invasion" show, this one probably has the best chance of success, since it's lead-in is Lost. Cast isn't instantly recognizable by name (although I know some of the faces), but the general approach sounds interesting, and again, no timeslot competition for me.

Thursday 7 PM
Alias (ABC) - Almost lost me early this season, still nowhere near as good as it was in seasons 1 and 2, but has regained my interest enough that I'll watch if nothing better is competing. And nothing is.

Thursday 8 PM
The Night Stalker (ABC) - No love for the original, my original interest in X-Files has turned to hatred, and yet... this sounds like Kolchak crossed with the Fugitive, and a good underlying central mystery can help a show. Curious to check it out, at least.

Friday 8 PM
Threshold (CBS) - The third alien invasion series, hampered severely by the involvement of Star Trek's Brannon Braga and Blade: Trinity's David Goyer, but boosted given that it features Carla Gugino, one of my favorite actresses, as well as some other notably good cast. I'll watch, although not if it's on opposite Battlestar Galactica.

And that's it. Mind you, some of my favorite shows aren't in this upfront, including all the intriguing looking midseason stuff like The Unit (Shawn Ryan and David Mamet) or The Inside (coming in June, really looking forward to this one) or the stuff on cable networks like Sci-Fi (Battlestar Galactica) and FX (The Shield), but that's what I'll probably check out come the Fall season.

Star Wars: Episode III:
I tried like hell not to get my expectations up above the "this is gonna suck" level that I had after Attack of the Clones, but I apparently didn't manage it, because I was still really disappointed in this movie. A few neat moments, but most of the emotional resonance comes from John Williams's score and the nostalgic ties it has to the actual good Star Wars movies, and all of Lucas's many directing and writing foibles are on display in this flick. It is the best of the prequels, but that still ranks it amongst some of the worst crap I've seen in a theatre.

Seriously, this thing is getting good reviews from the fanboy quarter on Ain't It Cool all the way to the critics in the mainstream press, and I'm left wondering what movie they saw that I didn't. I wanted it to be good, wanted the hype to be true, but man... it isn't. Episode III wasn't as boring as Episode II, but it's still miles away from good.

Life and Times of Juniper Lee:
And this is a reminder to set my Tivo for Judd Winick's new show on Cartoon Network, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, in May. Yes, I'm using my blog as a reminder system now. I can't help it, my memory is swiss cheese, and only getting worse as I age. :)

Mark Ricketts' Webcomic:
This is just a link to remind myself (and anyone else who might be reading this and like good comics) to check out Mark Ricketts and Jay Washer on BEATITUDE.