The G4 cable channel is airing all of the previous Ninja Warrior tournaments this weekend. The episodes will air all day today, Saturday and Sunday. Then on Sunday evening at 5:30 pm ET, "American Ninja Challenge 4" will air. That hour-long special will cover the latest competition among G4's viewers to get a chance to compete in the main Ninja Warrior (Sasuke, in the original Japanese) tournament. Then the channel will premiere the 22nd tournament of Ninja Warrior/Sasuke in the U.S. The tournament will be broken up into five half-hour episodes. A recap episode will follow later that night.

I wrote about Ninja Warrior a few weeks ago. It's a demanding obstacle course that requires a great deal of agility, body control and upper-body bodyweight strength. Many of the 100 contestants are primarily there for entertainment purposes but the top competitors are incredibly fit athletes. In previous tournaments, elite athletes from around the world have competed too, including Olympic medalists from the U.S. in gymnastics and wrestling. Gold-medal gymnast Paul Hamm was among the most well-known of these competitors.

The recent hit, "Wipeout", is largely inspired by Ninja Warrior but it's missing some of the key elements of Ninja Warrior. In Ninja Warrior, if you fall off an obstacle, you are out of the tournament. The live crowd gives the competition a better atmosphere. And there is a growing history and tradition with Ninja Warrior, as well as a worldwide fanbase, including the U.S., the UK and Latin America as well as Japan and East Asia.

For some examples of the toughest obstacles, run an Internet search for "ninja warrior salmon ladder", "ninja warrior body prop", "ninja warrior devil steps" and so on. Or just watch the episodes this weekend.

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By the way, I ran 5.15 miles on National Running Day a couple weeks ago. I hope everyone else was able to do something to help improve their fitness.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 is the first annual National Running Day. It's an informal but national attempt to get more people involved in fitness activities. Running is one of the easiest sports to join. You don't need an enclosed field, pool or court. A park, bike/run trail, sidewalk or empty road will do. You don't need a lot of specialized equipment although it's highly recommended that you get fitted for proper running shoes at a specialty running store (local running store or LRS). You don't need to find teammates or opponents to run but if you do enjoy the company, you can run with one or several other people.

National Running Day doesn't involve road or track races. If you want to participate, just lace up your shoes and run. If you are overweight and out of shape, it might be better to walk today but it's still helpful to just get out there and get moving.

There's an "official" site, www.runningday.org, for reference purposes but you don't need to look at anything on the site to participate. Just run. I think you can download some sort of virtual badge, kind of like those "I voted" stickers. You can post them on your profile or on various web forums to show that you participated in National Running Day.

As I mentioned in the previous blog post, many more people could stand to get more involved with fitness activities. Even walking can help. If you are new to fitness or you haven't done any sports in a long time, just start by walking on 3 nonconsecutive days a week. Try walking for 20-30 minutes each time. The following week, add 5 minutes to each walk and continue until you can walk for 45 to 60 minutes without becoming exhausted. At that point, you could decide to start running by following a walk/run "Couch to 5K" program.

If you are a beginner, it's important not to try to do too much, too soon. This is how many beginners get injured. Then they get discouraged and give up altogether. It's far better to increase the time of the workouts gradually and to keep the speed slow. This will allow your legs to adjust to the impact stress of running and you will avoid most injuries. Your cardiovascular fitness generally develops faster than your leg strength does so you might be tempted to increase the time or mileage of your runs too soon. Don't do this. Just follow the program and soon enough, you will be able to run a 5K (about 3.1 miles) after just a few months.

One more note about running shoes: It's very important to get fitted for the right running shoes, for you. There are many companies that make quality running shoes (Asics, New Balance, Nike, Mizuno, Brooks, Saucony and so on) but you need to find the specific model that works for you. Only a minority of people can handle a neutral/cushioned shoe. Most people tend to overpronate somewhat. If you are among this group, you will probably need to get a little more support from your running shoe and/or insoles. Stability shoes are usually the right choice although some people may need motion-control shoes. Some people supinate (underpronate) instead of overpronate. Regardless, you can't really tell if you are neutral, an overpronator or an underpronator until a trained salesperson watches you when you run. Most employees at general sporting goods stores are not specifically trained to analyze your running gait. This is why it's a good idea to get your first pair of real running shoes at a specialty running store.

You will also find that "technical"/synthetic-fiber clothing works much better than cotton clothing does. Synthetics wick moisture (sweat) away from your skin, leaving you drier and making it much less likely that you'll experience chafing problems. Cotton is almost guaranteed to cause chafing problems once you start to run for significant distances. So avoid cotton clothing. This includes socks, shorts, pants and shirts.

***

RUNNING AND TRIATHLON TRAINING

I started running outdoors in recent weeks after struggling with various injuries over the winter due to an improper shoe fit. I ended up solving my problems by getting Superfeet Green insoles, which are much harder than the typical Dr. Scholl's insoles that you find at drugstores. The Superfeet insoles provide significant lateral support for your feet and ankles. They solved my issues with knee pain almost right away. (I had to take 8 weeks off from running over the winter because of a severe case of runner's knee. I still did a lot of swimming, strength training and some stationary bike workouts though.)

Anyway, I'm now running about 3 times a week, always taking about 48 hours off between runs. I usually swim on the other days. I'm finding that it's better to add bike workouts on the same days as my run workouts. You might think that it would be tougher on the legs but actually it works better that way. I get in all of my leg endurance workouts on one day and then I get the following day off from lower-body specific workouts. However, I don't always follow this schedule and I sometimes do run and bike workouts on separate days.

I did a lot of strength training over the winter too. I'm not doing as much now since I've ramped up the run and bike workouts and continued with the swimming but I still try to get in at least 1 or 2 strength workouts a week. I should clarify that strength workouts for endurance athletes and most other athletes do not resemble the weight sessions that bodybuilders do. Bodybuilders are concerned with muscle size, muscle definition and aesthetics. Functional strength, agility and muscular endurance are not as important for bodybuilders but they are very important for most athletes. I'll post more about this topic in a later blog entry.

Running outdoors is a liberating feeling. It's great to be able to roam about and see the sights outside without driving around in a car or taxi or taking the Metro (subway). I've mapped out a few different routes, including some that take me on the National Mall, around the Tidal Basin (where the famous cherry trees are located), past the Washington Monument and around the Jefferson, WWII and Lincoln Memorials. I bumped up my mileage gradually to the point where I'm now running about 4.5 to 8 miles for each run. I plan to increase my "long" run a mile a week until I get to about 12 miles or so. I'm also doing speedwork or tempo runs on one of my running days. This helps me to get used to running at faster paces, which will be helpful in races.

I'm still saving up money for a road bike. Hopefully I'll be able to get one within the next month. I only have 3 1/2 more months before the Olympic-distance triathlon. I'm doing a lot of work on the stationary bike but it's not quite the same as a regular road bike. I'm not going to get a BMX or mountain bike because they are just too slow. They are more rugged than a road bike but they just can't reach the speeds that a good road bike can. And when I talk about speed, I'm really talking about speed. Some of those cyclists can go fast, as in 35-40 mph or more! For intermediate races, it seems that I would have to average about 23-25 mph to be in the middle of the pack.

I'll have to try to find some to serve as my own personal triathlon sponsor or something. That would make it much easier to get a really good road bike or even a triathlon bike. Those can get quite pricey. While mountain bikes often sell for under $300 and commuter bicycles can sell from $150-$400, a road bike suitable for racing will usually cost more than $1000 although there are entry-level models that cost a bit less. Triathlon bikes tend not to sell in the same volume that road bikes do and they also feature expensive carbon-fiber tubing. I don't think it's easy to find new tri bikes for less than $1500 while many cost between $2500 and $3500. Some models are priced at $5000 and above while I saw one custom set-up at the bike store with a receipt of $10,000! That would be quite a bit over my limited budget.

I've taken a look at eBay but the problem is that I might not get the right fit. If the size is just a little off, you can put your knee or back in an uncomfortable position. That could cause overuse injuries in the long run, so I might stick with the local bike store. I saw at least a couple road bikes that I could probably afford. I'll also have to get a bike helmet and bike shoes. Bike shoes tend to last a long time, several years, but they do have a significant upfront cost. There are some models at around $100 while others have carbon-fiber soles and resulting carbon-fiber prices, over $300. They are really light though. I picked up a pair at a store just to see what the difference is. The soles are very stiff but the entire shoe seemed to weigh just a couple ounces.

I'm open to any ideas about sponsors. Unfortunately I am not an elite racer (yet?) so this idea might not get me anywhere. In that case, I'd just get an entry-level road bike and add clip-on aerobars. What's an aerobar? That's another topic I'll get to in a later blog entry, but basically it's a set of bars or a single curved bar that lets you lean your torso down in an aerodynamic position while your hands and forearms are pointed forward. Instead of sitting upright and presenting a large profile against the wind resistance, you can lean forward on the aerobars so that a much smaller area is facing the wind. This cuts down on the wind resistance dramatically. You won't see aerobars in most road cycling races because it's difficult to steer with them. That makes them dangerous in group riding (the peloton). But in most triathlons, drafting (riding behind another rider to minimize wind resistance) is illegal in the bike portion so it's more feasible to use aerobars.

***

But enough about triathlons for now. Today is National Running Day so do your heart and yourself a favor and get out and walk or run. It doesn't matter how long or how far you go. If you aren't used to exercise, you don't need to walk or run for too long. Just get started on the road to better health. Since I'm up early today, I might go for a run right now. Today is my speedwork day. We're supposed to have scattered but strong thunderstorms this afternoon and evening so it might not be a good idea for me to run home from work today. That's about all for now but I'll have plenty more to say about triathlons, running, swimming, cycling and fitness in the coming months.

Tomorrow, Friday, May 15, is National Bike to Work Day. People all across the country are encouraged to ride a bicycle to work instead of driving. Part of the motivation is to promote a more environmentally friendly lifesty1e but perhaps the most important reason is to get more people to incorporate exercise into their lives. It's no secret that the majority of American adults are overweight, and a steadily increasing percentage of adults are categorized as obese. In some cases, this is the result of specific conditions or diseases but in the majority of cases the problem is caused by a combination of poor eating habits and lack of exercise. Cycling to work won't take care of the poor eating habits (though it may encourage people to eat better, to be able to handle the extra physical activity) but it would serve to increase the exercise that bike commuters get on a regular basis.

(Decreasing gasoline use has another benefit: Less money for President Ahmadinejad of Iran and "President for Life" Chavez of Venezuela. Both of those guys get money from oil revenue as a result of petroleum product consumption worldwide, even when we don't buy petroleum directly from those countries. So there is a national security component to energy conservation too.)

Many cities across the U.S. are hosting local activities on Friday morning. These include gathering spots near work centers where bike commuters can get water, healthy breakfast snacks and live entertainment. Some locations are also holding raffles where you can win various prizes including a new bicycle.

Run an Internet search to find out whether there are organized activities in your area. Even if there aren't, consider taking part in the day anyway and ride your bike to work (or to school, if you are a college or high school student).

May is also National Bike Month in the U.S. Regular exercise and good eating habits are essential to maintain a healthy weight and body composition (muscle and body fat percentages). They will also result in a better outlook and a longer life for most people. (Exercise can't prevent car accidents, unfortunately.) Don't be one of those people who puts themselves into a Type II diabetic state because of all the potato chips, high-fat fast food, sugary soda (or worse, high-fructose corn syrup) and couch sitting. If you have children, be a good example for them by getting into better shape. You don't have to be a champion cyclist, just someone who incorporates moderate exercise and healthy dietary practices into your day-to-day life.

I do have to admit that I won't be biking to work but that's because I'm still saving up the money to get a decent road bike. But I have been doing plenty of work on the stationary bike along with regular swim and run workouts (and strength training) in preparation for the Olympic-distance triathlon this fall. I'm also entering a few road-running races this spring and summer to get my feet wet into the world of competitive athletic events, including my first 5K race this weekend. I'll post more about that in a few days.

One more note: June 3 is National Running Day. Everyone is encouraged to run (or walk) that day as part of another effort to promote healthier lifesty1es across the country. If you have never run consistently before, it may be better to walk on that day. I'll write up a blog post about some basic running tips for beginners before that date.

Stay fit and healthy and enjoy the warm weather (at least those of you in the Northern hemisphere).

As fans already know, the Sci Fi Channel series Battlestar Galactica ends its run tomorrow night with a two-hour series finale, starting at 9 pm ET. The channel will devote the entire day of programming to BSG, beginning with "The Hub" at 8 am ET. Sci Fi will continue to air episodes from this final season, Season 4, until 7 pm ET. At that point, they will air "BSG: The Last Frakkin' Special", an hour-long look at the series that features interviews with cast members, producers and others.

At 8 pm, the channel will air "Daybreak Part 1", the episode that aired last week. It is considered to be the first part of the three-part series finale. The next two parts will debut at 9 pm and 10 pm.

As you may have heard, the series has garnered many accolades over the past 5 1/2 years, picking up Emmy Awards and nominations, and a Peabody Award. The American Film Institute named BSG one of the ten best shows on television. Time Magazine named it the best show on all of television in 2005. Entertainment Weekly called it the 2nd most significant TV show or movie in science fiction over the past 25 years. BSG had a special showing at the UN this month as part of a cultural program examining the way BSG has dealt with issues of war, politics and governance.

I said that this is the end, "sort of," because BSG will not be disappearing off into the sunset after tomorrow night. There will be another BSG TV movie, "The Plan", which will air later this year. The DVD of the Caprica pilot will be released next month (on April 21). The pilot will debut on television in 2010 as part of a BSG prequel series that takes a look at the development of the Cylons, human cloning, corporate intrigue and a struggle between two families -- the Adamas and the Graystones.

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BSG on TV.com after the series finale

Many of us always knew that BSG was not the type of series that could be extended indefinitely. The episodes were too tightly interconnected and there weren't as many "standalone" episodes as one normally finds with most television shows. So we knew BSG would end sooner rather than later. But it's still sad to see this remarkable creative achievement coming to an end.

It's been interesting to serve as the editor for the BSG guide on TV.com for the last 3 years. I've learned a lot about what goes into the creation of a television series from reading various articles, analyzing episodes, discussing the show on the forum and even interviewing a couple of BSG insiders a couple years ago. The forum has been lively and one of the most intellectual ones on the site. That's not to say that we didn't have a couple problems with trolls in 2005 and 2006 but overall it has been a positive experience.

I'd hope that BSG fans continue to post on the forum with their thoughts, observances and opinions about the series even after it ends. I myself intend to start working on my "BSG novel" this spring after a lengthy hiatus. (Hey, if the Sci Fi Channel can take a 12-month hiatus between seasons of BSG, then I can too.) I haven't done much work on the novel in about a year but I have written down some ideas about key scenes, locales and themes that I want to cover in the last half(?) of the novel.

I'll try to post another blog entry about BSG next week, maybe a summary of my thoughts about the entire series (without getting into specifics about story lines).

And what's up with the Sci Fi Channel renaming itself Syfy? That's not a joke. People are going to call it /see-fee/ or /siffy/. Ugh.

***

As for other topics, I continue to be puzzled, frustrated and yes, upset, about what has been going on around this site over the winter. I won't get into specifics (for fear of getting censured, again) but I will say that the situations have not been handled properly at all. And that's all I'll say about that (as Forrest Gump might have said).

Exercise and fitness

I've kept up with the swimming and strength training this year although I ran into another problem with my knee, this time my right one. I'll post more about this next time but I'm convinced that I injured the knee doing a stretch common in yoga, where you lie on a mat, bend one leg at the knee and bring it up under your torso, and lie on top of the leg to stretch your hamstring and hip. The problem with this stretch/pose is the sideways torque on your knee. My knee problems started at about the same time I did this stretch. I took two weeks off from exercise last month but that didn't help at all. I started up with swimming and strength training again this month but I continued to experience pain on the medial condyle (inner protuberance of the bone) of my right tibia (the primary bone of the lower leg). One day, I was running out of time at the gym so I couldn't do my usual post-workout stretching routine. That night was the first in about 5 or 6 weeks where my knee did not hurt. My knee was pain-free the following day too. I didn't do any stretching after the next workout and I continued to be pain-free.

Though a regular program of careful post-workout stretching is a good idea in general, if you have a ligament or tendon injury, it could actually exacerbate the problem. I've now been pain-free for almost a week since I stopped stretching. I'll incorporate upper-body stretches again because that doesn't affect my knee, but I'll stay away from lower-body stretches for another week or two.

Keep in mind that static stretching, which is intended to increase flexibility and range of motion, should be done after a workout, not before. Before you exercise, it's more important to warm-up. I combine walking, slow jogging and dynamic warm-ups. Some call this "dynamic stretching" but it's really not intended to stretch out your muscles. It just gets your muscles used to moving in a slow, controlled manner. Along with a general warm-up, it will help your workout go much better. Some examples of dynamic warm-ups are alternating "hugs" and behind-the-back hand claps, slow arm rolls, slow torso twisting, and one-leg swings (forward, backward and each side), always in a controlled fashion. These are NOT ballistic stretches, the old-fashioned fast stretches like high leg kicks that were intended to extend your range of motion during a warm-up. Ballistic stretches are about the worst thing you can do in a warm-up.

Because of financial concerns, I may be scaling back my racing plans this year. I don't think I can afford to enter any triathlons. The entry fees are significantly more expensive than shorter running road races and the gear costs quite a bit too. Triathlon and road bikes are rather expensive and the costs don't stop there. You need to get the bike adjusted properly. A bike helmet is a safety requirement. Bike shoes are another mandatory item. For the time being, I'll stick to running races but I'll continue to do a lot of cross-training (swimming, stationary bikes, spin bikes, elliptical machine) along with strength training (which is not the same as bodybuilding). I'm going to ease into racing with a 5K this spring. I'm also looking at a 10K in the early summer. There are many running races in this area throughout the entire year. The National Marathon is taking place this Saturday. I'm not nearly ready for a marathon but I might go downtown to watch. (There's also some sort of antiwar rally going on the same day, which could make things quite tricky. I really hope we don't get any of the hooligans that showed up in Seattle during one of those anti-globalization protests some years back.)

Most races around here draw big crowds so it's not easy to win. I'm not expecting to win any of these races. An age-group award is probably out of reach at this point too. But I think I can get a "respectable" time in the 5K, especially now that I've figured out the problem with my right knee. I still have time to get in some tempo runs and interval training. I already know I can run at least 6 miles without getting tired, but I'll need to be able to run the 3.1 miles (the approximate equivalent of 5 kilometers) at a fast pace without crashing before the finish line. I've kept up my stamina with the swimming and biking. I try to include sprint intervals and tempo workouts to maintain and develop my fitness but I'll need to get some run-specific fitness too. I'll post the results if and when I finish the races. (That's if I'm still around on the site at that time. Unfortunately, that may not entirely be up to me.)

For those of you who have let yourselves go a bit, I have updated my "About Me" section to include a URL for a beginners' running site. It includes a "Couch to 5K" program to help you go from being a couch potato to someone capable of finishing a 5K run, thus the name. Though people occasionally lose weight just by modifying and overhauling their dietary practices, it's rare for those people to keep that weight off unless they include a program of regular exercise. Running is a relatively inexpensive way to start exercising. Beginners only need to buy a decent pair of running shoes (not "sneakers", which are designed more for their looks than for serious athletic activity). It's best to start out by walking, interspersed with brief periods of running if you aren't used to regular exercise. As you build up the time of your workouts, you should invest in some proper exercise clothing. Cotton socks, shorts and shirts are not recommended because cotton soaks up moisture. Sweat-soaked cotton clothing is heavy and it can cause chafing problems. Synthetic-fabric clothing (often called "technical" clothing) wicks sweat away from your skin, keeping you drier and safer from chafing problems. It's important to avoid the common problems of beginning runners: going too fast, too far, too soon. Running involves a great deal of impact stress on your lower body. It is generally safe but you have to build up the strength gradually. If you don't, you are almost guaranteed to develop runner's knee, ankle problems, shin splints or hip problems. But if you build up your time gradually, you will develop stronger legs, stronger bones, stronger ligaments and a healthier heart.

***

I won't include any original pictures this time since the post is already long enough. I have a few picture blog entries in the works that I planned a while back. I never posted them because of my dissatisfaction with the problems on the site. We'll see if I find the motivation to start posting those types of blog entries again. I think it's a shame to see what has happened in recent months, with long-time editors and active users leaving the site or even getting forced off while other problems were never properly addressed. (They still really haven't been.) I'm also disappointed in the decision to crack down on the NFL Picks contest on the Sports forum. Though I understand the need to prohibit "mindless" forum games where people "hurt and heal" by posting "+1" or "-1" over and over again, the picks contests involve actual conversations and extended discussions relating to sports. I don't see what is wrong with that. These are not "content-free" posts. Moreover, the very idea to have an NFL picks contest on this site originated with the staff themselves. I would think that the staff would welcome activities that increase community participation on the site through substantive interaction that is not based on deceit. I'll leave it at that, before I pick up another "official" warning.

The vernal equinox will occur on Friday shortly before noon. This signals the "official" start of spring although many consider spring to begin at the start of March or mid March when average temperatures are a bit higher. In either case, spring seems to be here. Let's hope that springtime brings a "rebirth" all around, of the site, of the economy and of many other things. By the way, I will become an uncle for the second time this spring. At the same time, a close relative will be having a "minor" surgery this month. Though the procedure shouldn't include any complications, it's always a little worrisome when someone has any type of surgery. Hopefully there won't be any problems. I won't post any more details than that since I know some people around here know my real identity. I don't care too much but I think that knowledge has resulted in some minor issues for me. Maybe if my novel gets a good reception, I'll be welcoming publicity. So long for now.

Well, this is my first new blog entry on the site in over three months. There's been a lot going on since the last post. I won't get into all the details but I'll provide some general updates.

As you may know, I was not happy with the site redesign in September, especially with all the bugs and some of the questionable design choices, such as the abbreviated Tracked Blogs list, the hiding of so many features behind submenus and so on. It took more than three months for the software people to fix some very notable bugs like the display of writers in episode guides. When there was more than one writer for an episode, the names would get mashed together, in a very prominent location on the webpage.

Some long-time editors seem to have drifted away because of all the site instability. At the same time, some dishonest individuals have been making a mockery of the submission and level system, to the point that I don't take it that seriously anymore. Why do I care about dishonesty, cheating and gaming so much? Well, besides the fact that it's dishonesty, cheating and gaming, it involves lying to other people on the site, people that are supposedly friends and acquaintances.

I have encountered situations in real life where someone had a similar attitude about lying, which resulted in quite a bit of hostility and harassment to me and significant financial harm. Let's just say someone (I'll call her "the Q") thought it was OK to knowingly make up stories about me and try to set me up with one of her gay friends. (I'm not gay by the way.) This isn't a comment about who other people want to see but when someone tries to set me up to have someone try to take me to their place, well, yes that's a BIG problem, one that gets me pretty upset. Though this took place a few years ago, I still had to deal with the situation because I continued to work in the same office for quite some time afterward. I see the same exact attitude toward lying in people who engage in gaming on a massive scale, deny it and act like they are honest contributors to the site. Gaming is lying and it's cheating and it needs to stop. If someone has engaged in gaming on a massive scale in the past, I think that person should voluntarily refrain from making any more submissions to any guides for a long, long time. (Three years would be my suggestion.)

A few days after my blog entry in October, I found myself out of work. It's been tricky ever since. Hopefully I'll find something else very soon. That's part of the reason why I didn't feel like posting on my blog and part of the reason why I don't feel any sympathy for gamers or "real-life" liars. I've never once felt that because of my challenging circumstances that I should be allowed to cheat or lie about other people.

Now that I've reached Level 55 and Battlestar Galactica is starting up its final set of episodes this week, I thought this would be the right time to post another blog entry.

STRUGGLES WITH MY KNEE -- AND RECOVERY

As you may know, I have been doing a lot of swimming in recent years, mostly in the summers and falls. Toward the end of last summer, I decided to ramp up the training and prepare for some type of race in 2009. At first I thought about running a marathon. I began running in September and picked up the pace in October. Unfortunately, swimming doesn't prepare your legs for the impact stress of running. It's very important for someone who is new to serious run workouts to start out slowly and limit the weekly mileage. I ran too fast and too far, too soon. I also experimented with some barefoot running because I read that it can help strengthen your foot and ankle muscles. In hindsight, I think only advanced runners should try out barefoot running because of the different running form and the lack of shock absorption, even if you try to run on your midsoles.

As a result of all that, I developed a case of runner's knee, a common overuse injury among beginning runners. My kneecap was tracking slightly to the side of the knee instead of riding directly in the groove between the two protuberances of the thigh bone. The inner part of my left knee got very sore and my knee started clicking whenever I bent it. It got to the point that I couldn't even walk up a small flight of stairs, not unless I kept my knee straight and swung my leg out to the side. I stopped running in late October. However, I soon started a limited program of strength training, to help rebuild the strength in my knee. I kept up with swimming to maintain my aerobic fitness.

I'm pleased to say that after eight weeks, my knee is OK again. My left knee still feels slightly weaker than my right one but I've been running, slowly, for three weeks, with no problems. I'm also building up the time of each workout gradually. No sudden long runs, even if I feel good during a run. I've worked my way back to 30-min. runs, three times a week. I've also increased my strength training. I'm mixing in swimming and stationary bike sessions too.

My focus changed in the late fall/early winter. I started to target a triathlon race in 2009 because I enjoy swimming. The runner's knee problem also contributed to the decision. I've done a lot of swim drills to improve my front crawl technique and I've started to pedal/spin at a higher cadence on the stationary and spin bike. I'm trying to get used to spinning at 100-120 revolutions a minute. It's more efficient to pedal at a higher cadence. If you try to pedal at a higher resistance level at a lower cadence, you can put too much stress on your knees. I'd really like to avoid any further knee problems in the future.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS?

I didn't really make many New Year's resolutions. The most popular resolution in the U.S. each year is probably to get in better physical shape. Since I've already been swimming, running, cycling and strength training 3 to 6 times a week for the last seven months, I don't really need to make that type of resolution. (I took some time off in December because of the flu but that was one of the few breaks I've taken since late May.)

However, I did set a minor goal for myself. I'd like to be able to do one-arm push-ups by the spring. Extreme strength isn't really necessary for triathlons and marathons but I think strength training helps with injury prevention. The individual components of triathlon (swimming, biking and running) don't involve a lot of lateral (side-to-side) movement so those stabilizer muscles can get weak and out of balance with other muscles. You never want to have significant muscle imbalances. That almost always leads to injuries. So while strength training takes some time away from other training, if it helps you to avoid injuries, then it's worth it, even from a Return On Investment perspective.

The one-arm push-ups aren't necessary but I thought it would be a neat thing to be able to do. Though push-ups can be difficult for beginners, it can get too easy after a while. If you can do 20, 30 or more push-ups, you're focusing more on muscular endurance, not muscular strength. One-arm push-ups allow you to double the resistance of push-ups without any equipment and focus more on strength. They aren't for beginners and you should never jump into them unprepared. You first need to have a base strength level. Then you need to build up strength in your arms, shoulders, pectorals and your "core" muscles to handle the added stress. I'm still working on the preparation but I'm making progress. I might give the one-arm push-ups a try in a couple months.

TV.COM ITEMS

As noted in the title, I finally reached Level 55, after almost seven months. I really didn't submit much during the summer and fall, partly because I was busy with work, partly because I didn't need to update any guides and partly because I lost a lot of motivation with the redesign bugs. However, I saw the Ninja Warrior show on G4 for the first time a few weeks ago. The guide was in poor shape and the previous editors had been retired or went MIA. (I think it was the former.) Thus, I started to fill in the guide. Heaven knows I've had the free time lately. I started out slowly until yesterday when I did my first marathon submission session in perhaps a year. I added dozens of episodes to the guide and ended up reaching Level 55 today as a result.

I'm much less interested in levels because of all the gaming that is going on. The levels just don't mean as much in light of the clear evidence of misconduct. But it's still nice to hang onto the lower reaches of the top 100 on the site. Suffice it to say, I never plan to cheat just to maintain a particular level or user ranking. If I didn't feel like submitting anymore, I would just stop and maybe focus on forums and blogs only. That's sort of what I do already. I think I'm one of the top 10 in forum posts on the site, at least among non-spammers.

In case you aren't familiar with the Ninja Warrior show, it's a U.S. repackaging of the extremely popular Japanese fitness contest show Sasuke. One hundred contestants are gathered to attempt to finish what the producers call "the world's toughest obstacle course", one at a time. The first stage involves tests of strength, balance and coordination. The vast majority of contestants fail to finish the first stage. Many of the contestants are celebrities or non-athletes who are in the contest for entertainment purposes only. For example, there's a sushi bar owner called "the Octopus" because he always brings a dead octopus with him to the starting point. He's an older man, in his 60s. He usually fails to finish the first or second obstacle so he's not considered a serious threat to win. But he's a fan favorite. There's also a very frail-looking sculptor who looks like he weighs less than 100 lbs. He also falls into the water on the first or second obstacle.

At the same time, elite athletes from around the world take part because the course really is quite challenging physically. I've seen episodes with Olympic wrestlers and gymnasts, including U.S. Olympic gold-medal gymnast Paul Hamm. There is also a small group of elite Japanese regulars titled the "Sasuke (Ninja Warrior) All-Stars". These men are considered to be among the best contestants, with the best chance of winning the event.

The first stage, which includes a pole vault maze, a curved wall climb, various jumps onto ropes and leaping tests, usually knocks out 90 percent or more of the 100 contestants. The second stage presents tougher challenges, all of which have to be completed before time runs out. One of the hardest tasks is the Salmon Ladder, where the contestant has to hang on a steel bar supported on each end by short posts. Then the contestant has to move himself and the bar up to the next set of posts, moving up about 20 feet just by swinging his body and lifting the bar at the same time. (Women are eligible to participate although no woman has ever completed the first stage. However, there is also a separate contest limited to just women that focuses more on balance skills than upper-body strength.)

Only a few men finish the second stage. In one contest, no one made it past that stage, thereby ending the contest prematurely. If no one finishes, no one wins. That's what makes the event different. Everyone is competing against the course, not so much against each other. The contestants generally root for other people to succeed and beat the course. The third stage is incredibly demanding of upper-body strength. The stage is almost completely dominated by hanging obstacles where you have to move and support your entire body by hanging and grabbing onto posts, globes, curtains and ledges with your hands, with no opportunity to use your legs or feet for support. In most contests, no one completes the third stage because it's just that tough. This stage is untimed but it's still almost impossible to complete.

In the rare instance that someone finishes the third stage, they move onto the final stage, a grueling ladder and rope climb through a scaffold tower approximately 50 or 60-feet high. I think only three or four people have ever beaten the final stage and conquered the course to become "an ultimate champion".

The event is staged twice a year in Japan, in the fictional Mt. Midoriyama, which is actually a backlot of the Tokyo Broadcasting Company near the Japanese capital. The entire event takes place in a single day so the latter stages are often held under the lights at nighttime. The Japanese announcer is quite frenetic and excitable, giving the show a lot of its entertainment value. The U.S. G4 station adds an English-language introduction and comments after each commercial break but they leave the Japanese commentary in place, only adding English subtitles. The show is a lot of fun to watch and it displays the mindset more common in sports like running and triathlon, where the goal of most people is just to finish the course and compete against your own personal best time, not against other athletes. In Ninja Warrior, the course is the enemy, not the other contestants.

G4 has recently held American Ninja Challenge contests to select two or three U.S. contestants who are sponsored by the channel to compete in the Japanese contest. Other Americans participate too but they are usually Olympic athletes who qualify on their own. There have also been Olympic athletes from eastern Europe, Taiwan and South Korea, but most of the "entertainment" contestants are Japanese.

THE LONG GOODBYE

I don't watch too many shows on network television, mostly cable shows. For some reason, three of the shows I follow are all ending this winter and spring. The Discovery Channel's Survivorman series ended with the Papua New Guinea episode that aired in December. Les Stroud said that the week-long survival challenges have gotten to be too tough on his body. It can't be easy to spend a week in brutally hot jungles, frozen Canadian forests, arid Utah deserts or the middle of the ocean with little equipment and almost no food or water. At least he ended up surviving through to the end of the series, unlike Steve Irwin. I usually only watched Survivorman during holiday marathons but it was always interesting.

The Sci Fi Channel show Stargate Atlantis also ended recently, just last week. It's not as intense as Battlestar Galactica but it was a fun, adventurous show with a lot of humorous moments and likable characters. Especially in this difficult time for me personally and for the national economy, it's good to enjoy some light-hearted entertainment, to help provide some good cheer and optimism. Though some of the episodes in Season 3 and Season 4 were a bit inconsistent, I'd have to say that overall it was a quality show that provided exactly what it promised: action, adventure, humor and entertainment. I like the fact that the Stargate series are set in the present day and most of the characters are regular humans who just happen to be facing a strange situation (the system of Stargates and interstellar travel).

Last but not least, Battlestar Galactica begins its final run. The last episodes, the second half of the final season, start airing this Friday on the Sci Fi Channel. Time Magazine named Battlestar Galactica the 8th-best show on all of television for 2008. The most recent episode to air, "Revelations" (way back in June), ended on a shocking note. Time named that episode the 6th-best on all of television for 2008.

If you want to catch-up on recent episodes, you can view them on TV.com itself at the Battlestar Galactica guide. (Click on this link.) The Sci Fi Channel will also be airing a BSG marathon this Friday, starting at 8:30 am. The channel will also show the special "BSG: The Top Ten Things You Need to Know", which provides a 30-min. summary of the main elements of the story. It will air on Friday at 8 am and 6:30 pm ET.

If you're looking for a light-hearted, feel-good adventure, well, Battlestar Galactica isn't it. It's emotionally intense, politically charged and filled with conflict and drama. With the series coming to an end, anything could happen to any character at any time. I'm keenly interested to see how they tie the Colonial civilization to our own Earth. The approach is much more serious than the one seen in the 1980 sequel to the original TV series (appropriately titled Galactica 1980) where the Fleet arrived at the then present-day Earth and a group of "super Scout" children became significant characters.

I'm glad that the series seems to be ending on a high note in terms of creativity, although I'm still disappointed that it's ending soon. Some of the actors have hinted that the multi-part series finale will be completely mind-blowing.

There will also be an additional BSG television movie that should air later in the year. Most of the props and costumes are being sold off in a live and virtual auction this weekend so it's unlikely that any further BSG TV movies will be made. I would have liked to have bid on some of the items but I really don't have the funds now. I kind of wished they would have brought the items together and sent them to a museum of some sort like the Smithsonian's American History Museum (which has many items from popular entertainment and culture) or the Science-Fiction Museum in Seattle.

CODA

It feels sort of good to write another blog entry again. It helps to get some things off my chest and into the "blogosphere". I still have many other blog topics and original photos in store. We'll see if I get to them and start writing more frequently. I do want to get back to writing again, not just with blogs. I haven't written much on my novel in almost a year although I did some chapter sketches over the summer. I'd like to become at least a part-time writer so I need to start plugging away and doing actual writing. Maybe that will help my finances although I'm not expecting much on that front in the near term. Enjoy the rest of the week and may you have a prosperous 2009. But be honest with whatever you may do.

Well, it's been exactly a month since my last blog post. Not long after that post, we saw the site redesign and its attendant problems. I can live with most of the changes but the bugs need to go. I'd also like to get back the longer Tracked Blogs list. I haven't been looking at too many blog posts lately because it's too time-consuming to open up the full Tracked Blogs list and wait for all the photos to download.

I've been busy at work for the last two months. I worked every single day for about three weeks at one point. I worked most of the day on one Sunday and stayed until 5:30 am the following morning. I got a little rest that Monday and the next day but on the following Wednesday I worked until 3 in the morning. After a brief respite, we're getting busy again. At least I'm earning some extra money, which is not a minor thing with the severe problems in the U.S. and world financial industry these days.

Economic crisis

The long work hours, the historic economic crisis in the U.S. banking industry (probably the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s), the ongoing U.S. presidential campaign, the baseball playoffs and the start of the NFL season have all kept my mind occupied and limited my time on the site. I share many people's frustrations with the bugs and some of the questionable redesign items but I didn't participate in the TV.com blackout. Somehow I didn't feel motivated to do that while seeing headlines about $700 billion economic stabilization acts, $80 billion emergency loans to AIG, the astonishing bankruptcy of Wall Street stalwart Lehman Brothers, the effective disappearance of Merrill Lynch as it got bought out by Bank of America, the change in status of the last two large independent investment banks to commercial banks (Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs), the complete meltdown of the stock market as the Dow Jones has now lost 39 percent of its value in precisely one year, and the likelihood of an oncoming economic recession.

I would like to point out that the congressional hearings concerning the banking industry crisis and the subprime mortgage issues are not being run fairly. A recent hearing focused on the former CEO of Lehman Brothers in an apparent attempt to place all the blame on him and people like him. What the Democratic committee chairman failed to do was include witnesses from key organizations like Fannie Mae, which has had very close ties to the Clinton Administration. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are deeply involved in the collapse of the U.S. mortgage market and some high-level members of the Clinton Administration were right in the middle of the mess. Those people need to be called up to Capitol Hill as well as top executives from Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs (another financial firm with close ties to the Clinton Administration), AIG and Wachovia (which is being bought out by Wells Fargo).

I have to admit that with the serious nature of the crisis roiling the banking industry (and the U.S. automotive industry too), that it looks to be very difficult for Senator McCain to defeat Senator Obama in the U.S. presidential election. Whoever wins will have quite a lot on their plate. Interestingly enough, it is the Bush Administration that is undertaking the historic step of making significant government investments in most if not all of the major banks in the U.S. in an attempt to calm investors, business and the banks themselves. The recent $700 billion economic stabilization plan was very poorly marketed, by everyone, from the Bush Administration to the Democratic leadership in Congress. The media keeps labeling it as a "Wall Street bailout," which is why it failed to pass in the House of Representatives on the first pass. It truly is an economic stabilization bill (and now law). A major problem right now is the tightening of the credit markets. The banks are so afraid of doling out any money, even to other banks, that the fuel that makes the U.S. economy run, capital, is being locked up and hoarded.

Think this doesn't affect you? Even if it doesn't affect you immediately, what about the next time you want to buy a car? Or get a home mortgage? Or open a new credit card account? Or simply hang onto the credit limit you have on your current credit card(s)? Banks are tightening up their criteria for making car loans, mortgages and credit card accounts. Some banks are lowering credit limits on outstanding credit cards. Small businesses and even larger businesses are having difficult times trying to get temporary loans to make payroll and pay their own bills from suppliers. These credit problems mean cutbacks in many of these businesses, which means a significant uptick in unemployment. Then fewer employed people means fewer people spending money, which leads to more cutbacks among private businesses and more unemployment.

The problem is big, bigger than any problem a Treasury Secretary of Federal Reserve Chairman has had to face in decades. Some are saying that this is the end of U.S. capitalism as we know it. I think that's a bit oversold but it is a remarkable change of direction. Two years ago, almost no one would have advocated direct government investment and partial control of nearly the entire U.S. banking sector and yet, that is what seems likely by the end of the year. The U.S. government is also a direct participant in the national mortgage market because of its control over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I think most of these changes are short-term but short-term could mean a few years.

Though I try to stay away from politics on this blog, I have to point out one concern of mine, and that's with Obama's tax proposals. I saw an extended TV commercial where he spoke directly, no paid announcer or actor in his place. He described his "middle-class tax cut" plan. No Washington tax plan or federal program has ever been as benign or limited as its proponents say it will be. When Obama says no one under a certain tax bracket will have their taxes increased, I am skeptical. Some of the biggest federal programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the welfare programs, were intended to be temporary or limited programs, not the behemoths that they blossomed into in later decades. I fear that a massive tax increase on businesses will prevent the U.S. economy from recovering quickly from the current problems. Yes, there is going to be a huge short-term deficit from the economic stabilization plan and other federal measures but that's a necessary evil. But there's no point in overhauling the basic U.S. system to take advantage of this recent problem and move the U.S. economy to a socialist system.

Some will say that the U.S. capitalist system is what got us in the mess in the first place... and they would be right. What they won't say is that the U.S. capitalist system (along with the democratic form of government) is what created enough wealth that the banking crisis hasn't resulted in civil wars, widespread famine and anarchy. If you look at previous eras of history, banking crises have often led to such events. The spread of free markets, free enterprise and free trade throughout much of the world has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the last 40 years. That can't be a bad thing. Compare the economies and societies of India, China, Russia, South Korea and Ireland to what they were 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. I dare anyone to say that hundreds of millions of people were better off when 80 or 90 percent of the people in many of those areas were barely avoiding starvation. Poverty hasn't been eradicated but it has been pushed back significantly. Ireland is now one of the wealthiest countries on Earth on a per capita basis and has been so for about a decade now. South Korea is one of the world's largest economies even though it was perhaps the world's poorest area in 1953 at the end of the Korean War. China, India and Russia abandoned their socialist and protectionist policies and the result was astounding economic growth that lifted many areas of those countries out of poverty.

So I think people need a little perspective on the current problems. It's bad, yes, but it's hardly a reason to call for complete nationalization of the banking industry, enormous tax hikes, and socialist economics. In the long run, the vast majority of people are better off under democratic capitalist systems, despite the problems we're facing right now.

***

So that's my op-ed section of this blog entry. Onto other matters.

Fitness training, marathons and triathlons

I've ramped up my fitness training in recent weeks. Our outdoor pool is still open, which is great. But it's closing after this weekend, which is not so great. It was nice while it lasted. I had been expecting them to close the pool after Labor Day weekend so at least I got in an extra six weeks of swimming.

I started to do swim sprints for some workouts. Instead of longer, slow laps, I do fast swim sprints and then recover in between each lap. This is a form of interval training. Brief bursts of speed and intensity really crank up your aerobic fitness and help you out later on when you are racing at a more moderate pace. The sprints help even if you aren't a short-distance racer. The same applies with running. Coaches and fitness experts recommend that runners do some speedwork, perhaps once a week, even if you are training for a marathon.

I'm easing into running since I haven't done much of it in about a year. However, I'm finding that my aerobic fitness level from swimming translates well into running. After a few shorter runs, I ran a moderately paced six miles the other day. That's the first time since high school that I've run more than 4 miles in one session. My heart felt pretty good although my calves and ankles were a little sore. I'll have to get used to the added stress on my legs by bumping up the mileage and speed gradually.

Once the pool closes, I'm going to mix in weightlifting/strength training sessions again. I don't think it's good to run a lot without also doing some strength training. Strength or resistance training makes your muscles stronger and more capable of resisting the stress of running and other activities. It also strengthens your bones, tendons and ligaments, helping to ward off injury, as long as you do everything right. This means scheduling weightlifting sessions carefully. No lifting on the day after a long run. No long run on the day after a leg strength workout, and so on. It can get a little complicated but I'm already used to scheduling weightlifting sessions around my swimming workouts so it's not too difficult.

My goal is to get in shape to run some medium-distance races by the spring and into next summer. Then I'll start up the formal training for next year's Marine Corps Marathon. This year's race takes place in just two weeks. Registration is closed and it would be impossible for me to train properly in that time.

As for other endurance events, on Saturday, the famous Ironman Triathlon competition will be held on the Big Island of Hawaii. The race includes a 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a full 26.22-mile marathon run, all on the same day. Now THAT'S a workout!

On Sunday, the 2008 Chicago Marathon will take place. The Chicago Marathon is one of the world major marathons, along with the Boston, New York, London and Berlin Marathons. It will be televised live on the Universal Sports channel (a unit of NBC Universal).

***

I have a few more Washington-tourist blog posts planned, along with plenty of high-quality pictures and links to online videos of some of the events. The 10 x zoom on my new digital camera is great. I hope you agree once you see some of the pictures. I met some famous people at one of the events, which I'll explain in more detail soon. I also heard an amazing inspirational story from one of the people. I'll also write about that in more detail in a later blog entry.

Television matters

I guess I should include some TV-related content here, so I'll point out that filming on the Battlestar Galactica TV movie has probably wrapped up by now. The new BSG webisodes should be arriving on the official Sci Fi Channel site sometime this fall or early winter, so be on the lookout for that. (Sorry, but I think they will only be accessible to U.S. residents. Copyright issues and all that other stuff....) I haven't watched much TV at all in a few months other than NFL football games and the baseball playoffs. Fortunately the long miserable season of the Washington Nationals is over so I don't have to read about any more Nats' losses this year. (I' ve fallen out of the lead in the TV.com NFL Picks Contest but I'm still just one point behind the co-leaders.)

The Screen Actors Guild is gearing up to win strike authorization from its members, who have been working without a formal contract for a few months now. Whether this means the actors' strike is on its way is anyone's guess. It'll take a while for the actors to vote on the authorization. Then there will probably be some renewed bargaining with the studios. Even if talks break down, it will take some more time before the SAG union membership votes to strike. I don't think this is the right time to be hinting at a strike, with the prospect of a recession and a banking crisis. The writers and directors already made significant headway in getting more of the revenues from online distribution of TV and movie content so I'm not sure why SAG is so adamant about taking a hard line here. They might consider that viewers won't be as supportive as they were during the writers' strike. The U.S. economy wasn't on the verge of a recession last year and the studios hadn't given any ground on the issue of Internet-based revenue.

That's all for this edition of my blog. This might be my longest post yet. At least future blog posts will have pictures, so you have that to look forward to. Enjoy the weekend.

Since I'm going to be working very late for the rest of the week (10 pm, 11 pm or even midnight), I thought I'd write up another blog post using my smart phone. I've been collecting a few ideas for a new blog post. I don't have access to my home computer right now but I remember most of the topics.

As you may have heard, the European Center for Nuclear Research started up its Large Hadron Collider today deep underneath the ground outside Geneva, Switzerland. The $6 billion facility is one of the most ambitious scientific projects in human history. Physicists will speed particles close to the speed of light using massive superconducting magnets. Two beams will travel in opposing directions in the circular facility. Then the two beams will be maneuvered so that the particles collide in an attempt to recreate the conditions that occurred a split second after the Big Bang.

Sound scary? Well, some organized groups think so. They claim that the project may create micro black holes that could threaten Geneva or even the entire planet. I saw a documentary on the Science Channel about the collider this year. One Harvard physicist admitted that micro black holes were possible but she said that they were unlikely to survive for more than a tiny fraction of a second.

The science is pretty far out there. I often hear people attack religion for their fanciful creation myths and explanations of existence but I don't see how the theories of the modern-day physicists are so common sensical. They actually believe there may be 13 dimensions of existence and that everything is made up of strings of matter. They also claim that dark matter exists and that it makes up over 90 percent of the mass of the universe even though no one has ever seen it or measured it. The collider could prove the existence of a theorized particle called the Higgs Boson.

Even more strange is that some of the physicists think the collider could open a door of some sort to another dimension. It wouldn't be anything like you see in sci-fi movies but it would be strange. Assuming the physicists are right about all this.

The first particle collisions won't take place until October. So if half the planet disappears then, you'll know why. I don't know what would happen but one scientist in the documentary was discussng the wonder of science. He said science is what happens when (they) don't know what they are doing. OK, that really inspires a lot of confidence. Or not.

***

I mentioned the outdoors because I'm outside right now at a plaza located right in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. The sun is just going down. I'm looking along the street as the evening rush hour traffic crawls by. I can see the U.S. Capitol Building along with the historic Old Post Office building. I still haven't gotten around to setting up ImageShack on my phone so I can't post pictures right now.

Have you ever wondered when a man and a woman are a couple? If they work closely together and you see them reclining in their chairs so that they are practically horizontal, are they a couple? If they leave work early together on a regular basis and don't return, are they a couple? If they prefer to talk to each other instead of other people, are they a couple? Just wondering.

***

Filming began on the next Battlestar Galactica television movie this week. The story will take place during the timeline of previous seasons, possibly in Season 1 and maybe other seasons. One focus may be the character of Chief Galen Tyrol. Cavil, Sam Anders, Sharon Valerii and Number Six are also expected to appear. Filming should go on for 4 weeks. If they ever need another extra, I'm there! The movie won't air until after Season 4 ends next spring. Mark your calendars.

***

The sun has now passed behind the trees surrounding the White House. It's still light out but it's slowly getting darker. I see one of the new open-roof double decker tour buses on the street. If you ever ride one, obey the signs and guidelines. Don't stand up! Two guys rode one bus between the parking lot and the stadium for a Nationals baseball game this year. They stood up before the bus went under an overpass. Both suffered fatal head injuries. So don't stand up on those things!

***

I can see the Moon now just above the Ariel Rios Federal Building. Hmm, now what else did I want to discuss? The NFL season got underway last weekend. So did our TV.com NFL Picks contest. I tied for the most points in Week 1. I came out ahead after the tiebreaker so I'm currently in the overall lead. It's a long season though. It should be a fun contest.

A small motorcade just went by. Probably a Cabinet official. It's too small to be someone really important.

***

I finally started running this year. I'm going to ease into the training for the marathon next year. I had to put the weight training on hold this week. I'm experiencing soreness in my right wrist. It could be a weight lifting injury, too much computer use at work or a combination of the two.

I don't remember the other topics I had written down at home so I'll wrap this up. I have a few other philosophical topics that I'll save for next time. Enjoy the rest of the week.

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The NFL season (National Football League or American football) is about to start. The first game will be played this Thursday. That means that if you are participating in the TV.com NFL Picks Contest, you need to post all of your Week 1 picks by Wednesday afternoon.

If you have been debating whether to join the contest, you should make up your mind by this evening to be safe. To join, indicate your interest, either as a comment on this blog post or on the 2008 TV.com NFL Picks Contest thread on the Sports forum. (I would provide a hyperlink but I'm typing this on my BlackJack II smart phone. It's not easy to add hyperlinks using my phone. EDIT: I added the hyperlink manually. It doesn't seem to be working properly though. I'll fix it later.)

You could probably join later on but you would be significantly handicapped in trying to win. Each correct pick earns 1 point. If you miss a week, you could fall behind by 12 or 13 points or more. It's unlikely that you would be able to catch up in subsequent weeks.

If you decide to join the contest, I'll send you a PM with the sign-up info at Yahoo Sports. We're using Yahoo Sports this year because the scoring and the leader board are automated. We still have about 25 slots available. (If more than 50 people sign up, I could always start up another Yahoo league and combine the scores on the thread at the Sports forum.)

***

All atwitter over... Twitter

As I stated, I'm posting this with my smart phone. I've posted a couple other blog entries using my phone before. I can type up lengthy posts without any problems. The only limitation is that it's more difficult to add hyperlinks and photos but I'll set that up one of these days.

Given that we can add regular blog posts with smart phones, I'm not sure why "microblog" sites like Twitter are such a big deal. The novelty is that you can add blog posts with your cell phone or smart phone while you're on the go. Each post is limited to something like 150 words so Twitter posts tend not to be that deep or substantial. I've looked at a few of the Twitter blogs and I can't understand the appeal. Maybe you have to be a techie in the Silicon Valley area to get it.

Meanwhile, I'll stick with my blog here, which I can edit using either my computer or my smart phone. By the way, TV.com is based in San Francisco. So does that mean TV.com is a Silicon Valley-insider website too?

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Coverage of the Summer Olympics ended on Sunday night in the U.S. (They actually ended about 12 hours earlier because of the time difference with Beijing.) The Closing Ceremony was another show-stopper, with amazing formations of enormous groups of performers and the massive Memory Tower. Acrobatic performers simulated the Olympic flame by waving in patterns on the Tower after the actual Olympic flame had been extinguished.


(Click on photos to view larger versions)

The 17 days of the Beijing Olympics provided many memorable moments but for me, most of the top highlights occurred in the first week of competition. Among those were the incredible U.S. victory in the men's 4 x 100m freesty1e swim relay with Jason Lezak outpacing the world record holder in the 100m freesty1e, Michael Phelps winning the 100m butterfly event by .01 second after trailing as late as the final meter (!), Nastia Liukin winning the women's individual all-around competition in gymnastics and Shawn Johnson winning a well-deserved gold medal on the balance beam.

You can vote for your favorite moment of the first week on the poll thread on the Summer Olympics forum.

I also have to mention Natalie du Toit, the distance swimmer from South Africa who finished in 16th place in the women's open water 10km swimming marathon event. She qualified for the Olympics and finished the event despite having only one full leg. Seven years ago, when she was 17, a car struck the scooter she was riding. The damage to her leg muscles was so severe that doctors could not get the tissue to regrow. They had to amputate her left leg below the knee. Instead of giving up on life and feeling sorry for herself, she started up with swimming practices just six months later.

When the 10k event was added to the Summer Olympics in 2005, she realized that this could be her shot at participating in an Olympic Games. She almost made the South African team for the 2000 Sydney Games. At the time, she was expected to be a serious contender for the upcoming 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics until her accident changed everything. But then again, she didn't let it change everything completely. She did become an Olympian after all. And not just an Olympian, but one of the most impressive of the thousands of athletes at the Games. While Michael Phelps is deservedly the star of these Olympics, Natalie du Toit deserves a special mention for her accomplishments. She will also be participating in the Paralympics, which will also be held in Beijing, starting next month.




***

I managed to write up recap-reviews for 10 days of the Olympics, primarily during the first week of competition. The second week had big events like Usain Bolt's record-setting victories in the men's 100m and 200m dash and the U.S. men's volleyball victory (which provided some comfort to coach Hugh McCutcheon whose father-in-law was killed during the first day of competition in Beijing by a deranged individual -- his mother-in-law was also seriously wounded in the attack). But the big story of these Olympics was Michael Phelps and his record-setting eight gold medals.

I also wrote up a lengthy recap-review for the final day of competition and the Closing Ceremony. I edited it down and added a more neutral version as the recap for that episode guide. I have been informed that the recap for Day 16 and Closing Ceremony will be featured on the TV.com home page later today (Wed., August 27). Check it out or click on this link to read the recap directly.




***

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the Summer Olympics in person, so my recaps were based on NBC's television coverage, mostly the primetime broadcasts. However, I was able to see a temporary exhibit at the Smithsonian Castle a few weeks ago that featured Olympic medals from past champions like Bonnie Blair and Edwin Moses. I took a few pictures, which I have posted throughout this blog entry. These are the actual Olympic medals along with some of the Olympic torches used in 2008 and in previous torch relays.

The following picture shows a helmet and gloves worn in the famous U.S. men's hockey team victory over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics, U.S. figure skater and Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi's skates, and Franco Harris' helmet from one of the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl victories of the 1970s. (Yeah, I know that has nothing to do with the Olympics but it was in the same display case.) By the way, Kristi Yamaguchi is also the 2008 winner of Dancing with the Stars.



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The TV.com NFL Picks Contest

The NFL season is almost upon us. The regular season starts next week, on Thursday, Sept. 4. It's not too late to join the TV.com NFL Picks Contest but you need to register as soon as possible. The deadline for posting your picks for Week 1 games is Wed., Sept. 3.

You don't need to be an NFL expert to participate. Any TV.com member is eligible and welcome. Simply indicate your wish to join the contest on the Sports forum thread (click on link). Then I'll send you a PM with the information needed to register on the Yahoo Sports site.

No prize money will be awarded. It's just a way to have some fun and a chance for someone to gain bragging rights. We have more players than we did last year. We're up to 20 entrants right now. The limit on Yahoo Sports is 50 so there are still plenty of slots available.

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I haven't been able to comment on any blogs lately with the Olympics going on and an extremely busy work schedule lately. I've also been keeping up with my exercise routine. I swim for about 3 to 5 hours a week and then I add a complete weightlifting session once a week. Now that my muscles are getting used to the weightlifting, I'm not experiencing the delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) that I did a few weeks ago.

There are four key elements to basic fitness: aerobic fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility. Swimming takes care of the aerobic fitness and the muscular endurance (the ability to perform physical activity for extended periods of time). The weightlifting takes care of muscular strength as well as muscular endurance (through the high-rep warm-up sets I do). I do a lot of careful stretching throughout the week, including during breaks at work.

Everyone should try to improve their physical fitness through better dietary practices, exercise and stretching. If Natalie du Toit can do it, so can you.

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This month has also been hectic for other reasons. Hopefully I'll be able to get in touch with some people that I'd like to remain in contact with.

I'm also working on a couple TV-related items. I'll post more about that once those projects get going. I've also been doing some mental planning for the continuation of my online novel. I've been writing down notes from time to time and building up story sketches for future chapters. I wanted to take a break from Battlestar Galactica for at least a couple months, and then the Olympics came along. This fall will be the first chance I've had to work on the novel since last winter. I'll do some work on the Olympics guide at a leisurely pace but other than that, I don't have much to do with any of my editorships until January.

I hope everyone had a good summer. I'll be sad to see it end. As you know, the unofficial end of summer in the U.S. is the Labor Day weekend, which closes with the first Monday of September. The pool at my building will be closing after that weekend as well. I'll stay busy with exercising though. I'll try a mix of rowing, heavy bag punching, jogging on the treadmill and riding the stationary bike or elliptical machine.

I don't like jogging that much but I'm thinking about training for the Marine Corps Marathon next year. I'd like to run at least one marathon in my life. I have about 14 months to get ready for it, which is plenty of time. I already have pretty good stamina from all the swimming I've been doing. Now I have to get my legs used to the pounding that jogging can inflict. From what I've read, the best routine is to run 3 or 4 times a week, ideally with a full day's rest in between runs. One run on the weekend should be the "long run." Eventually the long run should reach 20 miles or more, in order to get your body used to the demands of a marathon. Then as the marathon approaches, you're supposed to scale back a bit to give your body a rest in the month before the big day.

I haven't made a decision about the marathon yet but I'm definitely thinking about it. That's all for now.

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The 2008 Summer Olympics

The Opening Ceremony

Like some of you, I've been watching a lot of the Olympic broadcasts, primarily on NBC. (I've only taken a couple peeks at the secondary coverage on CNBC, the USA Network and MSNBC. I haven't looked at Oxygen at all.) The Opening Ceremony last Friday was spectacular, by most accounts the grandest display in Olympic history and one of the biggest live shows ever. The Chinese government reportedly spent $300 million on the show. The cast of performers included thousands of performers. Among them were 2,008 drummers, all drumming in unison on large wood drum blocks. Another group of performers recreated the shape of the "Bird's Nest" with people standing on top of one another in a large oval pattern.

The lighting of the torch was also another breathtaking moment as Li Ning (multiple gold medalist in men's gymnastics at the 1984 L.A. Games) was hoisted about 200 feet into the air with the final Olympic torch. He proceeded to "run" in a stylized motion as he circled the inside of the roof of the stadium, supported by cables. As he passed each section, video of the journey of the Olympic flame played on the ribbon background of the inside of the open roof. The Olympic cauldron had been installed, to the surprise of many attendees, just half an hour before Li Ning lit it. The flame raced up in a spiral around the lower section of the cauldron before lighting up the main section. Simply amazing. Bob Costas and the other commentators said that they had seen nothing like it at any Olympics and that no one else was likely to surpass this technical and artistic display in future Olympics.

Visit the Greatest Hits page of the Video section on the official NBCOlympics.com website to watch the Opening Ceremony and the cauldron lighting. (Videos may be limited to U.S. residents, but give it a try anyway. You'll also need to install the free Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in. The link is available on the NBCOlympics.com site. It's worth it to see all of the videos.)

Protests against the Chinese government

Many people have legitimate gripes about the Chinese government and I was glad to see that the U.S. Olympic team made a stern but polite statement of protest in their choice of flagbearer in the Parade of Nations. They chose Lopez Lomong, a naturalized U.S. citizen and a former refugee from Sudan. He made the U.S. Olympic team as a member of the 1,500m squad in track and field. There was no doubt why he was chosen. It was a way of telling the Chinese government to wake up without resorting to thuggish tactics, violence or disrespect of those around them who were there to live out their dreams of participating in the Olympics. Now that's the correct way to stage a protest, not to engage in near muggings of Americans carrying the Olympic torch on U.S. soil.

Joey Cheek, a member of the U.S. speedskating team at the 2006 Winter Olympics, had his travel visa revoked by the Chinese government just days before the Opening Ceremony. He is also an activist who tries to promote awareness of the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. The Chinese government is the primary support of the Sudanese government. Government-backed militia units have killed numerous civilians in the unrest in the region and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. The murders, displacement and resultant famine have led to the deaths of perhaps 200,000 or more civilians. Cheek said that he was not going to protest the Chinese government directly.

Since both of these stories were related to the Olympic Games, I included notes about both items on the 2008 Summer Olympics guide. While I think that China has the right to stage the Games and that we should celebrate the athletes and downplay political differences during the Olympics, I also believe that the Chinese government shouldn't get a free pass. Just as long as protests are done in the proper manner, taking into account the years of hard work that thousands of athletes have devoted into making it to these Olympic Games. To disrupt the Games would be to disrespect those athletes, most of whom are amateurs, not the famous and at times spoiled professionals like some of the NBA stars.

On a side note, I remember that when CBS took over CNET Networks (the parent company of TV.com) earlier this year, the president of CBS said that an important element of the deal was CNET's reach in international markets, including China (which he named specifically). Though I'm the editor of the Olympics guide, I also recognize that it is not my personal property and that it is ultimately the property of TV.com and CNET (and CBS). Thus, I've tried to walk a fine line between including political controversies where relevant to the Games and staying away from turning the Olympics guide into a forum to bash the Chinese government. Even without those considerations, I don't think it would be appropriate to turn that sports guide into a political outlet and soapbox.

The guide on TV.com

Thus, beginning with Day 1, the focus is on the sports and the athletes as it should be. Since I don't have much time each evening to submit to the guide, I may just resort to posting lengthy reviews for each episode/Day and add notes and lengthy narrative recaps later on, after the Games have finished. I'm not going to spend these two weeks working on submissions for the guide instead of actually watching the Games themselves.

The forum is an important aspect of this and every other guide for currently airing shows. I invite all viewers of the Olympics to post their thoughts on the Olympics forum. We have separate threads for each sport. If you don't see a particular sport represented on the forum, by all means start up the thread.

Be sure to post episode ratings on the guide too. And write some reviews while you're at it. Right now, the review section is basically a battle between me and the fellow who is utterly disappointed that the Olympics don't consist of cage-fighting matches and non-stop basketball. I've posted a few episode reviews, for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 4. (You can read all of them below or head over to the Olympics guide to read them.) I'm focusing on the primetime NBC Olympic broadcasts. In 2006, I was trying to cover everything each day but I don't think that was the proper approach. (Hey, it was one of my very first show guides.) I think narrative recaps and lengthy reviews will be more useful to readers than extensive medal results. NBCOlympics.com has the complete results anyway. The TV.com guide will be a more compact way to get some general impressions of the highlights of each day's action.

Michael Phelps and the quest for Olympic history

(spoilers in this section but only for events that have already aired on NBC)

Michael Phelps continues his quest to break the record for most gold medals won at a single Olympic Games. He has a realistic shot at eight total gold medals. He has now won five gold medals, in his first five events. He and his teammates (in the relays) have set new world records in each of those events.

The most thrilling by far was the men's 4 x 100m freesty1e relay. Read through my recap-review for a description of the incredible come-from-behind win by the U.S. team. Interestingly, Jason Lezak was the star, not Michael Phelps. It was truly one of the greatest races in the history of Olympic swimming with Lezak overtaking Alain Bernard of France (the world-record holder in the 100m freesty1e) on the final lap and winning by a margin of eight-hundredths of a second.



If you haven't seen it, watch it here on the official NBCOlympics.com site. (Click on the link.) Or try this direct link instead if the other one doesn't work. (Click on link.) (I think both links may be restricted to U.S. residents.) Truly an electric atmosphere and one of the most amazing comebacks in a relay ever!

Personal workouts

I've continued to do a lot of swimming myself this summer, about three to five hours a week. On Sunday, the day of the amazing men's 4 x 100m freesty1e relay (which actually took place on Monday morning Beijing Time but was broadcast live on Sunday night in the U.S.), I swam for almost two hours. Then I did a full weightlifting routine for about an hour after that (upper body, lower body, abs/lower back/obliques). I don't normally do 3-hour workouts but maybe I was a little inspired by the Olympics. I have done 2-hour workouts several times this summer though.

The pool will only be open through Labor Day weekend (the first Monday of September). After that, I'll have to take up rowing and punching with the heavy bag for aerobic exercise, along with weightlifting. I might sign up at a local gym that has a pool but I have to see how much that will cost each month. I could also run on the treadmill but I really hate jogging and treadmills. Besides the boredom of running in place on the treadmill, jogging inflicts a fair amount of punishment on one's knees and ankles over time. Swimming is low-impact. I also find it much more peaceful to be in the water while exercising.

A Hawaii Five-O sequel now after all these years?

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Ed Bernero (executive producer of Criminal Minds) is writing the pilot for a sequel to Hawaii Five-O. The new series will revolve around the new head of the fictional state police unit, Chris McGarrett. Sound familiar? Well, he's supposed to be Steve McGarrett's son. I didn't know that McGarrett had a son but then again, I haven't seen most of the later seasons yet.

You can read through the article for more details. The series is just in the development stage now. No word yet on when (or if) it will be added to the CBS primetime schedule. One good sign: the show will be filmed in Hawaii. No CGI or California palm trees here, thank heaven.

Until they actually produce some episodes, I don't know what to think about this news. I still have all of those DVDs to watch for the original series. Strange times but if this new series turns out to be good, it'll be great news for detective show fans everywhere.
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Just a few quick notes today. I don't have time for my next tourist blog right now. Maybe this weekend.

More Battlestar Galactica episodes?

Executive producer David Eick told Sci Fi Wire and a panel at Comic-con that the Sci Fi Channel has agreed to let the production team (Ronald Moore and David Eick) of Battlestar Galactica expand many of the episodes from the final set. Initial reports were that Season 4 would include 20 hour-long episodes, 10 to air in the spring of 2008 and 10 to air in early 2009. Then we found out that Ronald Moore's script for the series finale was so complex and powerful that it needed to take up more than just the planned two episodes. Thus, the Sci Fi Channel agreed to expand the series finale to three episodes.

Now David Eick has reported that other long episodes from what is known as Season 4.5 may be expanded too. In the past, a couple episodes have been expanded to 90 minutes (broadcast time, including commercials). Eick is saying that there will be a lot more than just an extra half hour. The producers have been "able to convince the network to let us air ... long episodes -- [to] take single episodes and make them double episodes, ... [and to take] double episodes and make them quadruple episodes."

Yep, that's what he said. "Quadruple episodes." He didn't specify how many extra episodes this would actually mean. To put this in context, most initial scripts for the show run very long. There is far more material than the producers could possibly cover in an hour-long episode. Thus, the production and writing team have to cut down the pages and the scenes until they can fit everything into the 44 to 47 minutes of actual screen time (not counting commercials).

Most fans know that BSG has a cinematic quality and that many of the subjects covered in the episodes could easily take up much more than 47 minutes. The DVD sets of previous seasons have included extended versions of some episodes.

Furthermore, with the increasing viewer numbers for Season 4, the Sci Fi Channel may be regretting their decision not to give Moore and Eick a two-year guarantee before Season 4 started. Moore and Eick had asked for that guarantee but the Sci Fi Channel refused. Not wanting to risk ending the series on a cliffhanger if a fifth season wasn't ordered by the channel, Moore and Eick decided to wrap it up after Season 4 instead. These expanded episodes may be a way for the Sci Fi Channel to squeeze a little more out of the franchise and partially backtrack on their earlier decision, but hey, I'm not complaining. Season 4 has been another great one so far. I only wish the mid-season hiatus weren't so long.

As for those viewer numbers, the increase wasn't enormous but it was noticeable. It's also highly unusual for an established show with season-long story arcs, interconnected episodes and a deep mythology to pick up viewers in later seasons. I'd like to think that our work on TV.com played at least a small role in that viewer increase.

I first took over the BSG editorship in the summer of 2006. In early August 2006, there were 2,848 people tracking the BSG guide.

--By May 28, 2007, 9,950 people were tracking the BSG guide.
--On Jan. 14, 2008, 13,253 people were tracking the Battlestar Galactica guide, a marked increase even though no regular episodes aired in 2007 after March.
--As of today, Aug. 7, 2008, there are 16,093 people tracking the Battlestar Galactica guide, an increase of 565% over two years. The show also hit the no. 1 spot on the TV.com Top Ten List on several occasions this spring as new episodes of Season 4 were airing. I like to think that my work on the guide and the forum, and my promotion of the show in my blog and in my forum signature, has helped to increase the visibility of the show, both on the site and on the Internet in general.

TV.com attracts millions of unique visitors every month so it's possible to have quite an effect on the visibility of lesser-known shows. Though BSG gets a lot of press, the audience still isn't very large when compared with popular prime-time network hits like CSI and American Idol. That's why I try to promote the show so much, because there are still a lot of people out there who haven't seen it, often because it is considered to be "just another sci-fi show." BSG has won a Peabody Award and it has received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (for two years in a row). The American Film Institute has named it one of the ten best shows on television. And of course, Time Magazine named it the best show on all of television (for 2005).

To get back to the main point of this post, Season 4.5 (the 2nd half of Season 4) may end up including far more than just the 10 episodes that were originally announced. We already know that the schedule now includes 11 full episodes. After reading David Eick's statements, we'll probably have a lot more than just 11 episodes. Great news for BSG fans. It should also be great news for fans of quality television drama in general.

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The 2008 Summer Olympic Games

As most of you know, the 2008 Summer Olympic Games are set to begin this Friday in Beijing, China. Many of you also know about the controversies associated with the games. The human rights abuses by the Chinese government have been well publicized. The government still detains many people merely because of their opposition to particular policies or for criticizing the government. Then there's the occupation of and repression in Tibet. The air quality in Beijing is noticeably poor with heavy smog covering the area on many days.

And yet, I'm still going to watch the Games because many athletes from around the world have devoted years of their lives practicing their skills in sports that don't always dominate the headlines the way (American) football, basketball and baseball do. (And soccer, outside of the U.S.) Jimmy Carter was wrong to boycott the 1980 Olympics because he destroyed the careers of dozens of American amateur athletes whose career highlight would have been to compete in the Olympics. That is why it's important to support the athletes in the 2008 Olympic Games, particularly those who aren't already famous professional athletes like the members of the U.S. men's basketball team.

There's a time and a place for protesting the policies of the Chinese government. I don't think Olympic events are one of them. I also think the protests targeting the Olympic torchbearers earlier this year were idiotic and thuggish. Because the Chinese government is autocratic, it's OK to gang up on a female American Olympic athlete in San Francisco? Or other torchbearers in Paris? Huh? How courageous is that? Coordinated attempts by multiple people to surround those torchbearers, intimidate the torchbearers and grab the torch qualifies as assault in my view. The torchbearers were former Olympic athletes (from the U.S. and France), community leaders and accomplished individuals, NOT Chinese government leaders, Chinese police or army soldiers. Those particular protesters were almost as bad as the leaders of the Chinese government.

Although I watch a wide range of competitions at Summer Olympics, I like the swimming and weightlifting events the most, partly because those are probably my two favorite personal fitness activities. Because weightlifters don't move around the arena that much and because it is a solo competition, the camera can focus on and zoom up on each lifter. We can see the tremendous exertion and stress during each lift in a way that we can't with most other sports. Usually the athletes are moving too fast or the cameras have to pan back to cover team events.

Water polo is fun too, especially because of the underwater cameras. We get to see how much punching, kicking and grabbing goes on underneath the water's surface. I recently read about the eggbeater kick, which is the method that water polo players use to tread water. The player takes a seated position in the water and then kicks his lower legs in circles, one clockwise, the other counter-clockwise. It's not easy at first and I still haven't mastered it myself, but it allows the player to stay afloat without using their hands to tread water. The player's arms are free to pass, catch and block the ball.

I'll check out some of the beach volleyball, tennis and other sports. I don't watch as much of the track and field events because it's just people running around a track. Yeah, they're faster than anyone else but I don't find it that interesting to watch. I'll try to catch some of the most well-known track events though.

I have also become the editor for the 2008 Summer Olympics guide. I was also the editor for the 2006 Winter Olympics guide, which makes me sort of the Olympics person on TV.com. I'm going to do things a little differently this time around. Since 2006, the staff posted new rules for athlete guides. We're not supposed to add athletes as guest stars for sporting events unless they have some kind of speaking roles (as a commentator). Thus, I won't be able to approve most submissions of athletes for the 2008 Summer Olympics guide. Of course I won't add any myself either.

I can't hope to duplicate the event updates and results listings from the official NBCOlympics.com site so I'm not going to try. I think the guide will be more useful for the forum, where people can discuss sports, events, athletes and teams. We'll have a separate thread for each sport. Feel free to visit the forum and comment as the Games start up tomorrow (Friday).

I'd also invite everyone to vote on each day's guide. I know that as soon as I announce my editorship of the guide, my small coterie of troll-stalkers will immediately race to add a 1.0 vote to every episode, and to the guide as a whole. This happens with every new editorship I announce. To help make the guide troll-proof, I'd like to have as many honest votes as possible. If you think the Olympics deserve a 5.0, then vote 5.0. If you think they deserve a 9.0 rating, then be sure to add your 9.0 vote. I hope to see many of you on the Olympics forum throughout the course of the Olympic competition.

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The 2008 TV.com NFL Picks Contest (unofficial)

One last item, and another sports-related one too. For the last two years, we've had an unofficial TV.com NFL Picks Contest on the Sports forum. I've served as the primary administrator of the contest for the last two years. The contestants post their picks for each week's NFL (American football) games. Then I tally up the scores and post the updated standings. Even though the group is fairly small, it's been fun. The only problem is that calculating the scores each week can be time-consuming.

Fortunately, someone told us about an automated system over at Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football. To save time, we are moving our (unofficial) TV.com NFL Picks Contest to Yahoo! Sports. We'll still discuss each week's standings on the thread on the TV.com Sports forum but all the calculations will be done automatically by the Yahoo! servers, not me. Whew.

Most of the regulars who played last year are back this time around. We only have one new player so far. I'd like to invite all interested parties to join the contest. We aren't too hardcore or overly competitive. There is no formal prize, just bragging rights for a year to the winner. (Last year's winner was elpaquilloloco, although I came in a very close 2nd place.)

Any TV.com member in good standing is welcome to join the contest. You don't even have to be fanatical about football but it helps if you at least know who Tom Brady is. (Or Brett Favre, for that matter. ) To join, I believe you need to have an account on Yahoo!, which is free. Then post your wish to enter the contest on the TV.com NFL Picks Contest thread at this link.

I'll send you the link to the Yahoo! Sports page, the Group ID# and the password in a private message (PM). Once you have signed into the private group at Yahoo! Sports, you need to set up your personal picks set account name. This is different from your regular Yahoo! ID name. To make it easy on everyone, please choose your TV.com user name or something that closely resembles it. Enter this name as the Picks Set name.

You can read the other rules in the 1st post on the TV.com forum thread from the link above. The NFL season gets underway in just a few weeks. The more games you pick, the better your chances of winning it all.

The Yahoo group has a limit of 50 contestants but right now we only have about 10 people, which is close to the number of people we had last year. I doubt we'll reach that 50-person limit. But just in case, sign on as soon as you can. Hope to see you there.

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The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is currently hosting the traveling exhibit "Jim Henson's Fantastic World," a look at the zany creativity and immense popularity of Jim Henson and his puppet creations, including the advanced puppetry in the movie Dark Crystal and of course the two landmark television shows Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.

It would probably be fair to say that anyone who has ever watched television, no matter how briefly, is familiar with the Muppets, the expressive puppets that Jim Henson created. Jim Henson's Muppets were innovative in a couple key ways. First, Henson realized that the medium of television provided its own "frame" so an artificial frame or stage did not need to be constructed. Instead the edge of the television picture provided the cover necessary for the puppeteer to hide from view. This allowed Henson and his associates much greater freedom to move around from side to side and even toward and away from the viewer. He also began to create his Muppets out of soft foam and fabric, not the wood and hard plastic that had traditionally been used for puppets. The pliable materials allowed Henson to impart emotion and character to his creations, to an extent never before seen with puppets.



(Click on picture to see a larger version)

The exhibit, which can be seen at the International Gallery in the Ripley Center of the Smithsonian, will be making its way to other cities across the U.S. in upcoming months and years, including Atlanta, Chicago, Orlando, Seattle and other locales. Click here to view the complete tour schedule.

The show includes some of the most famous Muppets such as Bert and Ernie, Mahna Mahna and the Snowths, Rowlf the Dog, and of course Kermit the Frog. Since photography was not permitted, I have to rely on some news article photos here.





Here's a shot of Jim Henson performing as Kermit the Frog.



Jim Henson - The Early Years

Jim Henson was born in 1936 and raised in Mississippi but he spent his adolescence in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., as his father worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In high school, he created puppets for a local Saturday morning children's show. As a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, he developed a brief puppet show for WRC-TV titled Sam and Friends. Though some of the puppets were of the traditional stiff, immobile type, Henson had already created a primitive version of what would later become Kermit the Frog.

Despite the success of the show, Henson had to earn his living in advertising for almost two decades. He continued to develop his Muppets for commercials and numerous talk show appearances. His commercials for the local Wilkins Coffee company in Washington, D.C., were wildly popular because of the use of the Muppets and the humor. Up to that point, television commercials rarely used humor to sell their products. More often than not, the copy writer would try a hard sell on the viewer, explaining the reasons why the prospective consumer would be better off purchasing the product. If you listen to old commercials in documentaries about early TV and radio, you'll notice this tendency. Henson eventually filmed over 300 coffee ads based on the success of the Wilkins Coffee commercials. He also helped to usher in the modern approach to television advertising, which frequently involves humor.

Henson's Muppets made appearances on famous talk shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Jimmy Dean Show, which included regular appearances by Rowlf, the piano-playing dog.

Many fans may not know that in this period, the late 1960s, Jim Henson also worked on experimental films, including the nine-minute short film Time Piece. This surrealistic series of scenes -- starring Henson himself as a dying man who seems to be seeing his life flash before his eyes -- picked up an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Short Film in 1966. Here's a screenshot from the film showing Henson's character as he seems to be going back in time to the Middle Ages when they apparently didn't use dining utensils.



He also produced a very bleak and bizarre TV play with Jerry Juhl called The Cube, which actually aired on NBC.

For more information on Time Piece and The Cube, visit this page at daddytypes.com, where you can actually see both videos in their entirety (unless the videos have already been removed). The only word in Time Piece is "Help!", which is spoken by Henson three times in a high-pitched voice. You can clearly hear the similarity between that word and the speaking voice of Kermit the Frog.

The Smithsonian exhibit includes clips of the videos along with numerous sketches from Henson's notebooks. The official exhibition website includes a small selection of the doodles, drawings and pictures on display. (Click on the link to view.)

Sesame Street

In 1969, Jim Henson was asked to participate in the development of a new children's show called Sesame Street, for which he created a cast of Muppet characters, many of whom are among the most widely known fictional characters in television history. The cast included Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, the Cookie Monster, and Kermit the Frog who morphed into the familiar form of today. Henson personally performed Ernie, game-show host Guy Smiley and Kermit who is often seen as an alter-ego of Henson's by his own admission.

As you know, Sesame Street went onto become an American institution in children's programming, a show that continues to this very day. Henson's Muppet characters were one of the primary reasons for the show's success.

The Muppet Show - The most popular show on Earth

Jim Henson was not satisfied by merely being a part of a successful children's show. He felt that the Muppets could appeal to a broader audience including adults. A brief run on Saturday Night Live was unsuccessful so he sought other venues. A lack of interest in the U.S. led Henson to begin production on a new series in the United Kingdom called The Muppet Show in 1976. The vaudeville-type variety show featured real-life human celebrity guest stars who interacted with the ever-growing cast of Muppet characters. Kermit the Frog took on the role of master of ceremonies while now c1assic creations like Fozzie Bear, Dr. Teeth, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Waldorf and Statler joined in on the barely controlled mayhem.

Frank Oz was one of the most important members of Jim Henson's production company. Henson and Oz performed the Mahna Mahna song in the first episode of The Muppet Show, with Henson taking on the role of the "lead singer" Mahna Mahna and Oz playing the back-up singers called the Snowths. They used a flighty European pop song that had originally appeared in a Swedish softcore porn movie (Sweden: Heaven and Hell) but rewrote it to showcase the comedic talents of Henson and Oz. Nowadays, the song is largely associated with the Muppets and The Muppet Show performance. Even after all these years, I'd say that even most adults still find the skit hilarious. Don't believe me? Click on the picture below and watch it yourself. Try not to laugh.



Thanks to Mahna Mahna, Kermit, the other characters and the comedy writing, the show built up an enormous audience through worldwide syndication. In 1978, Time Magazine estimated that The Muppet Show had a weekly audience of 235 million people in 106 countries. The article writer believed that the show was the most widely seen television program on the entire planet. Not bad for a bunch of furry puppets.

Henson performed Dr. Teeth, Rowlf the Dog, Kermit the Frog, Mahna Mahna and other characters. He also performed the Swedish Chef in tandem with Frank Oz (who performed notable characters like Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear, and even Yoda the Jedi Master in the Star Wars movies). Henson provided the voice for the Swedish Chef while Oz provided the Chef's hands, without any cloth covering. This made it easier for Oz to pick up, use (and abuse) kitchen utensils and food items during the Chef's unsuccessful attempts to demonstrate how to cook spaghetti and meatballs, shrimp and a variety of other foods (many of which struck back at the Chef).

Here is a video clip of the Swedish Chef and his misguided manner of preparing a chocolate mousse, er, moose.



Though there are theories about the inspiration behind the Swedish Chef, Jerry Juhl, the head writer for the show, said that Henson never mentioned an actual person as the model for the character.

Though the current Smithsonian exhibit does not include the Swedish Chef, there was a different Jim Henson exhibit at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History two years ago that did feature the character. Fortunately I had a chance to see that exhibit and I took several pictures. Here's a close-up shot of the Swedish Chef that I took in 2006. (Click on the photo to see a larger version.)



The following is another picture I took in 2006. This display case included Kermit the Frog, Dr. Teeth, Rowlf the Dog and a Muppet version of Jim Henson himself.



Movies and other works

The Muppet Show continued to be extremely popular when the first Muppet movie was released in 1979. The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper were both successful critically and financially. Henson decided to focus on movies so he ended The Muppet Show while it was still drawing large audiences.

Henson suggested that George Lucas use Frank Oz to play the part of Yoda in the 1980 Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back. Both the movie and the character soon became c1assics of U.S. and world pop culture.

In 1982, Henson and Oz co-directed the brooding fantasy film The Dark Crystal, which featured a completely different type of puppet than viewers were used to seeing from Jim Henson. The film was successful with both critics and moviegoers.

The last years

In 1986, Henson faced his darkest days when his movie The Labyrinth failed at the box office. His son Brian recalls that Jim Henson became depressed and nearly despondent at the movie's poor showing. Henson also separated from his wife Jane that year.

He continued to work on other movie, television and theme park projects but on May 16, 1990, he died at New York Hospital from a severe streptococcal infection at the age of 53. Reportedly he could have survived if he had sought medical treatment just a few hours earlier.

His death was reported around the world and left many Muppet fans in shock. Memorial services were held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England.

His children later carried out Jim's intention to turn over the Muppets to the Walt Disney Company. Jim wanted to do this because he wished to return to the creative side of the company and leave the business and accounting work to someone else.

One of the most important people of the 20th century

In 1998, Time Magazine named Jim Henson one of the 100 most important people of the entire 20th century for his work in promoting "the qualities of fancifulness, warmth and consideration that have been so threatened by our coarse, cynical age."

For more information on the current Smithsonian exhibit, visit the official website.

***

I hope you enjoyed this brief multimedia look at one of the funniest and most popular entertainers of our age. And he did it all without showing his face most of the time. He was truly a unique character himself.

I urge all fans to visit the exhibit if and when it arrives at a city and museum near you. I posted the link for the tour schedule in the beginning section of this blog post but here it is again anyway.

Enjoy the rest of the week and remember the manic but good-natured comedy of Jim Henson and his Muppets.

***

NOTE: Though I used many reference sources for this blog post, I wrote all of the text myself.

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2008 Emmy Award nominations announced on Thursday, July 17, 2008

The nominees for the 2008 Emmy Awards were announced on Thursday, July 17, 2008. The HBO miniseries John Adams garnered the most nominations, 23 in all. Two series on basic cable picked up a large number of nominations as well. Mad Men on AMC earned 16 nominations while the FX series Damages picked up 7.

The Sci Fi Channel made some noise too with its miniseries Tin Man (a non-musical reworking of The Wizard of Oz), which received 9 nominations. Most of those came in technical categories but it did receive a nomination in the category of Outstanding Miniseries.

Of course I can't overlook the take from Battlestar Galactica either. The Sci Fi Channel show picked up 6 nominations of its own including one in the category of Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series (for the 2nd consecutive year). Michael Angeli was recognized for his script of the episode "Six of One". "Razor" Flashback #4 earned a nomination in the category of Outstanding Special Class - Short-format Live-action Entertainment Programs. (Yeah, that's a mouthful.) Flashback #4 included the thrilling shot of the young William Adama falling through the sky while facing off against an old-sty1e gun-wielding Cylon Centurion. The other BSG nominations came in the categories of cinematography, editing, sound mixing, and special visual effects.

BSG received 3 Emmy nominations last year, in the categories of Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series, Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series and Outstanding Special Visual Effects For A Series, winning the award for special visual effects.

I thought some of the other episodes this season were a little better than "Six of One" including "Faith", "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?", "The Hub", and "Revelations" but "Six of One" was also an outstanding episode. Hopefully BSG will finally win an Emmy in the category of writing this year. Emmys in the other categories would be nice too.

The Emmy Award winners will be announced at the televised show on Sunday, September 21 at 8 pm ET on ABC. I don't usually watch the show but I might peek in this time to see if BSG wins in any of those categories.

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Swimming, fitness and exercise

I got in about 2 1/2 hours of swimming this weekend. I've been pushing it a little but I find that it helps me to burn off energy and relieve stress. I was too tired to do any weightlifting. Maybe sometime during the week. If you decide to pick up swimming as one of your forms of exercise, be sure to get a pair of quality swimming goggles. The small racing kind are ideal like the ones that Speedo makes. The large masks that scuba divers use really aren't appropriate since the bulky shape will slow you down. That's about all the equipment you need for swimming. I would also avoid wearing baggy shorts since those will constrict your movements.

If you want to improve your technique, the BBC website has a good set of basic instructional pages for all the official Olympic strokes. For some reason, the pages are no longer accessible from the main BBC Sport page. They used to have a BBC Sports Academy section but it's no longer promoted. Fortunately you can still access the older pages if you have the full URLs. Click on the following links to view the pages for each of the swim strokes and bookmark them for future reference. There are pages for beginners, intermediate swimmers and advanced swimmers.

Breaststroke (the easiest stroke to learn and to use, and a good one for amateurs who swim for aerobic exercise and not for competition)

Front crawl (the fastest stroke but one that demands a lot of effort and energy)

Butterfly (probably the most difficult stroke to learn; I'm not sure I do it 100% correctly myself but I've been improving the last 2 years)

Backstroke (I don't do this one too much because it's difficult to keep to a straight line when swimming outdoors)

Swimming is a low-impact sport if you do it correctly. It's much easier on your knees than jogging is. You do have to be careful about overworking your shoulders but I've found that proper warm-ups help a lot. Occasional weightlifting sessions also help your shoulders. Swimming is a great aerobic fitness activity. It even builds up your muscles too if you swim on a regular basis. The only area it doesn't cover is your midsection (the abdominal muscles). Thus, you should probably do some additional work for your abs (upper and lower), your oblique muscles (the muscles on the sides of your midsection that allow you to twist and rotate your torso) and your lower back muscles. Hanging leg raises are great for the lower abs. Crunches (performed properly) work the upper abs. Side bends and cable twists work the obliques, while stiff-leg deadlifts with light weights exercise the lower back (but make sure you NEVER curl your lower back forward -- always keep it relatively straight).

Official U.S. government fitness guidelines recommend that every able-bodied adult exercise on a regular basis. This includes aerobic exercise (walking, jogging, swimming, rowing, etc.), flexibility (moderate stretching) and strength training. Strength training is important to combat the slow deterioration of muscle tone and bone density as we age. Not only do muscles become stronger but your bones also become stronger through resistance training/weightlifting. Much of the "symptoms" we traditionally associate with aging are actually symptoms of inactivity and poor diet. Studies have shown that many elderly people are wheelchair-bound because of muscle and bone weakness and lack of coordination, not because of disease or other condition. When nursing home residents begin a program of strength training with light weights, they can often do away with their wheelchairs. The improved strength and coordination also helps to prevent falls. When accidents do occur, they are much less likely to lead to broken bones because of the improved bone strength.

For younger adults, improved fitness can lead to better posture and less back pain, or even an elimination of back pain. Perhaps a majority of U.S. adults complain about lower back pain to some extent. I've read various articles that show that physical injury is the cause in only a minority of cases. Most of the time, the pain is the result of weak back and abdominal muscles (including the obliques). Most of us sit in chairs for much of the day. It really is an unnatural position that places a lot of stress on the lower back. This is why it's important to take a break every hour or so and stretch your back. It can be something as simple as standing up and reaching your arms up toward the ceiling. A regular routine of ab, oblique and lower back exercises will also help prevent many cases of lower back pain.

As I've said before, I'm not a medical or health professional, nor am I any kind of fitness expert. I periodically post about health and fitness issues on my blog because too many able-bodied adults in modern industrialized societies let themselves get out of shape. This leads to the pandemic of lower back pain as well as more serious issues like increased diabetes rates and heart disease (from obesity and lack of exercise). Hopefully this blog entry will spur people to pay more attention to their overall health and dietary practices. There are many quality sources of information available on the Web including exercise.about.com, Muscle & Fitness (primarily targeted towards men), Muscle & Fitness Hers (for active women), Shape (a fitness website and magazine designed for women), and Bodybuilding.com (for those who are a bit more intense about working out. Be careful of supplements like creatine and stay away from the steroids though!).

Familiarity with the major muscle groups of the body also helps one to keep focused on maintaining one's fitness. If you don't know about obliques and such, you are more likely to ignore them. If you have at least a basic understanding of these muscles (and we all have them), then we might be more likely to keep in shape. There are many online sources. Wikipedia actually has some good articles, which are based on the older versions of Gray's Anatomy for which the copyright has expired. Most of the anatomical illustrations seem to be accurate from what I remember of various books and articles I've read but read other trustworthy sources as well.

My ongoing concern with fitness issues is spurred in part by the problems with dietary practices, weight control and inactivity in most industrialized countries, including the U.S. The average life expectancy is actually starting to decrease in some areas because of heart disease, diabetes and lung cancer. Most people are aware of the enormous healthcare costs in the U.S. I'm not going to get into the debate about Social Security, Medicare and privatization here because in the end, all that does is move around money that shouldn't have to be spent in the first place. No insurance system will be able to handle healthcare costs if people eat poorly and remain inactive. Though there are other problems (such as unnecessary tests and overuse of some expensive medical technologies like MRIs), a major factor in the healthcare problem is the need to deal with health issues on such a wide scale that don't need to exist.

Heart disease is the number one cause of death for American adults, men AND women, not breast cancer, not AIDS, not strep infections, not salmonella poisoning (which usually isn't fatal) and not West Nile virus or any other prominently reported diseases. Though genetics plays a part in heart disease, so does aerobic fitness, body weight and other factors that people can change. Childhood diabetes is another growing problem that can be combated through exercise and proper diet. Though Type I diabetes is one matter, Type II diabetes can be greatly affected by dietary practices and exercise (or lack thereof).

Well, I guess this part of the blog ran longer than I had intended. I suppose this won't necessarily be too popular but I do hope to play a small part in helping everyone to consider personal health and fitness issues more carefully. It's important, not just for you but for your family members and friends.

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Future blog topics

I saw a TV-related exhibit today (Sunday). Unfortunately photography wasn't allowed but I've still managed to put together a multimedia blog about it. I have some pictures that I took of a related exhibit back in 2006 along with some videos (from YouTube). I should be able to post it tomorrow since I already have all the pictures uploaded to the image hosting site. I don't have time to finish it tonight and this blog entry is about the Emmy Awards anyway (and fitness).

I promise that I won't talk about fitness issues in the next blog post. Well, at least I'll try not to. But for those of you who have been reading my blog since 2005 already know that I write up one of these fitness posts a few times a year, so this is nothing new. Hope everyone had a good weekend.

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In case you hadn't figured out the news yet, TV.com and the rest of the CNET Networks websites officially became part of CBS Corporation on June 30, 2008.

The CNET Networks sites have been folded into an expanded CBS Interactive division. The business unit has been organized into five vertical categories: Technology, Entertainment, News, Sports and Business. The former CNET Entertainment sites now fall under the Entertainment category of CBS Interactive. In the official CBS Corporation announcement, TV.com received top billing in the Entertainment section, above CBS.com. Here is the relevant paragraph:

Entertainment: Representing the third largest online entertainment group on the web, the collective reach of CBS Interactive's entertainment portfolio will now exceed 24 million users each month, and include many of the leading brands on the web today, including: TV.com, CBS.com, The CBS Audience Network, theInsider.com, GameSpot.com, Last.fm, and CHOW.com, among others. These are among the most visited entertainment destinations on the web today, each with their own identity and audience profile, and they continue to grow in users and time spent visiting. This past year, for instance, CBS.com market share grew a category-leading 41 percent. Combined with the power of America's most watched network – CBS Television – CBS Interactive offers unparalleled consumer reach online and offline.

To read the full press release, visit the official CBS Corporation website at www.cbscorporation.com.

You may have noticed the addition of CBS websites to the news ticker that appears toward the top right of each TV.com page. Articles from CBSNews.com, Last.fm and theInsider.com join those from former CNET sites like ZDNet.com, TechRepublic and CNET's News.com.

Three years and one month after the birth of TV.com, we enter a new era under the banner of CBS Corporation and CBS Interactive. Keep in mind that TV.com is no longer a successful independent TV-related site. It is now a cousin of the most popular television network in the United States. Some CBS shows already appear on the TV.com guides with complete episodes available as streaming video. I imagine that this arrangement will become more common with other CBS shows. Maybe we'll even see streaming episodes added to former CBS shows like Hawaii Five-O, which set a record in its time as the longest-running police/detective show on television, airing 12 full seasons all on "the CBS Television Network." (Law & Order broke that record. However, one could say that Law & Order is not a pure detective show since half of each episode is devoted to the courtroom side of the criminal justice system.)

Though most of you are familiar with my interest in the Battlestar Galactica series, you may not know that I spend much of my TV.com time at the Sports forum on the site. Perhaps we could see some changes over there. It's an interesting forum but there aren't any special features and the group isn't too large. CBSSports.com and its affiliated sites (NCAA.com and CBSCollegeSports.com) are one of the most popular groups of sports-related sites on the Internet. Now those are part of the CBS Interactive division too.

I haven't seen any wholesale changes on the site so far, nor do I expect to. CBS paid a lot of money for CNET Networks. CNET had a broad reach on the Internet and it was a profitable company (contrary to what some might have thought after the shareholder rebellion last year). The new CBS Interactive becomes the eighth-most-popular group of websites in the entire world in terms of monthly unique users. The entertainment group alone draws over 24 million unique users every month.

The corporate identity of CBS Corporation

So what exactly is CBS Corporation anyway? Well, there is actually good reason for confusion about the corporate identity of the new owner of TV.com. The famous CBS Network was part of a company called CBS, Inc. The Federal Communications Commission ruled that TV broadcast networks couldn't own cable or other television distribution businesses so Viacom International was spun off from CBS Inc. in June 1971. Viacom Inc. was formed at this time. (Viacom Inc. is the precursor to CBS Corporation.)

Viacom Inc. distributed CBS television shows in syndication at this time, in what was a very profitable business. Viacom also purchased radio stations and the MTV cable channels during the 1970s and 1980s. National Amusements, a movie theater company, bought Viacom International and merged it into Viacom Inc. by 1987. Sumner Redstone, the head of National Amusements, proceeded to cut deals for Paramount Communications (including Paramount Pictures) and Blockbuster Video in the 1990s.

In 1999, Viacom Inc. announced plans to buy its former parent, CBS Corporation. The purchase was finalized in 2000. The Viacom media empire now included the CBS network, Paramount Pictures, Spelling Entertainment, MTV, Country Music Television, TNN (now Spike TV) and BET.

With the retirement of Sumner Redstone, Viacom Inc. was split up into two companies. Viacom Inc. was renamed CBS Corporation. It retained the CBS network, CBS Radio, Simon & Schuster, Showtime and most of the television production properties. A new company was spun off and given the name of Viacom Inc. (sometimes called "the new Viacom"). It included most of the cable channels as well as Paramount Pictures.

CBS Corporation announced its plan to purchase CNET Networks in 2008. That purchase was completed on June 30, 2008, at which time TV.com became part of the Entertainment unit of CBS Interactive.

TV.com itself has had a couple different corporate identities, beginning as TVTome in June 2000. MovieTome was created in August 2003. CNET bought out TVTome in 2005 and moved it to TV.com, which it had acquired in 1996 for use with a syndicated television series that aired under the name of TV.com. TV.com came online on June 1, 2005 with a different format than TVTome.

And now three years and one month later, CNET (including TV.com) has been absorbed by CBS Corporation (the "old Viacom").

But you don't need to know any of this to use and enjoy the site. It's still TV.com although it is now a CBS Interactive site, not a CNET Entertainment site.

Bottom line: TV.com belongs to the Entertainment category in the CBS Interactive division of CBS Corporation. Everything else seems to be the same for now aside from the new sites in the ticker at the top right.

***

I'll continue with some of my other blog series soon. Among these are Part 2 of the Thomas Dolby 2008 series; the Washington, D.C. tourist blog series; and new chapters of my original online Battlestar Galactica-related novel (to be posted on my other TV.com account).

I've continued to swim between 4 and 6 hours a week and I started back up with the weights last weekend. Work is also keeping me busy. I hope everything is going well in all those corners of the TV.com community around the globe. It's still strange to think of TV.com as a CBS site but I'll get used to it.

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This is the first of my 2008 Washington, D.C., tourist blogs. I've posted some of these "tourist blog entries" in the past but I don't think I've written any this year. Since Washington, D.C., is located very far from many of you (in Europe, Australia, Canada, Texas, Florida, California and so on), I thought it might be interesting to showcase some of the cultural attractions found in the U.S. capital city, a sort of virtual tour.

Every summer the world-famous Smithsonian Institution sponsors the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall between the U.S. Capitol building and the Washington Monument. The 2008 edition was the 42nd festival held in downtown Washington. The festival began as a way to highlight the folk arts, crafts, cuisine, costumes, religious practices, sports and music of various regions of the United States. Over time, the scope of the Festival expanded to include international cultures and regions. The Festival is always held in late June and early July, on or around the Fourth of July (the Independence Day holiday in the U.S.).

[NOTE: You can click on all of the pictures below to see much larger versions. This will allow you to see the details of the pictures while keeping the overall blog entry to a manageable download size.]

The most elaborate Festival I remember is the 2002 version, which focused on the cultures of the ancient Silk Road. Yo-Yo Ma co-sponsored the examination of the cultures of Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, India, China, Japan and other countries, with a particular focus on folk music. The Silk Road Festival was one of the best events I've ever attended in the D.C. area. It had particular significance because of the timing.

The Washington region was affected greatly by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The Pentagon was hit directly by one of the hijacked planes. The center of the city was abandoned for much of that day. In the weeks and months that followed, security gates, concrete planters and solid metal bollards were erected to secure key government facilities in and around Washington. The federal government and American society in general became much more conscious of the possibility of further terrorist attacks. (Contrary to what some people think, the threat was very real as we saw with subsequent terrorist attacks in London, Madrid, Pakistan, South-east Asia and elsewhere.)

At the same time, American culture has always been a melting pot of cultures from around the globe. The ideals may not always have been observed faithfully but the basic idea of a mixing of cultures is something not always present in many industrialized countries. The Silk Road Festival was a legitimate and welcome celebration of folk culture and music from Central and East Asia, and from the Middle East. When I watched many of the musical performances that year, I could sense the relief among many of the people for the opportunity to celebrate their folk cultures in an open and mainstream forum in the very heart of Washington, D.C. It's too naive to think that such celebrations can solve all the conflicts around the world, particularly those arising from the Middle East, but I think it's necessary for a civilized society to have such opportunities to remember that there are good aspects of human cultures, to get a sampling of cuisine, costumes, crafts and music and enjoy other cultures from time to time in various outlets. No celebration of folk culture is more prominent and visible than the Smithsonian Folklife Festival just blocks away from the Capitol and the White House.

The 2008 Festival featured the Himalayan country of Bhutan, the U.S. state of Texas and NASA, the U.S. space agency.

Bhutan is a small landlocked country located between India and China. It is one of the most isolated countries in the world and yet its people were found to be among the "happiest" in a 2006 worldwide survey. Over 100 weavers, dancers, monks, artists, carpenters and farmers came over from Bhutan for the Festival, the largest cultural group to ever visit the U.S. from Bhutan.



A Buddhist temple was constructed on the National Mall as you can see in this picture. (Don't forget that you can click on any of the pictures to see larger versions with more detail.) This picture also gives you some sense of how many people attend the Festival each year, over a million people over the course of two weeks (Wednesday to Sunday, a break, and then the following Wednesday to Sunday).

The intricately decorated wood panels were carved in Bhutan, then assembled in Washington.



There were long lines to go inside the temple although I managed to get there when the wait wasn't too long.



Here's a look at the decorative details from the inside of the temple. A group of Buddhist monks were sitting on one side of the interior, chanting and tapping on traditional drums. After each "verse," one monk would blow on a very deep bass horn, which sounded something like a foghorn.



For more information about the Bhutan activities and exhibits at the Festival, visit the Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon page at the official website.

NASA was represented by astronomers, astronauts, physicists, engineers, and others who represented the 18,000 employees of the U.S. space agency. I didn't have much time to listen to many of the talks or ask questions of the NASA employees on hand but I did see some of the scale models and test engines stationed on the Mall. The following picture features a test model of the Space Shuttle's engines and nozzle.



At one of the tents, I listened to an engineer talk about astronaut spaceflight training procedures.



A man sitting on her right had an interesting background for a NASA employee (or contractor). He said that he got his job because of his skills in sewing and painting. Why sewing? Well, some of the recent Mars spacecraft have utilized parachutes to slow their rate of descent as they attempt to land on the Martian surface. Creating heavy-duty parachutes means lots of sewing. He also said that he paints conceptual works to help plan space missions and to help the engineers design spacecraft and scientific equipment. So even if you aren't scientifically or mathematically inclined, you could actually have a future with NASA.

Browse through the NASA section of the official Festival website for more information.

The food tents featured cuisine from Bhutan and Texas. Interestingly the Houston area is home to several hundred thousand Vietnamese residents. Thus, one of the Texas food tents focused on traditional Vietnamese dishes.

I saw a tent devoted to Texas wine making but I didn't have time to visit. Apparently Texas is one of the top five wine-producing states in the U.S. Of course many Americans are familiar with Tex-Mex cuisine. There were several cooks, restaurant owners and winemakers on hand.

Though all of that is interesting to peek at, what I usually enjoy most about the Festivals are the musical performances. Unlike a small regional folk festival, the Smithsonian usually brings in some of the best folk musicians from around the country and the world. Some of the groups are traditional family-based outfits but others are award-winning professional singers and instrumentalists. Among the latter was Marcia Ball, an amazing blues and rock pianist and singer from Austin, Texas. She has won "Blues Album of the Year" and "Piano Player of the Year" awards at the Blues Music Awards. She has also been nominated for two Grammy Awards for her mix of Texas and Louisiana blues, boogie-woogie, zydeco and Cajun swamp rock.

I'm not going to post any pictures of Marcia Ball's performance. That wouldn't be too interesting. Instead, I'm going to post a video of her performance of "Down the Road," an original Marcia Ball tune. She performed with a saxophonist, a guitar player, a bass player and a drummer. She has an unusual posture when she plays. She sits with one leg crossed over the other almost the entire time. I don't think I've ever seen a pianist perform like that before. It certainly didn't affect her ability to play. She can really groove on the keys! Check it out:



(Click on the picture to watch the video at YouTube. Once there, select the "watch in high quality" to see the high-definition version.)

To learn more about Marcia Ball, visit her MySpace page. You can listen to four additional tracks.

The official site of Marcia Ball includes information about all of her albums. You can listen to excerpts of all of the tracks although you will need to open up the site in Internet Explorer (or the IE View extension in Firefox) to hear the music there.

For more information on "Texas: A Celebration of Music, Food and Wine," visit the section at the official Festival website.

You can see the entire "Lone Star Dance Party" Saturday evening concert from July 5 featuring Guy Clark and Marcia Ball at this link. The video is hosted on the official Smithsonian Global Sound website.

You can also watch any of the other evening concerts from the 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival at this page.

I hope you enjoyed this look at one of the most popular attractions held in Washington, D.C., each year. Hopefully you will be inspired to explore the music and culture of Texas and Bhutan and the operations of NASA through the Smithsonian websites.

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Happy Independence Day to all of you in the U.S. and elsewhere.

I thought I'd post a brief update today, along with some various news items.

THE SCREEN ACTORS GUILD and AFTRA

In television news, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) contract expired on Tuesday morning at midnight. The actors are continuing to work under the terms of the expired contract. No strike authorization has been requested by SAG leadership at this time but the situation is uncertain. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) split from SAG earlier this year and reached a separate agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). A battle is brewing over the confirmation vote for the AFTRA-AMPTP agreement. Results are due to be announced on July 8. No SAG action is likely before then.

The complicated part of the AFTRA vote is that a majority of the members of AFTRA are also members of SAG (44,000 out of 70,000 total). Many prominent names have chosen sides in the AFTRA battle. Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Sally Field, James Cromwell (a former SAG board member), Morgan Fairchild (a current SAG board member), Adam Arkin, Tim Daly, Susan Sarandon and Kevin Spacey have come out in support of the AFTRA deal. On the other hand, Jack Nicholson, Ed Asner, Sandra Oh, Louis Gossett Jr., Holly Hunter, Viggo Mortensen, Edward James Olmos, Sean Penn, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Ben Stiller are among the actors who are publicly opposing the AFTRA deal.

If the AFTRA deal is approved by the membership, then SAG will have much less flexibility. Some observers think that SAG leadership would have to send along the AMPTP's final last-minute proposal to SAG membership for approval, probably without an official recommendation. That proposal includes expanded Internet-based royalties similar to those that the writers and directors received in their recent contracts, and similar to those in the AFTRA agreement.

It would be difficult to call another strike so soon after the writers' strike last winter. Everyone in the television industry was affected by the work stoppage, and the effects will carry on well into the 2008-2009 television season. There are fewer pilots for the fall, meaning fewer positions for writers and actors.

If the AFTRA deal is rejected by the membership, would the AMPTP re-open negotiations with the SAG team? Maybe. I don't think anyone wants to see another extended strike.

So what's the difference between SAG and AFTRA? The vast majority (about 90 percent) of primetime network television shows fall under SAG jurisdiction as well as all major studio movies.

The movie industry is doing well this summer, a trend that matches previous times of economic downturns. The thought is that movies are a relatively affordable form of entertainment, much less expensive than sports events, amusement parks and out-of-state travel destinations. The movie business could probably weather a short-term strike. The television industry is a different story. Viewer numbers dropped this year, even after the networks began showing new episodes again in the spring. The entire network television business model is slowing changing due to competition from basic cable channels, video games and Internet broadcasts. [The most popular Internet TV sites are owned by the networks themselves: Hulu.com (co-owned by NBC Universal and News Corp., the parent of FOX), CBS.com and ABC.com.] The writers' strike may have helped speed up the transformation of script-based video entertainment from a broadcast model to a hybrid model that relies much more on Internet streaming.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA NEWS

BSG TV movies
News reports indicate that filming for the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica wrapped up in June. Post-production work remains to be done. That would include editing, audio dubs, sound effects, special visual effects and the music soundtrack.

At least one BSG TV movie seems to be approved but production hasn't begun yet. At least the actors haven't been notified of shooting schedules at this time.

A possible Emmy nomination for Mary McDonnell?
Mary McDonnell (President Laura Roslin) has apparently been included on a shortlist of candidates for possible Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series. The list includes ten names and will be pared down to five. If she does make the "final five" (pun intended, for all you BSG fans out there), it would be a well-deserved accomplishment.

BSG has already received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series and Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series last year, but no acting nominations. It's about time that Emmy voters recognized the great performances from the BSG cast. It's no surprise that Mary McDonnell caught the eye of the list compilers this year. Several of the Season 4 episodes of BSG focused on Laura Roslin and her struggles with cancer and questions of the afterlife. One of the most effective episodes of this season (and of the entire series) was "Faith," in which President Roslin met a fellow cancer patient, Emily Kowalski. Emily explained why she listened to Baltar's religious sermons even though she didn't like Baltar. She believed that Baltar had inadvertently stumbled onto a real insight about the existence and nature of the afterlife.

PERSONAL UPDATES

No earth-shattering news to report but I thought I'd add a few notes here. The fireworks display is scheduled to proceed on the National Mall in downtown Washington, D.C., despite the fireworks shortages caused by a warehouse explosion in China earlier this year. The weather might not cooperate, however. It's pretty cloudy here and we might have some thunderstorms tonight. Tomorrow too.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival continues on the Mall as well. This year the focus is on the "cultures" of Bhutan, Texas and NASA (the U.S. space agency). I haven't had a chance to go yet but I'll try to head down there this weekend. Maybe even if there is a thunderstorm. I'll bring along my camera too and get some photos and videos.

I'll continue my Thomas Dolby blog series soon, and start up the museum blog posts as well. I've been doing A LOT of swimming lately, close to 6 hours total over the past 7 days (4 hours last weekend and 90 min. one day this week). I've figured out that even though swimming is a low-impact sport, that you still need to warm up properly. This helps to ease the stress on your shoulders in particular. Last year I had some shoulder soreness because I wasn't warming up properly. This year I do a couple laps just kicking before I swim with regular strokes (breast stroke, freesty1e, butterfly). It helps to loosen up my shoulders and prepare them for the work ahead.

I hope everyone is getting a chance to take advantage of the warmer weather (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) and trying to keep your heart and body healthy. A couple of easy tips: Drink plenty of water and always eat something for breakfast (preferably something healthy like a low-fat, low-sugar granola bar, low-sugar yogurt and whole-grain cereal or egg whites and whole-grain toast).

Oh yeah, I just remembered that I never continued the TV.com timeline. Well, I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to return to that blog "series." Maybe in the fall.

I'm still not watching much television these days except for baseball and older movies on the Encore movie channels. Maybe I should watch a few episodes of Hawaii Five-O from the DVDs. I did manage to watch another Season 1 episode, "Six Kilos." It's a strange story that features Steve McGarrett going undercover as a safecracking expert. It felt more like a 1960s mystery/spy movie than an episode of Hawaii Five-O, particularly since McGarrett is undercover for nearly the entire episode. No one calls him McGarrett except for in a couple scenes. Instead, they call him Harry Brown. Anyway, I managed to fix the cast list for the episode guide. I added all of the crew from the onscreen credits along with notes, trivia and a quote. It wasn't a great episode but it was decent enough. Now I only have one more episode to finish off for Season 1. Hmm, it's only taken me 17 months to watch the Season 1 DVD.

THE BSG ONLINE NOVEL

I've been reading through some of the earlier chapters of the novel this year, to help refresh my familiarity with the characters and ongoing story line. I also have plenty of notes and outlines for future chapters. This should make it easier to pick up the writing process again without having to start from scratch.

I still haven't written anything this summer but I think I'm close to picking up the pen again. With BSG on hiatus at least until January, I won't have much urgent work on any of my guides for the rest of the calendar year. I've received a few submissions for the Hawaii Five-O guide after the recent release of the Season 4 DVD but it's been manageable, less than 10 submissions a week.

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Enjoy the rest of this holiday weekend.

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Just nine short months after I said I would post this music-related blog entry, here it is.

Before I get into the overview of Thomas Dolby's life and career, here's a short song that he performed with the house band at the notable TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference this February. [The TED conference has featured varied and notable speakers like Nobel laureate James Watson, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and former U.S. president Bill Clinton.] I'm posting it early in the post to show that Thomas Dolby is about much more than just "She Blinded Me with Science."

The song is titled "Hell I'd Go," another quirky song written by Dan Hicks, who combines old-fashioned roots music with surreal lyrical imagery. In this case, the song is a goofy look at alien abductions (thus the title "Hell I'd Go"). By the way, Thomas Dolby himself posted this video onto YouTube. (Click on the picture to watch the video.)




A brief introduction to Thomas Dolby

Thomas Dolby is a singer, composer, keyboardist, synth programmer, session musician, music producer, software developer and businessman, originally from England. His father was a noted archaeologist and professor at the University of London and Oxford University. He spent a large part of his childhood accompanying his father on archaeological expeditions around the Mediterranean Sea.

He started in the music business on the technical side, working on electronic instrument setups. Eventually he began to record electronic-based songs of his own. In the early 80s, he hit the big time on the strength of popular singles like "Europa and the Pirate Twins," "One of Our Submarines," "Airwaves," "Leipzig," and of course his biggest hit "She Blinded Me With Science."

He played keyboards on U.K. pop-metal group Def Leppard's massive hit album "Pyromania" (under the name of Booker T. Boffin). He provided synth work for a popular album by Foreigner and co-produced an album from George Clinton of Parliament-Funkadelic fame. Though many still remember him as the "Science" guy, only his first album ("The Golden Age of Wireless" (1982)) could truly be c1assified as 80s new wave/pop. His second album ("The Flat Earth" (1984)) is best described as atmospheric and quirky, though he included a couple of up-tempo songs, one of which is still popular to this day. ("Hyperactive!" was included on the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City video game.) His third album ("Aliens Ate My Buick" (1988)) was much more jazz-influenced, along with traces of Frank Zappa surrealism, calypso and melancholy historical observation (in the memorable song "Budapest By Blimp"). His final studio album in his first music period was "Astronauts & Heretics" (1992), which brought him into the adult contemporary scene. The Cajun-influenced song "I Love You Goodbye" was a highlight.

In addition to his own concerts, he played keyboards and synthesizers for famous artists like David Bowie at Live Aid, Depeche Mode in 1988 and Pink Floyd for a 1990 performance of "The Wall" in Berlin. He stopped touring as a solo act after the "Aliens Ate My Buick" tour in 1988.

Thomas recorded a soundtrack album for a computer-generated atmospheric movie titled "The Gate to the Mind's Eye" in 1994. Around that time, his interests moved into software for cell phone ringtones. He founded Beatnik Inc., which licenses audio-related software and development tools for cell phones and other devices. He later founded Retro Ringtones, which produces the RetroFolio software suite for cell phone ringtones. He had something to do with digital polyphonic (more than one note at a time) ringtones, but I'm not really up on that industry. Apparently he did quite well for himself financially.

Thomas Dolby back on tour after 18 years

In 2006, Thomas surprised almost everyone by diving back into the music business again. He played a series of small venues in California and a mall opening in Colorado in early 2006. Then he launched what he called the Sole Inhabitant Tour in April 2006. One of the stops was at the Birchmere music hall in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from where I live. Of course, when I found out about the concert (an actual Thomas Dolby concert!), I had to go. I posted a review after the May 2006 concert on my blog. Some of you may remember that blog entry but it's understandable if you don't. That was more than two years ago.

Thomas hit the road again in late 2006 on another limited tour with an electronic music performer named BT. (Sorry to any BT fans out there but I've never heard of him.) Since Thomas was only going to play for half of the show, I missed that tour.

Then I found out that he was on tour again in 2007. After 18 years of very limited live performances, Thomas was going to play at the Birchmere for the third time in 16 months? Yeah, you bet I went to see that performance too, on Friday, Sept. 21, 2007. The concert was billed as Thomas Dolby and the Jazz Mafia (Horns).

A multimedia review of the Birchmere concert

The Birchmere is a very small music hall. The main hall only seats a couple hundred people. Everyone sits at tables where you can order dinner and drinks. The closest tables are literally just two feet away from the edge of the stage. I got there early and was able to sit about 10 feet away from Thomas himself.

Unlike some electronic music performers, Thomas is not an introvert. Nor is he a wild and crazy rock star. He's an intelligent and well-spoken gentleman who still performs his music with energy. He introduced most of the songs with a brief talk about the inspiration behind them. (He wrote nearly all of his recorded songs himself. He also created the quirky synth sounds and patches too.)

Instead of describing the story behind his song "I Live in a Suitcase," I'll let Thomas describe it for you. The following video is posted on his official website thomasdolby.com. (No bootleg videos on this blog.) The song was released on the "Astronauts & Heretics" album. I have to admit that the studio version never caught my attention but this live version quickly became one of my favorite Thomas Dolby songs, even more so after hearing the story behind it. Like many of his songs, it reveals some of his character. But unlike with some other singer-songwriters (which Thomas is), it's not melodramatic or artificially tragic. Thomas has always been a grounded, clear-headed individual with both an artistic side and a practical side. It's kind of refreshing to see someone like that in the music business after reading about people like Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and R. Kelly all the time.

(Click on the picture to watch this video from Thomas' official website.)



***

I'll end Part 1 of my June 2008 Thomas Dolby blog series here. I've learned that if I post more than two videos or songs in a single blog entry, that no one will watch the third one. In Part 2, I'll provide more of a review of the Sept. concert, including a look at the different feel the Jazz Mafia Horns lent to some of Thomas' older songs.

I hope you enjoyed reading, listening and watching this blog entry. Stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon.

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Summertime

Summer officially began last week although I don't know why the astronomers define the beginning of our summer with the longest day of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere). Every day for the next six months will be shorter than the day before. It's also been quite hot for a few weeks now. Most people would say that by the time June starts, it's summer.

Unofficially, summer in the U.S. begins with the Memorial Day weekend. It's a 3-day holiday weekend, with the Monday falling on the final Monday in May. Then the summer season continues through the close of the Labor Day holiday weekend (including Labor Day, which falls on the first Monday of September).

So even though I saw part of a Cosmos marathon on the Science Channel on Sunday, I choose to think of summer as beginning with the Memorial Day weekend and ending with the Labor Day weekend. (Carl Sagan's famous science series, Cosmos, still airs on TV nearly 30 years later.) Well, maybe I'm willing to compromise a little. I'll say that summer begins with the Memorial Day weekend but I'll go with the astronomical definition for the back end. That means summer lasts a few weeks longer, until the autumnal equinox in late September. Too bad the building management here doesn't think like that. They'll close the outdoor pool after Labor Day. *

I put in another two hours at the pool on Saturday. That makes it three weekends in a row where I've swam through a two-hour session more or less. To prevent overuse injuries, I usually don't swim on consecutive days. Or if the weather is just too nice, I might focus on kicking and save my shoulders by keeping my arms still on the second day.

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Baseball

Since Battlestar Galactica ended, I haven't been watching much TV other than baseball. That's not a good thing though. The Washington Nationals now have the worst record in the National League, and they're only one game ahead of the Seattle Mariners, the team with the worst record in all of the major leagues. Their three best defenders are injured (Ryan Zimmerman, Nick Johnson and Austin Kearns) and Johnson is probably out for the rest of the year. Zimmerman is also one of the team's best hitters so his absence affects the offense too. Well, no one was expecting the team to reach the playoffs this year anyway. I just hope that some of the young guys like Milledge, Dukes and Casto develop into consistent hitters, on their way to being stars in later seasons.

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Future blog posts

I started reworking the draft of my music blog post that I first wrote up way back in September of last year. It's too late tonight to finish it up now but I should be able to polish it into final form by Wednesday or Thursday evening. I have some good video links for the blog post too. I might break it up into two parts.

I've also started planning the first of my new set of Washington tourist blog posts. I've got quite a few pictures. Because I set the camera to take large-size photos (using the full 8 megapixels) at the superfine compression setting, the pictures are way too big to use as is. I have to shrink them down to a more manageable size. I'll create a small version and a medium-size version of each. I can post the small versions in the blog post while the medium-size versions will be hyperlinked to each of the small photos. Thus, you should be able to read through the post without having to scroll from side to side. Then if you want to see a larger version of each photo, you can click on the small photo.

I might have to touch up a few of the photos too. I didn't always use the flash. Paint.NET should come in handy for this.

I have to warn you ahead of time that one of the museum exhibits that I'll describe has some pretty grisly items. No blood and guts or anything like that, but some of the items were used to commit horrific acts of terror, mass murder and execution. It's pretty fascinating though if you enjoy the history of crime and law enforcement in 20th and 21st-century America. Maybe I'll get to this blog post in about a week or so.

***

That's about all I have for now. Stay tuned for the first part of the music blog post, coming up soon.

P.S. I may be including some links to songs on the Rhapsody site. Rhapsody is a legitimate music service operated by Real.com, the company that created the RealPlayer audio program. Though the regular subscription to Rhapsody requires a monthly fee (which allows you to listen to an unlimited number of high-quality streaming songs from the very large Rhapsody music database), there is also a basic free service. The basic account allows you to listen to 25 streaming songs each month at no cost, with no further obligations. It is not a trial membership and you don't have to give them any credit card numbers.

If you are interested, and if you want to listen to the music links that I might post, you can try out the free Rhapsody plan at this link. You may need to download the Rhapsody player to listen to the links. Unfortunately, the service only works for U.S. residents. I'll try to include other legitimate links that offer at least an excerpt of the songs that I'm going to post.

For most of the songs that I plan to post, Rhapsody will not be necessary. You will only need QuickTime for the videos. Another audio link that I'll include can be played with most standard media players (Real Player, Windows Media Player, QuickTime).

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Level 54

After only 4 months and 7 days, I've finally reached the next level, Level 54 Prison Warden. I suppose that has something to do with the show Prison Break, which I've never seen.

Here's the updated chart of my "progress" through the recent levels:

Level 50 - Jan.  1, 2007
Level 51 - Mar. 19, 2007   2 months, 18 days
Level 52 - Aug. 23, 2007   5 months,  4 days
Level 53 - Feb. 10, 2008   5 months, 18 days
Level 54 - June 17, 2008   4 months,  7 days

(Here is my blog post from Feb. 10, 2008, when I hit Level 53.)

At this rate, I might be able to reach Level 56 by the end of the year. But I'm not going to go out of my way to do so. I'll continue to pace myself. As long as I maintain the Battlestar Galactica and Hawaii Five-O guides, and help keep the BSG forum running smoothly as a place for people to discuss the show without having to wade through spam and personal attacks, then I feel like I'm fulfilling my duties as editor.

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Battlestar Galactica mid-season finale

The Sci Fi Channel aired the mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica last Friday. I won't post any spoilers here but I will say that Ronald Moore, David Eick and company blew the audience away again with a tense and ultimately shocking story. The ending will have your head spinning the way that the Season 2 and Season 3 finales did.

The episode has generated a lot of interest at the guide. The BSG guide has taken over the top spot on the TV.com Top Ten List and has remained there for 3 days now. It's never stayed at that position for so long, as far as I can remember. If you haven't done so yet, I invite you to visit the BSG forum and post your thoughts about the episode and speculation about what lies ahead in the series.

The episode, "Revelations," is the last episode of the show to air this calendar year. The 2nd half of Season 4 will start up sometime in 2009. However, there is some good news for Battlestar fans. Executive producer Ronald Moore is writing the script for the series finale. He has covered so much material that it's impossible to fit it all into a single episode. Thus, it looks like the series finale may be stretched out into a total of 2 or 3 episodes, giving us 11 or 12 new episodes next year.

In addition, at least one of the rumored BSG TV movies will be filmed this summer. There is also the possibility of two more BSG TV movies but no definite word yet on those.

[NOTE: The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) may not be able to reach agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) on the terms of a new contract before the current deal expires on June 30. However, this does not mean an actor strike is inevitable. The actors may choose to continue the negotiations and work on movies and shows under the terms of the current contract. Further complicating matters, The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) agreed upon a new contract with AMPTP this spring, negotiating separately from SAG. It's tricky because 44,000 actors belong to both AFTRA and SAG. SAG has 120,000 members overall. Here's a recent article from Variety about the ongoing labor talks.]

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Firefox 3 final version now available

Tuesday, June 17 is also the day that Mozilla released the final version of the Firefox 3 web browser. I installed the Release Candidate 1 version of Firefox 3 a few weeks ago. I can say from first-hand experience that Firefox 3 loads webpages more quickly than Firefox 2 does. The memory leak issues have been addressed. There are also updated security features that help prevent users from wandering onto phishing sites (those that try to trick you into giving away passwords and personal financial information). Most extensions now work with Firefox 3. I would recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to Firefox 3 as soon as possible to take advantage of the improved performance and the new security features.

Visit the official Firefox 3 site at this link.

To learn more about the changes in Firefox 3, read this news blog "article" from the main CNET site.

Before I move off the topic of the Firefox browser, I wanted to point out a neat extension I discovered recently. The PicLens extension transforms image searches by allowing you to see entire sets of photos in a movable photo wall set against a dark background. You can browse through entire galleries much more efficiently. The extension is free as most Firefox extensions are. However, it only works with a limited number of sites. Fortunately, the list of sites includes many of the most popular ones on the Web: Yahoo Image Search, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket, DeviantArt, and more.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did manage to crash my browser a couple times while using PicLens. It happens if you try to move through the photo wall too quickly. Fortunately Firefox saves all of your open tabs when the program crashes, so you won't lose any open pages. (For even better protection, try the Session Manager extension, which lets you save multi-tab and multi-window Firefox sessions. It also lets you re-open closed tabs with a click of the mouse button.)

To download and install the free PicLens extension, visit the listing at the official Mozilla Firefox add-ons site.

I'd also like to make a comment about the power of open-source software. Linux (which I don't actually use) helped the Boston Celtics to win their first NBA championship in 22 years. Well, kind of. At least a word used with a popular version of Linux. I saw a report on ESPN that Coach Doc Rivers of the Celtics used the word "ubuntu" as a mantra and rallying cry for his team this season. As they headed into games, the players would hop up and down and then shout out "Ubuntu!" The word originally came from southern Africa where it means something like unity, consensus or common effort. Doc Rivers expanded it to mean something like "teamwork." Hey, it worked for them as they won the title on Tuesday night.

But what does it have to do with Linux, the open-source computer operating system? One of the most popular and consumer-friendly Linux distributions is named Ubuntu. Maybe Doc Rivers is secretly a Ubuntu Linux computer user.

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Hawaii Five-O Season 4 DVD set

For Hawaii Five-O fans, CBS and Paramount released the Season 4 DVD set on Tuesday, June 10. I bought the set at the local Best Buy on the date of release. I still haven't finished watching the Season 1 DVD set, which was released on March 6, 2007. I have the Season 2 and Season 3 sets also, but I haven't seen any complete episodes from either of those sets yet. However, they have come in handy when I check quote submissions for the Hawaii Five-O guide.

I'm still wondering whether the Hawaii Five-O guide will be transformed once CBS completes its takeover of CNET (the parent company of TV.com). Episodes of Hawaii Five-O are available as free video streams on the CBS.com website. Would CBS make those same episodes available on the guide here at TV.com? It would make sense. CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves has said that he wants to use the CNET properties to get a bigger online audience for the many CBS television shows. There would be no difference between showing the episodes on CBS.com and showing them on TV.com. Both will be CBS properties (probably before the end of the year).

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Now that Battlestar Galactica has ended its spring run, I should have more free time. I won't have to worry about updating episode guides every week and I'll probably receive fewer submissions from other contributors. I'm going to take a break for a week or two and then pick up my BSG online novel again. I'll fix some of the older episodes on the guide too, but at a relaxed pace.

I'll try to watch some episodes of Hawaii Five-O on DVD this summer. Other than that, I'll continue to watch baseball games, various Discovery Channel/National Geographic Channel shows, and the occasional movie on the Encore channels.

I'm still keeping busy at work and my shoulders are finally getting adjusted to the swimming schedule. On Sunday, I swam for nearly two hours straight. I did the same thing the previous weekend. I've found that the workout goes much better if I do a couple laps first just kicking and keeping my arms still. That gives me a chance to warm up and get my shoulders loosened up gradually. Despite the long workout on Sunday, I didn't feel any muscle soreness this week.

Swimming tends to work your lats (middle back muscles) but not your pectorals (chest muscles) as much. Therefore, I did push-ups after swimming all of those laps, just to get some muscle balance. If you swim long enough, your muscles get quite a workout. It's almost like lifting weights. Of course, the main benefit is the aerobic aspect, which strengthens your heart.

So what am I going to be writing about in future blog entries? I have the music blog that I've postponed since September 2007. I have at least three Washington tourist blogs, complete with original photos and even video clips, all of which I shot with my new digital camera. I'll probably get into more exercise and diet topics again because I've read that the life expectancy in some parts of the U.S. has plateaued and is actually decreasing because of poor diet and sedentary lifesty1e. I'll try to do my small part to help motivate people to get off their rears and out there doing some sort of exercise this summer.

Tim Russert: journalist, father, husband, son, Buffalo Bills fan

One final item: Tim Russert, the famous and influential television journalist, passed away last week. He was a Washington institution as the long-time host of NBC's Meet the Press. He was also the Washington bureau chief for NBC News. He was a liberal Democrat but unlike many elements of the Democratic party, he had a strong personal focus on religion and on family.

I read through his book Big Russ & Me at a bookstore once. It was a pretty quick read but a nice one. He described his close relationship with his father during his childhood in Buffalo, New York.

Though some aspects of my life are different from his, there are others that are eerily similar. I also grew up in Western New York state and went to Catholic schools. I ended up in the Washington, D.C., area although I came down here earlier in my life than he did.

What's especially funny were his sports team allegiances. Despite being named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, Tim Russert never abandoned his love for his old team, the Buffalo Bills. He would usually end the shows on Meet the Press with some sort of statement in support of the Buffalo Bills (and sometimes the Buffalo Sabres). He would hold up mini Buffalo Bills helmets in some episodes.

I too am a Buffalo Bills fan. (I'm also the editor of the TV.com guide for the famous former Bills coach Marv Levy.) Tim Russert was a childhood New York Yankees fan. So was I. I grew tired of the Yankees when they started winning all of those World Series titles in the 1990s so I was sort of a reverse bandwagon fan. I "left" the team when they started winning. When rumors began in the early 2000s that the Montreal Expos might move to Washington, I began following them in the papers. The rumors turned out to be true and the Expos became the Washington Nationals in 2005. But I can truthfully say that I've been a Nationals fan since 2002 or 2003.

Likewise, Tim Russert abandoned his childhood support of the Yankees and became a Washington Nationals fan. I've been wondering about this for the past few days. How many other people are there who root for both the Buffalo Bills AND the Washington Nationals? I can't imagine there are too many of us out there.

While I can't say I always agreed with what I thought Tim Russert's political tendencies were, I can say that I always thought he was a decent person. That's especially rare in the circles he operated in. There are many people in this area who have all of these noble ideas and great causes and yet engage in some questionable activities and hold troubling attitudes on a personal level. I don't get into politics too much on my blog but I do have to point out Bill Clinton as an example of this. I also have other individuals in mind that I know of personally, people who think they have such worthy "causes" and yet they can perform some outrageous acts when they think they won't get caught. I won't go into it any more than that because I know some people around here read my blog.

Anyway, farewell Tim (as my mother calls him, even though she never met him), fellow Buffalo Bills fan and Washington Nationals fan, and decent Washingtonian. You passed away far too early in life.

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I said I would post the continuation of the TV.com timeline in a day or two. Let's see -- it's now 11 days later so I guess I didn't stick to the schedule. It continues to be a busy month for me. I don't get back from work until late in the evening. In addition, the Metro (the Washington, D.C., subway system) has been experiencing quite a few problems lately. A train derailed on Monday although no one was injured. The front wheels of a middle car slipped off the tracks. The train operator didn't even notice. The passengers heard screeching metal and detected an acrid burning odor but that was it. Another train broke down on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday the track shifted, probably because of the extremely hot weather we had between Friday and Monday.

The Battlestar Galactica guide continues to hit the number one spot on the TV.com Top Ten list on most weekends this spring. The forum has been very lively since the first episode of the season in early April. I've been receiving a good amount of submissions for the guide too.

Recent episodes of Battlestar Galactica have been outstanding for the most part. Episodes like "Faith," "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?," "The Ties That Bind," "He That Believeth in Me," and last week's episode "The Hub" rank up there with the best episodes of earlier seasons. That's a great sign considering that those previous seasons earned the show a Peabody Award, an Emmy Award, Emmy nominations for best writing and best directing for a drama series, a spot on the American Film Institute's annual list of the 10 best television shows, and Time Magazine's famous declaration that BSG was the best show on television in 2005.

Friday night's episode, "Revelations," promises to provide major surprises since it will be the mid-season finale. I've been avoiding spoilers so I don't know what's going to happen. I've even been avoiding the promos that air on the Sci Fi Channel because some of those gave away key plot points for previous episodes. (I found out that last week's promo contained a "fake" spoiler though.) "Revelations" is likely to be the final new episode of BSG to air in 2008 so tune in.

That said, "Revelations" won't be the only BSG-related material to be released this year. The SciFi.com website will host a new set of webisodes later in the year. Then the Sci Fi Channel will air the television movie Caprica, a prequel to the BSG series. If the movie does well in terms of viewership, it could lead to the creation of a weekly series.

The Chicago Tribune and other sources have reported that as many as three BSG television movies could be produced this summer. Nothing has been set yet, but I think it could happen. The Battlestar Galactica: Razor TV movie and DVD was successful, both creatively and financially. If these new movies are made, they would be set during the timeline of previous seasons.

I'm also going to resume work on my original online BSG novel this summer. I started writing it in the spring of 2007, after Season 3 of BSG had wrapped up. I managed to post the first 16 chapters. I've written about half of Chapter 17 but I haven't worked on it in a few months. It's been difficult to find the time this spring, between work and the requirements and time demands of the BSG guide. Once the first half of the season finishes this Friday, I should have a little more time and energy to devote to the novel. I'd really like to complete it by the end of the year.

Battlestar Galactica is the only television show that I've been watching on a regular basis this year. Other than that, I watch baseball games, a few Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel documentaries, and some older movies on the Encore movie channels that I get with my digital cable subscription. I think I've seen Independence Day ten times this year. Well, I don't always watch the entire movie but I usually watch at least 45-60 minutes each time. I've also seen Aliens about five times this year on TV.

I started swimming again in recent weeks. I'm trying to balance the exercise schedule so I don't wear out my shoulders. I experienced some muscle fatigue in my shoulders a couple weeks ago but it's better now.

Once I have more free time, I'll post some "tourist" blog entries again. At least three new museums have opened up in Washington in the last 12 months.

And there you have it, my 2nd blog post this month. Don't forget to watch Battlestar Galactica this Friday, or later on if you record it on your DVR or VCR.

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