Live chat?

Is anyone interested in a live chat area of the site? It's an idea I've been toying with for awhile, and now that we have our own server we can install anything we want on it. It would be cool to be able to chat with some of the users of the site when time permits it, but are the users interested in this?

Would you want to chat on the site? Not only with me (I say "me" because Dave has a lot more going on in his life and may not have time to chat online - I'm sure he'll chime in though), but with other members as well? I'd like to see the site grow more into a community where we can discuss various things, and this seems like it could be a fun step.

What's the future of home video look like?

"You know, by the time (insert studio name here) gets to the (insert number higher than 10)^th season of (insert TV show title here), DVD will be long dead."

For long-running TV shows that aren't getting out as quickly as fans would like (The Simpsons, ER, Dallas, Married...with Children, Happy Days, Murder She Wrote, etc.), we keep hearing the above or something very similar to it. Frankly, I'm not so sure the studios are worried about that.

Something "better than DVD" will come along, and that's a fact. We're already close to a launch of SOME hi-def disc format. Either Blu-ray or HD-DVD (or both) will hit the market next year, and it's a cinch that there will be studio support for one or both of these formats. Blu-ray seems to have the advantage, but frankly it's anyone's guess which of these (if either) will be successful.

But don't you think that a studio will get to the point of releasing one of those formats (let's say it's Blu-ray, just to pick one for this example) and start releasing new films and TV-DVDs in both "old" DVD and "new" Blu-ray? And then, as seasons 8 and 9 (for example) of a show come out in both formats, the studio will probably make an effort to back-fill releases of the previous seasons in the new (Blu-ray, in our example) format? Then, by the time the studio finishes releasing all season sets of a show to bring it "current" (or to its end, if it's a show that's not still airing), then those final releases may be Blu-ray only.

I don't think the studios are having any heartburn over the idea of not finishing off a series before the DVD format is made obsolete. I think they will happily offer the double-dip of selling you the old seasons of the show in the new disc format, whatever it turns out to be.

And who's to say that DVD will "die out" just as soon as the new formats make the scene? VHS is still around a little bit, after all (hard to find, but studios are still making VHS releases of new films like Zathura and The Legend of Zorro). Don't be in a rush to write DVD's obituary just yet!

In fact, my opinion is that neither Blu-ray nor HD-DVD will win a giant amount of support. I think the studios have bickered so much and jockeyed for position and made such a mess of this that one format (again, I think it will be Blu-ray) will "win" the battle, but never be more than a niche product for high-end home video fans like LaserDisc was. By the time the mass market is ready to embrace another format, it will probably something that is a quantum leap better, like HVD (Holographic Video Disc) is set to be.

If you haven't heard of that, by the way, and want to see a pic of one, click here. As one of the companies involved in HVD likes to say, "Imagine holding 100 movies in the palm of your hand". Yep, it stores THAT much. In hi-def. It's VERY cool...and the potential blows away Blu-ray and HD-DVD. And it's getting ready to head to market soon. WikiPedia has a good summary of the format.


Besides, the studios are busy exploring the options of sending you episodes for a buck or two right to your cellphone or Video IPod or whatever. I dunno about this as the future of home video, though. Like "VOD" (video on demand), it basically comes down to you can only order what they offer, and if they stop offering it you can't get it "used". Unlike a disc, it can't be transferred to another device (so what happens if your device is lost or broken?). And, as Scott Hettrick of Video Business pointed out in a recent editorial, how many consumers will be convinced to pay for that when they can just TiVo their episodes and transfer them to a portable device later? Besides, I like to build my library of discs and be able to play whatever I feel like putting my hands on at any given time...and I know a lot of you feel the same way.

Or do I? How DO you all feel about the future of home video? Are you into Video IPod or cellphone-delivered episodes? Do you think Blu-ray will beat HD-DVD, or is HD-DVD superior and we just don't know it yet? Will you even bother to upgrade away from DVD? Does HVD intrigue you? Tell us what you think, we're interested! Why? Well, we can't call it "TVShowsOnDVD" forever, can we?

...Or can we?

Why We Don't Post News To Tell You Something Is NOT Coming

Jim Harvey, who is one of our friends over at ToonZone.net and the associated World's Finest site, had asked us to help him out a bit and see if we could find out the answer to a question he hadn't been having any luck with. He was wondering if we knew whether the upcoming X-Men 3 film would prompt Disney to release any box sets of the animated X-Men series from the 1992 Fox Kids Saturday Morning run. You know, like Disney did with The Fantastic Four.

We asked around with our contacts at Disney, and the answer seems to be "no". It's not on anyone's schedule, and there was no pussyfooting around with a cagey reply or anything like that. It's just not in the works, and we trust that answer. So, sorry Jim...and to fans of X-Men: there are no box sets presently planned to tie in with next May's film release. It seems like a bad idea on Disney's part, I might add, but there you go. There's still time for them to change their mind, of course.

In the meantime, one might ask, "so why don't you post this info as news at the TVShowsOnDVD News area?" We get asked that a lot: when we have info that something is NOT coming out, fans wonder why we don't share it and at least put them out of their misery. There's a lot of reasons, and I'm going to share a couple of them with you.

First of all, the simplest answer is that if we published news about what's NOT coming out, we could be at it 24/7. Every day there would be an update that Adam West's Batman is still not on the schedule due to legal issues, and Green Hornet is in the same boat. That WKRP, The Wonder Years and Ally McBeal face music-license-related cost issues that are huge obstacles to their release. That Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, Airwolf, Kojak, The Larry Sanders Show, Mad About You and the most recent releases of The Osbournes didn't sell well enough to convince the studios to prioritize more season sets over other properties which may sell better.

Second of all, the next reason we don't tell you that something isn't coming out is because the studio could always change their minds, as they did with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lost In Space. And then we would look pretty stupid for saying it wasn't coming, eh?

Just tonight I posted news that Police Squad! is probably going to be on DVD in 2006. A fellow at the Home Theater Forum told me (and others) that almost a month ago, and I arrogantly enough didn't take his word for it. Well, you can understand my caution...it's not the first time I heard that. But after a while, info from Paramount has bourne out his story (although no confirmation on his "June 2006" timeline just yet). So, a month ago I would have been posting info that Police Squad was NOT coming to DVD, and there I go and look all foolish for thinking that when it plainly wasn't true.

As I said, there are more reasons I could give you, but if those two don't convince you then I doubt the rest will. Sometimes Gord and I are accused of pandering to the studios and only passing on good news, not bad. While you all can ultimately decide that for yourselves, we don't think it's true because we say plenty of bad things about the studios, or at least hint around the edges at them (take my news posts today about Quack Pack and Goof Troop...do I sound like I'm a fan of these 3-episode "best of" releases?) if not say it outright (check out recent news posts for Masters of Horror and The Real Ghostbusters).

As far as it goes, this "it's not coming" stuff really doesn't qualify as "bad news" so much as it is "non-news". We get e-mail from readers sometimes urging us to post info from such-and-such star or producer who said at a website or in an interview that their show isn't coming because of some reason, but we don't post that sort of thing because, again, we could post that sort of thing all day long and then the situation could change when we least expect it. We make exceptions only when it is to correct a mistake we made ourselves (Birds of Prey is my best-remembered example) or to change a wrong perception so huge that we're just getting buried in e-mail asking for positive news that just isn't true (the Adam West Batman being a great recent example of that).

So please understand why we don't often post about that sort of "non-news". When we have something you need to know, rest assured we're all over it!

Blog broke the site?

Since moving to the new server on November 1st we've only been down 8 times... and 6 of those times have been since we installed the blog.

The blog was part of the website, and the files resided on the server. The files would be updated when we posted news to the site; Blogger would connect to the FTP server and add new files. Well, something HAS to be screwy, because the server shouldn't be dying that often. I've moved the hosting of the blog from out server to http://tv-shows-on-dvd.blogger.com; hopefully that'll fix the issue with the server.

That also means that the Atom feed has changed to http://tv-shows-on-dvd.blogspot.com/atom.xml so you should update your programs to use the new feed.

Cross your fingers!

Holiday News Postings

Gord made sure everyone knew that we would be posting news over this holiday weekend. As we have for the past few years. Heck, the last time we had a day without a news post was Oct. 11, 2003 (and we like to mention that frequently, too...it's a statistic we're proud of!).

But at the same time, Gord's spending time with his family and his girlfriend, and I'm spending time with my wife and son of course, and my wife's family (unlike the cliche, I adore my in-laws). So please forgive us if the news posting happens later in the day than you might wish.

We assure you that we have some very cool stuff to pass on, and today's Dungeons & Dragons news isn't the only surprise we have in store for you. Tommorrow look for cover art for a cop show's third season among other swell news and rumors, and Monday we'll revisit the cop show theme for some news that will really make some of you happy! And we'll have a Degrassi update for you on Monday as well. So stay tuned!...

Well, we know that this doesn't include all of us, but for all of you who celebrate it, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

What Do YOU Want With A Big Bow On It?

It seems like Gord and I both have gone blank today, without much to say here on the blog. So let's open up the floor to you guys. With the holiday gift-giving season coming up - no matter what you celebrate, there's probably a gift in it somewhere for you! - what TV-DVDs do you hope to find wrapped up in pretty paper?

I know that I'm hoping to find the Leave It To Beaver lunchbox set waiting for me, and I'd love for something Bizarre to make it's way down from Canada to me! ;)

As I'm sure you know, I could sit here all night and make out an extraordinarily long list of TV-DVDs I wouldn't mind having. Instead, let's open the floor to you...what one or two TV-DVDs do you want the most?

Damn, I want this show on DVD!

IGN Film Force has been posting exclusive material over the past few weeks, and today they posted a gem of a show from across the pond.

The show is QI (Quite Interesting), a bizarre game show where the right answer doesn't always matter. I watched the clip on Film Force and laughed my ass off, and now I'm wondering who I can talk into licensing the show for DVD. Seriously, go and watch the clip at Film Force, then comment below.

They also have a holiday song from Venture Bros. I've never seen the show before, but I know many of our readers like it, so I assume they'll like the tune as well. You can listen to it here.

...and whatever else

Here's the first of many "whatever else" posts to the blog. This has nothing to do with TV shows on DVD, except that I ate it while watching TV :D

A few years ago my brother came across a great recipe for cajun chicken. He lost the recipe, but my mom came across it a few weeks ago while cleaning, and I asked for a copy. It's a tad on the spicy side, but it's so darn good!

You'll need:
2 - Garlic Cloves, finely minced
1 Tbsp - Paprika
1 Tbsp - Pepper
1 tsp - Dry mustard
1 tsp - Leaf Thyme
1 tsp - Oregano
1 tsp - Chili Powder
1/2 tsp - Salt
1/4 tsp - Dried Red Chilies
4 - Chicken Breasts

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, then sprinkle the mixture over the chicken on a plate. Excess spices will fall onto the plate and can be used to cover the bottom of the meat. Grill the chicken so the spices form a crispy coating over the chicken. Mmmm....tasty! I'd suggest serving it with some nice herbed potatoes, or rice.

TV-DVD Discoveries

There are SO many shows that come on television these days, especially since the advent of Cable TV, and it's impossible to try them all when they first broadcast. I'm reminded of that today as this is the street date for the big-screen film Serenity, the theatrical follow-up to a show I only discovered after its release on DVD: Joss Whedon's Firefly. Great show, good stuff, and one of those "how could this get cancelled before I discovered it?" things. Of course, the answer to the last question is that there were too many David Lambert-types who didn't discover it in time, so the ratings weren't there and the network cancelled it. Of course, in Firefly's case, there were problems with the way Fox ran it which helped to not preserve the ratings they DID have...but that's a blog topic for a more broadcast-TV-oriented website. I'm just glad to have had the opportunity to enjoy Firefly on DVD, and I can't wait to find Serenity in my stocking (do you hear that, Santa?).

All of this reminds me of so many other excellent shows that I didn't discover until I took a chance on them with a blind DVD purchase, based on the oohs and ahs of TVShowsOnDVD readers and posts of the members of the Home Theater Forum. Smallville, Roswell, Once & Again, Dead Like Me, Coupling, Alias, LateLine and The Osbournes are just a few that I can think of off the top of my head that I can't believe I lived without until discovering them on DVD and becoming addicted to them. Only a couple of these have the benefit of still having new episodes made at present time. Most do not, but I enjoy being able to watch what WAS produced as often as I feel like.

Right now I am in the middle of Sports Night a show from the mid-90s that was a comedy (mostly) about the craziness surrounding the production of a cable sports channel show similar to ESPN's SportsCenter. There were two male leads as the on-air anchors of the show, there was the producer played by Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives, there was the assistant producer played by Sabrina Lloyd ("Wade" of Sliders), and sometimes you saw another Desperate Housewives character, Brenda Strong (who's DH character commited suicide in the pilot and narrates the show from her other-worldly viewpoint) as the rival of Huffman's character. The show was created by and written by Alan Sorkin and some of his team that went on to do The West Wing.

Sports Night is a genius of a show, and I can't believe I have just now discovered it, so damn long after its DVD release. My wife and I are enjoying every moment of it; the show rocks and I can't wait to see how certain plotlines fall out. We're addicted. It's great to be able to find great shows on DVD that you somehow missed seeing when they aired.

I can't wait until Paramount/Viacom releases Jake 2.0 on DVD, so many of you can discover what you missed.

In the meantime, I'm sure you each have shows that you discovered on DVD in a similar way. Why don't you share them with us? Oh, we know you'll all be tempted to name shows that you bought on DVD already having discovered during broadcast and you want us to discover them, too...don't name those, that's cheating! But take a minute and name a show or two that you discovered only by getting it's TV-DVD release, and in a few words tell us what is so great about the show. We'd like to hear what you come up with!

Different Approaches to "Best Of" DVDs

Most of TVShowsOnDVD's registered members vote in favor of Season Sets just about every time on our TV Show Voting. It's rare to find a show's "Best Of's" vs. "Season Sets" choices where the voting in favor of Season Sets is less than 95%. Gord and I favor season sets ourselves, and we're sure that's no surprise to anyone.

But there must be SOME people out there who like single-disc best-of TV-DVDs, right? They've gotta be out there, we figure, because retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, even Best Buy and Circuit City all stock these sort of things. The people who buy them are not the type of die-hard TV-on-DVD fan who hangs out at Internet sites like TVShowsOnDVD, or in hardcore discussion forums like the Home Theater Forum or DVDTalk. But you probably know someone like that...a sibling, a parent or grandparent, one of your in-laws, a friend, neighbor, or co-worker. They're out there.

"That's okay," say the die-hard TV-on-DVD fans. "They can have their under-$10 best-of discs as long as I also get my seasons sets." And studios have heard you all loud-and-clear, because season sets are by far the most-released type of package in the TV-DVD genre. One glance at that section in any retailer will show that this is true. But the best-of's are easy to find, too, and many of them are for shows that also have season sets: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files progressed from season sets to best-of's, Star Trek: The Next Generation and the later Trek shows are in the process of doing this, Futurama and Family Guy are dabbling in it, and The Simpsons and Spongebob Squarepants have been going both ways for quite some time. Justice League, Teen Titans and Batman Beyond are all making the switch from best-of's to season sets.

By-and-large, we're past the "dark early days" of the TV-on-DVD format when you could ONLY get single-disc releases of shows like the original Star Trek, Twilight Zone, South Park, Friends, Married...with Children and I Love Lucy. All of these have "graduated" to season sets, and most of these are done or almost done on DVD, with entire runs of these shows available for the most part (M...wC's theme song licensing issues and the related slow-downs seem to make it the most obvious hold-out).

So TVShowsOnDVD readers are confused these days when it seems we are actually advocating "best-of" releases for shows that aren't available on seasons sets, like Family Matters, Alice, Perfect Strangers, and others. Not to mention the weirdness of Night Court going from "Season 1" back to a "best-of". Our stance in the news postings and in our posts in the discussion forum chats has been, "fans better get these best-of DVDs or the studio - Warner - won't release seasons sets".

Then we threw readers for a loop today with news about The Real Ghostbusters coming to DVD from Sony in best-ofs...and we seemed to condemn this approach. You are all left wondering, "What's the difference?"

Let me give a simple explanation as to why Gord and I look at these differently. Warner is well-known for their season sets in their mainstream TV-on-DVD department, and have only recently learned that the "kiddie" titles (which incidently appeal to a large number of adults) like Superfriends, Justice League, Teen Titans, Batman Beyond should come in season sets as well. The kiddie titles are in a different department, Warner Animation (instead of Warner Home Video), and so the people there had a different learning curve about season sets. Warner Home Video has been a steadfast supporter of season sets for years...but seem to be regressing to best-of's with these "Warner TV Favorites" series. Why?

Several reasons: for whatever reason, these shows are the properties that Warner is less convinced on that they will be successful with season sets. Despite votes at TVShowsOnDVD, despite other input, Warner's just not convinced...and they have a lot more historical criteria by now to use to judge with than they did in "the dark early days". This is a studio and a department that has PROVEN their dedication to season sets...so Gord and I tend to be trusting of them when they say "we need a popularity test" with these shows. We have little doubt on our end that these will all pass the test...but you never know. I never would have thought that Night Court would sell low enough to not get a season set renewal, either (yet there's lots of evidence that it got lost in the crowd on a busy release day...but that's another blog). In the meantime, Warner fills a niche with some best-of's, because the retail stores really DO sell plenty of this type of release: cheap, and easy to stock near the check-out stand. They make the chains happy, and they get their "test".

So we trust Warner a bit in this regard. What about Real Ghostbusters...don't we trust Sony? Well...yeah, they've pretty much learned that season sets are the way to go, except that once again we are talking about their main TV-on-DVD department. The one that releases "adult" fare like Seinfeld, All In The Family, Good Times, The Nanny, etc. But Real Ghostbusters is not with those learned people, we're afraid. Sony's got this property over in the "kiddie" department...the same group of people that release DragonTales, Jay Jay the Jetplane and Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. Yeah, those are some shows that have never seen season sets, and they don't realize that Real Ghostbusters isn't like those shows. Gord talked to the folks at Sony about these best-of releases planned (and announced today) for a February 28th release...tried to talk them into doing season sets instead. Tried to impress on them how the people who will buy this show are adult collectors, the same people who buy He-Man and Transformers.

The response? "Uh, you DO realize this is an ANIMATED show, right?"

There, that just about says it all. The people at Sony in charge of this title don't know what they have. They don't realize who their true audience of consumers are for The Real Ghostbusters. They forget (or never bothered to research it and find out) that the writers of this "kiddie cartoon" include Star Trek and sci-fi book writer David Gerrold, Babylon 5 writer/creator J. Michael Straczynski, Star Trek/Babylon 5 writer and Twilight Zone Companion author Marc Scott Zicree, and sci-fi book and sci-fi TV writer J. Michael Reaves.

So, no, we don't think that Sony truly is doing the right thing with the best-of release of The Real Ghostbusters. We don't WANT Warner to do the best-of's for the other shows, but we understand it nonetheless. As always, consumers will ultimately decide with their dollars what happens next.

Just don't expect the studios to necessarily understand what you mean with your purchase-indicated "votes". Don't want to buy a "best of" under any circumstances? Fine...but the studio is more likely to take that as a vote against the show, rather than against the best-of format.

RSS and the site

RSS has been a love/hate thing on TVShowsOnDVD.com; the users love it, and I hate it. "But Gord, why do you hate RSS?" Glad you asked, imaginary person.

The RSS feed on the site is created using a script that queries the database and requests the previous news items (I think it's 15). Then the script writes out an XML file for the feed. Sounds simple, right? Well, we used to generate the RSS feed every time we submitted news, but there were two problems. Problem 1: the script took too long to generate the XML because it was combined with a number of other scripts that work behind-the-scenes when we post news on the site. Problem 2: other DVD sites were using our news feed to alert them of announcements, then they were posting about it. The solution was to set up a scheduled task; it would run the script every 6 hours. That became a problem when the scheduled task died without any warning. I would get emails saying, "Hey, your feed hasn't been updated in ____ days!" I would swear and then fix the problem. Finally I had enough and removed the feed (back in Sept). Somehow, even after I deleted the scheduled task, the feed updated a few times.

I took a look at the problem today, and I think I think I fixed it. The feed should be updated every 6 hours, but 15 mins after the update I'm running another scheduled task that checks and makes sure the feed is valid. If it's not valid then I'll get an email, and I can fix it, hopefully before anyone complains (it's only 15 mins, so it should be fine).

The RSS feed page has returned to the site, and the feed is active (and update-to-date). We also have a feed for the blog (which Tessa asked about in the comments of a previous post).

Site News feed: http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsfeed.xml
Blog feed: http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/blog/atom.xml

Hopefully this works and I can say that RSS is a love/love thing :D

The Allan Handelman Show

I will be a guest on "The Allan Handelman Show" tonight, and I figured I'd give everyone a heads up (hey, this blog thing is handy!). I was a guest on Allan's weekday show a few weeks ago, and he liked me enough to have me back. Allan emailed me early in the day and said he'd really like to have me on the show for about 45 mins. I agreed (because I'm a media whore) and he set the time. The show was going along really well, so he asked me to stay on for 15 mins longer (an hour); I agreed. Then a short time later they came on during the break and asked me to stay on a bit longer, and then asked me to stay on a bit longer again! I ended up being on there for 2 hours, which is longer than any other show I've done.

Allan has a great show tonight; Steve Callaghan, one of the writers/producers on "Family Guy" will be on to promote his new book, "Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide : Seasons 1-3" and Johnny Brennan, a voice actor on "Family Guy," will also join Allan.

You can listen to the show online if you can't find the show locally. The show is on from 10pm - 1am EST, and I should be on around 11:15. Tune us in if you get the chance.

"...but I've invited Dave to be part of it as well."

If you're here because of Gord's "Come blog with us" post at TVShowsOnDVD, then welcome! As you saw, he invited me to be a part of this, and I never could turn down Gord for much of anything. So I set up a blog account, and here I am!

Speaking of that profile, I hunted all over my hard drive for a decent pic of me, so you all could know what I looked like. I couldn't find one, so I used the one you'll see if you check my profile. It's a pic from Thanksgiving dinner at my in-law's, so I'm caught in mid-chew as I - ahem - taste the yams. But all the other pics I found of me are either in a suit, or amongst other people, or too old (I'm thinner, less bald, and don't have the beard...in other words, not like I am today ).

For those of you curious about my background, I'm married for 9 years to Stephanie, we have a son a month away from turning 8 named Stephen (no, he wasn't intentionally named for his mother...we both blanked on that aspect of the name choice until a month after his birth!), and I turned 40 not too long ago. But I act less mature than my son, so don't worry that I'm too serious or anything. I live in Memphis, TN and my full-time job is as an Analyst/Programmer. I was born in NYC and grew up in Houston, TX. How did I get to Memphis? I was a retail store manager for over a decade and at one point the chain offered me lots of money to move me to a city that was a size I was more comfortable with and open up 3 new locations for them; of course I said "yes"! Good thing, too, or I never would have met Stephanie. :)

That's enough background; I'll see how often I have time to check in here and post my thoughts. Right now, though, I have some news to post. Oh, nothing as exciting as the ones I posted last night, but stuff worth knowing about. Oh, sorry for the lateness of the ones last night, but I wanted and needed to have some time with my family, especially since I'm still going to take time out next weekend from the holiday to find and post some news for ya!

Talking to celebs

Recently it seems as though I've been talking to a lot more celebs, and I have to say it's a bit strange. Yes, I realize they're just people, but it's a bit odd to be watching TV and get an email from the person you're watching on TV, or being a fan of an actor for years, then having a conversation with him.

The most recent "talking to celebs" incident features Kenny Hotz from "Kenny vs Spenny." I started talking to Kenny when I interviewed him back in July. He emailed me about a month ago and asked me to link to his website from the interview, and we've been chatting ever since. Kenny is also the creator/executive producer of the show, so it's nice to have access to someone like that for any questions I may have. I'm reviewing the set right now and I was able to send off a quick email to ask Kenny how the show was shot. A few minutes later I picked up the phone and called him (emails suck for any kind of discussion). What's Kenny like? Really cool guy; I'd hang out with him if I had the chance. We talked about the show, and how we wished the Canadian entertainment industry was more like the States. He also told me about his second movie, "The Papal Chase"; it sounds like something I'll have to check out. Want to know more about Kenny? Check out his website, and then check out the pilot of "Kenny vs. Spenny" on iFilm.

The blog thing again

I say "again" because this is my second attempt at a blog. Hopefully this time it'll last a bit longer than my previous attempt. I'm sure I would have kept posting at the old blog if people actually visited the thing. Oh well, sometimes the second attempt is better than the first (right?).

I'll post lots of off-topic material here; stuff that just doesn't fit on the site.

Gord