Ah, yes -- the fall TV season has begun, and now my VCR is in overdrive.

I just finished watching the premieres of Desperate Housewives and The West Wing. The Gilmore Girls premiere was two weeks ago, and only Law & Order: Criminal Intent is the only premiere of that family I have yet to catch. (I'll watch it on USA.)

So let me get all meta and bore you with my opinions of these premieres.

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There's an attribution for this joke, but I'll find it later.

Q: What's Bush's stance on Roe vs. Wade?
A: He doesn't really care how people get out of New Orleans.

Between the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, a drawn-out war in Iraq, and now, two benches on the Supreme Court open, I look at the calendar and say, "It's only 2005." Three more years left in this administration. Will any of us make it out alive?

I usually don't get too meta when public figures die, but I have to say, I am pretty bummed about the passing of Peter Jennings. I'm no fan of broadcast news -- oh, hell, I'm a print snob, truth be known -- but Jennings had the coolest head. He had that kind of graceful delivery that's far above the screedy anchors on the cable networks, and that kind of class is all too rare in broadcast journalism.

Ibrahim Ferrer also passed away this weekend. I don't listen to Cuban son, and I'm ambivalent about the Buena Vista Social Club's recordings. But the story of Ferrer and his cohorts achieving success at a point of in their lives when their dreams seemed so distant is inspiring. It's sad he's gone, but it's nice he got to play at Carnegie Hall.

Alton Brown did a sushi show!

I was thisclose to sending an e-mail through his website, asking if/when he'd do a sushi show. Not only was I curious about how he would approach sushi, I wanted to see what kind of silly antics he would along the way.

In terms of entertainment, this show didn't crack me up the way new episodes this summer have. I loved the whole Silence of the Lambs spoof with Koko Karl in last week's health food episode, and having W dress up as genie for the jerky episode cracked me up.

The sushi show was, however, packed with information, some of it I knew, some of it I didn't, so in this case, the educational bits squeezed out the comedy bits. The sushi chef they used between sequences, though, was pretty hot. Will he be the new mad French chef? Oh, I hope so.

Two things made me pause, though. In one of the earliest episodes dealing with rice, he goes through this whole routine with W about rice cookers, only to toss it out of the window in this episode. A unitasker? Didn't that earlier episode state rice cookers could be used for other things?

Then he put wasabi in his maki and nigiri. That shit is strong, and little goes a long, long way. Putting it in a roll sits as well with me as putting in mayonaise. (Bleah.)

Still, this episode will go on my must-watch list -- if forced to chose between an episode of Law & Order or The West Wing against the sushi episode, I'd go for the sushi episode. (Unless, of course, it's "Two Cathedrals" were talking about.)

Food Network aired his wonton episode afterward, and it's another on the list mainly for the fact that, um, it's the closest thing AB gets to being barechested.

The drive on my multi-region DVD player is starting to skip and stutter. Amazon just paid me this quarter's associate fees. Do the math.

Sure, I could have been geek enough to replace the drive on my player with a DVD-ROM, and there are resources out there to help me with such a task. But do I really want to spend a weekend messing around with the innards of the only DVD player I own?

I think I'm more concerned with the time expended than with the risk to the player itself. So I ordered the same player Jette bought. I chose the path of least resistence.

I placed the order yesterday because my player couldn't even get through a 42-minute episode of The West Wing without burping. I also threw in Sunday in the Park with George on DVD and Meryle Secret's biography Steven Sondheim: A Life in with the order.

I let Jette borrow my UA DVD to see if her player can play a Region 2 disc, which it did, so that bodes well.

Most recent impulse purchases: Kiki's Delivery Service and Princess Mononoke. OK. I am turning into a Miyazaki nut. I will be very happy when Fox releases its stranglehold on My Neighbor Totoro.

I spent about $500 on my multi-region DVD player in 2001. The multi-region player I just bought cost $70 in 2005.

I was rather sad when I discovered Americakokki.com is no longer running. America Kokki was the home of Home English Home, the only piece of Flash animation to make me lose it. I thought surely this Interweb masterpiece is archived somewhere? The Internet Archive Wayback Machine wasn't much help, and most of the search results on Google pointed to the original page.

I did, however, find one site that saved both lessons on its own server. For the sake of posterity, I will redouble their efforts by archiving these files on my site as well. Learn English now!

Lesson 1
Lesson 2

Well. After spending the last two months watching a whole bunch of movies, I figure I may as well write about them.

Just what I need -- yet another web site to neglect. But hey, at least it's another portfolio entry.

As part of the summer movie series, I'm keeping a log of what I've already watched. I may want to review them at a later time. I doubt I'd find that time, though.

I took a quick gander at some Netflix rates, but for now, I think 2-for-1 Wednesdays at both Vulcan Video and Waterloo Video will suffice.

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In reference to this journal entry, I'm making a list of movies I aim to watch this summer. I'm still welcoming suggestions, but I also want to make note of titles I encounter on my own.

• American Splendor. Probably because I just watched Ghost World. When is Adrian Tomine's Optic Nerve going to be turned into a movie?
  
  
• Adaptation. I liked Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind enough to get in on DVD, and while I wasn't blown away by Being John Malkovich when I saw it in the theater, it's clear that Charlie Kaufman has some serious screenwriting game. Thing is, I'm no fan of Nic Cage.
  
  
• The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks. I still think Wayne Coyne has a lot to learn from Shiina Ringo.
  
  
• Ghost World. A friend of mine e-mailed in this suggestion, as well as Adaptation and Kinsey, and I'll admit, I did actually want to see Ghost World when it first came out in the theaters.
  
  
• Jersey Girl. Just to be a Kevin Smith completist.
  
  
• Kill Bill, Vol. 2. I saw Vol. 1 during JournalCon 2003, but I never got around to seeing Vol. 2
  
  
• Kinsey. It's been in the back of my mind to see this as well.
  
  
• Memento. If it was enough to inspire OmarG to write an entry backward ...
  
  
• Nausicaä: of the Valley of the Wind. I think I only want to see this because I saw Howl's Moving Castle. I think I may be turning into a Miyazaki nut.
  
  
• The Phantom of the Opera. I'm glad my Andrew Lloyd Webber phase ended in high school. I'm more curious to see how this movie stacks up against Chicago. Probably no contest. Evita was way too long, and changing the score to fit for Madonna's range didn't work for me. I hope Sam Mendes' adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd turns out well.
  
  
• A Room With a View. Since I'm on such a Merchant Ivory, costume-drama trip.
  
  
• Say Anything. Just to see what all the Lloyd Dobler swoon is all about.
  
  
• Sense and Sensibility. See Angels of America list item regarding Emma Thompson. And I want to see how diverse Ang Lee can get.
  
  
• The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie. I mean, he's tolerant after all.