Where have all of the good TV shows gone? I know that things typically slow down during the summer with the nice weather outside, but having been on crutches recently there isn’t much I can do. Though I must note that my ankle is getting better by the day. I am back on my own feet, though things are still a bit tender, so no activities yet. Back to TV though, we’ve been forced to watch crappy shows like Farmer Wants a Wife and re-runs of shows from our DVR backlog. I’m not sure how much longer I can take it before I swear off TV completely.

The real season of American Idol has finally started. It’s nice to have some television to watch again. Since we’ve been so busy recently, we’ve only been watching about an hour a night. So we haven’t seen all of the girls performances from last night yet, but will hopefully get to them tonight. Maybe we’ll even be able to squeeze in the results show too. Though the judges are calling this the most talented group they’ve ever had, I’m not really hearing it. Sure there are some good ones, but I feel like the majority of the performances I’ve seen and heard have been pretty average. Maybe it’s just first week jitters and the competition will heat up from here. That’s what I’m hoping.

It seems like the TV schedule is finally picking up again, at least a little bit. I guess this writers’ strike is affecting more than I ever would have thought. One thing that it can’t control is American Idol, which is currently showing the tryouts which will kick off another season of the show. These are the episodes full of terrible singers and weird people. It’s entertaining but I can’t wait for the real show to start.

Another show that is back on is Chuck. After the first season of the show was over, I wasn’t sure if it would last only that season and then be canceled. Fortunately, those thoughts were way off. I’m not sure why the writers’ strike isn’t taking its toll on this show, but I’m glad to see it back on the air!

Are there any others worth mentioning?

I’m so glad that the Amazing Race is back on TV! It is always one of my favorite shows to watch. The first episode of the twelfth season aired on Sunday. If you’ve never seen the show before, now would be a good time to set your DVR to record the show. If you’ve seen the show before, I’m sure you are watching it again. The first team to get kicked off didn’t really interest me, so no loss there. It’s still too early to pick any favorites, but I’m always a sucker for a hippie team. I can’t wait to see what happens this week on the second episode.

Is anyone else excited for the upcoming TV season? Survivor China started last night and I already watched it. I love Survivor and I think this season will be full of good entertainment. Plus it is cool to see the show take place in a setting that’s much different than normal. I wonder if there are any panda bears on the islands? That would add an interesting twist.

Anyway, are there any other shows that I should record this fall?

With the Tour de France over, and the lack of other good TV shows on, I’ve been watching a bunch of “Shark Week” on Discovery this week. With an upcoming trip to Hawaii in September, it’s probably not the best idea though, especially since Kim wants to try surfing while we are there. Watching shark attacks on TV makes me want to avoid the ocean completely, not to mention never think about surfing again. Just the other night I had a dream that not only did a plane I was on crash into the ocean, we were then attacked by sharks while waiting to be rescued. That’s probably the final sign that I should find something else to watch.

Lately I’ve been addicted to watching the Tour de France, well until I went back to Cincinnati for a few days. Here in Denver I have Comcast cable service which carries the channel Versus (formerly OLN). Versus has been broadcasting every stage for the past week or two. But back in Ohio, in the land of Time Warner, they don’t have Versus. I was without the tour for five days or more. I was able to record each day on the DVR, but that leaves with with well over 20 hours of coverage to catch up on. I’m still hoping that I can catch up before it’s all over on Sunday.

Sorry for the late in the day post. I wanted to get this up earlier, but my installation of gallery was not cooperating. It appears that a recent update that I installed a day or two ago may have broken a couple of things. So instead I had to add some pictures to my flickr page. I guess this is also a good time to announce that my mom has officially moved her pictures to flickr since yahoo photos is apparently shutting their doors.

Anyway, a local Denver 7-11 store has been converted over to a Kwik-E-Mart to promote the upcoming release of the Simpsons Movie. And given that 7-11 is giving away free squishees today for their 80th birthday I just had to stop in and check it out. I got my free sour apple squishee, took a few pictures, and even bought a six pack of Buzz Cola and a box of KrustyO’s. Click here to see a list of Kwik-E-Marts and see if one is in your area. If not, you can still get a free squishee today from any 7-11 store. If they only had Duff Beer my day would be complete.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a baseball game at Coors Field between the Cincinnati Reds and the Colorado Rockies. Naturally I wore a red Cincinnati shirt (it was actually a Bearcats shirt and not a Reds shirt) to the game and was rooting for the Reds, as were many of the others in our group. This must have helped us stand out in the crowd and towards the end of the game my scruffy face was actually on TV. Multiple people that I know saw my appearance, and my brother even taped it on their DVR. I was hoping to get the recording off of the DVR somehow, but the best that could be done was a video from my mom’s digital camera. And now after a little editing, everyone can relive the moment…

For those of you yet to experience the wonders of a DVR (are you living in a cave?) I am selling our old ReplayTV box on eBay. The beauty of this system is that it can be used with just about any cable, satellite, or standard TV setup, as long as you activate and pay the monthly $12.95 fee for the programming guide. We loved this system, but currently Comcast offers a built in DVR for cheaper than $12.95, so we switched over to that.

We used our DVR to tape American Idol last night and zoom through the 2 hour show in less than an hour and a half, just by skipping the commercials. I’m still a fan of Chris Sligh even though I had no idea what song he was singing. I also think that Blake Lewis is going to do really well in the competition as well. I though the show was a little below average when compared to past seasons, but it was just the first real episode. The girls will be singing tonight. Be sure to check out the early predictions on DialIdol.com, if you want to ruin the surprise all season.