Now that the election is over my CNN watching has dramatically declined. I decided rather than using that extra time to read, clean the house, or do something to improve the world, I would watch more tv. I might feel bad about it but since this tv watching time is during Saffie’s nap time or late at night when I’m too exhausted to do anything productive . . . you see how I can justify this . . . moving on . . .
I decided to watch American Gothic. It’s a one season wonder of a TV show from Sam Raimi and Shaun Cassidy oddly enough. It aired sometime in the 90’s (I think) and was a bit of a cult hit. I heard “if you liked Twin Peaks or Carnivale . . . ” so I was sold. I bought the dvds years ago but got distracted after watching the first two. I did however discover while reading reviews of the DVD set that apparently the series was out of order on the dvd release. Huh? How could that happen? But it apparently did as reviewer after reviewer complained that a Gothic newbie would be completely confused watching the dvd set as is. So I printed out the list of episodes from one of the Gothic super fans and thought I’d try it their way.
Fast forward to yesterday when I decide to start watching it. I go downstairs and find the dvd set. I am happy that the episode list I printed out is still folded inside the case (I was actually swelling with pride I was organized enough to keep the two items together) I go to put disc 1 into the dvd player . . . and it’s not there. Or anywhere. Damn.
Oh, but this won’t stop me. I’m not even going to download it illegally – we have technology here to offset my dvd losing habits. I turn on a tv. I switch it to the apple tv. I go to this thing called boxee which then lets me access Hulu. I then watch the pilot of American Gothic on my tv via hulu via boxee via apple tv. The quality is atrocious. It errors halfway through when I push a button to try and get the gigantic bar on the bottom of the screen to disappear and I have to start over from the beginning (and I can’t fast forward).
Next step is to go on my computer. Add American Gothic to my “play now” queue on Netflix. Go back to the tv. Switch to the xbox360. Go to the new Netflix area and watch the second episode of American Gothic. Except for a brief freezing at the beginning of the episode when the xbox tells me my internet connection has slowed and it has to rejigger something it is a very pleasant experience. However. Episode 3 of American Gothic on the xbox netflix queue says “need disc for viewing” or something like that. Uh, hello netflix. If I had the fracking disc I wouldn’t be here would I!!!
Resigned to the fact that I may be switching from Xbox/netflix viewing to hulu/boxee/appletv viewing of American Gothic until I get to disc 2 of the series (which somehow isn’t until the 8th episode – when I rent The Wire episodes I of course only get 3 and then have to run in front of the mailman to make sure I catch him, to make sure I can get another Wire fix ASAP)
Then this morning Josh comes down the stairs with disc 1 of American Gothic. Wheww! Back to old school dvd watching (at least it’s old school in our house).