Props to JonCUO for the poem/rap that was the beginning of Tuesdays game thread.
Yay win.

Unhappily, spiders.com is actually in use. clevelandspiders.com, however, is available…

I didn’t have a problem with Joe GIrardi pulling CC after 93 pitches.  He was laboring over the last few innings and I’ve often felt his workload should be managed a bit better to keep him fresher in October, not that it matters this year.

This is something I feel Girardi has been missing. He strikes me as highly formulaic in his decisions, unless he’s hit over the head with disaster. It is actually nice to see him willing to pull his Ace on what is for that pitcher a low pitch count. But hey, if they guy is not right that day, get him out before disaster strikes, not after. He finally did it. Good for Joe.

Obviously there are times when you can’t do this, given the state of the bullpen on any given day. But I think if you act, you save today’s game. Tomorrow will have to look after itself.

13 games left against Toronto. That will decide whether or not these bums win the division…

13 games left against Toronto. That will decide whether or not these bums win the division… make the second wild card

Haven’t read the thread, but had dinner in a restaurant with the game on the tube.
Sat there watching Joey G.-ey pensively watching himself not take CC out. Yes, errors, but hit after hit, too.
Yes, it’s CC, but isn’t getting between 7 and 9 full innings from him in 3 out of every 4 outings good enough. Is it some goddamned rule that it has to be EVERY outing, no matter what happens?  Is he so good that he simply cannot be removed no matter how obvious it is that he really, really, really, really should be removed?
It was very frustrating to watch.

Thanks OTF.

Just watched “Made in America” the Sopranos finale for the first time.

To quote Michael Kay…“What an ending!”

All caught up now on The Wire, BB, Boardwalk Empire…any other suggestions?

Justified and Breaking Bad.  If you want something more Altmanesque with jazz and blues Treme.  I liked the Sopranos finale, many didn’t

I presume BB was a reference to “Breaking Bad.”

Okay, recommendations…

1. Mad Men is a must-watch
2. As bebop noted, Justified is a fun show
3. Deadwood is a great show that I think you’ll enjoy if you like the standard HBO drama
4. Homeland is excellent and only one season is out so you can be on board a new show
5. Terriers was a very good show canceled after just one season.

Those are my “confident most people will enjoy them” drama recommendations.

Other dramas I enjoy but am less confident in recommending:

1. Treme
2. Luck
3. Game of Thrones
4. The Unit (sounds moronic, which is why I skipped it when it was on the air but Shawn Ryan and David Mamet are behind it and it is surprisingly good)
5. Life on Mars
6. Luther
7. The Hour
8. Parenthood
9. Shameless
10. Oz
11. Veronica Mars
12. Damages
13. Boston Legal
14. Six Feet Under

Then there’s some older shows that you might like to give a shot again as a collected whole that I think hold up well:

1. Homicide: Life on the Street (remarkably good for the format it was in - I think when you weigh in the restrictions it was dealing with, it might even be more impressive than the Wire. I mean, can you imagine the Wire if they had to put out 22 episodes a year and were subjected to network standards and whims? No, right? Well, that’s Homicide)
2. The Practice
3. Hill Street Blues
4. Wiseguy
5. NYPD Blue
6. The West Wing
7. Picket Fences
8. Columbo (I can’t believe how well Columbo holds up)

Then there are the shows that hold up OKAY but definitely do have some sag to them:

1. Magnum P.I.
2. Quantum Leap
3. Miami Vice
4. Thirtysomething
5. St. Elsewhere
6. L.A. Law (only until Kelley leaves after Season..5? Whenever Jimmy Smits left the show. It took a nose dive after that)

Then there is The Good Wife. I don’t watch it, but my wife loves it and it seems to be pretty acclaimed. It has a great cast.

In the midst of Mad Men right now. It’s so brilliant. I love every episode. Very psychological and realistic. For people who dig cop shows, New York Undercover is a good one but I’m pretty sure unavailable on DVD. Captures it’s era (90’s New York) very vividly, though. That’s a great list, Brian.

Just finished watching Game of Thrones, it’s amazing.  My wife is not into the fantasy genre at all (she fell asleep when I tried to watch Lord of the Rings with her), but she loved it too.  One thing that helped tremendously was watching with subtitles on.  When we started watching it we accidentally had subtitles on, but it made it so much easier to keep track of all the characters.

Brian Terriers was terrific and why did no one pick it up?  Oh and Wiseguy the Kevin Spacey and Ray Sharkey arcs were the best thing on at the time.

IMHO, there’s only one show on TV, and it’s “Louie.”

Louie is pure genius, but I still swear the best thing currently on tv is Archer. (And if you like, check out Adam Reed’s previous show, Frisky Dingo.) I’d also throw in Sons of Anarchy to Brian’s list, for some pulpy fun. Arrested Development is certainly a must, and I’m a big Futurama fan as well. Sports Night was Sorkin’s best show. Rescue Me was solid for its first three seasons, but ends poorly. I’m just now starting on The Shield. Everyone swears it’s great, but I’m thus far unimpressed. Twin Peaks is essential, though the second season is Lynchtastically obtuse.

And for all the (justified) hype on The Wire, I still think Deadwood is the best damn thing ever aired on television (that doesn’t involve Jackie Gleason or Dean Martin).

Oh, yeah, comedy-wise, I’d go…

1. Arrested Development
2. Louie
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm

as the three ones I’d recommend to pretty much anyone.

I adore Archer, Frisky Dingo and Venture Brothers, but I think that they are not for everybody. Heck, the fact that they are all cartoons in of themselves is a problem for some people (here’s a hint of the absurd comedy of Frisky Dingo - there’s a recurring joke over pretty much the entire run that revolves entirely around Tom Sizemore’s character from the film True Romance. If you don’t know True Romance, the repeated reference is just utterly bizarre)

Comedy is tough. I’d recommend Parks and Recreations, The Office and 30 Rock, but you really have to pick and choose what you watch with the first two (start with season 2 of Parks and stop the Office a few seasons back) and 30 Rock is a bit of an acquired taste, as well.

As for older comedies that hold up, Seinfeld holds up well and the first five seasons of Cheers are still brilliant. The first five seasons are SO good that it makes the next six worth watching. And even there, you can split it up as the first three being good in a slightly broader way than the first five seasons and then the last three being even broader than Seasons #6-8. Season 8 ties into something I’ve always said about long form television (or really ANY long form narrative). You really should avoid “Big events” if you’re doing a longform narrative since when that event is over, what happens next? Cheers had a “Big Event” at the end of Season 8 (the conclusion of the Robin Colcord story) and they never really recovered from it.

Wonder Years remains charming and Murphy Brown holds up pretty well. Frasier does, as well. By the way, if you’re one of the many people who gave up on Frasier before the last season, the last season is really well worth watching. Laura Linney guest-stars for most of the season and she’s brilliant. The whole thing is handled quite well.

The ultimate in “holding up well,” though, is the Dick Van Dyke Show, which is still extremely entertaining.

NBC’s CLOO channel is airing a marathon on Fridays of old TV and I’m rewatching Taxi that way. Taxi was a good show that has not held up particularly well.

Casey McGehee is playing for the Yankees? I need to spend more time on the internet!

Youse guys are great. When the Yanks get bounced from the first round this year, at least we’ll have the fall lineup to talk about.

BC has the definitive lists (do you do this for a living??). Mad Men seems like the next logical step plus the wife loves Jon Hamm.

[8] Brian, I think you need to specify wheather you mean the 70’s tv show “Life on Mars” or the current BBC? version, or both. I just bought the old US one, so can’t say how the video quality? Transfer? is, but it was highly recomended to me.

I’d recommend Downton Abbey, too - at least the first season.  It’s a period drama, but Maggie Smith keeps everything together and it’s really a great season.  I thought season 2 suffered from the success of season 1 and the team just hadn’t thought through what the hell they were going to do next.

Mad Men is great. 

We pretty much limit our shows to Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, Sherlock, Walking Dead (although, again, season 2 fell flat, while I thought season 1 was very good).  I might be missing one or two, but it seems all of our shows are more or less staggered throughout the year - so there are never more than two on at once.

I’d recommend Downton Abbey

W.T.F.?

Interesting that the O’s promoted Machado. Sigh. Think we’ll ever see Sanchez/Williams/Austin get promoted to the Yankees in the next 730 days? I hope Cashman holds the line on the payroll for 2014. Even if the team self-imposes austerity, this team just needs to get younger. Jesus’ promotion last year was a highlight.

A win is a win, and the Yankees sodomized Analbeads Sanchez.

[14]Arrested Development starts filming again next week. Part of the show is on my college campus. I think I graduated too early. TV is generally great right now.

[8} Luther is great and so is Idris Elba.

I’d like to add in Life with Damian Lewis as a suggestion. The first 1.8 seasons are great, then it was canceled and they rushed to the end of the story in like 2 episodes.

[22] I’m just in the middle of Sopranos S6.

Damien Lewis was awesome in BoB. Not sure I could process him with his (native) English accent.

House, the first, oh say, four seasons before it jumped the Shark.

Boston Legal. The aforementioned BoB. Magnum PI. Jeeves and Wooster. Fawlty Towers. Taxi. Quincy MD - cheezy but interesting. For that matter, The Odd Couple. The new brittish Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch). The Jeremy Brett edition of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries.

I feel I should someday sit through every episode of The Honeymooners as well as Seinfeld, just to make sure I haven’t missed any of them.

The problem with many of the new series is they are on HBO, etc. which I don’t get. The rest of them, well, I really don’t make appointment TV any more - nothing grabs my interest.

The Office - hugely funny, but to closely and painfully so. It was like being at work. Almost like a documentary. I can’t bear sitting through a whole episode. Flashbacks from the work day.

I’d like to add in Life with Damian Lewis as a suggestion. The first 1.8 seasons are great, then it was canceled and they rushed to the end of the story in like 2 episodes.

Oh yeah, Life was good (just like how the Yankees used to be good). Damian Lewis is killing it on Homeland now.

I think you need to specify wheather you mean the 70’s tv show “Life on Mars”

Sorry, I meant the BBC one from six years ago.

I should have mentioned Downton Abbey. That’s another one I don’t watch, but my wife loves and it has a lot of critical acclaim. I tend to steer clear of the more melodramatic stuff, but I am sure I am letting my biases get in the way of my enjoyment of Downton Abbey.

Yeah, I think it is fair to note, Pin, that very few network shows would qualify as “appointment TV” nowadays. Between my wife and me, I think Parenthood would come the closest. The Good Wife is definitely still appointment TV for her, though.

Friday Night Lights is probably my second favorite drama ever (after The Wire). I *think* it’s all on Netflix.

Chicks love Downtown Abby.

Let me help you all out:

http://www.peerblock.com/
http://www.utorrent.com/
http://thepiratebay.se/

Now, I’m not going to say how these three sites go together, nor will I say how you should or should not use them.

Let me concur Louie by miles is the best comedy on tv.  Last season #2 was great and available on
DVD.  Good Wife still is appointment TV.

Okay, first I would like to say…you guys all watch WAY too much TV!  Get out of your basements and go outside and do something!  j/k (well, half joking).

My GF watches a lot of TV and is trying to brainwasheducate me on which shows are really worth watching.  Currently doing Eureka (on season 3), and Damages, with a little way-back to Firefly which I never got into for some reason, though I loved the movie.  This was after watching every episode of Mad Men in a 2-month period.

The Office - hugely funny, but to closely and painfully so. It was like being at work. Almost like a documentary. I can’t bear sitting through a whole episode. Flashbacks from the work day.

I had that same problem the first time I watched “Office Space” many years back.  Watched it again recently and was much funnier.

[25] Most network shows are also available for free online, either via Hulu or the network’s website, as well.

[30] Eureka is fun. I never know how to feel about Firefly, there’s a lot to like about it and the show is fun, but there’s something that never sits quite right with me. Nathan Fillion is awesome though, and on that note, Castle is a fun show.

[27]  Also people who like good TV watch it.  I have spent a few years in England, plus the GF is British, so there’s that.  There’s crossover appeal. 

Chicks love Army Wives, too.  And based on the few minutes I’ve inadvertently caught snippets of while the GF indulges in her sappier side, it’s possibly the worst television writing - ever.

Justified and Game of Thrones.

I am also addicted to Chopped on Food Network.

+1 on Castle—a guilty pleasure.

No love for Battlestar Galactica?

[34] I tried the first couple of episodes when it came out and didn’t get into it, but I’ve been told I should try again.  And I will.