I liked the pilot of Community, liked the second episode a little more, and by the third the show had definitely hit a stride. If you enjoy comedy at all and you’re not watching, start! NBC may or may not renew Community, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Speaking of renewals, Dollhouse definitely isn’t getting one, since apparently people have better things to do on Friday nights than watch crazy, awesome Joss Whedon magic. It should be noted that I’m not meandering off into a tirade about the fact that people are not entertained by Dollhouse, but will watch a hundred thousand CSI spinoffs and hospital dramas.

To be honest, I’m fine with Dollhouse being canceled so long as the writers can plan accordingly. Season 1 left plenty of room to grow but ended well, especially when you consider the completely badass Epitaph 1 episode included with the DVDs. Season 2 can wrap up even better, as long as Alan Tudyk returns in time for Tahmoh Penikett to beat his face in sufficiently.

How about movies – there’s some cool stuff coming out next weekend. Michael Caine – shoot, Sir Michael Caine – is in Harry Brown, and all kinds of people are in The Men Who Stare at Goats, a movie whose trailer greatly confused me when Coffing first sent me a link awhile back.

Is there anybody who doesn’t hate Ticketmaster? If you have some reason not to hate them, I’d love to hear it. I’m looking to get a few tickets for Saturday’s NCAA Round 1 Women’s games at Nationwide, and I noticed on the Arena’s website:

Tickets are also available at the FOX Sports Ohio Blue Line location at The Mall at Tuttle Crossing and ticket outlets within Chiller Dublin, Chiller Easton and Chiller North.

I thought this was odd, but I live so close to Tuttle it seemed worth a shot to avoid all the service charges. Of course, this was the one event they did not have tickets for… no big deal. Then the girl told me they “only” charge a $2 service fee for tickets purchased at the Blue Line store. Only $2! That’s great! Ticketmaster is in the business of selling tickets, which in almost all cases are only available through Ticketmaster, and even if you go buy them in person they tack on $2 per ticket in addition to whatever Ticketmaster charges are included in the price.

Checking online, the description of the tickets reads: ADULT SINGLE GAME WITH SERVICE CHARGE, which seems to pretty clearly indicate that all the fees are included in the price. Yet after you select seats, they add a $4 “convenience” fee. I guess it’s convenient having no choice but to purchase from Ticketmaster! I don’t know what Ticketmaster’s motto is, but it should be Ticketmaster: We totally blow.

On the commendation side of things, Netflix is awesome. After a two week trial that I used mostly to test the streaming service over the XBOX, I realized I’d never need to rent another movie if I got the $8.99 monthly subscription. We’ve made good use of the instant watching feature, which is great despite a catalog that is far smaller than the physical one. I’m only using the DVD queue to catch new releases or the occasional classic that I can’t watch from the 360, so 1 at a time is fine. And today, the really impressive thing hit my inbox:

PCU was not available from your local shipping center. Fortunately, it was available from a shipping center in another part of the country. It’s on its way and should arrive within 3 to 5 days.

You’ll notice we also recently sent the next available DVD from your Queue to enjoy while PCU makes its way to you.

The movie first on my list wasn’t available at the Columbus location, so when they shipped it from someplace else they emailed me an apology – and sent the next movie in the queue at the same time! Much as I’ve gotten used to credit cards and utilities going out of their way to squeeze maximum fees out of minimum service, Netflix continues to impress! If you haven’t tried them out, I strongly recommend the free trial, especially if you have a 360 and good internet service.

[Update: On top of the $4 added to each "With service charge" ticket, they add a $3 order processing fee? Keep on suckin', Ticketmaster.]

I have no idea how many cultural enrichment posts we’ve done, and honestly don’t want to look to find out, so we’ll leave it at just “Cultural Enrichment.”

I have never been big into the Academy Awards, and have remained apathetic this year.  I have only ever watched the award show once, and found that it was just as boring as I had expected it to be.  If I want to hear about the winners, I will look them up on the interwebs the next day.  This year there seemed to be more interest in the Academy Awards than I remember previously (interest that is not mine, but that of the people I’ve had discussions with about films).  I haven’t been able to figure out why this is the case, but my reigning theory is that the Heath Ledger saga has increased the “typical” movie-goer’s interest in the awards.

I am glad to see that the aforementioned Mr. Ledger did win the “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” Oscar.  It is completely unfathomable to me how someone could get that wrapped up in an acting role, and for this he most definitely deserved the award.  Past that, it would seem that “Slumdog Millionaire” won a bunch.  Feel free to correct me if you have the need, but I will most likely never watch that movie because it looks boring and bad – two things that I have found to impact films negatively, especially when combined into one movie.

For those of you who are interested, imdb.com has a very good and very complete list of award winners this year.  This is not only a list of the Academy Awards, but seemingly all of the award shows (the ones I’ve heard of at least).  You can find this comprehensive list here:  Road to the 2009 Oscars.

If you aren’t in the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog group on Facebook (woe unto ye), you might not have seen the teaser trailer! Get to it at doctorhorrible.net/doctor-horrible-teaser-video/80/. As anticipated, it looks like Joss Whedon continues to be awesome, Nathan Fillion continues to be one of history’s greatest Canadians (how do I say that and make it sound like the compliment it should be?), and Neil Patrick Harris continues to be all kinds of funny.

Have we mentioned the latest rendition of Mario Kart? It’s a reason to own a Wii, and a reason to buy a bunch of little plastic steering wheels like a goober. Far be it from me to complain about graphics, but the graphics turn downright N64-ish in four player split screen… you won’t much mind. You will mind the AI, which Nintendo has again programmed out of the purest hate, and which is another good reason to play games with humans.

And while I’m on the topic of games: Spore. Yes, that superhyped hype machine that Will Wright’s been working on is coming up fast, and the recently released Spore Creature Creator has done something I thought impossible: it made be care about Spore. If the whole huge game is as fun as the creature creator, aeons of the collective time of Earth’s nerd population will be lost to it. Try the Creature Creator free at the EA site I linked above – if you buy the full Creature Creator at Target it comes with a coupon for $5 off Spore itself, which is $5 you’re basically throwing away if you pay the same elsewhere.

It has been over a week since the last cultural enrichment, and my partner in crime – the post’s normal author – is at work. Due to the information held in this post, I think it is necessary to get this up before he returns from work. That’s right, I’m taking over this week’s cultural enrichment post. Bwahahaha! This week, I am concentrating on Joss Whedon, obviously. There are three important bits of information that you need to know.

Jumping right into some of the best news I’ve heard in months. IMDB had a link to a post on io9 that went a little something like this…

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog will be a series of three 10-minute webisodes about “a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to,” Joss revealed on Whedonesque, his fansite. Neil Patrick Harris will play Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion will play Captain Hammer, and Felicia Day will play Penny. Plus “a cast of dozens!”

Next, second on my list of awesome Joss Whedon news is something also found on io9, which is good news for all of the Firefly followers. My only complaint is that it seems like something that would make for a good movie as opposed to comic book issues. We can only hope that a movie is around the corner for this 3-part story.

Pick of the week for the majority of io9 readers would probably be the first issue of Serenity: Better Days, a new three-issue series set between Firefly and Serenity

Last but not least is Dollhouse. A new television show that is to be launched in May. It stars Eliza Dushku as an amnesiac agent named Echo. It will be nice to have a new Joss Whedon series on tv, since all you can see any more are reruns of past Joss Whedon adventures.

I know that Joss Whedon has had more of a cult following in the past, but at this point he is becoming more of a household name in small – and big – screen entertainment. I, for one, hope he continues to put entertaining content out on all four of his most frequently chosen mediums (movies, tv shows, comics and the internet).

As expected, Blu-ray prices have increased since the end of the format war with HD DVD.  Without opposition, Sony has succesfully driven high definition content out of reach for a lot of people.  Their players are, on average, 2-4 times more expesive than the HD DVD equivalent.  The cheapest HD DVD player you could purchase (before the format war was over) was around $100, and that was for a third generation player.  On the other hand, the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market was closer to $300.  Now, however, the same blu-ray player costs $400…that’s a $100 increase since the end of the format war, which was about a month ago.  At these prices, Sony is making it quite impossible to purchase a standalone player since the PS3 is also in that price range and features a built in Blu-ray disc player.  There have also been about 3 good game releases on the platform, so you could get in on that as well.

It boggles the mind why Blu-ray players are so expensive, when they are unable to connect to the internet at all.  That feature is on the horizon for the players, but all versions of the players so far will never be able to access online content for movies or receive firmware updates, which could possibly mean the inability to watch future Blu-ray movies.  One would assume Sony would distribute firmware updates through the mail on a Blu-ray disc to remedy this issue.  Even with this being the case, Blu-ray prices continue to rise.

It is also popular belief that the upconversion on the Blu-ray player does not match that of the HD DVD format.  This has also been tested by professionals and determined to be true.  This being the case, you can easily grab an HD DVD player for under $100 and enjoy a great upconverting DVD player for the same price (or even less in a lot of cases) as a good upconverting standard DVD player.  Hopefully Blu-ray improves this in the next generation of players, as I have an extensive standard DVD collection and would enjoy a good upconversion for all of them.

Considering all of this, now is the absolute worst time to purchase a Blu-ray standalone player.  The costs are soaring, and they will be obsolete by the time the next generation Blu-ray player is released.  If you really need a Blu-ray player, buy a PS3.  This way you spend about the same amount, plus one would imagine that you will be unaffected by the looming upgrades since the PS3 has online capabilities.  I make it a point, however, to never assume anything with regards to Sony.  I am continually let down by their utter lack of interest in what is best for the consumer.

As anticipated, I failed to follow through on my idea to write a post a week about a movie, game, or book that I wanted to share. So here is several weeks’ worth!

First, the trailer you’ve probably already heard about and seen, for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’ve loved the Indiana Jones movies since I was a kid, so I’m looking forward to this one. It was supposed to happen in the summer of 2005, then maybe in 2006 or 2007; hopefully the finished product will be better late than never! I think Steven Spielberg will keep George Lucas from bungling this up as he did the three most recent Star Wars movies.

Second, a new movie you may not have heard much about: Iron Man. I’m not big on comic books and have never been a fan of Iron Man in particular, but the trailers look extremely cool. Jon Favreau is directing, which is good because Jon Favreau is awesome.

Last but not least, I just finished Robert Ferrigno‘s recently released Sins of the Assassin. I really enjoyed Prayers for the Assassin, the first book in the trilogy, and the second does not disappoint. Ferrigno paints a convincing, frightening world and drags his characters through exciting twists and turns that are a lot of fun to read. If you like a good few hundred pages of fictitious action, it’s highly recommended.

Not too much to update everyone with today.  I’ll leave the politics to my partner, he knows much more about those sorts of things.  Our comic idea is coming along, even though there have been several unforseen issues with certain aspects of its creation.  We are hoping to have a finished product sooner or later.

Bad news today on the HD DVD front.  Toshiba has officially called it quits, making the evil Sony Blu-ray the only format available for high definition DVD media.  It is good for the consumer in the long run I suppose, but I just can’t ever picture myself purchasing a DVD player over $200.  Hopefully the prices will reduce soon – not that I have plans to buy a player – but it would be nice for everyone to be able to experience HD movies at a reasonable price.

College football teams are beginning spring practices , which is good news for fans.  Having been involved in these practices before, I can say that it is not good news for certain people involved with the team.  Spring practices make for some long days, but I suppose that is the nature of the sport – practice, film, team meal, meetings, practice and repeat.  The Buckeyes are ranked #3 in the most recent preseason poll at ESPN.com.  We’ll see how spring practice goes, but I am hopeful for what looks to be another successful season.

Enough rambling for now, I should get back to cartooning.

Last night I saw a movie trailer that made me wonder: who keeps giving the Wayans brothers money?

I particularly enjoy the tagline “From the guys who brought you White Chicks.” It’s as if Pepsi were pushing a new flavor and chose to advertise it as “From the folks who invented arsenic.”

For legal reasons I should mention that the image is copyright Sony Pictures. Thanks, Sony.