GETTING CAUGHT UP ON AMERICAN TV

Now that I have a fast(er) Internet connection, I've been getting caught up watching some favorite television shows — and discovering some new ones.

In the weeks before moving to Thailand last April, I used iTunes to download a number of episodes of some of my favorite programs, including various Law And Order franchise shows (including the spinoff Conviction which I enjoyed greatly; too bad it was cancelled before it hit a second season) as well as about half of the second season of Desperate Housewives (I'm no longer as big a fan of the latter series).  Around this time, I downloaded a free "behind the scenes" preview of the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica and liked it so much that I purchased the first half-dozen episodes of the first season.  I didn't get around to watching these until a couple of weeks ago and quickly became I huge fan of the show; I simply can't get enough of it!

Fortunately last week I stumbled across a great website, iPodNova, which hosts free BitTorrent downloads of "iPod-optimized" television shows, music videos, and movies.  The quality is great, even when I burn the mp4 files to make a VCD and watch on our regular television (I got tired of laying in bed watching the programs on the laptop screen).

Because of the fast (and did I mention free?) downloads, I can get caught up on my favorite shows and discover others that friends have recommended or I've read good reviews of.  My favorite of these would be the NBC series Heroes.

With my wife currently up north visiting her family, all I've been doing the past couple of days (other than the occasional reading or working online) has been laying on the sofa watching my burned copies of American t.v. shows.  Life couldn't get any better...