Mike Hall: For Sale

Alright, so fall is coming! This means school starting next week and loads of fun for everyone. But… it also means one more thing… quality television shows! Now I have to admit. This is really starting to get out of hand. I have so many shows to keep track of this year it really might get to be too much. Also, Nikki, I know you’re reading this, rolling your eyes and thinking “Great, I’m not going to have a husband this fall.” Well babe, you will. I promise this won’t consume me… maybe… Anyway, here we go! Here’s a little big list of all the shows I love and can hardly wait for!

One Tree Hill
Season Premiere on CW: Monday, September 14th 8:00PM

Okay okay, before you go and take my man card let me explain. Yes, as you should have assumed, this one is for my wife, Nikki, who I love more than anything. Now I haven’t seen all of the past seasons of One Tree Hill but I have seen the last two at my wife’s request and they haven’t been all that bad. I have to say that I am definitely willing to watch this show this season and I will. So that’s why it made the list. Also, to clarify this list goes by which shows start the soonest and One Tree Hill starts the soonest. That is the only reason it at the beginning. Okay? So to make sure we understand… this list is not by preference.

The Jay Leno Show
Season Premiere on NBC: Monday, September 14th 10:00PM
I love Jay Leno. I grew up with Jay on television. I just don’t think it would be television if Jay Leno wasn’t on it in some form or fashion. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Conan, and I think Co Co doing a fantastic job with Late Night. But I’m really excited to see what Jay does with his next show.

Fringe
Season Premiere on Fox: Thursday, September 17th 9:00PM

Fringe is another project co-created by one of my personal idols, J.J. Abrams. Oh me oh my, he is good, oh so good. The show deals with the wacky world they call “fringe” science. The different twists and turns this show has are awesome and the acting is pretty good too. My favorite character is of course Doctor Walter Bishop played by John Noble. If you haven’t yet, check this show out! You will especially love it if you’re a fan of The X-Files or The Twilight Zone.

The Office
Season Premiere on NBC: Thursday, September 17th 9:00PM

Now I have to be honest. I have greatly enjoyed many years of The Office. I really have. But… in the last two seasons they have started to lose me. I think that they’re still doing a good job, but not as good as a job as I think they can do! I have faith in The Office and I hope this next season is as great as the first three were.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Season Premiere on FX: Thursday, September 17th 10:00PM

I have fallen in love with “It’s Always Sunny.” I think that this show takes some of the more controversial and simply outrageous topics and spins them in ways I could never have imagined. It’s creators Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, and Charlie Day deserve to be worshiped in my mind. Oh and let’s not forget about Mister Danny DeVito. His performance in this show is amazazing.

How I Met Your Mother
Season Premiere on CBS: Monday, September 21st 8:00PM

This is show is legen… wait for it… dary! I have my great friends Alex and Tysin to thank for introducing me to this show. I’ve now seen seasons one and two and I’m trying to catch up on seasons three and four in time for the premiere. I’ve loved this show so far and I’m told that it only gets better. I can’t wait! Suit up!

House
Season Premiere on Fox: Monday, September 21st 8:00PM

House is to the point now where it is just classically great. There is never much story development which I actually like for this kind show. I like being able to just watch an episode of House anywhere in the season and be able to catch up on what is going on while thoroughly enjoying the constant mysteries in each episode. I just wish I understood even a third of the medical lingo they throw around.

The Amazing Race
Season Premiere on CBS: Sunday, September 27th 8:00PM
I want to be on this show! Now I must confess, I haven’t watched the last few seasons as religiously as I would have liked but I think that this is still my favorite reality show out there. That’s all I have to say about that.

Lie to Me
Season Premiere on Fox: Monday, September 28th 9:00PM

I got hooked on Lie to Me last season thanks to Hulu. Without that glorious site I most likely wouldn’t have given it a try. But I am really excited for this next season. The show deals with a company called The Lightman Group started and run by Doctor Cal Lightman played wonderfully by Tim Roth. The Lightman Group investigates and finds the truth in situations by interpreting human micro expressions. Lie to Me has great acting with one of my favorite television concepts ever.

30 Rock
Season Premiere on NBC: Thursday, October 15th 9:30PM

Tina Fey’s marvelous creation: 30 Rock. Now, 30 Rock has gotten quite a many awards, including 22 primetime Emmy Award nominations in 2009 alone. That speaks for itself! If you haven’t seen every 30 Rock episode then you should go out and buy it right now. Practically perfect in every way, you will be laughing out loud every week.

Lost
Season Premiere on ABC: Early 2010

Lost is my absolute favorite show on television. I’m sad that it has to be here toward the bottom of the list but it stupidly doesn’t start until, as ABC says, “early 2010″. Yes I’m sad about it and yes I am sad that this will be its last season but I’m excited to get some answers. My years of devotion will be paid off and I can’t wait. Lost is such an amazing show and I’m sad to see it go but I foresee many great things coming from its creators Damon Lindelof, J.J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber.

Parenthood
Season Premiere on NBC: ???
Parenthood was supposed to premiere on September 23rd but got pushed back to sometime “mid-season”. The sole reason I am excited for this show is that two of its executive producers are Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Now, not only do I love Ron Howard and everything he touches but both of these men were producers of the greatest, and my personal favorite television comedy ever… Arrested Development. I have high hopes for this show and I hope that it brings me more laughs that I can adore for ages to come. I’m eagerly crossing my fingers and my toes for this one.

Whew! What did I tell you! That is quite the list I know! It’s going to be quite the entertaining winter! Enjoy!

According to Gizmodo, the following is a list “50 Skills Every Geek Should Have.” Now usually I’m not one to brag but I thought that this would be fun to see what all I have accomplished on this list. I’m torn as to whether I should be proud or sad… well… I’ll take proud. So have a look, here is how I measure up to Gizmodo’s standards. I hope some of you can find this interesting and to those of you that don’t (Nikki) well… you can just roll your eyes and stop reading now. Your welcome, you have been spared. Alright, on to the list, as I said before, I am proud to say I have achieved 41 out of these 50 various skills. Enjoy.

1. Install a hard drive in a laptop
2. Perform a clean OS install on a machine with two OSes
3. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone
4. Jailbreak an iPhone
5. Wire your house for Ethernet and Coax cable
6. Use BitTorrent and RSS to automatically download new shows from trackers
7. Use an A/V receiver to its fullest capability (every port is taken)
8. Calibrate an HDTV without the manual
9. Use a DSLR in full manual mode
10. Hack the encryption and mooch your neighbor’s Wi-Fi
11. Solder cleanly enough to get around a circuit board
12. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point
13. Shove the guts of a modern game console into a retro game console
14. Design a webpage in HTML by hand that features a picture of your cat
15. Use Photoshop to imperceptibly doctor a photo
16. Abstain from buying extended warranties
17. Know where to buy cheap cables and accessories
18. Fix your parents’ computer over the phone without looking at a computer
19. Enter the Konami code
20. Comment on Gizmodo from your phone
21. Type quickly using T9 texting
22. Program a universal remote
23. Contribute code to the Linux kernel
24. Hide porn from your significant other
25. Avoid DRM on everything
26. Know how to back up your data to networked storage—and actually do it
27. Watch TV shows on the internet for free
28. Edit together digital video ripped from YouTube
29. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator
30. Reset expired trial software by messing with the registry
31. Hackintosh your PC
32. Download pre-release movies from Usenet
33. Hack the Wii to play homebrew games
34. Get around web content filters on public computers
35. Get into a Windows computer if you forgot your password
36. Securely erase your data so it can’t be recovered
37. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network
38. Build a fighting robot
39. Write your own Firefox plugins
40. Navigate and reorganize the files on your computer in DOS
41. Get something on the front page of Digg
42. Get through to executive customer service
43. Rip a CD to V0 quality MP3s
44. Rip a DVD to DivX
45. Build your own computer from parts
46. Swap out the hard drive in your DVR for a bigger one
47. Get an NES cartridge working again by blowing in it
48. Calibrate a 7.1 surround-sound system
49. Play downloaded games on a Nintendo DS
50. Talk about things that aren’t tech related

I don’t know about everyone else out there but I am definelty ultra obsessive compulsive about my music collection. I always insist on having the best quality and best organized collection I possibly can. One of the hardest things to do is find quality album art work or cover art for your albums… enter Album Art Exchange. You can find them at http://albumartexchange.com and it has been my savior many times when looking for album art. So go and take a look all of you people out there that, like me, insist upon utter and complete music library perfection.

It has been time for me to blog about something for a while now so Voicemail is it. I’ve been loving on Voicemail for a couple of months now. In my (very serious and notable) opinion I think that Voicemail is currently the best online comedy series. So go, go and check out ABC’s Voicemail. If it doesn’t bring a smile to your face then you are a lame and boring human being (my apologies to those that are lame and boring).
Again, Voicemail is a weekly ‘online original series’ following a man named Michael through his day-to-day routine, the story is told through his voicemail messages. Check out full episodes of Voicemail at http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing.

Below is a clip of (I believe) the first short from the first episode. Enjoy!

Oh and P.S. Thanks to my friends Brooks and Phil I have come across my current favorite YouTube video. The prize goes to Johnson Automotive…