As any one who has read my profile knows, I am a Tapehead. If you don't know what a Tapehead is, I'll fill you in. A Tapehead is a person who tapes things as a hobbie. With me it started with mix tapes and making my own long versions of songs (a friend of mine made a 45 min version of Slow Ride by Foghat). With the advent of the VCR, I started collecting TV shows. This turned into a 500+ collection of tapes. A couple of years ago I got a DVR so I could transfer these tapes to DVD.

I had already started buying TV on DVD sets, The first one was the first season of the Simpsons, over the years I have compiled a respectible collection, which includes The complete series for Futurama, Carnivale, and Twin Peaks as well as others.

So, on to my rant. This weekend I'm at Best Buy. browsing the DVD section when I discovered a new box set. The Sopranos complete series along with 3.5 hours of unreleased features. I was furious. It had taken me almost 4 years to build up my Sopranos collection, buying them second hand or on sale (I refuse to pay 70+ dollars for a season) and still missing the last two releases. Now setting before me is the complete series at a price equal to what I paid with more stuff. The same thing has happened with Twin Peaks.

This is the DVD equavalant of recording artist releasing a greatest hits album and then adding a couple of crappy new songs, or a track or two from old recording sessions that at the time weren't thought much of or they'd be on an album already. Why do they do this? It makes no sence.

The thing I love about buying a season of TV show is the extras. Yes, I am one of those geeks that pours over everything. Deleted scenes, audio commentaries, storyboard workups: These are the things I, the Uberfan, live for. But I feel like I'm being punished by the man. I spent roughly $100 on my two seasons of Twin Peaks, and now there is a complete series set with axtra features that aren't on the seson sets I purchased. You see my delema.

I wish the would release just the feature disc even if it was online so fans like me could get ahold of that stuff with get bent over.

Do you want real change in our government? I'm not talking about the change that Obama spoke of this past election cycle. I'm talking about real change. A government that pays attention to you and not Exxon, a government that cares about your family and not ACORN, A government that pays attention to all the people not just the ones rich enough to contribute to their campaigns. I have an answer.

STOP VOTING FOR REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure all of you heard that, so I'll say it again: STOP VOTING FOR REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you know that there are at least 51 political parties in the good ol' USA. I bet most of you reading this can't name more than six. Personlly I thought that there were 10 at the most. Only TWO of them get any money from the government. Talk about taxation without representaion.

The Dems. and Reps. have rigged the system. In our country a political party HAS to garner at least 10% of the vote in the previous presidential election to receive elections funds from the federal government. The only party in recent history to achieve this goal was Ross Perot's Reform party and that only lasted from 1992 to 1996.

In Great Britain, there are at least 158 recognized parties for a populas of about 59 million That is ruffly the population of California and Texas combined. We have nearly 304 million people in the USA, and TWO parties that have a stranglehold on American politics.

I'm sure that some of you are asking yourselves how do we change this? The answer is simple. STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!!! Personally I have only voted for three major party candidates in the last 28 years (Reagan, G.H Bush, and McCain). Every time I have voted I pulled the lever for the person I thought most closely represented my beliefs. I have voted form Reformers, Libritarians, and even one independent.

Vote for one of the other 49. Do a little research and vote for the man or woman that represents YOU, I don't care if it's the Libritarian Party, the Pot party, the American Nazi Party, the Democrats or Republicans. Just find out which one represents you. It dosen't mater if your candidate wins, what matters is that all of our populas are represented and that won't happen till all the parties get federal funding and the playing field is leveled.

If you want more info on the choices you have I found this website very helpful. www.politics1.com/parties.htm

Paul Harvey passed friday in his home in AZ, he was 90 years old.

I have listen to Paul Harvey since I was a kid. His sister and brother-in-law lived up the street from my family in Imperial MO. In fact, If you ever heard Mr. Harvey mention his home in the ozarks, he was speaking of the guest house on his sisters "ranch".

I feel that I have lost a role model and a neighbor.

RIP Paul

Godspeed

I have to renew my driver licence this month. and thanks to the US war on terror I have just jumped through a small bunch of government hoops.

Here in the great state of Missouri, the powers that be have made it harder to get or renew a drivers licence. This came to pass after it was revealed that some of the 9/11 terrorist had bribed officials in different states to obtain illegal licences. The state of Missouri did it's own investigation and found that even though no terrorist were carrying MO ID's that there was a small number of state employees that were selling DLs. The priced ranged from $250 to $1000. Most of these were sold to traffic offenders that had suspended or revoked licences. One other piece of info that is relevant to this is that MO. has done a few things to make renewing your licence easier. A drivers licence is good for 6 years in Missouri and everyones licence expires on their birthday.

So for the past two years you need your birth certificate, social security card and a piece of mail w/ your curant address on it to get or renew your licence. Well during the last year my SS card literally went down the drain. It went thru the laundry and fell apart. So this week I had to go to the social security office and get a replacement. Guess what I need to get my card. Just an application with my personal info on it and a valid DRIVER'S LICENCE (by the way my DL # is the same as my SSC #).

So yesterday I got a piece of ID by showing the ID I need to renew with the ID I was getting.

Seems kind of pointless, doesn't it.

To all my friends in the USA, Happy Thanksgiving. Remember that L-Triptaphane can be just as powerful as a sleeping pill.

To my friends outside the US, Thanksgiving is a holiday here in the states where we celebrate the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock. We do this by pigging out on turkey all day.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

This morning I had to make a bi weekly trek from my home in the southern most region of the St. Louis area to north St. Louis County (90 mile round trip). During this trip every single thing that horks me off on the rooad happened. These are all things that I belive should be CAPITOL crimes. Let me share my morning with you.

1) Cell Zombies! A cell zombie is a person that shuts out all external stimuli the second their cellular phone touches their ear. Today one of these morons drifted into my lane at 65 miles an hour with less than a car length seperating us. I wanted to rip her arm off and beat her to death with it.

2) Traffic Monitors! A traffic monitor is one of these waste of stem cells that feels it is their responcibility to enforce the the speed limits. They do this by getting in the passing lane, and set their cruise control at or right below the speed limit (usually while pacing the cars in the other lanes). I was trapped behind one of these morons for 17 miles of my commute.

3) Dog F#$kers! These arguments for abortion allow their dogs (usually the lap variety) to roam free about there car. A majority of the time the dog plants themselves on the owners lap and paw at the steering wheel and/or window. The dog owner then pays more attention to the dog than the road. I was nearly side swept by one of these waist of space.

4) Gappers! These self important wastes of space will close the gap between themselves and the car infront of them as soon as they see a directional that indicates some one needs to get into this space.

5) Punishment Lights! These are stop lights that are on a set cycle, causing motorist to have to stop, idle and waste gas while absolutly no one else is at the light. I hit a half dozen of these obsticles this morning.

Thanks for letting me vent and I hope you got a chuckle from this.

Well as of today I am back to being Mr.Mom. After working for a Convience Store/Gas Station for the last six months, I quit after having a stellar work review. Now you may ask yourself, 'Why would he quit if the powers that be gave him a glowing review'. It's because they wanted to give me a 25 cent raise which is still about a buck and a half shy of what my peers at other companies make. Add in the fact that my forty mile round trip comute meant that half my check was going into the gas tank and a third of what was left was going to day care, leaving me with 80 to 100 dollars a week.

So I'm back. I'll be here a lot more often working on the show I'm editor for and hopefully adding a few more editorships.

I love the Looney Tune cartoons (Bugs, Daffy and the whole crew) but for some reason I can't stand Tom and Jerry and I should at least like them. Both were directed (for the most part) by Chuck Jones, both deal with similar themes (cartoon violence) and both deal, for the most part with animals acting like humans. For some reason I would rather watch paint dry than watch T&J.

The same things go for some more recent TV shows. House for example. I loved Hugh Lowery in all the incarnations of Black Adder. I love the concept of a disabled, obnoxious, Doctor, but for some reason I find the show boring at best and annoying at worst. Same thing goes for Lost, when I heard all the pre show buzz I thought, "This is the show for me", but after half a season I wished the whole show would get lost.

Here my question to all of you: What shows did you think looked good on paper, but after viewing them you found they just weren't your cup of tea?

And by the way I won't slam anybody's opinion here and I hope every one else follows suite.

Well I started a new job this week. I am the asst. mgr. at a convience store/gas station. That's right I am basically a clerk. Kinda funny considering I just became the show editor for Clerks. I feel like Dante Hicks.

Don't worry though I will still be here on TV.com, just not as often.

Have you heard the news? There was an earthquake in Southern Illinois Friday morning (at 4:47 a.m.) People felt it from Atlanta to Milwakee and from Philly to Denver. Some historic small towns in the IL/IN areas sustain minimal damage and there have been 15 aftershocks and one other earthquake over this past weekend. The first earthquake measured 5.2 and the second was a 4.8.

Now your probably saying to yourself, "Gee, ssimonds1 really knows his earthquake s#$%." No, not really. It's just that ALL the local news programs, since the morning news on Friday till the noon news today, has had at least three stories per newscast on this one subject. Everything from "What is an earthquake?", to "Do you have (enough) earthquake insurance." thru "Possible scams related to earthquakes."

ENOUGH ALREADY. We get it. The earth moved. Nobody died and some old buildings may or may not have been damaged. St. Louis sits on a major fault line (duh). I almost expect the evening news tonight to start with all the reporter gathered around a dead horse with chains and baseball bats. Surely something else newsworthy happened this weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K80CIQPwruU&feature=related

Sorry but I had to rant