I've had Direct TV HD since it first became available. My Charter cable service was horrible. I was always losing service every week or two for varying periods of time, up to a day. I don't believe I have EVER fully lost the HD service in even the heaviest rain or snow (and I live in Ct where it snows a lot). Once in a blue moon there will be a momentary breakup....of a second or two, but that may be from the station. In any event, it is MUCH more stable than cable. The dish is aimed DIRECTLY at a bunch of trees. So much for the canard that you HAVE to have a clear horizon shot. I absolutely am NUTS about the service. Cable TV has its roots in 1939 and the coax cable that linked about 3 cities in the Northeast. It became fully developed in mountainous communities in the 1950s. It is a VERY old technology from a long ago era. Face it, cable companies, the 21st century is a WIRELESS century....in TV and Phone and by mid-century even electricity. So for all of you on the fence out there....go ahead and jump....the VOD service itself is amazing and provides THOUSANDS of programs that download to their DVR in HD...as well as over the air from the sat. It is all PHENOMENAL!!!!

Some people seem as obsessed with the format war as Hitler was over invading Russia.....his one BIGGGG mistake!

I have BOTH formats....not a WHIT of difference between them on a 73 inch DLP screen and $20,000 worth of equipment. NEITHER of them is particularly impressive. HD-TV, on the other hand, IS impressive.

I now have a TON of friends who have switched to HD-TV and NONE have bothered with EITHER format because there is virtually NO major difference between them and regular DVD. Oh, sure, for tech-heads, it's like counting the number of angels on the head of a pin.....there is a TINY difference between regular DVD and HD-DVD or Bluray on the best of the best discs.....but not enough to EVER make anyone rush out to buy these sets. Guys who argue the merits of one format over the other are simply perpetrating a HOAX on the unsuspecting public.

NEITHER format is anything to write home about. UPCONVERSION is!!!!!!!

I'm afraid this is going to end like the battle of the cassette formats back in the late 70s - 80s. BOTH will just fade away.......

Stop obsessing about all of this nonsense. And that is what it is. Relax. Take some Xanax!

You THINK you see something spectacular. Most people do NOT!!!!!

Maybe we ALL need to....."Get a Life!!!!"

What people tend to forget is that Limbaugh was ORIGINALLY a LEFT-WING radio "screecher" like Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the Bush cabal. When he got nowhere with that....he decided to out-neocon them and switched to being RIGHT-WING "screecher."

Why people listen to ANY of these incompetent jerks is beyond me. Left-wing, Right-wing.....why don't they ALL get a life instead of talking about things they know NOTHING about!

The WORST of the WORST...and it is ON RECORD...is the MURDERER Bush...who got Daddy to get him a flyboy champagne assignment instead of risking his life in VIETNAM. Read Reagan's Diaries....and find out exactly what he thought of that idiot we have as president. (He thought he was shiftless, lazy and stupid) Our REAL president is the SHADOW president Dick Cheney. If he died, Bush would panic and probably push the nuclear button to bomb the U.S. THAT is how stupid and classically alcoholic he is.

These short plays are SO sad. My heart goes out to Cho's victims and their families and loved ones....but it also goes out to Cho. These plays are anguished cries of pain...deep, overwhelming, deep-as-marrow pain within. Whether he was hurt by his family, by friends, by older people with whom he came in contact, it is obvious that he had not known any joy in his life for a very long time, if ever. Thus, while hating what he did, my own heart goes out to him for the misery in his life that made him hate people and life itself. This is such a terrible tragedy all around. We need to reach out to each other....especially to those who seem in pain.

We live in a time where anger and hatred are boiling to the surface politically and internationally by our actions. We were the victims of 911 if we are to believe our government, yet we have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, a people who were NOT part of Al Qaeda when we INVADED their country. Our government has sanctioned "profiling" foreign ethnic types. Do not think that this kind of behavior by our own government does not filter down into the still pliable minds of young people.

Yesterday reminded me of the 1960s. If we had the draft this would have been but one more incident provoked by the government's actions and attitudes.

Do I mean to excuse Cho's actionsL? NO!!!! But we live in a very violent climate that has been hyped by our very own government's actions. Violent videogames, violent music, racist remarks by entertainers of ALL ethnic backgrounds are all part of the conflicting messages going into the heads of young people. Note Cho's use of a song which obviously influenced him greatly.

We ALL need to clean up our acts, love our children, and reach out to those who are disadvantaged. It starts from the top down. I did NOT approve of Bush speaking at Virginia today. It smacked of political opportunism. If, instead, he had asked the country as a whole (on television) to give a full minute of silence (TV/radio stations, etc.) instead...perhaps that would have been far more valuable.

A terrible, terrible tragedy....

Imus and his so-called "SHOCK JOCK" statements are merely the tip of the iceberg in the dumbing down of American culture. It used to be that movies and radio and TV shows sought to RAISE the standards of culture. Met Opera stars appeared in movies and on radio and TV every week.

Today we have rap groups like NWA (Niggers with Attitude) and low-class performers like Britney Spears and we have young people wallowing in pulling their pants down over their buttocks and exposing their underwear. The words "Ho" and "Bitch" mean very little anymore because we hear them on TV all the time.

America has sunk to the lowest conceivable level of culture. When one studies the fall of the Roman Empire (overextension of military commitments, haggling by the Senate, moral laxity) and one looks at the results of Bush and his unjustified military ventures, the conservatives, the liberals, AND those who control the dissemination of culture....it is VERY easy to understand WHERE this country is headed.

Look to the rise in power and finance that is happening in ASIA....the GLEAMING cities that make ours look like broken down 19th century hell-holes...the elevation of culture.....the educational systems that place ours in a ranking of about 23rd now amongst industrialized nations....and the fact that China alone literally OWNS the U.S. Bush gladly handed over our money to them and if they call in our notes....we go into the dumpster of history.....and ALL of this tells you that Imus is symptomatic of EVERYTHING wrong in this country.

Should he have been fired? You betcha'! And any ballplayer who makes statements about gays should be fired, as should that absurdist general. Any "artist" (HA!!!!) who used low-class language and racial and sexual epithets should ALSO be banned. And I do not spare Jesse Jackson who has allowed his own mouth to spew racist comments as well. Michael Richards and Mel Gibson deserve to NEVER work again along with the aforementioned.

It is time to CLEAN UP the culture in this country. If we don't.....then we will very quickly become some unimportasnt 3rd world entity. I'm afraid it is ALREADY too late!!!!!!

Couric became too much of a "diva," despite her occasional giggles and hair-down moments. I knew she would not translate well to CBS news....and she should have known better. She had a great job in the TODAY show.

Viera is fine....not perky....not that she should be...but just fine. The real coup would be to get Sawyer away from ABC but that's not gonna happen and I'm not sure viewers would like it if she did leave for TODAY.

The show HAS gotten FAR too "soft"....especially in the 8 - 10am time slots. I generally switch it off because of that...after the first hour.

I have not been able to stand him for a very long time. He laughs like an INSINCERE jackass....and has the personality of a frog. Is he aware that HALF of the public thinks he's gay...and that no amount of jumping on couches or phony swaggering, which he doesn't carry off well, will convince people otherwise. He has brought it ALL on himself by his snide, "holier than thou," phony macho attitude. Middle class people...as well as the poor...in this country are hurting HORRRIBLY with high gas prices, oil heating prices, and their jobs disappearing to overseas areas. Too many of these rich playboy types make TOO much money. They aren't worth it. Why doesn't Tom try working as a salesman in K-Mart and LIVING on that salary to see what it's like. Move-making is basically a BORING and easy job....it's hurry up and wait.....hurry up.....and wait for the next shot. I am glad to see how far the mighty Tom NOT so Terrific has fallen.

This whole issue of gasoline powered cars and hybrids is SHEER insanity.

I am 71 and in the 1930's when I was growing up in Philadelphia the Supplee/Sealtest Milk Company used ELECTRIC TRUCKS to carry the heavy wooden cartons and thick glass bottles of milk to customers. Yes, Virginia, once upon a time American companies gave SERVICE and NOT just a product. They delivered milk, bread, laundry, dry cleaning and other items TO YOUR DOOR. But by FAR the heaviest loads were carried by the electric MILK trucks.They used them all through the period of World War II and afterwards.....surprise....surprise....our government catered to the oil companies and gave them preference in EVERY conceivable way in order to get us HOOKED on oil.

For decades I have said that if COMPANIES found it profitable to use ELECTRIC TRUCKS 70 years ago and more....try to tell me that today we couldn't produce a cheap electric car with an ENORMOUS range.

The BUSH cabal....wants us to STAY hooked on oil....no matter HOW hard they bleat about a transtion.

If you don't believe me....check with Sealtest/Supplee in Philadelphia....I'm sure they (or the Philadelphia Inquirer) have tons of photos of the electric trucks. They used NO OTHER KIND!!!