I’ve been looking at High Definition (HDTV) channel lineups for here in Indianapolis and am kind of disappointed.

Here’s what Comcast (my only cable choice) offers:

1. A&E HD
2. Cinemax HDTV East
3. ESPN 2 HD
4. ESPN HD
5. FSN Midwest HD
6. HBO HDTV East
7. HD Theater
8. MHD
9. National Geographic HD
10. Showtime East (HDTV)
11. Showtime HDTV East
12. Starz HDTV
13. Starz HDTV East
14. TNT HD
15. Universal HD
16. Versus/Golf HD
17. WFYI (PBS)
18. WISH (CBS)
19. WRTV (ABC)
20. WTHR (NBC)
21. WTTV-4 (WB)
22. WXIN (FOX)

And from the list above, I wouldn’t get any of the “premium” channels and I can only see myself watching local channels (which I can get in HD over the air) and the sports channels.  But the sports channels are enough to tear me a bit…the main reasons I’d buy an HDTV are for sports and movies.

I don’t really want to get satellite TV because I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t had issues with it. “Oh, it’s windy.” Or “Oh, it’s snowing/raining.” Or “Oh, the suns out today.”  Or, “Oh, Jupiter is in the way.” Or, “Oh, it’s Tuesday.”  Seriously, who hasn’t heard this from people?  As much as I might complain about Comcast prices and service, outages aren’t that common of an occurrence (it does happen though).

AT&T’s U-verse (which I’ve heard good things about and has an amazing HD lineup), isn’t available in my area (not surprising since I can’t even get a decent DSL connection…which is crazy since I live inside Indianapolis city limits in a large neighborhood and very close to many businesses).  I’d probably opt for that if it were an option.

I’ve been reading up on HDTV for a while and with the Februaury 2009 “switch”, it’s time to get on board, so I’m curious as to what any “early adopters” out there have experienced and would suggest.  In my looking over the past few moths, it is very clear that HDTVs have made an amazing stride in both quality and price drop.

So with that, I ask:

• What are your experiences?
• What are you doing for your TV viewing?
• What about Blu-Ray players?
  • Sony PlayStation 3 vs. Stand Alone Players
• What about HDTVs?
  • LCD, DLP or Plasma?  (I personally like the LCDs for the picture and price.)
• What about DVRs?

In the never ending Misadventures of Brian, here’s another one to add to the list.

I’ve never owned a portable game system and decided to grab the Nintendo DS Lite Limited Edition Red Mario with New Super Mario Bros. on Black Friday (November 28th, 2008) at Meijer.

It does seem to be a nice system overall and my kids will love it, but I do have two issues with it:

1) This is a bit small for my hands. But I’m not a small guy and am not probably the person they had in mind when they did the design…for kids hands it’d be perfect. So I can live with that.

2) After the initial charge the system seemed to hiccup a bit and not start up after each flip of the power button/slider. Then on Thursday (December 4th, 2008) it just quit all together and I now have the ball rolling on getting this repaired.

Nintendo customer service was easy to talk to and in getting this setup, and they even pay for shipping. I was told that it will take 11-16 business days from when it is sent in, so it should be back by Christmas.

That said, I am a little disappointed given the fact that I have never had a game system just break for no apparent reason (I’ve heard numerous stories with the XBox, but not so much with Sony or Nintendo, though I’m not naive enough to say it doesn’t happen…this is proof of that). Things happen, so I’m giving this a second chance and hopefully it’ll be better than new when it comes back. Until then, it’s back to the Wii & PS2.

Earlier this morning a friend of mine was on CNBC for a few seconds talking about a problem he (and apparently about 30% of owners) has had with his X-Box X-Sux 360.  (Yet another reason I don’t plan on buying one…what kind of “quality assessment” thinks 70% is acceptable?)

Anyway, to my point…

I think CNBC should be considered “Short Attention Span Theater”…I’m about to puke from information overload after watching all of those tickers go by AND the additional news alerts.  No wonder people “need” 65″+ televisions, as this is way too much to take on my “little” OR “big” TV.   And no wonder so many people are diagnosed* as having ADD or AD/HD.

Man am I glad that the kid programs grace my television during the day when it happens to be on.  And luckily the radio hasn’t gone to multi-tasking (yet).

* I’ll leave that rant for another time.