A new obsession

This makes me feel a little bit like I'm in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting or something, but I feel like I have no other option but to stand up, put my hand on my heart, and share with you all that I've come to the conclusion that I'm a little bit obsessed with Gilmore Girls.

Since discovering it was being shown daily during my week off a few weeks back, I've had no other option but to record every episode that's been on while I'm at work. I sometimes hate the fact that work gets in the way of my tellybox habits. Anyway, that meant that all these episodes were stacking up pretty quickly, especially if I didn't watch one every evening.

Which is why I had a five-hour Gilmore Girls marathon yesterday.

So I've come into the series, I think, towards the end of season three/beginning of season four, because E4 are just running straight on through 'em, which makes me think I'll be having weekend Gilmore marathons until at least November, by which time I reckon they'll have reached the last season. But knowing E4, that means they'll just start over again at the first season so I'll have to continue watching up until the point at which I first jumped on, meaning I'm pretty much tied-up until Christmas. Anyway, I don't usually like starting to watch something halfway through a series, but it's an easy show to get onboard with, and I know all about the Friday night dinner stuff thanks to Wikipedia and some badly-written episode guides. The only thing that isn't really obvious is why Luke is always so angry. Does he have some sort of weird medical issue? I bet he has high-blood pressure.

Anyway, it's a good show. And I really mean that. OK, it's a little bit more … soap-operish than my usual fare, and there's never any conflict in it like you'd find on The OC or One Tree Hill, but that's fine because it just gives me a weird warm fuzzy feeling (I must be going soft in my old age). It's like a cup of hot chocolate beamed into my telly on a cold winter's night (not that it's particularly cold or winterish yet). On the downside, I absolutely hate the drippy song that plays over the opening credits, and some of the characters – Taylor and Kirk, for example - are so annoying it's untrue. I watched one the other day where Lorelai and Sookie were having problems getting their renovations to the Dragonfly Inn past the Stars Hollow Historical Society, and I thought (hoped) Lorelai was going to throttle Taylor.

But what I really like about Gilmore Girls is the infamous, pop-culture infused machine-gun style dialogue between Lorelai and Rory. I'm actually glad I have to record it because it gives me a chance to rewind anything I've missed, which happens quite a lot, to be honest. Seriously, how do they speak that quickly? It also helps that both Lorelai and Rory are incredibly easy on the eye, and I'm really not too sure which one I'd go for given the chance. 

Bizarrely, I also quite like Emily Gilmore too, which is just leading me into one almightily messy family get-together, if you catch my drift.

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Today is a momentous day people! I've just bought my first TV series off iTunes! OK, so it's not actually *my* TV series - I haven't made one yet - but what I mean is that I just bought an entire TV series off iTunes for the first time. This is notable for several reasons. The first is that I'm of the opinion that DVD is actually the last, real physical format that we'll end up having for buying films and TV, and that within the next few years we'll all be downloading this sort of stuff (through legitimate channels, I hasten to add), and laughing at our younger selves and all those silly shiny disc-things we'd buy. 

HD-DVD and Blu-ray I hear you shout? Well HD-DVD has already gone the way of the dinosaurs, and I seriously believe that history will look back on Blu-ray as being something like laser discs - a format beloved by a minority, but never really able to break out into the mainstream - certainly not like DVDs did. I think it's a last gasp attempt by electronics giants and the studios to sell us players that sit under our tellys and shiny discs to put in them. I could be wrong, but that's what I think.

I've already decided to try to cut back on the number of DVDs I buy. Admittedly there are certain films like The Dark Knight that I know I'll want on DVD, and most TV shows I think I'll want to buy I'd probably want on disc, but other movies - the kind of ones you buy, watch once, then leave on a shelf until the end of time - I've decided I'll be better off renting. And how am I going to do that? 

I think I'm going to buy an Apple TV at some point. 

When I think about it, an Apple TV is kind of the ideal solution for me (or if not ideal than at least 90% ideal). I can rent or buy movies and TV shows from the iTunes store, either on the Apple TV or stream them to it via my computer, or even dump them onto my iPhone to watch while I'm away from home. My shelves will be less cluttered with discs I might only buy once, and I'll be saving money on not buying DVDs for 15 quid a pop (or thereabouts). OK, so the initial outlay for the Apple TV itself is a tad step, but after a while I'll break even on the whole thing.

Plus I haven't bought anything by Apple in a while.

So what was the first TV show I bought? It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I caught a few episodes of this on TV a few months back and really liked it - and apparently Autumn Reeser is in one of the episodes. And seeing as you can't get it on DVD over here I decided I'd get it from iTunes for the very reasonable sum of £10.99. The other reason for buying it is that Yazzle Dazzle won't be joining me for lunchtime coffee from Tuesday onwards, so a 2o minute long TV episode on my iPhone will fill the conversational gap rather well while I sit in Starbucks sipping my grande misto.

And once I've finished that series, I'll either buy a few other shows … or get back to my lunchtime writing sessions!

Hurrah!