Some people on the tech support board noticed that there are new features available in preferences: image uploading. Although these are not working yet, it looks like the staff's working on bringing us the ability to upload custom avatars. Finally!

So on that note, it's time to resurrect the Battlestar Galactica icon set I made earlier this year. They weren't chosen to be included in the TV.com icon choices, but at least now I -- and everyone else who wants -- will be able to use them.

There were slots for 20 icons in the original set, but since I experimented with a few extra ones, I'll post them all here. That's why there's so many Baltar icons: he was particularly difficult to make. It's not like I like him so much.

Here goes:

The peeps on Battlestar Galactica
Adama
Apollo
another Apollo
Baltar 1
Baltar 2
Baltar 3 -- no glasses
Billy -- R.I.P., Billy. I liked him.
Sharon / Boomer / Athena
another Sharon
Cally
Chief
Doc Cottle
Dualla
Felix Gaeta
Helo
Laura Roslin
Starbuck
another Starbuck -- this one kinda sucks
Saul Tigh

Cylons
Centurion 1
Centurion 2
Number Six

Ships & Objects
Cylon raider
BSG seal
Viper

Others
Jack Fisk -- He's dead already. Oh well.

There's no zip file of all the icons because I don't know where I'd host one.

Two great new features on TV.com: polls and -- finally -- person forums! Of course I had to try these out so here's a rather pointless album poll on the Jewel forum.

Anyone else annoyed by the fact that you can't change your vote?

There's also a third new feature called pre-show buzz which is basically just a poll if you're gonna watch a future episode. Meh, to me that's not very interesting.

Curiously, I've discovered that you can actually vote multiple times if you use different computers or browsers. I hope they fix this soon, otherwise people could manipulate the votes.

Hi! Long time no... erm, write?

I'm still here. In fact, I do check in on TV.com almost every day to check my queue (mostly empty) or the show boards (surprisingly active) for the shows I edit. But since it's summer, I haven't blogged so much lately.

I finally got around updating my banner. I changed the background to something more neutral, changed some show pics, and added the two shows that were missing: Big Love and Windfall.

I also started a show blog for The L Word where I collected all the rumors and updates about the fourth season of the show. Now I don't need to use the forum for those, so that's a great improvement. Anyone know any great editor blogs? I'd like to see what everyone else is doing but I can't seem to find any shows with blogs. What I haven't been able to figure out is do you get a notification (by PM or in updates) when there's a new blog for your tracked shows. Anyone know?

What every scifi fan already knows is that the new seasons of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis kick off next week. I'm really, really looking forward to it! What can I say, I'm a TV junkie even in summer.

I just wrote a long post and tried to use the WYSIWYG editor in Firefox and it just crashed. Thanks a lot, TV.com.

Here's what I wrote -- more or less:

---

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the planet.

I ordered a new computer back in early April and it arrived about a week ago. Pretty soon I discovered that not all was in order. The guys at the computer store had made some pretty serious mistakes. Warning, tech speak ahead.

• They'd installed a wrong motherboard on my computer. Basically the same model comes in two versions, one a regular one and the other a "premium" model. Naturally they'd installed the regular one and charged me for the more expensive premium model.


• They'd forgotten to install the fan speed adjuster for the CPU cooler. Not a big deal but since the cooler came with one and I'd paid for it, I expected them to put it in.


• The cordless desktop keyboard+mouse combo sucked through a straw. The Bluetooth connection was unbelievably weak. The mouse was erratic and laggy. Sometimes when I'd boot up, the computer didn't recognize the keyboard. One time the keyboard asked me for a Bluetooth passkey -- which of course I didn't have. The desktop was fairly pricey so naturally I expected it to perform perfectly. Hindsight 20/20 -- if I'd taken the time to read some reviews, I would've known better to avoid the product.


• The harddrive I bought had a faulty temperature sensor. Apparently, the manufacturer had made a faux-pas and calibrated the sensors so that they show significantly higher temperatures than they should. Again, not a really big deal but I'd like to know when the drive is in a real danger or overheating. They call it "a factory calibration routine anomaly". Ha!

I complained to the store and they ordered replacement parts, which arrived on Friday. Everything else is running smoothly now expect the replacement harddrive has the exact same temperature sensor mistake! And the guys at the store hadn't even tested it since -- they claim -- they don't have a testing set-up for it. *Sigh* It would have saved both them and me a lot of trouble. I'll keep sending in the harddrive until they find me a 100% faultless model.

And what's really gnawing me is that with all these other problems I haven't even had time to test the graphics card which was the reason the delivery took so bloody long in the first place.

OK, enough venting. Happy Mother's Day to everyone who's a mom!

Thanks to freaksngeeks and the TV.com graphics design team who whipped up a great banner for Big Love!

There's been many questions on the boards about requesting or submitting banners for shows that don't yet have one. Someone had managed to get his/her own banner submitted but I think that's rare because TV.com has to be sure that they've got the rights to the pictures. But I can say requesting them works.

When HBO announced last week that Big Love was getting a second season, I thought that was the perfect opportunity to asks for a banner because the show had a gotten a little recognition. I PM'd freaksngeeks, made a couple of arguments why getting a banner would be great, and provided them with a couple of links where they could find pictures. But I don't know if the last one makes any difference because I think they'd have to contact the networks for permission for the pics anyway. Still, it couldn't hurt.

Has anyone else gotten a new banner lately?

It might not be the most-watched series on the planet, but here's some good news to those who have been watching HBO's little family drama Big Love: HBO has ordered a second season with the first one still in mid-run. There's no word of how many episodes have been ordered but considering what's the norm for HBO shows, I'd say 12 or 13. They start shooting in August this year and the second season is expected to premiere sometime in 2007. Here's the press release. Join the discussion on the Big Love forum!

Sometime last week I apparently hit the 4000 submission mark, and not just any subs but accepted subs. I forgot to post my stats this weekend cause I was busy relaxing and being all Easter-y. But now there's no need for that since the new TV.com 2.0 has gone live and all my stats are right down there

It actually almost makes me want to cry that the staff decided to go live with the "design upgrade" ( ) when there are still so many bugs with it. I'm especially p***ed off with the crew and credits bugs that we pointed out to them dozens of times! What the heck are these people thinking?? It actually makes the site less useful (or should I say more useless).

I haven't heard any news from -ACL- so I guess I'm stuck with Windfall. I stumbled upon this page and thought first that they'd copied that summary from TV.com. Then I noticed this: Summary provided by NBC, Universal. Used with permission. It's possible that -ACL- got a permission from NBC but somehow I doubt it. So of course I had to come up with a new summary. What do you all think of it? Creative writing is not my forte; I'm more at home with scientific, fact-based texts.

EDIT: Why is there so much space around the smiley icons? They look like they're floating off the text.

Lots of new stuff today. I know I haven't been communicating lately, sorry for that. Hey, I'd fit right in with the staff. (OK, that was mean.)

- I'm still waiting for what the deal is with Windfall. I heard back from -ACL- and it looks like him getting banned was a mistake after all. He's been in contact with missribs and one of the forum mods to see if they can sort it out. So I haven't done much for the guide yet, except fix a couple a cast issues that had resulted in the creation of duplicate guides. Not that there's much information available about the show anyway. Oddly, just today I got a *huge* bout of submissions for that guide, all episode summary changes and all reeked of gaming from miles away. And speaking of duplicate guides, it looks like the search engine is *still* not working properly and it hasn't been updated since that one time a few weeks ago.

- The new beta site (which seems to be down again) is looking quite good. I can't wait for it to go live but I appreciate the staff having a beta test period for once! I'd rather they fix the bugs first although I'm quite impatient to get to the new stuff. I especially liked the new queue button... although I didn't get to see it in "action" since I had no subs in my queue.

- I finally got around watching the pilots for both Thief and Heist. I was disappointed in Thief and found it quite dull. I ended up fast-forwarding after half the episode. Heist was a lot better. I like Las Vegas and they sort of had the same feeling. I could've considered sticking up with Heist but I hear it's been cancelled already. Michael Ausiello writes two weekly columns on TVGuide.com and he's the guy for all TV related scoop so I guess he knows his stuff. Why do the networks always do this?

- I made a pile of submissions to get the season finale of The L Word in order. No one had submitted anything so I ended up doing everything myself. *sigh* It's going to be a 9-month wait for Season 4. But I hear the show shoots in the summer so I guess rumors should start trickling in soon.

- In a non-TV.com related news, I ordered a new computer! It's going to cost a small fortune but my current one is several generations old already.

- Next weekend is Easter which means only four days of work and a looong weekend. And it probably also means that TV.com will fall part on Thursday evening and there's no one to pick up the pieces until Tuesday morning.

I'm still in two minds about continuing with the stats boxie when the new design goes live. They basically got all your stats right there in the profile so it seems quite redundant. But they don't have how much you've gone up from the previous day. Anyway, here's this week's stats:

Stats:

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Rank         :  General Lee    Community Stuff
Level        :  42             Blog Posts  :     40 (+    2)   
Percentage   :  72%            Forum Posts :    649 (+    9)
Increase     :  26%            Posts Read  : 137607 (+ 1766)      

Submissions                    Reviews
Accepted     :  3991  (+  71)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :     6  (-   2)  Episodes    :   2
Denied       :   208  (+   1)  People      :   1
Total        :  4205  (+  70)  Total       :   4
Success Rate :  94.9% (+ 0.1)

Editorships
Shows        :     10 (+   1)  New: Windfall  
People       :      1
Total        :     11 (+   1)

---

This just took me by surprise. I discovered that I've suddenly become the editor for Windfall, NBC's new summer drama about a group of friends and acquaintances who win $386 million in lottery. It looks like the previous editor was banned... or it could be another TV.com glitch. I hadn't even realized I had so many points for the show!

Happy April Fools, everyone! I hope you didn't get duped too much. Did you see the story here on TV.com? It was too obvious but still hilarious.

Stats:

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Rank         :  General Lee    Community Stuff
Level        :  42             Blog Posts  :     38 (+    1)   
Percentage   :  46%            Forum Posts :    640 (+    6)
Increase     :  22%            Posts Read  : 135841 (+ 1201)      

Submissions                    Reviews
Accepted     :  3920  (+  48)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :     8  (    -)  Episodes    :   2
Denied       :   207  (    -)  People      :   1
Total        :  4135  (+  48)  Total       :   4
Success Rate :  94.8% (+ 0.1)

Editorships
Shows        :      9  
People       :      1
Total        :     10

---

Stats:

---

Rank         :  General Lee    Community Stuff
Level        :  42             Blog Posts  :     37 (+    1)   
Percentage   :  24%            Forum Posts :    634 (+   15)
Increase     :  39%            Posts Read  : 134640 (+ 1180)      

Submissions                    Reviews
Accepted     :  3872  (+  72)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :     8  (+   2)  Episodes    :   2
Denied       :   207  (    -)  People      :   1
Total        :  4087  (+  74)  Total       :   4
Success Rate :  94.7% (+ 0.0)

Editorships
Shows        :      9  
People       :      1
Total        :     10

---

Stats:

---

Rank         :  Sleestack      Community Stuff
Level        :  41             Blog Posts  :     36 (+    1)   
Percentage   :  85%            Forum Posts :    619 (+   19)
Increase     :  47%            Posts Read  : 133460 (+ 1264)      

Submissions                    Reviews
Accepted     :  3800  (+  87)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :     6  (+   4)  Episodes    :   2    (+    1)
Denied       :   207  (    -)  People      :   1
Total        :  4013  (+  91)  Total       :   4
Success Rate :  94.7% (+ 0.0)

Editorships
Shows        :      9  
People       :      1
Total        :     10

---

Stats:

---

Rank         :  Sleestack      Community Stuff
Level        :  41             Blog Posts  :     35 (+    1)   
Percentage   :  38%            Forum Posts :    600 (+   23)
Increase     :  37%            Posts Read  : 132196 (+ 1465)      

Submissions                    Reviews
Accepted     :  3713  (+  78)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :     2  (    -)  Episodes    :   1 
Denied       :   207  (    -)  People      :   1
Total        :  3922  (+  78)  Total       :   3
Success Rate :  94.7% (+ 0.1)

Editorships
Shows        :      9  
People       :      1
Total        :     10

---

Big Love premieres tonight, 10 p.m. on HBO (after The Sopranos)!

Stats:

---

Rank         :  Sleestack      Community Stuff
Level        :  41             Blog Posts  :     34 (+    1)   
Percentage   :   1%            Forum Posts :    577 (+   16)
Increase     :  28%            Posts Read  : 130731 (+ 1558)      

Submissions                    Reviews
Accepted     :  3635  (+  52)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :     2  (    -)  Episodes    :   1 
Denied       :   207  (+   1)  People      :   1
Total        :  3844  (+  53)  Total       :   3
Success Rate :  94.6% (+ 0.1)

Editorships
Shows        :      9  
People       :      1
Total        :     10

---

Just a few brief notes... I'm waiting for the washing machine to finish with my laundry while I type this.

1) It's been a week and the stupid person ID bug is still not fixed. In fact, I haven't heard back from emaldalani since. Quel surpris!

2) I'm loving the new pinning/unpinning abilities! And that little blue editor icon you get when you post on the boards for shows you're the editor for.

3) Big Love premieres in one week! I just hope it isn't as disappointing as Book of Daniel was. According to this article it's also airing in Canada. If you like family dramas it might be interesting to check it out.

4) The staff's been hinting at a WYSIWYG/editing toolbar. That's quite welcome... provided of course that they can pull it off without crashing the entire site for several days or introducing dozens of new bugs.

5) "I've never heard of Talvix." Well screw you, TV.com.
EDIT: Sorry about that last one. It literally took me 20 tries to get this thing posted. The damn site kept WSoD'ing on me.

Stats:

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Rank         :  Bewitched      Community Stuff
Level        :  40             Blog Posts  :     33 (+   1)   
Percentage   :  73%            Forum Posts :    560 (+   9)
Increase     :  25%            Posts Read  : 129173 (+ 910)      

Submissions                    Reviews
Accepted     :  3583  (+  50)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :     2  (    -)  Episodes    :   1 
Denied       :   206  (    -)  People      :   1
Total        :  3791  (+  50)  Total       :   3
Success Rate :  94.5% (+ 0.1)

Editorships
Shows        :      9  
People       :      1
Total        :     10

---

There's currently a bug going on with The L Word cast list and one of the cast members. Daniela Sea can't be found with the person search because the guide didn't exist back in TVTome. When I tried to correct her character name, I of course had to remove the old entry first. But when I tried to add her back in again, the system instead attaches the credit to an old duplicate/deleted ID that was created because the double-hyphen bug. So her name is currently invisible.

I contacted several staff members and so far 3 of them have answered back. cooncesean said that TPTB are making him work with MP3.com so he can't get to the bug until mid-March at the earliest. danmod said he'd try to add the credit himself but obviously that doesn't work either because the bug is on the database level, not just with access rights. But this is the most hopeful one: emaldalani replied that s/he's looking into the bug and it looks like the database has problems indexing the person ID's. Yeah, like we didn't know that already. Anyway, s/he's working on it and hopefully that will sort out all the database/ID bugs once and for all! Fingers crossed.

Just a stats update today.

Stats:

---

Rank         :  Bewitched      Community Stuff
Level        :  40             Blog Posts  :     32 (+    1)   
Percentage   :  48%            Forum Posts :    551 (+   15)
Increase     :  38%            Posts Read  : 128263 (+ 2576)      

Submissions                    Reviews
Accepted     :  3533  (+  70)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :     2  (-   3)  Episodes    :   1 
Denied       :   206  (+   2)  People      :   1
Total        :  3741  (+  69)  Total       :   3
Success Rate :  94.4% (+ 0.1)

Editorships
Shows        :      9  
People       :      1
Total        :     10

---

Just another boring stat update. I might be getting the editorship of a new show guide really soon. I'll reveal what it is if or when it happens.

EDIT: So i did get the guide when the site updated itself. The new show is Big Love which starts on HBO next month, March 12th at 10 p.m. to be exact (after Sopranos!). It's about a polygamist Mormon man, played by Bill Paxton, who has three wives and they all live next to each other in three houses. I guess he spends his nights with each wife in shifts and that of course results in all sorts of hilarious situations. It looks kind of interesting and I'm pretty excited about editing the show. The first thing I did was come up with a new show summary because the old one was just one sentence long! I also updated the cast and producer lists.

The sad news is that it looks like stogster is permanently MIA. This was formerly his guide but he has now been retired. And missribs PM'd me that he's been retired from all of his remaining guides.

Stats:

---

Rank         :  Bewitched      Community Stuff
Level        :  40             Blog Posts  :     31 (+    1)   
Percentage   :  10%            Forum Posts :    536 (+   28)
Increase     :  60%            Posts Read  : 125687 (+ 4370)      

Submissions                    Reviews
Accepted     :  3463  (+ 119)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :     5  (-   8)  Episodes    :   1 
Denied       :   204  (+   9)  People      :   1
Total        :  3672  (+ 120)  Total       :   3
Success Rate :  94.3% (+ 0.2)

Editorships
Shows        :      9  (+  1)  New: Big Love
People       :      1
Total        :     10  (+  1)

---

I'm too lazy to post anything but stats today. And it seems I've lost my butterfly after the forum upgrade. Oh well, she'll be back some day.

Stats:

---

Rank         :  Fonzarelli 
Level        :  39            Blog Posts  :     30 (+    1)   
Percentage   :  50%           Forum Posts :    508 (+   23)
Increase     :  70%           Posts Read  : 121317 (+ 7762)      

Submissions                   Reviews
Accepted     :  3344  (+ 87)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :    13  (+  2)  Episodes    :   1 
Denied       :   195  (+  2)  People      :   1
Total        :  3552  (+ 91)  Total       :   3
Success Rate :  94.1% (   -)

Editorships
Shows        :     8  
People       :     1
Total        :     9

---

I've decided to give up on the Signature Image Rebellion. Over the last week I reported dozens, maybe even a hundred signature guideline violations. And they weren't all about images, although those were the majority. What have the mods done? NOTHING. Apparently no one cares if the signatures follow the rules so there's really no point in reporting them.

I'm so sick and tired of watching annoying animations of over 1 MB (yes, that one is still there) or people writing "witty" quotes in 10-20 lines of text, taking excessive amount of screen space. I've turned off signatures for good. Thanks for everyone who offered they support!

Another thing I've given up on is the staff. They don't communicate with us. They introduce new "improvements" that are really worse for us users, like taking away the new posts link or dividing blog comments to several pages or disabling blue boxies in blogs.

One thing I don't want to give up on entirely is TV.com. I've dedicated too much time and effort here already to let it all go to waste. Besides, I still spend too much time here so I don't dare register with "the other site" because I know I'd be hooked and spend even more time online.

I've also been feeling a bit under the weather during the weekend so I haven't done much except relax and actually watch TV.

Stats:

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Rank         : Squarepants
Level        :  38            Blog Posts  :     29 (     ?)   
Increase     : 112%           Forum Posts :    485 (+   52)
Percentage   :  80%           Posts Read  : 113555 (+23574)      

Submissions                   Reviews
Accepted     :  3257  (+ 65)  Shows       :   1
Pending      :    11  (   -)  Episodes    :   1 
Denied       :   193  (   -)  People      :   1
Total        :  3461  (+ 65)  Total       :   3
Success Rate :  94.1% (+0.1)

Editorships
Shows        :     8  
People       :     1
Total        :     9

---