The Wire

I'm about eight episodes into Season 1 of The Wire right now, which is proving to be pretty good, although sometimes I struggle to remember all the characters' names, and trying to keep up to speed when the characters are all conversing in street-parlance does require a fair bit of concentration.

Baltimore is portrayed as gritty and seedy, and the cops themselves aren't exactly angels throughout the piece. The interplay between McNulty and Bunk (particularly their conversation when they're scoping out the scene of a long-dormant murder case) is wonderful, and Herc and Carver are a cool kinda team. I like Lester and Bubbs, haven't quite worked out how I feel about D'Angelo just yet.

A stand I support

Leo Laporte announced on last week's Windows Weekly that he was going to stop drawing a salary from TWiT's advertising revenue, and instead only take funds via the network's listener contributions.

I really like TWiT, and I've mentioned before that I make a monthly donation to the network basically just to demonstrate my appreciation of the service that Leo and the crew put on, and to reward high quality, well produced, entertaining and information discussion.

As Leo himself states, he can still make a living from the income off his radio show, so although it's a ... bold move, the stakes here aren't exactly riches or ruin. Nonetheless, I think this is an interesting experiment on his part, and I hope that it works out for him.