After my out of touch week, I am about through playing catch up. I’ve waded through pages of email, spam, and a very full feed reader, performed maintenance on my various blogs (including all the spam registrations at The Regiment), watched some football, hockey, and three out of the first four hours of 24.

I have to watch the fourth hour before hour five tonight. And speaking of hour five, be sure that you join the crew at the best 24 site anywhere — Blogs.4Bauer.com. Make sure that you remember to join us for the Season 8: 8 pm to 9 pm liveblogging event.

One of the other things I missed were two episodes of bRight@Night. I’ll take care of that immediately following Jack. More on that later.

Now, on with the show.

I know, most of you probably didn’t realize I wasn’t around. After all, when you’re just looking for pictures of Cote de Pablo, Liv Tyler, and Gabriel Anwar you may just miss the fact that I haven’t posted anything in a week. Well to keep you folks happy:

For the rest of you, a brief explanation. I will freely admit that it started with a mistake on my part. A mix-up with due dates and payments made and I didn’t pay Brighthouse on time. I really didn’t realize we were behind. Beyond that, we missed, or didn’t get, any notice that the bill was due. That’s where I stop taking the blame.

I was given the impression that I needed to go into their office. The problem was I was at work on Friday and couldn’t get off in time to get in there before they closed, besides which they decided to shut everything off mid morning. No Phone, no television, no internet. Still thinking, erroneously it turns out, that I needed to go into the office I went the weekend without being able to get online, missing my bRight@Night show, and missing the weekends playoff games. The cruelest cut was not seeing the premier of 24 season 8.

Of course it doesn’t end there. Monday was Martin Luther King day — another day for their office to be closed. And another two hours missed of the latest Jack. As you can imagine I was there first thing Tuesday morning. That’s where it get really good.

I was told two things that really got my blood pressure elevated. One, I never needed to go into the office (despite what we were first told). I could have taken care of things online or over the phone. Of course the facts that I couldn’t get online or use the home phone were just cruel irony. The second thing I learned was that the earliest they could get out to cut the service back on was Wednesday. Now understand that cutting service back on involved the complicated process of opening a box on the side of the house and reattaching a coaxial cable. When they finally did that (the good part is coming next) the procedure took a hot minute. So now you can add to the list of things missed the Massachusettes Massachusetts election returns. I didn’t find out about Brown’s great win until Wednesday morning when I got to work.

I was told that they were going to make sure that someone would hook things back up by 8pm. Around seven, with nothing going yet, I got on my cell and gave them a call. After listening to the same 60 bars of hold music over and over I was told that the note to come out on Wednesday never made it to dispatch and that there was no way anyone would be out that night.

I made it very clear that that was unacceptable. They made it very clear that there was nothing I could do about it. Turns out they were right.

Well, yesterday morning before noon they fixed things. In less than 60 seconds.

So, I’m back. I spend last night catching up on, well, everything. I watched the first three out of four episodes of 24 (I still have to catch up with the Blogs4Bauer liveblogging), read (and deleted) a ton of email, and tried to catch up on the items in my feed reader.

Thanks for listening to my rant. And for the Rule 5 rest of you:

We’re getting close to Christmas and close to 24 Season 8. With those things in mind, this is genius.

This also gives me the opportunity to test the new automatic embed feature of 2.9 and pimp the best 24 site in the universe — Blogs.4Bauer.com

Season 8 of 24 starts in just a bit over a month. That means the deranged crew at Blogs.4Bauer.com is gearing up to bring you the best coverage of all things Bauer once again.

Of course we all know that means 24 hotties as well. Wyatt has found the show has hired a contractor.

This Contractor:

Read the post at B4B to see what Nanzeen Contractor will be doing.

Personally, I’m looking for some more agent Red Hot.

Sure looks like a good season to me.

100 Post Marathon #52

With all that is going on I missed the season finale of 24. I’m watching it online right now.

100 Post Marathon #16

We already had the head butt. What did Jack do to come to such a peaceful outcome?

Kiefer Sutherland and the fashion designer he’s accused of head-butting at a Manhattan night club said Friday they resolved their differences, clearing the way for the charges to be dropped. Sutherland and Jack McCollough issued a brief joint statement Friday to The Associated Press through Sutherland’s attorney.

“I am sorry about what happened that night and sincerely regret that Mr. McCollough was injured,” Sutherland said in the statement.

It must be the Mad Cow!

If you can…

To learn more about the 100 Post Marathon read here and especially here.

Join the unique crew at Blogs.4Bauer.com as we liveblog hour 15.

Don’t forget to visit Blogs.4Bauer.com as we Liveblog hour 9. Also, there’s still time to get your guess in for this weeks B.4B Kill Counter.

The fun, the mayhem, the madness that is liveblogging 24 starts shortly before 9:00 EST at Blogs.4Bauer.com

Be sure to get your guess in for tonight’s kill counter before the festivities begin.

Serious connectivity problems since Saturday afternoon until, well, now. Even now the connection is kind of iffy. I’ll post what I can, when I can. Don’t forget that liveblogging Season 7 – Hour 6 will start in about 40 minutes at Blogs.4Bauer.com

We will be liveblogging hour 5 of 24 at Blogs4Bauer tomorrow night. Join us!

Forget going to the bathroom, eating, or sleeping. Be prepared to torture your neighbors, family, and co-workers. Your car better be gassed up and your cell phone fully charged, because today is Talk Like Jack Bauer Day.

Look, we don’t have much time. Here’s what you do:

At Home
When getting the kids up for school try yelling (even more than usual) and saying things like, “You WILL eat this eggo and drink your milk. I don’t care that you’re lactose intolerant.” Or, “You call this a science project? Where are the explosions, the destruction?” If there are more than two kids accuse one of them of being the mole.

Going to Work
Don’t talk, yell into your cell phone. Phrases like, “I need that information NOW!” and “Don’t worry about what I’m doing” are appropriate. If you car-pool just shout out, “get down!” at random. Getting to work should not take more than three minutes no matter how far away you are.

At Work
This is where it gets really fun. Tie a co-worker to a chair, the really annoying one with the squeak and the one flat wheel. Get a fresh piece of copy paper and inflict a paper cut. Tell them, “You’re probably thinking it’s just one paper cut. You’ve had them before and survived. But what if I give you a second one, and a third. What are you going to do then? I can do this for as long as it takes.”

When talking to the boss be polite, correct, and deferential, but do it with a sneer and tone that clearly indicates that you think they are an idiot and wrong on every issue. Wait, you probably are doing that one every day.

Back at Home
While the family is eating dinner, you look out the windows and shout, “They’ll be here any minute,” or “Where’s that chopper, dammit!” Later, get on the computer and say, “I need you to open a socket,” and “I need those plans NOW!” This is particularly effective if you don’t have a mic hooked up to your system.

Later tonight, when the Mrs. comes into the bedroom wearing her most seductive night gown and is looking at you like Edgar used to look at Dunkin Donuts, tell her, “I don’t have time. . .” Ah, what the hell. It’s quarter to twelve. That’s close enough. No sense in being stupid.