Boys Like Girls will be releasing a new DVD, Read Between The Lines on November 4. It’s over 100 minutes long with 10 live performances, and it tells the band’s story from their very beginning through headlining their hometown on the recent Soundtrack of Your Summer Tour. There are also interviews with all the members and behind-the-scenes antics.

They’re doing a northeast loop tour that began in Northampton, Mass, is headed down to North Carolina now, and will end in Boston October 13 at a show at Northeastern University.

They are touring with Cute is What We Aim For and Lights.

Tour dates

10/3: Northampton, Mass., Smith College

10/4: Hempstead, N.Y., Hofstra University

10/5: Morgantown, W.V., University of West Virginia

10/8: Greensboro, N.C., UNC-Greensboro

10/10: Millersville, Penn., Millersville University

10/11: Pittsburgh, Penn., Gravity

10/12: Rochester, N.Y., Rochester Institute of Technology

10/13: Boston, Mass., Northeastern University

While the rest of the economy may be in the tank, Adobe’s earnings beat expectations.

Tuesday, Adobe said it earned 50 cents per share in its fiscal third quarter, which ended August 29. That beat Wall Street’s expectations of 46 cents per share and its own estimates of 39 to 41 cents per share.

Revenue climbed 4 percent to $887 million, beating Wall Street’s forecast of $877 million, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Adobe stock climbed 2 percent before losing ground with everyone else late in the day.

In other news, Google was down over 5 percent Wednesday. Amazon lost almost 8 percent.

Activision announced Tuesday it was releasing a distinctive three-track download for Guitar Hero III that will include “Tina” by the Flyleafs, “Carcinogen Crush” from AFI and a remix of Marilyn Manson’s fast-paced “Putting Holes In Happiness” by Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

This Interscope Records track pack will be available for download from the PlayStation Store and Xbox LIVE Marketplace August 7.

Arista Records announced recently that Blake Lewis will debut a new single, “How Many Words” in front of the American Idol audience March 6. The beat-boxing sixth season “Idol” finalist will then open up on radio stations nationwide March 11.

“How Many Words,” a fan favorite off of Lewis’ debut album Audio Day Dream, was co-written by Lewis, Sam Hollander and Dave Katz and produced by S*A*M & Sluggo (Gym Class Heroes, Boys Against Girls), Arista said in a statement last week.

According to the record label, the 26-year-old singer was born in Redmond, Wash. He started singing at age five and competed in statewide talent contests while in high school. He became a beat-boxer at 17, inspired by the then Seattle-based a cappella group M-Pact. Lewis was a member of the Pacific Northwest a cappella group Kickshaw for four years.

Activision announced Thursday that several hit songs from No Doubt’s diamong-selling Tragic Kingdom album will be released as a downloadable track pack for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

The set includes the songs “Don’t Speak,” “Excuse Me Mr.” and “Sunday Morning.” The track pack is currently offered on Xbox Live Marketplace and was made available later Thursday on the PlayStation Store on PS3.

See also: our Guitar Hero III review

Apple announced Tuesday that the iPod shuffle will now cost $49 with a new 2GB model going for $69.

This is a big development for “the world’s most wearable music player” which weighs just half an ounce.

“At just $49, the iPod shuffle is the most affordable iPod ever,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod Product Marketing. “The new 2GB model lets music lovers bring even more songs everywhere they go in the impossibly small iPod shuffle.”

The new 1GB iPod shuffle is now available through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The 2GB iPod shuffle will be available later this month.

For the full story, check out our Off the Record Sports Blog!

Patriots have informed wide receiver Donte Stallworth that they will not be picking up his $6 million option bonus due on February 25th, or his $2 million roster bonus due on the 29th.

BLAST has learned there was a complete outage of the popular Blackberry email-retrieving smart phone service Monday.

An AT&T spokesman told Fox News in Boston that the outage affects all phones and all carriers across the country.

Research in Motion said in a message to large corporate customers that a “critical severity outage” meant they would be unable to send or receive mail.

There is no word on the cause of the problem, which left users across North America without wireless email for about four hours.

Four classic board games come to the Nintendo DS in the form of Clue, Mouse Trap, Perfection and Aggravation from DSI Games.

This is a great multiplayer collection because it supports up to six players wirelessly and only costs about $10!

From Amazon:

Clue: Welcome to Tudor Mansion. Your host, Mr. John Boddy, has met an untimely end – he’s the victim of foul play. With six suspects, six possible murder weapons and nine rooms in the mansion there are hundreds of possibilities, and plenty of clues to investigate!

Mouse Trap: Can you build a better Mouse Trap? Find out in this fun-filled game of crazy mechanical gadgets and chain reactions! Race to the finish and nab your opponent’s mouse before your own gets caught!

Perfection: Be the quickest to fit all 25 shapes into the matching spaces. Sixty seconds! That’s all the time you have to complete this, otherwise…Out they pop!

Aggravation: Be the first player to move all four of your colored marbles around the game board from Base to Home. You don’t have to “Aggravate” the other players to win, but it sure helps!

Guitar Hero III’s new Classic Rock Track Pack includes hits from rock bands Boston, Foreigner and Journey, and it’s available now for download.

Songs include master recordings of Boston’s “Piece of Mind,” Foreigner’s “Juke Box Hero” and Journey’s “Any Way You Want It.”

For more information or to download, visit Xbox Live Arcade or the PlayStation Store on your PS3 .

Comedy Central has released a compilation DVD of what they consider the best of the cult-hit Crank Yankers.

The DVD contains over 50 crank calls including questions about poop and the word “Badonkadonk.” It includes calls from Special Ed, Hadassah, Spoonie Luv, Niles Standish, Gladys and Bobby Fletcher.

The compilation did piss off one Amazon.com user, who complained about two poorly missing skits: “This is not the best of “Crank Yankers”. It is missing the two funniest skits— the fertility clinic with Sarah Silverman and the dude ranch skit. I want my money back,” wrote D. Gramling.

Overall, it’s still three hours of Crank Yankers. If you’re a fan, check this one out.

One of the biggest new games for the PlayStation 3, Heavenly Sword tells the story of Nariko who is supposed to inherit the protection of a special sword kept in their clan. The sword is powerful, but it takes the life of the owner.

The clan believes that a male will be born to wield the sword, but Nariko is born, to the disappointment of her father. The story starts with Nariko fighting the final battle with the Heavenly Sword. She is defeating all the enemies when the sword overtakes her, and the game stars with her recalling the previous five days.

Nariko’s clan is being assaulted by King Bohan’s armies, who seek Heavenly Sword themselves. The game switches between melee style and ranged attacks after that. When your in ranged attacks, you can use a system called “afterthought” to guide the projectile. This uses the motion sensor of the Sixaxis controller. The afterthought is often necessary to hit a particular target. The game doesn’t let you zoom in on targets, so you shoot in the general direction, and the afterthought does the rest.

When in afterthought mode, you are looking at the world from the view of the projectile, so just guide it to where you want to hit. It isn’t perfect control — it seems more like nudging the projectile in the direction you want to go in. It is continuous control though, so if you push it too high, just push it back down. Once you get used to it, the game allows great precision for hitting the target.

The melee part of the game is a hack and slash where you just need to kill all the enemy’s coming at you. There are combos that can be used, and many enemies will come at you at once.

The graphics in the game are phenomenal. It feels like watching a movie. The sound effects are also top notch making the realism of the game great.

Overall the game is very flashy, it looks really good. I’d say it was only about average playability though. It looks great, but the shooting parts are annoying, and the fighting parts get boring. It’s also a very short game. Heavenly Sword is one of the best-looking and best-sounding PlayStation 3 games, but it’s still not IT.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Sony
Developer: Ninja Theory
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: Action/Adventure
Players: 1

Playability: 3 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 4 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Launch Date: September 12, 2007

Blast’s Posterboy Sports Blog has the R-rated trailer of Will Ferrell’s new sports comedy movie “Semi-Pro.”

The movie also stars Woody Harrelson and Andr© Benjamin and comes out on leap day, February 29.

Check it out!

Look at me I’m an elf!

Seems like an untrue statement for a woman who’s 5’10″ until you visit elfyourself.com and start the elfmorphosis.

By uploading up to four photos, you can create a whole group of elves for your dancing pleasure. It is easy to upload photos with tools there to resize and rotate and allow you to get your face right in there. The fun part comes when it’s time to upload a message. Call a toll free number and following the instructions!

All that’s left to do is give the dance instruction. After you press play your elf self begins a rock concert dance to Jingle Bells with your message playing throughout in your elf’ed voice. This is a hilarious holiday treat!

Anti-heroes bringing their mix of action and betrayal to a game created specifically for mobile devices, Eidos New Media announced Monday.

The mobile game was ported by Danish developer, Kiloo, with input from Io Interactive, the original development studio for the game.

Kane and Lynch has hit major consoles with mixed reviews lauding its original gameplay but questing its buggy controls and repetitive battle sequences.

Check with your wireless carrier for information of availability.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a cinematic crime drama that tells a raw and gritty tale of two anti-heroes – one a flawed mercenary, the other a medicated psychopath: Forced to embark on a violent and chaotic journey and hating each other every step of the way, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men features a gripping storyline and relentless third-person action.
Spanning 38 action-packed levels across five very different scenarios, Kane and Lynch mobile takes the form of a fast paced action game. Armed with a wealth of firearms, explosives, deadly booby traps and gadgets, the pair must blast a path through each heavily-guarded location, using simple yet effective menu systems to switch between shotguns and assault rifles with ease.

Play five on five online with 10 human players.

Electronic Arts released the free downloadable feature called Online Team Play for NBA Live 08 that lets 10 people on 10 consoles anywhere in the world play with and against each other. The new feature is automatically available on Playstation 3 when connected online, EA said Monday. It will be available on the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system later this month.

In NBA Live 08, all 10 players on the floor can now be controlled by individual users on 10 different consoles, removing the use of artificial intelligence altogether. Player movement, decision making and game outcome can now be completely dependant on how you play as an online team, bringing you closer to a real life game of basketball than ever before. This new game mode enables any number of players from one to five on different consoles to connect and play online against another team of up to five players on five different consoles. The CPU will take control of any players not controlled by users.

NBA Live 08 is available now in retail stores everywhere. Click here for more information.

Bethesda Softworks has put out a new expansion pack for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, one of the highest rated role-playing adventure games ever released.

“The enthusiastic response we’ve received to our downloadable content has been overwhelming, and we’re excited to bring Oblivion fans a full expansion,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks. “The world we’ve created for Shivering Isles is unlike anything you’ve seen or played in Oblivion and we can’t wait for folks to play it.”

Most gamers are familiar with Shivering Isles, which hit shelves in March for the PC version. The Xbox 360 version was released on Xbox Live Marketplace, for 2,400 Microsoft Points ($30). The expansion was originally announced on January 18, but here we have the PS3 version on November 20. We also saw the Knights of the Nine, another expansion, earlier.

Shivering Isles adds 30 more hours to Oblivion and is optimized for HD video at 480p or 720p.

The isles are Mania and Dementia with a whole new lot of side quests and dungeons. New creatures include the Gatekeeper, a collection of body parts sewn together and the Knights of the Order, which are made up of tree roots.

Shivering Isles is about 1/4 the size of Cyrodiil, the Oblivion main map, according to Bethesda. Your existing character will work fine with it, and you can breeze between the worlds back and forth.

If you’re an Elder Scrolls fan, you don’t need me to tell you what to do here.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Platform: PlayStation 3 (Xbox 360 and PC versions previously released)
Genre: Role-playing game
Players: 1
Launch Date: November 20, 2007

Playability: 5 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 4 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars

• See a world created in Sheograth’s own image, one divided between Mania and Dementia unlike anything you’ve experienced
• Battle the denizens of Shivering Isles, a land filled with hideous insects, Flesh Atronachs, skeletal Shambles, amphibeous Grummites, and many more
• Find and wield new weapons and armor or have new ones forged for you
• Explore a bizarre landscape filled with twisting, vast dungeons buried within the roots of the trees themselves
• Requires Elder Scrolls IV: Obilivion software to play

Based on the National Geographic documentary, Arctic Tale allows you to fight for survival as three different polar animals.

The film dramatically follows the paths of a mother walrus and her calf and a polar bear and her cubs. This Nintendo DS game allows you to utilize four survival attributes through 24 levels, several mini-game levels and multiple endings.

Survive as a young cub and avoid dangers and threats. Not a whole lot else to say about Arctic Tale. This is a good game, perfect for youngsters.

Arctic Tale is also available on GBA and Wii. The movie DVD will be out in 2008.

Features:

• Play as three different animals from the film
• Both the Polar Bear and the Walrus have four attributes that relate to their survival
• 24 stages and 8 stages on mini-games
• Each episode will close with one of three endings
• Over a dozen additional land and sea creatures are scattered throughout the sub-zero terrain

Quick hits:

Publisher: DSI Games
Developer: DSI Games
Platform: Nintendo DS
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
Launch Date: October 25, 2007

Playability: 5 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 5 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 5 out of 5 stars Editor’s Choice

Update 1/1/08, DSI Games also has a Wii version of Arctic Tale. It’s very similar.

Time to turn the tables and let the mean one win. It’s your turn to steal Christmas in How The Grinch Stole Christmas for Nintendo DS.

You play the mean green one using stealth through a variety of puzzles and challenges, using scenes from the movie adaptation of the popular children’s book.

This is another chapter in the great minigame collection craze of 2007. It seems like no one wants to play through an involving RPG anymore, so here’s “Grinch,” another way to feed your ADHD.

There is some storyline here, as you go through locations, earning points for stealing presidents from the residents of Whoville. This is a game that should have come out when the movie hit screens, but it’s fairly entertaining, decent visually and able to entertain the young and the young of heart.

Comic genius Dave Chappelle trained his satirical eye on the vagaries of pop culture and race relations in his brilliant but short-lived Comedy Central series Chapppelle’s Show The edgy funnyman brandished his unique style of street smart comedy to skewer everything from car commercials to the KKK, blending sketches, parodies, standup, and musical guest performances into a hilarious sendup of modern American life. This collection presents the complete series in uncensored and unblurred versions, including the “lost episodes,” a handful of skits Chappelle recorded for a possible third season.

Our friends at DLL Rainwear let us look at some Chooka boots this month.

They’re hot, shiny and they keep your feet dry.

Economist Alan Krueger warns us to know and understand the true roots of international terrorism — questioning the commonly held beliefs that terrorists come from uneducated, impoverished areas. “What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism” is a numbers book and a crash course in international intrigue. It’s extremely well-written, combining facts, numbers, figures and common sense. The Princeton University professor presents an argument you need to read.

Can’t get away from campus for Thanksgiving? Stuck working in Boston all week and thinking you’re going to miss the turkey and stuffing? Chef Ryan Cyr is working on Thanksgiving too, but he’s not going to miss the turkey. The executive chef at Sidney’s Grille will be making the traditional plates today plus everything from duck confit salad to peppercorn ribeye and everyone is invited. Sidney’s Grille at The Hotel@MIT. 20 Sidney Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 12-8 p.m. 617-494-0011.

Sierra’s The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night is also available on Nintendo DS, Gameboy Advance and select mobile phone platforms.

“With massive worldwide appeal, the 20 million-unit-selling Spyro franchise opens yet another exciting chapter this holiday,” said Pascal Brochier, president, Global Retail for Vivendi Games. “Based on the first installment’s success, we’re confident the new Legend of Spyro game is going to be a fan favorite for gamers of all ages.”

Features include: (Some may be limited on mobile platforms, especially phones)

• “Dragon Time” — Spyro can now literally bend time to his will! Players will engage Dragon Time to dodge attacks, out-maneuver enemies or solve tricky time-based environmental puzzles.
• Powerful new Breath Attacks (one for each element type), including Ice Bomb, Electric Orb, Earth Vine and Enhanced Fire give players a tremendous sense of power several upgrade options allow players to customize Spyro to their liking as they progress through the game.
• All new elemental melee moves and Fury attacks help Spyro on his quest.
• Huge Environments: The Eternal Night features an added degree of exploration and puzzle solving — challenging Spyro to use his new powers not just to blast through enemies, but also to uncover secrets and navigate through challenging environments.

Eternal night is also available on Nintendo Wii and Playstation 2 and is rated E for Everyone.

“I’m not a doctor. I don’t pretend to be. My job is to prevent death.”

Dominic Da Vinci is the controversial coroner in Vancouver, and it’s his job to get to the bottom line of the city’s suspicious deaths. This is a Canadian solution to Law & Order, and it’s incredibly popular, so much so that it’s being made available to a wider American audience on DVD

This is a great series that The New York Times called “unlike anything on television.” Season 2 contains 13 episodes, about 10 hours total on four discs.

If you’re in the mood for something different in the cluttered world of crime drama, try this on for size.

Electronic Arts launched today, the new, free Online Team Play feature, which lets 10 people on 10 different consoles team up online to play FIFA Soccer 08.

Be A Pro: Online Team Play in FIFA Soccer 08 enables up to five friends on five different consoles to select and take control of their own individual players on the same team, supported by AI teammates, to play against up to five rivals playing on five different consoles of another team. You can choose to play as a single, fixed player the entire game, with free roaming players, or teams can have a combination of both. Anyway you choose to play, Be A Pro: Online Team Play challenges you to master the same disciplines as a real soccer player—from positioning and tackling to reading the field and passing.

FIFA Soccer 08 is rated “E” (Everyone) and is in stores now.

Team Play is automatically available on Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 when connected to the Internet.

“Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning American into a Nation of Children,” is a hell of a book title.

The rest of the book is a bold, scathing, and almost entirely true indictment of American culture in the 21st century by Denver Post columnist, David Harsanyi. The book attacks the babying of the American child and adult through pointless practices like banning the playing of tag in some Massachusetts towns and banning junk food in schools.

This is the classic tale of “back in the day, we turned out just fine.” Back when people could smoke, drink and eat shitty food, and little kids could tackle each other and scrape their knees. Little boys and girls kissing should be considered cute, not sexual assault.

Read this book, and make up your own goddamn mind about this stuff.

Dutch-American Heritage Day is fast approaching (Nov. 16), so whether you’re Dutch or American, pop open an ice cold Grolsch and toast to the year 1776 when the Netherlands became the first country to officially salute the newly-independent United States.

In that year on Nov. 16, the governor of St. Eustatius — a Dutch island in the West Indies — ordered his fort’s cannons to pay tribute to an arriving American warship, the Andrew Doria. This risky and courageous act solidified the two countries’ friendship in history. Only months before, the United States had declared independence from Great Britain.

The Dutch salute was the first friendly act upon the new American nation from a foreign power. The British, angry at the Dutch for trading with the colonies, seized the island a few years later. The Dutch recaptured St. Eustatius in 1784.

So join the 8 million Dutch-Americans and celebrate the contributions you and your ancestors have made to the United States — beginning with the “first salute” in 1776 and continuing each day as the United States and the Netherlands work together to bring peace and freedom to the world.

If you need another excuse to drink, April 19th is Dutch-American Friendship Day. That’s when President John Adams, establishsied the first American Embassay at Fluwelen Burgwal 18 in The Hague.

“In the last 20 years, the ‘outlaw biker’ image associated with Harleys has been replaced by a new demographic. Most bikers are now in their 40s and 50s, with steady careers and families. What they share is a love of the finer things in life, and an interest in good food, good times…and of course, good wine,” said a statement from V-Twin Vineyards

So, here’s a thought: What’s a good wine to pair with your bike?

“The motorcycle lifestyle is all about freedom, about enjoying life and enjoying your friends,” said Scott Del Fava, Brand Manager for V-Twin Vineyards. “Our first release, a 2004 Zinfandel, is really turning heads with the motorcycling community. The front label is emblazoned with skulls and a flaming v-twin engine — and the wine inside is damn good.”

The Zin is pretty good. It’s bone dry and very strong — a tough wine that lives up to its name.

“The V-Twin Vineyards team has decades of experience in the wine industry,” said Del Fava. “The grapes for V-Twin Zin have been carefully selected from an estate vineyard in the legendary Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County.”

V-Twin Zin is available on their website and thru select distributors. “Having a ‘virtual winery’ allows the V-Twin Vineyards team to focus on quality and marketing while building the brand,” said Del Fava. “Planned Releases include: River Run Chardonnay, Poker Run Cabernet, Redwood Run Zinfandel and Toy Run Rose.”

“These ain’t no sissy wines! Look for a tasting room in the not- too-distant future, with good wine, a little attitude, and plenty of Harley parking out front.

Vince Poscente, one of the greatest public speakers in the world, offers a quick read called “The Age of Speed: Learning to Thrive in a More-Faster-Now World.”

The book asks a very basic question — is faster better, and how can I survive this new “fast world?”

Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit calls “The Age of Speed” “your bible to surf the speed tsunami that’s overtaking business and life.”

Time is more fluid now, and Poscente says this should make things easier for us if we can adapt to it.

4 out of 5 stars

Tons of people have written in and commented on our YouTube account wondering what the names of the songs were in The Diving Bell and Butterfly trailer.

Here they are:

“Chains of Love” — The Dirtbombs
“Don’t Kiss Me” — Ultra Orange et Emmanuelle Seigner
“Your Hand in Mine” — Explosions in the Sky

And of course we thank Mammoth Advertising for this info!

A new promo video has been released for Com2uS’s Mini Game Pack mobile phone game.

“With seven easy-to-learn and engaging mini-games, Mini Game Pack is one-button gaming at its best,” the company said in a statement. “Mini Game Pack challenges players to run, jump, race, smash, skip, drive and dodge their way to victory, and features different characters, each of whom have different abilities to tackle the gauntlet of games.”

Mini Game Pack can be purchased here.

PopCap Games announced two titles from their hit puzzle and arcade hits will land on PS2 and Xbox 360 this fall:

PopCap Arcade Volume 1 will be available for Xbox 360 with Bejeweled 2, AstroPop, Feeding Frenzy and Zuma for $29.95. PopCap Hits Volume 1 hits PS2 featuring Bejeweled 2 and AstroPop for $19.95. This is the first time PopCap games will be available on Playstation 2. Arcade Volume 1 is the first retail release on Xbox 360 after successful Xbox Arcade launches.

"We’re very excited to be bringing some of our top million-selling casual games to consoles via retail shelves and eager to see how consumers respond," said Glenn Drover, director of retail sales at PopCap. "We’ve had tremendous success at retail with the PC versions of many of our games, and these new collections for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 are priced even more aggressively, so they should be a hit with holiday shoppers."

Over the years, PopCap’s Bejeweled and Bejeweled 2 have sold more than 10 million copies and have been downloaded more than 300 million times. AstroPop, Feeding Frenzy and Zuma have been well received also. Packaging them with the company’s marquee titles may help boost them to the next level.

This is the 1990s-era Beenie Baby of drink ware. Lolita’s designs are carefully crafted and painted drinking glasses that double as chic collector’s items.

These crafty and whimsical glasses start at $24 (there’s also a jumbo martini glass for $49.99 that’s also useful as a candy bowl), but the amazing thing is the “retired editions” that go on Ebay for $150 and more!

“That’s because the artist, Lolita, puts such thought and detail into each design. And designs for this Hallow’s Eve are spooktacular,” said a company statement.

New for Halloween 2007, the “Wicked Witch” wine and jumbo martini glasses, “Mummy-tini” martini glass and “Fright night” wine and martini glasses. The glasses come complete with their own recipes (see photos.)

These babies make great gifts and are available at 10,000 locations nationwide.

He has a way with people, especially when they’re dead.

For your crime drama enjoyment — 13 episodes of Da Vinci’s Inquest, one of the best television mysteries of the modern era.

Dominic Da Vinci, a Vancouver cop turned coroner works with police and doctors time after time to uncover the truth behind countless murders.

The series opens with a three-part episode called “Little Sister.” Da Vinci takes up the cases of murdered prostitutes which were originally thought to die from alcohol or self-inflicted means.

Da Vinci’s Inquest Season 1 is four DVD”s with more than 10 hours of murder mystery with just enough melodrama and charm to remind you it’s not CSI: Miami.

Producer: Canadian Broadcasting Company
Distributor: Acorn Media
Platform: DVD
Genre: Television crime drama

Trey is a unique approach to seating. At first glance, it’s a modestly comfortable low back desk chair, but a it actually converts into a three-piece table/rocker/stool, giving it a variety of uses away from your new Ikea desk.

Sauder Manufacturing, the same outfit that probably made that bookshelf in the basement, put the Trey together and markets it separately from their other products. The Trey chair is a fun, functional little niche product that’s perfect for dorms and studios. It gives you a traditional working chair, a mini table for snacks or laptops, and a neat rocking chair to chill in front of the TV.

I also found the rocker to be a comfortable gaming solution. It reminded me of a smaller version of these old one-piece pleather rocking chairs the department stores used to sell.

The Trey comes apart with the flick of a latch and clicks right back into place. It also has all the standard chair features: rising, lowering and tilt-lock.

The only real drawback is the price. Depending on the fabric, the Trey goes from $239-$299. It’s a real expensive toy. The base model, any of six standard fabric colors, is priced at $239. I’d rather see it at $149-$199. It’s fun, but the average college student may not shell out the dough.

There’s more to the TV-to-DVD world than old episodes of M*A*S*H and the dozen or so Law and Order spin-offs. From WGBH and the UK comes Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act. This British crime drama stars Academy Award-winner Helen Mirren (The Queen) as Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison. Tennison must fine Sallie Sturdy, a 14-year-old girl who everyone fears murdered. Along the way she battles alcoholism, family illness and a pressure to retire from the crime solving life. At 184 minutes, it’s the perfect British long-form mystery. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of the same old stuff on TV these days. Helen Mirren gives a performance that the San Francisco Chronicle called "perhaps the greatest role and performance of a female police detective, ever."

Fresh off the BBC America comes "Cracker: A New Terror," starring the incredibly talented Robbie Coltrane. Coltrane, of Harry Potter fame, plays Dr. Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald, an incredibly brilliant but deeply flawed forensic psychologist returning to England after years in Australia to solve a mysterious rash of random murders. This feature-length DVD includes a 45-minute behind the scenes documentary with cast and crew interviews.

This is the perfect British mystery with a talented cast set in a world in terror in the aftermath of 9/11 and is something different for the average Hollywood-crazed American movie and TV watcher

Last year the Associated Press reported nearly 70 percent of Ground Zero rescue workers have suffered lung ailments and “abnormalities.”

“There should no longer be any doubt about the health effects of the World Trade Center. Our patients are sick,” Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of the group that investigated the long-term effects from exposure to Ground Zero told the AP last year.

Most of the rescuers wade through physical health problems. Others quietly suffer from depression, anger and post traumatic stress.

Today, media outlets around the world are sharing memorials, war news, timelines and conspiracy theories with you.

They’re going back to September 11, 2001 and discussing their coverage of the day’s events, showing an airplane crashing into a building so that people can watch someone they love die, like a dear friend who is simply tired of watching his father die, over and over again.

We won’t show any video from 9:02 a.m.

For the rest of the week, Blast Magazine will show you photos, not of the dead and dying, but of the living and breathing. These photos are not professional. They were taken by my father, a firefighter and 9/11 rescuer, and his companions in the hours after the attacks in New York.

They must stand and serve as a reminder that when everyone else ran from lower Manhattan, these people ran towards it. And now they are dying from the toxins they inhaled and ingested.

It is time for the government to acknowledge this and care for the caregivers. If they do not, it will be a shame. A shame on the current president and whichever man or woman assumes the role next. A shame on Congress — Republican or Democrat. A shame on all of us.