That’s right. Our long regional nightmare is over.

It went live in my house in central Tempe yesterday on test channel 666. This morning, it was up and running on channel 1 (though the “On Demand” button on the remote still doesn’t work). From reports, it’s now throughout Tempe and Chandler, and given that it’s already been rolling out in Scottsdale and Mesa, it seems that most of the East Valley has it, now - though let me know if you still don’t have it.

It’s actually better than I thought it’d be. Given reports like this, my expectations were low for Cox’s version of On Demand, but the “Free Zone” (specifically the “Cable Showcase” area) actually has some solid, but not great, choices. In “Free Zone” HD, for instance, you can currently watch all episodes so far of “Mad Men” in high def, which we wouldn’t have gotten a chance to otherwise, since Cox doesn’t carry AMC’s HD channel currently. Similarly, “The Hills” is on the MTV HD slot, another channel we don’t get in HD (plus, is there really a better way to expersions Spencer Pratt’s douchbaggery other than high definition? I think not). The HD offerings are slim, but there’s some worthwhile stuff there.

Under the “Election ‘08″ area, you can watch full versions of convention speeches from C-SPAN, in case you missed one or are having trouble sleeping. If you’re a subscriber, HBO On Demand has lots of stuff, and there’s the On Demand pay services like WWE 24/7 and Howard TV, which are obviously niche markets but something that’s still not available in much of the country (WWE 24/7, my friend reports, isn’t available on Time Warner cable in New York City) , so it’s cool that it’s here.

It still seems very much to be in the testing phase - it wasn’t really working at all on my parents’ non-HD cable box, and somewhat intermittent on mine, and the menus are slow to load and navigate. Plus, the main screen has constant commercials for movies available On Demand that are totally annoying and slow things down even further (and a commercial for “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns” is annoying enough already).

Anyone else poke around with it?

Since the award show itself was greatly stripped down the year, my analysis will be as well. I actually haven’t seen a lot of the stuff that won awards. Does this make the Golden Globes out-of-touch, or me? Or…both? All I know is, if things like “Attack of the Show” won Golden Globes, I’d feel a lot more clued in right now.

BEST TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA - “Mad Men”

Never seen it! I think when I heard there was an original program on AMC I got it confused with the British show “MI-5″ on A&E and didn’t check it out and all of a sudden I was hearing that it was the best show ever and then it was all over. Epic fail on my part. I really don’t know anything about this show. Who are these men? Why are they so mad? Mysteries abound.

Both Amazon and TVShowsonDVD have no release date yet for a DVD, either (though it is on iTunes). Dang. But they are starting to replay it on Jan. 21. Yay! I’ll just watch it and pretend it’s a new show. Retro-July 2007-chic! (more…)