“I made a promise to my parents to protect this city from the evil that took their lives.”

— Batman, The Long Halloween

“I promise myself that I will be HD-ready by the time The Dark Knight comes out on Blu-ray.”

— John Bierly, in the kitchen one evening while sipping on a Pepsi

And so it is.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new ladies in my life — Liv Tyler and Selma Blair:

Liv Tyler is a 37-inch Samsung 1080p HDTV, and Selma Blair is a matching Blu-ray player.

(I have a long history of naming major electronics after my favorite ladies both fictional and real; the iPods are Sweet Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, and my cellphone is Maggie Gyllenhaal.)

I’d been holding off for a long, long time, talking myself into, then out of, taking the plunge. But there are so many good movies coming out now on home video, and I was tired of buying DVDs when I knew Blu was so much better, and then there was the promise I made to myself about going HD before The Dark Knight arrived (which will happen on December 9), so I kept my eyes out for good deals and finally found the right one at HH Gregg.

I got there at 5 a.m. Friday, and two hours later the box was wedged so tightly into my backseat that the TV had to be cut out of the box just to get it out of the car and into the apartment.

I know I’ve really been falling behind on writing here lately, so hopefully this will get me in gear to start doing more reviews. I’ve seen tons of movies lately both at home and in theaters near me, so maybe I can get some more writing done here.

(In the meantime, I’m still cranking out tons of stuff for Impact and reviews of Detective Comics and Batman Confidential for Batman in Comics, and working on some other cool stuff with my writing partner, Kevin.)

Big thanks as always for your visits and your patience!

More to come.