When we last saw Jack Bauer, he was headed into custody of the Chinese government, sure to undergo all sorts of unspeakable torture, as the Communist regime had made him the fall guy for the killing of their ambassador at the nation's embassy on US soil. While the rest of the world awaits the series' debut in a week to see what's happened to Bauer and the rest of the 24 crew, some early birds already know, and just might spoil the fun if you want to be surprised, thanks to an early leak of the season's first four episodes as BitTorrent files - downloadable from anywhere in the world.

As TorrentFreak wrote on their blog yesterday, it's unknown who the source of the leak is. Some think it's a ploy by Fox or the series' creators to drum up interest in the franchise. Alternatively, it could be an aggressive fan. Regardless, the cat's out of the bag, and any tech-savvy 24 fan could take the time to download more than 1.2 gigabytes of non-stop 24 action to catch the first four episodes before anybody else. It just takes intelligent Web searching and smart software to hear Jack order people to holster their weapons for the first time in months.

Though we've been a contributor to Sactown Royalty all season long, it's rare for us to get the opportunity to see the Kings on TV, let alone get out to Arco Arena to see them live. This weekend, my wife and I will be heading out to see my parents, who live in the capital city, and catching the Kings game against the visiting Houston Rockets, with or without 7' 6" superhuman Yao Ming.

Living in the Bay Area, my yearning for the Kings derives mostly from my misspent youth, where many an evening was wasted, wishing for the moribund team to break through and win a freakin' game.

Now, with the team's recent struggles, the same, idealistic, hope just may be all we can hold on to. All you need to know is that the Kings are playing well under expectations now, and they've even devolved to the point their losing to bad teams at home - never a good sign. That's part of why my recent posts to the site have taken on an occasional bitter or sarcastic tone. Yet, once the game's on, we're rooting for them. That's my role. Should be a very fun Saturday evening.

This weekend's Sactown Royalty posts:

• Ron Artest: ESPN Magazine Cover Boy
  
• New Rumor: Heat Interested in Artest, Bibby
  
• Stats Corner: Suckitude Doesn't Compute
  
• Write In Kenny Thomas, NBA All-Star!
  

Our home entertainment has taken a serious turn for the better. On Thursday, our long-awaited 42-inch Sylvania plasma television arrived, daring us to more fully adopt our role as a human couch ornament. Having never lived in a home with anything better than a 27 inch CRT monitor, we thought this adjustment would be daunting, but after a few days of wiring and rewiring, we're making do.

The box arrived early, of all things, by a few hours, which gave me time to lift the behemoth the 4 vertical feet needed to rest it atop my bedroom dresser (for now). I hooked it up to our new DVD/VCR combo, and hoped for the best, but found that my technical knowledge only went so far. For some reason, the Sylvania lacked a coaxial cable port, making it nearly impossible to project real cable TV on it. Sure, it played DVDs great, but ... um... no TV. No matter how much bigger the picture, it wasn't good.

Thursday evening, after hassling with getting my wife's car towed (a different story), I ran to Radio Shack to find a magical device that converted Coaxial cable to S-Video. No such luck. They said to try Fry's. Fry's was more helpful, but anything they had was out of stock. I was told to go back to Radio Shack and ask for something else. I instead went to Best Buy, and dealt with pimply earring-wearing teen boys who didn't exactly get the situation. I walked out with a little TV Tuner doohickey that did nothing, but only cost about $20.

Friday, I explained the situation to a friend and colleague, and he said I could connect the new plasma with the S-Video cable on our TiVo. I just had to yank the TiVo and cable box out of our living room and move them to the bedroom to do it. So, Friday evening, we tried just that. After a few trial and errors, all was working. DVD/VCR on one input, and cable TV on the other input. Now, our room is like a little theater, where we don't even have to get out of bed to watch ESPNNEWS or check out the latest TiVo recording from our Season Pass. Gluttony and sloth just got that much easier! And the picture is awesome, so long as we don't beg for HD.

The next step? Somehow figure out just why in the world channels 35 to 55 don't come in on that room but do in the other room. If you think I'm going to sit idly by as everything from TNT to ESPN, ESPN2 and CNN are unavailable, you're wrong. 42 inches of yummy flat-screen goodness is just aching for it.

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Google Reader - the search engine's online RSS aggregator and feed service. I've grown so accustomed to navigating my river of news feeds this way that I've even found myself hitting the "magic keys" of J and K to navigate up and down Web sites that aren't thusly enabled. Today, I was excited to find that Google Reader has been spying on me - in a good way. The service debuted graphical trends that show my last 30 days' worth of activity, highlighted the most frequently updated news feeds I read each day, and those which I most frequently post to my Link Blog (updated multiple times daily).

I've shared a number of the images with you.

1. In summary, I'm subscribed to 84 news feeds. Over the last 30 days, I've read 8,077 items, 323 of which made it to my link blog, a ratio of just under 4 percent.



2.  Over the last month, the number of read feeds per day ranges typically between 250 and 400. Note that even in the lightest days I got to about 50 or so feeds. This stat shows those I read, not how many items were placed in the feeds.



3. The stats show I'm reading everything, and not deleting or skipping. ESPN.com averages about 24 items per day, or one per hour, all month long. Of these top 10 items, 3 are Technology oriented, 2 are Sports, 4 are Political and 1 is Work related.



4. Expanding on the above you can see which are the most frequently updated feeds. The converse is also available, reminding me that some feeds just don't update for months, even. They can be deleted.



5. Not all feeds are created equal. TechMeme, TUAW and Robert Scoble are among those blogs I've most frequently shared on the Link Blog. Note a tendency towards narcissism as well with my own blog and Sactown Royalty. The more venues these sites are available, the better, in my opinion.



RSS makes the new world go 'round. Google Reader makes it go 'round better and faster. This is a great new enhancement to an already strong service. Go Google Go.