Upcoming Entertainment

Tonight at 4:00 p.m. is the NBA Dunk Contest!  I have fond memories of Dwight Howard dunking with one hand while slapping a sticker of his own smiling face to the top of the backboard with his other hand.  Here is the video:

I Don't Think the Judges Could See the Sticker and 

Therefore Didn't Rate this Dunk Highly Enough

Enlightened
Sundays, 9:30 PM ET, HBO

Season 4 of Archer has begun!

Happy Endings
Tuesdays, 9:30 PM ET, ABC

Childrens Hospital
Thursdays, Comedy Central

Zero Hour (February 14)
Watching the first episode gave me the chance to crack wise about a lot of the material that was being covered.

Oz The Great And Powerful (March 8) 
It's got Sam Raimi as the director!  The guy has the Midas-touch I tell you.


The Last Of Us (May 7)
A video game about zombies from the guy who did the excellent Uncharted trilogy

Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing (June 7)
I'm not holding my breath in anticipation but I suppose I will give it a shot.

Christopher Priest’s The Adjacent (June 20)
Something for you fancy book readin' types.

So much win:

I want to lick the creators of this short film.

Of course most of the stuff listed above will probably turn out to be just slightly above par:

Now for something you'll really like:

I can't think of any possible downside to keeping a tiger in the backyard:

Shouts to Doobybrain.com for finding these videos.  I have taken the initiative of culling the weaker videos from the doobybrain site to bring you only the best. 

13 seconds in things start to get good

This video of a power plant being imploded in Chula Vista, CA gets a little loud:

Coming down from this high is not going to be fun for this jerk:

Fast-forward to 10:15 for the good stuff

For your gif needs, I sugges that you visit, giphy

Recent Reading
Recently, I read the novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  I enjoyed the experience and recommend the book.

Making My Own Entertainment
I taught myself HTML, CSS and JavaScript in the hope of growing rich.  This has not really worked out for me so far.  I do still have a dream of constantly creating a website that allows visitors to go on a free online adventure.  That's right, my dream is to publish a free game that people play online.  The game I have in mind presents the user with images I have captured from my own camera and allows the user to play through a series of story lines that are constantly being created.   


The closest thing I have found to what I have in mind is The Kingdom of Loathing.  My plan has always been to create something of a similar scale but to use photos instead of crude drawings because, if you look at the scribbles on this blog, I clearly should not be encouraged to draw anything myself.

TL;DR: Above are links to sources of entertainment to put in your eye and ear holes.

Entertainment

Try watching these shows on TV:

• "Revolution", an hour long drama series on NBC, which according to this article is doing really well in the ratings thus far

Nevermind, this show is not very good- I'll leave the videos up just in case you want to watch:

The Pilot, Originally Aired on 9/17/12

Eps. 1, Originally Aired on 9/24/12

Eps. 2, Originally Aired on 10/1/12

Eps. 3, Originally Aired on 10/8/12

Eps. 4, Originally Aired on 10/15/12

...

Eps. 5, Originally Aired on TBD

Eps. 6, Originally Aired on TBD

Trashy TV

Now is as good a time as any to think about what will keep us entertained this weekend.  The following trashy TV shows that are available on Netflix have captured my attention:

Skins (the original UK version, not the terrible U.S. remake):

 Pink undies, a short plaid skirt and boots will get my attention

 I've read that book!

The whole first season of Skins is available on Netflix

My quasi-puritanical American upbringing does cause me to turn down the volume on these shows frequently.

Pretty Little Liars (PLL)
Now hear me out on this one.  The pilot of PLL is good.  I enjoyed watching the pilot to see a Disney show aimed at the tween and younger audience that covers shoplifting, underage drinking, drug use, lesbians, murder and lying (obviously) to adults.  Plus, the actresses are easy on the eyes.

Pretty girls, catchy music, lots of advertising 

but not worth watching beyond the pilot

Unfortunately, the promise of this show starts to fizzle out before the end of the pilot.  Among the many problems the show faces is that a police officer actually shows up at the home of a girl to arrest her for shoplifting.  This does not happen in real life, kids.

What little else I have seen of this show has been a disappointment.

Summary: I offer some Netflix suggestions that are heavy on top heavy young girls.

Roku Instead of Time Warner Cable

Cutting the Cable TV Cord

Time Warner Cable charges too much and provides too little service to their customers.  So I cut ties with them.

I failed to include the peasants screaming in vain at the 

gates of the evil Time Warner Cable castle.  Also, I realize

that these scissors are gigantic.

I don't like signing multi-year agreements for anything because the company I'm dealing with has less incentive to care about the service they are providing.  Years ago my nearby Gold's Gym was taken over by Bally's.  The physical location and all the equipment inside the gym remained the same but the management changed for the worse.  Instead of paying for a gym membership every month, Bally's insisted that I sign a three year membership deal.  Because the gym was close to my high school and a lot of my friends from school used that gym I decided to continue my membership.  Of course, when it came time for me to leave and go to college Bally's refused to close my membership until I could show them written proof that I was moving out of the city and away from their gym.

One of the guys I knew in high school signed an agreement with Bally's on a Friday afternoon.  On Saturday, he got a speeding ticket that cost him several hundred dollars.  He called Bally's just hours after getting the ticket to explain that because of the money he would need to spend paying the ticket, he could no longer afford to pay them.  Bally's did the classy, understanding thing: sent a collection agency after him to either get the money or ruin his credit.  Yet another reason I don't like multi-year deals.

In December, the entertainment fund was raided to purchase a new high definition TV to replace the massive, ancient standard definition 32" set that was inherited from my Grandfather.  When I took Grandad's set to the dump, I learned that it weighed 160 lbs.  Right after the guy at the dump took it and weighed it for their records he accidentally allowed it to topple over smashing the screen to bits in a gloriously loud burst of broken glass and cracking wood (yes, my previous TV was old enough that it had a wooden frame).

In December of 2011, once I got the old TV out, I needed a new cable box capable of outputting a signal in high definition to replace the existing standard definition cable box.  I packed up my cable box and drove it over to the evil Time Warner Cable store.  The three bloated and partially decomposed bodies hanging by loops of coaxial cable at the Time Warner Cable entrance were a bit of an off putting sight.  Massive black vultures pecking at the bodies flew off their perch atop a sign reading "Disgruntled Customers" no doubt startled by the sound of my car.

True Story

I found the situation inside to be even more disturbing.

A Time Warner Cable employee sat behind the counter sucking at the severed end of a femur.  "Marrow?" he offered holding up the other half of the femur to a female employee who had just returned from a backroom, which I would swear was filled with nothing but flames.

Between sucks on his bone, the guy behind the counter at the cable company told me that because I still had four months on a two year contract, I could rent a new HD cable box and but would have to keep the current standard definition cable box, which is now worthless to because it doesn't offer any connectors that match up to the new TV.  I looked at the guy in disbelief until both he and his female manager explained to me that they couldn't simply exchange cable boxes without me having to pay a $150 fee to break the contract.  I offered to give them the old box but they didn't even want to take that insisting that I would have to drive back to their office in four months when my current two year agreement expired to return it.  To explain my options more clearly she opened the door to the flame room and pointed inside.  So, the old cable box would have to take up space in my home unused and gathering dust.  None of this was explained to me when I called Time Warner Cable ahead of time to discuss the process of switching cable boxes.  In fact, the Time Warner Cable representative I spoke with over the phone said I could simply bring in the old cable box and switch it out for a new one.

Roku Comes Into My Life

Because I officially dislike the service provided by Time Warner Cable, I bought a Roku XD and canceled cable TV service.

Looks Good Enough

Connect Roku to TV
I found that setting up the Roku unit was very easy.  I plugged in an HDMI cable (which really should be supplied along with the Roku unit but, unfortunately, was not) to the Roku and the other end into the TV.  Then, I entered the password for my home WiFi network, which is *************, to connect the Roku unit to the internet.

Setup Roku Channels
Once you have your Roku unit plugged in to your TV, you have to set it up with what they call channels, which are basically feeds from video content providers that have been coded for display on a Roku player.  Netflix, Crackle, Hulu Plus, Disney, the major sports networks and a few other content providers have setup their own channels for Roku.

Netflix Comes Built In
Access to the Netflix library of content is really my goal in owning a Roku unit.  The way I see things, $7.99 a month for access to the Watch Instantly library of Netflix content beats paying more than $100 each month for hundreds of cable TV channels that somehow never have anything I would like to watch displayed on them.

A monthly charge of $8 is lighter on my wallet than $100+ for cable

The Verdict - Pros

At the time I compared prices and features in December of 2011, Roku was the only device in the greater field of internet to TV players that would output video in 1080p.  Perhaps someday Apple TV will get with the times and figure out how to output 1080p.

The Verdict - Cons

YouTube worked with Roku just fine in the past.  Sadly, sometime before I bought my Roku YouTube stopped playing nicely with Roku and now Roku refused to play YouTube content.

Roku has a MicroSD card slot on the back of the device I purchased.  Unfortunately, the unit doesn't allow me to save a video to a MicroSD card using my computer, plug it into the Roku unit and play back the video.  The slightly more expensive model of Roku, called XS I believe, has a plug that will allow one to attach an external hard drive and play back video, which I would have bought if I had to do it all over again.


TL;DR: Roku is a quality Netflix player capable of outputting video in 1080p, which is available for less than $100.  If I had to do it all over again I would buy the Roku 2 XS instead of the XD because the most expensive model can playback video from an external hard drive.

Television in 2012

Today we continue the "Stuff in 2012" series with my take on television in 2012.

 Try to draw a storage console under the screen, 

get a TV on top of the grill of a Mercury four door 

(five, if you count the trunk)

My tastes in entertainment aren't the best but whenever I'm feeling out of sorts I find it useful to consult my Entertainment List in the hopes of finding something to watch or do to improve my mood.  Here are are a few of the programs from the TV section of my current Entertainment List:

• Academic Earth - The Academic Earth site offers all the fun of attending college lectures without the increased chances of becoming employed, which, theoretically, come with a college degree!  However, in as much seriousness as you will ever find here, I do recommend this site as a source of good quality information on virtually every topic one could pay thousands of dollars a semester to study at a quality college or university.  Plus, I enjoy the fact that anytime I have internet access I can get up to speed on any topic over the course of a single evening by watching videos on this site.  

 A good place to keep your stuff

         The downside to these lecturers is that I typically find it necessary to setup rewards for myself for making it through one of them.  

         Finally, I realize that Academic Earth isn't television.  "Video Content in 2012" doesn't sound quite convey the subject matter of this post since the rest of these are TV show.

• Archer - Archer is guilty pleasure TV for me.  I would never recommend people of my Grandparent's generation watch this show because it's filled with vulgarity, hilarious, often unexpected and well written vulgarity.  Basically, Archer is a spoof on the James Bond series of books and movies, which consistently delivers laughs. 
• Children's Hospital - Again, this one falls into my guilty pleasure category.  I like the show because the jokes come quickly, the writing and editing are sharp and the cast is a blend of guys from the stand up world and good looking actresses.
  
• Community - I bet a lot of the success of this show comes from having Joel McHale involved.  From all the time that McHale has been doing Talk Soup he seems to have learned what makes for bad TV.  From what I've seen of Community, he tries to do the opposite on this show.  Also, having Chevy Chase probably doesn't hurt in the laugh department.  Plus, Alison Brie is easy on the eyes.
• Conan - I'll tune in to TBS at 11 p.m. once every few days to watch Conan's monologue and the first sketch, which are usually fairly good.  If the guest that night seems interesting, I'll usually leave the TV on in the background while commenting on the blogs of people that publish interesting content.  You know who you are.
• CSI - I like the original version, which is set in Las Vegas, not so much the New York or Miami versions.   

 Why do they always investigate in the dark using flashlights?

The dead guy isn't going to get stuck with the electric bill.

• Gold Rush - I'm addicted to watching the working life of the three groups of gold miners working in Alaska on the Discovery Channel program, Gold Rush.  The first season captivated me based on the inept management of the group of miners who are sort of led by a heavily bearded guy.  While watching the first season, it struck me as amazing that a group of people with no skill or knowledge were willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment but didn't budget enough for fuel to keep their incredibly expensive equipment running, nor did they spend any money or time training themselves on how to make money at gold mining.
• Jeopardy
• Mythbusters - I appreciate their blend of science and entertainment.
• The River - On February 7, 2012 ABC will premier The River.  Based solely on the ads, I'll watch at least the first episode.  I'm not going to spend a single second thinking about the show if the first episode doesn't deliver.  Here you can find the official site of this upcoming ABC show.  

To give you some sense of my taste, or lack thereof, here are some of the shows I deemed worthy of watching in the past and/ or still do watch in reruns:

• Harper's Island - In 2009 this terrible mistake of a show, which was hyped as "horror comes to network TV" but really didn't deliver anything more graphic than your standard episode of CSI, captured my attention.  The Harper's Globe site where promotional videos and content written from the perspective of a resident of the fictional Harper's Island, which was used to promote the series before it aired was very well done.  Unfortunately, I found that the TV series left a lot to be desired. 
• The Killing - This show does well in terms of atmosphere and I like the fact that the murder mystery presented in this series isn't just wrapped up in a neat little package in a one hour time slot.  But when the investigation dragged on and on I started to think that perhaps the detectives on the show need to find new careers.

"You know what baffles me more than this case?"
"Wondering how it was that we were ever hired as detectives?"
"Precisely." 

• Lost - I enjoyed the first season a lot but lost interest when the show was pushed to a later time slot.  I saw a billboard for the fictional airline featured in the show on Hollywood Blvd. several years ago, which is a fantastic way to connect with one's audience.  Also, from what I heard during my drive to and from work at the time the producers ran faux-commercials that referenced a fictional corporation in the show during the regular commercials for the show, which is awesome. 
• Scrubs – I still find Scrubs to be funny.
• The Simpsons

How does any of the above fit within the scope of this blog being about computing, technology, world affairs, the struggle of the middle class in America, famous authors, computer programming and well designed things?  I don't think it does.  However, I'm justifying posting this information in the hope that one of the shows listed above will cause someone else to exclaim "WHY DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS BEFORE!?!"

TL;DR: I watch a lot of TV.  As always, I try to highlight in bold the bits I think are worth scanning.