TV
Victory of The Daleks Wallpaper
I watched the latest Doctor Who episode yesterday, Victory of The Daleks, which took place in World War Two-era Britain. The Daleks had managed to infiltrate the British army, and were posing as a ‘secret weapon’ against the Nazi menace. Winston Churchill was extremely happy to use the alien tech to win the war, but of course, The Doctor knew that the xenophobic cyborgs had to have some ulterior motive. That’s all I’ll say about the plot for now, but a basic review of the episode was that it was awesome.
Anyway, about halfway through the episode Churchill shows The Doctor an early draft of a propaganda poster based on the Dalek secret weapon. It looks like this:
Well, I took that poster, and made a wallpaper out of it. Check it out:
Update: For those so inclined, I made an iPhone version as well. Click the image:
Iron Man Released
The Iron Man movie came out yesterday, and it is quite possibly the best superhero movie I have ever seen. The only competition it might have would be Batman Begins, but even that seems cheesy and weird in comparison to the highly polished, well-built Iron Man movie. Any nerd will greatly appreciate the amount of gadgets in the film, and even if you get completely lost in the steady stream of geekspeak, the movie is really enjoyable. The action is awesome, without being too unbelievable, and the special effects are unbelievable. It really is completely seamless, as one would expect it to be. Even the comic relief provided by Tony Stark’s assistant robots is acceptable, given the sheer awesome of the movie.
There were two moments in the movie which made the fanboy in me flip out, because they were references to aspects of the Iron Man comics I had completely forgotten about. I haven’t read many Iron Man comics, so I’m not that well-versed in Iron Man lore, but I knew enough to recognize how awesome the references were.
Protip: Stay through the credits.
New Star Trek Movie In The Works
I’ve always been a Star Wars fan, and saw it as the ultimate king of Sci-Fi. Any other Science Fiction movie I viewed as lesser than it, and some I even refused to watch, considering them to be not even worthy of my time. The Star Trek saga was one of those. I simply refused to admit that there was any merit to it, because I viewed it as competing with Star Wars. I maintained that attitude until I realized that the plot (at least, of the old show) is somewhat similar to that of Dr. Who. Space Travellers, landing on alien worlds and doing stuff on them. Aliens are met, fights had, problems solved, red shirts die, everyone beams back to the Enterprise. Good stuff. Even with my change of heart, I still never watched it, because like Dr. Who, there’s just so much of it. Where do I start? How can I watch it?
Well, after seeing this trailer for the new Star Trek movie, I know where I’m going to start. The movie is directed by J.J. Abrams, the producer of Lost and more recently, Cloverfield, so I’m sure this is going to be a good movie.
I think my friends, who still maintain my original attitude towards Star Trek, are going to disown me for seeing it, but it really does look like $8.50 well-spent to me.
Voyage of the Damned
The Dr. Who Christmas special, entitled Voyage of the Damned, aired yesterday in Great Britain, and I just got around to downloading/watching it. This is the first new episode I’ve watched, since I started watching just after season 3 finished, and I must say, I was impressed. The visual quality was superb, the action intense, the humor…humorous, and so on and so forth.
(Continued, with spoilers and all, below)
› Continue reading
Dr. Who Children in Need Special
For the Dr. Who fanatics out there, the Dr. Who Children in Need Special 2007 is now out, and it’s awesome. It stars both the 10th and 5th Doctors in a short clip involving their two TARDIS’s merging accidentally. It really is great, go watch it. I lol’d.
Dr. Who
I cannot believe I had not watched Dr. Who before just recently. I started watching about a month or two ago, and was instantly addicted. It is the perfect blend of comedy, science fiction, and action. The cheesy special effects are just part of the charm, and the storyline is too awesome for words.
I just finished The Last of the Time Lords on Friday (the final episode of the latest season), and I must say that The Master is officially my favorite villain of all time, with Emperor Palpatine in second. He has the bounce and humor of The Doctor, but also that evil twist. He is also too awesome for words.
So yeah, if you haven’t watched Dr. Who before, you definitely, absolutely have to watch it.
New TV!
I went out and bought an Element 32″ FLX-3210 HDTV. Why did I choose that one? It was cheap. Hooray! $499 when I got it, thanks to Labor Day sales. And thank goodness I decided on this one instead of the one I was originally going to get, because I compared them in-store, and the Ölevia’s quality was terrible.
So here’s my review of the FLX-3210. Keep in mind that I have little to no experience whatsoever with HDTV’s, and no actual HD content to watch on it yet (HDMI cable for the ps3 is in the mail).
Setup:
Setup was very simple, just four screws to keep the stand onto the display (which came in two of the larges pieces of Styrofoam packaging I’ve ever seen). The menus are extremely simple and easy to navigate. Great.
Picture Quality:
The TV is 768p (1360×768), though advertised as 720p, because 768p is not an American standard (being a PAL resolution), so i guess 720p images will be scaled up a bit to fit. I’ll find out when I get my HDMI cable.
The color is amazing, the 1200:1 contrast ration is awesome, blacks are pretty black, whites are extremely bright. There’s no ghosting or anything, the picture is all-around “super”, especially considering the low pricetag.
Sound Quality
However, it’s pretty obvious why Element can afford to make such inexpensive TV’s without losing image quality. The speakers on this box are not the best I’ve ever heard, not by far. They’re somewhat tinny and have an almost complete lack of bass. I’d call the out-of-the-box sound quality “passable”.
However, after some tweaking of the settings (turning off the simulated surround sound helped a ton, as did turning up the bass), I’d give the speakers a solid “decent”.
Other Factors
Inputs: It as 2 composites, 1 RCA component (which I’m using for the ps3 right now), 1 HDMI, 1 S-video, 1 vga (which I hooked my computer up to for some awesome iTunes visualizations action), and maybe some others :P In short, a ton of connections. Great :)
Remote: Nothing special. Decent.
Overall: Great :D
What to Buy…
A while (like, may last year), I posted What Mac? In which I discussed all my options for buying my next computer (sorry all the images are broken…and probably the links too…oh well…). Anyway, I’m going to do the same thing now, since I’ve been thinking about it a lot since the iMac came out. So here we go.
- A Kickass 24″ iMac
Pros
*Great computer for relatively low cost ($2000)
*Can replace Eve (when Eve needs replacing)
Cons
*Don’t have nearly enough money yet, I’d have to save almost all the money I get for a year and get a job to be able to have this by 2009…
Pros
*Really advanced system, should be great for a long time (I’m still happily using my ps2…)
*LittleBigPlanet
*I can actually afford it at the moment (but just barely, another month or two for a game and a second controller ;))
Cons
*Only one game I’m really looking forward to, but plenty of other’s I’ll enjoy
*Can’t afford any games yet :P
*No HDTV to play it on, I can hook it up to my monitor but then I have no sound…The TV is another $500 if I shop right…
Pros
*Love using it. The controller is fun :)
*Fun hacks with the controller and a computer
*Some fun games coming out later in the year
*Wii Sports counts as exercise :D
*Have a lot of money left over for games/controllers
Cons
*I already know 2 really close friends with Wiis, and I can use theirs whenever I want…
*Barely any good games out right now…Boredom until something good comes out
*Underpowered
*Hard to get…
*Lack of HDTV (See ps3 cons)
Please advise me! :D
Boston Bomb Squad Can’t Distinguish Between LED Boards and Bombs
Earlier in the week, a bunch of LED Boards (a circuit board with Light Emitting Diodes placed in it to form a picture) were discovered spread all over Boston. They were shaped like the Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
The Mooninites
These boards were guerrilla ads for the upcoming ATHF Movie. What do you think happened when average civilians caught sight of these things hanging on the Green Monster, from bridges, and walls? They did what any average post-9/11 civilian would do, and immediately panicked. The bomb squad was called in to remove them, and they even detonated one to make sure it wasn’t a bomb (what, if it’s a little explosion then it wasn’t a bomb, if it is a big explosion it was?). The whole fiasco cost Boston $750,000. They arrested the man responsible for making the ads, and Mayor Menino is demanding that Turner Broadcasting (the company that commissioned the ads, and, coincidentally, also funds the revival of Uru Live) pay for all of the expenses.
Personally, I find this ridiculous. Yes, maybe they should have notified someone that they were going to hang these things up, but calling in the whole bomb squad for these things is a bit of an overreaction. I don’t think Turner should pay any money to Boston, but that Boston should instruct its bomb squad and police force in the difference between a circuit board with lights in it and a bomb. Any slightly experienced techie would be able to see that these things are not bombs, and might even laugh, if they liked ATHF (which I don’t, but that’s beside the point).
I’m disappointed, Boston.
Wiiview
Well, I finally found a playable Wii. I have to say, slightly disappointing. The nunchuck is way too light. The wiimote is too sensitive at times and not sensitive enough at other times. I must say though, once I got used to the weight and the sensitivity (and getting smacked in the arm by the lefty next to me), wii sports tennis was extremely fun. I sucked at it, yes, but that’s to be expected. I also enjoyed being completely rag-dolled in boxing. Since this was at my school’s anime con, we could only do multiplayer games, thus I have nothing to report on Twilight Princess. Oh well. Still, if you didn’t need to point the wiimote at the sensor bar and the nunchuck was a bit heavier, the wii would be basically perfect.
A word on graphical quality. Sure, the Wii is the most underpowered current-gen console, but what it lacks in power it makes up for in fun and innovation. The controls were very intuitive, I must say.
Update: My friend Cutter has informed me that the sensor bar was in fact set up incorrectly at the anime con, so you can disregard my above comments on the sensitivity issues, at least until I try the Wii his way…
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