Kings

If you didn’t watch Kings, get over to Youtube or Hulu and do so. The finale was this week, and it’s the best show I’ve seen in a while. For me it replaced Galactica. Here's a good piece from Ian McShane and Sebastian Stan (king and prince, respectively) from the first episode.

I won’t ruin the show by telling you what it’s about, but it’s got everything a great tv show needs, minus Bruce Campbell. The characters are well-drawn, the acting is all above par, and the plot and dialogue are as good as anything that ever came out of (Battlestar’s) Ron Moore and David Eick (bitter? Me?).

I just can’t say enough about this show. It’s cancelled, which (imho) only adds to its credibility. There’s even a movement to get it un-cancelled, and given that it’s not a Fox show (Firefly, Family Guy, Futurama, just to rattle off the short F-list. Yet The Simpsons hang on for twenty seasons), that’s heartening. Anyway. Just thought I’d spread the word about the show and get people to watch it maybe. If, after reading my blog, then watching the show, one person sends a butterfly to

Ben Silverman
3000 W Alameda Ave
Admin Bldg
Burbank, CA 91523

then I consider my mission successful.

Sherlock Holmes

Oh man. A week or two ago, my dad mailed me The Complete Sherlock Holmes. I have never read them before, but I remember staying up late with Dad to watch Jeremy Brett (now atop my Netflix queue). He was the best.

After reading just the first two stories (A Study In Scarlet and The Sign of Four), I’ve downloaded the next book onto my blackberry’s e-reader so I can read on the go.

If you have not read Sherlock Holmes, you must. Holmes does everything the NCIS crew does without the benefit of technology. That sounds ridiculous, but that’s really the mark of a great writer, isn’t it? Taking something that, at first blush, seems ridiculous, and making you believe it. And the writing is good as well.

Aside from the primary characters (Holmes and Watson), character development is… not lacking, but certainly not in abundance. Every character is whole and believable, there just isn’t much time wasted in exhibiting their completeness. You feel like you know the characters just because you’ve spent some time with them. Gregson and Lestrade, for example, are full characters on which very little time is wasted, but whom you get to know very well. Imagery is a little lacking, but there’s a lot of meat to the writing. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tells a good story with real characters.

That all being said, I worry (only a little) about the upcoming film starring Robert Downey jr. and Jude Law. We’ll see how that goes.

Animated TV in HD

To begin: I’m whining and I know it. we’re just surrounded by all this great technology and it seems to make things worse, not better. I thought digital cable was a great idea until I started watching it all the time.

How come South Park and Family Guy look like ass on my 720p 37’ LCD? It’s animation! It’s drawings! from paper to camera to TV, it should all look the same! I get why Burn Notice looks better on HD cable than it does on Hulu. But why should that make a difference with an animated show? Okay. I exaggerate. It doesn’t look awful, but… It’s animation! It looks great until you digitize it and don’t bother to clean it up. I just don’t get it. Again, I know I’m whining now, bit dammit I want to understand.

Between filming the animation and it getting to my screen, where is it that the picture gets aliased and the colors get… made to look like a one-megapixel digital photo?

Let Me Google That For You .COM!!!

So I was croozing the crackberry forums for to see if there is yet a dvorak keyboard layout for my crackberry (there is not). I happened upon this post, in which some novice user (pronounced “noooooooooob”) was unfamiliar with the awesomeness that is Dvorak. In the next response to that post was what appeared to be a helpful link: “Let me google that for you.” This intrigued me, so I clicked it. Go ahead. Try it out. I’ll wait.

 

Welcome back. As it turns out, that was a helpful link, but it’s also the best joke site I’ve seen in a while. I don’t know about you, but I’m loading that one into the extended clip on my Noobhammer 9000, right between “if you don’t like it, mute me,” and “GTFO my kitchen!”

Microsoft gives power-users the shaft (again)

Yay! Windows 7 is set for release in 6 brand-new(ly named) flavors! Free upgrades for everybody! Well… Okay, not everybody. Just if you buy Vista between now and October. Cheap upgrades for everybody else! Well… Okay, not everybody. Just the users who are upgrading to Home Premium or Pro. Vista Ultimate users (that’s me), you’re out of luck. Not a smart move on Microsoft’s part.

Here’s my take. I haven’t used Windows 7 yet, but from what I’ve read, the only new feature I’d be getting for my full-priced, 300 dollar upgrade is jump lists. As far as I can tell, Windows 7 is Vista, re-packaged (barely) plus jump lists.

Are jump lists cool? Sure. Am I going to fork out three hundred bones for a novelty feature? Under no circumstances.

Just for reference, here’s Microsoft’s list of “What’s new in Windows 7.” I’m not going to copy and paste the whole what’s new site. You don’t need to wade through all that just to read my comments. I’ll just summarize each bullet.

Desktop: Aero shake, peek, and snap

Okay Aero shake sounds neat, but it’s no faster or more convenient than using the keyboard shortcut that performs essentially the same function. Win+m to minimize or restore every currently open window.

Peek also has an already existing shortcut: Win+d to show my naked desktop, and again to bring all my windows back.

Okay. Snap is actually useful. Quickly snapping windows to convenient sizes is pretty handy. I’ll bet there is also a keyboard shortcut or easy tweak to make Vista do this as well. I just don’t know it.

Gadgets and animated wallpaper

They got rid of Windows sidebar and now all your gadgets just float about on the desktop. Just what every desktop needs: More clutter.

Animated wallpaper isn’t new. Vista has it. If you were really determined, you could even do it with XP. I never did it, but I saw it on the PC of one of my friends in middle school. It was cool then, and it’s cool now. But it’s not new.

Homegroup, “share with” and “read only”

Yeah… We’ve had file sharing since… ethernet? We’ve had file-sharing that works since win2k (maybe even before). The “share with…” context menu was in XP, and the “read only” file attribute has been around long enough that it’s called a file attribute. It’s been part of Windows since ‘98 at the latest. You can call it a “file-type” all you like, but I still know it’s an attribute.

Homegroup sounds like an automatic script that asks you what you want to share and how as part of the network setup wizard. While that script may be new in 7, it’s still just file-sharing.

Jumplists

Jumplists are neat. A jumplist is very basically a mini start menu for every app in your taskbar. The jump list for your web browser might have your ten most visited websites on it, plus a couple you want to have available on-the-fly. Is it cool? Yeah. Will I use it? Probably not after the novelty wears off.

Windows Live Essentials

I am composing this post using Windows Live Essentials. Not new in 7.

Windows Search

I could make an argument for this having been around since 95, but I won’t, because it’s a completely different application with similar purposes. It IS, however, an integral part of Vista. They claim it’s faster in 7. Well, if you don’t have 4 Gb of DDR2 plus another 4 from using a thumb drive with readyboost, maybe windows search 7 will be faster than windows search Vista. But I’ll believe it when somebody else tells me they saw it.

64-bit support

There is a 64-bit version of XP, and a working 64-bit version of Vista. The only (singular) problem I have had with 64-bit Vista is that IE 64 won’t run the netflix movie player. So I have to use the 32-bit edition. Honestly, this OS is a nightmare. I run games as old as… Diablo 2, and I have no compatibility issues. Now if people would start supporting ipv6…

Performance Improvements

Based on reports of what Vista was like on launch, I can’t imagine how anything but improvement would be possible. Based on my experience of how fast Vista runs now, and how much faster I can make it run if I beat it with my admin stick, I say they probably made superfetch a little more efficient, default disabled all those networking and admin services that the average user doesn’t need, and gave Aero a tweak. All the things most Vista Ultimate users can do with their phasers set on tickle.

Power Management

Gets better all the time. I’m sure 7 will have better power management for both laptops and desktops than Vista. I’m also pretty sure Vista users will be able to patch up to the new power saving software once 7 hits SP1.

Easier Wireless Networking

Based on their description, it’s nothing more than “prettier wireless networking.”

Windows Media Center

Every feature listed here is available in the Vista edition of Media Center (not to be confused with media player).

Windows Touch

Admittedly awesome. We first heard about this in connection with the Microsoft table, which was said to begin appearing in bars, restaurants and other commercial venues last November. I saw one in The Day the Earth Stood Still, and they’ve got them on NCIS (I think). Coolest thing to come out of Microsoft since the sound of a hovering AAT in The Phantom Menace. That being said, I’m sticking with my keyboard and trackball until I can afford to throw money at a touchscreen. Even then, I’m still sticking with Tracky and Keeb.

To sum up: Yeah, there are one or two cool, truly new features in Windows 7. And if I could upgrade practically for free like all the average users, I would. But I’m not shelling out three hundred bits of eight for what essentially amounts to conveniences and novelties that I won’t miss.

The Most Interesting Man in the World

So I was at Chili’s with my wife this week for dinner and, since there was a wait for the dining room, we sat in the lounge.

Ordinarily I don’t like to sit in the lounge, because it tends to lead to me getting yelled at for paying too much attention to the TVs and not paying any attention to her. And that’s what happened this time as well.

On the TV this time were several things that intrigued me. One of which was a NESN show about (you’ll never guess) the red sox, in which they talked a lot about the “Red Sox Nation.” I had no idea this was an actual organization. But that’s not what I want to blog about today.

Today I would like to introduce to you the most interesting man in the world. If you’ve seen a Dos Equis commercial in the past few weeks, you now who I’m talking about. I’d seen a couple of these commercials recently and, to be quite honest, they are the only commercials that have ever made me want to drink any particular beer. Except for this one, but I already drink Guiness, so it doesn’t count.

Anyway, When I saw this particular Dos Equis commercial at Chili’s, I thought to myself (and said aloud) “that’s a guy who knows how to field-skin a moose.” And since I wrote a piece on Esquire’s list of things every man should know, I thought I would re-wake that topic to say this:

Yes PaulC, You’re right. If I’m at a party and one guy begins his story with “you’ll never believe who I ran into at the deli counter,” and another guy starts his story with “so I was out in the woods, skinning this moose…” I’m listening to the moose story.

Hottest cartoon chick

So I posted this on my facebook and thought it would be good for a blog as well. My opinion is that Hayley Smith (American Dad) is just about the hottest cartoon girl ever. Now, when I say cartoon, I mean “cartoon,” not “animated.” ‘Cause let’s face it. You just can’t beat some of those Final Fantasy female leads (Tifa, Aeris, etc.).

And I don’t mean she’s just good-looking either. She’s a cartoon. Not much to see here. It’s more a matter of personality. If Hayley Smith was real, I could date her. Check out this clip from American Dad.

So I want opinions here. Who’s your favorite cartoon girl? If you’re of the female persuasion, who’s your favorite cartoon dude? And yes, that really is Patrick Stewart.

And here’s one more clip from American Dad that has nothing to do with Hayley but that I love anyway because Steve’s absolutely right. Algebra is awesome.