I Am So Into Battlestar Galactica
My “Freaking Nerd” level just went up about a zillion points. I’m only three episodes into the first season, but I’m already sold (actually, I was sold on it about a year ago but I’ve been avoiding it, just like I avoided Stargate SG-1 and Heroes). I really enjoy the main premise of the show, an almost-decommissioned ancient battleship suddenly having to protect/escort a convoy of humans fleeing from robot oppression, and constantly being chased. It kind of reminds me of Homeworld, which is to this date one of my favoritest games of all time.
<-- Homeworld, if you are not aware, is totally rad. Imagine Warcraft, but with full-3D tactical maneuvering and frigates instead of orcs. Cool, right? Now imagine it’s actually 100x cooler than that sounds. Now you have an idea of how kickass Homeworld is. The game uses classical music to set the mood, which tends to make large confrontations even more intense. While the story isn’t anything special, it does throw occasional memorable curveballs; I think my favorite section is getting trapped in a resource-rich nebula by a cult-ish collection of ships insisting that you must be destroyed for desecrating holy ground. You decide to book it, but they block your ability to warp out and send an insane amount of tiny fighters at you, roughly 10 times more than you have at that point, and your best hope is to withstand the assault and destroy the ship disabling the warp drive so you can get the hell out of the nebula. When you finally accomplish this, you warp out, only to find that you’ve been pulled out of warp before exiting the nebula by three more of these ships, which naturally also means three times the number of fighters, offset by errie, soothing string arrangements. To quote Teen Girl Squad, it’s soooo good.
Anyway, with a good fifty episodes of Battlestar Galactica to watch and assurances that it just keeps getting better and better, I think I’m in for a pretty nerdy summer.
Also, as a side note: You may recall my review of The Arctic Monkeys’ album Favourite Worst Nightmare last November, where I gave it an enthusiastic “Meh.” Recently, it has been at the top of my listening list and I’m loving almost every track. I went back to read the review I wrote, and now all I can say is I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. The album is fantastic, as good as Whatever I Say… and in some respects better. It’s infected my brain and it even makes me want to start learning the guitar again, especially now that I’m Guitar Hero-less. It would also serve as a decent attempt to counter the copious amounts of geek that I will be injecting into my brainpan-humidor.
This is a service.
So NBC decided to be dicks and run the new show QuarterLife at the same time as CBS’ Jericho. The choice, for me, is clear. Jericho rules over all. However, since I somehow am in the Hulu beta, this not only allows me to watch many a show such as QuarterLife, but it also allows me to embed it wherever I please. Which is right here, for people like me who would rather watch an established awesome show verus an untested pilot. Here you go.
Jericho returns tonight!
No, I will not shut up about this.
It’s like a bloggy blog blog thing.
I have now spent about a week with my new TV. I have a few things to say about it:
1) Westinghouse, what the fuck is the point of four HDMI ports if they are all on the same hub and thus use the same image calibration settings? The answer is there is none. None points. Fix it.
2) I get random weirdness when I try to change channels quickly, go back to the previously viewed channel, or use the “Favorites” setting on the remote. Sometimes it simply won’t go back to a different channel. Doesn’t happen if I input the channel manually. Weirdness.
3) Holy crap, real HD stuff looks good. NBC, PBS, and CBS are all glorious when broadcasting in HD. SD is remarkably bearable.
4) 1:1 Pixel Mapping. I suppose this is technically a good thing, but this creates problems with a few channels. NBCHD shows a yellowish vertical line on the left side of the screen. It’s pretty small, but it’s there. SD broadcasts usually show a garbly line at the top. Now, this would not be a big deal if the TV had an option to overscan a little. The TV has two options (fill and overscan), but the Fill option overscans by maybe 5%. Again, not a huge deal, just a little annoying.
5) The 8ms response time. I’m really not sure if it’s my eyes or the broadcasts, but the blurry/pixalization stuff going on during fast stuff has me worried. Some stuff looks phenomenal: Hockey, golf, and most regular broadcasts look great. But basketball was almost impossible to watch, and a few fast-moving images on some shows get garbled. I’m not sure if the response time isn’t fast enough, or if it is the broadcast itself. I really need to test a true HD source like a 360 or PS3/Blu-ray to see how it handles fast motion.
Anyway, assuming the PS3/Blu-ray tests out okay, I’m very happy with the TV. HD stuff looks great, SD stuff looks fine. Everything else are small problems that do not ruin the TV-watching experience, especially considering the deal I got. I’ve still got a couple of weeks on the return period, so hopefully I will have completeled my tests and will have a verdict on this TV eventually.
And there, in the corner, was an HDTV.
Behold! Shit cameraphone shots of a totally awesome set! Last night I picked up a 1080p 42″ Westinghouse set from Best Buy. It was a little more than I was expecting to spend, but it’s also higher resolution and a larger screen than I was expecting as well. It all happened so fast.
The Extra Good News is Best Buy’s 90-day price match that they have going on right now. Anytime over the next three months, if I find this TV at a lower price, BB will match the difference 110%. So in the end I’ll be getting the three-month-from-now price, just paying a little more up front to have it right away. Not too shabby of a deal. I also picked up a 4 year warranty, an DVD upconvert player, and component cables for my lovely Wii. Read more
Dro Is An Ass.
Anybody want to donate towards a new TV for Tez?
Laser Cats 2
Summer Glau is Hot, A Terminator!
I don’t know how I haven’t heard about this- the pilot was apparently leaked months ago. The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a new TV series based on the Terminator series, set between Terminator 2 and 3. It stars the hottie-queen from 300, Claire’s best/only friend from the first season of Heroes, and Summer Glau of Firefly/Serenity. The bitching part? Summer Glau is the god-damn Terminator. If you aren’t against torrents, I recommend checking it out, the first episode is pretty interesting. Otherwise, you can watch it (get canceled) when it comes on Fox in January 2008.
Wired Science… on PBS?!
Tonight I found out that Wired Science plays on PBS, in HD. PWN!
Goes back to watching Wired Science.
Oh, I almost forgot… I had to post because Tez “forgot” again. I think he found a usable excuse to make me do all the work….. he’s the writer you know… I’m just supposed to be the one that posts random stuff once in a while and keeps the website running… yah. STARE AT HIM! DO IT!
Made For TV Movies Suck
So there wasn’t a post yesterday. The chain has been broken! Even though my campus was open for the holiday, apparently buses were not running to it, as evidenced by my spending an hour hopping between bus stops only to watch it cruise right past the campus entrance without stopping, followed by an additional 45 minutes to get home accomplishing nothing. I sort of tried to make contact with Dro and tell him to do a post, but I was in a bad mood and instead played Guitar Hero 3 for multiple hours. So, I’ll just blame it on Dro and move on to the post I have planned for a few days but never actually got around to writing until last night, which is me making fun of stupid made-for-tv movie trailers: Read more
Werewolf Bar Mitzvah
I have no good reason to post this, other than the fact that I think the song is hilarious.