Monthly Archive for May, 2008

Oh God, My Childhood!

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 29, 2008
in Movies, Opinion, Rambling and Sad
. Comments

So I’ve been thinking about my childhood recently.  Really because the first dog I had is being put to sleep tomorrow.  Super sad.

Then I started thinking about all the new movies that are just remaking or continuing my childhood.  First, let us talk about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  This is probably the best of the recent childhood rehashings.  It wasn’t the best of the Indy movies by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a fun movie.  As a continuation of my childhood memories, it did a fairly good job, but it definitely didn’t match up to Raiders of the Lost Ark or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  So at this point, my memories of childhood are doing ok, still alive.

Then we come to the hardest hit portions of my childhood: Star Wars.  The original trilogy was one of the greatest movie memories I’ve had.  Since then, they have been among my favorite films and I really geeked out on them.  Then the prequels were released.  When I saw Episode 1, for a while, I tricked myself into believing it was a good movie.  Eventually, I had to face the facts and admit, it sucked hard.  Episodes 2 and 3 raised the bar a little with each movie, but never to the levels of vision and ingenuity shown in the original three.  Once Revenge of the Sith ended, I was hoping that the Clone War saga was put to a close and the Star Wars franchise could just die in peace, with what little dignity it had left.  That is what George Lucas did to his own series, he murdered it in cold blood.

Now, to exhume the body and presumably rape the corpse, is Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  The story to link together the stories of Episodes 2 and 3.  Just the last bit of shit to make sure that the Star Wars fans are completely pissed off and the series is wholly and completely trashed.  Don’t get me wrong, I will go see it, but I will NOT be waiting in line on release day.  I have seen what George Lucas has done to his much loved series and I am not excited about what’s coming.  Maybe I will be shown wrong and it will be a good production, but my expectations are so low, they can’t really be called expectations.

The last thing that I will talk about is Back to the Future.  This was another trilogy that was so well made and just enraptured me as a child.  The movies wove together so well and were excellently delivered by Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd (among others), they also stand in my favorite movies below Star Wars and Indiana Jones (respectively from great to slightly less great).  Thankfully, the rumors of a fourth BttF movie were squashed and it will not be in production.  You can’t grasp how happy this makes me.  The series finished itself at the end of the third movie and everything was wrapped up all nice and tight.

Why do there need to be remakes and re-imaginings of movies that were just fine the way they were?  If you want to bring the movie to a newer audience, let them watch the original.  Let them figure out that if weren’t for these original classics, the stories we know and love today wouldn’t be around.  Please, let the old stories lay in peace.  They don’t need to be rehashed, reimagined, redone, recovered, rewhatevered.  There are so many creative people out there with so many great ideas and skills, give them a chance.  Throw some money to the independent film makers instead of $200 million dollars to remake and fuck up a movie that was just fine the first time.  Creative and original stories are the way to go.

WL.TV Spoof!

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 28, 2008
in Funny, Interesting, Media, Podcasts, Projects and future
. Comments

Sometime in mid-June, Gary Vaynerchuk of Winelibrary TV will announce a contest to spoof his show.  Apparently the prize for which will be sick (his words, not mine).  You may ask, if he going to annouce the competition, how do I know about it?  Well, he pseudo announced it today (05/28/08) on his show.  It was real quick, you have to keep an ear for it.

I know several of you out there, specifically those Lexy and I spend many of our weekends with, would find this kind of project fun.  So, if you guys want to help write, shoot, whatever this, give me a shout and we will get this done and produce the BEST WL.TV spoof on the net, ever.

My Current Florida Confusion

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 27, 2008
in Bitching and Rambling
. Comments

Have you out there heard of Alex Barton?  If so, you are probably pretty outraged.  If you haven’t, then read this here article.  Personally, I am so pissed off at a lot of people right now.

Apparently taking a child to the front of the classroom and having all his classmates tell him what they don’t like about him and then voting him out of the classroom, that isn’t considered emotional abuse.  Let me tell you something.  Being in front of the class like that is fucking terrifying.  Then you add the horror of being called “disgusting” and “annoying” by your peers and THEN voted 14-2 to leave the classroom.  The teacher then sends you to spend the rest of the day in the nurse’s office.  No.  That wouldn’t bother anyone.

The Florida state attorney’s office doesn’t consider the situation endured by Alex Barton to fill the requirements for emotional child abuse.  Really?  What the fuck is emotional abuse then?  Being verbally abused by your friends and classmates in a public setting?  Being voted out of the classroom, denied your legal right and obligation to attend an education institution.  I’m sure that Alex didn’t consider that he was being denied an education by his own teacher, but that is still the case.

Then add the case that Alex was in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger’s.  I can’t really be sure whether or not Wendy Portillo (Alex’s teacher) knew of the possible diagnosis, but she should have known.  Though, regardless of whether the possible diagnosis was known, you do NOT treat a student like that.

The fact that Alex may have Asperger’s may be causing this issue being blown way up; however, I think this is a good thing.  There is no doubt in my mind that there are hundreds of kids who get mistreated like this every day.  The teacher gets protected by the school system, nothing happens, and the kid gets mistreated for the rest of the time spent under the teacher.  There needs to be a greater amount of scrutiny placed on teachers when dealing with children.  Bullshit like this needs to be made more public and the teacher needs to be fired.  Ms. Portillo was moved to a office position and hopefully there will be enough outrage to cause her to get flat out fired.

What is your take on this situation?

Sony and Blu-Ray Sittin’ in a Tree

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 15, 2008
in Media, Movies, Technology and future
. Comments

I’m not sure that title joke is actually appropriate seeing as Sony is the parent of Blu-Ray… meh.

So, Sony is sitting pretty with Blu-Ray being the one HD format to rule them all.  Until THIS! (dun-dun-dun)  Pretty much saying that Blu-Ray players aren’t moving and most consumers who didn’t get in during “the war”, still won’t get in on Blu-Ray.  Really, I’m not surprised.  Blu-Ray (BR) players are still up around $300.  DVD didn’t REALLY become popular until you could get a player for around $100.  I think those 35% with HDTVs are waiting for the prices to come down.  Sony or other BR manufacturers, however, don’t feel the need to bring those prices on players or media down because, dammit, they won and they are going to milk this tit as long as they can.

BR is a fantastic format, don’t get me wrong.  I love the crap out of it and my PS3 is a great DVD/BR player.  Though, the interesting thing is that the PS3 is adhering to more of the BR standards than the standalone players are, without being the best BR player available.  You are hard-pressed to find a BD player that supports BD 2.0 or BD Live.  Then when you do, you are looking to shell out $3-400 on it.  Not appetizing when you look at the actual movies running around $35 at BestBuy.  Though, admittedly, if you shop around, you can get new BR discs for close to the same price as new DVDs.

Sony is shooting itself in the foot and bleeding all over the consumer.  They are grossed out and kind of confused.  If the media becomes cheaper, more accessible to the consumer, I think Sony will start putting some gauze on that ugly bullet wound.  BR will eventually explode and replace DVD, but right now the consumer is confused, doesn’t really know the difference between BR and DVD, and is scared off by the high prices of all things BR.  HD specs are full of numbers and letters they never had to deal with before.  1080p through HDMI and all that.  Those of us who can follow and understand the jumble are okay and loving our BR players.

Once prices come down, if they come down, BR will start moving.  The first hurdle for the format is HDTVs.  The second, the format war, which is still scaring consumers for some reason.  The final is price.  Once all three of these are leaped, BR will become a giant and we will look at DVD the same we do VHS now.

Lets not talk about digital downloads.  Let’s suffice to say that the majority of consumers still want to hold a piece of plastic in their hands to show they bought something.  Also, the HD quality on downloads doesn’t come close to that on BR.  That may change, but I think the tangible product will keep winning for several years to come.

I’ve had my piece.  Now, you, Disqus.  Heh.  Reference to the new comment system I re-implemented.

I’ll Try Harder

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 14, 2008
in Apple, Work and future
. Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted that I was planning on keeping up a commitment of one blog post per day.  I have already failed at this.  The past few days have been a bit hectic and honestly, I forgot to post.

On the good side, I was offered a job at the KCMO Apple Store as a Mac Specialist.  I filled out all of the paperwork today and should be recieving an email with details on training start June 6.  Very interesting it will be to juggle school and a job at Apple.  It may be rough and I may loose a lot of my weekends, but that is part of life right now.  Here’s to hoping the job rocks and I am good enough to move up inside of Apple.

The Future of Television

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 8, 2008
in Computers, Media, Opinion, Technology, Television and future
. Comments

As some of you may know, I am a Broadcasting major at University of Central Missouri in mid-west Missouri.  That’s right, I’m in the mid-west of the Mid-West.  Well, you should also know that I am a geek.  I mean… look at that list of social networks.  What that geekiness really means is, I like the Internet.  I’ve always liked it, but when I started working for Niche Productions, Inc. in Jefferson City, MO, I fell in love with media.  I changed my life around, dropped Computer Engineering at UMR (now Missouri S&T), and moved to Warrensburg to start an undergrad degree in Broadcast Media. Then, I found out there were these things called podcasts.  I love them.  This got me thinking.  A lot of thinking.  Where is this podcasting thing going to go?

This is when I developed my theory of the future of television.  The Internet is becoming such an increasingly important part of our lives.  The content available on the ‘net is astounding.  There is a lot of it.  A LOT.  User generated content, the ability to produce your own series, is more and more available, thanks to sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Revver, and the like.  A lot of that content is bad, but also, a lot is good.  Once we start moving to a more ‘net based viewer, I feel that the production values on a lot of shows will skyrocket along with their budgets.  Never before were we at such an opportunity for a Media Revolution.

The future of television?  I think it will have to change or die.  In the next ten years, the current model of television will be gone or at least severely crippled.  We are already seeing this in the structure of a season for many shows.  Viewable media will have changed into something we can’t exactly know, but I do know that it will involve the Internet and be at least somewhat interactive.  The ability to download and watch a show whenever you want.  Sounds a lot like a DVR, I know, but an Internet-based model will not restrict you to time slots.  The show will be sitting there, waiting for you to decide to watch it.

Some of you may be saying, “But I hate watching stuff on my computer monitor.”  I say back to you that you will be watching your content on a television.  Soon, there will be a blurring of monitor and television into the same entity.  You will sit down on your couch, check your email and watch a couple of your favorite shows.  Some of us do this already, but I will admit, the current system is… annoying.  The traditional keyboard/mouse system will have to change into something smaller, compact, capable of controlling several devices at once, and is easy to type and navigate on a computer interface.  Perhaps something like a haptic touch screen universal remote combined with the pointer capability of the Wii Remote.  Something you point at the screen to point and click, but also type on when necessary.

Regardless, the current broadcasting model will change.  I believe that instead of broadcasting shows, we will be receive Internet access.  Maybe not from the broadcasters, but wireless nonetheless.  Gone will be the days of tethered Internet.  Take your notebook or cellphone anywhere and access the web just as if you were at home.  Your computer attached to your TV will use that same wireless connection.  This way, the sets of eyes on your content isn’t restricted to the home, those eyes can be anywhere.  Able to reach anyone, anywhere, whenever they want.  Having access to all eyes all the time is a broadcaster’s dream.

Once we break down the current broadcasting model and broadcasters stop looking at the Internet as a rival, but rather a resource for distribution, we may see a Media Revolution that will take the bubble off Web 2.0 and move us past into waters unknown.

Are we mired in the current broadcast model forever, will there be a change, or will something completely different happen?

Comcast to limit customers

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 7, 2008
in Computers and Technology
. Comments

FriendFeed and SocialThing! are extremely helpful for finding crap that pisses me off.  Dave Winer twittered a story about Comcast considering a transfer cap system.  The system would limit users to 250Gb per month, while as of right now, uploads would remain unaffected.  If you go over your 250Gb, you get charged $15 per 10Gb over.  This would probably mean they will define 10Gb as you go a megabyte over your 250Gb, you get charged $15.  Apparently, Comcast is seriously considering this as they are “currently evaluating this service and pricing model to ensure [they] deliver a great online experience to [their] customers.”

Personally, I think this is bullshit to the highest degree.  I can understand Comcast wanting to limit the amount of data travelling through their system, it can be taxing.  I understand that.  What I don’t understand is the want to go backwards in time.  Transfer limits are a thing of the past.  Other countries do it for broadband, but the US never has.  Nobody likes transfer limits and this move by Comcast harks back to the days of limited “minutes” on a dial-up Internet connection.  Just knowing that you have a monthly limit is going to make a lot of (pardon the term) uneducated people very nervous.  A lot of people don’t know the size of a webpage or a YouTube video.  Granted that a lot of people probably won’t even come close to the 250Gb mark, but what about increasing connection speeds.  If you have a 20Mbps (2.5 megabytes per second) down connection, you want to be able to use it and not worry about how much data you retrieved in a day.  Limiting the amount you can use your connection and increasing the speed of that connection seems counterproductive to me.

No, I certainly don’t agree with this move by Comcast and think it should not go into effect.  Comcast may be overlooking the wants of its customers, not to mention the ability of expanding technology.  Internet-based technology is growing at such a rate that limiting the consumer like Comcast plans, is a couple of steps backward.  Regardless of whether you think Web 2.0 is another growing bubble waiting to pop, moves like transfer limits from Comcast and (undoubtedly eventually) all the other cable companies, will shrink the bubble back to Web 1.0.

Download transfer limits are dead and a thing of the past.  What do you think?

A Rumbly GTAIV

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 6, 2008
in Video Games
. Comments

So, I played GTAIV yesterday with a DualShock 3 PS3 controller.  The DualShock 3 is a nice revision of the PS3 controller.  The Rumble motors add weight to the controller, making it feel more like a controller than a toy.  The added rumble works just fine and feels like what a next gen controller should.

GTAIV Box ArtMy initial reaction to the game was skepticism.  I’ve played GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas.  Each of those games has a differing atmosphere, but essentially they are all the same game.  Well, GTAIV is no exception.  You start off as a Russian immigrant, Niko Bellic, visiting his cousin, but with a purpose you don’t find out until you play through a bit.  Niko is really the same character you play in the previous GTA games, but this time he’s Russian.  Kinda like in San Andreas, where you play as a black guy.  Same character, but they change a fundamental feature and it makes you think you are playing someone else.

GTAIV starts out with you driving people around the city and eventually you get up to killing other people while you drive around the city.  The controls are pretty basic with some interesting twists that I kind of like.  You can beat up someone with three differing attacks from kicks to a couple of different punches.  Adding dodging and counterattacks was nice as well.  The aiming system frustrated me for a while until I figured it out.  If you depress L2 on the controller, Niko will automagically target the nearest walking human being.  From there, you can use the Right Stick to change targets (almost) smoothly.  Sometimes, though, you want to shoot someone out of their car, well the auto-lock doesn’t do that.  It took me several hours to figure out that if you depress the fire trigger, R2, a little, the target reticule comes up and you don’t immediately fire off into oblivion.  This added to my fun a little bit.

Of course, shooting people out of their cars and beating/stabbing people on the street is bound to get you in trouble.  This is where the redesigned Wanted system comes in handy.  Before, to get away from the police, to lower your Wanted Rating, you pretty much just drove around as fast as you could in order to get away from the police.  Now, there is an area the cops search for you in around where you committed your crime.  The lower your Wanted rating, the smaller the search area.  If you manage to get outside the search area and stay out of sight of the police, your rating goes away and you are free to beat up more hookers for money until the cops again catch you improperly using said hooker.  Speaking of which, hookers are harder to find in GTAIV than they were ever before.  Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places.

Niko from GTAIVThe controls.  GTAIV gives you the opportunity to take advantage of the SIXAXIS controls of the PS3 controller.  The DualShock 3, btw, still has good motion control, but I haven’t sufficiently tested it as I will explain in a second.  In Niko’s cell phone, there is a SIXAXIS tutorial that takes you through controlling a motorcycle, boat, and a helicopter with the motion controls.  The first two aren’t bad, but they are still too… wobbly for me.  The times I want a hard turn, the bike/boat only turns a bit, when I want a little correction, it damn near turns completely around.  Maybe it’s just me.  Then, the motion control of the helicopter.  Impossible.  Well, not entirely, but holy crap does it suck.  Controlling the helicopter with the SIXAXIS is like flying the bird with oven mitts on your hands and a rabid monkey in your lap.  Let’s suffice to say, very unstable and hard to control.  That being said, the rest of the non-motion controls are pretty sufficient.  Driving is the same as always, but this time with a bit more feel of realism in that some cars are harder to control at high speeds and hitting other cars can lead to disastrous results.  Results that can be very fun.

Overall, I have to say that I like GTAIV.  There are enough subtle, small differences that the game is recognizable from its predecessors.  The addition of a GPS system that will tell you how to get to where you want to go is a very much helpful one.  The cell phone and the ability to call numbers like 911 outside your phonebook is also a nice touch.  I just wish you could get into a car while on the phone.  You can drive and get out of a car while talking on the phone, but you can’t get into a car.  Mildly annoying, but not unreasonable as most of the time, you are stealing your mode of transit.

I certainly don’t think GTAIV is the perfect game as all the review sites seem to think it is, but it is a darn good one.  A game I am happy to own as it gives me an almost overwhelming world to play in with an almost overwhelming number of missions to choose from at any one time.  If you have a PS3 or an Xbox 360, give it a try.  I’d be interested in knowing what you first-time GTA players think versus those who have played GTA since the top-down beginning.

A Quick, Gaming Related Post

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 5, 2008
in General
. Comments

This post is gonna be short, I promise.

Lexy and I got back last night from a rather fun weekend.  My sister walked for her college graduation in December (Westminster College doesn’t have winter ceremonies) and I have extremely proud of how well she is doing in school.  The rest of the day consisted of hanging out with the family and friends.  It was truely awesome.  I let my parents know about all the planning I’m doing involving my life.  I’m not sure if they like the plan, but they support me anyway.  My dad got like 12 laptops from work for free.  They were just throwing them away to make room for the upgrades.  So, dad scored one for me and a couple more for Lexy’s sister and mom.  They seemed happy about a free laptop.

The night, we hung out with Mike, Mary, Ryan, and Kody.  We spend several hours playing Mario Kart Wii.  It was a lot of fun, if not extremely frustrating at points, but hey, that’s Mario Kart.  If you guys want to add Lexy and I as friends on the Nintendo WFC, feel free, our “friend codes” are:

Tony: 1032-1813-4634
Lexy: 1289-8866-4522

Add us and we might just add you back.  Though, I’m not sure how it works, if when you add someone, you get to add them back or if you need to exchange codes.  If it doesn’t work that way, just post your friend code in the comments or email it to me.

I also picked up a DualShock 3 controller and GTAIV for the PS3, but I haven’t played with either of them yet, so I might pop back on later and let you know what I think of them.

Have a fantastic day.