wyager.com

The broadcast networks have a tenuous relationship with their viewership—well, maybe not tenuous, but something is there at least. Now’s the time where we hear if our fave shows get cancelled or renewed, and it’s the time where we get to have our hearts broken again and again as we lose some good shows.

Take this round of numbers:
1) ABC – 2 shows I used to watch, now only one (Castle. Pushing Daisies is gone)
2) CBS – Only 1 I ever really bother to watch (NCIS)
3) FOX – 7 down to 5 (Bones, Dollhouse, Fringe, House, Lie to Me. Terminator:TSCC and prison break are goners)
4) NBC – 6 down to 2-3 (Chuck and Heroes are left, sometimes Medium. Gone are Kings, Knight Rider, and Life)

So back on the 14th of the month my Xbox 360 Elite decided that it would be fun to read every disc as a DVD movie–I however did NOT think so and sent for a label from Microsoft to get it fixed at an out-of-warrantee cost of ~$90. I didn’t really mind that I would be without it for a week or two since I had a backup–or so I thought.
My backup was my 20GB pro system that I had fixed last time back in May of last year. The pro was fine for a few days, then on this past wednesday when I went to pickup Mirror’s Edge, I got home and decided not to skip the tutorial even though I’ve run through the tutorial a million times now. I got through most of the tutorial and then the system suddenly shut off, I look over at it and see what every 360 owner dreads to see–the Red Ring of Death (officially known as 3 Red lights), and so it’s back to Microsoft with that one, too! They should be getting it the same day I get my (hopefully fixed) Elite back.
Another cruelly ironic thing with all of this is that over the weekend they announced that they were letting some more people in the public preview, and I was one of them, except with NO WORKING 360!!!

So I originally meant to write my review of the Amazon Kindle about a week after I got it. Instead its about a month later, but that just means there’s been more time to solidify my opinion of it. And my opinion is that it is really good.

To start out–as already said–the Kindle is the wonderful ebook reader from Amazon. This little oddball looking device has gotten me reading more than I had been recently, almost as much as in the past (which was considerable). Easily the first thing you’ll notce (aside from the look of the device you superficial person you), is the screen. The display being used is an E-Ink screen (from a company named E-Ink no-less), what’s so special is the way the screen works by using tiny little balls that are half white and half black. To minimize ghosting of the image there is a brief all-black flash to clean the screen, which doesn’t take long to get used to (unless your anal). When I’m reading a novel on Kindle it really does disappear as when you’re reading any good paper book.

In the spirit of truthiness, I have not used any other ebook reader myself, however the reviews I’ve read all point to the Kindle being the best, to which I concur. To be true, there is some room for improvement, such as the screen refresh and why they only use 4 grays when the screen can do 8, but there will likely be a hardware rev down the line. Anywho, If you don’t get what I’m trying to say it’s this: If you love to read and don’t care if it’s not on dead trees, get one now and enjoy!

Happy Birthday to me! For my voyeurs out there I’m officially 24 now… and that’s about it. Still working at Qwest, so that means two things: I have not quit yet (though there have been multiple times where I’ve wanted to), and secondly that they have not fired me (yet, though they have a tendency to fire people whom businesses would normally keep, but that’s another subject for another post). For anyone actually wondering why I haven’t posted anything in a few months, I’ve kinda taken to just making posts over a long (or short) period of time in MarsEdit, and not just hammering them out willy-nilly. So be patient voyeurs! the posts are coming.

So I got The Kingdom through Netflix the other night. It’s a great little action movie with some CSI-like extras thrown in for good measure. The Kingdom is about an FBI Evidentiary team that gets sent to Saudi Arabia to investigate a terrorist attack on the American housing complex. Needless to say they get there and all hell breaks loose. What follows are some great chase scenes and crazy firefights. As much as they try not to let it, the story does feel secondary to the action in the movie. Throughout the movie you definitely get the feeling that this is a real team that has worked together for a long time, and see how they befriend their Saudi-cohorts to save the day. Definitely worth a check out if you haven’t seen it already.