Random Brain Dump

…to our commie.

<rant>

When our 5 years old projection TV went kaput last December, we got it fixed by a local TV repairman. Recently, the Sony unit decided to get creative and started rendering the picture all in hue of blue or sometime of green. Other times, it’d paint several long red arches across the entire screen. And once it is on long enough, the unit would decide that some napping is in order by flickering a few red flashes and turns itself off. The darn thing is starting to develop a mind of its own. But I digress, this entry is about the Commie!

Anyway, I decided to cancel our subscription to Comcast HD cable TV a few weeks back. I mean what’s the point, when my HD shows are in monochrome! 🙂 While we’re watching analog TV now, it does feel great not living under the control of The Commie. I had discovered that some users began to call the Comcast DVR, The Commie– appropriately I thought.

You see, the Commie sucks. In fact, it really really really sucks! There had been many occasion that I came close to throwing its ass out of my window. I’m not exaggerating. The darn thing infuriates me! I’ve never had a worse user experience with an electronic gadget in my entire life.

Here are some of things that bug me:

1. Slow as a 2000 years old tortoise. You change the channel or clicking any of the button on the remote, you wait for a delayed response. Unbelievably annoying.
2. Search sucks. It seems I’d have to “type” a lot to search for anything. Entering a letter is a pain since you scroll through the entire alpha bets, one letter at a time. Hello? These Commies are built by Motorolla, couldn’t these geniuses learned a thing or two from the phone engineers in terms of keypad input?
3. Long boot time. Whenever unit is unplugged, it means we’d have to wait for a few minutes before rebooting completes. It’s worse than my 2 years old Windows desktop PC.
4. Crashes and freezes. The unit would sometime crashes or freezes– fixing it requires you to unplug it, which leads the problem above: long boot time. Argh!
5. Unresponsive. Often, I have no idea how to get the sucker to respond to me. Not infrequently, it would freeze, but not really! :0 This happens a lot. I’d press Channel Up and nothing happens because the unit freezes up, so you press the button again, again, again… but nothing happens, until the Commie wakes itself up and executes the last 12 commands queued up. It ends up jumping 12 channels. As I noted, this happens a lot with my unit. I had to deal with this almost everyday. One minute, it’s unresponsive and the next minute, it runs 10+ commands. This is the most horribly infuriating thing about The Commie.
6. Stupid warnings. Some of the warning messages are so brain dead. For example, if my unit is low on empty space, it’d warn that “Your unit is low space: 10%”. Why tell my percentage? I’d have to do some math to figure out that means I have 8 hours of recording left. Give me a break! Why not just say that!
7. Dumb UI. Too many instances, but I’ll point out just an example. The unit has 2 tuners which the unit makes them too painfully obvious. The user has to aware which tuner he’s using. If I starts a recording and then attempting to change the channel, it wouldn’t let me. I’d have to hit a button on the remote to swap to the other tuner. Why doesn’t it switch the tuner automatically? Why require the user to be so aware of which tuner he’s using.
8. Repeats. Even though I specified no repeat, my unit kept recording repeated shows; we’d have 6 recording of the same South Park episodes each week. Wassup w/ that?

The Commie was crap. It’s the Fidel Castro of DVRs. These Commies are bad for TV experience, bad for your blood level, bad for your psychological health & sanity. The Commie can shorten your life span. I can’t believe Comcast is pushing thousands of these crappy units out to their customers.

I have acted: out with The Commie! Let freedom rings again in our living room…

</rant>

I hadn’t really looked forward to it. I usually dig comic-based flicks. But I rolled my eyes when I first saw the preview of Superman Returns, thinking “oh great, another remake.” I had thought it would have to tediously rehash the story over again, establishing where he comes from and how he learns of his power, blah, blah… And Lex Luther, again? Please…

hen Suzanne took the kids to her friend’s house to give me some quiet time, I had some free time and so I thought “what the heck, I’ll bite.” I took off to AMC20 to catch it (with low expectations of course). I thought it was awesome, most enjoyable flick for me so far this summer. Liked it more than X-Men 3. The plot although not solid, was refreshing enough to move things along. It didn’t take a lot of time establishing the characters. The special effects were great– the flying scenes were breath-taking. I kept comparing them to the old green-screen effects. Of course, I thought those effects were great then too when I first saw Superman in the 80’s. Kevin Spacey was great, of course, as Lex Luther.

For me, Christopher Reeve was Superman; no doubt about it — Reeve owned the role. Compared to Reeves, this new actor Brandon Routh is a light weight. One positive thing though, when as Superman, he sounds awefully like Reeves. But as Clark Kent, Routhed basically sucked. He doesn’t put on the glasses the same way. I mean, you remember Reeve’s bumblingly pushing his glasses back or the geeky smirk? Classic! Reeve’s stamp of Superman was definitely there, as I find myself constantly comparing the two actors. As Superman though, I thought Routh did okay.

By the way, I really digged the new uniform with the ribbed S logo.

As I was driving back, I was wondering how sad it would be for Reeve’s son when he watches it. Poor kid, lost his Superman dad and his mom in a span of 2 years. Tough! I wonder if Routh believes in the curse of Superman…

When it comes to music, I’m like an old dog– set in my ways and sticking to familiar tricks. Thanks to hip hop, country and artists like Mariah Carey and N’Sync, I kinda gave up on popular music scene some years ago and stuck to “old” artists. Even with widely available MP3’s, I find that I rarely sample new music. Yes, I am a hermit musically– old school, un-hip and unplugged in many ways. 🙂

However once in long while though, I do “discover” new artists. Artists like Sinead Lohan, Coldplay & Norah Jones provide the optimism that there are still good stuffs out there if you look hard enough. I guess it’s reassuring. Lately, I find some of the up & coming female artists to be very good.

Recently, I recently “discovered” another great female artist. I heard Katie Melua’s new album “Piece by Piece” for the first time this week. Great stuffs, jazzy feel similar to Norah Jones. The young British artist is beautiful, awefully talented and has a great voice. I especially like the 2 selections: “I Cried for You” and “9 Million Bicycles“. Her music videos for those 2 songs are awesome too, very innovative. And I’m usually don’t get into music videos…

I can’t help but to feel hip, all of sudden… NOT!

This video chronicles the many faces of Michael Jackson, morphing his faces from age 5 to today. All I can say is, “what a freak!”

Doesn’t the PC guy in the running Mac ads look like Bill Gates to you? 🙂

Somebody cleverly recreated the new movie trailer for The Shining, as a romantic comedy! Funny…

This video of the juggling act to the beats of The Beatle’s Golden Slumber is simply incredible. I’ve never seen a juggling act this entertaining. The juggler is Chris Bliss, a stand up comedian, writer and one of the “world’s most famous juggler.” His act openned for Michael Jackson, Duran Duran among others. A very interesting fellow…

I thought it’s interesting that after 10 years, singer Isaac Hayes quits doing the voice for Chef on South Park. Apparently, he objects to an episode ridiculing Scientology & Tom Cruise. Imagine that: somebody accuses South Park of being un-PC. 😮

I guess it’s alright when he pokes fun at everything and every other religion but he can’t handle it when his own religion comes under target. It’s so uncool when one can’t takes on what he doles out… What a bad sport & a hypocrite!

Gabe Pruitt, starting guard for USC, got spanked bad this past week. It was a brilliant prank by some Cal students who posed as “Victoria” online and seduced him with sexy chat & pictures. Pruitt totally bought it, line & sinker\; he made plans to meet up with “Victoria” at Westwood after the game against Cal. Imagine Pruitt’s total horror when chants began by Cal fans when stepped up for his free-throws: “Victoria, Victoria!” Then comes “Who’s he going to call? Victoria, Victoria, Victoria….” Pruitt’s expression pictured here is all too funny as some started chanting out “Victoria’s” phone number. Hard copies of their chat transcripts of their chats were even handed out at the game.

The poor guy went on to have a miserable game: shooting 3 for 13 as USC lost the game to Cal. Classic! Even Pruitt admitted later that it was a good prank… 🙂

A live version of the intro to The Simpsons, with original music score of course… it’s great…