High Definition

About a week ago Chris (housemate) bought a 42″ HD Plasma.  It’s sexy.  We had a problem though.  While we were hooking everything up and moving things in the room, something bad happened.  We were connecting speakers and there was a pop and the magic smoke was released.  Later that night, we had a ceremony for Chris’s receiver.  And by ceremony I mean we started looking at how to fix it.  What good is a 42″ HD TV without surround sound?  He now has a new receiver and it’s epic.  We have an upconverting DVD player on the way and a Logitech Harmony 550 remote.  It’s gonna kick all the ass.

I also downloaded Digital Video Essentials to help calibrate the picture on the TV.  I think it looks good, but I need a blue filter to truly adjust the colors properly.  Anyone have a blue filter I can borrow?

Crazy dream

Yet another one from my warped mind.

This is set in the mostly normal world, but in the winter.  The president gave seemingly important speech to the country and somehow 99% of the people watched the speech.  During the speech, however, a signal was broadcast that brainwashed everyone that was watching.  The brain-job just made people stupid-er, similar to the movie Idiocracy but a tmore severe.  Somehow, before the speech was given I knew that this was going to happen, but couldn’t find anyone to warn them.

I wake up the next day after the speech at an unusually early time in the morning.  It was snowing and the plows were out, so I went outside for some reason.   I guess this also takes place in the past because my neighbor, Helterbran, is outside also.  I follow him some and determine that he’s been brainwashed.  As the sun comes up, more people come outside and are clearly brainwashed and dumb as bricks.  The snow plow drivers are also watching people, making sure that everyone was brainwashed.

I go running back inside and find out that my parents were brainwashed too.  At this point there are also government agents going from house to house peeking in windows and making sure everyone is brainwashed.  I manage to avoid being seen, but I know that they’ll be back.  I determine that I can’t stay at home and that I have to go out and find others who haven’t been brainwashed.  My sister comes into the story now and is only half brainwashed because she was falling asleep while the signal was being broadcast.  She’s smart enough to function, but not really alot of help.  I decide to bring her with me.  I say goodbye to my parents and tell them I’m leaving and may never see them again, but they really don’t understand, it was very emotional.  My sister and I start packing food things into  backpacks that we can carry.  Just as I leave, I woke up.

I’m sure you can read into this dream like crazy.

Did I mention?

Did I ever mention that I got another e-mail from Comcast?  I know this is old, but I thought I’d post it.  I’ll post anything I get from Comcast here.

From: Comcast Network Abuse [mailto:abuse-noreply@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 7:17 AM
To: Comcast Internet Subscriber
Subject: Notice of Claim of Copyright Infringement.Notice of Action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Abuse Incident Number: NA0000002658239
Report Date/Time: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 12:00:09 -0800LARRY RODRIGUEZ
[address removed]

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Subscriber:

Comcast has received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works made on or over Comcast’s High-Speed Internet service (the ‘Service’). The copyright owner has identified the Internet Protocol (‘IP’) address associated with your Service account at the time as the source of the infringing works. The works identified by the copyright owner in its notification are listed below. Comcast reminds you that use of the Service (or any part of the Service) in any manner that constitutes an infringement of any copyrighted work is a violation of Comcast’s Acceptable Use Policy and may result in the suspension or termination of your Service account.

If you have any questions regarding this notice, you may direct them to Comcast in writing by sending a letter or e-mail to:

Comcast Legal Response Center
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
650 Centerton Road
Moorestown, NJ 08057 U.S.A.
Phone: (856) 317-7272
Fax: (856) 317-7319
E-mail: dmca@comcast.net

For more information regarding Comcast’s copyright infringement policy, procedures, and contact information, please read our Acceptable Use Policy by clicking on the Terms of Service link at http://www.comcast.net.

Sincerely,
Comcast Legal Response Center

Copyright work(s) identified in the notification of claimed infringement:

Notice ID: 791352

Asset: Apple Final Cut
Protocol: BitTorrent
IP Address: [removed]
DNS: [removed]
File Name: Final Cut Pro HD.dmg
File Size: 1687805203
Timestamp: 19 Feb 2007 01:39:09 GMT
Last Seen Date: 19 Feb 2007 01:39:09 GMT
URL: http://tracker.torrentbox.com:2710/announce
Username (if available):

So that’s a total of two and I haven’t slowed down at all.  Although I have moved since that was sent.  I don’t know what e-mail is on the Comcast account for our house here.  I think it’s Chris’s and he’d get a kick out of one of these e-mails if they came.

I get a lot of hits from people searching for answers to questions they have about recieving one of these letters. Go read the comments on the other post to get an idea of what people have done.  Also there are a few pages from Chilling Effects that you should take a look at. Here’s the first one. And the second one.

Make sure you read the FAQs about each of those.  It’s full of great information.

Also on a not-really-related note, there’s a great site, Govtrack.us, that has some great features that allows you to keep up with congressional issues that matter to you.  I get regular updates e-mailed to me about my state representative and senators and a few other issues.

More than meets the eye

I saw Giant Alien Shape-shifting Fighting Robots last night.  You may know it by it’s working title, Transformers.  As a kid I saw the show, but I wasn’t a child fanatic.  I didn’t have  the action figures.  I was more of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters kid.

I was glad that the movie went right into robots blowing things up. and did they ever.  The movie delivered more effects, both visual and audio, than my brain could handle.  The transformers looked totally real and only once did I even think that everything was CGI.  About two hours into it, however, I had seen about all the jaw dropping explosions that I needed to and started looking and analyzing the effects.

That should give you an idea of what I thought about the story line.  The effects totally overshadowed the story and made you forget that there even was one.  The story also seemed very forced to me.  I can imagine a table full of writers starting their session by saying ‘We need a reason to see Optimus battle Megatron in the middle of a city.’

Overall, the movie was really good, but not great.   Amazing effects, end of story.

Pownce

I just got a Pownce account.  Its a site that allows you to share messages, files, links and events with people.  It has a desktop app that runs on Windows and Mac uisng the Adobe Air thingamajig.

Right now its still in beta testing.  I have six invites, so if you want to give it a shot let me know and I’ll send you one.

John from Cincinnati

Has anybody else been watching this show? So far its one of the weirdest shows I’ve ever seen. I have no idea what’s going on but I can’t stop watching. Half the dialog doesn’t make sense.
The kid that plays Shaun Yost is also terrible. He’s like a robot. It almost ruins the show. If he starts getting more speaking lines than the show is going to get a lot worse.
What the hell is with this show?