AV Club fall tv preview

Want to know what show is starting when? Check here.

$1.4m server drop

A $1.4 million server got dropped in a warehouse. I’m glad I’m not that forklift driver.

Persona 3 could be dangerous

I’m generally the last person to believe that video game violence is a problem. Parents should monitor what their kids are up to. That said, Persona 3 could be dangerous. A magic gun, called an evoker is used to trigger the character’s special abilities. Not a problem, right?

Well, sort of. The magic gun is put to the character’s head and the trigger is pulled to make that happen. That’s right. The characters visually commit suicide every time they use a special ability. I think I’ll pass.

Threadless is having a sale

Threadless.com, or this link if you want to give me free shirts, has everything on sale for $10. They have some fantastic t-shirt designs. I picked up a couple for me and a couple for Jennifer. My favorite: “Defend the kingdom“.

Shrek 4 Gets 2010 Release

I don’t know who cares after the third one, but hey, it will make a fortune.
via SCI FI Wire | The News Service of the SCI FI Channel | SCIFI.COM.

The Paperclip: Designed by Apple in California

It comes with the iPhone

17 Dangerous Cinematic Computers

WOPR scared me when I was a kid. Here’s the list.

Top Selling Non iPod MP3 Players on Amazon.com

via Top Selling Non iPod MP3 Players on Amazon.com.

I had lots of neat ideas

then I spent the last three hours rebuilding my laptop. A bad stick of RAM corrupted the OS install and that was all she wrote. It was ok though. I spent some quality time with the Falcons/Bengals game. Teams are starting to look like pros now.

Everywhere, like such as

Started Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess tonight

After an hour of fishing, I had had enough.

Finished Deathly Hallows today

I finished listening to the superb Jim Dale read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to me today. As I mentioned earlier, we bought the book the day it went on sale, but I’m so partial to Dale’s performances, I would rather just listen to them.

I was very happy with the book overall. I thought it tied up the loose ends nicely, without being too neat about it. Heroes died, villains survived, and we got an appearance by Dumbledore, so it must have been a pretty good book. On another note, the spoilers I saw on the internet were completely wrong. That’s probably a good thing.

I must say, the epilogue really did leave a lot to be desired, but Rowling addressed that in an interview later. I would love to see what the original draft looked like.

My only real complaint is that it truly is over. As I mentioned to Jennifer this morning, we’ve invested a lot of time into these characters and it is sad to see them go. I know there is always fan fiction and other content, but it just isn’t the same. At least we’ll have the movies coming up later. I sort of dread Deathly Hallows as a movie. It seems like it could easily be a disaster.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

One of the things I like about my Tivo, besides the suggestion engine, is the ability to do “guru guides”. I mentioned this in my 100 Years, 100 Films post a couple of months ago. I’ve picked up a few great movies in that time, but I had seen all of them before now. How I managed to not see Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is beyond me, but I had never seen it. It probably comes from my major aversion to black and white tv shows that I always found a bit too antiquated, but that’s me.

Two things really stood out to me in the film. First, if you have any patriotic bones in your body, the scene where Jefferson Smith first goes to Washington, D.C. and does the tour is amazing. Although the footage is almost 70 years old, most of the places are the same today. Very nice. The other thing that I liked about the movie was just how well Jimmy Stuart fit the role. Granted, he was pretty much playing the typical Jimmy Stuart character, but still, it was a very believable role for him.

I truly enjoyed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington from the outset. It is definitely worth catching on a re-run.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

One of the things I like about my Tivo, besides the suggestion engine, is the ability to do “guru guides”. I mentioned this in my 100 Years, 100 Films post a couple of months ago. I’ve picked up a few great movies in that time, but I had seen all of them before now. How I managed to not see Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is beyond me, but I had never seen it. It probably comes from my major aversion to black and white tv shows that I always found a bit too antiquated, but that’s me.

Two things really stood out to me in the film. First, if you have any patriotic bones in your body, the scene where Jefferson Smith first goes to Washington, D.C. and does the tour is amazing. Although the footage is almost 70 years old, most of the places are the same today. Very nice. The other thing that I liked about the movie was just how well Jimmy Stuart fit the role. Granted, he was pretty much playing the typical Jimmy Stuart character, but still, it was a very believable role for him.

I truly enjoyed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington from the outset. It is definitely worth catching on a re-run.

Microsoft RoundTable is close to release

I’ve been excited about RoundTable since I first heard of it. Really cool stuff is you’re using the latest conferencing solution from Microsoft.

RoundTable is a table-top device, not much bigger than a traditional speaker phone at the base. It can be connected to a standard PC to offer synchronized voice and video conferencing. The device creates a 360-degree, panoramic video of side-by-side images of everyone who is taking part in the conference. It tracks the flow of the conversation, so the image and voice of the person who is speaking are spotlighted. People across many locations can attend meetings together virtually.

via Microsoft Eyes Future of Teleconferencing with RoundTable: Technology developed by Microsoft Research matures into a product that is scheduled to debut by mid-2007, providing businesses an alternative to business trips or expensive conventional audio/video conferencing systems..