Category Archives: Entertainment

Entertainment, Geek

Comcast DVR

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I’ve been meaning to write a post about my feelings on the comcast DVR after being spoiled with a DirecTiVo and a stand-alone TiVo. PVRBlog wrote up his experiance with his ComcastDVR.

His thoughts exactly mirror mine, almost to the sentence, except I don’t yet have a harmony remote for the basement setup. (I have a feeling i’ll get one for Chistmas.) Sarah just HATES the button lag, and, I have to say, its caused me a ton of grief as well. One of the follow-up comments also points out a problem I’ve seen with surround sound just dieing. A reboot fixed it for me as well.

I do have to say, watching TV in HD is a vastly different experiance. Its well worth most of the pain. However, I am crossing my fingers for the coming of CableCARD TiVos and whatnot.

Entertainment

Analyzing Netflix

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Netflixfan’s post I learned about the Netflix History Analyizer. Its a fun little toy that anaylizes your netflix rental history and generates the following stats:

  • You’ve rented 105 DVDs over 17 months from May 24, 2004 to September 27, 2005.
  • Your plan costs $17.99/month so you’ve paid $305.83 total.
  • Your average price per rental was approximately $2.91 each.
  • Average rental costs elsewhere are $3.75 each (not including late fees).
  • You’ve saved approximately $87.92 over your membership lifetime or $5.17 per month.
  • You kept each rental for around 12 days on average.
  • The longest you kept a single DVD was 62 days: Elizabeth (1998).
  • You rented about 6 DVDs each month.
  • You’re not taking full advantage of your current plan. You could be renting 19 DVDs each month.

The nice thing is that as my gut told me, we were still coming out ahead in the deal. We’ve slowed down our renting the past months or so since there is new content on tv, not to mention some baseball games that consumed our Chicago-based lives. But we are coming out ahead, and that’s the big thing.

Books, Comics, Entertainment, Geek, General

The Dark Tower returns!

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This time in comic form!

STEPHEN KING BREAKS NEW GROUND AT MARVEL WITH ORIGINAL COMIC SERIES BASED ON HIS EPIC THE DARK TOWER

It looks like they’ll be following the young Roland when he started out his journey. Hopefully we’ll see Cuthbert and Alain.

Also, this marks the first time Stephen King has done original content for comics, so that’ll be good. I guess I’ll have to tell Keith to hold them for me.

Entertainment

American Pie in Spanish

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Last night Vik and I were getting a burrito when a Spanish version of American Pie came on the place’s jukebox. In the event this should happen to you in the future, here’s some phrases you’ll want to know translated to Spanish (thanks to Google translate):

  • but my girlfriend was dry == pero mi novia era seca
  • beer == cerveza
  • drinking beer with my fucked up friends == cerveza el beber con mis para arriba cogidos amigos
  • Jack, Jim, and Jose Cuervos == Jack, Jim, y Jose Cuervos
  • at O’Malley’s == en O’Malley’s
  • LOST IN SPACE == PERDIDO EN ESPACIO
  • Jack burnt off his fucking dick == Jack se quemó de su dick de mierda
  • What a bitch! == ¡Una qué perra!
  • What a dick! == ¡Un qué dick!
Entertainment, Movies

You can’t take the sky from me.

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We saw Serenity over the weekend. Being huge fans of the show, we’re probably biased, but we loved it.

There were some really surprising parts. I don’t want to say anymore due to dropping spoilers. However, Sarah is still pissed at Joss over one part of the movie. She love it, but she’s still pissed.

If you haven’t seen it, go see it now! Linky says in his post on the movie that he enjoyed it without seeing the series first. So go see it! (However, watching the series first helps and makes a few things resonate more, IMHO.)

Entertainment, Food

cheezborger cheezborger cheezborger… double cheeze, its the best!

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Billy Goat will feel right at home in Washington

The joint is on the ground floor of the National Association of Realtors building, and when you walk outside you can see the Capitol dome.

The association’s headquarters is in Chicago, and the Goat has been sitting in the belly of its building at 430 N. Michigan since 1964.

“They were the first people we thought of when we put up this building,” said association spokesman Lucien Salvant. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will cut the ribbon and speak at Monday’s grand opening, as will association executive vice president and CEO Terry McDermott and president Al Mansell.

Cheezborgers for all as Goat debuts in D.C.

One of the Chicago Goat’s employees, early morning grill man Spiro Sarivasilis, was flown in for the occasion and entertained Monday’s crowd by crowing the Goat’s legendary spiel: “Cheezborger, cheezborger! No fries … chips! No Pepsi … Coke.”

Well, that explains where Spiro has been. My fried egg, cheese (cheeze?), and ham just weren’t the same.

Books, Entertainment

Black Sabbath is making our kids into Satan worshipers!

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The Economist had an article on the social impact of video games titled Chasing the Dream. Its been posted elsewhere on the net before me, but I have to quote this one paragraph because its so good.

Another analogy can be made between games and music—specifically, with the emergence of rock and roll in the 1950s. Like games today, it was a new art form that was condemned for encouraging bad behaviour among young people. Some records were banned from the radio, and others had their lyrics changed. Politicians called for laws banning the sending of offending records by post. But now the post-war generation has grown up, rock and roll is considered to be harmless. Rap music, or gaming, is under attack instead. “There’s always this pattern,” says Mr Williams of the University of Illinois. “Old stuff is respected, and new stuff is junk.” Novels, he points out, were once considered too lowbrow to be studied at university. Eventually the professors who believed this retired. Novels are now regarded as literature. “Once a generation has its perception, it is pretty much set,” says Mr Williams. “What happens is that they die.”

The article also goes on to mention the book Everything Bad Is Good For You and quotes the author Steven Berlin Johnson. My point in mentioning this is just to give a shout out to that book. It was an excellent read and made me look at a few things differently, including my television watching and how I interact with video games and the ones I really enjoy playing. Unfortunately, its been two months so I read it, so I can’t point out more specifics. GO READ IT!

Food

I Smell *BACON*!

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In the Chicago Tribune‘s food section today was a recipie for bacon-fried corn. It actually sounds really good, but what doesn’t when made with bacon. I reprint it here for two reasons 1) so I don’t lose it and 2) so MARK NOTARUS, who has eaten bacon-wrapped bacon, can see it.

Bacon-fried corn
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 servings

  • 9 stripgs bacon, diced
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • Kernels from 5 medium ears of corn, about 4 cups
  • 1 red bell pepper, seeded, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Freshly ground pepper
  1. Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 5 minutes; remove bacon with a lotted spoon to a paper-towel lined pan. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat.
  2. Add the onion to the skillet; cook, stirring often, until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Add corn and bell pepper. Cook, stirring often, until corn is crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Stir in the parsley, milk, salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with bacon pieces.

Nutrition information per serving:

  • calories: 216
  • calories from fat: 36%
  • fat: 9g
  • saturated fat: 2g
  • cholesterol: 16mg
  • carbohydrates: 26g
  • protein: 11g
  • sodium: 624mg
  • fiber: 4g
Comics, Entertainment, Geek

Enjoy Illinois, see Superman!

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Last month I turned 30, which I meant to post about, and now its almost too late to be worth it. I really don’t have much to say except 30 is a number that is BIG and ROUND.

Anyway, for my BIG and ROUND birthday, my lovely wife wanted to get me something special. So, she went and visited my local comics pusher, Keith of Keith’s Komix. (Not related to, nor to be confused with Keith of… um… this blog.) Anyway, Keith helped Sarah pick out this awesomely huge 65″ wide Justice League poster with artwork by Alex Ross. Keith apparently hangs out with Alex and Keith told Sarah he could help her get it signed. Which he did. Sarah get it really nicely framed, and its really a beautiful piece now. The picture I have insert blow doesn’t really do it justice, however, you can see where Alex signed signed it.

JLPoster

 

Anyway, we got that right before we went on vacation. On vacation, we visited some family in Metropolis, IL and took some pictures with the giant Superman statue they have there.

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I wanted to get those pictures framed and hang them on the same well and do a wall of super hero stuff. I’m glad I’ve been lazy about that, because this morning in the Chicago Tribune‘s Tempo section was an article on the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity’s tourism posters that feature quirky attractions around Illinois. Most importantly they include the Superman statue poster and had a picture of the power in the paper.

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You can see all the posters online at the Trib’s site.

Unfortunately, they are not selling the posters and didn’t foresee a demand for them. I’d really like to get one of the superman posters to frame together with the pictures we took at the statue. I just need to figure out how. The image the Trib has online is too small to be printed out and still look good, otherwise I’d go for straight copyright infringement.

Anyway, getting that poster is now a goal. I just gotta come up with how.

Entertainment, Food

Taste of Chicago

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On Wednesday, Dave and I ran over to the Taste of Chicago for lunch. (I link to the Sun-Times site because its much much better than the city’s web page for the Taste. So goofy.) We’ve been doing it every year we’ve been working nearby, so we didn’t want to break a 4 year thing. That and the taste can be yummy.

Anyway, I had some thoughts related to the taste, but I’ve been too busy the past few days to follow up with them. Luckily, Nick went there as well and had many of the same thoughts.

To add to Nick’s thoughts:

I noticed some of the same things he did. It seems to be getting a little worse in the non-sensicle taste portions each year.

And while I love going on the 3rd, I have to say this past wednesday 6/29, was perfect for lunch. Fairly low attendence so we were able to get in, get tickets immediately, and never had to wait for food.

My find of the taste was the taste portion at Robinson’s ribs. It was a full link of italian sausage slathered in BBQ sauce and in a bun. On a normal day, that’s pretty close to a full lunch for me.