BunkBlog

Although I really only grabbed October Road because it starred Laura Prepon (growl), it’s actually a pretty good tale so far. The protagonist returns to his home town after ten years away and after writing a book obviously based on the town, which was apparently unflattering to its residents.

Some folks think it’s a ripoff of The Book of Joe, by Jonathon Tropper. I’m thinking the premise is probably common enough among writers that it’s been told dozens or hundreds of times. Heck, it’s not too far afield from the concept behind Ed. Ironically, Tom Cavanagh from that show is rumored to be starring in a movie version of Joe. Anyway, big success who returns to small town is not really too magical a premise.

It’s often said that everyone has a novel in them. We all have some rather unique combinations of events happen in our lives, no matter how unremarkable we think we are. My Aunt Lois has told me before that I really need to document better some of the strange folks I met in the Army. I don’t see how that becomes a book, but that’s only because I lack the essential gene possessed by all good writers. You know the gene; it’s the one that forces them to write, forces them to make their story concrete on paper. There’s always ten other things to read or watch or bake or . . . .

Oh, and Laura Prepon is still hot.

Ah, the irony.  Ned “Carlos Mencia” Holness has used the power of the DMCA to get the YouTube video of his joke-stealing smackdown removed.  So, um…it’s okay for you to use other people’s material without credit for your own profit, but not for someone else to show that you have been doing so?  Ouch, my head.

Just finished watching The Truth About Cats & Dogs. It just confirmed my previous belief that Janeane Garofalo is hawt. I’m just saying, I’d shag her rotten. Don’t take this the wrong way, just that I’d wreck that.

Voltron makes no sense at all. Giant robotic lions that merge to form a massive universe-defending robot, and they’re afraid of a black cat and witch. Did they merge two different stories here?

Quote of the day from a Food Network show: “We bought these canolli shells from a little specialty shop, I’ve got an Italian deli down the street, you’ve probably got the same thing near you.”

Apparently you’re only supposed to watch “Easy Entertaining” if you live in New York City.  Easy my ass.  Oh, sure, let me just run down the street to the little specialty Italian flippin’ pastry shop.  And while I’m out there, I’m gonna pick up some smoked pimento from the Spanish tienda.

There are days that I really need to get out of this town.

South Park tonight not only includes Flying Spaghetti Monster references, but the oh-so-important Buck Rogers sequence.  Have Stone and Parker been hanging out with Seth MacFarlane?

Supposedly if you’ve seen over 70 of the films on this list (either in the theater or on video) you have no life. Mark and count the movies you’ve seen. Put your score in the header and repost.
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So far in the new television season, here’s my impressions of the shows I’ve attempted to watch:

Monday

Heroes (NBC) – I was a bit unsure what to expect from a superhero show. So far, so good. And, NBC must like it too; it got picked up for a full season.

The Class (CBS) – This comedy is still a bit uneven. I do enjoy Lizzy Caplan as set dressing, but if they don’t do more funny soon, it’s getting dropped from the DVR.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC) – I’m pretty impressed by Matthew Perry’s dramatic skill, although I really don’t buy Amanda Peet as “tough executive.” I last saw Timothy Busfield as the bumbling brother on “Ed” and he’s been one of the bright stars of this one, along with Evan Handler and DL Hughley.

Tuesday

Help Me Help You (ABC) – Ted Danson just isn’t doing it for me on this one.  It’s just not giving the funny.

Wednesday

30 Rock (NBC) – Named after 30 Rockefeller Center, where SNL is filmed. The first episode left virtually no impression on me whatsoever.
Jericho (CBS) – Although it’s been picked up for a full season, making it and Heroes the only true “hits” from the new season so far, I’m not 100% sold on it. The sense of impending danger that you’d expect from a post-apocalypse show is just not there. The teenagers don’t seem to understand there are any hazards at all; they’re all wrapped up in some weird 90210 vibe. Spooky guy is definitely driving my interest, and not the “star,” Skeet Ulrich.
Twenty Good Years (NBC) – OK, it’s only one episode, but they need more funny. I have really enjoyed both of the main actors in previous work (John Lithgow and Jeffory Tambor), but the pilot was a lot of scenery-chewing and not many jokes.

Thursday

Ugly Betty (ABC) – This show stars Ana Ortiz’s ass and Vanessa Williams’s breasts. There’s some mysterious plot about a suspicious death and something or other, but if Williams wasn’t in it, there’d be no show. The vignettes with Salma Hayek in tiny outfits are good too; tonight was a bikini.

Friday

Men in Trees (ABC) – I had never thought of Anne Heche as attractive before, but this character is growing on me. The gorgeous Saleka Mathew is a nice feature too. Oh, and the “fish out of water” plot has a lot of potential, I think. Hopefully they can milk it longer than Ed or Northern Exposure.

Sunday

Brothers and Sisters (ABC) – I don’t buy Calista Flockhart as a right-winger, and I wish Tom Skerritt has stuck around past the pilot; I like him. I don’t think this one will stick around long, but I may be wrong.

I love the series Bullshit, as I may have mentioned before. The big revelation today? John Gray, the author of “Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus,” is a yoga expert with a PhD in psychology from a diploma mill that has been forced to shut down due to its years of fraud.

Apparently doctors are from universities and quacks are from yoga school.

Everyone who said that they didn’t need to worry about TiVo’s closed architecture, because it did everything they needed, including that nifty TiVoToGo that let you make DVDs on your computer from your TiVo box? Yeah, you got punked.

The new and improved TiVo Series3 boxes, the ones that finally allow you to record HD (something you could do with MythTV for years), have deleted the already-very-limited ability to do what you want with the recording you make on your machine that you pay for. Cheers.

There is no legal reason to do this, by the way. The fair use doctrine and case law (Betamax decision) are on the side of people who want to make personal copies of free over-the-air broadcasts. Aren’t you glad that TiVo is more interested in not offending Hollywood than they are in providing features their customers want?

The new season of Saturday Night Live started this week. Not only do I still not find Dane Cook’s “fratguy observations” humorous, the rest of the show is not doing much for me either. There were about two bright spots during the news (which really needs Tina Fey to return), and otherwise the funniest bit was a two-minute stretch of water bottles falling from a closet. Yes, two minutes of just water bottles pouring out of a closet; so many bottles that it’s obvious the closet is actually a Tardis.

Most parents probably realize that the cartoons they show in prime time are not really meant for kids. Example of the day: American Dad. Stan comes home from work, and Francine says, “If I’d known you were going to be home so early I wouldn’t have taken care of myself in the bath earlier.”

As Quagmire would say, “Gigity Gigity Gigity!”

Update: And on Family Guy, “Spit on me. Now tell me I’m scum.”

Penn & Teller have a show on Showtime called Bullshit, where they debunk various things which people believe.  I’ve got them on Netflix, and the first disk of season one is in my player now.  During their ripping of “alternative medicine,” they convinced some people in a mall to put snails on their faces as a means of reducing wrinkles and stress.  Ah, placebo effect!

I was going to link to a post someone had with a few dozen episodes of the show that were available on Google Video, but apparently the copyright police got to them. So, rent ’em if you want to see ’em (or get Showtime, but that seems a bit excessive).

Tonight’s episode of the Scifi show Eureka is required viewing. Any show that involves Salli Richardson getting down to her lingerie is a keeper.

Welcome Google Images users. Sorry Ms. Richardson is actually clothed.  I know what a disappointment that must be for you all.

I find it amazing that MS has still not figured out how to avoid punking their customers and partners. The wonderful DRM embedded in earlier versions of Windows Media Player is bad enough. Then came PlaysForSure, which many people say is more like “PlaysForShit.” There are many instances of the PlaysForSure files not transferring, or requiring multiple updates of software on the PC and firmware on the player. Plays For Sure as a slogan implies that your music will Just Work, but that is obviously not the case, based on how many complaints you can find online with mere seconds of research.

So, MS decided that the whole integrated solution thing Apple has going is a good idea. They partnered up with iRiver and MTV to produce the Clix and Urge. The device and service were designed together, to ensure that things actually would Play For Sure.  So far so good, even if it did effectively snub all the previous MS partners who had signed on for the Janus DRM train (anyone think it’s interesting that Janus had two faces?), as well as the hardware partners whose machines hadn’t been tested and certified for the MTV Urge service. They’ll probably work, but if it’s not marketed together, many people will assume incompatibility.

And now the latest change to Microsoft’s music roadmap – Zune. Not only does this get Microsoft involved in the hardware market for media players, effectively telling all the manufacturers who thought they were partners to piss off, it also introduces a new Zune-only store. That’s right, the Janus DRM-encumbered music you thought you owned from Rhapsody or Napster or whereever won’t play on Zune. You’ll have to buy it all again, if you want to play it on that new slick MS-branded player.

Might I suggest never buying any DRM-encumbered media? The result of ever buying any music or video from a service that puts DRM on it is that you don’t control your own property. You may think you own the latest Beyonce album, but if you bought it from Napster or iTunes, you don’t own a damned thing. You have a right to listen to it only on the device you bought it for and any new technology is likely to render your music collection so much junk.

Just for an added stab in the back of their customers, the Zune’s vaunted wifi sharing system will add DRM to any file, including public domain and Creative Commons files. For the public domain files, that’s just evil. For the CC files, that’s actually a violation of the CC license, which states unequivocally that no encryption can be applied to the file by anyone.

To recap, DRM is evil, Microsoft hates their customers, Microsoft can be trusted only to betray their business partners, and DRM is evil.

Samuel Jackson on the Daily Show tonight was the first time I’ve seen an actor do a promo appearance with Jon Stewart and actually talk about the movie.  When Robin Williams was touring for RV, he did schtick about the President and other random Robin things.  When Will Farrell was doing appearances for his latest NASCAR thing, he mentioned the movie briefly and then wandered off into other stuff.

Only Snakes on a Plane can get actors and talk show hosts hyped enough to talk about the movie as if that’s the reason they got together that day.  And, seriously, Samuel Jackson seems to be a very animated fella. He even used the word “blogosphere” without sounding like a clueless dork.  Sweet.

Snakes on a Plane, not Ferrets on a Panel Truck.  Oh yeah.

OK, someone suggested I put together a quick tutorial or how-to on digital video creation.  Home videos have grown increasingly easy to record, and the output is so much better than the old super-8 film days, but it’s still not easy for some. So, without further ado, Gary’s Video Tutorial. It’s on a wiki, so if you have something useful to contribute, feel free.  I’ve still got to add something about titles and overlays.

I can’t imagine what one could add to the headline to make this story any more clear. Can you imagine buying one of these drives to play Blu-Ray movies in your new home theater PC and finding out that you can’t? Are they just encouraging piracy now by their total incompetence at this Digital Restrictions Manglement crap?

Stephen Colbert did a skit on The Daily Show last night. There were about 30 seconds of genius. See if you agree.

The following is somewhat reformatted from a recent discussion on Cnet about DVD camcorders.

I know many people are considering a digital camcorder for the first time, as their old 8mm and VHS-C cameras start to die. Many people think that a DVD camcorder is a great idea, because it’s so simple: just record to the disk, hit the “finished” button, and play it on a DVD player (although you’ll be recording about 20 minutes on that disk, not the two hours you expect from a full-sized DVD). That works great if you want the exact same capability you had with a simple analog video camera. If you want to produce nicer video, though, the story is quite different.
There are some people who don’t edit their videos, who don’t mind that their home videos look amateurish and contain fingers over lenses and heads blocking shots and poor audio. For those people, a DVD camcorder is a great fit. They neither want nor need the editing quality they are denied by recording in a lossy format; they need and want, however, the ease of taking their videos and dropping them in nearly any DVD player and watching them.

Recording to a DVD in DVD-standard formats means lossy compression and the joys of MPEG formats that anyone who has tried to edit an MPEG can understand. The MiniDV camcorders can dump uncompressed video to your computer, where you can delete the scenes that look bad, you can punch up the color balance and contrast, you can add a music soundtrack if you like. All these things are wonderful, and I do them with all my home videos, producing slick DVDs with titles and transitions and menus for my relatives. That niche is where I want to be.

DVD is a great medium to VIEW video with. It’s even a great medium to shoot video if you understand its limits.

DVDs and MiniDV and hard drives and flash memory all record digitally. So, talk of capacity should include RAW storage in bytes, not just in minutes. Any talk of minutes gets you embroiled in compression issues.

A MiniDV tape holds 13 gigabytes of data. An 8cm DVD (the smaller ones used in camcorders) holds 1.4 gigabytes. An expensive SD card holds 4 gigabytes. A hard-drive based camcorder holds (as of today) around 30 gigabytes. That’s the actual storage capacity, folks. Now, how much do each cost? Well, the best price per gigabyte is the tape, as it has been throughout digital media history.

The cheap nature of tapes convinced the DV forum to make DV standard very close to uncompressed. This makes it easy to edit without losing quality.

The low capacity of 8cm DVDs, and the need to make them compatible with DVD players, means that DVDs have the worst video quality (among hard drives, DV tape, and DVDs at least – some of the flash recorders are toys). The compatibility of DVDs is their greatest asset. Hit “done” on that camcorder, and two minutes later you can be watching your home movie on a big screen. Not so with tapes.

DVD format does have an inherent flaw – lossy compression.

Tapes still exist for every high-capacity recording system in use today. High-end video recorders use tape. High-end data backup systems use tape. The reason is simple: high density at low cost.

If the video was recorded to the DVD as an uncompressed video file (like the DV standard used on tapes), you’d swap disks every six minutes. Also, the DVDs would be DVD-ROM format, and wouldn’t play on your DVD player – which is the selling point for most DVD recording camcorder users.

When you export a DVD format video to edit it, you are taking an MPEG (with I, B, and P frames) and editing it into a different compression scheme for whatever your target system is. If it’s DVD again, you compress an MPEG to MPEG, each generation producing another set of MPEG compression artifacts.

So, you can get high capacity and high quality on tape. You can get easy compatibility with DVD. You can’t get both. If you want DVD-player compatibility, then the DVD camcorder format has an inherent flaw – MPEG.

The hard drive recorders, at least those that you see marketed for typical consumers, use compressed video because they don’t generally have removable hard drives. With a fixed disk, you want more capacity than a single tape, obviously. So, the JVC Everio and others have MPEG-compressed video and the same issues with editability as the DVDs.

To me, the DVD camcorder is to video what the point-and-shoot camera is to photography. Just because we geeks want the best quality and ease of editing, doesn’t mean that “good enough” matched with “really easy” is a bad thing. So, if you know what you want to do with your video, that makes all the difference in the world for what type of camcorder to buy.