Best Sidekicks
The March issue of Wired had a brief writeup of the Best Sidekicks of all time. Pretty good list!
Labels: culture, entertainment, movies
Words and stuff.
The March issue of Wired had a brief writeup of the Best Sidekicks of all time. Pretty good list!
Labels: culture, entertainment, movies
I was pleased to learn (thanks Stu Bushman) that many of the people behind MST3K have returned to what made they successful in the 1990s: making funny comments during movies. I assume most readers of this blog will remember the wonderful TV series Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (see wikipedia entry), which ran for many years on Comedy Central and then the Sci-Fi network, where a human and two robots appeared as wise-cracking sillohuettes overlayed on really bad movies mostly from the 1950s-1970s. It was one of my favorite shows during my college years in the early 90s, and I continued to enjoy it until it was finally cancelled in 1999.
Labels: entertainment, funny, movies
This is a great comic for Firefly fans. (Thanks to Rational Jenn for the link.)
Labels: entertainment, funny
The June 26 issue of PC Magazine had a good column by Dan Costa, on the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war for video on optical discs. I'll admit I don't know very much about this battle, other than it exists. And that's because a while ago I came to the same conclusion that Costa states in this column: that it really doesn't matter, in the long-run, what wins this "format war". Once we can reliably download movies from massive and reasonably priced media libraries, why would very many people want to buy them on physical media (of any format)? To be sure, when that day comes, the existing media formats will linger for a long time, just as music CDs are lingering and will continue to for some time. But I agree with Costa that the long-term media distribution solution is downloading/streaming, not physical media. (Well, at least not single-movie discs, as I suppose if someone could purchase a single piece of physical media/hardware that had tens of thousands of movies already stored on it, that might be appealing if priced reasonably. But that doesn't seem like a viable approach, since it would presumably come with a hefty price tag.)
Labels: entertainment, technology
I've now posted to my website a page listing and briefly describing my all-time favorite television series. There is quite a range here, covering my childhood and also current favorites.
Labels: entertainment, favorites
One night, when both of us were too tired to continue with work or even to read, Susan and I were flipping around the TV channels and found a wonderful show called "Meerkat Manor" on Animal Planet. This is an ongoing documentary about the lives of several gangs of Meerkats, which according to Wikipedia is a member of the mongoose family of mammals. They live in the Kalahari desert in southern Africa. These are very cute creatures (who doesn't love seeing them all stand together on their hind legs?). And they exhibit very interesting group behaviors, such as babysitting each other's pups while some of the gang leave home to forage for food. But what makes this series particularly appealing is the way the shows have been put together. First, the meerkats are each given their own names (see here for the most prominent members of the Whiskers), and their personalities are described in detail from show to show. You get a very strong sense of the storyline of the meerkats lives, both as individuals and as members of their family gangs. The narration keeps it interesting, and there is always a cliffhanger at the end of each episode, such as "Will casanova Carlos hook up with an unattached female from the neighboring gang?" or "Will the deadly cobra snake hidden in their burrows be a problem for the unsuspecting pups as they sleep overnight?" or "Will baby-sitter Shakespeare be able to defend the young pups against the attacking neighbor gang... can he hold out until the rest of the Whiskers family returns from their foraging trip?" Good stuff!
Labels: entertainment
Unlike many people, I don't drink coffee. So when I wake up and am feeling groggy, I need something else to spring my mind into action for the day. One tactic I employ is playing one or two games that require logic skills. When Tetris (see Wikipedia) came out in the early 1980s we had it on our computer at the time (was it our last Atari or our first IBM PC? I can't remember.) This has been my favorite of what I call "simple games" -- that is, conceptually simple in that they aren't complex role-playing games or graphically intense action games. Tetris has just a few graphics, a few basic rules, and that is it. The rest is just logic and being able to visualize color patterns and so on. I introduced Susan to the game many years ago, and she is hooked too.
Labels: entertainment, technology