Lots of random thoughts
Okay, lots of random thoughts this week. Droid phones, Beats laptops, Whale Wars, Dr. Pepper with real sugar, Leann Rimes, The Expendables. Little bit of something for everyone.
Welcome to yet another fun filled week at Bogworld. Lots going on behind the curtains here. Hopefully you have noticed the little improvement in the artwork here. Now I am working on being more regular with the updates. Stay tooned for that. I am also working on some new stuff ...finally... for the Bogshop.
This week was one of those weeks where little things caught my ear and I felt the need to write about them.
In the grand finale of the new movie The Expendables, when the meanest of the bad guys is finally beaten to an ashy mess, the crowd cheered and applauded. Or did they? I happened to go to a late late showing of the movie that was far from a full house. Yes there was audible cheering at that moment but it was not coming from the audience. It was coming from the movie's sound system. Yup. I'm telling you the filmmakers added a cheering sound effect into the soundtrack's rear speakers to spark the real audience into cheering at that moment too. Boo!
Sprint is bragging a lot about how they have the first 4G network, Check a coverage map sometime where 4G is really available. Its so limited that they had to change their c commercials to mention their phones work on 3G networks too.
Droid does? The thing is, Droid... at least Droid on Verizon... doesn't. As in, it doesn't... can't really... make a phone call while you use one of the many internet features of the phone. Verizon's network does not support it.
Google wants you to believe the Droid phone is more popular than the iPhone. Lets clarify that. Droid is not a set device, per say. Its an operating system that sits on a lot of different phones by a lot of different companies. Whereas Apple's iPhone is one single device made by one company. Its a little like saying Shell Oil is the number one car manufacturer because its gas can be found in most cars.
Are you like me. Do you find digital cable to be less watchable than good old fashioned analog cable was? The constant pixillation of my picture ever since I was talked into digital cable ...no. forced into it would be a better way to explain it... is far more annoying and less watchable than the lower fidelity analog image I used to have. HD doesn't mean a thing to me if its constantly interrupted by bad pixelating images.
There is a computer company currently touting their laptops to be the first to be built for sound. They feature something called Beats Audio. Yet in every commercial I have seen for the product, the users are also using headphones. Hell any computer can sound amazing through a good pair of headphones and a little tweaking in the sound program. If a laptop requires headphones how is that "built for sound"?
On a less high tech noter, this weekend while shopping at my local Target I found a supply of classic Dr. Pepper. Its Dr. Pepper made with real cane sugar instead of corn sweetener. It tastes amazing. But I noticed something else. As wonderful as this stuff is to my tongue, I am finding that I drink it far slower than I do regular soda. Is there something in corn sweetener that makes you drink more? Is corn sweetener less effective than regular sugar when it comes to quenching thirst? I don't really know the answer here. I am just making an observation.
As I wrote last week, I am a big fan of the science reality television shows on cable. I love whales just as much as the next liberal, but though I am hooked on the television show Whale Wars, I cannot help but think there must be a better... perhaps less dramatic... way to convince the Japanese people that they do not need to hunt whales and dolphins any more. Perhaps Hollywood could do for whales in Japanese culture what Bambi did for deer hunting in American culture. Maybe Japan just needs a hit series of anime cartoons that feature lovable heroic whale and dolphin characters. So that they, as a country, would start rejecting the practice of killing sea mammals.
I think its nobel in theory what the Sea Shepherds are doing out there with their two small black ships running up against Japanese harpoon craft and factory ships. But most of the time all they do is spray water at each other and throw stink bombs. Its like a college frat confrontation at sea. I guess I can see why up until now the Japanese mostly ignored them.
This season the battle got more violent and in a twisted way the show got better. Ships are ramming one another. Boats are sinking. I have a feeling a whole lot of next season is going to be spent in international shipping courts rather than on the high seas.
There seems to be a bit of internet buzz over Leann Rime's bikini clad performance on NBC's Americas Got Talent. It seems some prudish country western fans never want little Leann to grow up. They want her to somehow always stay perpetually locked in time as the 12 year old little kid with the big voice that upstaged most other acts ever to come out of the old Star Search talent show. Well Leann has grown up and she looks damn good. I know she has had some marriage problems, a well publicized separation and an alleged affair with an actor. So naturally her appearance singing in retro-style swimwear on national television must be a sign that she has gone wild. Please. Its one of the tamest performances I have seen in recent years. The fact that Leann has obviously been working out and wants to bring a little more dance into her performance is ... well... normal. If people think this is too racy accidentally switching to MTV for a moment would make their head explode. CLICK HERE to see her performance. What do you think?
Brett Favre is back. Its good to know a 40 year old can still make an impact in the hardest of professional sports. Being a 40 something guy myself, of course I am rooting for him. I’d probably be rooting for him even if he wasn’t a Viking.
Just as long as he’s not a Packer.
This week was one of those weeks where little things caught my ear and I felt the need to write about them.
In the grand finale of the new movie The Expendables, when the meanest of the bad guys is finally beaten to an ashy mess, the crowd cheered and applauded. Or did they? I happened to go to a late late showing of the movie that was far from a full house. Yes there was audible cheering at that moment but it was not coming from the audience. It was coming from the movie's sound system. Yup. I'm telling you the filmmakers added a cheering sound effect into the soundtrack's rear speakers to spark the real audience into cheering at that moment too. Boo!
Sprint is bragging a lot about how they have the first 4G network, Check a coverage map sometime where 4G is really available. Its so limited that they had to change their c commercials to mention their phones work on 3G networks too.
Droid does? The thing is, Droid... at least Droid on Verizon... doesn't. As in, it doesn't... can't really... make a phone call while you use one of the many internet features of the phone. Verizon's network does not support it.
Google wants you to believe the Droid phone is more popular than the iPhone. Lets clarify that. Droid is not a set device, per say. Its an operating system that sits on a lot of different phones by a lot of different companies. Whereas Apple's iPhone is one single device made by one company. Its a little like saying Shell Oil is the number one car manufacturer because its gas can be found in most cars.
Are you like me. Do you find digital cable to be less watchable than good old fashioned analog cable was? The constant pixillation of my picture ever since I was talked into digital cable ...no. forced into it would be a better way to explain it... is far more annoying and less watchable than the lower fidelity analog image I used to have. HD doesn't mean a thing to me if its constantly interrupted by bad pixelating images.
There is a computer company currently touting their laptops to be the first to be built for sound. They feature something called Beats Audio. Yet in every commercial I have seen for the product, the users are also using headphones. Hell any computer can sound amazing through a good pair of headphones and a little tweaking in the sound program. If a laptop requires headphones how is that "built for sound"?
On a less high tech noter, this weekend while shopping at my local Target I found a supply of classic Dr. Pepper. Its Dr. Pepper made with real cane sugar instead of corn sweetener. It tastes amazing. But I noticed something else. As wonderful as this stuff is to my tongue, I am finding that I drink it far slower than I do regular soda. Is there something in corn sweetener that makes you drink more? Is corn sweetener less effective than regular sugar when it comes to quenching thirst? I don't really know the answer here. I am just making an observation.
As I wrote last week, I am a big fan of the science reality television shows on cable. I love whales just as much as the next liberal, but though I am hooked on the television show Whale Wars, I cannot help but think there must be a better... perhaps less dramatic... way to convince the Japanese people that they do not need to hunt whales and dolphins any more. Perhaps Hollywood could do for whales in Japanese culture what Bambi did for deer hunting in American culture. Maybe Japan just needs a hit series of anime cartoons that feature lovable heroic whale and dolphin characters. So that they, as a country, would start rejecting the practice of killing sea mammals.
I think its nobel in theory what the Sea Shepherds are doing out there with their two small black ships running up against Japanese harpoon craft and factory ships. But most of the time all they do is spray water at each other and throw stink bombs. Its like a college frat confrontation at sea. I guess I can see why up until now the Japanese mostly ignored them.
This season the battle got more violent and in a twisted way the show got better. Ships are ramming one another. Boats are sinking. I have a feeling a whole lot of next season is going to be spent in international shipping courts rather than on the high seas.
There seems to be a bit of internet buzz over Leann Rime's bikini clad performance on NBC's Americas Got Talent. It seems some prudish country western fans never want little Leann to grow up. They want her to somehow always stay perpetually locked in time as the 12 year old little kid with the big voice that upstaged most other acts ever to come out of the old Star Search talent show. Well Leann has grown up and she looks damn good. I know she has had some marriage problems, a well publicized separation and an alleged affair with an actor. So naturally her appearance singing in retro-style swimwear on national television must be a sign that she has gone wild. Please. Its one of the tamest performances I have seen in recent years. The fact that Leann has obviously been working out and wants to bring a little more dance into her performance is ... well... normal. If people think this is too racy accidentally switching to MTV for a moment would make their head explode. CLICK HERE to see her performance. What do you think?
Brett Favre is back. Its good to know a 40 year old can still make an impact in the hardest of professional sports. Being a 40 something guy myself, of course I am rooting for him. I’d probably be rooting for him even if he wasn’t a Viking.
Just as long as he’s not a Packer.