I'm sure by now many of you have already seen this video. I for one, have watched it at least 8 times. This is a great story and even though this has already been posted on every major website, I was inspired enough by it that I felt it necessary to post it here as well.
Well, the wife and I did. We closed last Friday and have already begun remodeling. We are planning to move on June 2 so we have to have the house in move-in condition by then. Not to mention start & finish packing in that same time.
Anyways, because it's the type of person I am, I decided to start chronicling the house changes and other life stuff on our (the wife and I) website.
Feel free to check it out, I've been updating it pretty regularly with pictures and whatnot.
So a few buddies of mine got ahold of a recently released RTS game this weekend (less than legally) and we were trying to find a way to play against/with eachother online. After doing some research, we found this program called Hamachi.
Hamachi uses your regular internet connection and allows other users to connect to you through a VPN. Apparently by assigning a private IP through the VPN you can trick your internet into thinking that other people are on your LAN. Anywho, once connected you can play Networked/LAN games with your friends (this of course assuming you can't play the real game online due to your illegal copy).
There's a whole slew of games that this works with and I highly recommend that you try it.
In light of this new find, I've been trying to find some old games that I may have missed in the past that are great networked games. Leave a comment with any suggestions you might have.
I have recently turned my WoW addiction into a television addiction. In the past two months I have gotten caught up on the entire series of 24, Heroes, and Jericho. I have also downloaded various episodes of different TV shows. In all I have tested each of the four major network television provider's download/stream service and decided to write a review.
With the inception of "Download this episode online" (introduced by ABC mid-season last year), TV watching has dramatically changed. Previous methods of catching up for missed shows ranged from waiting to catch it on the reruns (painful), buying the DVDs (too expensive), Recording it onto VCR (lol), Downloading it illegally (I didn't do it!), or Recording it onto DVR. Now with a few clicks you are on your way to watching last night's episode without any hassle at all. Not to mention these episodes come with limited commercial interruptions (almost always less than 30 seconds each and 3-4 times per episode).
Using this on demand "download it whenever you want to watch it", I was able to watch the entire series of Jericho in less than 24 hours last Sunday (yeah yeah, I know, "Get a life..."). So, with that said, here are my reviews:
Best Network TV Download site: ABC Ease of use: Simply launch the browser from a link on the front page of the website. ABC offers their legacy media player as well as an upgraded version with full-screen HD episodes after installing a small plug-in.
Picture Quality: ABC has the best quality picture of all networks. Every show is offered in Full-Screen HD.
Picture Sizes: Micro, Small, Big, Full Screen.
Episode Selection: All episodes of the current season for all prime-time shows.
Runner-Up: NBC Ease of use: The NBC episode viewer is just about as easy to use as the ABC browser (if not easier). You select the show you wish to watch from the front page of the NBC website. This opens the media player in a new window where you can select any episodes you wish to watch.
Picture Quality: The small screen view is near-HD quality. The full screen view simply expands this image without improving the picture quality. Although the images are larger they are kinda fuzzy. Overall not too bad.
Picture Sizes: Small, Full Screen
Episode Selection: Most episodes of most current prime time shows. NBC still has a contract with iTunes for the show The Office so it is not currently available for free @ the NBC website.
Third best (or 2nd worst): Fox Ease of use: Fox currently offers viewers the option to watch a limited number of episodes of a select few shows for free on their MySpace page. As you know, MySpace has it's fair share of bugs and the service is not always reliable. In order to watch the show you do need to install a proprietary media viewer. However, from what I can tell this is strictly for viewing episodes online from this site and not a stand-alone player like RealPlayer (more on that later).
Picture Quality: Great, nearly on par with ABC. The small screen image is amazing. When expanding to the larger image, like NBC, they simply stretch the image which causes some fuzziness. However, the picture quality is still better than NBC or CBS.
Picture Sizes: Small, Large.
Episode Selection: Fox currently only offers the 3 most recent episodes of a select few shows to viewers. This can be particularly annoying if you are more than 3 episodes behind and want to catch up.
Worst of the worst: CBS Ease of use: Dreadfully painful. In order to watch episodes online you need to download the infectious RealPlayer software. If you have ever had any experience with RealPlayer you will understand why this is so painful. Luckily RealPlayer no longer automatically sets itself to your default media player for all media types. You now have the option to select what types of media you want this software to open. By deselecting all media types you should never see Real Player outside of online applications.
Picture Quality: Decent, better than NBC but nowhere near ABC or even Fox.
Picture Sizes: Small, Full Screen.
Episode Selection: From what I can tell, CBS is also offering their entire current season for all prime-time shows.
In summary, ABC and NBC offer solid services with little or no hassle. NBC's biggest weakness is it's picture quality and episode selection. Fox could be challenging ABC if it would offer a larger catalog of episodes on a more reliable service (and perhaps stray away from 3rd party media players). While CBS is in league with the devil by providing inferior picture quality and requiring the use of terrible 3rd party software. In all, the idea and service provided by all four networks is great and much appreciated. The free service is a wonderful idea and any negative comments are strictly from comparing like-services.
After having an argument at work over who was a bigger badass between Clint Eastwood and John Wayne it kinda got me thinking... Who is the biggest badass of all time?
Use the comments section to nominate your idea of the ultimate badass. After I've acquired a suitable number of candidates we might have to turn this into a bracket style tournament.
Your suggestions can be anyone from Sports Heroes (ex: Lance Armstrong), Actors (ex: Clint Eastwood, John Wayne), TV/Movie Characters (Jack Bauer, James Bond), Video Game characters (ex: Sephiroth), Book characters (ex: Jack Ryan, Rand Al'Thor) and so on.
UPDATE:
Using the examples above and your suggestions I have 16 of the hopefully 64 contenders. Keep submitting your suggestions (legit suggestions only please)
1. Lance Armstrong (7 Time Tour de France winner)
2. Clint Eastwood (The man with no name)
3. John Wayne (The Duke)
4. Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland - 24)
5. James Bond (James Bond series)
6. Sephiroth (Villian - Final Fantasy 7)
7. Jack Ryan (Tom Clancy hero)
8. Rand Al'Thor (Main Character - Wheel of Time book series)
9. Batman (Billionaire crime fighter Bruce Wayne)
10. Superman (Near invincible hero of Metropolis)
11. The Flash (... he's fast?)
12. The Hulk (You won't like him when he's angry)
13. Bruce Lee (Martial Arts master)
14. Chuck Norris (his tears cure cancer)
15. Snake Plissken (Escaped from New York... and L.A.)
16. Master Chief (Main Character - Halo game series)
17. Optimus Prime (The Transformer)
18. Skeletor (Villain - He-Man TV series)
19. Mike Tyson (Professional Boxer/Ear Biter)
20. Lawerence Taylor (Former NFL Linebacker for NY Giants)
21. Sylvester Stallone (One of the top action stars ever)
22. John Rambo (An army of one)
I am looking for someone to design a new banner for the website. I made this banner like 15 months ago when I was first deciding on colors. I hadn't really intended for it to stay long but no one complained.
Anyways, with the website getting an increase in attention I would like to update the look of the site with a new banner.
If you are interested, the two primary colors I use for the site are #335577 (the dark blue) and #6677AA (the light blue). Try to keep that in mind when you are working on it.
If you have a color setup that you think would be more appealing, feel free to be creative.
Please email me (click name under image) your work or submit it as an attachment on the forums. As there are no advertisements on this site and I pay for everything out of pocket, I cannot afford to offer compensation beyond seeing your work on display.
Check these out. These are peoples' submissions to the SXSW "Grindhouse" Trailer contest. Some of them are fairly decent while others are just completely horrible.
Grindhouse is the new Robert Rodriguez & Quinten Tarantino movie. Here's a link to the contest details (sorry, it's expired).
