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Ponderings For 2009-03-01

Submitted by GuyGG on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 2:59am
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  • Sometimes a news event can reveal interesting things. The crash of two satellites last month resulted in some interesting conversations I had with a number of different people. One thing is clear - the vast majority of people I talked to had no idea just how many satellites are floating around the Earth (roughly a thousand active satellites, with thousands of others that are inactive and/or destroyed), or the variety and nationality of said objects. For a good amount of information, check out the Wikipedia entry for satellites.
  • Speaking of orbiting things, here's a cool set of pictures of what's involved in launching a space shuttle.
  • And on the topic of outer space, here's another one of those astronomical phenomena that's tough to wrap your mind around.
  • Ah, the fun of Google's Street View.
  • Battlestar's series finale has officially been split into a two parter (well, a three parter, since it was already intended as a two parter with the first part the previous week). So far, I've been enjoying Battlestar's run to the finish, though last weekend's episode "Deadlock" (written by one of my favorite TV writers, Jane Espenson), was one of the weaker episodes of the show for some time. However, this weekend's episode, "Someone To Watch Over Me", was very good. Composer Bear McCreary has done what has to be one of the single most detailed write-ups any single episode of TV score has ever received in his three part analysis. Absolutely outstanding work by Bear - some of his best for the series. And the fact that he snuck Stu Philips' great "Exploration" intro theme from the classic Battlestar series gets him some bonus fanboy credit. It was another great Starbuck episode, and holds up nicely to the brilliant season 2 episode, Scar. Oh, and congrats to Bear on his recent engagement (to Raya Yarbrough - a vocalist who has often been featured on the Battlestar score).
  • Rats. Somebody already beat me to an attempt at a video I've wanted to try myself - doing a Battlestar opening title sequence using Bear McCreary's revised arrangement of Stu Philips' classic theme using footage and cast from the new series in the style of the original series. OK, that sounds more complicated than it actually is. The linked video is a bit too tongue-in-cheek, so perhaps I might make my own attempt at it some day, anyway.
  • For those of you who want to wear your Blu-Ray pride
  • When, oh when, will us Pushing Daisies fans ever get to see the final three episodes? Turns out the DVD's (and hopefully Blu-Ray) of season 2 can't be released until ABC either airs the episodes or their contracted window to do so runs out in September.
  • The Discovery Channel will be airing a new documentary special on the amazing US Airways crash on the Hudson. It debuts on Wednesday, the 4th.
  • The end of an era - Computer Shopper will no longer be available in print form.
  • Cowon is releasing a very light update to their D2 player called the D2+. I've been a happy user of the D2 for the last year and a half or so.
  • So Star Trek: The Experience has been saved.
  • Could any jury really punish this mother for her actions? I certainly think the dude got what was coming.
  • On the flip-side is this sad but charming news story.
  • And you thought your pet was quite the conversation piece.
  • No matter how much proof I see of the pending release of the first season of Parker Lewis on DVD, such as this cover art, I still find it hard to believe. Perhaps I'll finally believe it as I'm watching the set at the end of June.
  • The Simpsons has been renewed for two more seasons (#21 & #22). It'll be truly insane if it ends at that point, just 7 episodes shy of 500 episodes.

Ponderings For 2009-02-16

Submitted by GuyGG on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 2:59am
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  • I'd like to congratulate The Simpsons on making the switch to HD with yesterday's episode. I hate to admit it, but this is probably the first episode I've seen all the way through from the last half dozen years (since Weird Al's appearance, anyway). Well, that might not be true. A friend of mine is a Simpsons savant and can quote most episodes. I've probably seen some of the newer ones all the way through at his place, not realizing it was that new of an episode. At any rate, it was a fun enough episode, with some amusing references to their shift to HD. The big, cool change is, of course, the new opening titles. It's downright amazing that the show hasn't changed the title sequence since it debuted in 1989 (aside from the usual changing chalk board and couch gags). The new HD-revamped version is, in my opinion, perfectly done. It updates the title sequence without really "changing" it. It's still the same sequence, just tweaked and expanded, paying great respect to the original. Here's a link to the video of the sequence (don't forget to use the "watch in high quality" option). And here's a cool photo stitch job that lets you see the many new additions in one brief pan motion moment.
  • The new trailer for Transformers 2 is now online. Like the first one, I'm being suckered in by a trailer featuring basically just the big action scenes. If only the rest of the first movie wasn't between the action scenes, it would have worked. All I ask is that the characters in the second one not be as stupid and downright silly as in the first. The few tries for comedy they make, the better. It's amusing to see the debris strikes in the trailer. Guess Michael Bay is getting to take another shot at his asteroids impacting all around the world from Armageddon.
  • Details for the Trek TOS and Films Blu-Ray releases have emerged, and The Digital Bits has broken it down nicely.
  • On the Trek topic, I had to be amused by last week's fun episode of Leverage. It was directed by Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation), and featured Brent Spiner (Next Gen's Data) and Armin Shimerman (DS9's Quark). Quite the little Trek reunion. Toss in an aggressive performance from Lauren Holly and it's a fun bit of entertainment. Despite one particularly bad episode, I've been enjoying Leverage quite a lot. It's up in the top few best new shows of the season. Realism may not be the goal of the show, but it knows how to have fun with the caper genre, and has lots of great character/dialog writing.
  • The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan does a nice interview with writers Jane Espenson and Ryan Mottesheard about the Battlestar episode "No Exit" from this weekend.

Ponderings For 2009-01-28

Submitted by GuyGG on Thu, 01/29/2009 - 2:59am
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Ponderings For 2008-12-26

Submitted by GuyGG on Sat, 12/27/2008 - 2:59am
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  • So, did y'all have a peachy Christmas? The project I've been working hard on trying to finish before Christmas still managed to end up behind schedule, and I'm still working at finishing it, so blog posting will continue to be a bit sporadic. Figured I'd try and get one set of stuff posted today. I was at the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas concert tonight at the Rosemont Theatre, so the holiday spirit hasn't quite diminished yet.
  • RIP: Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (Yeah, I'm late with this news, thanks to my slow postings recently)
  • Awesome. Bruce Boxleitner has now been confirmed for the Tron sequel. Now if they could get Cindy Morgan signed on, that'd be truly cool. The name for the film is still in question (or at least it should be). I'll go with ComingSoon's impulse and just call it Tron 2.0 - what it should be called anyway, no matter what stupid name Disney wants to use.
  • I picked up the new Band Of Brothers Blu-Ray set at Best Buy when they had a 50% off all HBO sale recently. I've watched a few of the episodes on it, and I must say that it's a breathtaking transfer. High marks to HBO for a fine release of one of the greatest mini-series ever made (along with HBO's From The Earth To The Moon). But here's the real shocker - I just stumbled upon the fact that HBO has already filmed a follow-up miniseries called The Pacific which, as you might guess, does for the Pacific theater what Band Of Brothers did for the European. It's being made by many of the same people, and is planned for airing in 2009. If it's even half as good as Band Of Brothers, it'll be great. Can't wait. If only HBO could make anything other than mini-series that are worth watching.
  • Check out the trailer for the very cool looking new sci-fi, animated film 9.
  • Woo hoo! The wonderful Jane Espenson (one of the best writers in the TV business) is writing a 5 part comic about the Buffy character Oz (played so perfectly by Seth Green).
  • Looks like the third Chronicles Of Narnia film has stalled, with Disney backing out of the production. Personally, I think it's likely that Walden will be able to drum up a different studio (and yes, Fox is a good bet).
  • All hail the fractal kitty!
  • Wow. The videographer of this lightning strike probably had some hairs singed.
  • For those who didn't know, this is a leap second year.
  • Classic: Artist renditions of the scoring sessions for Star Trek
  • Do you like dolphins? (emphasis on the plural)
  • This is so bad, it's funny. Talentless hack director Stephen Norrington has signed on to write & direct a reboot of The Crow franchise. Unless he has hidden talent that the lame Blade and the reprehensibly awful The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen worked against, I'm betting this Crow movie will be the biggest embarrassment the franchise has ever seen. This has disaster written all over it.
  • The sad thing is, I might actually believe the McDonald's rep that says they didn't know 1000 people were being sent to the location. It's those most outlandish attempts at spin that sound so hard to believe they must be true.
  • Rock on. Forget voice controlling your computer - try mind control. (the demo starts around the 14 minute mark)
  • Ah, The Onion doing what they do best. (moderate language warning)
  • The CW took an embarrassing hit in the last few weeks, being beaten by fly-by-night MyNetworkTV (MNT), the goofy group of stations that were left out in the cold when The WB & UPN merged into The CW. As much as MNT seems to be the winner of this story, it's surely a random fluke. With the crap programming that MNT has (I need only glance at their line-up before I laugh at it and move on), I find it impossible to believe their beating The CW as anything but a momentary spike in the randomness of ratings. Sure, the idiotic wrestling is likely helping them on a regular basis in achieving those ratings surges, but it's been proven multiple times that WWE isn't enough to really help a network beyond bragging rights. If WWE had such controlling interest in their own programming when they were on UPN & The CW, then they surely nave nearly complete control over it at a network with such a low profile as MNT.

Ponderings For 2008-11-02

Submitted by GuyGG on Mon, 11/03/2008 - 2:59am
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  • So, did you have a fun Halloween? This might be the nicest weather Halloween I can remember. The number of trick & treaters to visit my house tripled this year, with a total of 9 (yes, there were only 3 last year).
  • Coming as a surprise to almost nobody, Circuit City has announced the closure of 155 of their locations, which is just short of 25% of their total locations. Most of the ones in my area are remaining open. One thing is for sure, the company is clearly not doing well pulling out of the tailspin they've been in for a while. This new move is surely just to pull themselves out of their current crisis of being warned of their stock being de-listed because it's been below the requisite $1 level for more than a month. My sympathies go out to the many Circuit City employees who are getting caught in this crossfire, particularly the ones who have suffered through the previous layoff spree the company did a little while back.
  • Another recent bit of news that isn't too surprising is the announcement by David Tennant that he is leaving his Doctor Who role after 2009's set of TV specials. While my initial reaction is to be sad to see him leave (he's my favorite actor in the role for the entire 10 actor, 45 year history of the show), I'll be interested to see who the next actor will be. The rumors have started flying like crazy, of course, but given the reliability of the UK tabloid press on stuff like this, surely nobody has yet to accurately guess anything.
  • The newly-transmitting Hubble has sent back this pretty cool shot. You know, when you stop and think about the 400 million light year distance involved in this, it kinda blows your mind (or at least it should).
  • This is equally funny and disturbing. One thing's for sure, I know what will be in your nightmares tonight.
  • Check out this collection of photos from Paris during the 1900 Paris Exposition.
  • Congrats to The Pirate Bay for crossing yet another crazy milestone, 20 million unique clients.
  • So Fox has canceled King Of The Hill. Heh, to be honest I didn't realize it was still in production.
  • Oh, and The Ex List is another new series for the season to buy the farm. I hadn't even gotten around to watching any of them yet (though I did intend to give the show a shot, and do have the episodes saved to check out).
  • On the subject of new series for this season, Joss Whedon's upcoming mid-season replacement series, Dollhouse, has picked up one of my single favorite TV writers/producers, Jane Espenson. This should come as no huge shock, as Jane has worked on all of Joss' previous shows.
  • And speaking of TV, looks like AT&T is adding a new slate of HD channels to the U-Verse line-up. Nothing much that I care about, though.
  • The Terrance Howard situation with Iron Man 2 continues to get interesting. I also wanna know how he ended up the highest paid cast member of the first (if that's indeed true).
  • You know, for all the complaints that Microsoft gets for their monopolizing, they don't hold a candel to Apple's continuous propriatorization. It's one of the reasons I will have nothing to do with their technology (probably the primary reason).
  • Speaking of the all-powerful Apple, how in the WORLD is it that The Beatles have yet to end up on the annoyingly impiracle iTunes yet?
  • With the campaign process in the final stretch this weekend, it was fun to see the SNL skit from yesterday featuring McCain himself, and of course the great Tina Fey as Palin again.
  • Speaking of political situations, looks like one of the places you don't wanna be right now is Congo (or anywhere surrounding it for that matter).
  • Here's an interesting Google Maps mash-up, providing local movie listings.

Ponderings For 2007-11-03

Submitted by GuyGG on Sun, 11/04/2007 - 1:59am
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  • I spent a couple evenings this week digging through all the commentaries and extras on the new DVD set of My So-Called Life. Such a nice set. They did an admirable job getting interview material from nearly all the cast and primary crew. Some nicely off-the-cuff, reminiscent stuff. It's truly scary to watch the pilot episode of the series and keep in mind that Claire Danes was only 13 years old when it was shot. It took a while for the show to get picked up, so by the time it was in episodic production, Danes was nearly the 15 years she was portraying. How strange is it to have a child actor on TV playing ABOVE their age? And Danes is just amazing in the show. Truly. Another thing I feel the need to point out is just how amazing the pilot of the show was shot (the rest of the show is no slouch either). It's one of the most gorgeously filmed pilots I've seen. I've watched it quite a few times over the years and it never fails to amaze in how beautiful it is. I also never tire of the great main title sequence.
  • Oooooh. Joss Whedon & Tim Minear join forces again. And with Eliza Dushku, no less. Woo hoo! I just can't believe it'll be with Fox.
  • Michael Giacchino is to use the Trek theme in scoring the new JJ Abrams film. Great news. And I'm sure his arrangement will be fantastic. He did such a marvelous job with the theme in Mission Impossible III.
  • The X-Files 2 has picked out a release date, and it's sooner than I would have expected. I'm totally looking forward to being able to see it.
  • Warehouse 13, huh? Hey, if Jane Espenson is involved, I'm already a loyal viewer.
  • 10 reasons to hate cellphone carriers - no kidding. This article is SO right.
  • I'm anxiously awaiting the release of a version of AnyDVD HD that can get around BD+, as SlySoft has recently claimed to have cracked. I tell ya, as a customer trying to play back legally bought movies on Blu-Ray, they sure do go out of their way to make it so I can't.
  • Speaking of which, looks like Warner might be considering going single HD format like Paramount recently did. The format war continues to get bloodier and bloodier. Christmas sales sure will make things interesting, particularly given HD-DVD's recent moves of utter desperation (uh, $99 players?).
  • NBC ain't pulling any punches badmouthing Apple's online media business. Can't say I blame them.
  • Looks like my decision to use Microsoft's HD Photo format for my new family photo scanning project wasn't poorly founded. The format has been chosen to be the successor to the ubiquitous JPG format. HD Photo is a very nice format, and I'm anxious to see it get better adoption.
  • The man who wants to control the internet. An interesting read (well, for us techies, anyway)
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