I swear, if I could switch isp’s I would, but living where I do, I’m stuck. Bastards.

Reading Engadget today led me to this article. The British Home Secretary, John Reid, wants to approach Apple and Sony to join a summit to help fight crime in England. It seems a lot of gadgets are getting stolen, so, of course, the solution is to make them more technologically complicated, raising risk of more things going wrong, and raising the cost across the board to all consumers of these products.

All because England is worried about their crime rate.

Thanks England!

Here’s the part of the article that kills me though:

“New technology, lifestyle changes, new commodities and new gadgets mean that the criminals continually move on,” Reid told the BBC’s Sunday AM programme.

“So when we defeat them on mobile phones, they move on to Sat-Navs and then on to iPods.”

Okay, so, you’ll get to work on iPods, and as you just said, you defeat them there, they move on, leaving consumers to continue covering the costs of theft-prevention to help idiots who aren’t careful with their gadgets. Again, seriously Reid, so appreciate it. I’ll remember you fondly when I buy my next iPod.

I belong to an online survey site that allows me to earn frequent flyer miles for completing them. I just started one on photography, and this was the first page:

I was just surfing ye olde DriecTV when I flipped past Turner Classic Movies. Coming up next? Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!… a Russ Meyer “classic”. Were they REALLY desperate for a movie to air?

I am just beyond shocked… a Russ Meyer film… as a “classic”… too funny.

It seems that starting next month, EMI won’t be the only company providing DRM free music via iTunes. Apple is contacting all their partners that they can join in on the DRM free fun in May.

Numerous small publishers know this is the future of music, DRM free, and higher quality bitrates. I, for one, can not wait!

I’ve had it with Fox. Why should I invest any time in a new series with them when all they do is cancel them? Drive is the latest victim of their antics. No, I did not expect great things of it, but I like the main actor, Nathan Fillion, who also starred in the doomed Firefly… also on Fox.

Seriously though, how many times has Fox gotten me interested in a show, shown a couple episodes, killed it off? Firefly… Reunion… Vanished… Drive… The Lone Gunmen… I know there’s more. And it’s not just recently either! Anyone remember The Tick or Profit?

This network has just screwed me too many times to care anymore. I will stick with the shows I currently watch with them (24 and Bones, I won’t count shows like Cops), but aside from them, I’m done with them. I’ve been screwed just too many times now. And, oh yeah, they have two episodes of Drive they plan to burn off this summer. Why should I care? Why should I watch? Don’t worry, I won’t be!

And no Roy, this doesn’t mean an automatic pick-up of LOST!

The numbering on the posts is off due to aborted entries, but this is the true 1,000th post since I started blogging. I stand at 25 months of non-stop blogging, and very hit-and-miss entries before that.

So, I feel like I should say something monumental on this occasion.

Um…

I just did a big cleaning of the sites plugins, taking out the failed items like that Snap Preview *cough*.  I am fairly certain I didn’t delete anything that was necessary, but if anyone spots something not working, please let me know!

I recently saw this list over on AOL about what they considered the best fifteen comic book movies. I agreed with most of it, but, eh, I might as well do my own seeing as I have worked in, and around, the comic industry for 21 years, and was almost in a comic based movie once. (Stupid change of rights… I won’t go into which movie it was, and it still irks me, I was going to have a really bloody death!)

In no particular order, other than alphabetical:

Batman Begins – While I enjoyed the two Tim Burton films (I try to ignore the other two), I really felt they didn’t capture the vibe of Batman as much as they captured the sensibilities of Tim Burton. Batman Begins is much, much closer to how I view the Dark Knight. This is a man of many levels, many personal demons, and while he does good, he is not sane. Fantastic film, and I am anxious for the sequel.

Blade – Vampire movies are, by nature, usually cool. Add in a bad ass half-vampire, cool weapons, kicking techno music, and you can ALMOST ignore the huge plot hole in the final battle. (they needed a representative of all twelve tribes, you killed one off *cough*) A lot of fun, and the two follow-ups weren’t horrible.

Hellboy – Ron Perlman… poor guy is so odd looking, he always gets hidden under make-up it seems, but he can act. Great story, didn’t skimp on the occultish aspects of the mythology, and was visually pleasing. Was a good romp.

Sin City – A shot-for-shot “retelling” of the books. Proves to Hollywood you don’t HAVE to change things from comic-to-screen to make it work. Excellent film, gorgeous to look at, well acted, brilliantly casted, and amazing when you compare it to the original work.

Spider-Man – Spider-Man is one of those characters you can easily write off as a one dimensional character, but director Sam Raimi really captured that Peter Parker’s powers just enhances the trials of growing up. And, as one of the most famous comic lines ever written says, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Excellent film, and the follow-up was just as good.

Superman – I am not a huge fan of the character of Superman. After this many years, I feel they’ve done everything they can with the character, and he is honestly just too powerful to be that interesting. I would have liked to have seen Lex Luthor handled a bit better, but oh well. It was a solid film, well told, and did a good job of bringing across the character. The second film was also fantastic… three and four don’t exist as far as I’m concerned. (And no, I haven’t seen Retruns yet.)
Tank Girl – Odd, quirky, clearly not for every one’s tastes. Very off-color humor, but a lot of fun.

V For Vendetta – I have raved about this film numerous times, and I still do. It is one of the few times I feel Hollywood changing things a lot worked. They made it a tighter, more coherent film. Add on top of everything else it had a strong statement about government, it was well done.

X-Men – It captured the essence of the X-Men and their rich history. Yes, there were a lot of changes, and the strange awkwardness of the Wolverine/Rogue attraction, but the allegory of accepting your fellow man, no matter how different, came shining through.

I don’t even watch the soap opera Passions, but this news is amazing to me.

Passions was recently canceled by NBC, everyone thought it was a done deal, and that was it. Now it seems NBC has reached a deal with DirecTV to continue the quirky little soap. Yes, you read that correctly, DirecTV, the satellite company. They will air the show four days a week and the budget will be cut, but the show will continue.

It just proves that standard television is in grave danger if they don’t mind their P’s and Q’s. This, in my mind, is similar to the beginnings of premium cable. Who ever thought HBO would be such a gold mine of high quality television? Could carrier-specific programming be next? Or will it be more shows going to the web?

The times are a changing for televised content, where it will all end up, or how it will even be shown, is anyone’s guess at this point.

I haven’t written about the American Family Association in… why… four months. I must be slipping. The loon birds saver of our souls are back, this time after Burger King for showing “adult nudity” in a television ad. (YouTube link here… you see nothing) Article here on the whole hoopla.

This quote from the article really sums it up:

Bob Garfield of Advertising Age writes: “It’s not as though this is somehow erotic. It’s not as though there is any prurient appeal intended or achieved. It’s Dad being goofy, period.”

The thing is, the AFA has to feed their little group of lemming followers SOMETHING to get worked up over every so often so they will continue to send in donations and help support the battle on immorality on television. As I have said endlessly, if you don’t like it, turn the channel. I’ve seen the ad, it’s innocent and awkward… just what it was intended to be. So now they are crusading against an embarrassing dad taking a bubble bath. An ad running during adult demographic times.

These people REALLY need lives.

Saw this over at Jo’s Cafe:

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

North Central. This is what everyone calls a “Minnesota accent.” If you saw “Fargo” or “Drop Dead Gorgeous” you probably didn’t think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Some Americans may mistake you for a Canadian.

Take this quiz now – it’s easy!

Um, yeah… no.