Lame.

I’m a fan of Futurama, and wasn’t happy with Fox’s cancellation of the series. Although I didn’t like the 1st movie that Matt Groening’s team put out, Bender’s Big Score, I thought I should at least watch the rest of the direct-to-DVD movies. Futurama as an animated television series was smart, funny, and great in-jokes.

Uh, yeah, this next installment, The Beast with a Billion Backs, was pure and simple lame. I didn’t like the story. I didn’t like the jokes. As a matter of fact, I thought it was a waste of my time. I give it one star. Very disappointing.

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008)

After much anticipation, I finally remembered to rent 9, a film based on a story by Shane Acker. It’s an animated story that I first noted back early last year, that looked like a great story and cool animation. It features an all-star cast — Elijah Wood, Martin Landau, Christoper Plummer, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover, and John C. Reilly, just to name the biggies.

After all that anticipation, after watching it, I was a little underwhelmed. Maybe it was the big build-up, but I did also read that other folks gave it mixed reviews. I felt that near the climax, the story collapsed somewhere along the way. I haven’t exactly put my finger on it. I wasn’t entirely invested in the characters the way that I should be, and the ending itself was half-baked. It’s a rental for the animation, but the story could have made this film more than the sum of its parts.

9 (2009)

The first bit of news is that the police report has been issued, and the other driver was cited with careless driving. I’m relieved, but I’m not all that thrilled. Don’t get me wrong — I’m glad the police officers on the scene rightfully sided with us. However, I feel bad that the mother of the teenage driver is now going to experience higher insurance premiums as a result of the mistakes her son made. That could be us in 10-15 years.

The second bit of news is that the Toyota can be saved, but it’ll take a long while to do it. Repairs will cost approx. $9,700, and take about three weeks to get the car back. Uh, wow. I was hoping they would be done in a week. Why will it take that long? Sigh.

The third bit of news is that the Ipes have been sick. Last week, I came down with a bad strain of the flu, which knocked me out of commission Wednesday and Thursday. I was feeling better by Saturday, but I think I relapsed on Sunday. Furthermore, the rest of the family isn’t feeling well now, especially my wife. They all stayed home, and I worked from home today, in order to take care of them.

[Note: I'm not going into all the sordid details of the accident itself, as I've got a open claim with my insurance agent, and am awaiting the final police report. I'm sticking to the simple facts.]

On Monday night, the whole family drove to visit some friends’ at their house after the kids got out of school. On the way home, it had started to snow, but it wasn’t sticking at all. Travelling down a well-used road, we entered a traffic intersection during a green light, and a car coming from the opposite direction made a left turn in front of us. As a result, we were involved in a pretty serious traffic accident.

Both cars were towed away as inoperable with the help of the local police department who arrived fairly quickly on the scene. My wife’s family lives nearby, so my sister-in-law was a big help in driving down to meet us, and ferrying my family and our belongings to their house. We later had take-out dinner, as the kids were starving at this point.

Some pictures are below. We’re currently waiting for the insurance adjuster to inspect the car this week, and I’m hoping the damage is not extensive, and the car is salvageable. In the meantime, I’m bumming rides off my thoughtful coworkers, and deciding between bad and worse car rental options. While I could say a lot about the situation, I have to pause to consider how this could have been much, much worse.

We had the day off for President’s Day again this year, so we wanted to grab a quick lunch, and see…… The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock. We were in a rush, so we scarfed down fast food as we drove to the theater. We got a little lost, but found our way soon enough. We stood on a long line at the ticket window, but my wife found the automated kiosks, purchased tickets, and rushed to the theater. Movie hadn’t started yet — it was still previews! We walked all the way in, but found that the theater was packed. All that remained were the lame-ass front row seats, which I’m sorry, are pointless. If no one wants to sit there, why keep that row?

We decided to hang around an additional 50 mins to see Valentine’s Day, a Garry Marshall rom-com starring a shitload of big-name Hollywood actors and actresses. This was not the first choice for either of us, but we made due. You can gather the premise by watching the commercials. The movie involves the intertwining storylines of a multitude of characters.

I’ll go out on a limb, and say it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. My wife was able to predict most of the plotlines, but there were too many stories IMHO. Young teenage love, senior love, unrequited love, infidelity, childhood crushes, marriage, engagements, and on and on. Out of all of the intertwining stories and characters,  I thought the Topher Grace and Anne Hathaway characters were the most interesting. Everyone else was just blah.

Valentine's Day (2010)

Our next movie in the Netflix queue was Dreamgirls, a 2006 film about a trio of black female soul singers making into the music business in the 1960′s, focusing on the inevitable rise and fall of their careers. I was a little surprised to learn:

1. It was a musical. I didn’t know anything about this movie, except that it was a Motown-type film and there would be singing.
2. The film came out way back in 2006. That’s four years ago. I knew I was behind on my movie watching, but wow, four years ago.
3. Eddie Murphy was in this movie?

 The movie had an all-star cast — Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, Eddie Murphy, and Danny Glover. This film also introduced Jennifer Hudson, who was pretty phenomenal. I was very surprised that Eddie Murphy had an important role as James Thunder Early. Frankly speaking, he hasn’t had a good role in a film in years. Seriously, years, and yet he was quite good in this movie. I enjoyed the film, and the movie itself really popped out on my standard definition TV. I would love to see this DVD again on an HDTV, and see it in all of its glory.

Dreamgirls (2006)

It’s strange how during some winters in the Northeast, we barely get any snowfall of significant accumulation. In other winters, we get a lot. In 2010, I would say we have had a helluva lot. First, we had a big snowstorm back in mid-December. That was supposed to be bad, innocuously benign and underestimated by yours truly, and was just darn terrible.

Last Saturday, we got hit by a healthy amount of snow. This time, I was smart enough to not attempt to drive around in it, and simply enjoyed it from the comfort of my home.  The total accumulation in our area was about 4-5 inches, which isn’t terrible. I know it was much worse in the Virginia/Maryland/Delaware mid-Atlantic region.

Only a few days later, we had this storm. I don’t know if it was a blizzard, as I heard it wasn’t technically a blizzard.

In the United States, the National Weather Service defines a blizzard as sustained winds or frequent gusts reaching or exceeding 35 mph (56 km/h) which lead to blowing snow and cause visibilities of ¼ mile (or 400 m) or less, lasting for at least 3 hours. Temperature is not taken into consideration when issuing a blizzard warning, but the nature of these storms is such that cold air is often present when the other criteria are met.^[1] Temperatures are generally below 0 °C (32 °F).

I think I speak for everyone in the mid-Atlantic and northeast regions when I say, “Yo, blizzard or not, that was a helluva lot of snow.”  We must have received about a foot of snow. My wife and I both worked from home Wednesday and Thursday, due to the snow. The kids’ daycare school was closed both days, so we certainly didn’t have a choice either day.

The trees outside our backyard while it snowed Wednesday.

Last Father’s Day, my thoughtful-and-smoking-hot wife surprised me with a copy of Bioshock for the PS3. The game originally debuted for the PC and XBox 360 in 2007, and later ported to the PS3 in 2008. It’s a first-person shooter, much like the classic games of yore that I used to really enjoy, such as Wolfenstein 3D and Half-Life. Did you notice that I said “used to enjoy”? Well, yes, I used to be really into first-person shooters, and no, I never felt nauseous or dizzy while playing them. As a matter of fact, I felt immersed.

However, after some time away from most games in this genre, I got into third-person (over the shoulder) games like the those of the Uncharted series, and also Heavenly Sword. I like them better, because you can still be the character, and yet see what’s going on around. Who’s in front of you, who’s behind you, who’s creeping up next to you with a shotgun. It’s the best of both worlds. In comparison, first-person shooters seemed a little…… I’m not sure how to describe it. I guess what unnerved me was that in those first-person games, you can’t see someone behind you or sneaking up next to you. I don’t like scary surprises — I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t even like showering with my eyes closed. Call it paranoia.

Back to the present — it’s been nine months, and I hadn’t played Bioshock yet, but I knew it was a fantastic game. I mean, I heard, anyway. Early last year, I had downloaded the demo, and it was some scary shit. The visuals were beautiful, but the geez, the atmosphere was too real. The background sounds, the dangerous splicers off in the distance talking, the occasional approaching footsteps that aren’t your own. Man, talk about unnerving. It was scary, and yet exhilarating. I was unnerved (probably unnecessarily since it’s just a game), but since it’s so beautiful and enthralling, I was so intrigued.

Bioshock is one unnerving game experience.

So, there was I was this month. It was a quiet weekend, I’d recently beaten Uncharted 2 a few weeks earlier. I popped in the Blu-ray game disc, and bam!, back to be freaked out. I’ve played only a few hours so far, but wow, it’s a fantastic game. The visuals of this art-deco city under the ocean are stunning and enchanting, and the gameplay is….. well…. it’s well-done, but utterly unnerving. Twice so far, I’ve walked into a room, and then the lights went off. Footsteps approached quickly, and I was attacked.  So yeah, a guy who doesn’t even like to close his eyes in the shower, and there I’m fighting in the dark for my life.

So what’s the premise? The game is set in an alternate 1960 in the underwater city of Rapture. This fellow named Andrew Ryan built a city underwater, and took the so-called “best and the brightest” with him to create a utopian society, far away from religion, capitalism, and communism. Down there, scientists discovered some sort of sea slug that could be used to synthesize this stuff called ADAM, which could be used to make various plasmids. These injectable plasmids would rewrite your DNA, and give you abilities like shooting electricity, fire, etc, out of your hands.

Somewhere along the way, the utopian society gave way to madness and anarchy. Most people went crazy, and started killing each other. Your airplane (you are Jack) crash lands in the water near the Rapture, and end up in this decaying, falling-apart city under the ocean, and surrounded by the surviving denizens of Rapture, now called “splicers.” Oh, they’re all quite mad. Quite, quite mad. People walking around with large butcher knives, blood splattered on the walls, freaky stuff written on the walls in blood, people wearing those weird animals masks (a la The Shining.) One time, there was this one woman crying over a coffin. I walked up to her, and she turned around and started attacking me, while wearing a bunny mask. I killed her, and looked in the coffin. It was empty, except a cake.

If the story and the visuals weren’t so amazing, I would have thrown the disc into the fireplace a long time ago.

Based on our parenting experiences raising both a boy and a girl, I have many witty observations to share.  I’m not going to share them all with you now, because really, I need to save some material for boring dinner parties at your house. Yes, you. Don’t deny it.

I do want to pontificate on how children sleep. Notice that I didn’t do that arrogant self-centered thing where I comment on how my children sleep differently from your children, and how that’s more interesting. No, no, no. Plenty of self-centered parents out there, and I’m not one of them. My children don’t do anything better or worse than other children out there. They’re all different, and yet all the same. I’ve noticed that my children often sleep in odd positions, and yours probably do too.

Butts in the air, sideways sleeping, you name it. It doesn’t look particularly comfortable, but maybe it works for them. Recently, Lily has won an unofficial trophy for the weirdest sleeping position. Recently, my wife went to wake up the kids, and found my daughter in a particularly odd position. Sometime in the night, she had taken off her shirt. Furthermore, at the time of her wake-up call, she was sleeping with her hand down her pants.

It’s just odd.

Lily sleeping kinda like Al Bundy

Short story - I can’t find an HDTV that I like. Each model out there has both rave reviews and serious complaints. Also, I can’t trust CNET on their reviews as my sole source of trusted information anymore.

My Sony Wega CRT TV

Long story – In December 1999, I bought my first TV. I had started my first job out of college, but was still living at my parents’ place. As the story goes, I had seen the Sony Wega CRT TV at a PC Richard & Son in New Hyde Park, and was floored.  I loved it. It was heavy as hell (200 lbs.), but  it was a great picture for its time.

Fast forward to the past few years, and everyone I know has an HDTV in their house. I know one friend who hasn’t made the leap yet, but he’s not into HDTV. I desperately want an HDTV. A bigger, clearer picture. The glory of HD. Did I mention the bigger screen? What has primarily stopped me was the exorbitant prices (over $2000), and the fact that our Sony is working well after 10 years. Sony may have high-priced products (the so-called “Sony tax”), but the products work well. I was almost close to getting one back in 2005 after someone dropped our Sony during our move (I’m talking about you, Vijay.) However, Sears was able to fix a cracked board for just $200. Curses, foiled again.

The premium HDTVs are still at the $4000-5000 price point, but prices have come down significantly for the low end and middle ground TVs.  You can find very good HDTVs (with a good balance of features starting at the $1200. Why am I even explaining this? You probably have an HDTV already, so screw you. Let me move on to explaining my predicament.

My wife will tell you that I’m super particular about my technology. At a reasonable price, it has to have good features, multiple uses, and can scale up as I replace components within my Ipe ecosystem. For example, my home PC isn’t the fastest or greatest, but I can do work, edit movies, or play games. My PS3 can play games, but I can stream and watch Hulu’s TV shows and Netflix movies. I used my iPod Touch equally for listening to music and looking up facts on the Internet while sitting on the couch.

While I can’t afford every product, I continuously research to keep up on technology trends. One, I can be prepared for when I need to replace a product. Two, I can give advice when someone needs buying advice. A good example is my home theater A/V receiver. I’m not replacing it this year, but I’ve already got my eyes on a particular Yamaha among things will allow me to hook my iPod up and play music, and also supports HDMI (my current receiver does not.) CNET is my best friend, as I trust their reviews.

The good news is that we are finally in the market for an HDTV. Our Sony is still going strong (damn you, Sony), but we’re doing a little home redecorating.  Now, onto the problem at hand, and why I’m utterly perplexed, as recent developments tossed my plans out the window.  I’ve always been a big fan of plasma. CRT is dead. LCD has bad viewing angles. DLP is too big and the viewing angle is atrocious. Projectors wouldn’t work with our high ceilings. LCoS is dead, and LED is too expensive.

Plasma technology and my choices

Panasonic

Panasonic TC-P50V10

After Pioneer and Sony got out of the market for producing plasmas, Panasonic and Samsung are now the next best plasma manufacturers, but Panasonic is tops overall. Normally, I adhere to CNET reviews, since I trust their opinions. If they think it’s good, then it’s good.  If they can catch a problem, I might not have noticed initially myself, better still. While I’ve long desired the V10, and to a lesser degree the G10 model, Panasonic has been experiencing recent issues with their deep blacks turning grey over time. CNET never caught onto it, but the tens of thousands of people who have purchased Panasonic plasma sets have. I happened to have started looking at user reviews on multiple websites, and started to find this disturbing trend. Last week, CNET finally reported on the problem.

With that many customers having problem with all of their models, including new problems with image retention (IR), it doesn’t matter how much you spend. Panasonic has now acknowledged the problem, but for now, the entire Panasonic model line is suspect. Last year, when Panasonic announced the V10 at CES 2009, I was in love. How can anyone take a chance at this point?

Samsung PN50B860

Samsung

Samsung supposedly makes gorgeous plasmas, and their PN50B860 is thin and everyone who doesn’t have a problem will shout how beautiful and razor thin it is.  Notice that I said people who don’t have a problem. While perusing Amazon’s customer reviews, there is a tag for the word “buzz.” There is a significant portion of owners complaining about a their sets making a ridiculous buzzing noise. AVS Forum has multiple threads on it as well. While some people say they don’t hear a buzz (like a bad flourescent bulb), some say it can be ignored, but to many others keep returning or exchanging their sets. Samsung states it’s normal, but expensive televisions should not make an annoying buzz that people describe as a buzz that drives into your skull.

Who in their right mind would buy an expensive TV that may or may not make a buzzing noise that will drive you nuts? You may have a problem, but you may not. Uh, no thanks. I don’t win often at craps when I’m hustling in Newark on Saturday nights, and I doubt my luck is going to be better here.

LCD technology and my choices

Samsung

Samsung LN46B750

LCD? Really? I’m not a fan, only because LCD isn’t perfect. While plasmas are older technology and not as popular as LCDs. Sure they are bright and look good in bright rooms, but  people complain about the viewing angles, the motion blur when watching fast action movies or sports, and the lag when playing games.  BTW, did you know there is often a lag when playing videogames on some LCD sets? I didn’t know that.

Samsung makes a well-reviewed LCD called the LN46B750, in multiple sizes. It reviews well enough by sites and users, but some people complain primarily about the viewing angle. Specifically, people/guests in your house who sit off-center (more than 20 degrees from center) won’t enjoy it when the blacks wash out. Or if you play fast twitchy PS3/Xbox games on it, it’s going to lag. This is not encouraging.

Many other LCDs seem to have the same complaints. Good picture, but you may have problems playing games. Or sitting one or two spaces from direct center. Or the colors may be so so. It’s just “not as good as plasma.”

Are you kidding me? I’m not a big fan of LCD technology (except for with my home PC), but I guess it’s the nature of the beast.  I’ve spoken to other friends with LCD TVs, and they love them. I’m so confused.

These are my choices:

• Plasmas that look great initially, but the blacks get lighter and lighter after a  thousand hours?  Or you turn off the menu, and a ghost of the menu’s image is still displayed?
• TVs that drive you nuts with a buzz?
• LCDs with bad viewing angles? Laggy gameplay?

For a guy who finally knows what he wants, I now have no idea what I want. Strike that, I know what I want. I can’t find what I want.  I want a clear-cut winner, but everyone has a problem with every model out there. I feel like I’m in some sort of paralysis mode, since I can’t get a general consensus from the greater population. I’ve already been to Best Buy to see the G10, the V10, and the Samsung LCD. The G10 didn’t wow me, the V10 was nice, but hard to find and expensive. The Samsung LCD is nice, but most purchasers state that the viewing angle problem is not identifiable when you’re standing in the aisle, and when Best Buy has already jacked up the contrast and brightness. True enough, when I saw the Samsung LCD in person, the settings were off the charts. The Samsung plasma would be nice in person, but I doubt I would be able to hear anything out of the ordinary while in a big, noisy box store.

At this stage, I am leaning towards taking my chances with the Samsung LCD for a lower price and smaller screen. I figure that if I lower my investment, then it won’t so bad if I’m not happy later. Furthermore, we’re opting for the 46″ version (not the 50″), as it’s cheaper and probably better fits the size of our room. What I have learned so far is to not rely only on technology reviews by journalists. A great source of information is customer reviews, and I don’t mean just a few. Dig deeper into pages 5-10, and you’ll get a better, more complete, sense of people’s experiences. 

A final, funny anecdote to close this out. There’s a fellow out in the Bay area named P. Radakrishnan. I think he’s my long-lost twin brother. I don’t know what he looks like, but after reading his Amazon.com profile with his other reviews, he’s like a kindred soul. Appears to be a fellow technophile, Indian, and plays the same PS3 games. Weird. BTW, he ultimately returned his Samsung LN46B750 LCD TV, and bought a Panasonic G10 instead.