Personally being a Vancouverite, yes. I’ve always been a big follower of the Olympic Games, and whether or not you support the inner-workings of the IOC you have to admit the Olympics is a celebration of sport & nationalism on an epic scale. Anyways, James Pierce of the BBC makes a pretty good case for why these winter games were the best.
Early in these Winter Olympics a furore was caused by a journalist asking if these Games were turning out to be the worst Winter Olympics ever.
Now I’m ready to pose another question, which will probably provoke just as much debate. Have these actually been the best Winter Olympics ever?
Let me clarify that question a little. In many ways there are always two parallel Olympics which take place – the one that viewers around the world watch on TV, and the one thatspectators come to a city to enjoy in person.
For example, the Beijing Olympics were considered to be a great success by the international television audience, whereas many people who witnessed the Games at first hand complained about the lack of atmosphere in the Chinese capital.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been able to watch the entire first season of The Clone Wars which is on the Cartoon Network, I’d been avoiding the series after the negative reviews of the movie the preceded the show. The first few episodes were surprisingly good and as mature as any Star Wars movie although perhaps very generic for Star Wars, I was hooked. As the season progressed the show really focused on the individual characters of The Clone Wars, such as the troopers Rex and Skywalker’s padawan Ashoka Tano. I loved the Ryloth arc towards the end of Season 1, regardless the show found its own. People rag on the show for being a cartoon, but I found it very mature and very Star Wars. I was pumped for the season 2 premier last Friday, at the end of Season 1 they introduced a comic like villain Cad Bane a bounty hunter for a season ending arc. Holocron Hiest and Cargo of Doom were both excellent episodes, the quality of the animation has greatly improved, and its no wonder the show has had the largest audiences on the Cartoon Network in fact I read somewhere that the show in the first season on average did much better numbers than the Premier of SGU. So props to LucasFilm this show is some of the best Star Wars in a long time, you’d have to be a fool to not watch this show if you even remotely like Star Wars.
You can catch Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 2 on Teletoon in Canada at 8:30, and in the USA on The Cartoon Network at 8 on both coasts.
“Teal’c of SG-1 and Ronan Dex of Atlantis, a favourite episode of mine from season 4 of atlantis”
Just 45 minutes ago I watched the future of Stargate… universe. Star Wars in 1977, Star Trek and later Next Generation all very prominent Science Fiction that inspired generations of geeks unlike all most geeks I only watched the entirety of the New Hope this decade (afterall I only graduated from high school this year), and thanks to syndication have now watched nearly every Next Generation. Even more of a rarity is type of Science Fiction fan whos first love is Stargate SG-1, nearly ten years ago I became a fan of Stargate and since then have watched every SG-1 and Atlantis episode at least a couple times (okay maybe more than a couple).
“10 years of SG-1 minus Jonas Quinn”
I’ve established that I love the Stargate franchise but one more thing unlike a Trekkie, Trekker, or Original Trilogy fanboy or whatever they call themselves, I love all Science Fiction be its Star Wars (OT and Prequels), Next Generation, Voyager, DS9 (which I watched in its entirety last year), and even Enterprise. Science Fiction is what I dream, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Spoilers Ahead
Now on to Universe it is definitely different but yet I love it, its different almost alien compared to past Stargates. The opening cold start camera tour of an ancient spaceship, the sex scene between 2 SG team members in Icarus base, the suspicious renegade Dr.Rush. Stargate has always had that light comedy feel mixed in with Science Fiction, RDA would always have a one liner or some other sort of joke. Universe on the other hand is dark, even more dark than the little BSG I’ve watched, and Dr. Rush . Its interesting on one hand I’m unsure on where Stargate is heading with MGM near bankruptcy will the two Atlantis movies ever be made?, I’m sure Universe will survive but cant help but feel like a that the lighter side of Stargate which is a huge part of Stargate will be lost. Sure I enjoy all the little references to old SG like Sgt. Walter (Gary Jones) in a small cameo of the SGC, Colonel Carter ( Amanda Tapping) as the commander of the George Hammond Daedalus class ship, RDA in the opening scene of the pilot, or Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) in videos introducing introducing the Stargate program to Eli. Without context however these appearances of Stargate characters mean nothing to the new fans Universe hopes to attracts, and I know eventually as the crew of Universe gets settled and if they’re truly isolated as the shows premise promises the rest of the Stargate ‘universe’ will be lost in this new series.
“Stargate is back”
So while I’m excited for next weeks episode of Universe I realize being that a Stargate fan I’m apprehensive of change, just like any Star Wars or Star Trek fan before me. I just hope Stargate Universe does not disappoint.
A few weeks ago many tv shows returned from the fall, of course me owning a CRT HDTV for many years now with no actual HD content for it. Once in a while I’d download a tv show from a PirateBay to catch up, so why not ditch cable tv all together?
Well being a xbox 360 owner and being that my gaming rig is running Windows 7 which has a gorgeous improved Windows Media Center interface why not use the Extender feature of the 360 to its full potential. Did I mention that my ISP Shaw who are among other things EVIL, still runs a free USENET service. Of course its capped at 500kb/s, which is actually great compared to torrents because SHAW decided that if your running torrents it shapes your entire connection resulting in insane latency of at least 1000ms while gaming, not good.
Anyways I setup a USENET client called SABnzbd+, a lightweight client that uses a browser interface like a router. Along with that I also became a VIP member at NZBMatrix.com, a popular indexing site. VIP allows direct download of the nzb files (works like a .torrent file but for USNET) from RSS, and it so happens that SABNzbd+ has a powerful RSS reader that filters Content Based on words. If I wanted to download the Show house I would add a ACCEPT filter for House, but since house is very vague I would also want to make REJECT filters for example Tyler Perrys (House of Pain) or Housewives.
Another feature that is useful is ability of SABnzbd+ to move the files from my HD and SD tv RSS feeds that it downloads to specific folders with the categories feature. As well as rename and sort the tv shows in format of your choosing. I also use the folder monitoring on my Firefox download folder just incase I want to download anything else off USENET.
meta</browser> is also a very useful program it monitors my TV folder and downloads the metadata suchas covers and synopsizes any show it detects, completing my PRIMETIME downloading lineup. I now have a fully automated solution to grab my favourite TV shows in HD, within a few hours of the shows airing. It is no wonder why Cable providers and ISP’s such as Comcast are so scared of the FCC regulating their operations and halting their traffic shaping practices.
disclaimer: this post is purely for educational purposes, this blog contains nothing illegal.
On a more lighthearted Top Gear note, I present to you a remake of a VW ad that Clarkson and May did for the new Scirocco Diesel. The ending is good old Top Gear Enjoy!
Top Gear’s finale of season 13 had Jay Leno in the star of a reasonably priced car , but the 4 minute ending is what stole the show for me. For the first-time since the show really fell in to its grove the show didnt end with the usual on that BOMBSHELL, no it ended with a remarkable clip of the V12 Vantage, showing of some of the best cinematography the show has ever offered rivaling even the Botswana or Vietnam specials. However I can’t help but feel sad and seriously confused about how the shows season 14 will turn out in the winter. It really does seem like Clarkson was fore-shadowing the future of a new Top Gear, it feels like the ending Seinfeld not good at all. I always loved how Top Gear combined breathtaking cinematography and yet in the next segment the hosts could be doing some completely ridiculous challenge. Is this really the end of the Top Gear we love?
like Clarkson said in season 11 about the CLK Black in season 11
this is what this show is all about. The absolute joy of driving a great car, on a great road.
what a few weeks its been in Vancouver, every day the record was broken for hottest day ever, surpassing the 60’s record with a life draining 35 celsius
