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Posts filed under 'TV'

Soul Legend Isaac Hayes Dies

Add comment August 10th, 2008

Soul singer and arranger Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar for the theme from the 1971 action film “Shaft,” has died, sheriff’s officials in Memphis, Tennessee, reported Sunday.

Singer Issac Hayes seen performing in the U.K. last year. Hayes was found dead Sunday at age 65.

more photos » Relatives found Hayes, 65, unconscious in his home next to a still-running treadmill, said Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department.

Paramedics attempted to revive him and took him to a hospital, where the South Park star was pronounced dead shortly after 2 p.m., the sheriff’s department said.

No foul play is suspected, the agency said in a written statement. Read the full obit at CNN.com.

Actor, comedian and exasperated dad Mac dies at 50

Add comment August 9th, 2008

Bernie Mac, actor, comedian and put-upon dad, dies at 50 from pneumonia complications. Mac died Saturday morning of complications from pneumonia in a Chicago-area hospital, his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles.

“The world just got a little less funny,” said “Oceans” co-star George Clooney.

Don Cheadle, another member of the “Oceans” gang, concurred: “This is a very sad day for many of us who knew and loved Bernie. He brought so much joy to so many. He will be missed, but heaven just got funnier.”

Mac suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body’s organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Comcast DVR at It Again

1 comment July 10th, 2008

Well, I was hoping to be able to actually watch all the shows I had on my crappy Motorola DVR from Comcast before it finally died, but it does not look like I will be able to unless I do it quick.

I got home tonight and it was doing that same lovely trick of going to a black screen after I pause or try to rewind. I had to do a hard reboot again, which thankfully worked again this time, but for how long?

Basically, my hard drive is slowly going bad and I have to get a new box from Comcast. Shame they have not come up with the technology to transfer the saved content to a new hard drive or letting us attached an external hard drive to expand the memory. Oh, TIVO you are starting to look good even at the additional costs.

Marvel-ous Cartoons Are A Coming

Add comment June 27th, 2008

Marvel’s Wolverine and the X-men will come to TV in 2009 thanks to NickToons. But that’s not all that’s a coming. We will also get Ironman: The animated series!

Each will offer up 26 half hour episodes and give us all a reason to set our Tivos.

Check out the new trailer for Wolverine and The X-men (Marvel must have cleared up their little spat with the Foo Fighters).

But wait you also get…

Another animated feature film on DVD this fall. NEXT AVENGERS: HEROES OF TOMORROW. That makes five.

I Want It Wednesday: Lego Deathstar

Add comment June 25th, 2008

The Lego Star Wars Deathstar has reached new heights with the new Battle inside the Death Star™! This is not just a Lego model it is a playset to beat all playsets (and maybe it should at a $400 price tag). Look at everything this cool Lego set has to offer.

Includes 25 heroes, villains, droids and creatures!
Includes 6 new and exclusive minifigures and droids only found in this set: Luke Skywalker™ (Stormtrooper™ outfit), Han Solo™ (Stormtrooper outfit), Assassin Droid™, Interrogation Droid, Death Star Droid and 2 Death Star Troopers™!
Also includes Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi™, C-3PO™, R2-D2™, Princess Leia™, Chewbacca™, Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight), Darth Vader™, Grand Moff Tarkin™, Emperor Palpatine™, 2 Stormtroopers, 2 Emperor’s Royal Guards™, R2-Q5™, and mouse droid!
All-new Dianoga™ trash compactor monster!
Movie-authentic Death Star environments include the Superlaser control room and target monitor, Imperial conference chamber, TIE Advanced hangar bay with moving launch rack, Emperor’s throne room, droid maintenance room, detention block, trash compactor, and much more!
Rescue Princess Leia from the detention block cell, then escape through the secret hatch to the trash compactor below!
Reenact the final duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in the Emperor’s Throne Room!
Death Star measures 16” (41cm) tall and 16½” (42cm) wide!
TIE Advanced measures 3½” (9cm) wide!

Recreate the action and adventure of the Star Wars™ movies with the ultimate Death Star playset! This amazingly detailed battle station features an incredible array of minifigure-scale scenes, moving parts, characters and accessories from Episodes IV and VI on its multiple decks, including the Death Star control room, rotating turbolaser turrets, hangar bay with TIE Advanced starfighter, tractor beam controls, Emperor’s throne room, detention block, firing laser cannon, Imperial conference chamber, droid maintenance facility, and the powerful Death Star superlaser…plus much more! Swing across the chasm with Luke and Leia, face danger in the crushing trash compactor, and duel with Darth Vader for the fate of the galaxy!

Shop the LEGO Star Wars Collection

Nutty Squirrels Stealing My Internet

Add comment June 10th, 2008

Remember I said Comcast came out and looked everything over and that my outside lines were chewed by squirrels. Well those nice guys sent me the pictures they took while hanging out on top of the pole with those nutty squirrels.

Take a look at what those rodents did to the lines. No wonder I lost my internet and tv!

Comcast Came Thru Sort Of

Add comment June 8th, 2008

Comcast came out to review the problems I am having with the DVR. Those problems being many like the screen going black when I try to play anything on the DVR or after I pause or try to rewind live TV, no sound after recording if the DVR was turned off at the time of the recording, and the remote not talking to the DVR (if you hit pause a couple of times and nothing happens then all of the sudden everything happens all at once).

They told me the black screen (which can be cleared up with a hard reboot of the system at this point) means the hard drive is going bad and I should get it replaced ASAP. The remote control issues should probably be fixed with an upcoming upload to the DVR boxes from Comcast in the next few weeks.

Unsurprisingly the same day they were scheduled to come out I lost all cable services TV and internet. When they arrived the also checked the outside lines and found squirrels had chewed through the cables.

So I got pretty good service from them and my outdoor cables were fixed the next day.

Comcast Still Sucks - DVR Has Black Screen AGAIN

Add comment June 4th, 2008

My sucky Comcast DVR is at it again. Just like before it has a completely black screen. I have a date with the folks at Comcast to come out and look at things. (This all came about because I posted how awful Comcast is. Someone in the corporate office must have a Google alert for the terms Comcast Sucks and/or Crappy DVR.

Well they are scheduled to come here between 5 and 7 pm. I’ll let you all know what they say about the DVR with the black screen of death (this is happening every time I try to watch something that has been taped or if I try to rewind or pause live TV).

Honestly, I am glad it is doing it again so I have something to show them. Otherwise it would have been no different that my telling the over the phone.

What I hate the most about this is that they have no customer service at all. The people I spoke to were nice enough, but they cannot offer rebates, refunds or free services to make a customer fell better about staying with a service that is as sucky as Comcast is.

I am looking into getting a TIVO if I stay with Comcast, if I leave I will look at DirectTV with TIVO DVR service.

Want to know why Comcast sucks so much?

Comcast Cable Sucks Here’s Why - Part 4: The Costs

Add comment May 31st, 2008

Comcast has a load of problems (crappy DVR, crappy channels and crappy customer service), but the worst thing about them is their price. And it keeps going up. I wish there was a little more competition in this industry to keep the prices down.

What really gets me hot under the collar is that the prices keep going up and they never offer current customers any kind of break. Just today I saw a commercial for the internet and phone service together for $49-something. I pay almost that now for my Comcast cable plus another $5 for the dang modem. So I guess I should be given the phone for free huh? Also cable modems only cost about $100 bucks so why do I have to keep renting it? Haven’t I already paid for it like three times by now? Yet when I called and asked if I could buy it they would charge me the price of a new one!

Don’t even get me started on the cost of the DVR. Just suffice it to say a TIVO with lifetime service would ultimately be cheaper and work better.

The value of the services they offer comes nowhere near what they charge us. And come next year when everyone is forced into digital more people will be faced with the problems of dealing with cable. (Wonder who had their hands in getting the government to force digital on everyone? I’ll give you one guess.)

Comcast Cable Sucks Here’s Why - Part 3: The Corporate Offices

Add comment May 31st, 2008

A little while ago I wrote about how awful Comcast is and that the DVR service sucks. Well, my little post got the attention of someone at Comcast and they emailed me asking for my account info so they could look into the matter. So I went ahead and sent them my name and phone number half expecting nothing more than a return email.

At this point I don’t even know if I ever got a reply back from that email, but I did get a phone call from someone at the corporate offices (I don’t know who as I could not quite make out the name. The number was 717-771-2600.). The message immediately after that one on my machine was another one from someone else at the Comcast corporate offices named Laura her number was 717-771-2660. So I called the first mystery person back. No person on the other end only a voicemail box. I left a message. Repeated the same procedure with Laura. Same results.

Someone, I believe Laura, did attempt to call me back, but since I work so far away I am not home during their office hours which seem to be 8 to 4. I leave the house before then and don’t get home until 7 or 8 at night so how on earth am I supposed to speak with these people. I left them another message.

About a day later a get a letter from Laura saying she has tried contacting me and if they don’t hear from me they will consider the matter closed. So I call and leave her yet another message this time I leave my cell phone number to call me during the day even though I cannot really answer it while I am at work as I am supposed to be working you know. She did call. I was on our business phone with a client and could not pick up my cell phone.

Three weeks, or is it four, later and I still have not spoken to an actual human being at the corporate offices. Perhaps the day I was off for my medical tests at the hospital I should have taken the time to call them, but I was a little preoccupied at the time. Why can’t they be available to their customers during hours convenient to the people paying their bills? Hey, they contacted me first.

My conclusion is that Comcast’s corporate offices services are just as bad as their DVR service and perhaps just as over paid.

Sydney Pollack Dies of Cancer

Add comment May 26th, 2008

Actor / director Sydney Pollack has died today of cancer. He was 73. He may be best remembered as the director of Out of Africa, Tootsie and The Way We Were.

According to the Associated Press he was surrounded by family at his home this afternoon when he passed away.

Schrödinger’s Cat is Dead or Is It

Add comment May 19th, 2008

Okay, my limited physics classes did not teach me about Schrödinger’s Cat, or if it did I did not retain the information.

Oddly enough two different TV shows this evening seemed to think the average Joe would know just who Schrödinger was and what was so god awful important about his cat.

In quantum mechanics atoms can exist in two or more different quantum states. But the question was raised whether a complex object made up of large numbers of atoms could exist in more than one state. In comes the cat.

The thought experiment takes the cat and puts it into a box with a vial filled with poison. The box is sealed. Since you cannot see the cat and do not know whether it is alive or has fallen victim to the poison. Therefore the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. Existing in both states. Until you open the box and observe the state of the cat.

First show I saw this in was Big Bang Theory. I have to thank the guys for geeking out and telling us what they meant when they used the term. In fact it was very relevant to what they were discussing.

The second show was Bones. Unfortunately they did not explain what Schrödinger’s Cat was and left their viewers in the dark. (I know, I know Google is a handy tool to have and so is Wikipedia, but when watching a show sometimes they need to fill the audience in on the science jargon.)

Get your geek on (I half expect to see Sheldon wearing one of these t-shirts on The Big Bang Theory some night) with the Schrödinger’s Cat tee.

Get this cool geek shirt at ThinkGeek.com

Has Big Bang Theory Lost Its Bang

Add comment May 15th, 2008

I think the post writer’s strike slump that seems to plague all of television these days has finally hit my favorite sitcom, The Big Bang Theory.

The last two episodes where Sheldon’s twin sister visits and Leonard’s birthday party were just lacking that extra spark of geekiness I have come to love since this show has been on the air.

Well I look forward to a fresh start and a bunch of great episodes next season. (In case you can’t figure that out that is a hint CBS. Light a fire under those writers of yours.)