Most documentaries I’ve watched lately seem to have some type of bias that readily comes across in the story that is told. Take Michael Moore for example, obviously he has a slant he wants to put on things and he is one of the worst offenders, but he’s not the only one, many others use the documentary form to push their own agenda on issues these days. I expected some of this when I rented Flock of Dodo’s, but was surprised at how little bias was in the film.
The weather here in Texas has finally decided to turn a bit colder, the leaves are beginning to change and the sun is setting earlier. That can mean only one thing, yup, that’s right, it’s time to add a bunch of amendments to the Texas Constitution once again.
It’s election time!!!…bet you didn’t know that did you…in fact, early voting is going on right now ahead of the official voting day of November 6th. Seems like every year more and more amendments are on the ballot. This year is no exception, with no less than 16 amendments up for a vote. Seems like our constitution gets changed more often than a newborn baby’s diaper.
Are any of these really worth voting for? or are they simply to appease some special interest groups. Just try to find out, cause it ain’t easy.
Or the Lottery…that’s what a sign in front of a church I pass at least twice a day going in and out of my neighborhood says. Each week, they change the phrase on the sign. This week it says…”God has no Lottery System for Getting to Heaven”. Yes, it’s a big sign and yes, obviously it’s a Baptist church. No gambling is the 11th commandment, just before the no dancing one.
I thought about this phrase for a while, then I couldn’t help thinking of the old saying…”you don’t get to pick your parents”. So in a way, your religion is a kind of lottery. You could have been born to Muslim parents, or Hindu parents, or Buddhist parents, or..oh well, you get the idea. And if you were born in ancient Greece, you’re gods would have been completely different. The fact that you were born in recent times and that your parents were Baptist is just dumb luck. In essence, according to this faction of the Christians, you’ve won the religious lottery!! You should feel really lucky.
Speaking of factions…take a look at the video below to get an idea of just how lucky you must be.
Netflix loves me…I gladly pay my monthly subscription fee, but don’t watch many movies. Lately, I’ve been so wrapped up in the home theater project I haven’t sat down to watch anything in over 2 weeks. So Sunday, realizing this, I decided I needed to start getting my money’s worth. I looked through the 3 movies I had at home and picked the shortest one…Severance. At 90 minutes, I figured I could knock this one out pretty easily.
It’s amazing what different people see as ugly or distracting from the scenery. On one side, you have wind farms…you know large wind turbines out in the open prairie that help to generate clean energy…seems like a good idea, but not to some people. They don’t want them.
Then, on the other side, you have a 70 foot tall lawman dressed in 1880′s attire with a sidearm and rifle and in the middle of town…no problem there, go right ahead.
I don’t get it. Which would you see as the bigger eyesore. To me, a 70 foot statue seems more distracting and tacky. And why 70 foot, why not 50 or 100 foot? I guess 70 foot was all they could get for $650,000. Yup, that’s right, $650,000. It might end up looking something like the Tulsa Driller, just substitute a rifle instead of the oil rig.
To me, wind turbines would actually be a beautiful site…knowing they are helping to create clean energy. And besides, the landowners are getting paid to have them on their property…everyone benefits. Take a look at an example below: Ignore the message at the end…it’s not what I’m trying to get across, but this was the best video I could find on short notice.
As the saying goes, one persons junk is another persons treasure. You can decide which is junk and which is treasure in this case.
After doing some research on the Sony TV’s, I decided to go back to Elmo and check them out in more detail. In addition to the 55A2020 model, a new 55A3000 model is now available. The A3000 supports a higher refresh rate, 120Hz and HDMI 1.3 along with a few other things. Both these models are LCOS (Liquid Crystal On Silicon) that use 3 chips, one per primary color with an arc lamp to project a signal onto the screen. To me LCOS is a middle ground between DLP and Plasma. You get rid of the spinning color wheel of a DLP, but still have the arc lamp. Also, the LCOS has full 1920 x 1080 pixels, no wobulation like 1080p DLP’s.
I hate to say it, but I left the store very disappointed…not necessarily in the TV though.
There are a couple of things I’m adding to my list to watch, one is a new DVD that became available recently called Flock of Dodo’s, which examines both sides of the Evolution / Intelligent Design issue. I’ve had this at the top of my Netflix list for a while, but it keeps showing as “Long Wait”, which basically means it will be months before I can get my hands on a copy. Either they didn’t estimate the demand correctly, or it’s all those creationists renting it and keeping it. It will stay at the top and sooner or later it will arrive…I can be patient.
The second thing coming up to watch is a PBS NOVA show about the Dover Intelligent Design trial, I think it’s called “Judgment Day, Intelligent Design on Trial”. I believe it’s going to be broadcast around November 13th. I’ll try to post a specific date when I find it on their website. There’s no chance I’ll miss this as my Tivo has a season pass to Nova…yes, I’m a nerd. But I love the breadth of categories they cover on the shows and especially the Nova Science Now shows which typically present 4 different segments in a very engaging way. My daughter loves them too, so it’s another one of those things we can do together and it provides a great opportunity to help her understand more about science and the world around us.
I’ll try to post a review of both of these….eventually.
I’ve never gone to see the Texas Legislature in action, but like most people, I envision a pretty orderly process when a vote comes to the floor. Lots of stern faces, ready to fulfill the duty for which they were sent to Austin to do by their constituents. Sure, there might be the missing member here or there, but if they aren’t there, no vote for you!! right? WRONG!! Just check out the video below that was sent to me today. I know it’s been around a while, the report is from May, but it’s new to me…must be the hole I live in…need to get out more, or at least watch TV more.
Ok, you’re probably wondering, what’s the big item I purchased. Well, I’m going to disappoint you a bit, since the first purchase turned out to just be a NAS drive. Hold on though, this means I’ve pretty much decided on my media adapter and that IS a pretty big decision. For the NAS I decided to go with the Maxtor Shared Storage II 500GB NAS.
With all the different components that go into putting together a multi-media home theater, I feel like I need to be nearly as smart as Einstien just to be able to interpret all the technologies and protocols involved to make sure everything will work when I get it home and hooked up. Between the TV technologies (DLP, Plasma, LCD, LCOS, etc), High Def standards, resolutions, refresh rates, Wobulation, HDMI versions, HDCP, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, NAS, RAID, SMB, Media Servers, Media Adapters, UPnP, DLNA, Ethernet, 802.1g/n, universal remotes and wiring, I’m not sure how the normal person deals with it all to find the setup that will work for their needs and do it at a reasonable cost.
