Digital Dilemma Day (or Slow As S#!t Is the New Black)…

Posted on October 22, 2013 by geelw

Bleh. One thing that cracks me the hell up is reading industry sites and speaking with some folks in the tech sector who (very) blindly and (all too) cheerfully think ALL is nothing but well when it comes to the US and the rest of the civilized world having the best and speediest internet connections so we can all happily buy those new toys and get content with the same lightning speed wherever we go. Well, Crom laughs at your four winds, digital gurus. I say the bulk of these wealthy innovators have NEVER used local wi-fi, been stuck with a dial-up connection or had any major problem they couldn’t buy their way out of by tossing that old device in the trash and buying a new one or having an employee come up with a free fix (or come up with one themselves).

I’m also betting that if some of these SUPER geniuses were to step away from their hi-tech caves they’d see the rest of us poor peons not only have crappy connections, they’re slower than Kraftwerk playing their paradoxically languid classic pop song about that famous highway with no speed limit. Granted, it’s a great and memorable tune, but some of you folks may find it supremely soporific if you were expecting something along the Blurred Lines…

(thanks, Ras Putin!)

Okay, now… hey, you in the back… WAKE UP! That’s better (I know I should have used the shorter single edit!)… Continue reading →

Humor: Did You Know Fig Matches Quite Well With Ham?

Posted on October 17, 2013 by geelw

(thanks, robatsea2009!)

OK, so I’m having a suddenly NON-productive day thanks to a big fat Firefox crash that happened after a big fat Windows crash that ended up having Firefox lose my profile and every setting as it was attempting to restore them (Yaaaaaah!). It seems that the only solution other than trying to rebuild the .ini file (which is a VERY bad idea if you don’t know how to) was to delete the profile from the Firefox program folder which forces Firefox to make a new one. Problem One SOLVED, but this brings Problem Two to the forefront. New profile equals new passwords for EVERYTHING if you didn’t remember the old ones and have them handy. Blaaaaaaah. I need a cookie or a big laugh or something and thankfully, Big Fig is there with both. Watch this at least twice – once for the reaction shots from the mom and the other for BF doing that thing he does so well. OK, I’m off to dig up or recreate a ton of passwords now (Blaaaaaaah). Thank goodness that kid didn’t ask for Kool-Aid and cookies, is all I’ll say – that would have been s fight (and ad) for the ages, folks.

Holiday Gift Guide 2013: House of Horology Makes Me Want To Be a Timekeeper Once More…

Posted on October 7, 2013 by geelw

Alright, I haven’t worn a watch for a few years, but seeing House of Horology’s Bedlam Light and Bedlam Dark line at the last two Rand Luxury Review events is making my wrists kind of cranky with me. The $490 watches are pretty awesome for that price point, built like tanks and don’t look as if you’re flashing your bank account when someone asks you what time it is. Currently, eight colors each of the light and dark variants are available from the company’s HOH flagship store here in NYC.

Meeting CEO Lawrence Leyderman is always a treat, as he’s one of the happiest guys at these events, always smiling when talking about his cool watches and ready with a quick joke. Given that he displays those Bedlams in a small aquarium for hours at a time (they’re water resistant to 330 feet), one of the first questions people seem to ask are either “Hey, where’s the fish?” or “How long have those watches been underwater?” I stuck with the former, as I think I was drinking like a fish at the event (it’s kind of tricky to recall everything I said after that Disaronno punch that packed quite a kick kicked in).

HOH is also working on getting Secret Labs’ Agent Smartwatch out soon and given that device’s Kickstarter raised over a million dollars and interest in smart watch technology is huge these days, it looks as if your dreams of being Dick Tracy Junior or a not-so-Secret Agent Man are coming true sooner that later. I’ll have to take a look at one of those babies once they’re ready for prime time. For now, I just need to get my wrists to stop arguing about which one will wear that Bedlam and whether I go Light or Dark should I take the plunge…

Tech: Epson Helps Me Make Some Projections About My Home Theater Future…

Posted on October 2, 2013 by geelw

So, I’ve been a standard and HDTV user for a while, but as I happen to live in a space with a big living room and a blank wall space of about 11 feet or so that’s unused (see above), I’ve recently been considering upgrading to a projector of some sort for gaming and movie watching purposes. I tend to take my time on these tech upgrades because I’m not a millionaire (hey, I’m working on that!) and I like to make one decision and stick with it as opposed to buy something new and cool only to replace it a season or two later for an incremental upgrade. I’ve been looking around at a few models on and off for about a year, so getting an invite out of the blue to check out three offerings from Epson was one of those serendipitous moments where everything clicks into place…

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Peripheral Vision: Valve’s Third Shoe Is A Hot One: Steam Controller, Inbound!

Posted on September 27, 2013 by geelw

Well, this is… interesting. I’ll hold off on any actual critique until I get my paws around one of these, but it looks like a game-changer if you want to play PC games on your TV (and aren’t already doing so with a big expensive gaming rig with a nicely pricey gaming mouse/keyboard setup. Read all about it HERE while I think for a bit or move on to writing another article. This one’s impossible to gauge from a photo and nope, those aren’t subwoofers on the front, ha ha.

Humor: NWA World Has Its Own Opinion About Valve’s Big Steamy Plans…

Posted on September 25, 2013 by geelw

The funniest thing about this video is NWA’s animators used the late Crash Bandicoot (!) as Sony’s mascot when poor Crash hasn’t been in a game (or on a Sony console) in YEARS. Oh well, nostalgia runs deep over in Taiwan I guess. Either that or the fine folks at NWA didn’t want to animate the more up to date (and even more hugely popular these days) characters Ratchet & Clank because it would have taken a few minutes more to get an extra figure running about in this clip. These guys work FAST, you know. Anyway, yeah – things are getting REALLY weird on the console front with everyone wanting to take over that living room. I think poor Apple won’t even bother trying to make a console at this point. They’ve missed this train a few times and their customers aren’t necessary going to buy into a console that plays games they can already get on their phones and tablets and maybe try playing through Apple TV. Eh, we’ll see, I guess. Score one… no, TWO for Valve. Friday’s next big reveal should be equally or even more innnnnteresting…

Valve Drops Shoe Two of Three: Steam Machines, From A Few Sources (Plus How To Get One Early!)

Posted on September 25, 2013 by geelw

BOOM. Well, it’s not actually surprising, this badly kept secret of Valve’s, but at least the company knows how to make “old” news really damned thrilling. So, yes… in addition to their new Family Sharing plan, Valve is making a FREE downloadable game-centric SteamOS AND a console you can run it on. Even better, those upcoming Steam Machines are going to be coming from a few different producers so users will have a choice of styles as well as the flexibility to tinker with their individual systems and even create content if they’re that type of gamer. If half of that last sentence sounds familiar, it’s because Panasonic’s MUCH maligned 3DO Multiplayer ended up also getting a few variants produced by Goldstar and Sanyo at different price points and with different pack-in titles.

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Speaking of The Monkey’s Paw, This Book Machine Makes You Read More!

Posted on September 20, 2013 by geelw

While I was poking around looking for a movie poster for that The Monkey’s Paw remake, I came across this wonderful image from the blog Beach Bungalow Eight. Apparently, there’s a bookstore in Toronto, Canada called The Monkey’s Paw that has a supremely cool custom made book vending machine called the Biblio-Mat. Drop in two bucks Canadian, get a random book. Brilliant idea and yeah, we NEED these in EVERY library across America if only to keep people reading REAL books (and RANDOM ones at that!). Oh, Canada! Why do you get all the coolest things sometimes? And, no… Poutine isn’t on that list of “cool” things because it makes my heart stop in its tracks and want to look at it for too long (and I don’t get to breathe for a wee bit too long after that)…

SCIENCE! Be A Test Tube Wielding Smart Ass. Buy From A.S.S.!

Posted on September 17, 2013 by geelw

So, let’s talk American Science and Surplus. Established 1937. Sells overstocks, surplus science gear, military ephemera and all sorts of other stuff you may not have thought you’d NEED but will find a use for once you have it in your hot little hands. Yup, they’re STILL around! I used to get their hilarious catalogs for a few years and bought quite a number of inexpensive items I used in many a shenanigan, as emergency gifts and even as parts of assorted costumes when I used to traipse out of the home base on Halloween. I’d forgotten all about them after a few moves and not renewing my catalog subscription, but when talking to a friend recently about how kids taking science in school don’t have access to actual chemistry sets OUTSIDE of the classroom, a light bulb went off and I immediately thought of A.S.S (or A.S. & S. if your ears are burning or grinning too much right about now).

Anyway, I’d ramble on about all the great deals they have and how you need to boogie on over to check out their site for a laugh once you start reading about some of their items (and clicking the optional hand drawn pictures of each, which adds another layer of fun to things) as well as how you should sign up for a catalog yourself. However, I’ll let you do just what this paragraph says at your leisure, as I hate telling people what to do. Unless it’s something like “Please give me some money so I can buy stuff from A.S.S. (oops, A. S. & S.) and maybe buy something for YOU as well!” Or something like that. It’s been a long day already for me (but you still need to check out that site!)…

Disney Is Turning That Movie Night Into Madness…

Posted on September 15, 2013 by geelw

Oh, hell no. Or, Come on, REALLY? Yikes. Granted, this second screen experience thing will only be at selected theaters, so there’s that. On the other hand, what the hell is Disney thinking here? This high tech mash-up of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Winky Dink is going to piss a lot of people off who go in happy and smiling with the kids thinking it’s going to be sooooo cooool. only to realize that ONE person with an iPad in a theater is a nuisance… but a few hundred with them is a whole new distracting light source and aural experience you DON’T want to sit through. That and why not just allow people who already OWN this on home video to download that app, stay at home and not have to go through hell as a lab rat for this experiment in terror. Nothing like a theater full of squealing, singing and arguing kids with their hipster doofus parental units (or anyone else with kids who buys in thinking this will be any kind of thine resembling FUN) to make your evening REALLY “special”, right? You’ve been warned… this has been a public service announcement.