Category: Fanboy

Fanboy

Flight vs. Invisibility

Recently This American Life replaced an episode from the archives where John Hodgman (flickr Photo from kodamakitty) did a segment asking “What superpower would you choose?” (available here via Amazon affiliate link).

The rules are simple, you have the choice between invisibility or flight. He uses the question to great success as an icebreaker, and talks about the process that most people go through while answering the question. If you do not listen to This American Life I heartily recommend it, it’s very high quality and family friendly.

And most importantly, which would you choose?

Fanboy

British Sci-Fi

For non-fanboys, Doctor Who is the story of a man who travels in a ship that is a police box (a blue phonebooth) on the outside but is larger on the inside. He travels through both space and time, leaving the writers all of the universe and history to draw stories from. Better yet, he has the ability to physically regenerate from fatal injury, giving the writers the ultimate flexibility of having a new actor take over the role every few years.

The show is nearing its 50th anniversary, it ran from 1963 to 1989, and known for great stories, but terrible special effects. It was revived in 2005 and has been done with top notch special effects and has been excellent viewing.

I have to give the BBC credit for finally running new episodes 1 day after they run in the UK. It’s kind of a running joke among US fans about getting the show off the torrents or other non-kosher means. The David Tennant finale aired this weekend (actor Matt Smith takes over in the spring) and I was able to watch it on my Tivo like any other TV show. But still, I’d be willing to pay for HD on Apple TV…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnPUF8an-XE[/youtube]

Fanboy Geek Stuff

Playing with the Kindle

I was messing around last night trying to see what a Kindle graphic novel might look like:

This really didn’t work, I had the PDF from a DVD that Marvel used to sell, but the two page spread is too much for the small screen to take. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get a bigger, color screen, but I do worry about what it means for guys like this.

Fanboy

Weekend Fun

I hate to say it but it’s nice to have a normal weekend and the holidays over – much more relaxing.

Some random weekend stuff:

Ron tipped me off to this Audio Repair Tool. It lets you visualize the sound and cut out the chunks you don’t want. It also repairs clipping (that sound you get when someone talks way too lound right into the mic and it starts to crackle).

I’ve decided that Podcasting and Audible are matter vs. anti-matter – they can’t take up the same space. In some ways it’s good, it pushes the crappy podcasts off the list.

I was at the mall during lunch yesterday and saw some products that then led me to this:

[youtube]iJitONaaKgM[/youtube]

It’s addictive and fun for the whole family. Not fanboy enough for you? How about this:

[youtube]WZKrWlQs8LE[/youtube]

Enough messing around… back to work…