Zay’z – [ Den 'O' Slack ]

Mr. Belvedere, remember it? Well if you’re a “child of the eighties” or a lonesome dove passing through then you should recall catching at least a clip of Bob Uecker yelling at that “portly” English fellow. ;)

Well it came out today on DVD and can be had from $31 – $40 [US] depending on where you look.

The show’s cast:

Christopher Hewett
Ilene Graff
Rob Stone
Tracy Wells
Brice Beckham
Bob Uecker

Preview / Clip can be found here: http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK//video/screenplay/vi4110877465/

So recently… I upgraded my video(PC) monitors at home, with not one but two, Dell 2408W beauty’s. The two screens combined run at a max of 3840 x 1200 (1920×1200 ea.).

What’s great about these monitors (yes there are some drawbacks) however the amount of inputs each has, (2 x DVI, 1 VGA, 1 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort, 1x Component, 1 x S-Video, and yes a 4 port USB 2.0 Hub) it’s pure awesome.

Let me also mention here that I did not upgrade my PC or video card (my last upgrade was in November of 2004), so I’m still using my BFG Tech Geforce 6800 GT OC 256MB AGP video card… which has done a pretty damn good job so far.

I tested with my Xbox360 Elite with an HDMI cable  at 720p, 1080i and 1080p which all looked pretty good (you really have to manually adjust the color schemes on the monitor). The video input selector is on the front panel in the lower right hand side not hidden but small enough to not notice when working on the monitors and no trouble finding when you look for it.

Also the included audio out port is really genius, because I do a lot of audio work I was able to test the audio output port directly from the monitor through my audio patch panel to my audio monitors, which sounded great with no artifacts. I even tested from the video monitor through the patch panel to my audio interface through to the speakers which also performed better than expected.

Something else to keep in mind these monitors are by no means massive but also not petite (22.0″x8.17″x15.62″). The monitors side by side consume nearly 85% of the usable space on the top shelf which is 60″ wide.

The monitors can also be adjusted in a variety of ways to suit your needs, height swivel all that (they can also be set in portrait mode which is nice). They are pricey currently around $700 each but you can find them cheaper, I got mine on sale from Dell and saved about $400 [US].

So all in all that’s been pretty groovy, a very welcome upgrade… and hopefully will aid me in my attempt to comeback from my sacking slump.

Now I just have to save up for next years PC upgrade (finally), hopefully there’ll be more quad, quad core boards out there by then. ;-)]

Adam over at Gizmodo.com has a “review” of his experience with Panasonic’s new beast of a “TV” that makes you go… DAAAAYYYMMMMNNNN.

Seriously, a hundred and fifty inches of television can not be safe for any beings in our demension. I’m seriously you guys.

You can scope out the recap here.

Again, DAAAYYMMMNNNNNA!

I’ve made it no secret to friends, family or members of the species that I converse with on any basis that I have no love of or for Comcast. I’ve had repeatedly bad experiences nearly every time I’ve had services with “them” save for one.

They will consistently talk bad about DirectTV, however I never had any issues with their service (which doesn’t mean there aren’t any) but again this year I’m forced to go back since I can not obtain DirectTV service where I currently am staying.

So I had an appointment scheduled for yesterday between noon and two in the afternoon, which meant I needed to leave work to be there to let him in.

hat time do you think he showed up? Yeah, two-thirty.

Nice, I know right.

We got a HD-DVR this time and the HD package so we can watch football this season in all its awesomeness.

I forgot to mention that I don’t like television “programming” so much and the only reason we are even getting any type of TV service is to watch the NFL games this year. (Particularly the Bucs, Boys and Seachickens.)

Anyways, I had everything all ready to go for him… he basically only had to make a custom length coax cable and plug in the DVR to the TV which was all nice and setup for him.

He was there less than thirty minute, most of which was actually spent on the phone trying to bill me. [shrug]

Oh well… we’ll cancel again after the NFL season is over and then by next season we’ll have moved and have the opportunity to get us some DirectTV love.

However On-Demand is interesting, though a tad over difficult to navigate. I watched Blown Away and 12 Monkeys last night.

[yawn]

So I bought my current television about two years ago. A Sony Grand Wega 50″ projection beauty. One of the things I loved about this set was that it had a native 1920 x 1080 display resolution. Two HDMI, two component, and various other ports including an optical output for audio.

What I didn’t know (at the time) was that this particular television was that though it supported 1080p resolution natively on it’s display it did not accept 1080p input, via HDMI or Component video connections.

Huba…? You might say. Well it turns out that certain older Sony’s (as well as other TV manufacturers) would up convert their signals to 1080p but didn’t accept those signals on the inputs since at the time of design/shipping there weren’t devices that supported that output. (riiiiggghhtttt)

It’s even printed on the component video inputs.

[sigh]

For the most part 1080i versus 1080p is not decernable by most users especially given certain applications.

I just wish they had made that more clear to me way back when, when I asked that very question at a large shop which will remain nameless.

Again, oh well.

Did you ever catch We Need Girlfriends when it first “webbed” way back when? (2006 to be exact.)

Well you should have (mostly), it was great slack times.

Here’s a reminder.