Wave? Yeah, I got that...

So how 'bout them Google Waves you guys?

I was fortunate enough to get an invite from one of my old high school friends to join Google Wave about a week ago, if any of you have read my first post you'll know that I've been waiting to try it out for a long time. After having tried it for one week I feel I can sum it up in one sentence, perhaps even one word:

Meh.

Meh, indeed.

It gets a meh for now, but eventually it could become something far more interesting and useful. If anyone of you has watched the unnaturally long demonstration video that they have going you'd know what Google Wave is about, I'm not going to try to explain it, just go ahead and watch the hour long demo video:



You watch it all yet? OK then, let's move along.

One thing that I noticed when I first got Google Wave is that when I tweeted about it I got a mountain of PMs from Twitter users begging and in rare cases demanding my handing over of one of the precious invites that my account came with. Here's the thing, I have no invites, I wasn't given any. I did some Googling and apparently I might end up getting some invites to pass around, but I don't know how likely that is.

Another interesting thing about those PMs I got was that a large number of them were from people who started Twitter accounts solely for begging for Wave invites. I kind of hope that those people get their invites so that they can have their dreams crushed when they realize that they can't do anything with it. Well, that's not entirely true.

With Google Wave there is a command that allows you to view public Waves made for discussion with everyone and anyone, to summarize, public Waves are Message Boards.

Along with Wave comes some interesting features, along with having actual human contacts in your contact list, you have the ability to add special contacts to your list, in my case, I have added Tweety and Bloggy to my contact list. Tweety is a Twitter app that allows you to update your Twitter feed from Google Wave, Bloggy allows you to update your Blogspot blog from it's own Wave. Unfortunately, I can't get Bloggy to work for the life of me, and Tweety doesn't seem to update it's Tweets beyond the first time I opened it, that's why it's invitation only, folks, lots of bugs.

So, in the end, it's pretty snazzy, but I'd recommend that you wait until the Public release to Wave for yourself, but even then, you'll have to have a Gmail account.

Then one fine mornin' she puts on a New York station. You know her life was saved by Rock 'n' Roll." - The Velvet Underground, "Rock And Roll"

Well, one fine morning about twenty days back I wrote an article about my favorite things, in the Television section I forgot one show, which in reality is probably my favorite show out of them all, Supernatural. This show airs Thursdays at 9pm on the CW (well not right now, but it will soon). If you do not know what this show is, well, I honestly do feel bad for you.

Right, the show is about two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester (yes, their last name is taken from the fire-arm), who in the shortest description possible take on the evils of the supernatural world. They take on Ghosts, Vampires, Demons, Tricksters, Wendigos and anything else that goes bump in the night. There is one thing that needs to be said about this show, the writers take from a lot of myths and religions, for instance, the Demons do work for Lucifer but at the same time they fight the Wedingos from Native American myths, and also they portray Angels as not the nicest of the things they meet, so if you find the kind of thing offensive then this is not the show for you.

By now you must be wondering why I chose that quote as my title, well first of all I set up my desktop 2 weeks ago (and installed Windows 7 from a gamers stand point later maybe Friday along with my new Zune) and I started playing Civilization 4 again (along with Galactic Civilizations 2, Battlefront 2, Age of Mythology and Age of Empires 3) and well, I realized its one of my favorite quotes from the game (although pretty much everything is said by Spock so its all pretty rad). Second, it sums up the show nicely (so does Carry on, my Wayward Son) as these kids were raised by their father to take down the Supernatural, and their father listened to what is considered today as classic rock (who's parents didn't?) and it carries on to the shows, so in away whenever they save someones life, rock and roll saved their life.

Now, one of the big points of the show is it's like a forty minute Horror movie every week, not only in the fact that they have to fight all the stuff Horror movies are made of, but the way it is shot is like a movie, with wide shots, angles, the licensed music, music cues, really its not like most other TV shows, which are shot as TV shows, this show is shot as a movie and the acting is not that bad from the main cast, but sometimes the guests can be a little wooden (but what horror movie would be complete without bad acting?). One final point about the show is the humor, all I am going to say about the humor is this, in one episode a man shoots a sheriff when he is possessed, when he gets an exorcism performed on him and returns to normal he says remorsefully: "I shot the Sheriff," in which Dean replies after trying to hold it in "But you did not shoot the deputy."

Well I really can't believe that I missed this show on my favorite TV show list as it really is my favorite. Well I hoped you like my review and please check this show out. Season five starts on the tenth of September, a day before my birthday. As I said, watch from my review of the Windows 7 Release Candidate, the Zune and the Zune player.

Harry Potter and Lets Just Get Rid of the Best Part of the Book.

My name is Anthony Doom.

I am not the Green Lantern of space sector 2814 (I heard Ryan Reynolds is).

That would be sweet though...

I saw Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince.

This is my review.

It will have spoilers.

I believe that when you create a piece of art based on another piece of art you are allowed to change things to allow a proper conversion, maybe a different take on a situation, unless the original piece of art gave you something that would have been one of the best things this summer. I am of course referring to the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I'm getting this out of the way, this part is not really a review but rant. O.K. the ending of the book before Dumbledore is killed, a call to arms is issued by Hermione to D.A. (Dumbledore's Army) to fight against the Death Eaters, but in the movie, the Death Eaters just walked to the astronomy tower unopposed. So instead of a battle between a bunch of wizards we get nothing, just Dumbldore's death. So instead of a battle of epic proportions we get... nothing. Well, we get a two part movie next year.

O.K., time to put of my film student hat on (a little loose, must have lost weight, and yes, it is a fedora, and if it wasn't summer I would be wearing my film student blazer as i write this, but I'm getting off topic). This film was shot wonderfully, the first battle between Harry and Ginny with Beatrix is shot wonderfully. Nice jump cuts and fast panning creates a fast and intense battle, almost feeling like you're there. This film runs for two hours and forty min but it does not feel that long, I know some of the movies feel like you spend a year watching it, but not this one, it seemed to go by fast, maybe a little too fast. One thing the books did right was the fact that with each one it is darker than the one that came before it, keeping with the age of the reader as they were released, and the films seem to be doing the same and with a different director, it can be hard to do sometimes but this series seem to have stayed the course and is doing just fine by it. The film uses light well, but I miss the music cues from the first three, but good ol' John Williams will be back in seven and eight. Did I forget to mention that John Williams also did the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and the Superman series as well? So ya, the man is a movie music legend (Oh, and he is doing the Green Lantern film as well as The Adventures of Tin Tin film which will feature Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thomson and Thomson, so ya). I really enjoyed this film minus the hate from not including the big wizard battle, and that is a big achievement considering that I wanted to see (500) Days of Summer but alas, the movie theater did not have it there because half the screens were Harry Potter and it does not normally have smaller films anyway (i really wish they had Moon but nooooo that would be to sweet.)

Did I mention that there will be a Green Lantern film, yes staring Ryan Reynolds, I don't know about him for Hal Jordon but I will role with it. Oh and people complaining about it not beening John Stewart (The African American one) as the main character, its not because he is African American its because he is a bad character, yes if you read the comics you would see that he is the 2nd worst of the human Green Lanterns it goes like this Hal Jordon, Kyle Rayner, Alan Scott, John Stewart, then Guy Gardener. you only like him because either he is African American or you watched Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, in which his personality is more like Hal Jordon, so take that!!!!!!!!

iPod Touch 3.0 Software Review...

I updated my iPod to version 3.0 around the day that the update came out, now it is time to share my experience with in the form of a software review.

Considering the fact that I have no form of screen capturing device with which to display screens from the iPod, I shall be conveying what I have seen with artistic depictions of each screen I deem necessary for you to see.

In this review, I shall be covering the new features mentioned here that I am able to with my available resources.

First on the chopping block is the newly introduced ability to download Movies, TV shows and Audiobooks right to your iPod via WiFi. The main screen for the new addition is pretty much the same as the music screen, the real difference is when you pick a film.

All in all, I think that this is a good addition, but I have to ask why? Is this so that I can buy whole Movies on the go? I see no real application for this other than to run your battery down. If I'm sitting in a McDonalds and I suddenly have the urge to watch Top Gun, I'll probably be done with my meal, be out of there and home before the movie's done downloading. If you're already at home, just use iTunes, there's no reason to use this feature unless you're in the same boat as I am and your computer's in the shop.

The next feature would have to be Spotlight Search, an addition to the Home screen. This feature will search your iPod's contact lists, emails, calendars, notes, music and videos for anything you type into the search box.

I tried it, it works. I don't really have anything to say about it, it just works.

Finally ( also know as "I don't want to draw screens anymore"), we have copy and paste. With this feature, you are able to copy pieces of text and then proceed to paste them elsewhere. Looks like the jokes will have to stop here folks, the iPod and iPhone now have copy & paste. No, I'm not making a screen.

I also noticed after the update that the YouTube application had been updated with new features. You are now able to log into your YouTube account and merge your favorites and subscriptions with your device.

Something else I noticed is that when I turn on my iPod, after showing the Apple logo, there is a black screen for around five seconds. I was freaking out the first time this happened, but after those five seconds, the lock screen showed up instead of simply taking me to the home screen like it did previously. I've also noticed that it takes considerably longer to shut down that before, sometimes a good fifteen to twenty seconds.

All in all, I consider this update to be worth it, though I do think that ten dollars for a software update is a little steep.