Live & Direct from Nowhere in Particular...

Is my taste in Action Sci-Fi really this bad?

Action Sci-Fi & Fantasy

I thought this went well with this.

A while ago this popped up over on LifeHacker (among other places)…

So I told Netflix I had a PS3 & wanted to sign up. I got an email yesterday saying I would get my PS3 Instant Streaming disc today. Basically, you put in the special Blu-ray they send you, select it under Video on the PlayStation 3, then you enter the code it gives you into your Netflix account to enable it as a device, just like you would with a Roku or other Netflix enabled box. After it Authorizes (took mine just a few seconds) it pulls up your Instant Watch queue & away you go.

I’ve used Instant Watch before using both the old Flash client & the new Silverlight version on my MacBook Pro, but it either involved a long DVI / HDMI cable to the TV and a long optical cable to the stereo or watching it on my laptop. Both of which weren’t really worth it, so I rarely used it. I think that’s gonna change.

Watching on the PS3 is much better. It’s easier for one, slap in the disc & away you go. I can also continue to use my computer. Whereas, when watching on the computer, if I use full screen mode, I can’t do anything else. It won’t even keep full screen if I use it on a second monitor. It also seems to be higher quality and I had no problem with lag or delays. I’m guessing they are taking advantage of the Cell processors in the PS3 to do a bit better compression. Of course this might help too…

I even streamed a little HD content and it seemed quite good too. Most of what I watched tonight wasn’t HD though. I watched the entire 1st season of Coupling. And an episode of Series 3 of Chef! (crap compared to Series 1 & 2).

All in all, I’m pretty impressed and will probably use it a lot more.

Wow … I forgot how good of a deal I was getting. I got an email from Netflix today that they were increasing the charge for the Blu-ray plan for most Netflix plans. It will vary by plan, based on how many you can have out at a time, in my case from $1 to $5. Which seemed a lot. And considering how little I use my Netflix account, it probably is a lot. But then I went & looked at their current plans. The 4 at a time plan is currently $23.99 per month for DVDs. That’s $2 more than my plan with the Blu-ray addon. Ouch. To get cheaper than my plan I’d have to go to a 3 at a time, which would still cost more than I currently pay once you add the Blu-ray. Or I could go to 2 at a time & get the Blu-ray included for what I pay now. Perhaps I’ll stay where I am & just start watching more movies.

I spent a bit of time last night ripping CDs (I’m up to P) and scanning them into Delicious Library. It has a web publishing feature. Once I figured out it would work better if I published it locally & uploaded it manually, it turned out pretty sweet. Here it is:

Click to go to the live Library

Oh, I should warn you, some of those pages are reeeeealy big.

Looks like another busy weekend ahead…

In reverse order, Sunday is the unofficial Gay Day at the State Fair of Texas. Oddly this is always on the Sunday after the TX/OU game. I guess because that usually falls on National Coming Out Day. So who else is going?

Speaking of the TX/OU Game, I fortunately have things to do Saturday in other parts of town, since my neck of the woods tends to be a bit of a mess that day. Around lunch time I am going out to TMS for the Audi Driving Experience (just the free 2 hour intro session). Then I think that evening will be My Mother’s birthday dinner. Don’t tell her I told you but it’s one of those “scary” ones ending in a 0. That may happen Friday instead, since that’s actually her birthday, but I’m not sure, since I may be doing homework Friday night. Yippee!

I’ve been being pestered for entries, so I figured I’d post a quick one while waiting in line for Superman Tower of Power @ Six Flags. This weekend is Pride Weekend in Dallas, so this is the unofficial Gay Day @ Six Flags. Steve and I decided to come since he hasn’t been to any Pride events in Dallas yet. Oh, did I mention he’s my boyfriend now?

Tonite we’re going out to dinner with Maggie, since she’s in town this weekend. Then tomorrow we might catch the parade. Good thing I went to UTD to work on my homework Friday night! Hopefully I have time to finish it up tomorrow.

(Posted from iPhone)