If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Captain N: The Game Master was one of those Saturday morning cartoons I watched religiously. Where else could I mixed my two favorite things as a child, cartoons and video games, in one package. I still have nightmares of Motherbrain and her drag queen voice.

All 3 seasons are finally available now in one 4 disc DVD set. Amazon has the set listed for $29.99 and I’ve already added it to my Netflix queue.

I rely heavily on RSS feeds to get my daily fix of news. As you can see above, I don’t read a ridiculous amount of feeds but enough to keep me busy most of the day. One of the problems I’m starting to notice is that I’m spending a lot of time online just to keep up. I’m not sure how other people use RSS but i read everything that comes in. Maybe not “read” it all but definitely skim over the article. In the last 30 days, I’ve read over 24,000 articles. Thats a lot of reading and a lot of time invested to not fall behind. This reared its ugly head during my trip to Macworld this year. The internet at the hotel was so bad it was just about unusable unless it was early in the morning. So while I tried to keep up on stuff, I fell behind to the tune of about 3,000 unread items by the time I got home. It took me hours to just get through everything and catch up.

I’m finding I want to be doing more stuff on and off the computer but feel tied to my RSS reader. Catch up on podcasts, blog, World of Warcraft, watch TV shows, Netflix, workout, play my Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS, photography etc. I work nights so my time is split up between before work and after so I can’t just do a lot of stuff.

I’ve been bouncing around news readers for awhile, Bloglines, Newsgator, NetNewsWire, endo, NewsFire, Google Reader to name a few in the past months. I’ve settled on Google Reader due to its web interface so I can access my feeds from both home and work. It’s missing some nice features of desktop clients but its ability to be “everywhere once” outweighs everything else. One feature I missed was Dinosaurs in NetNewsWire. Basically It showed outdated feeds that haven’t updated in awhile.

Enter Google Reader Trends.

It shows statistics based on your feeds. This includes what your reading, what your starring and what your sharing along with subscription based stats such as frequently read and inactive. Inactive is what I’ve been missing. It shows me the Top 10, 20 and 40 feeds that haven’t been updated.

So starting today I’m going to “trim the fat” as they say. I’m going to start deleting feeds that I don’t really need or want to keep up on. This should help me feel less tied down and hopefully free up some more time do so other things. I’m also going to start using the Sharing feature in Google Reader to share what I find interesting. You can see my Shared page at http://www.google.com/reader/shared/17007536064916393533. You can even subscribe to it to keep up to date.

My current OPML file is up on Share your OPLM if you’re interested in what feeds i read. This is the original file I will be trimming. I’ll post my new file when I’m finished.

January - started using Mac OS X

February - built dedicated computer to run Mac OS X on

March - Starting using iTunes to manager my media

April - stopped using Bloglines, switched from Exchange to Google Mail and Google Calendar, bought a Jimi wallet

May - switched Layout, Skype is free for the rest of the year, started a new job, Macbook’s released, went to grand opening of Apple 5th Ave store, bought my Macbook

June - joined valleyshwag, MC360 released for XBMC, bought a Nintendo DS Lite, canceled my Final Fantasy XI account after 3 years

July - switched to Flock, Macbook got hit with discoloration, started running using the Nike+iPod kit, Macbook Random Reboots started

August - switched from del.icio.us to Shadows, started using OpenDNS, got hard to find Trauma Center and Phoenix Wright for the DS, new mc chris and Evanescence albums, bought the Timbuk2 blogger bag

September - started new full-time job, fall TV season starts, bought a Xbox360 after Guitar Hero 2 is announced with new controller, canceled my Myspace account

October - got tickets for macworld 2007, Xbox360 troubles, 300 trailer, Macbook RSS fixed, bought my first Blackberry, my Xbox360 has its own blog

November - interviewed for MacNewsWorld, Gears of War, Guitar Hero II and Elite Beat Agents all released on same day, turned 28, XBL Video Marketplace released, subscribed to Netflix and Gamefly, bought an HD DVD

December - Geekdrome dead, started reading comics again, finally found out what all the hype about Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars and Greys Anatomy was all about

Gearing up here for the holidays. Tomorrow is my last day off before Christmas and I plan on getting all my shopping done. Other than that, I’ve been on a major media rush for the past month.

I’ve started watching alot of TV shows. Finally started watching Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars, and Grey’s Anatomy. All which are better than the hype and I suggest you check them out in case your haven’t yet.

Recently subscribed to Netflix and been loving it. There HD-DVD selection is about as good as it gets and Blockbuster is giving away free rentals in exchange for the Netflix flaps you usually toss out. So its safe to say I’ve been getting my movie on lately too.

In addition to Netflix, I signed up for Gamefly too tho my experience has been no where as good as with Netflix. I’m currently playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance and its really fun so far. A must get for any Marvel Comics fan.

Speaking of Marvel, thanks to Geekdrome, god rest its soul, I’ve gotten back into reading comics. I’ve been stockpiling them for almost 2 years but could never find a good “in” to start. Enter Civil War, it seemed like the perfect story arc to jump back in. Major story arc and most major comic titles are involved, the perfect time start. I got alot of catching up to do before I’m current but its been a great story so far. I’m also reading all the titles involved so it will be a couple weeks until I’m caught up. I started with Road to Civil War and I’m about 30 issues in with about 35 left.

Hope everyone has a Happy Holiday.

Let do alittle experiment.

V for Vendetta HD DVD was in my Netflix queue and went into “Processing” at about 10:30 am today. At about the same time, I was checking out the new Video Marketplace on my 360 and one of the (only) HD movies they offer is V for Vendetta. I rented it from the Marketplace for $6 and it started to download. I tried to cancel my Netflix queue but it was too later as it was already in Processing. So both are on there way. Lets see which one makes it first.

Update 1:
At around 6pm tonight, I was around 7% for the download and V for Vendetta had already shipped from Netflix with an arrival date of 11/24.

Update 2:
Checked my download at 1am and my download has stopped. Not sure how long its been. There is no Active Download nor any movies in my Video section. So I’ve restarted my download.

Update 3:
Download died once again at around 3am last night. Restarted at about 3:45am. Woke up at 11am to find it had stopped again. Restarted right away. Currently at 3%. Download restarted at 0% at the 3am for whatever reason. No mail today due to Thanksgiving holiday.

Update 4:
Came home from Thanksgiving at around 2pm today to find I was logged out of Xbox Live and my download has stopped one again. Restarted download as soon as I logged back in. Download is currently at 8%. Mail came today but no Netflix packs. The race is still on.

Update 5:
Just got home from work at 2:44am and the download is still going. Woohoo! Maybe they are finally fixing the bandwidth issues at MS. File is only 27% tho. Mail should be here in about 8 hours.

I don’t have cable nor do I want it but there are things I want to watch. To fill this need, a mixture of iTunes, Netflix and bittorrent gets the job done. So when Microsoft announced TV and Movies would be coming to Xbox360, I couldn’t help be excited. Right now I need to hookup my laptop to my TV to watch iTunes shows and movies or my own stuff using Frontrow. While it works, its less than ideal.

Strike 1: 360 isn’t equipped to handle HD content.

The biggest thing that got me excited was Microsoft would be offering HD content unlike iTunes or even bittorrent for that matter. My only HD fix right now is through HD DVDs on Netflix. With all HD content, the first problem is storage space. The Xbox360 has a 20gig HDD and only 13G is useable. That equals 2 HD Movies or 6 HD TV shows at the most. That would be ok if you could pull the content off and stream it using the 360’s new found Video Streaming but alas you can’t. I would settle for be able to connect a external USB HDD and having MS format it with screwy encrypted DRM’d filesystem just to be able to use it as extra storage.

Strike 2: Lacking Content

I was all about the CW and adult swim shows as iTunes does not carry them. The only shows I watch that I cannot get from iTunes are Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, Veronica Mars and Smallville. Well, 3 of those are available from day 1 on the Video Marketplace. ALL RIGHT! Not so fast. While they are available, only the First Season’s on each of them are and there aren’t even in HD. Utterly useless. And thats not all, most shows and Movies are not in HD. Only a handful of each.

Actually content is weak with todays launch and hopefully it will continue to grow. With with the exception of V for Vendetta, not one movie is current and roughly 1/3 of all the TV shows are cartoons.

Strike 3: Pricing

Pricing isn’t horrible but $6 for a 24hr HD movie rental is little steep. For a penny less, you can get a 30d ay rental from Netflix. TV shows are on par with iTunes but as with iTunes, you pay the same price for a 15 mins episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force as you do for a 60 min CSI episode. I’m not upset about the pricing but I would have loved to see $1 TV show rentals and Movie purchase’s. I’m more likely to re-watch a movie than a TV show.

And for the record, MS Points suck. 480 points = $6?! huh? Ho much is 262 points? I don’t know either but I do know $6 is $6.

Closing thoughts

I bought an episode of CSI Season 7 and V for Vendetta today. Right now its been 6 hours since I purchased them and CSI is only 19% complete and V for Vendetta hasn’t even started. Obviously this is because everyone is hammering the servers but even when TV Shows and Movies launched on iTunes, I never had this problem. V for Vendetta HD DVD shipped from Netflix today. It will be interesting to see which one i get right.

Another problem I you can’t stream while you download. I’m going to have to wait until the full movie downloads before I can watch V for Vendetta. Even iTunes lets you stream.

I do like the fact you can download the SD version of HD content for free. Score one for Microsoft.