Ye Saga continues..

Just finished book4 of The Saga of Seven Suns and started Book5, ordered books 6 and 7 so hey I'll have caught up before the year is over. A paid day off work tomorrow, the car is going in for a service and it's first MOT, not cheap but that's car ownership in the UK under a Labour government using green issues to generate revenue.

Eli Stone

One of the surprise hits of the summer US telly schedule was Eli Stone, surprisingly no good quality takers for the show this side of the pond even though it has a second season in production which had led to the UK scifi channel (no anamorphic widescreen, no HD and cluttered with onscreen garbage) picking it up.
Anyhow good news is that is has a R1 DVD release, going to order it and for around £17 excellent value.

The new boiler was installed today, didn't want to spend the money but the price of gas at a all time high and unlikely to ever decrease getting a more efficient boiler will pay for itself and start to save me money long term.

Romancing the Stone

Great news is that both Romancing the Stone and the slightly less good Jewel of the Nile are getting a Blu-ray release this October along with a new DVD release. No word on any restoration but a bunch of new extras are included but alas a money grabbing RRP of $39.98 each!

I have to say after being a huge HD fan and embracing the formats (yes both) the pricing of the media now there is no format war seems to simply be exploiting the market with little to really justify such a large premium for the HD disks.

Stargate Atlantis

It was announced yesterday that Stargate Atlantis would end at this end of it's fifth season, a number of DVD movies similar to the format of the SG1 releases (Ark of Truth, Continuum) will continue the story. On the good side the third series of the franchise Stargate:Universe has got the green light for a summer 2009 premiere, this show has long been on the drawing board but the show runners have said having two shows at the same time wasn't an option.
More info at Gateworld.

Firefly Blu-ray

The Blu-ray version of Firefly has a release date of November 11th in the US, no sign of the CGI being rendered in HD so that's going to be upscaled and initially it looks like FOX is going to bleed the fans with an $88.98 price tag which is way too high for a catalogue 15 episode show.

Heroes

The Blu-ray of the second season of Heroes arrived this morning from the US, great price (£29.99) and you have to laugh that the format is now capable of doing what HD DVD did at launch.
I also got book5 "Of Fire and Night" of the Seven Sun Saga, still waiting for book4 to arrive from Amazon in the US though. So much cheaper and easier if I had gone paperback.

Some good news

The Sarah Conner Chronicles on Blu-ray arrived from the US yesterday, very nice indeed and only £17.99 delivered. Heroes on Blu-ray has just been dispatched but right now I am in Roswell marathon mode.

Got my car insurance renewal, they were taking the piss ramping up the premium even though I have full no claims, the old tactic of relying on peoples inertia to not change providers, well I took a few minutes and got the policy £60 cheaper and £45 from Quidco.

Whoop!

I'm now in the company bonus scheme.
I got my slip today and this months bonus was £272, not bad at all but with my car insurance, road tax, mot and service a lot more is leaving my bank account!

Used the British Gas website to make an appointment for a survey and quote for a new boiler, it was for the 15th. Got a phone call today saying it was pushed back to the 27th and the guy on the phone said internet bookings didn't count. Pretty shabby and as the new appointment was outside of a special promotion I simply canceled, rather spend this serious amount of money with a company that doesn't piss me about.

Legend Of Neil

For adults only...

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

Caprica

It's been announced that the BSG spin off Caprica has been bought by SKY1.
I can't say I am that excited, there is nothing in the show that really appeals but I'll be tuning in and hoping to be surprised.

Scifi & Fantasy Podcast

One of my favourite podcasts is fading, the Scifi&Fantasy Podcast hosted by Scott and Anthony which has been a great source of humour thanks to the guys love of movies and tv show as shown in their reviews of both old and new stuff.
I don't know how long the archive will remain alive but believe me it's worth a visit and a listen to some of their work, best wishes to both Scott and Anthony for the future.

Saga of Seven Suns

So there I was just browsing my book shelves not in the mood for Discworld or the Trek franchise and I pulled out this hard back book when I didn't recognise, it was Kevin J Anderson's Hidden Empire book1 of The Saga of Seven Suns.
I probably bought it years ago when I was in the Scifi&Fantasy book club and it's been sitting on the shelf ever since, anyhow I started reading it and it's pretty damn good and of course as I like Hardback I've had to get used copies (and not that cheap for out of print good condition examples) but once I've read books two and three I may be able to get new hardbacks from 4 onwards at a decent price.

Terminator Salvation

The first legit trailer for the new Terminator movie starring Christian Bale has appeared....

Terminator 4 Teaser Trailer
by teaser-trailer


Eurekas third season kicks off on the US Scifi channel tonight, no date for SKY1 but I may wait for the HD offering.

Steven Moffat

Steven Moffat who has written some of the better Dr Who scripts and also wrote Jekyll and Coupling has an online interview here, good read.

Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett's official publishers have launched a new website. Even a quick skim through indicates a very good TP and DW resource.

Chuck

I'm delighted to read that Chuck will be appearing on Blu-ray at least in the US later this year. A great show which I refused to buy on DVD as quite frankly if it ain't HD then they are not getting my money.

The second season returns to US telly and a PC near you on September 29th.

PC woes

Well this has been a lot of fun, power cut part way through the rebuild really didn't help matters even before the really hot CPU running issues and random shutdowns. Touch wood cleaning the contacts, new thermal paste and re-seating the heat sink has solved the problem.
Also silly me when I was in a little mess sorting out a new motherboard I forgot at least one option I needed as in two digital audio outputs, only have one now so it's feeding the amp and I'm using old fashioned analogue for the desktop.
You try to save a little money by buying lower spec kit and there you go, should have gone for the uber deluxe model like I did with the previous board:)

I have finally managed to watch Dr. Horrible which when you get right down to it was the catalyst for the fun I've had, probably a co-incidence but....

It never rains.....

As if my PS3 problems were not enough high tech fun my PC throw a tantrum while downloading the new itunes and after much head scratching I am pretty sure the motherboard has partially failed.
At first I thought it was the ISP, then the router/lan and finally after realising I had also lost the onboard audio it kinda dawned on me. I've dug out my aging PC, ripped off the dust covers and got back online, now have to spend more money on getting the main PC put togther.

Still haven't got around to watching the first episode of Dr.Horrible off the new site which streams to those outside the US.

PC HD

So my PS3 is a dead duck and I am not buying another, I may have had a lemon but reading some US forums it seems the issue I had is not that uncommon and without a solid warranty it's not worth it.

However I now have Blu-ray (and HD DVD) playback on my PC via a LG DVD writer Blu/HD DVD player coupled with Power DVD and Slysofts AnyDVD HD software which removes region coding and HDCP, sweet.

Heroes

The BBC have put our cash where their mouth is and secured all future seasons of Heroes for an agreed price, no public release of the exact details despite it being our money.
Still the BBC have said they will show episodes within a week of the US broadcast and in HD so no complaints there as anything that reduces my bandwidth is a good thing.