Comcast TiVo experiment mercifully over

My Comcast TiVo box recently bricked on me, and I was more than happy to turn it in for a regular Comcast DVR — well, one of the new ones (DCX3400s) with the 320 gig hard drive (50 hours of HD programming) and more RAM for a faster guide.

Do not. Get. Comcast. TiVo. I cannot emphasize this enough. First, it has no features the regular Comcast DVR doesn’t have — other than the “suggestions” option, which I really don’t care about anyway. Comcast TiVo is incredibly slow to change channels, the guide is incredibly slow, the recording features are slow, and there’s no free space indicator.

Comcast TiVo sucks. I repeat, do not get a Comcast TiVo box. Now, a real, regular TiVo box, I’ve heard good things about. But leave it up to Comcast to totally screw up a good thing.

I’m happy with my regular Comcast DVR. Very happy.

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Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days — Review for the PC

I really don’t have a lot to say about this game. Except that it’s awful. It’s one of the most poorly-designed games I’ve ever played.

This sequel reunites you with Kane & Lynch, they of the homicidal killing sprees (and Lynch needs his meds), and drops you in Singapore. A terribly rendered Singapore.

The first initial chase sequence tells you pretty much all you need to know about the game. In an attempt to give the game a touch of “cinematic coolness”, the designers have made the screen all warbly when you sprint. Or in general. The graphics are awful.



Oh, the humanity…

The gameplay is awful. It’s awkward, it’s annoying, you can’t focus on what you want to focus on, you can’t aim where you want to aim.

In fact, this game is so awful that I really don’t want to talk about it anymore. That’s a long enough review from me.

Avoid this game at all costs.

I give it a 4.0/10. I’d give it even less, but I kinda like the homicidal maniac thing.

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Enabling 30-second DVR skip on the new Comcast DCX3400 box

Dug this up. Here you go.

First:

1) Select Aux
2) Hold Setup 2 flashes
3) Enter 01376 2 flashes

Next:

1) Select Aux button
2) Hold SETUP, 2 flashes
3) Type 994, 2 flashes
4) Tap SETUP
4) Enter 00173
5) Tap CABLE, then button to be programmed (triangle is a good one), 2 flashes

Make sure on step 5 you hit the Cable button first before triangle.

Congratulations, you can now skip 30 seconds ahead on recordings using the triangle button (or whatever you chose).

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How to turn on closed captioning on a Comcast box

Here’s a little bit of knowledge I stumbled across. I’ve been trying to set up closed captioning on my Comcast box for a while now, and basically gave up, until I did some searching today and came up with the solution.

On your Comcast remote, press “Cable”, then press “Power”, and within about 2-3 seconds press “Menu”. This will bring up a list of user settings. Closed captioning is at the bottom of the screen.

Then simply hit power again and turn the box back on/off.

Grok on!

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Madden NFL 2011 for the PS3: Review

Well, it’s that time of year again. Pre-season football is on the airwaves, and the latest installment in EA Sport’s Madden franchise has been released.

There are two main changes in Madden this year. First, they’ve introduced a totally new locomotion engine and removed the sprint button. You now use the left and right analog sticks almost exclusively to guide your back, and he sprints when sprinting is called for. I have to say, I’m impressed with the new engine. It feels far more real, it looks far more real, and it’s rewarding to play.

The second change I was more wary about — GameFlow. This is Madden’s attempt at giving the game a more arcade feel, which it does. But it also mirrors more closely the way real football is called. You still have the option of using your full playbook, but with GameFlow, the computer picks a play for you based on the down and the situation you’re in. 2nd and short? Probably a shot at a big pass play. 3rd and short? You’re probably going to run, or toss a short pass.

The new graphics are tasty...

You can customize your playbook so that you use your own pre-selected GameFlow plays. As I said, I was wary about this, but it actually is pretty fun. You can use the full playbook part of the time, and GameFlow part of the time, and the game takes on an added dimension.

The only other new feature of note is that Gus Johnson has been installed as the new color man for the game presentation. This is not the best thing in the world. He spends a great deal of time extolling the virtues of Old Spice “Swagger” in-between plays. In fact, there’s a new Old Spice “Swagger” player stat, that determines how likely a player is to celebrate a touchdown in the endzone. Stupid? Yes.

But I really do highly recommend this Madden installment, if only for the introduction of the new locomotion engine. It gives the game a great, new, smooth feel. The graphics have also, overall, been retooled, and look a good deal better than Madden 2010.

I’m giving this one a solid 9.0 out of 10.

**UPDATE**

After playing for a few days online, I am NOT impressed with the EA servers. Online play is clunky and laggy, and you especially notice it during kicks — I must have missed about 5 PATs due to the lag. Perhaps it’ll tone down a bit as people stop clogging the servers as they first get the game — perhaps not.

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The La Quinta dubbed sci-fi movie ad

In miscellany, I was wondering why the La Quinta ad which features two guys in a rocket extolling the virtues of La Quinta rooms seemed so familiar. Finally I got it. The movie is The Phantom Planet, and was lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the link is to Bill Corbett’s take on the episode).

The specific scene you’re watching is right when the dark-haired guy (Maconnen) speaks the excruciatingly cheesy phrase, “You know, Captain, every year of my life, I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful…”.

Luckily, shortly after the scene, the dark-haired guy is flushed out into space and dies. 🙂

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Dripping or “drysmoking”

If you’re an e-cigarette user you may have, at some point, heard about “dripping” or “drysmoking” your e-cig. I’ve tried it, and I have to say, I’m fairly impressed with the results.

It’s simple to do, but first make sure you have a sealed battery on your e-cig, or this could ruin your batteries. Also, if you admit to drysmoking the thing, you’re going to lose your warranty if you have one, so never admit to having actually done it if you return your e-cig. Anyway, the importance of the sealed battery cannot be overstated. Just look at the end of it, where it plugs into the vaporizer. Either there will be a hole there, open to the interior of the battery — every automatic battery I know of uses an open battery, including Blu e-cigs — or it will be closed off. The Joye 510 is usually closed off, meaning no liquid can get from the atomizer into the battery and totally wreck it.

Now, this step is optional, but if you really want to drysmoke/drip, you should do it. Take a cartridge and remove the batting from it. That’s the white cottony stuff inside that holds the E-juice. You just want to have a mouthpiece, and that’s all.

You can keep the batting if you want (I did), and still drysmoke, but the results may not be as spectacular as if you remove the batting.

Finally, here’s the key part — take the atomizer, turn it upside down, and drip one or two drops of E-juice directly on the atomizer.

Then pop the empty (or full) cartridge on and start vaping. You’ll be surprised at how much more vapor you get, and also how long the couple of drops last on the atomizer (for me, they lasted even longer than a full cartridge sometimes lasts).

You can read more about dripping/drysmoking here.

Happy vaping!

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What the F**K is this ad about?!?!

What the F**K?

Okay. I just ran across this ad while surfing around on IMDB.com. Now, will you please tell me, what does an age-progressed picture of Nick Nolte have to do with refinancing your mortgage? Can someone please explain this to me? Why is this guy in the ad? It looks like Michael Palin running up to the camera on a beach at the beginning of a Monty Python episode.

If anybody can tell me why Methuselah is selling refis, please explain…

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Natasha Alam nude in Playboy…link to the pictures from the shoot…NSFW

I don’t watch True Blood, but maybe I should…

The photos for Natasha Alama’s Playboy shoot, at least a large number of them, can be found here:

https://boutique.sk/natasha+alam+playboy

**UPDATED 8/25/25 Validated Working**

…and I would advise against looking at this while at work. 😉

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Birthday haul…

Well, I hit 35, and my haul this year is: $170 towards my iPhone 4 (that is an awesome present), an Orleans Firebirds hat (they changed their name from Cardinals to Firebirds this year under new ownership),  a book from The Onion that’s a collection of their front pages over the years (another awesome present), and…one other thing that I can’t mention, ha! Oh, and five packs of my Nat Sherman Classic Menthols (which are mint flavored, but they can’t call them Classic Mint anymore because the government forbids it…).

Oh, and if you’re looking for Firebirds info, go to http://www.orleansfirebirds.com. Unfortunately, you can only buy hats at the games themselves.

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