V

A remake of the 80s TV mini-series/show V is coming to ABC — likely in November.  The pilot episode was screened at this year’s San Diego Comic Con (read a review here).  Also, VisitorSite.net has lost of information and pictures, if you’re hungry for more.  Last, but not least, there’s the promo video.

The promo looks great, and there are some good casting choices.  This one could very well be a winner.  Hopefully the writers have an overall story arc planned out so that the show doesn’t end up dragging on and on if it gets popular.

Tron: Legacy

A high def trailer is out for the upcoming Tron: Legacy movie (formerly known as Tr2n and Tron 2).  This is the same trailer that was shown at the 2008 Sandiego Comic Con, and a poor quality bootleg of it has been floating around the web since then, but now the same trailer is available in crisp 1080p quality.  There are also some photos and concept art available now.  Oh man, does this movie ever look sweet!

My Lego Collection

I finally got around to going through manuals of all the Lego sets I own and recorded them onto brickset.com.  The link to my collection list is on my new Lego Collection page.

As of today, I have approximately 200 sets, over 32,000 pieces, and over 420 minifigs (not counting other pieces and minifigs I’ve purchased via eBay or from sets which I may have lost the instructions for).

Furry Bunny!

I gave my bunny Marty a good brushing tonight.  I am astounded at how much fur came out of him:

In fact, there was so much fur I was able to create a second rabbit:

I don’t think Marty was as impressed as I was.  Maybe he was intimidated because the new fur-rabbit was bigger than him:

And I could have easily brushed more out of him!  What’s worse is that I just gave him a good brushing two months ago.  I wish he really wouldn’t grow so much fur. :-\

General Veers, Prepare Your Men!

The Lego AT-AT I ordered from Lego.com came in the mail today!

The coolest ground assault vehicle ever to be put to film, the AT-AT Lego model weighs in at over eleven hundred pieces!  It’s gonna take me some time to put this bad boy together.  And I finally got a snowtrooper mini-fig!  Sweet.

Interestingly enough, this model comes with a motor and battery pack.  The model is actually supposed to be able to walk!  I can’t wait to check that out.

The Lego company also gave me a free golden mini-fig from ordering this set directly from them (the AT-AT Lego model is not available in stores):

Not too shabby.

Man, I thought I was done collecting Lego a few years back, but, nooooo, they had to come out with the Space Police series this year, which sucked me back in.  Damn you, Space Police!!!

A Challenge to Website Hackers

I am proposing a challenge to all website hackers out there: create a program to automate the registration of phone numbers into the Canadian National Do Not Call List.  I’m sure there must be someone out there with the OCR programming skills to get around the relatively simple captcha on the registration screen:

Sadly, even with my phone number on the list I still get at least one unsolicited phone call per day.  There really should be a way for victims of telemarketers, newspapers, survey companies, and political parties to charge said entities for unwanted, unsolicited calls.  If only people cared about happiness and well-being rather than money.  Still, at least the token effort of this list is something.

So, if you have the skills, why not use them for good instead of evil?  Get every valid phone number entered into the Canadian National Do Not Call List.

DVD Player Repaired

My Panasonic CV-52 DVD player broke down for the third time in about as many years last night.  Same problem as twice before: H07 Error.  This is a well known problem with Panasonic DVD players, and is considered to be the result of Panasonic putting cheaper motors in their players.

The problem itself occurs when the spindle motor — the motor that actually spins the disc — fails to spin up when you try to play a DVD.  The fix is terribly simple: a little bit of oil on the spindle arm itself usually does the trick (though this time it didn’t work right away; I left it overnight and the player started working again the next morning).

Think of how much waste we produce as a society when companies decide to use the cheapest components possible for their products.  How many DVD players have ended up in landfills, poisoning the environment because of this problem?  For the cost a dollar or two per unit, Panasonic could’ve used a superior component, and this waste could have been avoided.  Ugh.