Things Smackie Thinks You Need to Know...

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
also, i would call out the u.n. a bit more (who, amongst other things, allows mugabe to violate all sorts of e.u. sanctions against him, in addition to allowing mbeki to dictate the conversation), but that's probably expected of me. . .

Do you call out the UN on this or do you simply blame China and Russia?

U. N. Resolution on Zimbabwe Fails In Security Council

By REUTERS
Published: July 11, 2008Filed at 5:28 p.m. ET

UNITED NATIONS, July 11 (Reuters) - A U.N. resolution to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe for holding a violent June 27 presidential poll boycotted by the opposition candidate was vetoed in the Security Council on Friday by Russia and China.

The resolution would have imposed an arms embargo on the southern African country and financial and travel restrictions on President Robert Mugabe and 13 other officials. It would also have called for a U.N. special envoy for Zimbabwe to be appointed.

Nine countries voted for the resolution, five – including veto-holding Russia and China – opposed it and one abstained.

(the others were Libya, Vietnam and…..you guessed it: South Africa)

Originally posted by vansmack:
Now look at that CD collection over there collecting dust. When was the last time you took something off the shelf to listen to? Sure Iâ??ve put lots of CDs on top of the pile, but I hadnâ??t pulled a CD off in months. I sold off a large portion of my CD collection for $1100, mostly 90â??s crap that I rarely listened to (hell, you saw that list) and still have money to play with (remember that Flash based mini-laptop I wantâ?¦just waiting. It will be perfect to log into the server). And when I done ripping the DVD collection, thatâ??s next to be sold off. I wonder what Iâ??ll buy with that?

i gotta admit, selling all my CDs was scary, but oddly liberating

Anybody else recently check their purchased list in Itunes and find stuff you don't remember?

Mine has a very long list of songs I don't remember purchasing, but apparently have played. I went to check my purcahse history and they're not listed so they must be free.

Their definitely on my computer (protected .aac).

I wonder if I signed up for some free DL of the week or something and it's been happening automatically?

Here's the first half of my purchased list that I don't recognize. Apparently they vast majority have been there since 11/13/2006 so I'm not very observant (I love combining music colletions…). I must have agreed to something that day.

For the record, most of it is crap.

<img src="http://www.dewmocracy.com/images/image_overview-default_bott.jpg" alt=" - " />

The second installment in everybody's least favorite ongoing smackie diatribe - it's so hard to choose these days with all of my rambling…

VOLTAGE

â??Dew Infused with Raspberry Cirtus Fruit Flavor and Ginsengâ?

First, I'm not an expert but I don't think a Raspberry is a Citrus Fruit, but I'm happy to be corrected.

Anyhow, this one is definitely sweeter than Revolution, but not as sweet as I feared. I think I put too much emphasis in the fact that all three come in bright, nearly flourescent colors. Something about the color screams childish too me (yes, I see the irony in not noticing the bright green bottle that comes with the original). Like other new Dew varietals, the same aftertaste is in Voltage. Weird. This taste isn't as light as the Revolution was, and combined with the fact that I don't really care for Raspberries, this one could disappear and I would miss it. I'm not saying I spittooned it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get one, and it wouldn't be hard to pull something off the shelf that was more appealing.

Originally posted by raebyddet:

Originally posted by vansmack:


But Microsoft thinking that I have to turn on a computer to stream to the 360 is a complete waste of resources. The 360 is more than powerful enough to decode the Netflix movie file on it's own.

I keep waiting for this. I don't really want to spend $100 on the roku player if the xbox is going to do this, there really is no reason that it can't.

This is supposed to be announced today or tomorrow at E3.

Originally posted by vansmack:
Eee PC (8G) over the weekend:

I don't like the price point of the 900 and 1000 models, but I think they'll come down in a few months as the competition heats up. That's when I think I'll make a move.

So this weekend I noticed ASUS was offering $100 off the 900 series laptops as the 901s were about to be released. The 900 series now sells for $400 and $449, as I suspected. The $400 model is a new one, with only one 16GB SSD drive, rather than the other 12GB and 20GB models that have a split drive (4GB soldered to the motherboard, 12GB or 8GB extra card stuck in the slot).

While it seems better to have one drive, most folks are saying the performance on the single drive that is NOT soldered on the board is terrible for running the OS (linux or Xp), so they suggest the split model and store the OS on the 4GB drive and put the programs on the second drive.

The 901 features an Intel Atom chip which uses less power dramatcially extending the battery life to 5-6 hours vs 2-3 on the 900 (Intel Celeron mobile). Supposedly the 901 also has a graphics chip that will support Vista.

I think I'm getting closer to grabbing a 900 with the dual drives. It's either that or wait until September.

Originally posted by vansmack:
This is supposed to be announced today or tomorrow at E3.

It was today:

Update 11:15 a.m.: Xbox Live head John Schappert has come out on stage and announced that Xbox Live is getting a full re-design this fall.

Schappert said the new Xbox Live will be tantamount to giving Xbox a full update, all via software. This will be, he explained, based on the new My Xbox channel, which will have a new look and feel and tabs for photos, videos, music and games.

…

Schappert also said that Xbox Live will also have a new partnership with Netflix, allowing users to access movies and TV shows from their Netflix queues via Xbox Live. Further, users will be able to share those shows and movies with their Xbox Live partners.

With this news I will move away from blockbuster and back to netflix if two things happen:

(1) The quality is good (does anybody know if the stream is Dolby 5.1, for example?).

and

(2) The library is solid.

Great move by netflix.

Originally posted by vansmack:
With this news I will move away from blockbuster and back to netflix if two things happen:

(1) The quality is good (does anybody know if the stream is Dolby 5.1, for example?).

and

(2) The library is solid.

Great move by netflix.

(1) The video quality supposedly depends on your internet connection, they say if you have 3.0mbps or better its dvd quality.

"Video quality depends on your Internet connection speed: The faster your connection, the better the quality. Slower connections are comparable to watching a VHS tape, while faster connections can provide DVD-quality playback."

Re 5.1:
"The Netflix Player by Roku outputs standard stereo audio on the red and white composite audio cables or 5.1 channel surround sound using the HDMI or optical audio cables. Keep in the mind that the movie or show must also contain 5.1 channel audio for surround sound to work."

I would be willing to be that if 5.1 works in the roku box it will work on the xBox.

(2) The movies available for instant watching are generally older back titles, there really aren't any new releases available for on demand. There are TV shows however (i.e. Weeds Season 2 is avilable for instant view.)

Originally posted by vansmack:

Schappert also said that Xbox Live will also have a new partnership with Netflix, allowing users to access movies and TV shows from their Netflix queues via Xbox Live. Further, users will be able to share those shows and movies with their Xbox Live partners.

grumble grumble grumble… i had hoped this one would have been heading the way of the ps3, which i am still considering getting. didn't really want to load XP on the MacBook in order to watch stuff via Netflix.

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
also, i would call out the u.n. a bit more (who, amongst other things, allows mugabe to violate all sorts of e.u. sanctions against him, in addition to allowing mbeki to dictate the conversation), but that's probably expected of me. . .

Do you call out the UN on this or do you simply blame China and Russia?

U. N. Resolution on Zimbabwe Fails In Security Council

By REUTERS
Published: July 11, 2008Filed at 5:28 p.m. ET

UNITED NATIONS, July 11 (Reuters) - A U.N. resolution to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe for holding a violent June 27 presidential poll boycotted by the opposition candidate was vetoed in the Security Council on Friday by Russia and China.

The resolution would have imposed an arms embargo on the southern African country and financial and travel restrictions on President Robert Mugabe and 13 other officials. It would also have called for a U.N. special envoy for Zimbabwe to be appointed.

Nine countries voted for the resolution, five – including veto-holding Russia and China – opposed it and one abstained.

(the others were Libya, Vietnam and…..you guessed it: South Africa)

the u.n., where despots and dictators go for protection

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
the u.n., where despots and dictators go for protection

Change go to "seek" because I don't think he's going to get it.

@ raebyddet: That's going to be a bummer for me for a little while. In my haste to throw the finger to Comcast and at&t I sacrificed the possiblity of 3.0Mbps. Maybe when WiMax comes out, because there's no way I'm going back to VHS quality.

It's a bummer they can't do a buffer like DirecTV does with their IPTV OnDemand. They even do HD.

Originally posted by vansmack:
@ raebyddet: That's going to be a bummer for me for a little while. In my haste to throw the finger to Comcast and at&amp;t I sacrificed the possiblity of 3.0Mbps. Maybe when WiMax comes out, because there's no way I'm going back to VHS quality.

It's a bummer they can't do a buffer like DirecTV does with their IPTV OnDemand. They even do HD.

There is a buffer of some sorts, I just think it does a connection analysis first and streams different video qualities based on your connection.

This is what it says specifically:
"You need at least 1.5 Mbps to watch movies instantly on The Netflix Player by Roku. The faster your connection, the better the quality. For high quality video and audio, a connection of least 4.0 Mbps is recommended."

Yeah I am not sure about this, its been one of my concerns as well. I currently have Speakeasy for DSL, and I only have 1.5Mbps, and I pay way too much for it. I haven't heard any reports of the video quality at this speed, most people seem to have much higher speed internet these days, I feel like I have dialup in comparison.

I am seriously considering moving to Verizon DSL, its cheaper and double the speed. Unfortunately with the building we live in DSL is our only option. We have DirectTV only for our "cable" option in our building, and it sucks, we can't even get HD, because they haven't upgraded the equipment for the building.

Originally posted by raebyddet:
There is a buffer of some sorts, I just think it does a connection analysis first and streams different video qualities based on your connection.

I would rather they just say "would you like to start this movie now?" and give me VHS quality, or have them say "would you like to wait (5/10/15/30) minutes and watch this movie in higher quality?". I'd do that in a heart beat and just treat it like I wasn't paying attention to the previews that Samckette always makes me watch.

For some, strange reason, since last night sometime, I've had the overwhelming desire to watch that South Park episode from season seven called "Raisins" - you know, the one where Wendy breaks up with Stan and the boys take him to "Raisins" which is supposed to resemble Hooters, and Butters falls in love with the waitress who is overly friendly to him and he leaves her a $69 tip…

Episode 714 - Raisins

Smackie - I'm not the biggest Dew fan - I'm a Dr. Pepper girl.

But I'm intrigued by your Dew breakdown. But the third review, I may have to go sample them.

I remember Code Red being awful awful awful. But for some reason I really liked the special Taco Bell flavor of Dew - Baja Blast? I think is is/was. Thoughts?

It's become quite clear to me that I don't know my readers very well…

<img src="http://www.dewmocracy.com/images/image_overview-default_bott.jpg" alt=" - " />

The third and final installment in the reviews that only Miss P is following (although I suspect that Venerable is secretly reading as well)…

SUPERNOVA

â??Dew Infused with Strawberry Melon Flavor and Ginsengâ?

Like the Fallout Boy Song: Dead. On. Arrival.

I'm a pretty sensitive guy, but there is no way Smackie could walk around town with a pink drink in his hand. No way. The violet colored one was questionable enough but the pink drink is why I don't order foo foo cocktails at a bar. I've got balls. It's not my fault, that's just the way I came out.

But, in the quiet serenitiy of my own apartment this weekend, I nursed a hangover with the last installment of the three new Dew flavors. It is by far the sweetest flavored of the group, and nearly every bit as sweet as I suspected the new flavors would be. The color notwithstanding, it was way too sweet for me. Like other new Dew varietals, the same aftertaste is in this one too. It's not nearly as light as Revolution was, and combined with the fact that (1) it's pink and (2) it's too sweet, I will never have another Supernova.

So, Revolution has my vote. But even this morning as I stopped off to buy a drink to watch the dolphins swim south off the coast (I told you I was sensitive), I grabbed a Live Wire and not a Revolution from the refrigerator.

Thus my Dew List:

(1) Live Wire
(2) Original
(3) Revolution
(4) Baja Blast
(5) Voltage

Never again:

That Dark one that I'll forget ever happened
Supernova
Code Red (which is somehow still around yey I don't know anybody who likes it)

you can only get original in diet, right?

I actually prefer the diet to the normal original Dew, but will go with the Baja when possible.

Also, I forgot about the dark one… wasn't it like really dark purple? I never tried it. I was too scared.

I appreciate your prose in the case of Mountain Dew. One of my favorite pops, however, is the uber regional Ale 8. So unless you've lived in or passed through in Southeastern Ohio or Kentucky, I doubt anyone here has ever had it.