Tom chats with guest and good friend Joey Bland about the Improvised Shakespeare Company, Breaking Bad, George Lucas’ screenwriting abilities, Charizard, and their addiction to Sporcle on this edition of The Axis of Ego Podcast.
Download: The Axis Of Ego Podcast 09-26-11
The trouble with justice is that it’s a subjective concept that we allege to be purely objective when applied properly. Blindfold and scales and all that.
Yet, an individual’s point of view determines so much of the makeup of this nebulous notion. Furthermore, our collective perception of whether justice (again – whatever that may or may not mean) is being “served” generally, or whether the system in question “works,” is often dependent upon a few highlighted examples that garner overwhelming attention from the media and the public. Even when the truth might be that justice prevails in 998 instances out of 1,000, if the two outliers that account for 0.2% of the sample receive 50% of the media attention, human nature compels us to focus on those two and ignore or downplay the other 998.
Perhaps that’s an instructive preface to the unfortunate, quite possibly unjust case of Mr. Troy Davis.
Netflix can’t catch a break. First, the company created a new pricing structure that separated DVD-by-mail and streaming, but, in effect, raised the cost to most customers by a few dollars per month. 
This was met with many loud complaints by customers that raising prices was somehow unfair[1]. The ramen-eating portion of the blogosphere exploded with profane threats of service cancellation.
Meanwhile, and far more relevantly, stock prices plummeted. That prompted Netflix to overreact in the last couple of days, sending out a knee-jerk e-mail that contained an embarrassing and unnecessary mea culpa regarding price hikes and customer service. Here are a few sample quotes from the e-mail:
I’m sure this user’s YouTube video will be taken down shortly due to a copyright claim by HBO. But, until it does, enjoy what will surely be a storied moment in the annals of the sweet science:
Armed with a bowl of chili and two remotes, I sat down in front of my giant TV to enjoy NFL Sunday Ticket for the first time ever. Sunday Ticket was a luxury not afforded to me before now because I’m not a Direct TV customer. However, Direct TV has partnered with Sony to provide Sunday Ticket to PS3 users via a streaming option similar to the excellent MLB.TV service (reviewed here a few months back).
Unfortunately, those of us who shelled out a few hundred dollars to pay the exorbitant fee for the service were treated to myriad video artifacts, streams that didn’t work all, and a non-chronological(!) presentation of many of the games. In short, a disaster.
Those of us who use streaming options for services like MLB.TV or Netflix come to expect some modest level of “computer-y” distortion of video. That comes with the territory. But what happened today with Sunday Ticket goes far above and beyond those sorts of minor issues. This is a setup that either didn’t have the bandwidth to accommodate the level of viewership that should have been expected, or had faulty software (released only two days before the season began).
I’m neither a Direct TV employee nor a software expert, so I can’t say which it is. Direct TV’s Twitter accounts have already acknowledged the massive problems.
I had planned on providing a full review of Sunday Ticket as I did for MLB.TV, but the service is so terribly flawed and non-functional that there’s no point. Until these issues get resolved, don’t even think about purchasing this. That goes without saying.
What I can do is provide a video as an example of what the service looked like today:
If my lifestyle rose to the level of a religion, or even a broad spirituality, this evening would be one of the holiest of the year.
Tonight marks the start of the NFL season, the fantasy football season, and worthwhile network television watching after months of navigating barren landscape with nothing but a lifeless, hopeless horizon in every direction.
We begin again the joyous march toward the Super Bowl.
Rather than focus on beginnings, however, I decided today to focus on the end.
Specifically, the end of the end: The Super Bowl post-game show.
The street next to my mom’s house is pictured below. I doubt she’ll have power back for a week or so. I got mine back this morning.
Truthfully, I think I could go a while without it with little difficulty, but for a tight publication schedule this week and next. Otherwise, with the weather this mild, there’s nothing too problematic about not having electricity.
In fact, I’ve found that I eat a lot less and go to bed at a reasonable hour when I don’t have current. It’s strange how electric lights trick our bodies into following unnatural sleep patterns so easily. Without them, I essentially start to get tired when it starts to get dark. Beautiful in its simplicity.
Not getting enough technology talk in our previous podcasts? How about some pro wrestling thrown in? Fantasy football references? A discussion on various shades and flavors of clown? Lots and lots of self-satisfied laughter? Well, this podcast is for you. Tom and Mike will not disappoint in the dork department.
As an added bonus, only one of the two participants in said podcast was aware this conversation was being recorded! Enjoy!
I’ve never seen these two in the same place. Have you?
ESPN’s controversial “What if Michael Vick Were White?” picture:
ER / The Good Wife’s Julianna Margulies:
At a minimum, I think we can agree that the pseudo-Vick is the hypothetical offspring of Ms. Margulies and this man:
The Axis of Ego 
Star Wars Revisited: The Prequels
The recent release of the complete Star Wars film franchise on blu-ray serves as a good reason to revisit the films. Appropriately, this will actually be a trilogy of reviews, as there’s so much material with this set that trying to cram it all into one piece of content would be too much.
First, the basics: The video and audio on the set are outstanding. Full 6.1 Dolby Surround and 1080p visuals make for an exceptional movie-watching experience from a purely technical standpoint. I did notice that the colors seem to skew a little toward the “red” end of the tint spectrum, but this is a very minor complaint (and one that can be corrected easily if the viewer finds it noticeable). The digital transfer of the movies generally amazing, although there are spots where the human actors look even more unnatural than usual when contrasted with their CGI counterparts, especially in Episode I.
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