Hacking Netflix

Saturday, September 15th, 2007

I’m trying to transfer my Blockbuster Queue to my new Netflix queue but I’m runnign into a couple of problems:

  1. There’s no way to import a list of movies. I have to add each one individually. That’s a pain for 700+ movies.
  2. Every time I add a movie, Netflix creates an annoying popup window. Anyway to turn that off? The popup blocker doesn’t seem to stop it.

Anyone know of a solution for either of these?

Men In Trees

Thursday, August 9th, 2007

In Chicago last month I happened to catch Men in Trees on TV. It was mildly amusing, but I liked it better the first time I saw it. You know, when it was called Northern Exposure.

ESPN Chokes

Monday, July 9th, 2007

I almost never watch ESPN, but tonight they’re venturing into new territory with a miniseries entitled the Bronx is Burning. They’ve been hyping it heavily, and I’m actually interested in New York in the 70s, so I was all geared up to watch it. Then I turn it on at the advertised time of 10:00 P.M. and what do I see? The National Home Run Derby.

I have no idea what this is, nor do I much care. If it were an actual baseball game I could almost see the point; but some silly, made-up event that does little but fill dead air? For this they preempted their new flagship show?

Screw it. If the miniseries is any good, I’ll watch it on DVD in a few months, but I probably won’t bother with ESPN again for another ten years.

Fowler’s Toad

Saturday, July 7th, 2007

Fowler’s Toad

Fowler’s Toad, Bufo woodhousii fowleri
Robert Moses State Park, 2007-07-07

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The Sopranos Jumps the Shark

Monday, June 11th, 2007

Did you see the final episode of the Sopranos last night? Are you as confused and disappointed as I am? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before: a great series waits to the very last episode, and almost to the last minute of the last episode, to conclusively, utterly, and completely jump the shark.1.
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Hex Jumps the Shark

Monday, June 11th, 2007

BBC America is broadcasting season 2 of Hex now. What a mistake. British fans already know this, but season 2 is an absolute disaster. I’ve already watched it on imported DVDs I got from Amazon UK, and that’s 12 hours of my life I’ll never get back. What was a sexy, scary, mysterious and original show in Season 1 turned into a bad Buffy knockoff in season 2.1. You remember how bad you thought Buffy the Vampire Slayer was going to be until you actually watched the show? Well, that’s exactly how bad Hex Season 2 is.

The departure of Christina Cole and then Michael Fassbender hurt badly. Laura Pyper and Joseph Beattie just couldn’t pick up the slack. However the real fault lay in the writing. Characters didn’t so much grow as careen madly from one personality to another throughout the season. The plot was incomprehensible and seemed to shift every couple of episodes. Every time it looked like the show might be going down an interesting path, it would back off and wander off somewhere else. Unlike the clear story arc of Season 1 (pioneered by shows like Buffy and Babylon 5) Season 2 felt like a random agglomeration of ideas. It was sort of like one of those writing exercises from freshman English where everyone in the class writes a paragraph of a story and then hands it to the next student to write the next paragraph. And the final episode was the absolute worst. I watched it less than a month ago; and I now couldn’t tell you what happened, who won, or why I should care.
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