Fullscreen vs. Widescreen

I hate fullscreen movies. I do not understand why they exist. Wait a minute, first let me say that when I’m referring to “fullscreen”, what I mean is full screen versions of movies that were filmed in widescreen format. Pan and scan. Movies like “Gone With the Wind” and so on that were filmed in the square format are fine, and even the newer movies filmed in 16:9 ratio are fine. But those movies that have been butchered from the director’s intentions, discuss me. I cannot understand why someone would want to watch a movie where only one-third of the movie is actually visible. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

How would you like to walk around and only see people from the center of one shoulder blade to the center of the other shoulder blade? Pretty freaky isn’t it? So why would you want to see just the center portion of movies? I know I don’t. When I pay to watch a movie, i expect to see the whole picture. Not just the center piece.

Live Free or Die Hard came out recently, and I had intended to rent it this weekend, but while I was in the video store today, I noticed it only had the fullscreen version.. I was renting the first three Die Hard movies, which were in their original format today so that I would be all caught up by Thursday when I planned to rent Live Free or Die Hard. Now, I guess I’ll have to wait longer to see that one, because I am not going to pay money to see just 1/3 of the picture. An action film like that, I would never be able to tell what was happening. Or see everything the director wanted me to see.

I wish I could damn the sons of bitches who first slaughtered a movie-just so it would fill a television screen-to hell. Or perhaps chop two-thirds of them off so they could see how repulsive and useless they would be with only one-third of their bodies left.

SG-1

Stargate SG-1 was canceled this year. It ran for 10 seasons. I loved that show. In fact, I currently have my old Ati All-In-Wonder Pro card installed on my desktop computer because I don’t have a television set and I wanted to watch Stargate SG-1. I even installed cable to my room just to watch Stargate on the local Fox channel (The Cable Company I have does not provide the Sci-Fi Channel). But, since Sci-Fi canceled it, Fox removed it from their lineup as well. Damn.

It is amazing; the depths I was willing to go just to see Stargate SG-1. A major reason for having DSL was so I could watch online TV and hopefully find the show. I have been unsuccessful in that endeavor as well. I have spent a lot of money on SG-1. And effort. And Time.

Enter an awesome sale at Shopko. In my weekly visit to Pocatello, I stopped by Shopko and was amazed at the price of the DVD series’s. Stargate was on sale for $19.99 a season. Shopko normally sold it for about $45 a season. So, what did I do? I bought the first five seasons! 😀

I don’t know how long the sale lasted, just that it ended on the 21st. I became aware of it on the 20th. Had the sale started a week earlier, and had I known about it, I would have bought the whole series. I could have afforded it anyways, but as much as I have always wanted that series more than anything else, I decided that there are more important things I NEEDed to spent my money on. 🙁 But, At least I got the first 5 seasons.

I had never seen the first season. So, I spent the last few days watching season 1 and 2. I love that show. It has always been my favorite show, And now I finally know how the SG-1 team and the SGC in general was started, and how/why Daniel was apart of it. I always wondered what happened in that pilot, or first episode. Now I know.

I have had a great Thanksgiving because I got to spend it watching Stargate SG-1 seasons 1 and 2 so far. 😀

Short Circuit

My desktop monitor blew-up Friday night. 🙁 That’s the second monitor to do that to me. The first time it happened I was in Island Park, Idaho and the temperatures were reaching about 20 degrees below freezing. I made the mistake of turning the propane heat on one morning before the computer. When I finally did turn the computer on, BOOM!, the condensation caused a major short inside the monitor and sent a bunch of smoke out. This time, it was way different. While it is getting cold enough to cause some condensation when I turn my propane heater, the monitor had been on for a while. This time it shorted out on a reboot. Weird, it was second hand, and when I looked inside today, I could see that whoever owned before me had spilled some type of dark pop, like a cola or root beer in it. I think it may have fried a few parts enough to expose some wires, which finally just shorted out completely on Friday and burned a few additional component.

So, I’m back to my old stand-by, the first monitor that came with our families first ever PC. This thing was built to last! It’s a Hewlwtt Packard D1182A. It came with the Hewlett Packard Vectra 386. My display has gone from 17 inch 1024×768 to 640×480 on the 14 incher. 🙁 But, at least I have something.

Webpage Update

As some of you may be aware, I have been having problems with the Yahoo! mail servers. I about 40% of the mail I send in never received and about 60% of the messages sent to my are never received. I’ve had this problem for the past several years. Anyway, since Google Mail offers free POP3 as well as Free webmail, I have decided to use Gmail as my primary e-mail account. Tonight (or this mornig :-)), I edited all the “mailto” links throughout my pages to point to my Gmail address.

If any of you tried to email me from the site, but go no response from me, try again now. 😀

You can visit my sites at:

http://waldowoc.100free.com

and

http://www.geocities.com/waldowoc

DSL At Last!

Yippy!, I can now be online unrestricted. I finally had our local DSL service activated. Before that, i was using dial-up, which wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t had to wait till after midnight to use it. We only have one line, and my grandma didn’t want to miss any calls, so I would have to wait until night time before anyone could log on. Then my mom and/or little sister would get on for a few hours. I was never able to get on before midnight. I finally broke down and opted the 50 bucks a month it costs. I guess it’s worth it. I tell everyone it’s ‘I’m a happy camper now’. 😀