Save The Phone!

You know what used to be fun? Unexpectedly pushing someone into a pool or a lake. You can't really do that anymore now that everyone has a $600 minicomputer in their pocket. I saw a couple girls push some guy into a fountain a couple years ago and he was LIVID. I guess that's just the price of progress, Pokemon Go doesn't come without a cost.

Adios Windows Phone

A hundred dollars off the new Huawei Honor 8 on Black Friday saw the official end of my 4 year relationship with Windows Phone. Sorry Windows Phone it wasn't you it was me.

Wait a minute, yeah it was you. It definitely wasn't me. You have any idea how hard it is to have this super kick ass phone that looks great, runs great, takes fantastic pictures but has zero third party support? Its like the Sega Dreamcast all over again.

My decision to jump to android was made about a week ago when I was standing in a Safeway looking at the price of cereal bars. You could save $2 if you added them to you Just For U coupon list, which I couldn't do from the store because the Safeway App is only available for Android and iPhone. Usually I figure out all my coupons at home from my desktop before I go to the store but that day I had forgotten. Living in the 3% Windows Phone market share cost me 2 dollars and really I don't know if I'll ever forgive Microsoft for it.

Funny story: When Steve Ballmer bought the Los Angeles Clippers the official Clippers App wasn't available for Windows Phone. Two and a half years later it still isn't. Sure Ballmer isn't COO anymore but he still owns about 4% of Microsoft, you would think he'd have some interest in getting that app on WP but he doesn't. He doesn't care about WP and from what I can gather, outside of like 4 people, no one else at Microsoft does either.

tl/dr: I got a new phone yesterday.

I don't really know anything about Huawei, I know they made one of the Nexus phones before Google ditched that line in favor of their new brand of Pixel phones. The Honor 8 ticked all my boxes as far as android phones went. It even has a dual-camera set up on the back like the new iPhone which was a bonus. Speaking of the new iPhone, this thing looks A LOT like the new iPhone. You could tell the guy at the AT&T store who hooked me up with a new sim card thought I bought it at the port authority from a guy selling phones out of a briefcase. He had never seen one before and had quite a few questions about it, most of which I couldn't really answer other than "it has 4.5 stars on Amazon".

It should be equal parts fun and frustrating learning a new phone OS. I spent at least an hour last night trying to import my important contacts as opposed to the 2,100 people it tried to import from my corporate e-mail account. I figured it out eventually and was able to sooth my sorrows by loading up a bunch of apps that were never available for WP.

It was nice knowing you windows phone. I'll miss your live tiles and your seamless Outlook integration. You took lots of good pictures of my kids over the years but in the end I really needed to play Pokemon go. I hope everything works out for you.

I Can Make Phone Calls!

The Rise of Links

DC Restructures Vertigo, Fires Shelly Bond, Internet Explodes. DC's Vertigo line of comics is an adult imprint that back in the day had some of the hottest comics on the market Books like Sandman, Preacher, Fables, V for Vendetta, Hellblazzer, many of which have seen movie or TV adaptions. Over the last couple years though the line hasn't done as well as in the past, so it's not a huge surprise that the editor in charge of the line, Shelly Bond, was recently let go under the guise of restructuring.

The big surprise though was the absolute shit storm this caused on-line. A lot of creators with bridges to burn immediately labeled the move as terrible and started lobbing scathing accusations to the remaining DC management, at one point a very prominent editor was called out for being a serial sexual harasser.

For a number of years DC has had a bit of a dark rumor cloud hanging over it when it comes to their management and editorial staff. Sexual harassment allegations have been around for years. It's even been rumored that an artist was taken off a very prominent project a few years back because the co-publisher was sleeping with his wife. It looks like Shelly Bond's firing was the straw that broke the camels back as far as creators actually naming names and pointing direct fingers. It's going to be very interesting to see what DC's response is. Hopefully if anything comes out of this it will be a safer work environment for people who just want to make good comics.

5 Movie And TV Plots That Mean The Writer's Out Of Ideas. I'll eat my hat if this article wasn't a direct reaction to the season finale of The Walking Dead. Still, it's written by David Wong so it's worth the read.

I really think what makes most people upset about the cliffhanger on the Walking Dead finale is that it was completely unnecessary. It's the most poplar show on cable, they don't need to resort to storytelling tricks to keep the audience engaged. I 100% guarantee that if they had just showed who Negan had killed they would have had just as much buzz going into the next season as they do now AND they wouldn't have pissed off so many fans. It was just a terrible terrible idea.

The rise of the $400 smartphone. Man, when did $400 for a phone become the cheap alternative? I'm still wrapping my head around buying a phone off contract. The last phone I bought was a Nokia under a two year deal and it cost me all of $100 out of pocket. I guess when you're talking about something you use every day and in theory will for a year or two, $400 isn't that much money but I'm not the kind of person that just has that sort of cash laying around. For me that's a big purchase that requires a bit of planning. Ugh, I hate it when I have to think about things like this, it takes all the fun out of buying something new. Where do I get one of those Obama phones?

Proven Links

Boston Police Arrest Two Pokémon Players After Apparent Gun Threat Against World Championships. Welp, this is absolutely terrifying. A couple of psychos were arrested after they started threatening people at the World Pokemon Championships. The cops found a couple guns and a butt-load (scientific term) of ammo in their car.

Seriously, if you're not safe at the World Pokemon Championships you're not safe anywhere.

Twitter shuts down 30 sites dedicated to saving politicians' deleted tweets. Aw man, this can't come at a worse time. Have you seen the field of candidates running for president? Luckily for us what twitter has done here just makes it a little bit harder to save those tweets. With the amount of attention politicians are getting on twitter these days there's almost zero possibility of you missing the next time Trump or Cruz says something insane.

The Windows Start menu saga, from 1993 to today. Wow, I remember when Windows 95 went by the code name Chicago. I think it came on like 12 3.25' floppies. I wonder how much I could get for them on eBay if I still had them. 3 maybe 4 dollars?

Every Carrier's Confusing Phone-Buying Plans, Explained. It's been a few years since I've actually been inside an AT&T store to buy a phone. My wife breaks her phone so often we've been buying her go phones (the AT&T windows go-phone is actually pretty nice) and I've had the same sorry Nokia Lumia for at least 3 years. Recently I've scratched the lens on the camera and I've been thinking about getting a new one but holy crap, buying a new phone sounds like the biggest cluster-F ever.

The Cheerleader Effect Has Been Proven By Science. Wow, this was written by the most bro-iest bro ever. I'm surprised my computer didn't try to fist bump me when I was done with the article. Still, science says women are hotter when they travel in packs. It's science, are you going to argue with science?

Amazon has a Kindle phone coming your way

So Amazon put out this "mysterious" commercial last night hyping up their next big product. Spoiler alert: It's a phone. I don't have any insider knowledge or anything but come on, it's a phone. Right around the 0:42 mark you can see the outline of the top of the device and it's totes phone shape. Nice work Amazon. You really surprised us with the thing that you've been rumored to be making for the last 2 years.

Hard Core Links

15 Fascinating Facts You May Not Know About ‘Batman: Arkham Asylum’. None of these facts are really going to change your life but if you've played Arkham Asylum they're still pretty interesting. Thinking back on it I'm 99% sure I never did beat Arkham Asylum. The way the levels constantly criss-crossed over each other kinda killed my excitement for the game about 10 hours in. I should probably pick it back up and try to beat it.

Microsoft announces Windows Phone 8.1 with Cortana, coming in April. As much as I begrudge buying a phone from a guy with that bad of a haircut I'm totes getting a new phone in April or May or June or whenever the AT&T version of the Nokia Icon goes on sale. I can't wait for my chance to have to repeat things to my phone multiple times just like my iPhone brethren.

Also I can't believe Microsoft actually named their virtual assistant after a character from Halo but at the same time OF COURSE they did.

Fire TV: Everything You Need to Know About Amazon's $100 Streaming Box. I already have a Roku and it works just fine but if I was in the market for a TV box the Fire TV would be pretty tempting. I like the idea of being able to play some casual games through it. I could get down with wasting 20 minutes playing Plants vs Zombies on my TV and not having to pay 19.99 for it through XBox Live Arcade.



There’s Probably Semen On That’: 3 Days At The AVNs. This report by Vince Mancini on the 31st annual AVN Awards is really really good. Like maybe I should have used three "reallys" and a bunch of caps locks good. It is a report on pornography so it gets a bit blue at times but I think it's well worth suffering through a couple cringe worthy paragraphs.

What I found most interesting is that an industry that when you look at it objectively helped build the modern day internet is getting destroyed by what it helped create. Also the people that are involved in pornography are always fun to read about in a "hey, lets watch this car accident" kind of way.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 looks impressive

I've been thinking about getting a new phone and a new tablet. Maybe I should head on down to the AT&T store and check this one out a bit closer.

Short stack of Links

Just look at this fratboy rapist. A year ago Writer/Director James Gunn wrote a blog post on the 50 Superheroes you want to have sex with. It dumb and crass and honestly not very funny, big deal right? Well it is now. You see Gunn is writing/directing the highly anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy film for Marvel and a few people on the interwebs aren't taking to kindly to Marvel hiring the guy that came up with lines like "The idea of my balls slapping against Gambit’s makes me sick to my stomach". I guess over 3,000 people have signed a petition to get him kicked off the film.

It should have been you Brett Ratner

10 Best Questions And Theories About The Samsung Galaxy ‘Sex Tape’ Commercial. These are all incredibly crass but hilarious. I'd recommend you don't add your own If you have dreams of writing and directing a movie for Disney.

The Hawkeye Initiative. Here's a blog dedicated to putting Hawkeye in the same "ridiculous" poses comic artist usually save for the Black Widow or Catwoman. I put ridiculous in quotes because I think at least a couple of these would work for a male superhero like Spider-Man.

Thor's day Links

The 7 Greatest Spaceships in Video Game history. The only big problem I had with this list is that they didn't have the raptor from Wing Commander. Remember Wing Commander? Man those games were awesome. How come no one makes a space combat game anymore?

At&T ready to board the shared data plan train. At first glance I was thinking it's about time someone offered a shared data plan but then as I read more and thought more about it I realized this won't save me any money at all. There's talk that there will be a ten dollar fee associated with each device and I'm sure you'll have to jack up your minutes to even qualify for the shared plan. It sucks having a cell phone shouldn't be as expensive as it is. I'd gladly pay more for the phone itself if carriers wouldn't nickle and dime me to death with extra fees.

By the way, that's my new phone pictured above. It's a Nokia Lumina 900, and it's very pretty.

This Imperial At-At Case Mod will blow you away. I've been looking at putting together a new desktop PC for a couple years now. I'd love to do one of these crazy case mods but I doubt I'll have the time or the money. Oh well, first world problems and all.

The Ultimate Retro Console Collectors' Guide. This is a pretty good list of old consoles and all their pros and cons. None of these consoles feel that retro to me. I have a snes hooked up to the downstairs TV my son loves playing. Of course I knew nothing about the PC engine (pictures above), that thing sounds awesome.

Treasure Links

The Star Wars Saga: Suggested Viewing order. I've been dwelling on this ever since my son was born. The absolute best order to watch all 6 movies is IV, V, I, II, III, VI. The writer of this particular article suggest that you can eliminate Episode I all together, but If I had to cut out one movie it would be Episode II. It WAY WAY worse than Episode I, it might have more important plot details, but it's not worth it. Just look it up on wikipedia and move along to Episode III.

If Android is a "stolen product" than so is the iPhone. I'll give this to Steve Jobs, he had giant balls. After years of ripping off other companie's ideas he vows to destroy Google over their theft of the iPhone?

PT boat for sale. You guys had better start clicking on those ads. I need a million dollars to buy a Patrol Torpedo boat.

Is the Ark really buried on a small Canadian island? A great read on the treasure pit at Oak Island. Man what I wouldn't give to find a treasure pit in my back yard. Maybe I should just start digging and see what I find.

The Saturday Night Live Verizon Ad

I bought my wife a new cell phone for Christmas this year. I told her I was a bit jealous because it was a 4G phone. She then asked me what the difference was between 4G and 3G. I told her it was 1G. True story.