tv – Page 2 – Fooyah

October 7 2016October 17 2017

Psych

I recently completed watching the entire run of Psych. That might make it sound like I did a complete binge-watch of eight seasons but I have completed the show over seven years. I watched some on terrestrial TV, I recorded some from ITV4 and I also bought the DVDs when I got to the last four series.

After nearly seven years I have finished Psych. It’s helped me through kids, divorce and down times. Thanks guys. @DuleHill

— Ian Parish (@iparish) October 6, 2016

I have enjoyed the show thoroughly. It is well acted, written and photographed. I consider it a good use of my time. Like many of the TV shows I have loved it mixed developed characters with fun, jokes and seriousness. I even sat on my sofa and laughed out loud on occasions. Dulé Hill and James Roday were perfect in the lead roles and this is the second series I have watched with Dulé Hill, the previous being The West Wing, a show that left me with similar feelings to this one. Anyway, Mr Hill responded to my message:

@iparish 👊🏾 Boom

— Dulé Hill (@DuleHill) October 6, 2016

So this was a nice touch from someone who I assume is a nice person. However, I would also add that I have no wish to meet my heroes as they would all too easily disappoint.

In other news, but not new news, as this happened ages ago I got followed on Twitter by John Forbes Nash. Yes, that John Forbes Nash. I have no idea why he followed me or how he found me on Twitter. I was quite excited by this. I was also very saddened when he died in May 2015.

March 5 2014March 5 2014

Trap Door

Amazon have upgraded their Prime membership [and charge more at the same time]. I think this has something to do with them buying LoveFilm and then rebranding the who shebang. Fair enough.

The streaming video service is now called Prime Instant Video. If you have a Prime subscription it now includes a number of free films and videos over the internet to a device with the right software. My television has the right software and so I can now watch this streaming service using the following devices in my house [if I wanted]:

Television
Tablet PC
PS3
PS4
iPhone
Tablet

It seems ridiculous that so many devices can be used to bring entertainment to me. What a wonderful world.

I’m not sure I’ll spend a lot of time watching streaming video, but if I do I will let you know. My boys, however, will watch this and we found ourselves browsing the free kids’ section over the weekend. The usual kids stuff was there:

Peppa Pig
SpongeBob Squarepants

We also found that the programme Trap Door was available. This was good news for me. I can remember watching it when it first came out. It was, for a while, my favourite programme and I really enjoyed it.

I have just checked and this show first came out in the mid-80s and so this fits in where I thought it did in my life [I was slightly worried that it might have been an early 90s thing, which would mean that I loved the show when I was at university, quite likely but worrying].

This show is worth watching. It’s short. Funny. Well scripted. Apart from the resolution I don’t think it has aged.

Give it a go.

February 22 2013March 5 2013

Too Early (part one)

For too long now I have been an early adopter of new technology [funds dependent]. Sometimes this has caused me issues of new tech surpassing me and then I feel a little left out.

I think the earliest part of trend setting in which I was involved was roller-blading. I know my mum was rather unhappy that I asked for a set of rollerblades (by Bauer) for my 20th birthday. I think she would have preferred that I got an iron or something else sensible. But, I was at university and wasn’t thinking about setting up kit for real-life and houses and things. I practised on the roller-blades during the Easter break from college so I was able to GO|STOP|TURN before I went back to halls. I was one of the first students on rollerblades and one of the first people to rollerblade around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Jason and I would rollerblade around London for an afternoon trying to find the smoothest pavements. It was a good time and I felt as though we were starting something big. In the next few years rollerblading really took off.

In my fourth year at college, a sabbatical year rather than a four year degree, I bought a NICAM Stereo video cassette recorder and linked it up to my new hi-fi amplifier. Watching Star Wars on a 21″ 4:3 CRT television with two hundred watts of sound power blasting out was brilliant and an excellent investment. I remember watching Fry and Laurie on TV and they had a sketch where they played the sound of a telephone ringing. In the early-mid nineties all telephones sounded the same and were plugged into the wall. Whenever they played this effect it sounded as though my phone was ringing! To make the point they put a small picture (now called an icon) in the corner of the television picture whenever they played this sound to save us mere mortals getting up and trying to answer the phone. It was a wonderful piece of television and technology.

Coming up soon in this list of things I-have-bought-before-the-technology-was-mature are HD TV, Speaker docks, wi-fi, mobile phones, pro-logic decoder.

January 29 2013March 11 2014

New Aquisitions

So, it’s been a busy time. I have bought a new TV to replace my 40″ Sony that I bought in the summer of 2006. I don’t know if six years is a good length of time for a TV. I guess so. The problem is that I am an early adopter of technology [see this post here – currently in draft form].

The old TV was HD Ready which, it turns out, is only 720 lines of beautiful picture. It looked deep and gorgeous in HD. But it was time to upgrade. There were just too many TV advances for me to ignore anymore.

I now have an LG 3D TV. I went for 3D because Gran Turismo will output 3D and I like playing that. Do I think that 3D is a good cinema format? No. But for Gran Turismo . . .

Current TV Room Set Up:

Current Equipment:

Television – LG 47LM670T
AV Amplifier – Sony STR-DN1030
BluRay player – Sony BDP-S790
Satelite Decoder – Amstrad Sky HD
Console – Sony PS3 320Gb
Front left and right and passive sub-woofer – Bose Acoustimass Cube
Active sub-woofer – Sony
Centre, SL, SR, SBR, SBL speakers – Sony

When I get the chance I also use a Logitech Driving Force Pro steering wheel.

April 2 2012

Hawaii 5-O Part 2

I still really like watching Hawaii 5-O, see my previous post. The scenery is great, the colour filters used show Hawaii off to the best and the camaraderie between the characters is good. The tech is over the top, but I can actually live with that. There’s a problem now though.
I think they jumped the shark!
The latest episode that I watched had 5-O invade North Korea to rescue their leader. He’d been lured there by a double agent of Wo Fat who is the series’ lead baddy.
Seriously?
A group of rogue coppers and hang-ins fly a Huey (wrong war for that helo) into North Korea across the DMZ (the most heavily armed 100 miles in the world) and not only get there alive but successfully capture their top man and make it back!
For some reason I can cope with them hacking into any database or CCTV stream in the world but invading North Korea really launched them over the cartilaginous hunter with supreme success.
Going to keep watching for the next little while to see if they improve. If not then I have some episodes of Alcatraz recorded and ready to watch. Perhaps that will be better?