(no subject)
Apr. 17th, 2019 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Having bizarre television issues. I came home from work yesterday to discover there was no audio on my tv. My television is admittedly more than 10 years old. It's... Polariod FlM 323 B- LCD TV -- although I think it is more a 25 inch than 32 inch. I called Optimum, and we tried literally everything over the phone. They set up a technician to come out. I went online, and discovered others had similar issues -- so tried everything they suggested. Discovered in the process that the headjack worked -- there was audio with ear phones or speakers plugged into the headphone jack. Weird. Not sure if it is the HDMI cable -- because I unplugged it and replugged it and even switched the Fire Stick HDMI with the cable HDMI.
It has been telling me that there is an issue with the HDMI.
Discussed with a co-worker today, who is an expert and has recalibrated television sets -- also used to set up AV rooms, he gave me his computer speakers -- which he was no longer using. Free of charge. (Saved me a trip to Best Buy to hunt for some small computer speakers that would fit on my console and wouldn't block the tv. He also advised that I keep my appointment with the Optimum Technician on Thursday, who might be able to replace the HDMI cable and fix it. Because it probably is the HDMI cable cord. He also advised that I buy a new tv -- a TCL 6 series - 55 inch Roko.
(I have an Amazon Fire Stick not Roku, but apparently you can use the Amazon Fire Stick with it...and Roku has the same channels). He said it was the best bang for anything under $600. And I could buy it over the weekend, most likely on sale.
Sigh. I hate buying things. This is why I have a tv that I bought in 2006, and I'm procrastinating buying new furniture. I'm not a shopper (except where books are concerned...I have more books than I can ever possibly read in one lifetime. Seriously, if it weren't for Amazon telling me I'd already bought some of these books, I'd have accidentally bought them twice.)
2. Books
I'm reading a historical romance by Laura Kinsale, which I keep forgetting the name of. I think it is Moonbeam something or other. The title doesn't fit the book, so I keep forgetting it. Kinsale is an odd romance writer -- her characters can often be on the abrasive side, and I often want to smack her heroines upside the head. They also always have various physical and emotional disorders. In this book, the hero stuttered as a child and is terrified of heights, he also likes everything neat and orderly, while the heroine is an inventor, flakely, somewhat obsessive/compulsive and a touch on the autistic side of the fence. She's wickedly bright about certain things, and utterly stupid about others -- and doesn't have a wit of common sense or much empathy for those around her. She's invented a speaking box that the hero needs her to perfect to beat the French, and he also has to protect her from the French, who have tried to kidnap her once already. Meanwhile, she's far more interested in being the first to invent an aviation device that enables humans to fly. The hero is terrified of the device and doesn't want her to work on it or use it. Much chaos ensues.
There is a point in the book -- where the hero sort of seduces her. She's inadvertently given him a potent aphrodiasac and he can't keep his hands off her. She likes it so goes along with it. Some readers saw it as rape, and I thought, eh, no -- he was the one who was drugged by an absent-minded inventor. A lot of reviewers don't think critically.
Next up...probably not a romance, I'm getting burned out.
3. Knackered. Slept horribly last night, due to spending far too much time trying to fix stupid television set. And figuring out what to do about it. I have this sinking feeling Optimum is going to charge me $80 for their visit on Thursday, damn them.
But I'm afraid to cancel it -- in case they have an easy solution that could mean delaying trying to find a new tv.
Also I need to rearrange the apartment...and get rid of stuff.
As a result of being knackered, I slept walked through work.
4. X-men Marvel Movies...and television series?
While the MCU Avengers verse in the movies has been well-plotted, devised, and received, not so true of the X-men verse (as portrayed by Fox). Fox, starting with the animated series in the 90s, and straight through the filmverse, has been uneven.
There are about two excellent films, and two decent ones, the rest are abysmal. Television wise? One good series. That's it. One. Out of three animated series, and three live action -- there's only one good one.
What are the good X-men movies and series?
Movies
Logan and X-men: Days of Future Past.
Decent? X-men United and X-men First Class
I'd skip over everything else.
The colossal mistake that the X-men films made was focusing on the wrong characters. The core characters are Storm, Cyclops, Jean, Hank, Havoc, Lorna, Iceman, Angel, Kitty, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Gambit, Bishop, Cable and Wolverine. With Charles Xavier in more of a mentor role, and Magneto and Mystique complicated villains.
The movies focused mainly on Wolverine (because of Hugh Jackman's amazing charisma), Professor X (Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy), Magneto (Ian McKellan and Michael Fassbender) and Mystique ( Jennifer Lawrence). Everyone else sort of gets short shift.
The leader of the X-men and the main character, Cyclops, is completely changed and sidelined. Wolverine takes center stage -- and as a result, we don't get any of the strong female characters.
The franchise as a result becomes very...old white guy centric. Hence the reason it never pulled in the big bucks. Even Dark Phoenix -- from the previews, appears to focus more on Professor X and Magneto (who wasn't even in the original story) than on the others, specifically Scott and Jean who lay at the center of the arc. Hence the reason, Dark Phoenix isn't trending well. That and the fact that it appears they re-filmed and re-edited it in order to cram three movies worth of story into a two and half hour film. And Marvel will most likely reboot and do their own version in their own movies. And...the film bares little to no resemblance to the source material or original characters -- which is why the X-men films have turned off a lot of X-men comics fans.
Television
The animated series are even worse. I find them to be unwatchable for the most part.
Scott Summers makes no sense, they completely re-wrote the character -- he doesn't resemble the comics at all in the animated version. So fans of the animated version understandably hate him -- but they don't know the character just some animator's take on it. Jean, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Gambit, etc don't come out much better.
Good news is the animated version is harder to find now and we can ignore it.
The only good television version of the X-men is Legion, which does bare strong resemblance to the source material. The Gifted was boring. Generation X was a joke.
So, I'm hoping now that Disney (who owns Marvel) has acquired all of Fox's properties, this could change. Disney did a good job with the MCU Avengers verse.
It has been telling me that there is an issue with the HDMI.
Discussed with a co-worker today, who is an expert and has recalibrated television sets -- also used to set up AV rooms, he gave me his computer speakers -- which he was no longer using. Free of charge. (Saved me a trip to Best Buy to hunt for some small computer speakers that would fit on my console and wouldn't block the tv. He also advised that I keep my appointment with the Optimum Technician on Thursday, who might be able to replace the HDMI cable and fix it. Because it probably is the HDMI cable cord. He also advised that I buy a new tv -- a TCL 6 series - 55 inch Roko.
(I have an Amazon Fire Stick not Roku, but apparently you can use the Amazon Fire Stick with it...and Roku has the same channels). He said it was the best bang for anything under $600. And I could buy it over the weekend, most likely on sale.
Sigh. I hate buying things. This is why I have a tv that I bought in 2006, and I'm procrastinating buying new furniture. I'm not a shopper (except where books are concerned...I have more books than I can ever possibly read in one lifetime. Seriously, if it weren't for Amazon telling me I'd already bought some of these books, I'd have accidentally bought them twice.)
2. Books
I'm reading a historical romance by Laura Kinsale, which I keep forgetting the name of. I think it is Moonbeam something or other. The title doesn't fit the book, so I keep forgetting it. Kinsale is an odd romance writer -- her characters can often be on the abrasive side, and I often want to smack her heroines upside the head. They also always have various physical and emotional disorders. In this book, the hero stuttered as a child and is terrified of heights, he also likes everything neat and orderly, while the heroine is an inventor, flakely, somewhat obsessive/compulsive and a touch on the autistic side of the fence. She's wickedly bright about certain things, and utterly stupid about others -- and doesn't have a wit of common sense or much empathy for those around her. She's invented a speaking box that the hero needs her to perfect to beat the French, and he also has to protect her from the French, who have tried to kidnap her once already. Meanwhile, she's far more interested in being the first to invent an aviation device that enables humans to fly. The hero is terrified of the device and doesn't want her to work on it or use it. Much chaos ensues.
There is a point in the book -- where the hero sort of seduces her. She's inadvertently given him a potent aphrodiasac and he can't keep his hands off her. She likes it so goes along with it. Some readers saw it as rape, and I thought, eh, no -- he was the one who was drugged by an absent-minded inventor. A lot of reviewers don't think critically.
Next up...probably not a romance, I'm getting burned out.
3. Knackered. Slept horribly last night, due to spending far too much time trying to fix stupid television set. And figuring out what to do about it. I have this sinking feeling Optimum is going to charge me $80 for their visit on Thursday, damn them.
But I'm afraid to cancel it -- in case they have an easy solution that could mean delaying trying to find a new tv.
Also I need to rearrange the apartment...and get rid of stuff.
As a result of being knackered, I slept walked through work.
4. X-men Marvel Movies...and television series?
While the MCU Avengers verse in the movies has been well-plotted, devised, and received, not so true of the X-men verse (as portrayed by Fox). Fox, starting with the animated series in the 90s, and straight through the filmverse, has been uneven.
There are about two excellent films, and two decent ones, the rest are abysmal. Television wise? One good series. That's it. One. Out of three animated series, and three live action -- there's only one good one.
What are the good X-men movies and series?
Movies
Logan and X-men: Days of Future Past.
Decent? X-men United and X-men First Class
I'd skip over everything else.
The colossal mistake that the X-men films made was focusing on the wrong characters. The core characters are Storm, Cyclops, Jean, Hank, Havoc, Lorna, Iceman, Angel, Kitty, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Gambit, Bishop, Cable and Wolverine. With Charles Xavier in more of a mentor role, and Magneto and Mystique complicated villains.
The movies focused mainly on Wolverine (because of Hugh Jackman's amazing charisma), Professor X (Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy), Magneto (Ian McKellan and Michael Fassbender) and Mystique ( Jennifer Lawrence). Everyone else sort of gets short shift.
The leader of the X-men and the main character, Cyclops, is completely changed and sidelined. Wolverine takes center stage -- and as a result, we don't get any of the strong female characters.
The franchise as a result becomes very...old white guy centric. Hence the reason it never pulled in the big bucks. Even Dark Phoenix -- from the previews, appears to focus more on Professor X and Magneto (who wasn't even in the original story) than on the others, specifically Scott and Jean who lay at the center of the arc. Hence the reason, Dark Phoenix isn't trending well. That and the fact that it appears they re-filmed and re-edited it in order to cram three movies worth of story into a two and half hour film. And Marvel will most likely reboot and do their own version in their own movies. And...the film bares little to no resemblance to the source material or original characters -- which is why the X-men films have turned off a lot of X-men comics fans.
Television
The animated series are even worse. I find them to be unwatchable for the most part.
Scott Summers makes no sense, they completely re-wrote the character -- he doesn't resemble the comics at all in the animated version. So fans of the animated version understandably hate him -- but they don't know the character just some animator's take on it. Jean, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Gambit, etc don't come out much better.
Good news is the animated version is harder to find now and we can ignore it.
The only good television version of the X-men is Legion, which does bare strong resemblance to the source material. The Gifted was boring. Generation X was a joke.
So, I'm hoping now that Disney (who owns Marvel) has acquired all of Fox's properties, this could change. Disney did a good job with the MCU Avengers verse.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-20 03:39 am (UTC)The problem is the constant updating of software. Eventually the hardware and software don't mesh and you need to buy a new system entirely.
Even TV's. Everyone told me good luck getting one that will last longer than the current tv. And the best buy guy told me that my current probably had better sound -- I told him considering the sound went out and I had to buy external speakers to get any...
Best Buy wasn't very helpful. They looked bored and annoyed that they had to help me.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-21 03:38 pm (UTC)Exactly.
told him considering the sound went out and I had to buy external speakers to get any...
I find it absolutely amazing that TV's have basically offshored their audio responsibilities to sound bars and speakers. When I was shopping for our newer TV about 2 years ago, I was raising my eyebrows at the repeated suggestions in reviews that I get an extra device to hear my own TV properly.
I did not and we've had no problems with the audio -- it's not that big a space. However our older TV did clearly lose one side of the audio a few years in. But we never did anything about it because we still had enough audio.
That's too bad about the Best Buy. So much depends on the particular people you get. (I've had quite good experiences there). I noticed that when going to the post office yesterday. There used to be at least one guy there who was not just friendly but very chatty (too chatty, really) and generally speaking there was nothing about the location which played into stereotypes about postal workers.
But yesterday there were two people at the counter who clearly resented being there on a Saturday and it also took rather a long time to get my package sent.