Anyone know who this is?

Bet you can't guess. I'll post the answer in a couple of days.

The 4400: Unlocking the Secrets

NBC is airing a special "clips" show of The 4400 this Saturday at 9pm EST. This will be a good refresher of last season, preparing viewers for the season 3 premiere, June 11th. Here is the offical description of the show.

An in-depth look at the sci-fi drama examines its storylines and characters. Also featured: clips from previous episodes and a preview of the third season.

Comcast speed increase this summer

I came across an article over at CNET with some info from the president of Comcast. Coming this summer is a feature called Speed Boost. When you're at your PC, your bandwidth will jump from 6Mbps to 16Mbps. The details on how this will actually work were not given. I don't really care if my bandwidth drops to 1mb when I'm not using my PC. Having 16Mbps of speed is great, but I believe what most people would like to see is a price decrease of the 6Mbps package. Most DSL packages out there are going for $24.95. I'd like to see a similarly priced package from Comcast.

LOST connections

If you've been watching the last season of LOST, you know the writers have been slipping in different relationships/chance meetings of the survivors BEFORE the plane crash. There have been so many connections, someone took the to create the above chart. I consider myself a big fan of LOST and was still surprised by a lot of the lines on the chart. Go here for a larger version of the chart.

While I'm on the subject of LOST, check out this transcript from an online chat about the season finale. Michael Ausiello, Senior Writer and Columnist at TV Guide, answers viewers questions. The chat includes some very interesting info about next season. Also, if anyone figures out what "*o******** **a*" stands for, leave the answer in a comment.

Flying Aston Martin

Last weekend at Mid-Ohio Raceway, the 009 Aston Martion lost control and went airborne. It was determined the car travelled 142 feet in the air! The Wright Bros. first flight was only 120 feet! It's amazing that the car didn't start flipping end over end. Check out the video below.

Build your own camera

The camera at the left is made entirely of paper and you can make one just like it. Simply download the PDF from this website, then print, cut and build your camera. The camera is pinhole is "a camera that uses a very small hole, as if made by a pin instead of a lens, for light to enter and form an image on the film or other light-sensitive medium." Go download it.

M$ fights back

Last week the Xbox 360 hackers released a firmware hack for the DVD drive that allowed "backup" copies to be played on the 360. All you need to do is flash the firmware chip with the hacked code and you're in business. This week, M$ responded by covering the firmware chip in all new 360s with epoxy. Sometimes it pays to get an early system...

Trackball gamepad

Sony should take notes on this unique controller. A company by the name Bodielobus has come up with a new take on the standard PS2 gamepad. They've replaced the right stick with a trackball. The addition of the trackball is said to greatly increase the accuracy in FPS games. Read more about their Reflex controller over at IGN.

12 Free magazines

There is a post over on Slickdeals with links to 12 different free magazine subscriptions. The magazines available are:

Caribbean Travel & Life
Electronic Gaming Monthly
Red Herring
Spa
U.S. News & World Report
WaterSki
Sporting News
The New York Observer
SEED
Hollywood Life
Computer Gaming World
Offical U.S. Playstation Magazine

Click here for the links to signup.

What to watch this summer?

Now that almost all of the fall TV shows have ended and your DVR is almost empty, what is there to watch? Here is a list I compiled of some of the upcoming summer series and their starting dates. If I missed any, let me know.

So You Think You Can Dance (FOX) - May 25th, 8pm
Real World/Road Rules Challenge - Fresh Meat (MTV) - May 29th, 10pm
Last Comic Standing (NBC) - May 30th, 8pm
Rescue Me (FX) - May 30th, 10pm
Inked (A&E) - May 31st, 9pm
Criss Angel Mindfreak (A&E) - May 31st, 10pm
Gameshow Marathon (CBS) - May 31st, 8pm
The Hills (MTV) - May 31st, 10pm
Windfall (NBC) - June 8th, 10pm
Deadwood (HBO) - June 11th, 9pm
Entourage (HBO) - June 11th, 10pm
The 4400 (USA) - June 11th, 9pm
Hell's Kitchen (FOX) - June 12th, 9pm
The Closer (TNT) - June 12th, 9pm
Saved (TNT) - June 12th, 10pm
Tuesday Night Book Club (CBS) - June 13th, 10pm
The Dead Zone (USA) - June 18th, 10pm
Treasure Hunters (NBC) - June 18th, 8pm
America's got Talent (NBC) - June 21st,8pm
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX) - June 29th, 10pm
Rock Star: Supernova (CBS) - July 5th, 8pm
Big Brother 7: All-Stars (CBS) - July 6th, 8pm
Monk (USA) - July 7th, 9pm
Psych (USA) - July 7th, 10pm
Brotherhood (SHO) - July 9th
Nightmares & Dreamscapes (TNT) - July 12th, 9pm
Stargate SG-1 (SciFi) - July 14th, 8pm
Stargate Atlantis (SciFi) - July 14th, 9pm
Eureka (SciFi) - July 18th, 9pm
Weeds (SHO) - August

Lego Pinball Machine

Using Mindstorm robotic Lego kits and more than 20,000 Lego "bricks", Gerrit Bronsveld and Martijn Boogaarts built a full-size pinball machine. It has a working coin slot, functional tilt switch, rotation bumpers, and an automatic ball-kickback mechanism. For more info and a couple more pics, check out this blog.

Warthog becomes reality

Peugeot has developed a concept buggy that is very similar to the famous Warthog from Halo. I doubt the car will ever reach production, but it sure would be a blast to take one for a spin.

The editors of 1UP.com, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World, and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine have placed their votes for the best games at the2006 E3 show. Surprisingly, they Mass Effect beat out Gears of War in the Xbox 360 catagory. Mass Effect is a sci-fi RPG produced by Bioware. On the PC side, Quake Wars was a winner. The last few Quake games didn't thrill me, but this one has my attention. It's a team-based online multi-player game that looks fantastic. Check out this page to see the rest of the winners and runners up.

ABC lineup announced

The all big hitters are back, Desperate Housewives, LOST, Grey's Anatomy, Extreme Makeover, etc. The only cancelled series worth mentioning is Invasion! Looks like all the new sci-fi shows introduced last year (Threshold, Surface, and Invasion) didn't make it out alive. I sure wish the networks would give some shows a chance. They put the show on, slowly build a fan base, then they swing the axe. Read more about ABC's upcoming season at the Futon Critic.

LOST to answer 3 BIG questions

This week's Newsweek has an article where Lost producer Carlton Cuse promises the season finale will answer 3 BIG questions.

1 - Why did the plane crash?

2 - What happens if the button isn't pushed?

3 - What's going on with Michael and Walt?

Knowing the answers to those 3 questions will be nice, but I'd rather have some questions from season 1 answered. Where did the polar bear come from? What were those strange, Godzilla-like noises coming from the jungle in the pilot? What is the mysterious black smoke? Somehow I feel like we'll never know the answers to those and many other similar questions...

NBC's fall schedule

The idiots at NBC have done it again. They've axed a bunch of good shows, while renewing the same old crap. Among the cuts were Surface, E-Ring, Four Kings, Heist and Conviction. Some of the crap returning is Deal or No Deal, The Apprentice and half-a-dozen versions of Law and Order. A few of my favorites will be returning though. My Name is Earl, The Office, Scrubs, and Las Vegas all live to see another season. For more info on the NBC Upfronts, check out tvsquad's posting.

BBC mistakes cabbie for Net Expert

This guy appeared at the front desk of the BBC studio. Someone assumed he was the net expert and ushered him directly into the studio, no questions asked. It's only necessary to watch the first 15 seconds of this video. The stunned look on this guy's face as the reporter introduces him as an expert is priceless.

Firmware hack for 360 released

There is a large post over at Xbox-Scene News about the release of a firmware hack. Basically, by loading a new firmware into your 360's DVD drive, it will allow you to play patched copies of Xbox 360 games. Of course, you have to remove your 360's DVD drive, thus voiding the warranty. I'm sure it will just be a matter of time until M$ releases an update through LIVE to squash this hack, but as of now, people are reporting they're able to play backups over LIVE.

PS3 Interface

Rescue Me 2.5

Season 3 of Rescue Me is scheduled to start May 30th. To prepare you for the upcoming season, FX Network has released a 14 minute short comedy starring the cast of the show. Here is the description of the episode, "The night before receiving a commendation for bravery from the mayor, Tommy, Franco, Lou, Sean and Mike are anything but brave when they are stalked by a strange animal in the firehouse. " It starts off a little slow, but had me laughing out loud by the end! Check it out here.

Xbox Live Update End of May

According to planetxbox360.com, Microsoft is planning to update Xbox Live at the end of May. The update is rumored to include background downloading! YEAH! It will include a download manager for up to 6 parallel downloads in the background. There are supposed to be a lot more features added, but they are being kept secret for now.

Mvix Multimedia Player

This little device is slick. Plug it into your PC (USB 2.0) and load it with content. It can read mp3, wav, divx, xvid, vob, and jpg. Once you have it loaded, move it over to your home entertainment center and let the fun begin. You can playback any of the media to your TV. It will even broadcast audio through an FM transmitter, allowing you to listen to your mp3's through a standard radio. Priced at $250( 3.5" hard drive not included), it will make a great addition to your home theater. Check out more pics and specs on the Mvixusa website.

Battlestar Galacticsimpons

Artist Dylan Meconis drew a bunch of sketches portraying all the main players from Battlestar Galactica. The picture at the right is Six and Baltar. After the jump, the rest are all there. Admiral Adama, President Roslin and even Boomer. No word on an actual episode in the works, but it would be cool to see.

Nintendo's Wii promo movie from E3

I'm going to let this video clip speak for itself. Leave a comment and let me know what you think about Nintendo's "Wii 'mote"

Sony upgrades pad for PS3

A quick glance at the new redesigned PS3 controller and you should see a few differences. There are now 4 LED lights to signify the player number. A circular "guide" button in the middle of the controller, similar to the 360's "Live" button. The lower shoulder button are now more trigger like(analog), also like the 360's. The biggest external difference is no cable, the new controller uses Bluetooth to communicate with the console. The little USB port on the back can be used to recharge the batteries. Now for the inside, where the most surprising changes were made. Gone is force feedback or "Dualshock" as Sony used to refer to it. This is most likely due to the patent lawsuit Sony lost few months ago. Sony claims they removed feedback to include a "Wii" feature. I guess they got tired of stealing ideas from M$ and decided to borrow one from Nintendo. The new controller includes motion sensors for the X-Y-Z, pitch, roll, yaw and lateral detection. You'd think for $499 they could come up with at least one original idea for their controller.

Have you met Ted?

Ted is short for Torrent Episode Downloader. You can use Ted in conjunction with almost any bittorrent program. Just install Ted, choose a few shows from the pre-configured list and the program will download the latest torrents of those shows. Ted can even be configured to download an entire season of a show. Lifehacker has a simple tutorial online to help you get everything configured. While reading about Ted, I also came across another cool site called CAT. CAT stands Calendar for TV. It's a monthly calendar of all the new TV shows. Hover over a specific date to get a list of each shows episode number. Click on a day to see show summaries. This comes in real handy when looking for a particular episode on the torrent sites.

Joystiq's Xbox 360 E3 coverage

The big news out of the Microsoft camp is that they've made a deal with Rockstar to release Grand Theft Auto IV simultaneously with the PS3. Additional content will be delivered through Xbox Live in episodic format. They also released trailers for many of their big upcoming games on Live. Gears of War, Crackdown, Forza Motorsport 2, Dead Rising and many, many more. I've been downloading trailers all night from Live. My poor 20gb 360 hard drive is busting at the seems.

M$ also announced a new service called Live Anywhere. One gamer tag that is accessable from a 360, PC or cell phone. Buy the game Zuma once, it's available to you on all 3 platforms. PC and 360 users will be able to compete against each other in games. Sounds very impressive if M$ can pull it off. Read more of Joystiq's coverage here.

Brayden Souder

Our friends, Loren and Tiffany Souder just had a baby boy! Brayden was born May 8, 2006 and weighs 7 lbs. 12 oz. Congratulations to them!

Halo 3 announced!

In a press conference today, M$ announced that Halo 3 is indeed in the works. A 3 minute trailer was shown that had mouths dropping. If you have Xbox Live, you can download the trailer or view it on the xbox.com website. No release date was given, but the trailer states, "Finish the Fight - 2007". So I guess that means it won't be finished in time to launch against the PS3 in November.

Joystiq's PS3 E3 coverage

Engadget and Joystiq have team up to cover the Sony PS3 E3 event tonight. They've probably posted 30+ photos already along with a running commentary. The screenshot above is of Gran Turismo HD, running at 1080p resolutions. From the looks of the pics, it appears Sony will have quiet the lineup for their upcoming console. Click here to read more.

Update - at the end of the show, Sony reveals the price of the PS3. In North America: PS3 with 20GB for $499, 60GB for $599.

Sci Fi Pulse Debuts May 8th

The Sci Fi channel is starting their own broadband channel called Pulse. The new "channel" will feature complete episodes of select Sci Fi series, behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, etc. They also will be offering potential pilot episodes of new series online. For more info, read the press release.

Electric Sheep update

If you read my post last month, you might recognize the screenshot above. It was generated using the cool screensaver called Electric Sheep. There is a new version of ES that uses bittorrent to distribute the sheep, which is much more efficient than the old server based method. Also, the new install allows you to specify where the cache folder is located. A quick check of my old cache folder and I discovered 5 GBs of sheep!

The Ultimate Jell-O Shot

Every party needs a good tray of Jell-O shots. It's easy, mix up a batch of Jell-O, add a little vodka, and chill. The trick is to add the maximum amount of vodka, without effecting the Jell-O and causing it not to gel. But how much vodka is too much? Read about this guy's experiment to perfect the formula and make The Ultimate Jell-O Shot.

May Sweeps 2006 Schedule

This list is way too long to post, so just click here.

Xbox Live Brings E3 Home

First off, everyone with an Xbox 360 will get Xbox Live Gold access, all week. Starting Monday, you'll also get lots of content on Xbox Live Marketplace, including the first-ever Gears of War high-definition game trailer, and the playable demo of Capcom's Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. Over 60 pieces of new downloadable content will be available including:

• -Playable game demos and/or trailers from highly anticipated titles like:
• -Crackdown (Microsoft Game Studios)
• -Dead or Alive : Xtreme 2 (Tecmo)
• -The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle Earth II (EA Los Angeles)
• -Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Capcom)
• -Moto GP '06 (THQ)-Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega)
• -Splinter Cell Double Agent (Ubisoft)
• -Test Drive Unlimited (Atari)
• -Viva Pinata (Microsoft Game Studios)
• -Plus a flood of HD trailers from games that have yet to be announced
• -Call of Duty2 - New Multiplayer Map Packs (Activision)
• -The release of UNO on Xbox Live Arcade
• -Game with Fame celebrity gaming sessions with stars like Jenny McCarthy, Method Man and Panic Channel (Featuring Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins, Chris Chaney and Steve Isaacs).
• -Play and Win contests with the latest Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade titles
• -Exclusive high-definition blockbuster movie trailer downloads
• -Limited edition E3 Gamerpics and Themes
• -A Backstage Pass to see developers preparing for E3

Mobile Drive-In Theater

This has to be the coolest thing I've come across in awhile. This guy named Bryan Kennedy mounted a projector onto his SUV, turning it into a mobile drive-in. Audio is brodcast over the FM band, so that other cars can tune in. You can read more about his setup here. Once you have everything installed, all you need is a dark parking lot with a big wall and a few friends.