theTodd.com

Entertainment Quantified

May 13, 2023 - General

The Problem with Experts

Today I was looking for a coffee grinder. I wanted something that looked stylish on the counter and was really good at what it does. A friend of mine Tweeted that for Mothers Day she got this one that was at the top of my list. I’m not naming it simply because the name of that grinder doesn’t matter in this story. I decided to get serious about buying this $345 grinder.

Feb 22, 2023 - Music Hardware Speakers

KEF LSX Speakers Take Two

My beloved KEF LSX Speakers are dead. A little under two years ago I bought the KEF LSX Speakers and I absolutely loved them. Using them primarily for listening to music and computer speakers they were amazing. Perfect size. Awesome sound. Lots of connectivity. Absolutely perfect. Until one day a couple weeks ago they just stopped right in the middle of a meeting. The main speaker had a red blinking light on it.

May 19, 2022 - music vinyl

Wicked Sensation

Lynch Mob - Wicked Sensation About a year and a half ago I wrote about the re-imagined Lynch Mob - Wicked Sensation album that came out. Recently I’ve been missing the original so I bought a copy of it from Amazon on vinyl. It sounds great and brings back all that nostalgia that I talk about from time to time. Listening to it on vinyl adds another layer of nostalgia to the whole experience.

May 23, 2021 - Music Lossless

Lossless Music

Fourteen years ago I wrote a post on Director’s Intent. In it I tried to express that director’s have a method to their madness in showing film grain in their movies. Give it a read if you haven’t, but replace HD-DVD with Bluray. So what does this have to do with music? Well Now Apple Music and Spotify are coming out with lossless music. This is probably to combat Amazon Music, Tidal, and Qobuz.

Mar 14, 2021 - music hardware speakers

KEF LSX Speakers

KEF LSX Speakers in Green I’ve been getting into stereo systems lately watching YouTube videos from Andrew Robinson and John Darko. This started because I really like their approach to reviews and I wanted to emulate that but I got hooked on the content and thought, “Yeah I can do that too.” So I went out and bought a pair of KEF LSX speakers to enhance my computer setup.

Feb 6, 2021 - music

Foo Fighters - Medicine at Midnight

Foo Fighters - Medicine at Midnight Foo Fighters quickly became one of my favorite artists way back in college, and I’ve been anxious to get my ears on every new bit of music they produce. David Grohl is by far one of the most talented musicians alive today. I know that Foo Fighters is more than just him, but back in the day he wrote the entire first album by himself.

Sep 11, 2020 - music

Lynch Mob - Wicked Sensation

Lynch Mob - Wicked Sensation In my last blog post I talked about nostalgia and how good it is. Well, another bit of nostalgia came up this week with the reimagining of one of my all time favorite albums being released. This is Lynch Mob’s Wicked Sensation (reimagined). They re-recorded all the songs from the original in a different style. It’s not heavier or looser, it’s just got a different punch to it.

Aug 28, 2020 - film

Bill & Ted Face the Music

Bill & Ted Face the Music Nostalgia is a good thing. It helps us remember the past and brings us to happy places when we are in a down place. That’s what movies do for me. I like nothing better than to sit back and enjoy a movie without having to think too much. These two characters, Bill and Ted, are iconic and engrained in our history.

May 8, 2020 - TV

Upload

Upload Upload is a 10 episode show on Amazon. It is a futuristic story about the afterlife. But it’s more than that. It’s a love story mixed with a murder mystery. The story centers around Nathan Brown’s afterlife. Nathan, a software engineer working on a free version of this afterlife, gets killed in a self-driving car accident. Rushed to the hospital he has to make a quick decision on if he should be Uploaded to the digital afterlife, or risk losing it all and try to be revived.

May 3, 2020 - TV

The Good Place

The Good Place The Good Place is a show about the afterlife. Now before we go on we should briefly talk about religion. Religion is a tricky subject. What one person believes is different than what another person believes. This is so true that wars from the beginning of time have been fought over it. This show doesn’t talk about religion. In fact I don’t recall a single mention of the word “God” in the whole thing.

Feb 28, 2020 - TV

Altered Carbon

Season two is here. This is a cyber punk thriller/murder mystery set in the far future where consciousness is stored in a stack and the data can be sent far and wide across the galaxy. Takeshi Kovacs is back, and better than ever. His old sleeve (what they call bodies in this crazy Universe) was played by Joel Kinnaman, Ed Baldwin on For All Mankind. This time it’s played by Anthony Mackie, Falcon in Avengers.

Feb 24, 2020 - Science Space

HR MacMillan Space Centre

This weekend I went to Vancouver B.C. One of the attractions that I went to was the HR MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver. I enjoyed walking through their attractions and went to a live show and the planetarium. If this had been the mid-eighties this would have been an amazing time. However, technology has moved on in the past 35 years, but this place hasn’t. The main attraction area hasn’t been updated in a long time.

Feb 15, 2020 - Film

Zombieland Double Tap

Zombieland: Double Tap Zombieland was a great and funny movie. It was unexpected and the way they interjected the “rules” was really neat. Having said that, I’m thinking that an hour and a half in Zombieland was enough. However, they decided to make a sequel and this movie was a little over the top. Was it funny? Yes. Was it good? I guess it was.

Feb 10, 2020 - Film

Dubbed vs Subtitles

A long time ago I wrote a post on High Definition and Director’s Intent. I mention this because lately, namely after Parasite won so many Oscars, people have been having an argument over what is better: Dubbed or Subtitled. I feel that the answer comes from the same place that High Definition and Director’s Intent came from: What is the director’s intent? The last movie that I watched for LucasFilms THX was Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away.

Feb 9, 2020 - TV Apple TV+

Mythic Quest

Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet Apple TV+ is relatively new. It only started in November. This February we saw a new show called Mythic Quest. From the outside it appears to be Apple’s answer to Silicon Valley, but watching the first episode I can’t help but think it’s closer to The IT Crowd than it is to Silicon Valley. What I mean is that it’s a comedy that tries to make fun of the gaming industry.

Feb 8, 2020 - Film

Knives Out

Knives Out Rian Johnson, better known for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, directed this who-dun-it mystery murder. This movie stars Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Don Johnson. As you might expect from a cast as bright as this, the movie is really good. It’s the story of a patriarch who gets murdered on his 85th birthday. Daniel Craig, a private investigator, is hired by some unknown person to investigate the murder.

Feb 6, 2020 - Film

Ad Astra

Ad-Astra Sci-Fi? Ad Astra is a movie about a man haunted by his past. Specifically his relationship with a father that left when he was younger. The man is played by Brad Pitt and the dad is played by Tommy Lee Jones. Truly an amazing cast. Now, the fact that all of this takes place in space is just a setting. That doesn’t make this Sci-Fi, in fact it’s closer to Space Opera.

Feb 3, 2020 - Film

The Girl in the Spider's Web

The Girl in the Spider's Web What is it? Lisbeth Salander is back, but this time starring the Queen… er… Claire Foy. This is the third Lisbeth in this series. Granted this movie is only related to the rest of the series by the characters themselves. The original author of the books died and this is the first book with a new author. What’s it about?

Feb 1, 2020 - TV

Star Trek Picard

Star Trek: Picard Nostalgia is Good I have fond memories of watching Star Trek the Next Generation growing up. I was never a Trekkie per say, but I did enjoy watching it every week. So when I heard that they were putting the band back together, so to speak, I was intrigued. 30 years later, Picard is that nostalgia come home to rest in my adulthood.

Jan 31, 2020 - Film

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

What Can I Say? What can I say? I like these kind of comedy romps. This movie follows along in the footsteps of the first Jay and Silent Bob movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. In this one they find out that a movie studio owns the rights to their name and they decide to go to Hollywood to ruin the movie so it doesn’t get made. Or something like that.

Jan 29, 2020 - Film

Joker

The Oscars are coming up soon. One movie from last year was nominated for 11 Academy Awards including best picture. That movie is Joker. I didn’t want to see it because really, how many Batman movies can there be? This one is different. Sure it takes place in Gotham City, and the Waynes are in it and you end up seeing Bruce’s parents shot to death right infront of him… oh wait, was that a spoiler?

Jan 28, 2020 - Food

Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Cherry Energy

Coca-Cola has a new line of energy drinks out now. I’ve seen the influencers on YouTube talking about how great it is, but how good is it really? I found them at my local Safeway and bought one to try. This is the Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Cherry Energy drink (pictured below). I’m drinking it warm because I’m impatient and I need some energy now. It’s good, but it definitely has the energy drink taste to it.

Aug 22, 2013 - Fun

Square Foot Garden Part 3

It may be a little hard to see, but look for the little green spots in the dirt. We have seedlings! Broccoli seedlings