PlasmaSplasm

The word “hate” comes up often in the following article. Kids, can you find them all?

I’ve already addressed in a previous post how much I hate the HR20700 DirecTV Plus HD DVR (English translation: DirecTV’s shitty attempt at a Tivo). I hate that the remote sometimes thinks you have not pressed the button (no matter how hard you jammed your thumb on that fucker), and other times thinks you have pressed it twice. I hate that my DirecTV service was glitchy, causing both images and sound to skip like a scratched DVD. I hate that I had to pay DirecTV extra money to come over and “fix” it (it only happens 10% of the time, now, instead of 100%). I hate that I paid $300 for the HR20700 only to discover later that it doesn’t really belong to me. This is all after waiting 3 months for DirecTV to even bother hooking up my HD satellite.

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I am about to explain why you are both assholes.

Yesterday, a PS3 was added to the Splasm family. I’ve talked a hearty amount of shit about the PS3 since its disastrous launch, but having been able to play one last weekend, I was swayed. It’s actually pretty fun. The $100 price cut helped, too.

While in Best Buy, I realized I was going to need to buy peripherals to make this thing look good on the TV. I asked an employee where I could find an HDMI cable (for the less nerdy, HDMI cables make images on your hi-def TV look the best). He motioned to the wall by the PS3 games and said, “There are cheap ones there for $60, but you’ll probably want the good ones”. I looked at the empty rack where the good ones usually sit and saw a price tag of $100. Thinking there must be a mistake, I walked over to the actual HDMI cable aisle in the TV section and could only find more expensive cables ($150). Fuck this. I called my Sony-employed friend who told me to buy cheap ones ($40) at Radio Shack because it doesn’t matter which HDMI cables you have, they all work fine. I still felt discomfort at the mounting expenses of the PS3. I had hoped to also buy Planet Earth on Blu-Ray ($100) and Kingdom of Heaven ($30-$40). Baby steps, I thought, and just bought the PS3 without the extra cable. I was resigned to the fact that there must be some costly materials in these cables for them to be so expensive.

This morning, I did some research. A trip to the Monster Cable website reveals an “HDMI Education Center”, and if they open a real one it will probably be in a creation museum.
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Last night held another Plasmasplasm field trip, but, this time, it was a girls’ night out! The LA Film Festival is in full swing and there are lots of exciting things to see. But the one thing that I absolutely could not, would not miss was the Buffy musical sing-a-long!

Formally called “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More With Singing” (oh, you clever Buffy fans!), it was quite the extravaganza. It was a more than sold-out show, with a stand-by line stretching down the street (poor souls). The Majestic Crest was a great venue for the show. It’s a very classic, now-retro theater in the art deco style, complete with flashing neon marquee, gold paneling, and houses just one screen. The auditorium is completely surrounded by a mural of old timey LA, set off by black light, and the ceiling is lit by stars (all of which were left on during the show).

Oh, those neon lights!

Though not quite as far gone as those people we saw at the Star Wars Celebration, people were definitely excited for this. I could hear the woman behind me giving the “last time on Buffy” treatment to her (supportive) boyfriend. But this this is LA, right? Something is always going on; this couldn’t possibly be the most exciting thing going on? As far as we were concerned, it was the only thing going on.

Looking down Westwood Blvd., you can see the bright lights of the Transformers premiere. Apparently, there was a giant Optimus Prime in the street, or something.

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Today was a very exciting day for the Splasm. You see, this is the year of Star Wars Celebration IV and we were very lucky that they chose Los Angeles for the huge event. I don’t say this because I’m a huge Star Wars nerd (after today, I can say with great confidence that I merely fall into the moderate range of Star Wars nerds), but it played host to a rather important event to us. The Star Wars Fan Film Challenge awards show!

As Mike posted below, the boys (Mike, Ces and Tyler) had made a film called “Incident at Toshi Station” and entered it into this contest. (If you haven’t seen it yet, shame on you, but check it out here.) It’s quite a funny little film and still makes me laugh!

Unfortunately, Mike and Ces were unable to attend, so it was up to me, Tyler and my little sister Olivia to represent.

Tyler came prepared wearing one of his many “nerd” shirts. I wonder where he could have gotten such a cool shirt!

Liv and I came first and did some exploring on our own. I have to say, we were prepared for a major geek-fest, but were pleasantly/disappointingly suprised when most people seemed pretty normal.

Here are some “normal” people.

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We went into the zoo through what used to be a long, winding water way. Now just huge rocks and rusted pipes.

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