Listen To Your Friends Already

[fj]

So bitty posted that Riverworld sucked. Thanks to the TiVo I loose valuable chances to let my guiding TV gods allow bad TV to pass me by, thanks to the new Series 2 TiVo box I now barely have the chance to let crapfests expire.

But I love Alex Projas so much. It is too bad his films made no big money, because they were so beautiful. And not even a bigger budget could have saved this -- the script was just a writer wanking about getting the chance to meet all these huge names in history. Kinda like everyone who regresses into past lives was Cleopatra, never accountant no. 7 who dies of aggravated heartburn and was barely remembered by his daughter.

Were the books this masturbatory? This flat?

All these people desperatly trying to survive after they have already died. What idiocy. Like all of them have so much vested in living, isolated, surrounded by maniacs, with no loved ones. I can sometimes barely keep suicidal ideation to normal levels when my mind is screeching with pressure, and I am surrounded by comfort and love. You think if I was resurrected from my death in some crummy stone-age palisades to slavery I'd be like all needy for another sucky day?

In other news, we now have an original TiVo box left over. I think I should post it at bitty and bubblebabble for a month with service to my name, and see if they like it. You guys interested?

Comments

[drevilmoo.livejournal.com]

I read the books in high school, but they weren't so "good" that I've ever bothered to pick them up again. I had gotten a warning from stealthpup that the movie sucked so I didn't bother trying to catch it again.

TiVo has spoiled you.

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

Riverworld reminded me a lot of Gladiator, which doesn't say much for either film.

hm...

[arfur]

...can these gadgets tune to digital cable channels? We've got Cablevision MediaOne AT&T Broadband Comcast Cable, with a Motorola somethingorother digital cable box. It has a serial port marked DATA at the back of it...?

and, once I do that, can one get the lifetime subscription independently of the TiVO box?

-a, considering this perhaps too seriously...

Re: hm...

[fj.livejournal.com]

The TiVo is hooked up between the cable-box and the TV. In the simplest case that means the antenna-out gets connected into the TiVo, and the TiVo antenna-out into the TV. An IR blaster is hooked up to the remote-control sensor of the cable box, and then we teach the TiVo which box it is from the hundreds of pre-programmed cable-boxes, cable listings. And TV remotes.

If you have single-trunk cable, this should work. And yes, once can get lifetime service at any time of having the box.

Re: hm...

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Two notes:

1. If you have digital cable, you actually can discard the IR blaster: you connect a cable from the serial port on the TiVo to the "data" port on the cable box, and the TiVo switches channels over that.

2. Be aware that the "lifetime subscription" is for the lifetime of that TiVo unit. You can't transfer it to a new TiVo if yours dies or if you feel like upgrading to a Series 2 model. (That said, if you're comfortable with a bit of DIY electronics repair, it's still not a bad deal -- the only things likely to die on a TiVo are the power supply and the hard drives, both of which are off-the-shelf parts, and the subscription is tied to a serial number burned into an EEPROM, not anything that's written onto the drive.)

(What, me, a fanatical tivohead?)

[cerulean67.livejournal.com]

In other news, we now have an original TiVo box left over. I think I should post it at bitty and bubblebabble for a month with service to my name, and see if they like it.

Recruit! Recruit! Muahaha!! ;)

Riverworld

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

My memory of the books is that yes, they pretty much sucked. Semi-interesting premise, and the first one was mildly diverting, but it basically fell apart after that.

I didn't bother trying to even tivo the show. I learned my lesson with the SciFi channel when I tried to watch their godawful adaptation of "Dune" two years ago. (I swear to god that Hayden Christensen in "Attack of the Killer Tomatos Clones" was cribbing his acting style from Alec Newman in SciFi's Dune.) Now that the fuckers have cancelled Farscape, I can go back to pretending that they don't exist.

[stealthpup.livejournal.com]

Were the books this masturbatory? This flat?

In a word, yes.

It seemed like an exercise in "what happens if you put N number of people, all from different eras and cultures, in a space together where they have to interact? What would they do and say?" to me. At least I found out who Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor) was.

As for the scratching-for-survival aspect, one of the better-done parts of the book was the protagonist's killing himself or getting himself intentionally dusted in his quest to reach the end of the River, as one gets resurrected at a random location along the River with each death. In the books, anyway; I couldn't sit through much of the SciFi Channel show, other than to ogle a bit of eye candy from time to time.