Ok I just finished watching yet another of a great series of television shows that got canceled. Quality television is being destroyed by the new crap list of reality show filth that is polluting out televisions.

The show that has gotten me so outraged again was the 2006 cancellation of Surface after 15 episodes and a cliff hanger ending that left us fans begging for more. I feel like screaming at the executives of NBC and wring their necks until they at least finish the series off. I have watched this series 3 times now and each time I have trouble conceiving what pencil pushing MORON made the decision to not continue the show. This series had quality acting, a GREAT story, intellectual stimulating content, phenomenal characters and even a lovable CG seas monster named “NIM(rod)” the show had it all. So why did it get canceled after only one season?

The answer is simple the onslaught of the reality crap such as Americas Next Top Model, Bachelor, Big Brother giving people a glimmer of hope that they too could be on television disgusts me to know end. Have we become such a pathetic and brainless group of television viewers that we can’t even enjoy a plot based story any more. We are reduced to escaping our dreary lives by living through the filth blatantly scripted so called reality TV.

I for one HATE “reality” television shows I miss the good old days of TV in the 80’s when we had shows that we could enjoy even though we know that they could never happen. Lately there have been so many great shows that have been canceled after only 1 or two seasons that I am losing all faith in television. Threshold, Special Unit 2, Surface, Traveler, Drive and many other shows that never got a chance because the majority of the population that make up the rating are two busy dreaming about being the next no talent singer on “American Idol”.

I have also made an open offer to donate MY and MY companies time to help with production of Surface Season 2 if need be to help get this show back on the air. I am capable of putting together CG animation and Editing/Compositing Teams to complete post production for the show if the filming of episodes was completed and raw tapes handed over to us. Well that is my rant about television if you want to help try and get Surface back on the air visit these sites to help drive traffic and signatures into the hand of the people that can make it happen.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Surface/

http://www.tv.com/surface/show/32412/surface-season-2/topic/14502-228705/msgs.html

http://www.savesurface.com/phpBB2/index.php

Posted in 3D/Animation, Personal, Rants&Thoughts, Reviews | No Comments »

I recently bought the NAS200 from Linksys as a backup device for my workstation in the office. It came as a very highly rated NAS so I chose this one.

The packaging is what you come to expect from Linksys and a neatly packaged software CD for which I only used the driver. The device itself is incredibly easy to setup, unpack the device open the drive bays and literally just slide in the drives one by one, plus in the power and LAN and its ready to go.

One detected and the drivers where installed I realized that you HAVE to format the drives using the Linksys format (Linux based) before the drives are accessible. I found this a little disheartening at first but after doing some research I decided its not that big a deal to me.

The device once installed was easy to map a network drive and setup my backup tools to backup to the drive. I personally use syncBack instead of the one button as I have somewhat complex backups from multiple drives and folders. The one major drawback I found is that I only get a max transfer rate of 2MB/Second so the initial backup took a few days (over 300GB) of information. Once that was completed though backups are quick and the system is very quiet. In the admin settings of the NAS you can set the auto spool down interval of the drives and it works so well. As soon as the device detects an access via LAN the drives spool up and you have access in a second or two.

Overall I would recommend the NAS200 from linksys to anyone looking for a multiple drive NAS backup system that is small enough to sit on the desk and quiet enough to not make you turn up your speakers to try and drown in out.

Posted in Computers, Reviews | No Comments »

It aired tonight, the new Knight Rider. I grew up on Knight Rider it was the show that created my love of cars and making them unique. When I heard that the new K.I.T.T. was a mustang I was very skeptical, I did however decide to give the movie/series a chance.

I am by no means a Ford lover and haven’t liked the mustang since it was butchered in 1993. The 2008 Mustang is a thing of beauty and if K.I.T.T. had to be replaced by a non Trans Am vehicle the Shelby GT500 was it. OK enough about the car, I know the show is all about the car but it;s time to review the show.

Plot: (warning spoilers)
The foundation is closed and the scientists is a recluse. Secretly developing a new K.I.T.T. He is attacked but his body double is killed in place of him. A quick yet believable explanation of this is given and we move on to Michael (The introduction to this character is quick and blatantly obvious. Not a lot of character development here but the show is about the coolest car on earth so we can forgive this lack of character development. The son of Michael Knight is Mike the lead character and driver, interesting little plot line here. Not really much more to say about the story of the show it was very true to the “corny” style of 80’s T.V. with a modern twist.

K.I.T.T.
Ok so we touched on the fact that the car is not a Trans AM but WOW this car has all the goodies that were in the original and some new stuff. Nano technology repairs, COOL and an obvious way to integrate some great CG shots into the show. I was VERY disappointed in the lack of “TURBO BOOST” the trademark boost that got K.I.T.T. out of so many bad situations was not present in this new rendition. The voice of the car was far less annoying than the previous but still true to the original and an excellent choice.

Well in conclusion I was quite impressed with the continuation of this classic series, the effects are cool. There is some very low budget shots that look quite bad (as an effects artist myself I am overly picky) but over all effects are pretty good. Characters are well chosen and fit the roles well, not as much over acting as we got out of David Hasslehoff in the past. This definitely a show that I will continue to watch anxiously waiting for “TURBO BOOST” :).

Side Note: I even entered to win the GT500 and I never enter those stupid online draws. There is something about that bad ass GT with the the red light in the front that just makes my spine tingle. The Trans AM was cool but the NEW K.I.T.T. is one wicked car.

Posted in Reviews | 5 Comments »

Well the much anticipated release of Dragonlance - Dragons of Autumn Twilight was On Jan 15th. I have finally had a chance to see it. Here is my review of the film (no spoilers).

Casting - The major members of the party are the only ones that I will be rating.

Michael Rosenbaum - Tanthalas ‘Tanis’ Half-Elven (voice) Rating - 3/5
Kiefer Sutherland - Raistlin Majere (voice) - Rating 5/5
Lucy Lawless - Goldmoon (voice) - Rating 4/5
Fred Tatasciore - Flint Fireforge / Fewmaster Toede (voice) Flint Rating 1/5 Fewmaster Rating 4/5
Michelle Trachtenberg - Tika (voice) - Rating 3/5
Rino Romano - Caramon Majere (voice) - Rating 0/5 WTF Someone had a brain fart here.
Jason Marsden - Tasslehoff Burrfoot (voice) - Rating 3/5
Neil Ross - Fizban The Fabulous (voice) - Rating 2/5
Marc Worden - Sturm Brightblade (voice) - Rating 2/5
Phil LaMarr - Riverwind / Gilthanas (voice) - Rating 3/5

The Good

Finally there is a release of a movie based on a book that kept so true to the story. The unfortunate thing with this movie is that the rest of the production did not live up to the potential of the story. Here are the reasons for the previous statement.

The Bad

1. Poor blend of 3D and traditional animation styles. This is a tricky method of producing a film and this one was just not done right. The stylized characters did not match the CG Draconians and Dragons in the film.
2. Awkward animation, very jerky and not fluid. With todays technology including motion-capture and photo realistic rendering It’s disappointing that a story with such potential ended up looking the way this production did. It looked like animation from the 80’s reminiscent of the original LOTR Cartoon.
3. Poor camera work and angles. This stems back to the poor blend of 2D and 3D animation techniques. With 3D techniques there is no limit to the work with the camera. Why this production did not make use of the available technology today is beyond me.
4. Poor selection of music for the score, not much else I can say about that.
5. Acting, with the list of actors in the movie I would have expected better voice acting. It seemed like the actors had no emotional bond with the characters. Very much like reading from a script and not living the part.

Overall I have to fail this movie considering the era of its release. If released in the 80’s this movie might have been acceptable but as an animator and artist myself I am extremely disappointed in the production quality of the film. I was hoping for so much more

Posted in 3D/Animation, Personal, Reviews | 7 Comments »