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Terrible Movies of 2012

I normally can like most movies and enjoy them to a point, but I can only do that so much and for so many movies. These are those movies of 2012 that I thought and I am sure many others will agree with me, were absolutely terrible.

  • The Cold Light of Day
    • Bruce Willis dies about 10 minutes into the movie and has maybe 2 minutes of screen time. He worked for the CIA, his son did not know and Sigourney Weaver is bad. The actor who plays Bruce’s son has to save his kidnapped family, blah blah blah and does it. I hate spoilers like the next person but I really saved you your time. None of the movies listed below have spoilers like this one, though I should rethink that.
  • End of Watch
    • The previews for this movie looked good. The end result? Not so much. There is really no point to this movie. The ending is almost typical and likely what you knew would happen.
  • John Carter
    • I really wish Taylor Kitsch would have avoided this movie like the plaque. Out of nowhere he was given all these “huge” roles, only for them to be pretty much terrible movies which liklely will not help his career what so ever. At least Battleship was decent enough to watch, I cannot say the same for this movie and “Savages.” He will always be the best in the Friday Night Lights TV series, which is one of the best TV series of all time too.
  • Red Dawn 2012
    • I never cared for the original, it was one of the movies you partially watched here and there when it came on TV. There was never a reason and still is not to have remade this movie. It was worse than the original, and the original was never that great to start with either. This movie had errors with the film everywhere and not just with the plot.

      You may not be familiar with such information such as this movie was filmed in 2009 but put on hold because of MGM going bankrupt. The same goes for the entire movie had to be edited again to change the bad guys from being China to North Korea.

      The ending was horrible as well as what happens to someone about 15 minutes before the ending. The movie is actually pretty short too, shorter than the original movie. Would the movie have been any better if it was not rushed? No. I really do not think so, but they could have at least prepared a better ending and not rushed other scenes. I do not think it would have helped though. This type of movie did not need to be made, there is no reason to ever believe America would be invaded today either.

  • Resident Evil: Extinction
    • I would recommend watching the last minute or so of the movie rather than the entire movie, it will be more enjoyable and then just hope that the next Resident Evil holds up to the final scene of this movie and everything will be okay.
  • Savages
    • This movie ended up quite a disappointment, the few and short actions scenes the movie had were great and action packed but otherwise, it is a very long delayed love movie. The ending scene will likely disappoint you further as well. It may or may not remind you of scene from the final Twilight movie too.
  • Total Recall
    • Another remake that went terribly wrong. This is when you know A-list actors do NOT always make a great movie. I understood the original quite well but this movie just seemed to make me careless as the movie dragged on. I lost interest on what was going on and happening a lot, other than the completely blatant obvious of course.
  • Chernobyl Diaries
    • The first time I saw this trailer, it grabbed my interests and what they had to show us. In the end, they show you absolutely nothing and that after all it was just some type of nuclear mutation to people exposed for a period a time, the worse as the get closer to ground zero. What a disappoint and absolute short waste of time.

Those are most the movies that I can think of that I just think were absolutely terrible for 2012 that I watched. There were some decent movies that I do not find to have been terrible, such as Battleship (not that it was great either though) but just decent or other movies that were somewhat funny like The Watch.

In-between Decision:

  • Dredd
    • I liked Dredd, but I also hated it so easily. It was nothing, nor ever will be, comparable to the original Sylvester Stallone Judge Dredd from 1995. I will forever like the original Judge Dredd.

      I did like some aspects of what they did with this movie, but the closed environment ruined what could have made it really better. They did a great job on everything outside of the apartment building and we should have seen more of that. The choice of actors was fine to me, however Karl Urban does and never does sound anything comparable to what Sylvester Stallone sounded like and what I believe Judge Dredd should sound like.

2 Guns Trailer

Here is another what will likely be a great and hilarious movie coming out this year this time starring Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington together whom play undercover agents to investigate one another and so forth. I am a huge Mark Wahlberg fan, same is easily said for Denzel too. The trailer is a few minutes long, so if you hate when trailers reveal too much and/or too long, this could be one of those.

White House Down Trailer

Jamie Foxx as President? oh and lets not forget CHANNING TATUM IS IN THE MOVIE. :)

Watch it for yourself, and yes I know this already looks like an exact copy of Olympus Has Fallen if you live in a cave and have not seen the movie or trailer for it. But I personally do not care, it has Channing Tatum.

Time Warner Faster YouTube Method Blocks Google Play

Recently a post was made by a guy named Mitch on his website on how to make YouTube Faster on Time Warner Cable. What people may not realize though is that blocking these IP addresses (below) will indeed block you from downloading on Google Play if blocked network wide.

This means you will be unable to update your apps if you have an Android phone or if anyone else attempts to and is of course connected to your WiFi at that time, again this only matters if you are blocking these IP addresses network wide from your router.

Sure, you can always switch to your phones network to update apps, but why use that bandwidth (and likely slower) if you do not have to as well as if you have a bandwidth limit or even unlimited. There are probably more services by Google that might be effected by blocking these IP addresses too, but I have not come across one yet or may have not realized yet.

The IP addresses that you are asked to block are these below. I have not tested which IP address it is specifically yet (lazy) however I believe it is the first one as far as the location goes.

173.194.55.0
206.111.0.0

Just simply remove these IP addresses from your router to simply regain back the ability to download from Google Play again. If you still continue to want to block these IP addresses and get a faster YouTube; if it works for you, then just block them on your each specific computer instead.

Sylvester Stallone Says Expendables 3 Will Have A Mountain Of Surprises

Sylvester Stallone said The Expendables 3 will have a “mountain of surprises” for fans of the hit series.

The actor said he is currently in the process of writing the script for the sequel. In order to keep everyone up-to-date with what’s happening behind-the-scenes, Stallone recently answered some questions on Twitter.

In addition to adding a “mountain of surprises” to The Expendables 3, Sylvester Stallone said he wanted to add some “young blood” to the cast. He also mentioned that 80s action star Steven Seagal would not be joining the cast for this particular go-around.

However, Stallone did mention that he is still very interested in getting Jackie Chan to sign on for the sequel. While rumors have been circulating for a while that Chan has already inked a deal to star, it would appear that nothing has been confirmed just yet.

Jackie Chan said during a press conference for Chinese Zodiac last year that he was approached to star in The Expendables 2. Although he was interested in signing on, the actor decided to hold out for a meatier role while preparing his final death-defying feature.

“Sly had invited me to be in Expendables 2 but I was too busy filming [‘Chinese Zodiac’] and couldn’t make a commitment to the film,” Jackie Chan explained.

He added, “But he did extend his invitation to the third movie, which I agreed on the condition that I will be appearing as more than just a minor role with a few scenes.”

You can find a handful of Sylvester Stallone’s tweets about The Expendables 3 below.

Continue Reading…

Google Shoes

Google announced their “talking shoe” today at SXSW. Please remember this is all concept apparel and it could never make it anywhere. It aims to translate movement data in witty messages to users and their friends. I personally do not find this better than Google Glass and really do not see how some people would; even if they can have their own opinion. I see more usefulness out of the Glass then Shoes, especially as far as what you can do with one another and cannot be compared.

Even with that all said, I still think it is cool but my guess it would need a lot of work for it to take off and probably would only be more active in certain and few markets of the world. When you think of all the data that can be collected and what other companies such as Nike can do with it and even go as far as using them on professional athletes either it be the NFL, NBA, Soccer and everything else it could provide to be quite useful and interesting stats.

I think similar products to this are cooler though, take for instance the Nike+ FuelBand. They also attempt to take a step forward with everyone becoming more social and encouraging others to set goals and what not. Which I understand is what Google Shoes wants to attempt at eventually doing. I have personally never tried the Nike+ FuelBand but would not be opposed to it if I were to get my hands on it especially if they ever did come out with an Android app as I believe it is still iOS only without further looking into it.

You can read more about it here at TechCrunch, with much more information and what not that I would rather not copy and paste.

Would you wear and use these shoes actively if it ever came out of concept and on the market?

The Hangover 3 First Official Teaser Trailer Tomorrow

The Hangover 3 Teaser PosterThe first official teaser trailer for The Hangover 3 is coming tomorrow!!!!! Until then, here is teaser of the poster for now with Alan and Chow.

I have been waiting for this movie since The Hangover 2 and when this was announced. Huge fan of the movies and Bradley Cooper.

This is also the end of the series, there will be sadly be no more. :'(

Now play the trailer below!

Streaming Media from a Drobo FS to Xbox 360, PS3, Android or other devices

There are not a lot of solutions in streaming your content straight from your Drobo FS using DroboApps.

I find this to be the best, easiest and most up-to-date solution to stream your content straight from the Drobo FS including support for Xbox 360 consoles (and possibly other devices) which MediaTomb (another solution) does not offer and it being a dead project for over 3 years now.

If you come across FUPPES or are already using it, drop it now as it is a dead project and not just myself but others recommend moving to MiniDLNA.

You can skip this all together if you prefer to use other ways to stream content such as using TVersity, Serviio, Mezzmo, Plex and many more other programs out there which rely on having to use your desktop (or laptop) to stream content which would of course require it be always on and running in order to do so. Unless this is not a problem and/or only yourself to watch or view the content.

Downloading and Installing:

You can download the latest MiniDLNA 1.0.25 (July 13th 2012) from DroboPorts.com

There are many ways to install DroboApps, below is the easiest and least technical. You first need to make sure you have DroboApps enabled which you can do by opening Drobo Dashboard then select your Drobo and go to Drobo Settings > Admin > Enabled DroboApps under DroboApps.

Then once that is taken care of, you will drag and drop the minidlna.tgz file into the DroboApps folder and then restart the Drobo FS from Drobo Dashboard. Once the Drobo FS restarts, you will notice the minidlna.tgz gone and a new folder “minidlna.” Everything should now be installed and working properly, now you just need to barely edit the config file.

Configuring and Adding Folders to MiniDLNA:

The configuration file; minidlna.conf, will be found in the DroboApps\minidlna\etc folder.

You can add folders by editing the media_dir line, this is how I have mine.

media_dir=V,/mnt/DroboFS/Shares/Public/Media

You can simply do the same to make it extremely easy and organized, and just add sub-folders to the Media folder such as “Movies”, “Shows”, “Music” and so forth to your needs. This makes getting and viewing content much easier on the Xbox 360 and other devices.

As noted in the configuration file, you can have multiple media_dir= lines, and restrict content to Video, Audio and Images if you wish.

You can rename what the device shows as on your Xbox 360, PS3 or any other compatible device by changing the following line:

friendly_name=DroboFS DLNA Server

The rest of the configuration file can normally remain unchanged and are all self explanatory too.

Can I play MKV files on Xbox 360 with MiniDLNA?

MiniDLNA will NOT play or transcode MKV files to play on Xbox 360 until they decide to support it. You can still play MKV files on other devices though that support it. I suggest using TVersity in this case to play MKV files on your Xbox 360.

That being said, there is a new project started in late 2012 called MiniDLNA-transcode and here is the original announcement thread. I have not given this a try yet or seen if it can be done, which I think it can be. I hopefully will be trying soon though.

Are there any problems using MiniDLNA on Xbox 360?

The only on-going problem I ever run into frequently is while streaming video content to an Xbox 360 when the video is Xvid and encoded differently than other Xvid files. What happens is after a short period of time, normally between every 5 and 15 minutes, the video will basically halt requiring you to back out of the video (on Xbox 360) and resume play again till the next time it happens again (randomly).

It can be quite a nuisance but from what I have found out, from viewing the files in GSpot, I still think it has to be with Xvid encoded videos and how it was encoded. I have not had a problem with that I can recall of this happening with any x264/mp4 files. It is also 100% not related to a networking problem either.

How can stream my media to Android Phones?

First install BubbleUPnP on your Android Phone and on your Desktop as well. Then install either VPlayer (the best imho) or any alternative video player software such as MX Player on your Android to play the content.

You would then select the source of the files to be from your Drobo FS and either to play the files locally (on the phone) or control and send them to a specific device if listed and supported.

You also have the option to stream the content over the internet with this, so if you wanted to watch media on your Android on the go, you can. You can also use your Android Phone as a controller and send content to play and pause on support devices, the Xbox 360 does work with this.

Terrible T-Mobile Support

For the first time for me, I have had one of the worst T-Mobile Support experiences. Which is actually quite bad coming from someone such as myself, since I have always stuck by T-Mobile and supported or recommend them as a customer, even after 11 years or more now. What makes this even more sad, is that it is over the littlest thing you could possibly imagine, a broken charger.

It all started with their Twitter support, which many companies have now a days and it is really just the same as phone or FAQ/online support for most companies too. It is pretty much automated and they actually do not want to help you more than they do when you call them. It use to be different in the past, for example Comcast use to have great Twitter support, but the last few years that is non-existent.

It does not seem that T-Mobile wants to strive for customer service anymore. Why do I think this? Well aside from my experience, take a look at these results:

That’s not a good sign at all, and things do not look to be getting better. Especially when you have issues like mine come up, or far much worse issues for people that will up and leave T-Mobile and are not loyal. And speaking of loyalty, I am even questioning mine after this experience which I will be explaining now. Then there are just more, older articles like this one, Has T-Mobile Customer Service Taken A Turn For The Worse? or others that have continue to get written more of late.

What happened with me?

I used the option to upgrade a line of mine with a free and refurbished phone, nothing special either, just a Samsung T159 flip phone. The phone works just fine, but found out the charger actually is broken, closer look at it reveals that 1 of the copper pieces inside of the connector piece is missing.

So I decided to contact T-Mobile via Twitter and they are very much unwilling to help without wasting time and money. They want me to claim buyers remorse, which requires you to send the entire phone back and then order a new one. I am not sure how this would work with my upgrade option and so forth free (I am sure something bad would have happened), then again I do not want to pay shipping either and of course, waste more time without the phone in use, which I am sure would take up to 2 weeks. Maybe if T-Mobile would give me a free month I would actually consider doing this.

The other option would be to use buyers remorse and replace the entire kit by sending that one back and we send another. ^KM

That is it, there is nothing else they can do and have said twice now the following:

I wish we had a more efficient way but currently we do not ^KM.

Yes, thanks for really nothing. Honestly, their Twitter support might as well be automated. When I asked them if I would be able to trade one at a store, this was their response:

They should sell the cables in store too :) ^LG.

Are you serious? That was their response when I asked that and to have you spend more money because they could not even ship you a working charger. You would think that refurbished phones go through additional checks, and that would include the charger as well but I guess not.

That all having been said…

I more than understand this was not the worst support anyone has ever received and that it could have been worse. But at the same time, there is no reason why even people unlike me should have to deal with this lack of support, being told to use “buyer’s remorse” and be without a phone or have to purchase a new charger when you should not have to.

UPDATE: Samsung being awesome reached out to me and already in the process of getting a new charger replacement. I should have just contacted them to begin with. :)

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