fnordication…

Just ordered this gorgeous looking thing.

Not sure what I am more excited about, the new content in the book or the included DVD. Can not wait for this to arrive. When I had interviewed GP-O for soundsect s/he had mentioned this would be coming soon. Had to wait longer than I expected, but it looks like it was well worth the wait.

Thee infamous PSYCHIC BIBLE from Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth receives an updated, expanded, corrected edition,complete with dozens of new visuals and essays. The Feral House edition is handsomely presented in smyth-sewn hardcover with a red ribbon. Thee 544 pages within are printed in two colors on high-quality 60-pound stock on acid-free 100% recycled paper stock.

This signed, numbered limited edition (999 copies only) is also presented with a remarkable DVD of impossible-to-find videos from P-Orridge archives of early Psychic TV and TOPY creations which includes the work of Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Derek Jarman. Several of the videos included were seized by Scotland Yard in 1991, and as a result the DVD is provided here are second-generation and are reproduced in this CD for their historical value.

Head over to Feral House to check it out.  They also have a fantastic looking book out now on The Process Church (which Gen also mentioned in the soundsect interview).

I just recently upgraded my 27″ CRT TV to a nice 32″ LCD, this now allows me to enjoy Blu-ray discs via my PS3. I already have a few that I purchased after I got the PS3 when I came across them cheap knowing that I would eventually be upgrading my TV. This is wonderful… but now I come into the problem of what to do with new releases. I thought it would be easy to pick and choose what releases to go with BD or DVD, but it’s getting difficult now.

For instance, Dollhouse: Season One. Do I go with the DVD since I have a habit of watching TV shows on DVD as I am going to sleep everynight (as I don’t have a BD player in bedroom right now), or do I go with the superior pic quality? Same with Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series, this is definitely a series that would be damn nice to look at in high def, but the lack of portability between rooms kind of annoys me.  And I am just not ready to upgrade to BD in the bedroom yet.

I guess price is the big problem solver in the end. Right now I think there is an $18 difference between the Dollhouse BD and DVD.  $18 is enough to make me not want to go with BD. I just don’t want to regret it a few years from now.

Decisions…

I am so glad that I have held out on buying these season sets as they’ve been coming out. This set is absolutely gorgeous. July 28th can’t get here fast enough, I still haven’t watched S4.5 (although I unfortunately know who the last Cylon was, thanks SciFi commercials).

I will truly miss this show, I never would have expected it to be as good as it was.

I have been a long time fan of vampire shows on TV, Dark Shadows, Forever Knight, I liked what I saw of Moonlight, and of course there is Buffy and Angel. When I heard that HBO was working on a vampire series I was excited, finding out the Alan Ball of Six Feet Under was the creator I was even more excited. When I found out that Anna Paquin was starring in it I could barely contain myself.

True Blood, premiering Sept. 7th on HBO, takes place in a parallel reality where vampires have recently “come out of the coffin” and outed themselves to the world. With the invention of a synthetic blood drink called Tru Blood the vampires no longer need to feed on humans for survival. Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) works as a waitress in Merlotte’s, a bar in rural Lousiana. She is intrigued by the vampires and is excited when Merlotte’s gets its first vampire customer, the 173 year old Bill. Sookie has a not-so-well-kept secret of her own in that she can hear the thoughts of every one around her.

The Best Buy exclusive disc (free with the purchase of an HBO TV on DVD title) comes with the first episode of True Blood, “Strange Love.” I wasn’t sure what to expect from the show going into it. I knew from the viral campaign that there would obviously be a social commentary, but what I didn’t expect was that the show would be as dark and sexual as it is. From oral, to “fangbangers”, to even some chains; there was a lot of sexuality crammed into these 58 minutes. The series also has a nice cast of characters that give the show some minutes of laughter. Sookie’s best friend Tara and Merlotte’s short order cook Lafayette both bring some big laughs in this episode.

All in all it is a nice introductory episode. “Strange Love” sets up the locale and the characters and seems to touch on where the series will be heading. It has definitely caught my interest and I will be faithfully watching this series throughout it’s 12 episode run. I am also interested in reading some of the “Southern Vampire” books the TV show is based on by Charlaine Harris.

The down sides to this particular DVD is that it only has a 2.0 soundtrack and is watermarked with a huge HBO logo across the middle of the screen throughout the entire episode. I don’t mind the intermittent “Personal use” text that pops up, but there is no need to watermark a DVD that you have released to the public.

The Episode:

The DVD:

More information:
http://www.hbo.com/trueblood/

I was surprised today to find my Ghost Hunter S2 replacement sets in the mail. Especially because I never actually got around to sending in my covers as proof of purchase. I had contacted Big Vision Entertainment because I had gotten my two Season 2 covers signed by Jason and Grant at Chiller last year so there was no way I was sending in my covers. I had put my address in the email hoping they would just say “OK” and not make me actually do anything. lol. They said I had to photocopy them, and even though I sit maybe 20-30′ from a photocopier every day at work I never got around to doing it.

They must have picked up on my immense slack and sent them anyway.

So thanks Big Vision! Bob would be proud!

And I promise, this should be the last Ghost Hunters related post for November.

I was trying to find a name of a band that did a song that I barely remember at this point. It was on a skateboard video put out by the company Gullwing called Full Power Trip. I have the VHS sitting in a box somewhere, I will probably have to dig it out. In my search I came across a great site that catalogs and has info and reviews on old skateboard videos: SkimTheFat.com. They have a good list of over 700 videos and one of the highlights is that they feature the soundtrack list for the videos. Unfortunately they don’t have a listing for that particular Gullwing video.

Of course this made me nostalgic so I had to throw some Naked Raygun in Winamp. I also found out that most of the older videos I loved are on DVD now. H-Street’s Hokus Pokus, Powell Peralta’s Ban This and Propaganda, Santa Cruz’s Reason For Living (which had a great soundtrack), Speed Freaks, etc. I think you can even get Rubbish Heap on DVD now. I’m going to have to keep my eyes open for some good deals on these.

I was over at /. reading the latest Blu-Ray story’s comments (shoot me). Someone posted this up about VHS and the beginning of DVDs:

“[VHS] was so dumb, that people didn’t even mind loosing the ability to record TV when they moved over [to DVD].”

I never really thought about that before, but it is true. When I first got into DVDs, sometime in 1999, I pretty much threw my VCR away. Looking back on it I can’t believe I made that transition so easily. I was a recording maniac. I recorded so many movies and shows. I don’t know how or why I just gave it up like that when DVD came around. I can’t remember if Tivo was around then, but I know I sure as hell didn’t have it or any other DVR yet. And I definitely didn’t have a DVD Recorder until a few years later. How did I just give up “archiving” so easily? I can’t really figure it out.

Between my DVR and DVD recorder and PC’s DVD+-RW I can save as much crap as I want to, but I tend not to now. Atleast nowadays I know that the chances are that almost anything that airs on TV will be released on DVD soon enough so I don’t feel the need to record every episode (or any episode for that matter) of a show I like. Six years ago I couldn’t say that.

I guess it is something I will never figure out.