For the few people who don't know what Digg.com is, Digg is a social news website where users are given the power to submit stories and only the most popular ones get posted on the main page.  After stories are posted Digg users are given a myriad of options.  You can comment on the story but good luck getting a comment in before the other couple hundred people before you.  Users also have the ability to bury stories or report them as possibly inaccurate.  All this data gets logged into your profile and users that "follow" your profile can send you shouts or recommend other stories for you to read.

A lot has changed since I became a member back in October of 2005.  When I first logged in Digg was eve more simplistic looking than it is today.  There was a news section and pretty much all you could do was comment on them.  But today there are five main sections: All, News, Video, Images, and Podcasts.  And each section has sub-sections like technology, World & Business, etc.  It sound like a lot of clutter compared to three years ago but Digg still remains artistically simplistic in the best way.  In a way it's easier now to keep stories organized and is easier for the everyday Digg user to get their fill of news from all over the world.  So sign up if you haven't already.  It's free and definitely a site that'll be in your hourly check box.

**My Digg Profile: digg.com/users/nc454

There's good news and bad news.  The good news is that my broken Xbox 360 has finally arrived at the repair center.  The bad news is that now I have to wait.  With all the games coming out like GTA IV and Iron Man and all the demos and Rock Band DLC, I've been trying to keep preoccupied with other games.  And by other games I mean World of Warcraft. 

I've finally reached level 20 and it's about time.  it seems like once you reach this level you can really start to train your character, in my case an Undead Warrior, to do more things and actions other than a forward slice.  With the help of friends, I can afford to train for higher skills that do more damage and buy weapons that will actually keep me in the game against more than one foe.

One particular quest story that comes to mind was one where I had to travel to travel to a castle like structure and battle all the way up to the top and kill one guy.  The only problem was that he was guarded by several other enemies of equal level to me at the time.  So I would battle on and kill a few guys but I would always get mobbed by two or three more.  You could say I was getting frustrated and my armor was deteriorating right before my eyes.  Then came along a stranger that was on the same server as I and he started guiding me through the section I was on helping killing guys I was trying to kill in a single blow.  It was mind blowing how this guy wiped through everyone.  It was then i clicked on his character and noticed he was a level 45.  We finally got to the main guy and I had prepared for battle by adjusting some attacks.  I took one swing and knocked a bit of health off of him and then with one strike from the helpful stranger he was dead.  I collected what I needed and thanked the stranger and he just simply replied "no problem".  It was  then that truly realized this game was really on to something.  If I would have more experiences like this one, which I've had several now, I wouldn't care about paying $15 USD a month to have this much fun.  This just proves that people will pay certain amounts for games whether it be $15 a month or $50 a year-it's the experiences like these that truly make a game great and make someone want to play it over and over again.

It was another good week for movies and music but for gaming-not so good.  My Xbox 360 isn't even at the repair facility in Texas yet but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a speedy return.  Hopefully this week will prove to be a better week for games, even though I getting a hold of a copy of GTA IV won't do me any good.

Game of the Week: Xbox 360 #2-Dead

Website of the Week: Monoprice.com

Music of the Week: Soundtracks

Movie of the Week: August Rush (2007)

On a side note, as you probably noticed there was no gadget of the week.  I had ordered a new CPU for my Gateway P-6831FX but for some reason over night shipping meant four days to Newegg.  It should be here today so expect a double dose of Gadgets this week.

August Rush is another movie that came out late last year that I missed and theaters and regret not seeing.  I was told about this movie by my dad who saw it as an in flight movie.  With that said I'm really glad he told me about it.  August Rush is about an orphaned boy who lives in a group home with several other boys his age who is constantly picked on for being a little different.  The boy Evan Taylor, played by Freddy Highmore, turns out to be a musical genius.  He has an amazing gift to hear and listen to music through everyday tones from his surrounding environment.  And it's through this gift that he believes in his heart that he can find his parents or his parents will find him.

Evan Taylor's parents, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell, are somewhat musical geniuses themselves.  Myers' character Louis Connelly is a front man for a rock band while Lyla Novacek, played by Keri Russell, is an accomplished cellist who used to play for the New York Philharmonic.  Russell and Myers end up having a one night stand and then split ways and never see each other again.  However Russell's character Lyla became pregnant and ends up thinking she lost the child when she got hit by a car.  So now not only does Lyla end up trying to look for her estranged son who she has never seen in eleven years, the father, Connelly goes on a quest to find Lyla.

Meanwhile, Evan Taylor gets involved with a fellow orphaned street musician who introduces him to his "caretaker" Wizard expertly portrayed by Robin Williams.  At first Wizard comes off as a caring and helpful man to several neglected kids but you quickly find out Wizard actually uses the kids to scrape up money on the streets for him by performing music acts in the park.  Now this is the point of the movie when you realize how talented Evan Taylor, named later August Rush by the Wizard, can be with the guitar and other instruments that he had never touched in his life.  The movie eventually evolves into August/Evan trying to escape the mock orphanage and through the help of a pastor of a church who recognizes his amazing ability, go to school and learn more about music at Juliard.  And by now everything culminates into August Rush's big debut on the music seen where he is to conduct his first Rhapsody at age eleven with only 6 months musical experience.  With his mom trying to find him, his dad trying to find his mom, and even the Wizard trying to get him back, it all boils down to the fact that August's music eventually draws everyone to him and brings his family back together for the first time.

I'm a big fan of movies that warm the heart and August Rush does not disappoint.  The whole time I was actually on edge wondering if August would ever find his parents or if his parents would ever find him.  The actors give magnificent performances from Terrance Howard as Rush's social worker to Meyers who actually performed all the songs for his rock and roll driven character.  Even the side story of Meyers who tries to find his one night stand who he fell in love with could be a movie in it's own.  This movie is great for those who have a love for music and don't mind a movie that touches you and leaves you wanting more.

What would a movie be without a good score right?  Well I guess it would be most of the movies released this year-I kid of course.  But one thing that stays or even gets stuck in my head after or while watching a movie is the music.  A movie with a bad soundtrack is like eating cereal with spoiled milk.  And some of the most memorable movies like The Karate Kid imprinted our brains for life with songs like "You're the Best Around" and Top Gun with songs like "Danger Zone" and "Take My Breath Away".  I would go as far as saying just about everyone I know knows at least a full song from the musical/movie Grease.  I grew up with two sisters, what can I say?  But that's a big part of what makes a movie soundtrack great.  It has to have songs that might be borderline annoying but then turn out to be kind of catchy.  One of my favorite scores/soundtracks from a movie would have to be from Last of the Mohicans.  For one it's a fantastic movie if you haven't seen it and two it's grand scale orchestral music is out of this world.  It envelops you and makes you feel excited at times of actions yet brings you back to earth with it's more soothing tones.

So this weekend when you're out shopping or buying music online, do a search for your favorite movie and download the soundtrack to it.  You would be surprised at how listening to the music can bring back so many fond memories of when you first saw that movie.  And don't be afraid to listen to just the score of a movie.  Yeah it might sound boring at first, but listen to a full orchestra can be relaxing and exhilarating at the same time.

It's no secret that I'm a big electronic/home theater nut.  But the recent move to HD in the Home Theater world has been to switch to HDMI and have all your digital video and digital audio cables in one and that proved to be costly-at least for the average consumer.  People, including myself, were and still are up in arms about how much companies like Monster Cable and Monster were charging for 4ft HDMI cables.  Don't get me wrong I love Monster products but there is no way in hell I'll ever pay $100 for a 4ft HDMI cable.  There just had to be a way or place for people to get the cables they needed but at a significantly lower price.  For myself I wanted to spend my money on stereo equipment, not cabling.

Enter Monoprice.com.  Monoprice has saved my home theater set up.  I discovered them about a year or so back during DL.TV podcast and decided to give them a try and I couldn't be happier.  I bought a 4ft HDMI cable for around $20.00 and it performs exactly how it's supposed to date for a fifth of the cost.  Another instance was when I needed to run a CAT5e cable or Ethernet cable from my router to my Xbox 360 which came out to around a 50 ft.  I went to several electronic stores and found that 50 ft. of Ethernet cabling isn't cheap.  Enter Monoprice again.  I purchased a 50 ft. cable and had it shipped to me for under $20.00.  It just goes to show that if you are smart about shopping around and don't always settle on the first thing you see, you might be able to find a bargain or in this case a gold mine.

You heard it right.  My second Xbox 360 is dead.  This was the spawn of an earlier Xbox 360 Elite model I sent in because it would freeze with a green checkerboard overlay at any point from turning the system on to playing games and it happened again. 

I was in the middle of playing Message in a Bottle on Rock Band when all of the sudden the game froze.  I thought to myself this wasn't such a big deal.  So I reset the box and started the song again playing it better than before-and it froze again.  I tried everything else from playing DVDs to just turning on the 360 to just get to the home page and every time it froze with a checkerboard pattern this time in a red color.  But something felt different.  Yeah I was mad but I wasn't angry.  I guess I felt it was my time or that I expected this to happen at some point.  But what made me upset was the fact that I had to drop out of a Call of Duty 4 tournament and explain to my family that we couldn't play Rock Band for a while.

Rock Band on the 360 was a Godsend to my family and I.  It took a while but I had convinced my parents to really get into playing guitars and we even formed a Rock Band band called the Colwyn Experience.  And not too long after that I finally convinced my sister to play for the first time ever and she rocked it out on the drums.  One of her requests before her and her family come over to my house is to play Rock Band and sadly I have to say no.

So I called customer support and the person was again very helpful yet there was a tone to her voice as if she knew the drill in terms of what to say when people call in angry about their busted Xbox 360s. I was informed that I would be sent a cardboard box to return my broken 360 in and that tech support would be informed that this was my second repair.  I guess that was her way of letting me know that they are taking this seriously.  But at the end of the day thankfully the my Xbox 360 was under warranty because I guarantee you if it wasn't, I would not have had it repaired.

So I was a little out of order this past week, my apologies.  But it was a fun filled week of admitting my addiction for World of Warcraft and the many podcasts I listen to about video games.  Next week look forward to another good movie along with some new gadgets.

Game of the Week: World of Warcraft

Website of the Week: Revision3.com

Music of the Week: Sort of-The Podcast Edition

Gadget of the Week: Nikon Coolpix S7c

Movie of the Week: Juno

After much delay, I finally got to see Juno.  Juno, played by Ellen Page, came out late December of 2007 and was just recently released on DVD.  It's a story about a quirky highschool girl who's first time with her boy friend ends up being the only time she needed to get pregnant.  She then would come to conclusion to give her baby up for adoption to a young married couple played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman who end up having issues with the decision themselves.

I won't spoil the rest of the movie for those who haven't seen it but Juno is definitely an interesting and somewhat unusual movie with the way the dialogue is meant to imitate the younger crowd yet still be sophisticated and the soundtrack consists of songs with very odd yet funny lyrics but the movie still manages to be very heartwarming and smart the way Juno's character is portrayed to be a strong much mature for her age character.  After all is said and done, Juno is an excellent movie and was definitely one of the top 25 movies in 2007 and is definitely one of my top picks for best movie of 2007.

I've taken many pictures for different blog posts over the past couple of years but never mentioned what kind of camera I use.  My camera of choice right now is a Nikon Coolpix S7c.  I've had it for almost two years now and I still love using it.  The main reason why I chose the S7c was not only for it's portability but for how easy it was to use.  It fits in my pocket and isn't nearly as cumbersome as a full on DSLR.  Don't get me wrong I would love to have a DSLR and plan on purchasing one very soon but for now I'm pleased with the quality the S7c produces in it's pictures.

The Nikon Coolpix S7c has some pretty cool features that some point and shoot cameras today still don't have like built in Wi-fi.  With the built in Wi-fi you have the ability to snap a picture and with the software installed on a PC on your network, you can have it automatically sent to you PC while you keep snapping.  And if you don't have your PC nearby you and you need to get a photo to someone ASAP just make sure you are in wireless mode while you are snapping photos and hit send and just email them to whomever you desire.  Like any other point and shoot camera there are a lot of on board manipulation settings like the usual cyan and sepia tone but I would still recommend doing all of you editing in a program like Adobe Photoshop or Gimp.  There are a handful of scene modes thrown in like Museum and portrait mode but probably to coolest and most useful one would have to be fireworks mode.  In fire works mode, the lens stays open a little longer so you can depress the shutter button at the point where the firework shell explodes and capture the radiating colors and streams of fire in a nice colorful shot.

As nice as the S7c takes pictures in sunlight and in fireworks mode, it kind of lacks in the low light area.  Sure you can use the flash but it tends to be too strong when close to someone's face and red-eye can be a problem even with the red-eye reduction flash on.  These things can be edited through software but it's an unnecessary step for the novice photographer.  With these faults in mind, as many cameras have them, you can still be as creative as ever if you work with what you have.  The S7c just proves it's not just the camera that will produce a great and memorable shot but more importantly it's the eye of the photographer that really matters.  With that said the Nikon Coolpix S7c has certainly helped me become more aware of proper lighting and creativity and composition when it comes to producing high quality shot.

***All pictures above except the picture of the camera itself were taken with the Nikon Coolpix S7c.  For more examples please visit my Flickr page.

No new music this week except a few Neil Diamond tracks here and there with a little Powertrip and Sugar Hill Gang but I would like to take this time to talk about podcasts.  By now everyone knows what a podcast is but in case you don't it's basically a show usually in an audio format that anyone can subscribe to via iTunes or my favorite, Zune, and listen to them in just about any mp3 player or computer device.  Think of podcasts as radio shows for the web.  If you can think of a topic of interest most likely there is a podcast already out there but the recent years have shown that there is plenty of space for more than one podcast of any type.  Below are the podcasts I currently subscribe to and this does not include the several video podcasts I download on a daily basis.  Enjoy!

          1up Yours, GFW Radio, Retronauts, EGM Live, The Sports Anomaly

Achievement Junkie-Nelson Rodriguez and Natalie Sousa

Channel Frederator-Indie Cartoons

Gamercast Network-Video Game show-Probably the funniest video game podcast

Gamerscore Blog-Audio and Video casts

The Hotspot-Gamespot.com

Giant Bomb-cast-Former Gamespotter's Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis

Happy Tree Friends-Cute yet disgusting cartoons with woodland friends

OXM Podcast-By the guys from the Official Xbox Magazine

Scott Sigler-Author of podcast novels Earthcore, Ancestor, Infected, The Rookie, Nocturnal

SModcast-Director of Chasing Amy, Jay and Silent Bob Kevin Smith and producer Scott Mosier

The Bungie Studios Podcast-Luke Smith, Frank O'Connor of Bungie makers of the Halo series

The Video Games Show-with Chris Hoss and Rich Bergin

TWiT-This Week In Tech hosted by Leo Laporte and includes regulars like John C. Dvorak and Patrick Norton

UncleGamer Radio-Parris, Jay, and Natalie-One of the best Video Game Podcasts

Xbox Live's Major Nelson-Larry Hryb

My main source of entertainment used sitting in front of the TV flipping through an endless amount of channels trying to find something good to watch.  One of my favorite shows were Tech TV and Screensavers and a few other shows on G4 formerly Tech TV.  Then those shows were taken from me and there was a good gap of a couple years where there wasn't a  lick of technology related shows anywhere to be found.  Enter the IPTV boom.

It seemed to be around 2004 to 2005 where Internet video was becoming more and more popular with streaming user created sites like YouTube popping up and tech people starting their own audio based podcasts and eventually the began to turn their audio podcasts into video podcasts or vid-casts.  And probably the best site to do so was Revision3.com.  Revision3 was founded by Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.com, and Jay Adleson founder of Equinix, and David Prager.  And it was in 2005 when Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht joined up to make Diggnation which would become the flagship show of Revision3.    

But enough history and on to the content.  Revision3 now has a total of fourteen shows that cover everything from the latest tech news from shows like Tekzilla starring former Tech TV personality Patrick Norton and the recently announced co-host Veronica Belmont to shows like The Totally Rad Show starring Alex Albrecht from Diggnation, former co-host of the Screensavers, Jeff Canata, and  Dan Trachtenberg former co-host of Geekdrome.  There literally is a show for everyone which can add up to hours of entertainment and there is always something new to watch everyday.

So if you haven't heard of Revision3 before just go to their website and watch any show via streaming video or subscribe via RSS and get just about any show in any major format you can think of up to the high definition h.264 format. 

"Man I wish I could buy some armor, but I don't have any copper" I shouted.  "What do you mean you don't have copper, that's impossible" replied Cypherzero.  "But my inventory says zero copper man".  "Wait, how much silver do you have?" Cypherzero asked.  "I have two right now."  It was this conversation that had the both of us laughing hysterically to the fact that I had no clue how the World of Warcraft money structure worked.

For those of you who don't know what World of Warcraft is, all two of you, it's a subscription based game that you pay a one time start up fee of around $19.99 and a monthly subscription fee of $14.95 and is considered the best MMORPG (Massively Mulitplayer Online Role Playing Game) on the PC.  You take the role of a character from two factions, either the Horde or the Alliance, and  enter a world full of characters who are so lazy that they feel the need to hire you to go on quests for them.  But if you want to level up in this world, you better not complain and take them up on their offers because once you are hooked,  you won't want to stop. 

Now I am far from an expert with WoW but from what I've played and what I understand of the game is that it does require a significant amount of organization skills and a helping hand if you are new to MMORPG's.  I was fortunate enough to know Cypherzero through Xbox Live and he has helped me immensely getting on the proper track and helping me realize that two silver and zero copper also means you have 200 copper.  So although you can play WoW by yourself and probably have a good time as I did the through the first six levels of my character, it was definitely a better and more fun of an experience playing in a group with a seasoned player and friend and eventually a Guild.

Like I mentioned before I'm just a short way through the game and it looks like I'll be in it for the long haul and try to level my character to the highest level possible but I recommend this game for someone that has a lot of free time and  is capable of long sessions of gaming because WoW does take a degree of dedication not found in most common games.  The best thing to do is to sign up for a free 10-day account and see what you think. 

What is the Dual Edition?  The Dual Edition results from the fact that I have two sites that I love and don't want to let go so I thought I would merge them.  The 454 is now going to appear as the blog on my Live Spaces site called nc454 Land.  Why you ask?  Because I realize that I had built some relationships through Live Spaces and abandoned them like...something that gets abandoned.  So without further adieu, the wrap-up.

Game of the Week: No Game of the Week

Website of the Week: Flickr

Music of the Week: The Very Best of Meat Loaf

Movie of the Week: Pan's Labyrinth

Gadget of the Week: Logitech VX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse

I've tried out this schedule on my other site and I think it'll work for nc454 Land and The 454 blog.  It's something you can count on everyday so take a look at the schedule below and feel free to comment.

Something of the Week

Monday- Games.  Won't necessarily be a video game.

Tuesday- Websites.  Sites of interest or weirdness.

Wednesday- Music.  Old and New.

Thursday- Movies.  Either a movie to rent or something coming out soon.

Friday- Gadgets.  One of my favorite sections.  I love gadgets and a good portion will be devoted to gadgets i will actually handle.

Saturday- Wrap up

Sunday-Rest.  It's gotta happen sometime.

Be sure to look out for new stuff everyday as well.

Yeah that's right.  No games this week.  I think being geared up with GTA IV excitement has put me in a position of ignoring other games until this one comes out.  Sure there are plenty of thrilling games to play like Burn the Rope but I just don't have the time and patience to devote to that game. 

So in light of the fact that I haven't played a lot of new games besides Rock Band DLC, here is some video game related papercraft.

Flickr, yes there is no "e" in Flickr, is my favorite site to host and share pictures friends and family.  You can start off with a free account which limits you to a few photos at a time when uploading and caps the size at around 1mb.  However I highly recommend upgrading to a pro account for an annual fee of $24.95.  With a pro account you get the ability to upload folders of pictures at a time with no cap on what size the photos are.  So if you are a serious photographer who takes 8 MP pictures and need a place in the clouds of the Internet to store them, Flickr is perfect for you.  Another cool feature of Flickr is the ability to organize your photos in sets.  Rather than have your photos posted one after another you can organize your photos in sets or virtual albums to make it easier to sort through them later.  Combine that feature with tag editing and now you've made it super easy for your friends and family to find your photos.  Also if you want your photos to be easily discoverable, think of some keywords for your tags, while pertaining to your subject matter, to make them obvious.  There are other photo organizing websites out there like Picasa and Photobucket but neither are as easy to use as Flickr so give them a shot.

**Visit my photostream on Flickr.

The Very Best of Meatloaf, debuting in 1998, is exactly what it says-it's a collection of Meatloaf's best song's throughout his and his bands career.  It's got everything from well known hits like "I will do anything for love" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and plenty of other songs just as good.  Give it a listen if you haven't had your regular dose of Meatloaf today and try to forget that stupid commercial he's doing.  Support your artists.

I love Sci-Fi fantasy movies like Dune and Star Wars and so on.  But my favorite movie on the more fantasy/realism side has to be Pan's Labyrinth.  Pan' Labyrinth was directed by Guillermo del Toro and originally released in Spain in 2006 and later in theaters in the states.  The movie takes place in the 1940's-post civil war Spain and follows a young girl named Ofelia and the way she uses her incredible imagination to escape the tyranny of her stepfather and her sick mother. 

Through her curiosity, Ofelia finds a Labyrinth and an unusually put together character and perhaps the greatest performance of an actor in a full make-up suit with leg appliances named simply Fauno.  Like the rest of the characters in the movie, Doug Jones, the actor who plays Fauno, is actually wearing the suit and walking on stilts.  The only green screening involved is to edit out his legs to give a more "chicken walking" feel and look to his character.  The Fauno informs Ofelia that she is the missing princess of his world and to return to her kingdom, she must complete a series of tasks.  Through this story line fantasy and reality are brilliantly blended together and sometimes I wasn't quite sure what was truly real and what was fantasy until the very end sequence.

I don't want to spoil the rest, but Pan's Labyrinth is definitely on the top shelf of my movie bookcase and should be in yours as well. 

** On a side note, this movie is definitely geared towards adults.

I wasn't planning on having a gadget of the week, but being that my Bluetooth mouse broke, guess what-the Gadget of the Week is the Logitech VX Revolution Cordless Mouse or as I call it: the LVXRCLM. 

Okay I don't call it the LVXRCLM, I call it the best mouse I've had for my laptop so far.  The VX uses a 2.4 GHZ receiver which is storable inside the mouse itself to communicate with the PC or Mac.  It runs off of just one AA battery and must be powered on via a small power button on the under side.  The outside of the box said that the VX has a super fast scroll wheel and buttons on the side to make browsing the web more productive-if you call surfing YouTube and play WoW productive-but it's true.  Just give the wheel a flick with your index finger and it seems to spin for a second.  So for those of you who read at 500 WPM, this mouse is for you. 

But in all seriousness, the Logitech VX Revolution is the most comfortable mouse I've ever used and although priced a little on the high side at $69.99, I believe it to be well worth it.