PixlBit

Well Happy Friday to you good people of Pixlbit. As I type this I am currently debating if I should catch the early showing of X-Men, or go next week when nobody will be there. Hopefully I will make a decision before I finish this latest update, which on Friday I like to call “Quick Hits With Chris”. For today’s Quick Hits I want to ramble on about a couple of subjects, hopefully there will be no spoilers, and by the time I finish writing, editing and uploading pictures, I will have a decision about whether I should go watch a movie. So let’s get this edition of Quick Hits started!

 

iTunes

 

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been going through iTunes trying to figure out what should be there, and what should go. I’ve noticed that I’ve become a hoarder when it comes to podcasts, and I’ve kept a lot of them even after listening to them. I use the “I might want to listen to it again” excuse but really how often do I actually say “hey you know that Sept. 20^th 2012 episode of so and so? Well I want to listen to that again”. So I’ve decided to purge these items out of the library, and since I am almost two weeks behind I’ve decided to skip one of the weeks worth of content. The only thing I’m keeping is this week’s stuff (this means a lot considering a couple of podcasts are daily stuff like Jay Mohr Sports and Tony Kornheiser). This will free up a ton of space on my iPod as well so I can bring back the Haven’t Listen to playlist.

 

I’ve also noticed that since a random software update the podcast portion of iTunes has a changed a bit. There is an option now where it will delete your listened to podcasts. I’m still keeping my Adam Carolla stuff so I said no to that (I need to hoard at least one of the podcasts…baby steps).

 

Another interesting tidbit, some of the podcasts I like to listen at double the normal speed like I do with audiobooks. For the first 10-15 sec they sound like chipmunks but then go back to normal. This works well with Tony Kornheiser’s show, and sometimes with Jay Mohr’s, but I will slow it down when they do the $25,000 Pyramid skit.

 

This is my current lineup on my iPod, which I should be finished with by the end of the weekend.

 

Game of Thrones Audiobook Update (Spoiler Free)

 

I am currently 9 chapters away from finishing A Feast For Crows. Apparently I lost track of some folks because there was a couple of points where I said “Wait, what?” I blame that on not paying attention to the millions of people in this universe

 

I can’t wait to see this unfold on the show!

 

Android/iOS Randoms

 

I don’t know if you ever tried the How Much Wood… thing with Google. Before you could hit the audio button, ask Google How much wood could a wood chuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood saying, and it would reply with the rest of the saying. It was funny, but now it seems it has been removed from my Google Now (unless they moved it and I can’t figure it out). Anyways I decided to try it on Siri last night. Before it would give a canned answer of “I don’t know” or send me to Google. This time Siri gave me a different answer

 

This doesn’t top when I asked Siri where do you find dead bodies, and the forth option was the dump.

 

Also there was a really cool Super Mario World inspired Game of Thrones map posted on my last blog, and I said I would use as my wallpaper on my Nexus 7

 

I moved my icons down a row because they were covering Kings Landing. I get a kick out of Castle Black by The Wall.

 

 

This popped up on my phone. No thanks Facebook, your mobile app is all I need.

 

 

TV Watches

 

The Bachelorette: After listening to The Right Reasons Podcast talking about the hilarity that is The Bachelor, I decided I was going to check out an episode. I do love me some trashy reality TV, so why not. After 30 minutes in of the Bachelorette talking about her life, and shopping I was bored. It was terrible, and you know it’s bad when your “I Love Me” spot is boring is boring so I went Guide Surfing and spotted something much more interesting

 

Oh She lost that loving feeling…I hate it when she does that!

 

Survivor: The Finale happened, and the person who I figured would win it did. I didn’t care for Kass, and Spencer had his moments. It was a good season, especially for someone like me who hasn’t watched since the first season.

 

Hell’s Kitchen: This season has become “Who isn’t the worst chef on the planet”, and there has been a lot of finger pointing, when in reality everyone sucks. Usually there have been one or two really strong chefs per season that you want to see win, but this season I’m more interested to see who is going to mess up. I have a handful of folks who I am rooting against purely based on how great they think they are. I will say I am hoping for an all female final.

 

MTV’s The Challenge: One thing MTV needs to fix is the commercials that promote there after show in the middle of the episode. Everyone who watches knows that whoever is on that show got booted, so it ruins the last 10 minutes. MTV seemed to be teasing this rivalry for a couple of episodes now, and it finally happened. One guy got his wish to get his rival sent into the Challenge, and being arrogant he flipped all the cards just so he could get his shot at him. Once again this is why Bill Simmons refers to it as America’s Fifth Professional Sport

 

Pickups!

 

Video Games

 

I can’t remember if I downloaded this game this past week or last week, so I’ll post here. Origin offered this as a freebie, and naturally since I already have an Origin account for The Simpsons Tapped Out game, I went ahead and downloaded it to my laptop. I think I now have this games on three different devices.

 

I bought a TV! I saw a sale for a 40” 1080p for $200 out of pocket which is a lot cheaper than my old 32” I got a couple of years ago. It’s a Smart TV so it has apps I will probably not use, but I do like shooting YouTube vids from my phone to the TV. I stuck with the Philips brand because I like the screen quality, build, and price. The screen real estate is nice especially for a small room, and my old 32” is replacing my old 19” tube TV I’ve had since college in the guest room. That TV is built like a tank, it was dropped once, and still works. I should keep it for Nintendo games. 

Since it’s a Philips TV it has the Cloud TV, which is all the apps that could be on my TV as well as some simple games like card games, pool, etc. It also has a Facebook app and I don’t get why folks need Facebook on their TV but whatever floats your boat.

 

Final pickup of the blog is this

 

I stood at Toys R Us feeling the bags for a couple of minutes looking for Bart. I didn’t find him, but I found the cat from Itchy & Scratchy (ok Simpsons fans which one is Itchy and which one is Scratchy). I just need Bart, Milhouse, Maggie, and Ralph to complete the set.

 

Before we end this blog, Landon Donovan was left off the USMNT, which is a shock because I thought he would make the team, and announce that this would be his final World Cup. Disappointing that he didn’t make the team but because of him, this is one of my favorite sports moments.

 

I think my neighbors thought I cut my hand off because I was screaming, but it was one hell of a goal.

 

Well Pixlbit have a good weekend

 

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris