TV | avideogamelife

Adam Ruins Everything: The Conspiracy Behind Your Glasses

Posted on October 8, 2016 by avideogamelife.com

The Adam Ruins Everything series has quickly become one of my favorite things to watch on YouTube, and this morning I saw the “conspiracy behind your glasses” segment while watching TV. I don’t wear glasses (not even sunglasses usually), but watching this video was infuriating! How could something like this happen? What’s worse is that what is exposed in this video is probably true of a lot of industries, and it’s just not cool. I wanted to share it because first of all it’s entertaining, but also it’s quite informative, and I’m hoping more people will watch and share it so that more people will know what’s going on in the world.

Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’: Can’t stop watching!

Posted on July 23, 2016 by avideogamelife.com

Last night Vanessa and I watched the first episode of Netflix’s new series, “Stranger Things” and it was amazing. We were hooked as soon as the opening credits hit, with its mesmerizing music that reminds me a lot of the opening credits to The Wolf Among Us .

The show kept us on the edge of our seats throughout, and the first episode is a wonderful thrill ride from beginning to end. By the time it ended I immediately wanted to start watching the second episode (I don’t usually binge watch), however it was past midnight and we both needed to get some sleep. I can’t wait to continue watching the series later today, and if the second episode is as good as the first it’s very possible that we’ll end up finishing the entire series this weekend!

If you haven’t checked out “Stranger Things” yet, I highly recommend it! You won’t want to stop watching!

My Hopper Go fiasco

Posted on June 2, 2016 by avideogamelife.com

So when the Hopper Go was launched earlier this year I was already on board. If you are a DISH customer and haven’t heard of the Hopper Go, essentially it’s a device that lets you take up to 100 hours of content from your DVR on the go with you. You could already transfer recordings to your devices via the Dish Anywhere app, however you were limited by your device’s storage space. With the Hopper Go you can transfer 100 hours of content to the device and stream it to an iPad, iPhone, Android device or Kindle Fire tablet running the Dish Anywhere app.

The Hopper Go creates its own WiFi network that five devices can connect to at once and stream content from the device.

This all sounded incredibly cool, and when the device finally launched earlier this week I immediately called DISH and placed an order for the $99 device. It shipped that same day and arrived earlier today. Unfortunately it would take me several hours to finally get the device working.

When I initially plugged the device into my Hopper, a message popped up saying the device needed to be formatted. This clashed with the setup guide that stated that I should see a pop up saying “HopperGO Connecting”, however I pushed ‘ok’ figuring it would do its thing and end up working. This did not happen. After the device formatted it showed up as a 5GB external hard drive to my Hopper. I thought for sure that it somehow formatted over the firmware, and pushing the hard reset button on the device didn’t help either. No matter what I did the Hopper only saw the Hopper Go as a 5GB external hard drive.

I contacted DISH support and spent a painfully long time (about two hours) chatting with them. For the first 15 minutes or so they didn’t even seem to know what I was talking about. Then for the next hour and a half they continually had to do “research” and asked a lot of questions that seemed to get me nowhere. Midway through hour two they finally came to the realization that the Hopper Go only works with the latest Hopper software, and for whatever reason my Hopper did not have that software (even though it’s always connected to the internet).

Eventually they pushed an update to my Hopper manually, and it spent a good thirty minutes trying to download and install the update. The process didn’t finish before support told me that they had done all they could do, but their ‘engineers’ would continue to work on the problem and push any necessary updates to me in the future.

Luckily, about twenty minutes after ending the two hour support session my Hopper finally took the update and recognized the Hopper Go. I’m now in the process of transferring a bunch of shows and movies to the device and everything seems to be running smoothly.

I’m traveling tomorrow so that will be the first true test of how useful the Hopper Go can be. If all goes well I’ll be able to stick the Hopper Go in my laptop bag and stream movies and shows to my iPad during my flight and layovers. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to charge the Hopper Go with an external battery pack as I’ve heard the battery only lasts about four hours, but I have yet to determine if that’s an option.

I’ll be sure to post about how the Hopper Go performs after I get settled in on the east coast this weekend. If you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer them. I’m just hoping that other early adopters of the device won’t have the painful experience I just had. Nothing’s worse than being excited about a new gadget only to have to spend hours and hours talking in circles to tech support. I’m just glad it’s working now!

Week One

Posted on October 12, 2015 by avideogamelife.com

So I made it to my first day off of the deployment. Exciting! I don’t have anything video game related to write about, but I just wanted to check in so that this blog doesn’t just fade away into nothingness. How would I describe the first week? It’s been hot, exhausting and chaotic. That said, it hasn’t been as bad as it could be. I’m very fortunate to have so many luxuries in this environment that many people years ago didn’t (and even those today in worse environments don’t have). I have a great connection to the WiFi in my tent and the air conditioning works so well that at night I’ve almost been too cold to sleep (had to buy three blankets and sleep in a hoodie and sweatpants).

My awesome LEGO Movie sheets

I haven’t done much, as working twelve hours a day, six days a week doesn’t leave you with much free time. I’ve started watching Sons of Anarchy on Netflix after work and have been fascinated by it. I just started the second season and it’s been a wild ride.

I’ve only really fired up my Xbox once since I’ve been here, but I hope to get some Forza 6 in today, and possibly some more Metal Gear. The GAEMS G155 15.5″ gaming case has worked out pretty well so far. It got my Xbox One here in one piece and is great for storing it when I’m not using it. All I have to do is throw it up on my bed, crack it open and plug in the Xbox and monitor and I’m ready to game. I’m certainly glad I decided to buy it before heading over here, even if I won’t be playing as much Xbox as I had hoped. The 15.5″ screen is the perfect size, and I’m actually glad I didn’t go with the 19″ version like I originally planned.

There are many weeks to go, and I hope to be able to post at least weekly. I’m looking forward to playing Fallout 4 when it releases (I’m sure I’ll sacrifice too much sleep when the time comes), and I’ll probably end up buying a Wii U while I’m here to play Mario Maker. For now, I’m going to spend the rest of my day off relaxing before I start another work week.

Missing Vanessa 😉

The Legends Football League: Sport or Sexploitation

Posted on August 18, 2015 by avideogamelife.com

I was channel surfing this morning after work and came across an LFL (Legends Football League) game on FUSE. I decided to check it out and was surprised by what I saw. The Legends Football League, formally the Lingerie Football League, has its roots in the Lingerie Bowl halftime shows from 2004-2006. These were PPV events that aired during halftime of the NFL’s Super Bowl in which women dressed in lingerie played football. The main attraction then was of course the scantily clad women.

An image promoting the 2004 Lingerie Bowl

In 2009 the yearly event morphed into a full on women’s football league, then called the Lingerie Football League. The league featured ten teams from football cities such as Dallas, Denver, Philadelphia and New York, and the teams each played four games during the regular season.

The LFL attempted to move beyond the lingerie aspect of their sport in 2013 when it rebranded itself as the Legends Football League and dropped lingerie uniforms in exchange for a more ‘sporty’ look.

A look at the LFL uniform in 2015

The uniforms alone make it hard to take the LFL seriously. Why are the jerseys folded up to expose the chest area? Why the bikini bottoms? The answer seems pretty clear, the LFL is less about athleticism and competition and more about sex, sex and sex. Is it wrong to be sexy? Certainly not, but the sexy attire is not at all necessary if the LFL wanted to focus on women playing the sport of football.

The presentation of the game isn’t very focused on the sport either. In the few minutes that I watched there were several clips of the coach on the sidelines and I felt like I was watching reality TV. The reactions and rampages by the coaches seemed scripted and fictitious. A trailer for the 2015 season (see below) further degrades the sport, seeming more like a trailer for a reality TV show, and at one point a player tells a ref “you ain’t getting none after the game.”

The LFL’s website prominently features a quote from NBC Sports noting that “The LFL is the fastest-growing pro sports league in the nation.” Maybe this is true, yet the 2015 season featured only six teams, down from the ten team league from 2009.

I’m not trying to hate on the LFL, I just think it can do better for both the women who engage in the sport and the public perception of women’s sports in general. Let the players dress up in the same type of protective gear NFL players do. Focus on the athleticism and competitive nature of the sport, not the lack of clothing and sex appeal.

The LFL season wraps up this Sunday, August 23, with the 2015 Legends Cup featuring the Seattle Mist (5-1-1) versus the Chicago Bliss (6-0). The game will be played in Washington at 3PM. You can watch the game on Fuse, but it won’t be shown until the week after. This Saturday at 9PM Eastern Fuse will be showing the playoff game between Seattle and Los Angeles which was played on August 15th.

Mayweather – Pacquiao: It’s finally here!

Posted on May 2, 2015 by avideogamelife.com

It’s finally here! Tonight Floyd Mayweather Jr. will fight Manny Pacquiao in one of the most anticipated boxing events of all time. Being called “the fight of the century”, there’s an unprecedented amount of hype surrounding this fight, and for good reason. It’s the fight boxing fans have been dying to see for years, but complications and bickering have prevented it over and over again. Now, in 2015, both boxers are considered past their prime, yet the fight is still exciting the masses.

It’s the most expensive boxing PPV, at $99 for HD, and it’s also the highest paying fight, in which Mayweather will earn $180 million and Pacquiao will earn $120 million based on a 60/40 split of the projected $300 million the fight will earn. That’s huge!

I can’t call myself a boxing fan. I’ve watched two fights in my life, Tyson – Holyfield II in 1997 and Pacquaio – Bradley in 2012. I had heard a lot of buzz about the Pacquiao – Bradley fight and decided it would be worth checking out and it was quite exciting though incredibly disappointing in its result (in which Bradley won by an extremely controversial decision). Since then I hadn’t heard very much about the boxing world until recently.

This time the buzz is huge. It has gone beyond fighting fans. It’s even being talked about by those who don’t follow sports. I’d be surprised if there’s anyone who hasn’t heard about tonight’s fight in one way or another. In the way that people who don’t watch a single NFL game tune into the Super Bowl, I think tonight’s fight will find many who have never watched boxing in their life curious enough to watch it.

If you want to get even more hyped for the fight while also learning of its back story, be sure to check out the HBO documentary, Mayweather/Pacquiao: At Last. It tells the story really well and offers a great behind the scenes look at both the fighters and how the fight came to be (and almost didn’t). Watching it gives me chills of excitement for tonight’s fight!

There is, however, a pretty major hurdle for those wanting to check it out: the price. At $99, the PPV cost is outrageous. Even the WWE, which arguably makes its living on PPV events, abandoned the expensive PPV model. Instead of relying on $60 purchases they’ve decided to broadcast their events on their own network (the WWE Network) and rely on ongoing monthly subscriptions instead.

The next option is heading out to a sports bar to watch the fight. However, at a cost of $3,000-5,000 for a restaurant or bar to air the fight, many or choosing not to (notably Buffalo Wild Wings). Those that are hosting events are charging $20 cover charges just to get in, and when you factor in the cost of drinks and food you might just be better off buying the PPV after all.

I’m still undecided on how I’m going to watch the fight. A bunch of people from working are heading out to a bar to watch it, but when I factor in the cover charge, I’ll be paying $40 up front for Vanessa and I, and after a handful of drinks and snacks we could easily surpass the $100 PPV price. Not to mention it’s sure to be crowded and difficult to pay attention to the fight. I think I’m going to end up cringing as I part with $100 to order the fight and grab some pizza and beers and enjoying the fight while I sit on the edge of my seat, volume cranked enjoying every blow.

Will you be watching the fight? Who do you think will win?

The first four episodes of Game of Thrones have leaked!

Posted on April 12, 2015 by avideogamelife.com

Ahead of tonight’s season five premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones, the first four episodes have been leaked. Thousands of people have already downloaded and shared the episodes, and all of a sudden the rest of us are behind in Game of Thrones before it even started.

So now, we’re faced with a choice. Do we wait and watch the episodes as they’re aired on HBO, while risking that someone at work has seen the episodes and might let something slip? Or do we put on our pirate hats in an effort to avoid having the season spoiled? In the age of Netflix and House of Cards binge watching, can we force ourselves to wait and watch one episode a week, or is the temptation to see as much as we can at once overrule our morality?

What will you do?

WWE Network free for April / Wrestlemania 31

Posted on April 2, 2015 by avideogamelife.com

WWE Network is currently free for the month of April for new subscribers, so I decided why not check it out and watch last Sunday’s Wrestlemania. Even though I had previously subscribed to the WWE Network last year it still let renew my account while receiving April for free which was pretty cool. It’s also worth noting the six month commitment is no longer in place and you can cancel at anytime. They previously locked subscribers into 6 month subscriptions (billed monthly) so that you couldn’t just drop $10 for Wrestlemania and immediately cancel your subscription.

I’m going to watch Wrestlemania 31 and jot down some thoughts while doing so. Sorry for constantly changing tenses in what follows, you’ll forgive me right?

Note: Wrestlemania spoilers will follow.

I haven’t kept up with the WWE at all for at least the last six months, if not longer. I can’t even recall what was going on when I last watched. I believe I stopped watching around the time when there was the struggle between Daniel Bryan and the “authority” or whatever, where they basically said he wasn’t championship material. It was surprising, then, to see Daniel Bryan participating in the opening seven-man ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship with lower card talent such as Stardust, R-Truth, Dolph Ziggler and defending champion Bad News Barret.

I’ll give the match credit, it was pretty exciting though was often cheesy. The R-Truth ‘scared of heights’ set up was a little lame, as was the opening series of over the rope volleys knocking more and more people to the ground until all seven participants tumbled like bowling pins. It was so absurd it made me laugh, which isn’t all the surprising coming from the WWE these days. I’m glad Bryan was victorious, but I feel like he’s a better talent and not someone who should be relegated to a lower title.

The Randy Orton – Seth Rollins promo that followed next was pretty exciting. Sure the storyline seems pretty silly (Kane is with the authority, why?) but I’m starting to see parallels between the WWE and comic books. The story lines are silly and often don’t make a whole lot of sense, but you just have to stop trying to justify things and simply enjoy the drama. I kind of wish I had watched the Orton vs. Rollins storyline, it seems interesting (and I don’t think the WWE has been interesting since CM Punk’s reign, though Daniel Bryan’s rise came close).

As I’m watching the match I can’t help but see all the people shielding their eyes from the sun in order to see the action. I’m not sure how much I like the idea of an outdoor venue for wrestling. There’s just something you lose by not having all of the indoor lighting and effects. Maybe it’s just me.

The Orton – Rollins match when on for an excessively long time, though maybe it’s just that I don’t have the patience for wrestling anymore. For the most part it was unremarkable, yet the curb stomp counter into an RKO finish was pretty sweet. Glad Orton won.

This whole Sting – Triple H feud is probably exciting for a lot of long time wrestling fans, but to me it just seems like it’s too late and is overly gimmicky, if that’s even possible for wrestling. I guess it’s all a gimmick, isn’t it? Maybe if there was more of a WCW vs. WWE thing going on it’d be more interesting, but then again I don’t think I can name a single WCW wrestler. Goldberg? He was one right? Meh. Hope Triple H loses.

Sting’s entrance is over the top. They could’ve done something better to build tension. Heck, Triple H’s entrance has hyped me up more and I almost want to cheer for him instead…if he weren’t a total a-hole of course!

I feel like the match is a little unrealistic. I mean Triple H is huge, there aren’t many in the WWE who stack up against his size and power, while Sting is older, less fit and less powerful. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for him to be able to hang in there with Triple H. But here I am, trying to make sense of wrestling again! D-X coming out should’ve been cool, but they’re all so old and terrible looking and they ran out with hardly any energy just to get bowled down by Sting in a scene torn from the opening match of the night. Not as exciting as it should’ve been. Then comes the NWO, another group of elderly men. Why couldn’t this have happened years ago? Hulk Hogan just needs to go away.

The bat vs sledgehammer scenario was a little cheesy, though why not go all the way? Ultimately I think the match would’ve ended better as a draw. Triple H won, what’s new? The handshake doesn’t really fit with Triple H’s character, or at least what I perceive his character to be at this point. Also I expected more from Hogan (even if I’m sick of him).

Well, I’m not sure how much more of this I can take, so I’m going to stop watching for now. If I get around to finishing it I might drop in with some final thoughts. Until then, thanks for reading. Let me know what your favorite Wrestlemania 31 moments were in the comments!

A look at Sling TV (on the Xbox One)

Posted on March 25, 2015 by avideogamelife.com

So I should start off by saying I’m not a cord cutter, and I probably never will be one. I enjoy having a traditional “cable” service. We have DISH Network and enjoy it immensely. I love channel surfing and having a large variety of content, even if most of it I just leave on to fall asleep to (or leave on in the background). I also enjoy watching live sports, and so far it’s not very easy to do so outside of cable / satellite TV. MLB.tv and WWE Network are steps in the right direction, but the NFL is still locked down tightly (the only negative thing about having DISH is not having as much access to the NFL).

With that out of the way, you’re probably puzzled as to why I would sign up for Sling TV if I already subscribe to DISH (and pay over $100 a month). Well, I have to say I’m a huge fan of new ways to consume entertainment, and services such as Sling TV, Playstation Vue, HBO’s new cable free service and the forthcoming Apple streaming TV service are wonderful for all consumers.

These services are great for the college student who can’t afford cable, those in living situations where installing cable or satellite TV isn’t practical, and those who know exactly what they want and don’t want to pay for what they don’t watch.

Sling TV starts at $20 a month, and is completely commitment free. No contract, no extra fees, cancel any time. Heck, you don’t even have to deal with customer retention services to cancel, you can do so right from your account (though I haven’t tried canceling yet as I’ve just signed up).

The sign up process on the Xbox One was a breeze. I was signed up in a matter of minutes. Xbox One users are able to try out Sling TV for 30 days free. You can also add ALL of the add on packages ($5/mo each) for free for the first 30 days as well. Set up your package, enter your payment information and there you have it, you can jump right into watching live TV.

The picture quality is great. I have a 50mbps connection and I can’t tell the difference between a channel on Sling TV when compared to the same channel coming through my DISH. There is some buffering that causes a subpar picture for a few seconds when first switching to a channel, but it quickly clears up (I imagine this could be worse or better depending on your internet connection).

If you have a data cap, using a streaming TV service might not be practical if you watch a lot of TV. We have a 400GB monthly cap that I already eat into a good bit by downloading games and watching Netflix. If I tried to use Sling TV as my primary TV service I would easily blow through my data cap. I checked my bandwidth usage on my Xbox after using Sling TV for about twenty minutes and found that I had used 638MB during that period. I wasn’t downloading anything else, but I wasn’t watching the data in real time so I can’t say for sure how much of that was used by Sling TV. Still, it’s a pretty high number so you can imagine how much data you’d use in a month.

11070530_10108383496472754_1534896083400072775_n

The Sling TV interface is clean and easy to navigate, though I think the DISH interface is easier to navigate (though not as good looking). I like that when viewing a channel’s schedule you’ll see pictures for most of the upcoming shows or movies. However, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to see everything that is on all the channels without scanning through each one. I could be missing something, but I don’t see any sort of traditional guide.

Sling TV’s base package includes a lot of high demand channels such as ESPN, TBS, AMC, IFC and Cartoon Network. With the $5 addon packages you can get even more content, such as the sports pack (ESPN News, ESPN U, Universal Sports Network among others), movies (four EPIX channels and Sundance), news and more.

So far I’m pretty impressed with the service. I’m excited to see if these services can affect the traditional cable services, possibly giving users more control over what they get for their money. We can only hope!

Watch on Netflix: Iliza Shlesinger: Freezing Hot

Posted on February 4, 2015 by avideogamelife.com

Last weekend we watched Iliza Shlesinger’s Netflix exclusive comedy special, Freezing Hot. I loved her War Paint special and Freezing Hot is just as great. Iliza is smart, clever, original and outrageously funny! There isn’t a dull moment, and I was left wanting more.

Luckily there’s a great way to get more Iliza Shlesinger in the way of her weekly podcast, Truth and Iliza. There are currently 24 episodes on iTunes featuring guests such as Joe Rogan, Bob Saget, Diablo Cody and Jay Leno. I’m looking forward to adding it to my podcast feed and going back and listening.

I highly recommend watching Freezing Hot if you’re in the mood for some great stand up comedy.