Articles by Danny Rupp
Danny works professionally as an architect and serves as managing editor here at CH, which means he shares many of the duties of being an editor but without the fame and recognition. He also writes about RPGs, videogames, movies, and TV. He is married to Sucilaria, and has a personal blog at Incorrect Blitz Input. (Email Danny or follow him on Twitter).
The Top Reason to Choose Netflix (over Blockbuster)
In the last year many of my friends have started using Netflix, which really makes me happy because one of the best features of Netflix is their website and the friends features that it offers. I have always had a big problem with them, though, because a lone friend of mine started using the similar Blockbuster online rental service and began boasting about the volume of movies she could enjoy being equal to ours PLUS the use of free in-store rentals that were provided.
Finally, Netflix is fighting back! Announcement:
Netflix… today introduced a new feature that allows people to immediately watch movies and television series on their personal computers and said it will make the new feature available to its subscribers in a phased roll-out over the next six months.
Subscribers will continue to receive DVDs by mail from the company’s market-leading catalog of over 70,000 titles and will have the additional option of instantly watching about 1,000 movies and TV series on their PCs.
(Source: Netflix MediaCenter)
This really gives their service the much needed kick-in-the-service! Now, finally, they have upped their ante to allow Netflix to compete on even ground with Blockbuster, something that I feel makes it much easier for them to suceed as a company. No more guilt ridden nights of secretly lusting over Blockbuster’s service, now we can rest easy.
Some of the details of the service:
Netflix said it expects to make the new feature available to all Netflix subscribers by the end of June. The hours available for instant watching will vary based on subscribers’ monthly plans. For example, subscribers on the entry-level $5.99 plan will have six hours of online movie watching per month and subscribers on Netflix’s most popular plan, $17.99 for unlimited DVD rental and three discs out at a time, will have 18 hours of online movie watching per month.
Thanks to Ryan Esaki’s blog for the initial links, and you can read more at Tech Crunch including an older post about quitting Netflix, and today’s retraction of such harsh words.
Inq. of the Week: Television
This week’s Inquisition comes direct from my latest obsession, which would be the Battlestar Galactica season 1 and 2 dvd’s that The Main Event lent me. All I really knew beforehand was that it was a remake of an older 70′s tv show which I’d seen a re-run or two of and was generally disinterested in, but I respected it as I knew how important sci-fi was back then to the propogation of our nerd-empire. Other then this, all I really knew was that there was a smokin’ hot blonde (who I knew was some sort of “cylinder” and somehow inside of a crazy guy’s head), which would normally be enough to make me obsessed with just about any show. The problem back then was that I hadn’t really been into watching tv for the last few years, and shows like Lost, My Name is Earl, and The Office were really stretching my abilities to explore the new medium known as “television that doesn’t blow”. That brings me to this week’s question:
What is your favorite TV show?
You can consider your current favorite, all-time favorite, best of 2006, whichever and however you like. List several, just your one all-time fave, or flat out say you hate all television that’s ever existed! The requirement is only something that is episodic in nature and has been on tv at some point in any country. My personal picks after the break… [Read the rest of this article]
Ninja: Flipping Out in the Big Apple
If you’ve ever got the hankering for some good food, but you’re concerned with running into a pirate in the restaurant, fear no more! Not at the Ninja New York restaurant! As their philosophy says, they provide “good service, NINJA WAY!” It looks like the atmosphere presented by this place is grade A – awesome, looking from the pictures like a mix between a fuedal japanese castle and dungeon. The site is full of excellent lines like, “the NINJA Staff, dressed in their familiar NINJA attire, will guide our guests to a pleasant time the NINJA WAY!”
Now, not all of my friends are Ninjas, but I’ve known a few in my time and they aren’t necessarily known for “pleasant time” abilities. A dart in the neck and a katana to the throat isn’t my idea of a fancy night out in the big city. This does take me back to The Game’s and my discussions for a Ninja sitcom about living in the modern world:
“You’re a real ultimate pain in the ass, Ninja!”
“The only flipping you’ll be doing is flipping burgers!”
“Ninja, will I ever see you again?” “No, I’m a Ninja…dumb ho…”
“Waiter! I think I found a poison-laced dart in my fo…” *thud*
(thanks to Hawk from Applegeeks for the link)
How Does This Darn Thing Work?
I noticed that on my last comic there somehow appeared a #1 after New Years Resolution, which could have been my subconcious zombie-mind giving subtle (and sexy) hints. Thus we have my second New Years Resolution, the second of a series, one that I only assume I should not attempt to carry out much further then, say, August. By then I will begin the dastardly deed of failing all of the aforetold resolutions and simply bathe myself in canola oil and absorb the slimy fats via osmosis. It’s all very much an Akira type process, in that it involves very large and grotesque bodies attacking cities and squashing rogue bikers with laser-guns. [Read the rest of this article]
Batman: TAS Online!
I was very shocked to find on the internet full episodes of the most excellent Batman: The Animated Series, especially from a source such as AOL. I haven’t gotten the chance to verify the quality or how well they are actually provided, but I was just surprised to see them on there at all, typically all AOL is good for providing is the latest scoop on Britney Spears or other vomit-inducing news, possibly sometimes a sadly distorted “look inside” piece on gaming, but this is honest-to-goodness pure Batman providence!
For those of you that aren’t yet familiar with it, Batman: The Animated Series was a traditionally animated cartoon that first came out between 1992 and 1995, and quickly became one of the most iconic representations of the character in motion ever to exist. The show was revolutionary in creating a distinct film-noir / art-deco feeling by using backgrounds painted on black paper rather then the typical white. This meant that every scene of the show was created as negative space in a dark world, which is really the only way Batman should be animated. [Read the rest of this article]
Testing My Resolve
Certainly a heavy stipulation to tag onto any resolution is the line “unless I die in the process,” but with a game as sinisterly difficult as Ultimate Ghosts’n'Goblins it may just come down to that. Given to me as a christmas present, I dove right in on December 25th and chose the Normal Difficulty level as I always do. Sometimes I glance at the stigmata known as “Pussy mode”, but never do I venture through a game in that hopped up love fest. After about an hour it became clear to me that this game had in fact bitch slapped me into a submissive, drooling, little worm of a game player. I could finish the first level, but the number of lives I escaped with was less then needed to get through the other eleven, much less one more.
My tail set snuggly between my legs, I returned to the title screen, closed my eyes, asked god for the salvation of my noobish soul, and accessed the Easy Mode. It was with nothing short of inconcievable terror that I soon found out that even on the wimpiest of wimpy settings I was not going to be able to easily best this game. [Read the rest of this article]
Inq. of the Week: Happy New Year!
Welcome to 2007, I certainly hope the holidays and 2006 were kind to everyone and that the new year will bring many more good things to everyone! We’re jumping right in with our Inquisition of the week:
What new technology do you predict for 2007?
On October 23rd, 2001 the world was introduced to Apple’s iPod, which after not too long became the staple accessory for pretty much anyone anywhere.
During the weekend of May 3rd-5th, 2002 the first Spiderman movie becomes the first film to break $100 million in an opening weekend. On July 3rd, 2002 Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is released and introduces 3d graphics into Blizzard’s typical RTS formula, as well as setting the groundwork for what would soon become the company’s biggest cash-cow. November 15th, 2002 Microsoft launches their online console service X-Box Live to luke-warm success. This would later be the building block for their extremely successful online service for their next-gen console.
iTunes was introduced in April of 2003, which revolutionized the legal future of the digital music industry. [Read the rest of this article]
Beware the Winter Solstice!
Thankfully we have passed this day, when the sun rises for only a few short hours, and now we have begun to blissful journey towards longer days and sunnier times. It may commonly be referred to as the Winter Solstice, which more accurately happened just into December 22nd, but technicalities aside we’re passed it and that’s what really matters.
I challenged myself this time to complete the comic in under an hour of working time, mainly because of the holiday season and massive preparations for not only new things to come but also an impending relocation of my base of operations. This may or may not become a recurring thing, I have all but promised The Game all of my internal organs is I do not keep up some semblance of a regular schedule. December has been extremely kind to Critical Hits, and we have even higher hopes for 2007!
The Christmastide Cometh
With Christmas a scant amount of days away, everyone pretty much starts the slow process of stopping everything else they were doing. The process begins sometime in August, when the first leaf decides it can resist the foul temptations of gravity no longer, or it simply falls for the grass’ endless tauntings of free booze and cheap hookers down below. Or perhaps it begins when vile, soulless marketing directors decide it’s just about time for Christmas commercials to start…just before summer ends.
ExtraLife has had an excellent series of Christmas / Wii themed comics lately, as well as pointing out quite a few excellent things in his blog:
Apparently these are some rejected or preliminary conceptual designs for the Wii and its controller interface. It really has to make you happy with what came out, going with the simplest and most functional but still aesthetically and commercially appealing is really the balance that the Wii controller achieves perfectly. I was sold from the very beginning, once I saw that the ‘remote’ design could be turned sideways to almost perfectly mimic a classic NES controller, I knew Nintendo had done right.
The other snippet of news ties yet again into my post from a few weeks ago, about updates on the Transformers movie. You can view the new trailer here!
Edit: More excellent news I read about yesterday, apparently very talented Comic writer Brian K. Vaughan is joining the writing cast of Lost! He’s probably best known for his comics Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, and hopefully his writing abilities will help bring a new taste to upcoming Lost episodes.
I hope that everyone has an excellent Christmas and Holiday season, and we’ll be flying into 2007 with so much new content you’ll literally crap your pants upon first sight of it!
Child's Play – Penny Arcade Contest
Last wednesday Gabe from Penny Arcade ran a contest to give away a group of tickets to their Child’s Play Charity Dinner that is being held in Washington state tomorrow, the contest was to do a three-panel comic that had to include the following elements:
- The 2006 Child’s Play Logo
- A Cat
- Meat
- A city that is home to one a Child’s Play partner hospitals
I wanted to share my entry with everyone, and I actually did it in a rushed flurry of 3 hours AFTER posting about FFxii taking up too much of my time last week, so it felt very much like I was doing a Random Encounter anyway. Seemed a shame to not use it as such in the end:
I’d also like to present a sneak peak of next week’s Random Encounter after the break: [Read the rest of this article]
