After months of waiting, it’s back!

Was it worth it?

First some credits:

Look! We now have a credit for episode music!

Well surprise! During his summer hiatus, Cal Lightman has done a book.

He’s still using an iPhone.

We never saw that effect in the first season!

We get our first array of expressions:

Each one is punctuated by a “Look, you moron! Expressions!” explosive beat. Really, the viewers of this series don’t need that overkill.

More expressions …

… thankfully not punctuated with blasts of sound.

But wait! Here it comes:

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

This next sequence is for @ScottMcKain @TomZiglar and @redstarvip:

“Look, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I am grown up.”

“Terrific. What are you?”

“. . . I’m … I’m a …”

“You’re on your way to …

“… becoming one of the world’s leading experts in deception.”

“. . . “

“But up here …”

“… you’re still a baggage screener at the airport.”

“Til you change that …”

“… you’ll always think that you’re not ready.”

Nice little touch, that.

What is he doing with his thumb and forefinger?!!?

Then the twin horrors of the episode:

Gillian in pink!

And it gets even worse:

Cal in a suit! A suit!! I don’t recall him in a suit at all last season!

It was an interesting episode, but some points were annoying:

1) The new FBI agent. He’s very annoying.
2) Cal strangling the girl. I understood the point but it felt forced.

The first season had more quiet moments in each episode. This seemed to go rat-a-tat-tat. Let’s see how it all develops.

Booklorn — of the Booklorn website — sent me some screensnaps of Stanza Reader displaying the PDF of Black Silk on an iPhone:

Aside from some funkiness — hyphenation breaks and lack of italics — the text can be made bigger and it reflows. This is superior to reading in Safari, even with the evident problems.

As I understand it, moving eBooks from Stanza on the desktop to Stanza Reader on an iPhone/iPod Touch requires syncing via WiFi — cable syncing is not (yet?) supported — so if you don’t have a wireless router, get one first.

Right now, I’m reading a PDF I converted to MobiPocket to read on my LifeDrive. It’s horrendous looking, with headers and gaps and no italics and footnotes mashed into the text. This actually looks better than that. When the text is what matters, we’ll settle for rotten presentation — sometimes.

Previously here:

PDF On The iPhone

Someone asked me on Twitter yesterday if a Sony Reader PRS-300 would be good for reading books that have been purchased in the PDF format.

Given its slow processor, I can’t imagine it being a good experience. And using text reflow would make it an aesthetically tormenting experience.

I haven’t bought an iPhone. With the word of AT&T’s bad service, I’ve held off — and now there are rumors of it being liberated from AT&T and perhaps landing at Verizon in January, so I’m holding off. I don’t want to lock myself into a two-year contract with rotten cell service.

I’d hoped to get one of the new iPod Touch models, but Apple disappointed me by not including the camera I wanted in it.

All this is preface to explaining that I thought an iPod would be a better reading experience for PDFs than a Sony Reader PRS-300. But I needed to see this for myself, so I stopped at the Apple Store in SOHO this morning to do some tests.

All PDF display is done via Safari. I’m unsure if this requires a persistent wireless connection, however.

FeedBooks:

That’s Black Silk. In portrait mode, the text was too small for me. Tapped-in and in landscape mode, the text was crisp and readable.

Cliff Burns:

His short story, Least, at this post.

Again, portrait text was too small. But even landscape was too small for me. Zooming in gave me a comfortable size (ie, book-size text) but would require scrolling side-to-side. Cliff could easily fix all that, however.

Google Books:

That’s Success: A Novel.

Google Books PDF was a real pain to use. First, it seemed to require a persistent connection and even at that early hour, the WiFi at the Apple Store was laggy. Second, even with the iPhone 3GS’ powerful CPU, there were delays in moving from page to page. On top of all that, the text was too blurry to be enjoyable. I held up the iPhone screen to the screen of a MacBook right next to it. Weirdly, the Google PDF wasn’t easy to look at on the MacBook screen, either — I was seeing the pixel grid of the screen!

All of this did teach me one important thing, however: Apple really, really needs to do a tablet with at least a 6-inch screen. And, ideally, bundle a PDF reader with it. I think the higher pixel density of such a screen would make it an incredible eBook and PDF reading device. It would top everything out there.

Castle returned to ABC in style …

This is a development I Do Not Like:

The production studio (which is actually the network itself!) getting credit before any of the talent!

One other thing to note: Season 2 typeface …

… compared to Season 1:

This episode also guested another writer:

Some more credits:

“Somebody hated his guts.” — Yes! Why I love Castle!

Writer Stephen J. Cannell:

Writer Michael Connelly:

Another season off to a great start.

Hulu today announced ABC had put up an eighteen-minute preview of the first episode of FlashForward. I went to Hulu to try to play it and again this crap PC let me down.

I don’t think I have to tell everyone how incredibly hyped this series has been. Just about every promo from ABC in the morning and afternoon seems to be for this series. I’ve yet to see any promo for the season premiere of Castle!

So, after my PC frustrating my desire to see this, I turned to the DarkNet and lo, there was a leak of the entire first episode.

It was a crap copy:

It used a codec I’d never heard of before. trying to play it in vlc was problematic, so I tried a program I use for converting video. Even that was troublesome but I dealt with it.

Everyone knows the premise of the series: all of humanity blacks out simultaneously for two minutes and seventeen seconds and WTF happened and is there a why too?

Given that — and the hype (which, as it draws closer to the series debut, has begun to give off a reek of desperation) — I didn’t expect much from the pilot at all.

Up until very close to the end, I was unconvinced that I’d want to watch another episode. But they snagged me with this:

I’ve cropped that image to prevent a spoiler. What I want you to concentrate on is the expression on his face. That is a man being squeezed to death by Fate. He is suddenly realizing that there is no exit ahead. My God! I’m a sucker for stories like that: predestination and fate versus free will and self-determination.

But then there was a scene after this that really grabbed me. They snagged me and then reeled me in.

Writing credits:

Brannon Braga is a name Trekkies will immediately know.

And here’s a name worth watching:

Ramin Djawadi. The in-episode music is nothing particularly special or memorable. But the music over the end credits is a hell of a thing. It’s just incredible. Unfortunately, I doubt most people will get to hear it as ABC will likely run a promo voice over on top of it. They should release it on the iTunes Store. It’s really that good.

The one thing that really pissed me off was this:

The guy whose novel is the genesis of this entire big-budget hyped-to-hell series gets a shitty little title card like that — as an afterthought?!!? That’s bullshit! His credit should be on a card of its own at the start of every episode along with the producers, writers, and director! I hope they will correct this.

I’m hooked at least for one more episode. I hope they’ll continue hooking me with that one too.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which single-handedly revived prime-time game shows, came back for a rare 10th-anniversary outing.

For several years, I visited a site called TV Gameshows.net. I looked forward to the analysis and coverage of these new games. So after last night’s Millionaire debacle, I called up the site. And was shocked to find out it died last August! Even worse, it prevented the Internet Archive from making a backup copy! Webmaster Steve Beverly would have covered last night’s horror, but his site is gone. So this is for him as much as for me.

Most, but not all, of these images are hidden in the nine-minute trailer AMC released for San Diego Comic Con this weekend. Some of the images go by in a fraction of a second and it was difficult to grab them all. I don’t claim comprehensiveness here. Non-hidden images are ones I personally found interesting.

This has been a highly-anticipated series although most of the buzz has been of a derogatory nature. I’m not sure this trailer is going to do anything to counteract that except among those who don’t hold the original series as being brilliant to begin with. As much as I’d like to reserve comment about this, some of this material just really deserves some snark — and I will give it that.

Also, if you do not want any part of the series spoiled, do not read past the spoiler warning at the end. Beyond that will be my speculations of what I think the series is about, having studied the images.

Study that logo, it is different in a later shot!

Dear God! The Village was built by Habitat for Humanity!

The faces embedded go by in fractions of a second:

This not a spoiler. The writer of the series has already confirmed what I myself speculated after seeing the trailer: That guy is meant to be the original Number Six.

OK, compare the logo above to the others. It looks like a hand.

The famous map scene:

The iconic Be Seeing You handsign is gone. And I really really really want to slap the shit out the store owner.

You prat! This is how it’s done:

Back to the AMC trailer …

OK, if it’s not Habitat for Humanity, it’s some kind of rotten summer camp.

A pig walking in the street. Is this Cuba?

I really really really want to slap her too.

Did you notice them in the trailer?

The writer has already spoiled this too: “Escape” on the bus is the name of the bus’ destination. Subtle, huh?

See, if this was a summer camp, those larger buildings would be the latrines. One for males, one for females.

I am certain that is a very clumsy metaphor.

The Twin Towers?

Another clumsy metaphor, I’m sure.

As you can see, they spared no expense for wardrobe.

That logo. Obvious yet?

Neurons. I’m certain.

I think this is supposed to be New York City. No part of New York City looks like that, OK?

It’s difficult not to compare this to the original series. And why shouldn’t it be? They used the same damn title to begin with! So they really are fair game for comparison.

The new Village is no Portmeirion.

That place was so eccentric we could believe it was an area outside of normal time and space. This new Village, well, I’ve already snarked it.

Also gone are the eccentric wardrobes of the Village inhabitants. The final blow is the removal of all of the wonderful technology for snooping on Number Six.

And I didn’t see anything to indicate touches such as this:

I also doubt we’ll see someone utter the words …

“Orange Alert!”

Do not read beyond here. Possible spoilers!

OK, so Number Six is not a secret agent who has resigned. Then who is he?

I think he’s someone who’s suffered a traumatic event and the entire Village thing is in his mind, while he lies in a coma. This is right out of Philip K. Dick.

Of course I’ll watch it, just like millions of others will. I’m curious as hell, if only to possibly see one hell of a train wreck.

How the hell can anyone top McGoohan?

Even the way he stood was dynamic!

One thing that might be in AMC’s favor. As the economy continues to deteriorate, those millions of viewers will feel like prisoners too.

I just saw this on Drudge about five minutes ago (July 10, 2009, 8:35PM EDST):

No I did not click through. Are you insane?

From the introduction of the iPhone in 2006: