Blogcritics Author: The Prynce

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Vongo = Revolution?

The Prynce — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:41:48 EST

I recently saw an advertisement for a product that was supposed to revolutionize the way people watch movies. I saw this commercial a few times and I was highly interested due to my love of movies and its rather low price of about $10 a month.I went to the website to find that it promised pretty much the same as the commercial, only in slightly more detail. Both platforms promised unlimited downloads of a large selection of movies for one monthly price.So I downloaded Vongo and signed up for the service to give the 14 day free trial a shot to see if it was worth the download.It was.The selection of movies made me giggle like a mad person. Things like Pulp Fiction,Young Frankenstein, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Revenge of the Nerds, House of Flying Daggers, Hitch, Armageddon, Chronicles of Narnia, Flightplan, Sin City, Guess Who, and more. Of course, those are among the movies that caught my attention. There are plenty of others from many different genres, titles, eras, and studios.The downloads are fast. It takes some time - around an hour and a half - to download an entire movie on my connection, though yours may vary depending on your connection speed.No matter how fast your connection is, you're going to have to wait - probably at least an hour - for the movie to be fully downloaded. This isn't as bad as it sounds: you're able to start the movie when a certain portion has finished being downloaded - typically between 5 and 20 minutes - and the download continues as you watch the movie.There's also a feature that I didn't know about until after I signed up for the service, and that's that you can watch the Starz! movie channel for free, in high quality streaming video, or you can download the movies that are on or coming soon.There are a few negative points to Vongo, though:1) All of the movies have a limited 'life'. Vongo acquires a temporary license to allow them to distribute the movies and once that expires you cannot watch that movie any longer. However, most of the movies I've downloaded had at least a few months left on them, though some can have as little as a few days or a few hours.2) You can't burn the movie to any other media once it's been downloaded, so you have to let the rather large files stay on your drive until you delete them. Due to the high video quality, file size can be over a gigabyte per 90 minute movie.3) When movies are very new (as in just out of the theaters and just released on DVD), they're almost always Pay-Per-View, which means you pay about $4 to download the movie, but again you can keep it until it expires. Some older movies are also Pay-Per-View, but their prices are almost always lower.You're able to choose with most movies if you want it in wide-screen or standard, and if it's for a PC or a portable device. I'm not sure which devices are supported, though. Where applicable, you can enable subtitles or chose audio language. In some cases you can also view deleted scenes and DVD style extras without downloading the movie itself!I'm so impressed with this product that I always feel as though I'm leaving something important out when describing it, but with luck, I've covered it all here.I would recommend Vongo to anyone who can afford $10 a month - and who can't afford that?! - because no matter what level movie fan you are, there are going to be lots of movies that you're going to either love from the past or that you've been dying to see. Just don't be afraid to watch new movies that you've never heard of. You may be pleasantly surprised, but hopefully not too surprised due to the fact that you can watch trailers and/or clips from the movies before you even download them.Try it!

I'm the owner and webmaster of the following sites: http://theprynce.net/ http://southeasternhauntings.com/ http://pryncetonpagans.com/

Review of New TV Series, Revelations

The Prynce — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 03:55:52 EDT

Wednesdays have a new show over at NBC. Revelations is their much hyped, new limited series show about the end of days.Simply put, Revelations is an interesting show that presents a theory of what it would be like if the "End of Days" was really upon us and not as apparent as most would think it would be.While filled with much religion, the show is not one that preaches to you, though it does have a fair share of Biblical predictions, verse, etc. As a non-Christian who understands Christianity, the story was easy to follow.So far, it is about a man who was very religious, whose daughter was kidnapped by a Satanist, who went on to cut her heart out to use in a ceremony. He caught the guy who did it and he was put in prison, but because of his ordeal, the man has lost his faith.'Round the same time as all of this, a young girl is running across a nearby golf course to get to her bus stop when she is struck by lightning twice. This scene was rather intense and made me want to stay tuned to see what else would happen. The girl stops and looks at her watch which is spinning out of control. You can see, then, that her hair is beginning to stand on end. It had a good build-up of about 30 seconds and the whole time I was thinking, "Bend over and grab you ankles, baby or you're gonna get struck!"So the girl is pronounced brain dead and they want to take off her life support to harvest her organs. Her father is poor and has been talking to some people with family members in need of organs or whatever and they have offered him money.Well anyway, this sexy ass nun shows up after the girl's father's priest asks her to come and then during an electrical storm, the girl starts quoting scripture in Latin. The nun is stunned and asks to be alone with her to observe and trains a camera on her as she speaks. Then the nun takes her hand and places a pencil in it and puts it to paper and homegirl draws the nun a map.So she follows the map and it leads to the guy who's daughter was murdered, or at least to his office and they meet, he tells her to bugger off, and she basically says "I will for now but God knows where you are at all times and I'm in good with him so he'll hook me up and let me know where you are if I need you"... I'm paraphrasing out of the ass there, but you get it, right?So he looks at the map one night and sees a picture on the map of a donkey and he goes and looks at a little note his daughter gave him back in the day and it has the same donkey on it. Brother goes a little apey and goes to the hospital.Well, when he's there talking to the nun about where she got the donkey drawing, the girl's heart stops beating. So they rush in and she's pushing the doctors away because they won't try to revive her 'cause the need her organs right away so they'll be fresh and all. But in all of the mess, dude holds the girl's hand and her heart starts again.That's pretty much all of the story that went on in the first episode but it has caught my eye and I think I will be catching at least a few more episodes to see if the first one was just entertaining by a fluke or if the show will remain that way.Anywho, the show is full of religious dogma, but nonetheless, it is not what I would call a religious show in itself. I know that it doesn't make much sense, but who's the writer here?The camera work is REALLY great and the actors are equally as good. My only fear, at the moment, is that the show might turn out to be some kind of an evangelical and overly-religious preach-through-story-fest comparable to The Passion of the Christ. I mean, I liked the movie and all and I have no problem with Jesus as a person or a thing or with Christianity, but I'd rather the show be deep, spiritual, intriguing, and more Da Vinci Code-esque, as so many have proclaimed it would be. Only time will tell...I do recommend that everyone who can watch this show at least give it a try. I think it could have a VERY wide audience, past all of the hard-core Christians and religious nuts and past all of the people who don't get that The Da Vinci Code is a fictional book.Think of it as like some of the Exorcist or Omen movies without all of the killing. ... But at a second thought, in reality, there is a Satanic killer on the show who gets his finger chopped off and doesn't bleed, as well as quotes Jesus in saying "Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do." when he's being hounded by prisoners as he's lead through the corridor.So for now, I'll just call it a Da Vinci Code, Exorcist, Omen mix with a bit of Silence of the Lambs and just a touch of Signs. It really has great potential. I'm just hoping NBC doesn't botch it.So give it a go. Catch Revelations on NBC at 9PM on Wednesday nights! It won't hurt to give it a try!-=The Prynce http://theprynce.blogspot/ http://pryncetonpagans.djara.com/ http://ghosthunters.djara.com/

I'm the owner and webmaster of the following sites: http://theprynce.net/ http://southeasternhauntings.com/ http://pryncetonpagans.com/