Roku Review

Roku
This is a mini review of the Roku Player a VERY cool gadget I installed last week.

If you’re armed with a Netflix account and use it to watch movies over the net on your computer, you’ll probably be interested in a Roku. The Roku connects to your TV and to the Internet via a wireless (or wired) connection. Plug it in and it’ll guide you through the network settings. Mine did a firmware upgrade after it established the network connection.

After that, you’ll get the home screen which shows off various Roku “Channels”, including Netflix and Major League Baseball. There’s also a Roku Store which you get use to get more channels, such as streams of Revision 3 and TWiT network podcasts.

If you use the Netflix channel, it’ll ask you to log into Netflix on a computer and gives you a special code to type in. Once that’s done, you’ll get a listing of all “Instant Play” movies retrieved from those you already have in your queue.

The downside is not ALL movies are have the ability to be streamed, and some movies aren’t high quality digital translations.

The upside is there are a LOT of movies to watch, and quite a few TV shows too. We’ve been re-watching all the seasons of LOST. Before the Roku arrived, we’d been watching on DVD. Since then, we’ve been using the Roku. It’s been great.

And the real kicker for LOST fans: LOST Season 5 is out today… and already available for viewing via Netflix.

There are Blu-Ray Players out there that can stream Netflix movies too, but if you’re looking for a slightly cheaper solution, the Roku is great.

More on Pepsi in Glass Bottles

photo
After seeing my previous post on Pepsi in a glass bottle

A reader writes:


where can i find pepsi cola in glass bottles? with all the dangers of
drinking from plastic because of toxins and aluminum shavings from
cans i dont drink pepsi anymore!! so can u please tell me where to
find the glass bottles? otherwise myself and several friends and
family are switching to coke!!

A few places sell this online, including Retro Soda.

Other readers have pointed out that Taylor’s Market also has them available.

I get mine locally from two mexican restaurants. I know one gets them from a distributor in Chicago. Not sure where the other gets them.

Note that these are NOT Pepsi made with sugar. It’s high fructose corn syrup.

I can get Coca-Cola locally that does use real sugar, and is in glass bottles, at the local grocery store. It’s also imported from Mexico.

I wish Pepsi did that. They didn’t even carry Pepsi Flashback locally.

Fringe – August

Observer1

Thursday’s “Fringe” was one of the best of the season. I think it makes one thing pretty clear: The Observers are third party to this whole “war” between our dimension and the dimension that Olivia traveled to, to see William Bell. They’ve been observing our world for quite some time, and apparently have a non-interference rule, which seems to be as strictly adhered to as Kirk ever did with the Prime Directive (yes, that was sarcasm).

A couple of points:

1) They messed up something that caused them to have to correct it by helping Walter get Peter back. What they did, we have no idea. However, this could very well be what the original catalyst was that caused the people in the “other” earth to realize we existed.

2) Apparently being “important” plays some role in the decisions of what The Observers…well… observe. Interesting twist to who the kidnapped girl became “important”, but a bit unsatisfying at the same time. Maybe it was the whole “I love her” thing that didn’t ring true.

3) I LOVED the way August snagged those bullets out of the air. That was great!

What did you think of this episode?