First world problems

[Tiffany]

Tiffs, you might like Terry and June. A gentle sitcom where June had an incredibly posh accent as well as other characters, that was hilariously funny. In fact, the boxset is currently available on Sky, but of the 65 episodes made, there's only 60 available and none of the specials, so the other day I bought the DVD boxset from Amazon to get everything and it only cost me £14.99 with free shipping.

Note that some of the gags reflect attitudes of the time that unfortunately wouldn't be said in today's politically correct world, but are very funny and I think yourself and your mom will like this program.

Terry and June (TV Series 1979–1987) ⭐ 6.4 | Comedy

30m

www.imdb.com

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01JRY2B1K

Here's someone's blog post about the politically correct trigger warnings applied to this program and I agree with them.

Beware of Terry and June

Britbox has applied a “trigger warning” to the most inoffensive of sitcoms.

andrewdoyle.substack.com

Terry and June sound really cute and a nice change! I'm sure my mom will enjoy it. She loves so many British shows and I'll share your recommendation with her. Attitudes of the time don't bother me, but thanks for sharing that. That's a really great price for a boxed set too. We have "Are you being Served" and "Faulty Towers" full sets. We still quote some of the lines from each show when it's fitting.

Thanks for the links. I'll take a look at them more likely at the beginning of the week as tomorrow is the US Mother's day, so busy weekend.

 

[Geffers]

Tiffs, you might like Terry and June. A gentle sitcom where June had an incredibly posh accent as well as other characters, that was hilariously funny. In fact, the boxset is currently available on Sky, but of the 65 episodes made, there's only 60 available and none of the specials, so the other day I bought the DVD boxset from Amazon to get everything and it only cost me £14.99 with free shipping.

Now Retro, you have surprised me, never thought you'd be a Terry and June fan.

Britbox has quite a bit, not sure if it'd have Terry and June though, how long ago was that, 45 years?

Geffers

 

[Retro]

@Geffers Oh, I remember watching it as a teenager and loving it. Terry Scott was from the Carry On films and brought some of that feel to this program which made for many facepalmingly funny jokes.

Of course, at the time, we didn't have a video recorder and it was so easy to miss episodes, or even whole seasons, unlike nowadays, so it's great to be able to finally catch up on all of it. And of course, I don't remember the content of the episodes I've seen after 40 odd years, so it's like watching everything for the first time. I just remembered the characters and the kind of sitcom it was.

One gag I saw the other day was where Terry was roped into a golfing session by his overbearing boss even though he said he wasn't any good at it.

He kept missing the golf ball, driving the club into the grass instead, so his boss picked up the ball and condescendingly explained to our hapless Terry that one took the little ball, put it on the big ball (he placed it on the ground) and then one hit it with the club like so. The big ball of course being the earth and the way that gag was delivered cracked me up! Of course, it's literally true that the little ball was being put onto the big ball* which is why it's so funny.

*Unless you're a flat earther. You're not, are you?


And of course, there's an irony with my new DVD boxset: the DVD drive in my PC can't read the discs! It struggles a few times, making odd buzzing noises and eventually gives up. Grrr!

I've not finished fully troubleshooting this problem yet, but the same drive reads CDs just fine and the DVDs work in a friend's drive. I can play them on my PS4 if I have to, but I'd rather it was on the PC. I'll try other DVDs on it and see if they work. If the drive isn't actually faulty, then it may need a firmware update, if there is one. Or the bin. A new one is under £20 and I only paid £13 for it waay back in 2011.

One thing I can try when I get a moment, is to put the disc in with the data cable disconnected and see if it still struggles. If not, then it's a Windows driver problem, but I suspect it won't make any difference.

 

[Geffers]

Guessing it's not a Region issue. How annoying. Do you use Windows Media Player to watch DVDs? Wondering if VLC might be more successful, cross platform and a brilliant media player - not sure why a Traffic Cone is the program icon though

The Earth is quite flat in my back garden.....

Geffers

 

[Retro]

No, it's not the programs as it's the DVD drive that can't read the discs, a hardware issue.

The Earth is quite flat in my back garden.....

I knew it! Case proved!

 

[Crims]

I was watching Eurovision last night and thinking to myself 'I wish I had Windows Media Player visual effects nowadays'

 

[Retro]

I watched it too, with a friend and enjoyed facepalming at some of the acts. The overall standard was improved though.

 

[Retro]

Guessing it's not a Region issue. How annoying. Do you use Windows Media Player to watch DVDs? Wondering if VLC might be more successful, cross platform and a brilliant media player - not sure why a Traffic Cone is the program icon though

The Earth is quite flat in my back garden.....

Geffers

Ok, I've now fully tested it and the drive is faulty, but an odd faulty: it can read CDs just fine, but not DVDs. It's acting as if it's a CD player fed a DVD. CD drives will often see something there, try to read it and then give up messily and that's how this drive behaves with them now.

The T&J DVD played in my friend's drive and my PS4, while another DVD I have did the same thing, hence the drive is bad 100%. I even disconnected the SATA cable just in case, but it made no difference. I could try taking it apart and cleaning the lens, but I really can't see it being that. For around £20, I'm just gonna replace it. I've had it since 2011 so it doesn't owe may anything.

 

[Geffers]

My family loves British TV programs, so much so, that years ago, we actually bought a few shows on DVD. I'll see if we can get Britbox. At some point we want to change our current service as we are paying over $200.00 a month for it and it's just not worth it when you can get other programming like Britbox, Netflix etc. and watch the programs you really want to watch without commercials.

My mom just switched her cable and has Britbox now. She loves British shows too and now she's getting into Shetland. She's enjoying Britbox and says it's tickety-boo.

Britbox is $8.99 in US

 

[Retro]

People, re my failing DVD drive, I've just ordered the Asus DRW-24D5MT (with retail box) from Novatech for the princely sum of £24.98 inc VAT and shipping, which will arrive tomorrow.

I did consider finally upgrading to a Blu-ray drive, but they're still expensive and I'm highly unlikely to ever play Blu-rays in it. I've got one of those in my PS4 anyway if that emergency ever comes up.

 

[Tiffany]

Britbox is $8.99 in US

Cool, thanks! My mom does have Britbox and I shared with her the shows you all recommended.

People, re my failing DVD drive, I've just ordered the Asus DRW-24D5MT (with retail box) from Novatech for the princely sum of £24.98 inc VAT and shipping, which will arrive tomorrow.

I did consider finally upgrading to a Blu-ray drive, but they're still expensive and I'm highly unlikely to ever play Blu-rays in it. I've got one of those in my PS4 anyway if that emergency ever comes up.

Glad you got a replacement. I really like the Asus brand!

 

[Geffers]

Cool, thanks! My mom does have Britbox and I shared with her the shows you all recommended.

Glad you got a replacement. I really the Asus brand!

Did Blue Ray ever catch on? Not sure I've ever watched a Blue Ray disk, supposedly better quality but when one's eyes get older all these extra pixels seem to make no difference

 

[Retro]

Blu-ray half caught on, overtaken by streaming services and the price has remained high.

The basic difference between that and DVD is that it's a Full HD picture like a TV broadcast. More recently, 4K was added.

 

[Tiffany]

We have Blue Ray and I'm not sure I can tell the difference.

We do stream more than watch our own DVD's. That makes sense why Blue Ray isn't "all that".

 

[Retro]

I'm not sure I can tell the difference.

Sacrilege! <splutter>

But seriously, it depends on several factors, especially distance from the screen and the recording quality of the content.

I've seen tech writers comment that Blu-ray's was a pyrrhic victory and I tend to agree.

 

[Tiffany]

Sacrilege! <splutter>

But seriously, it depends on several factors, especially distance from the screen and the recording quality of the content.

I've seen tech writers comment that Blu-ray's was a pyrrhic victory and I tend to agree.

Lol

Makes sense on the factors involved. We need to replace our living room TV too. The gaming TV upstairs is so much newer and better quality.

pyrrhic victory

My new word phrase of the day!

 

[Geffers]

Blu-ray half caught on, overtaken by streaming services and the price has remained high.

The basic difference between that and DVD is that it's a Full HD picture like a TV broadcast. More recently, 4K was added.

I thought most media for UK TV was shot in 720, maybe that is changing or has changed.

Geffers

 

[Retro]

No, it's always been 1080i for high def TV.

 

[Geffers]

Lol

Makes sense on the factors involved. We need to replace our living room TV too. The gaming TV upstairs is so much newer and better quality.

My new word phrase of the day!

Bit like BetaMax and VHS, oddly Sony were instrumental in the BetaMax development as well as Blu-Ray, both failures yet Sony still huge company. Is producing excellent products which fail a pyrrich victory?

Geffers

 

[Geffers]

No, it's always been 1080i for high def TV.

As mentioned, this was a few years back but I read that most UK TV broadcast videos were actually shot at 720 so despite being broadcast at 1080 it was upscaleing. Probably changed now as 4k seems to be the thing. How much more can they go I wonder?

Geffers

 

[Retro]

I've never heard of them shot in 720p. That resolution is only for cheap TVs to downscale a 1080i/p signal. I know that some American TV channels broadcast in 720p, but not in the UK. Of course, for completeness, I should clarify that in the pre-HD digital TV days, the resolution was something like 576i which is why it looks so ropey nowadays.

In the UK, Freeview went 1080i in around 2012 which is when I bought a HD DVR to take advantage of it. TV shows started getting recorded in 1080i from around 2006, an example of which is the 8 season Dexter which began in that year. The picture still got better as the seasons went on though, no doubt due to better camera sensors. Same thing with Sky HD football footage from 2009 when it started compared to now had a slightly softer picture compared to modern HD. Note that the computer graphics from the time looked just as clear though.

 

[Retro]

I hate movies with deliberately ambiguous endings, leaving the viewer on a cliffhanger that will never be solved and there's quite a few of them too, which seem to be mostly sci-fi movies. This has gotten to the point where I tend to watch them with a sense of trepidation that I'll get stiffed at the end, completely ruining the experience. Exactly this happened to me today.

Just watched Boss Level, a really good sci-fi action comedy movie that ruined everything at the last second (I won't spoil it). Thankfully, on Googling it, turns out that there's an alternate ending to this movie that completely resolves the cliffhanger, so I don't feel quite so annoyed about it now, but apparently, you can only see this version on Hulu.

If you Google an explanation of this movie, you can read about this ending and the alternate ending so you don't have to watch it to find out about it if you're curious. Warning: these articles completely spoil it, however.

I'd really like to see this ending, so I think I'll subscribe to Hulu with the free trial, watch it and then cancel.

Boss Level (2020) ⭐ 6.8 | Action, Adventure, Comedy

1h 40m | 16

www.imdb.com

 

[Tiffany]

Sorry, you had that experience.....So same, my dh and I have been pretty frustrated over the past years with director's and their creative control over the entire film and particularly making an ending that you don't expect. For me, I like an ending that goes well for the actors that you get attached too. I really get moody, when a main character is killed in the film and I could have written the script another way that would have turned out much better, but that's just me. If I'm watching a drama, I expect to cry. If I'm watching an action film, anything goes, however, I won't forgive the script writers for the loss of a fav character in the movie Armageddon.

 

[Ian]

I hate movies with deliberately ambiguous endings, leaving the viewer on a cliffhanger that will never be solved and there's quite a few of them too, which seem to be mostly sci-fi movies. This has gotten to the point where I tend to watch them with a sense of trepidation that I'll get stiffed at the end, completely ruining the experience. Exactly this happened to me today.

Just watched Boss Level, a really good sci-fi action comedy movie that ruined everything at the last second (I won't spoil it). Thankfully, on Googling it, turns out that there's an alternate ending to this movie that completely resolves the cliffhanger, so I don't feel quite so annoyed about it now, but apparently, you can only see this version on Hulu.

If you Google an explanation of this movie, you can read about this ending and the alternate ending so you don't have to watch it to find out about it if you're curious. Warning: these articles completely spoil it, however.

I'd really like to see this ending, so I think I'll subscribe to Hulu with the free trial, watch it and then cancel.

Boss Level (2020) ⭐ 6.8 | Action, Adventure, Comedy

1h 40m | 16

www.imdb.com

So watch the movie and then read the wiki entry and all the reviews - Simples!

I had the experience recently when I rediscovered the 1977 movie Orca: Killer Whale. The fate of the whale is unclear.

 

[Tiffany]

My first world problem that took 45 minutes from my life last night, was dealing with a freaking flying bug in our living room that no one could recognize. It was not a wasp. We were watching TV and my daughter stands up really fast (you know where her love ends) then tells me there's a bug near me on the couch, and she proceeds to run. I jumped up really fast and even the dogs where taken out of their relaxed slumber while their human's were jumping around trying to track this flying bug. Needless to say, it took stealth and ingenuity to track this bug, as every flight it took, we couldn't see where it ended up. I told my dh, we needed to get the small ladder and see if it was on top of the entertainment center. It was and it did meet it's unfortunate demise. It turned out to be a eburia quadrigeminata beetle. Thanks to Gemini, my dd took a picture of it and the Gemini AI identified it immediately. Now what the hell was that creature doing in my living room?