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I thought it was alright. Nothing amazing, definitely flawed but I did like where they went with the lore and why they're there. Still better than Thor 2 and I'm not just saying that for the memes.

Event though it's a fairly long movie, it still had trouble fitting everything in. I thought the actors did well with what they had. I personally thought it would end up centering around Angelina Jolie due to being such a big name but I was pleasantly surprised she's not the lead.

I did like that it brings up a lot of moral/ethical questions in regards to how to go about maintaining peace. I felt there was a lot more of a deeper meaning to this movie once you get past the spectacle.

The mid-credit scene is really the meat of what's going to drive the next phases and probably make the Eternals more relevant to the MCU.

Saw this opening weekend. Wife and I got our booster shots and took a day off of work so that we could watch the first matinee showing. Half the theater was empty which was a nice surprise.

If anyone wants to watch it in the theater, I would recommend waiting until the end of its theatrical run and watching it on a weekday at a matinee showing when most are in school or work.

I just want to say, it's by far my favorite MCU movie and Spider-man movie in general. But I'm also biased since he's my favorite comic character. Can't wait for the 4K Blu-ray!

I saw this back in early December in the theaters. Literally just myself and my wife with 4 girls a couple rows in front of us. No one else. It was quite nice.

I'll withhold my review until after more people here watch it.

Can't believe it's been 4 years!

Thanks @BLUEVOODU for keeping the site going. 

With the superhero attrition going on (downey, johansson, evans, et. al.), I think these D+ series are being used to introduce and/or flesh out new characters more than progress the storyline. Most of them seem like filler, all be it good filler. Same with Star Wars.

I also feel like your casual MCU viewer may not geek out on every character spin off imaginable so unveiling major events in a d+ series might turn some away. Instead keep pushing out bangers for the silver screen all the while converting some of those casual viewers into full blown geeks, who in turn subscribe to d+.

I would say you're spot on about the shows. The movies will always be the tent poles of the MCU.

I rewatched Endgame this weekend and realized how much darker Ronin was in the movie. I think the show should've been darker and I think being on D+ is a disservice to it. Especially with how great

Spoiler: ShowHide

Kingpin was on Daredevil where it had a Mature rating.

@retro junkieI wish the Ps5 was able to (like the ps3) play ps1-ps3 games.

That's what I was referring to when I wrote about BC. Microsoft put together a team that made as many Xbox and Xbox 360 games compatible. And most not just run but they come with FPS boosts and higher resolutions. Sometimes both!

I get that the PS3 was a pain but they should at least try to get some of those running on the PS5. There are too many games trapped in old gen consoles that would benefit from the stronger hardware. Not to mention, I paid for those games already. Those old consoles won't last forever.

I am not sure at this point if this fits into Marvel's phase 4 at all.

You might be overthinking it a bit. Not every Marvel movie or show has immediate impact on the MCU. Some of the shows and movies do things that eventually have implications down the road and are basically just setup and exposition for the rest of the phase or new characters.

Age of Ultron is considered the lesser of the Avenger's movies but none of them have had the impact it has, especially in this phase in particular.

I think the issue is that they tried to fit everything in 6 episodes. I think at least 8 would've been better. 10 would've really been the optimal number.

Personally, I find Jeremy Renner's version of Hawkeye as exciting as cardboard. I'm really hoping they eventually move on from him like they've done with some of the other Avengers.

Yelena and Kate are so much better than him, in my opinion.

Welp, saw the finale. Was definitely disappointed. It tied up many of the loose ends but not really in a satisfying way. Will mull it over a bit before I decide where the series stands against the other D+ shows.

The more time I get to think about a PS5, the less I want one at the moment. Maybe later on in a couple of years once all of the cross-generation stuff is sorted and we're just dealing with PS5 only titles. I don't like the way Sony went about the PS4->PS5 upgrade path.

It's the reason I pulled the trigger on an Xbox Series X. They seem to respect backwards compatibility much better and I'd rather support that right now.

[for the fans,]

Sorry to be a deadbeat, but if their intentions are to make these series for the fans, then they are going to have to bring them up to the standards of the movies.

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say with this. Since it's very clearly for the fans. It's especially for those who are fans of the comics and MCU since they managed to take a beloved storyline and flesh it out on TV. Even if it wasn't pulled from the comics, everything is meticulously deliberate to move along the entire MCU storyline. Which is what the movies do as well. They are self-contained stories that end up being a part of the bigger picture.

You keep bringing up Kate Bishop like she's not important but it's very clear from the beginning why she's the focus. This show pretty much spells it out. Hell, I would even say it beats you over the head with it. However, since there's only 1 episode left, it's best to just let it reveal itself to you next week. (Assuming it ends here and there's no season 2. It's also possible more of the story threads are completed in other shows/movies. I don't know what will be revealed in the finale.)

It's also been one of the main themes of phase 4 in general which also makes it a little more obvious.

I will say this. It hasn't been perfect. I also think the writing can be underwhelming at times but the main beats of the story help move things along towards something grander, so it's fine with me.

Episode 5!

Not an exciting episode. Barely any action but it set up a ton for the final episode.

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Kingpin!! So glad they're bringing him back. He was so good in Daredevil. It would've been a shame if he was left there.

So I did some more research on this because I was curious as I don't have any HDMI 2.1 devices in my house yet. So what did I learn?

HDMI 2.1 is a still a spec that has a moving target. Meaning the full spec isn't even done and most cables probably don't meet them. Also, any 2.1 cable that is longer than 10ft will probably fail because the spec doesn't do well in those lengths.

The only devices that do HDMI 2.1 anyways are the PS5, Xbox Series X and Nvidia 3xxx GPUs. If your TV doesn't support the 2.1 features though, then a 2.1 cable is not needed.

The cables that I recommended work because they're 2.0, less than 10ft and are built well. However, the ultra slim cables that gave me trouble for a certain device was probably caused by the thin gauge of wires. They may be nice because they're slim but it's more likely to fail because of it.

I found a Linus Tech Tips video that goes into a better explanation than I did. And if anyone is interested, I'm posting a link to the forum post that has the spreadsheet of the cables they tested.

Link to spreadsheet forum post

Episode 3 was pretty good. Just wish the fight was better lit/choreographed but overall it worked, and of course -

Spoiler: ShowHide

Yelena!

Only 2 episodes left! Can't wait for them.

[Devices]

The only issue I've ever ran into was an ultra slim cable that would be picky about what device it was plugged into. It just wouldn't send a signal. However, it still worked with 95% of my devices.

If the HDMI cable is well built, (eg. doesn't use metals that corrode easily, bad terminations between the cable and the plug, insufficient insulation, etc.) then it will just work as long as both the TV and the HDMI cable are up to spec. Yes, HDMI cables are backwards compatible.

@BLUEVOODU  I would recommend trying out that Monster cable on another TV and see if it works. If it does, then it's your TV that's picky and the HDMI input might not be up to spec. HDMI was fairly new back then and I would not be surprised if LG did not properly implement the HDMI input.

I tend to get all of my audio/video cables from Monoprice. They have a lot of great cables for reasonable prices. I've replaced all of my HDMI cables recently with these -

Monoprice 4K Slim Certified Premium High Speed HDMI Cable 6ft - 18Gbps Black



Here is a list of devices and TVs/Monitors I use these with:

Devices
- PS3 Slim / PS3 Ultra Slim / PS4
- Xbox 360 / Xbox One S / Xbox One X
- Nintendo Switch
- 3 PCs hooked up to a KVM
- Panasonic 4K Blu-ray player
- Elgato 1080p external capture card

TVs/Monitors
- 2010 Samsung Plasma TV 720p/1080i
- 2019 TCL 4K TV
- 2011 Asus 1080p monitor
- 2020 Dell 1440p 165hz monitor (cable only goes up to 60hz but it works)
- 2010? Sony PlayStation 3D TV

I highly recommend them. If you need something that can go higher than 60hz, Monoprice should have some. Do not get Monoprice 2.1 cables as explained in the video of my next post.

The other part I don't understand is ... In Avengers and other movies, Hawkeye melts through enemies like butter.  He had a more rough time in Age of Ultron... resting at the end.  As Ronin, he was doing the same thing.  Maybe he lost some of his care... but he seems to be having more of a rough time fighting in Hawkeye.

As I mentioned earlier, the man is not enhanced. He's aging and all of the battles are taking its toll physically and mentally. He's not infused with super soldier serum, or gamma rays. He's not a demi-god or an alien. He's just a normal dude that has higher than normal eyesight, reflexes and aim.

Tony Stark showed similar problems in Iron Man 3. He just happened to have powerful suits to help him out. Clint has none of that.

His hearing aid is the shows way of showing how human he is along with how difficult it is for him to balance superhero life with his family life.

I accidentally spoiled some things for myself but now I'm hyped for this series. This phase was moving kind of slow but now it seems it's about to be at full force again.

Enjoying it so far. It's nice to have a show that's based on the ground and shows perspectives of those who are not enhanced.

Played The Outer Worlds over the weekend. Finished the Peril on Gorgon DLC and now hoping to finish it within the week. Want to move on to Death Stranding.

Thought it was great. This had some of the best fighting choreography in a superhero movie. The only movie I think is better in that regard is CA: Winter Soldier. The only thing I think that I felt wasn't good was the introduction of the villain. It's the usual trope.

I love upgrading PCs. I think it's awesome that you're keeping it running regardless of the chip shortage. It's looking good! Should last you at least another 2 years.

I plan on upgrading my wife's PC from a 2 core Pentium processor to an i7 4770. Should give the computer a much longer life.

I will say this, once you get a contemporary CPU, that 2060 is going to fly. I went from a i7 4790 to a Ryzen 5 3600X and my GTX 1080 could do 4K in a lot of games all of a sudden.

At the very least, CPUs don't seem to be hit as hard as GPUs.

BOOOOOOOOOO!!!






I knew it was going to happen too. 
The chip shortage is just too much right now. I guess, this gives me more time to save for it.

These games to me were part of my Silver Age of gaming. The PS1/N64 gen was my Golden Age.

I had so much fun playing these games while listening to the in-game radio stations. The Soundtrack makes up about 50% of the memories for me. But the gameplay was just fun and there weren't many sandbox games at that time.

Looks like I might just watch it this weekend on Disney+. I thought the 4K Blu-ray was coming out the same time but it's two weeks later. So the end of the month.

Linus over at Linus Tech Tips started a challenge to make Linux their daily driver for a month. Part 1 is out.

I was hesitant about this upgrade, but it honestly looks good to me. Still not sure if it's a day 1 purchase for me but I'll definitely get it at some point.

Releases on Nov. 11th.

I think it comes out in early November. I didn't want to go into a theater to watch this so waiting for the 4K Blu-ray to release to watch it.

was wondering why they did not make more.

Money. Women superhero movies were thought to be low money makers in the box office. Wonder Woman changed all that.

This movie was supposed to come out years ago but it got caught up in internal studio politics.

I don't understand why they chose this route.

It mimics the comic book art style. It's not for everyone but I personally love it. I think it allows the show to be more fantastical than using traditional 3D animation.

Millions of people have used their console as a DVD/Blu-ray player.

The PS2 was a big hit because it doubled as both as well as having awesome games. It was most people's first DVD player since the technology was fairly new in 2000 (it was definitely mine.)

The PS3 was recommended by home theater enthusiasts since it had the best blu-ray playing capabilities and was cheaper than most stand-alone blu-ray players at the time by almost hundreds of dollars. It's a big reason why blu-ray is the standard format these days and not HD-DVD.

If you want to be a minimalist consumer of video entertainment, consoles offer everything. Streaming and blu-ray playing in one box.

Resurrection time!

This topic is a year old now. I managed to get an RTX 3070 Ti at Best Buy last Friday. Stood in line for about 5 hours. I got there at around 4:45AM and I was about 70-80th place in line. I was one of the last ones to get that particular GPU. The 3080 was gone way before the tickets got to me.

Well, I'm set for a while now. Probably won't upgrade until another 3 years. This card has no trouble running anything I throw at it at 1440p.