Non-football related stuff that really makes your day

[DanO]

Enjoy.

[The Cat]

It's going to cost me dearly but I landed us 2 tickets to the 4/18/2013 Rock & Roll HOF induction of RUSH.

Total fate ordeal.

LA hasn't hosted the induction since 1993, yet this is the year one of the most influential bands in my life gets inducted right up the road from me in LA.

SOLD

Lodge, left center, row M, seats 5-6

http://nokiatheatrelalive.com/seating-map#!prettyPhoto/0/

Event ino:

Scheduled for Thursday, April 18, 2013, the 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held at the Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles. This marks the first time since 1993 that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held on the West Coast. The ceremony will again be open to the public, as it was in 2009 and 2012 in Cleveland.

Joel Peresman, President and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said, "We are thrilled to announce this year's class of inductees, which again represents the broad, compelling and significant definition of rock and roll."

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees for 2013 are:

Performer Category

Heart [+] View Bio
Albert King [+] View Bio
Randy Newman [+] View Bio
Public Enemy [+] View Bio
Rush [+] View Bio
Donna Summer [+] View Bio

Ahmet Ertegun (non-performer) Award
Lou Adler [+] View Bio
Quincy Jones [+] View Bio

The 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performer inductees were chosen by more than 500 voters of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. To be eligible for nomination, an individual artist or band must have released its first single or album at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination. The 2013 Nominees had to release their first recording no later than 1987.

For the first time in its history, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame offered fans the opportunity to officially participate in the induction selection process. The public was able to visit rockhall.com, hbo.com, CNN.com and rollingstone.com to cast votes for who they believe to be most deserving of induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The top five artists, as selected by the public, comprised a "fans' ballot" that was tallied along with the other ballots to choose the 2013 inductees.

All inductees are ultimately represented in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a nonprofit organization that exists to educate visitors, fans and scholars from around the world about the history and continuing significance of rock and roll music. It carries out this mission both through its operation of a world-class museum that collects, preserves, exhibits and interprets this art form; and through its library and archives, as well as its educational activities.

pands

I like Heart, Rand N., Public Enemy (Flavor Flav will be in the house), Donna Summer was cool at one point and of course, how can any music fan not want to see the incomparable QINCY JONES.

I had access to 4 ticket levels, the too end was 2k per ticket to attend the day before practice, sit down front with the big wigs and an invite to a back stage party.

No matter how fateful this event is, that price point was prohibitive or I should say, not a wise budget decision.

Wish I had known Gonz, the daughter of my best friend is the PR director of the Hall in Cleveland. I might have been able to comp you...
BTW...I can try for two more if you like. PM me

[Masspartan]

No DLP (ever)

SONY LCD

Biding my time now for a 4K set that I can replace my 55" set from 2005/06 ? that was high end then:

Go with a plasma. Just picked up a 60 inch as a second TV for less than a grand. Actually It cost me nothing, a friend of mine split with his wife and moved in to my place ... He left it as a gift.

I added an Energy sou d bar and it is awesome. The plasmas Ive had have all lasted for years

[Malto Marko]

My Sony of the same era as yours, Panoptes, which is a Plasma is still going strong.

One minor issue that popped up about 3 mos after it was off warranty but, not a problem with viewing.

No bulbs to replace, just turn on and watch.

Love it!

[The Cat]

i just picked up a 60 inch lg for 800...Paid an additional $198 for a four year extended warranty. Nice thing about the warranty, if I don't need to use it, the store will basically refund the money in the form of a 200 dollar gift card.
i have a sony and samsung as well. I really like the lg performance. All are plasmas and here's a trick I learned some time back from an internet review. While this reviewer is talking mostly about the lg i purchased, his tricks to a gret picture apply to all brands. AndI agree with Mass the the plasmas are super.

Performance

I have approximately 580 hours on my set since I purchased it. You can find this number with the following remote functions: Menu >> Red Button >> Product Info >> Usage Time. I should start by saying that from all of the research I did prior to buying the Panasonic, I came to the conclusion that the "safest" way to break a plasma in is by running full 1080P color slides for the first 100 hours. The set I use has about 120 slides of all different colors and shades (each slide is one color and it fills every pixel of the 1080P display). This approach worked so well on the Panasonic that I did the same with the LG. I set the slideshow to a medium speed setting and let it run for 6-8 hours per day until I've reached my 100 hours. The theory behind this approach is that the electrons in a plasma display are very "excitable" when new and for this reason, they have the potential to wear unevenly until they've "calmed" down. By displaying the exact same color in every pixel uniformly like this, it "ages" the panel perfectly and in such a way that would be impossible in real world viewing. Is this totally necessary? No, but in my perfectionistic and intolerant world, it's preferrable. The next tier of stability after the 100 hour mark occurs at 1,000 hours. At this point, the general consensus is that it would be very difficult to experience "burn in" if it hasn't happened already. I felt I should address this point, given that it's one of the last, hard to die factors that influence peoples' decisions in whether or not to buy a plasma. I should also note that by doing this on both sets, I have yet to experience anything beyond temporary image retention on either set even after playing games that contain static images on the screen for sometimes in upwards of 30 hours (obviously over many sessions).

Now, with that out of the way, I can say that I am very pleased with the overall picture of the 60PA6500. At first, it appeared a little less vibrant than my Panasonic, which may still be true 500 hours into my usage of it, but I will say that this has two benefits. First, I have thoroughly tested the wattage consumption of both sets using my Kill-A-Watt meter, and despite its screen that is 40% larger than the Panasonic, the LG tops out at about 430 watts at its brightest setting, while the Panasonic on "Vivid" mode can use as much as 540 watts. Second, I've come to the conclusion that this is a major advantage in terms of image retention, as the LG is much less prone to it than my Panasonic. Even earlier tonight, I was playing Far Cry 3 for about two hours and I went to a dark grey full screen slide after I finished to look for any image retention, only to find a very faint outline where the static health and mini map indicators were at and it faded completely after about a half hour of television viewing.

I should also add that the LG on "APS Power Saving" picture mode actually uses less power than a 52" Samsung LCD set that I tested. Plasmas power consumption varies greatly depending on the content being viewed, while LCD/LED's are very consistent regardless of what's being displayed. The Samsung I mentioned used 180 watts when I tested it, regardless of what was being viewed. The LG in APS Power Saving mode in a typically lit room never exceeds 200 watts, and generally hovers between 65 and 100 watts when watching at night. Turning down the brightness really makes a big difference if you're concerned with overall power consumption.

The LG has a large number of settings that can be tweaked, far more than any Panasonic on the market. I also like the fact that all six modes' settings are saved for each input, while other sets, like the Panasonic only have unique settings under "Custom", which means one unique setting per input. This allows a person to have a variety of settings for each input and then pick the one that best suits the content being viewed at that particular time.

I really like the "orbiter" function on the LG, as it visibly shifts the screen around approximatley every two minutes to avoid any type of image retention. I can honestly say that I never saw any noticeable effects of Panasonic's orbiter in the three years I've owned it. It might be happening, but I can't see it. I should also note that with the orbiter function on, you might notice a black border on the left or right side of the picture being larger than the other side. This will change over the course of ten minutes, so don't worry and just rest assured that the set is doing what's in its best interest.

A lot of people complain about the audio on today's HDTV's, but I have to say that I'm perfectly happy with the output of this set. I have a high end Harman Kardon surround system, which I use for movies and gaming, but for regular television viewing, the built in speakers are more than adequate to keep me happy.

I do wish that LG provided the ability to custom name inputs and cable channels like Panasonics do, but unfortunately not. There are about half a dozen pre-set names for inputs, such as: game, blu-ray, set top box, etc. With the Panasonic, I can name them "Xbox 360" or "Roku". I have my cable connection going directly into the back of the set without a box and unless the channel carries the info with it, there's no way to add it manually. Not the end of the world, but it would have been a nice addition.

Overall, I really like the picture of this set. With the number of settings available, a person should definitely be able to tailor it to their liking. From what I've read, LG really improved the black level on this 6500 series from previous offerings.

Conclusion

This LG rectified all of the problems I experienced with the LED set I returned. No lip sync issues whatsoever, no flashlighting, no blooming, excellent viewing angles, and an overall picture with much more depth to it. I'm disappointed to see the heavy dominance of LCD/LED's in today's marketplace, because I'm a true believer in plasma technology. If you ask the salespeople at the various stores (particularly the higher end ones) what they have at home, you'll hear plasma the majority of the time. Everyone needs to decide what's important to them and ultimately, that will guide their decision. For me, plasma technology in general, whether it be from LG, Samsung, or Panasonic, offers the absolute best price to performance ratio out in the marketplace today.

[Panoptes]

My Sony of the same era as yours, Panoptes, which is a Plasma is still going strong.

One minor issue that popped up about 3 mos after it was off warranty but, not a problem with viewing.

No bulbs to replace, just turn on and watch.

Love it!

Someday your plasma will need a transfusion that there is no cure for. ;-)

My version should run for however long i want it to with bulb changes.

[Malto Marko]

Someday your plasma will need a transfusion that there is no cure for. ;-)

My version should run for however long i want it to with bulb changes.

This may be true but, I am guessing that someday will be when it was time to replace it anyway........no expensive bulbs for me to keep on hand, either. ;-);-)

7 years and still going strong......

Shit! probably just jinxed myself.

Probably will break down next week/month with my luck.....:x

[-Deborah-]

This is such a cool twist on a resume!!

http://www.phildub.com/?goback=%2Egd...mber_208356304#

[bimmer84]

Interesting.

[LionsFanInJapan]

Haha, that's great, but he has 31 one star ratings. That should be a red flag. ;)

[Tony G]

Astronomy Picture of the Day





Comet McNaught Over Chile

Explanation: Comet McNaught of 2007 has been, so far, the most photogenic comet of our time. After making quite a show in the northern hemisphere in early 2007 January, the comet moved south and developed a long and unusual dust tail that dazzled southern hemisphere observers. In this image, Comet McNaught was captured above [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago%2C_Chile[/ame], [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile"]Chile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]. The bright comet dominates on the left while part of its magnificent tail spreads across the entire frame. From this vantage point in the Andes Mountains, one looks up toward Comet McNaught and a magnificent sky, across at a crescent moon, and down on clouds, atmospheric [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haze"]Haze - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame], and the city lights. The current year -- 2013 -- holds promise to be even better for comets than 2007. In early March, Comet PANSTARRS is on track to become visible to the unaided eye, while at the end of the year [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_ISON"]C/2012 S1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] shows possibilities that include casting a tail that spreads across the sky, breaking up, and even becoming one of the brightest comets in recorded history.

[The Cat]

^^^^^^^^ There are no words..Thanks Tony

[CGVT]

^^^^^^^^ There are no words..Thanks Tony

That is what I was thinking as a looked at the Facebook Bikini Girls that he posted:-D

[LionsFanInJapan]

A look at my beloved home-state from the air.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7XYzOd8R0I"]Montana from the Air - YouTube[/ame]

[DanO]

Very nice, LFIJ.