TheSa|nt's Blog

I used to attend Comic-Con each year, trying my best not to skip any as every year brought something new and fresh. The last two years however I have been unable to come anywhere near getting tickets.

Now we are approaching 2012′s comic-con and they haven’t even opened online registration yet. I’m going to assume that 2011 on-site registration probably filled them up mostly. So maybe they are waiting until the last second to determine what they have free.

What I don’t understand, is how expensive it has gotten. A little $5 jump here and there….sure, but it started taking $20 jumps, and then *poof*, this year took a massive jump and they are asking $150-175 to attend. At this rate, if they keep that up, you will be able to buy the next generation Xbox for less than it will cost to attend comic-con. Comic-con is supposed to be a down-to-earth event for fans of all types to attend. Instead I think they are beginning to lose their focus.

I prefer the $50-60 price for a 4-day pass. Beyond that I only started to feel as though I am not getting anything from my money as crowds grew too big and I wasn’t able to access any panels, or breath for that matter. The last couple of years I attended, I skipped going the 4th day because I could’t take it any longer. Now they continue to pack the same/small convention center (don’t get me wrong…i LOVE San Diego….it’s just too small for it now), and jack the price all the way up to $150-175…..what? It’s as if they are trying to drive the hard-core fans that made comic-con what it is….away. Are they wanting to replace everyone in the crowd with solely press and spoiled rich kids?

They need to bring comic-con back to it’s roots, bring it to a larger venue if needed, drop the price…else another convention is going to wind up claiming the glory it once had and comic-con can be renamed to “Expensive Cluster***k Con”

So apparently cable TV providers in Canada are offering packages where you can pay for only the channels you want to watch. Something that was required by Canada’s government.

This is something I have been asking about for years, wondering why we couldn’t pick our own channels. Why do we have to pay for a bunch of channels we are never going to watch. For example, why the heck am I paying for the Lifetime channel to be included in my lineup?

Now why can’t the providers in the US do that? I pay an arm and about 3 legs worth for basic extended cable. No digital packages, no DVR, no movie channels, no on-demand, no cable boxes…..just 70 something channels (or whatever) sent directly to my TVs. I watch about 12-14 of those channels at most, and I pay $57.99 (plus taxes) for this mediocre luxury?

I motion that we all get together and write, email or call (or all of the above) our service providers in the US to push them to offer these services here. Threaten to unsubscribe from services (especially if you’re not using them). Heck, write to your local government heads and share the information with them to see if you can get them on board. These companies have way too much power in forcing us to pay for things we are barely touching.

The more we bug them…the more commotion we can create, the greater pressure we can apply to them to offer the same. Right now, the few of us that call and ask…they claim it’s impossible.

THANK YOU Canada for proving that it is *not* impossible. If my provider can control whether or not I get Stars, HBO and all of those other upper channels….they can control whether or not I get the lower ones just the same.

Remember, nothing will ever be done unless we work together!

Ok, sometimes I hate to whore products out on my blog as its not the true purpose of this blog but sometimes you simply have to share a good deal when you see it. A “QUICK get it while it lasts” kind of helpful nudge!

Lexar LJDSEP8GBASBNA JumpDrive Secure II Plus 8 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive – Only $8.99 (orig $35).

It has an on-board meter reminding you how much space it has free and it keeps the memory even when unplugged. Pretty nice when your thumbing through thumbdrives going…..which one has the most free space on it.

Anyways, I snagged a couple…why not at that price ^^

Product Features

This baby speaks for itself. Reading through the specs makes it very hard not to appreciate what Yamaha brings to your living room with their receivers. Overcoming the specs of the recently popular Pioneer Elite receivers, this receiver competes with the high performance lines and bring you the wattage to power some of the big boy speakers (such as the high performance lines of Klipsch, Synergy, Marin Logan and B&W for a few examples). Best of all, this amazing piece of techdebuted this month with a low price of only (continue reading…)

We have decided to release the collection of non-transparent anime wallpapers for WP7 (Windows Phone 7) phones in a gallery of it’s own, as well as a download link for a zip of the entire collection. You can browse the wallpapers in the gallery below or click on the following link to download the entire collection (zip) at once. Enjoy!
(continue reading…)

We have released some free wallpapers for Windows Phone 7 themed around the latest Conan movie (2011). You can find them individually in the gallery below (gallery supports WP7) or the entire collection via the following link. Enjoy!
(continue reading…)

Financial Advice – Thinking Outside of the Box – by James Hrenak
(former Poc Network CEO)

Explore a quick and easy process of saving thousands of dollars every year, and turning your savings into a interest earning investment by taking advantage of what nearly every bank or investment firm has to offer. This ebook opens your mind to thinking outside of the box, and influences you to think before you dive.

This isn’t a “get rich quick” or “I’m rich and you can be too!” type of read. It simply guides you in the right direction and provides you with a different thought process using unique strategies. It’s a user-friendly read for all ages and experience, and it covers everything from ways to save, ways to invest, credit habits and more. So far it has helped many people and continues to spread its strategies along. It can save you thousands and make you thousands. Not a bad deal since the price of the book is so small!

Click below to buy it now! Only $6.99!

 
Proceeds will help go to the Animevortex community and to support the LVMS.
.   

 Please feel free to comment below and share your thoughts!

Here is a collection of free transparent wallpapers for the Windows Phone 7 (WP7) lock screen. This gallery will be updated as new images become available.

Instructions: To set one as your wallpaper you must click on a thumbnail to view an image, save the image to your PC. Send your an email from your PC to your cellphone with the image attached. Once the email/attachment has been loaded, click to open the attachment. Touch and hold the screen until the menu pops up. Set as your wallpaper and your ready to go!

Note: Won’t see transparency apparently if you use a password on your lock screen. Only for regular slide to unlock. Also, Mango does not support transparent wallpapers so if you upgrade, you will lose this feature (least of your worries though…).

Wallpapers brought to you by http://www.pocnetwork.net

(continue reading…)

A while back I had written something that found it’s way into a magazine (in Europe of all places). The advice it offered wound up helping friends and certain family, and I thought I would open it to the public.

This is a simple eBook that gets right to the point when it comes to relationships. It offers a number of points in which can help find the right relationship or strengthen the one you have now.

The price is simple (it’s only $0.99 cents).  Click the buy now button and you will be taken to paypal. Upon completion, you will be brought to where you can download it via a unique link.

Thank you, and I hope you find it useful.

.

Author: Evan Ackerman (DVice) and TheSa|nt (me, heh)

Bacteria are clever little buggers. Every time we hit them with a new drug that kills 99.9% of them, that left-over 0.01% regroups and breeds and we’re back to square one. We’re going to run out of drugs before the bacteria run out of evolution — which means we need some new weapons in our arsenal.

IBM Research and Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have teamed up to develop a self-assembling nanoparticle that can selectively seek out and destroy even the most drug-resistant bacteria by not trying to do anything clever with chemicals or DNA and instead just ripping the bacterial walls to shreds. It’s a bit like an old school Terminator’s approach: show up in a human outpost with a bunch of guns and just start shooting everything.

They’ve been testing out these nanoparticles on MRSA, a highly drug-resistant bacteria that kills tens of thousands of people in hospitals every year, and, well, here’s a before and after pic of what happens when the nanomedicine gets sent after the MRSA bacteria:

Brutal.

The nanoparticles are made of plastic, and when they’re injected into the bloodstream, they self-assemble into blobs about 200 nanometers across. These blobs have a slight positive charge, and are attracted only to bacteria, which have a negative charge that differs from all the other cells in our bodies. The nanoblobs stick to bacterial membranes, and poke big holes in them, and then all those bacterial guts just spill out and bacterial DEATH ensues. Then, the nanoblob can move on to attack another bacteria.

Since each nanoblob can kill multiple bacterial cells, you don’t need to use it in high concentrations. And after a few days, the nanoparticles naturally break down into little building blocks of alcohol and carbon dioxide, and your body removes them on its own with no toxic chemicals to worry about.

Now, I don’t know if we can say that nanotech methods like this will spell the end for evil bacteria; there’s always the threat of newly evolved defenses like stronger cell walls or maybe a change to electric charge that would make the bacteria blend in with our own cells. In any case, targeting and attacking the bacteria physically seems to be an extremely promising way of dealing with infections, and the next step is for IBM to figure out how to get their nanoparticles into human-safe testing.

I personally am amused by this. I was wondering when the day will come that we start testing such technology. As much as I fear the rebellion of tech against humans (joke…kind of), I have a mother who has Fibromyalgia who would benefit from this greatly if it leads to something she could use. One tech always opens doors for other possibilities. So I am on board with rooting for this one! “Go IBM!!”