SHOWS IN LAS VEGAS

Well, I TiVo’d the Season 2 Premier of Discovery Channel’s reality Show “The Colony” last night. I thought I would drop by and give you my thoughts on it since I teach survivalism. As some of you might know, I wasn’t too fond of Season 1 of “The Colony“. It was way too phony and staged. You couldn’t really get anything out of it except that if you’re in a survival situation, you should be stranded with a Chemical engineer, a Aerospace engineer, a Mechanical engineer as well as many other professionals that will help make your life easier. Oh yeah, you should be in a place where all your needs are strategically placed so you can find and implement them!

Well, okay, enough with the sarcasm. Season 2 started off a lot like Season 1 with the ‘Survivors’ of biological disaster meeting and setting up shop on a 10 acre compound with 7 or more buildings. Most of these buildings have the necessities they need to survive if you haven’t already guessed it.

This season of The Colony only has 7 contestants as opposed to last years 10. I think this year the contestants are more believable. By that I mean you have a Model (hey, I’m always wishing I was the last man on earth with a model!), a mechanic, a contractor, a carpenter and some kind of old hippie ‘metal artist’ or something like that.

As the show got underway, the people found quite a bit of food that was left for them. Of course, that happens every time in a survival situation! Anyhow, they moved to one of the abandoned buildings and moved their food and other items there.

‘The Colony’ group then went about scrounging the basic necessities like water, fire wood, etc. They constructed a water filter out of sand and charcoal and then set up sanitizing the water by boiling it. A few of the contestants then went on scavenging missions where they found a few other goods.

About halfway through Day 2, they were visited by 3 outsiders looking for food and water. Part of the group wanted to give them some, others didn’t. They ended up giving them some water and evaporated milk. But this wasn’t good enough for the outsiders. They then wanted to look inside the buildings, which started a scuffle as the group protected their buildings.

Later on, these 3 people would return with a much larger force and struggled with the group while stealing medical supplies and anything else they could get their hands on. This left the group realizing that the security of the compound was lax and left them trying to figure out how to secure the goods they have.

All in all, I thought the Season 2 Premier of “The Colony” was much more believable than Season 1. I hope the upcoming episodes will not disappoint.

These two shows have taken America by storm. They’re a new twist on an old TV them, that being reality TV, and it looks like audiences just can’t get enough of either one. But the question I posed to my Wife was, if you could only watch Dancing With The Stars or So You Think You Can Dance, which one would it be?

She immediately become defensive, I guess thinking I would make her only watch one or the other. I explained to her it was just a ‘what if’ type of question, no harm was intended.

After thinking a while, she said that she would not be able to make that decision. That there were good and bad about each show and that she really though they were different. And I guess she’s right.

Dancing With The Stars is fun to watch because we get to see Celebrities in a light that we don’t normally get to see them. This being that they are out of their elements, or are suppose to be. As we’ve found out over the last few years, some Celebs actually have an advantage over others due to their past dancing experience or previous professional dance lessons.

Still, most of the contestants are not professional dancers and we love to see how they will perform under pressure.

Meanwhile, So You Think You Can Dance hits us at a totally different angle. This show is basically an audition for amateur dancers to show off their skills to the judges. From the people I talk to, it’s not clear which is the best show, the amateur dancers or the drama going on between the judges!

Personally, I just feel that ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ is not as well put together show. It feels like a B grade show being shot in some swanky warehouse in Los Angeles. Sure, I enjoy it, but not near as much as Dancing With The Stars. But isn’t it nice that we have the choice of two dance shows to choose from?

Lance Armstrong is an amazing guy.  How many people do you know who at the age of 38 are willing to undertake the gruelling 3000+ miles of the Tour de France, in blistering heat, rain, flat land and mountains?  I certainly am not, and I love road bike cycling.

Some time ago there were doubts over Lance Armstrong.  Doubts about the tests that he undertook because he was accused of drug taking to enhance his performance.  He has overcome that and still keeps fighting.

Before that he suffered from cancer.  He was written off, but that just made him angry.  He fought through, came out the other side, and put his full weight behind the Livestrong charity. 

He has had broken bones, disappointments, and suffered personal attacks on him and his family.  As he said in interview in the 2010 Tour, “It’s the nature of the sport…sometimes you’re the hammer, sometimes you’re the nail. Today, I was the nail. I have 20 days now to be the hammer.”

This man will be the name that everyone will remember.  Long after the names of Contador, Schlek and Cavendish have passed from memory, Lance Armstrong will still be there, quoted by commentators.  His name will be used over and over…”Just like Lance Armstrong…do you remember when Armstrong did just that…is this rider another Lance Armstrong?”

Young men will hang Lance Armstrong posters above their bed for inspiration, perhaps dreaming of the day when they too can take up the yolk of professional cyclist.  Pundits and bloggers will continue to rage about did he cheat or didn’t he?  Some will find evidence, if it can be called that, to show that he was a fraud all his life – I have read that so called evidence and don’t believe it.

In the end, perhaps even after this tour, Armstrong will hang up his cycling shoes and begin the long journey home to the history books.  One thing is for sure, he will never be forgotten.

Have you ever heard of Supertramp? They’re the people who gave us the Logical song, School and Bloody Well Right. Most of the new folks have never heard of these songs, and that’s probably all well, they’re going to adore something else, but for us who know what it means to be engulfed by the unique sound of the Wurlitzer electric piano a Supertramp MFSL CD will give the same experience over and over again.

MFSL CDs are popular for the good reasons. The storage media, dubbed Ultradisk, is one of a kind between different CDs, and the careful process followed by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs to remaster the recordings gives a truly exceptional experience. Some people think that technology advances in one direction, and that’s up, but how wrong they are… Some of the more recent releases of Breakfast in America prove that something that doesn’t work shouldn’t be forced.

The engineers from MFSL work with the original master tape or vinyl to make sure everything you hear on a disc is exactly as it was meant to be in the studio. After locating the originals they re-mastered them at half speed and using only high-quality materials put them on LP or CD again as a re-release. These products inadvertently became the ‘gold standard’ for the music industry. Now, 20 years after the first Ultradisk of Breakfast in America they’re synonymous to the unmatched listening experience.

Supertramp made sure that they get their point through with their album in 1979. Engineers at MFSL do everything in their power to make sure they’re not adding a layer of haze to the point. The disc used comes with the usual plastic layer that protects from scratches, but what’s on it is completely different from what you’re used to.

The reflective layer is 99.99 percent pure gold to avoid any oxidation and corrosion, and to achieve the best reflective properties possible. Aluminum used in cheap disks forms pits, which hold the information, by molding when the laser beam contacts the surface. Gold used in ultradisks ‘bursts’ through forming a pitfall straight edge and consequently allowing for better reception in the CD player.

It ensures that you can play Supertramp MFSL CDs as they were written, and considering that they were written as they were played in the studio by the original musicians, the music you hear will be as close to the original version as something this cheap can be. Some may argue with the word of choice here, but the matter of fact is that if something stays in perfect condition for more than twenty years without showing any signs of deterioration is worth $200 a pop.