Star Trek Discovery, Digital Tombstones, and DC Online

You're tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek. Welcome to Altered Geek. I'm your host,

Steve Megatron Phillips. And in this episode

of the podcast, I am planning on talking about

a multitude of things since I've just come back

from my experimental trip to Texas. Which, to

kind of recap a little bit, I went down there

and it was... Interesting. I've never been in

that big of a city before. I'm not going to talk

any specifics of the trip, but the massive amount

of traffic was just overwhelming. I've never

seen that much traffic in my life. Because I

live in Michigan, it's not commonplace to have

that much traffic or to have... six expressways

stacked on top of each other and an expressway

that goes to an expressway that goes to an expressway

that gets off at an exit that makes a U -turn,

which the U -turns there is really odd because

in Michigan you can't make a U -turn. There's

no legal U -turns. But you can make a legal U

-turn at an intersection in the middle of a road.

I mean, they have designated spots for it, but

still, it's legal. I've never experienced a lot

of that stuff, so it was a little bit... different

and nerve -wracking to drive um in the dallas

area and the fun aspect of it is that um one

it's just it's it's insane the the yeah the traffic

i i can't even it It was so overwhelming at one

point because I wasn't used to it. When we eventually

got lost at a certain point in our driving, looking

at apartments and everything, I had to pull over

and park for a minute and kind of just take a

breather. Which is why my wife did not drive

down there. It terrified her more than it did

me. But still, it was insane. Traffic did move,

though, surprisingly, whereas when I drove through

Chicago, it was terrible there, but they don't

have the expressway stacking, so traffic is at

a standstill, whereas there it was like you could

still be moving at 50, which was still decently

cruising, but it was hard to get over. But yeah,

the trip was overall not bad. The temperatures

were hot, whereas here in Michigan we came back

and it was 70 degrees and then it's since dropped

to like 50, 60 something. So the temperature

was nice down there as well. But I have quite

a bit to talk about on this podcast. First up,

I'm going to hit listener feedback from the previous

episode. And this one is from Haley Bailey. She

says, I was curious if you've ever played DC

Online and your thoughts on that. Well, first

of all, I have played DC Online multiple times.

I didn't play it when it was pay -to -play or

you had to buy the game and then pay subscription.

Kind of like what happened with Star Trek Online.

I didn't buy that either or play it when it was

pay -to -play. I waited until it was free and

then I played it. And then I've never... I've

dumped a little bit of money into Star Trek Online

at one time. DC Online, never done that. Never

planned to. I just played with what was in the

game and then just kind of left it that. I enjoyed

it. I enjoyed the character creation. I tried

to make a Batman Flash -esque character that

I could create, which actually influenced the

characters from my Altered Generations screenplay

that I wrote in my classes. And he had super

speed, but had some of the capabilities of Batman.

And so it was kind of nice. But yeah, I enjoyed

that game a lot. I played it a few years ago.

I think I played it about a year and a half ago.

It was the last time I played that game. And

I was playing it off and on for, I think, about

five years. So periodically I'll uninstall it,

reinstall it, play it, not play it. I think it's

good, but there's a lot of limitations to it,

and some of the battles are almost impossible

to get past, kind of like in Star Trek Online,

unless you have help. As for Injustice 2, I will

not be picking it up. I had Injustice 1 when

I had my Xbox 360. I played it. I enjoyed it

for what it was. And I do enjoy the graphics,

and I do enjoy the... uh the storyline that's

supposed to go with it but for me like i just

i don't play fighting games anymore like and

it has nothing to do with my um churchgoing transformation

over the last year it's just i kind of got i

kind of outgrew it i never really was a a fan

of like the nether realm studio games um you

know like mortal combat or any of that kind of

stuff I was more of a Dragon Ball Z kind of fighter

game person. So I never really got into the Injustice.

I did play it, but it just was button mashing

for me, and I didn't really care for it all that

much. Whereas the other one, it was more of a

you have to do a combo, and you have to create.

And I know you create combos in this too, and

it's not just that. I didn't personally care

for the first one. So I probably will not be

playing the second one. I might play a demo if

I find one available. which seems to be infrequent

online anymore. But it does look awesome, but

I probably won't play it. And then kind of jumping

back into the comments about my trip, everybody

stays at hotels when they go on these trips.

Well, I was kind of complaining of the fact that

I wish the hotels would allow you to hook up

your own HDMI devices to the television. Because

I brought my portable PC, which is about 5x5.

It's a square box and it's about an inch thick.

And it's got Windows 10. It dual boots Windows

10 or Android 5 .0 on it. And it works great.

I use it for my television. I use it for my Netflix

Hulu. I use it for my streaming. I even have

an external Blu -ray player that I hook up to

it. And it's great for having a PC on the go.

The only downside was is some hotels allow to

use the HDMI and others do not. This one, I think

the TVs were pre -programmed not to be able to

use it because I could switch the source and

it would never actually activate on any other

source but standard cable TV. And I tried unplugging

stuff, unscrewing stuff, trying to plug in my

own. and it would not let me at all. So I was

kind of disappointed of that because that's how

I was planning on accessing my bookmarks and

a lot of the stuff that we were going to be looking

at or checking out while we were down there.

So we had to do it over our phone, which is unfortunate.

Plus, I don't like a lot of the garbage that's

on TV at those hotels. They didn't even have,

this was the thing, they didn't even have anything

special to their TV program where you could even

order anything. So I didn't see the point in

having HDMI ports not functional. because most

of the time when you get a hotel, they have their

pre -programmed menu, and they have their special

remote, and they have the special pay -per -view,

$10 to rent a movie, whatever. Yeah, they had

none of that. It was just a base Dynax Best Buy

brand TV, and that was it. It was a 32 -inch

TV, and I went to go hook up my HDMI. It did

not work. I was quite disappointed about it.

Skinner51 on Twitter says, a lot of hotels are

doing this now, tampering with the HDMI ports,

or they use TVs that don't have any. A lot of

them don't really have that option anymore. If

they want to go flat screen, they all come with

HDMI. I think they just disable them. He says

he takes his Chromecast with him all the time.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've

tried it numerous times at hotels that I've gone

to, and it doesn't matter if it's high -rent

hotels or low -rent hotels. I haven't had any

luck with it. I've even tried hooking my cell

phone up. Uh, because I have a, uh, one, you

can hook it up USB to a lot of the time, or you

can, um, I have an adapter that converts, um,

like the mini USB mini HDMI thing that goes to

the bottom of my, my Galaxy S5 and allows me

to, um, hook it up to another USB device where

I can kind of, cause it's got the female port.

on the end of it so I can plug in the mail, the

mail port to it. So like I, for instance, I've

plugged in my, my blue Yeti microphone to my

cell phone and used it as a microphone and it

works awesome, uh, much better than the microphone

on the phone itself. Uh, however, it's, it's

definitely, it would, it would definitely be

a big haul for that big microphone plus a battery

eater. So I haven't actually done that on the

go. If I got a smaller microphone, I might do

that, like a smaller blue branded microphone,

because I've had great luck with them, and I'm

really a fan of the brand, as it were. So I don't

want to kind of deviate from that brand when

I get my microphones for PC purposes. In other

news, I am fully done with school. I'm pretty

sure I said that last episode, but I can't remember

100 % on that. So in another four weeks, I should

be getting my degree diploma, and I'm quite excited

to be done. And now that I'm done with school,

that means that I don't have it cutting out this

huge chunk of my day anymore. I learned quite

a bit in some aspects. I didn't really learn

as much as I'd hoped, but some things I did learn.

A lot of it I learned, but as for the software

and some of the editing, I already kind of knew

how to do it because I taught myself and watched

a lot of tutorials. So with that said, I'm going

to jump into the geeky news that I've compiled

over the last week and a half. Some of it new,

some of it not. And, uh, so yeah, be back after

the break. Do you want to interact with the show?

Well, you can get ahold of us in the following

ways. You can email us feedback at altered geek

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you can find the show in the following locations.

You can get it on iTunes, on Google Play, on

Stitcher, and on TuneIn, Blog Talk Radio, as

well as AlteredGeek .com. And now, back to the

show. And we're back. So, first up, the new Star

Trek Discovery first look trailer dropped. Can't

say I'm all that impressed. It starts off with

two characters, the captain and first officer.

And they almost look like they're wearing the

same clothes as Rey in The Force Awakens. And

what I take away from this whole thing is...

Is that it's very polished. It does not look

like it fits between Enterprise and the original

series. It looks like it should have been way

later. The sand looks super real. The sky looks

super real. Because they're supposed to be traversing

Vulcan. The first officer is an emotional Vulcan.

First of all. And the captain's making this remark

that, isn't it time you get your own ship? And

then they have the communicator, the handheld.

It looks close to the Kirk era, but it looks

more like a Razor, Motorola Razor cell phone

upon first look. Then it shows the ship coming

through the atmosphere. The warp speed looks

like it's something from the Abramsverse. The

ship looks like it's a cross between something

from the Abramsverse and Enterprise. It does

not look like it fits with the original Prime

timeline. Now, if this is the Kelvin timeline,

it would fit fine. But if it's supposed to fit

before the other timeline, it doesn't work. The

uniforms are too polished. They look like they

came from the Kelvin timeline. The badges look

like they're from the Kelvin timeline. it's just

a lot of the there's the lens flare look there's

the polished um the bridge if it wasn't so shiny

it wasn't so like lens flary and like trying

to be sci -fi realistic with it it would fit

after enterprise to some degree um but even like

the view screen stuff uh Their spacesuits don't

even look like they fit with the Abramsverse.

Like, they look more advanced than what we saw

in Star Trek First Contact when Picard went on

the ship with Data and the other lieutenant.

It's, I don't know, it's way too polished to

fit in that time span. None of this, I mean,

it looks alright, but I can't. I can't see it

fitting before Kirk. And I think that's my big

problem with it. It's like, it's trying to shove,

and then they have those ugly Klingons from the

Abramsverse. So, I know they want to call it

Calvin Timeline. I'm calling it the Abramsverse.

It's totally his design. Yeah, so none of this

actually fits with before The original series.

It's very much an Abrams -verse looking show.

Not that I have a problem with the Abrams -verse,

but I really hate the Klingons. And I hate that

they're trying to shove this square peg into

a round hole. It just doesn't fit. It's like

them trying to do what DC did in the New 52 and

make so Batman was only at it five years, but

somehow he still had. Nightwing, Red Robin, Red

Hood, and Damien all in that time span. And there's

no way that it actually fits. So, to me, that's

what I'm seeing in this instance. It's just not...

I want to like it. I really do. But the more

I... watch this teaser the more it bothers me

because of the timeline aspect if they just said

it was a star trek show and just kind of not

tried to say that it was before kirk i think

that's where it's like damaging to my my brain

as far as the the timeline aspect um i wish they

would have just left it alone or made it come

out later around the time of like i said before

the enterprise b And between, even around the

Enterprise C timeline, because we know nothing

about that timeline, and I've said that many

times, it would fit really well there because

nobody's seen it. It's not something that's common.

It's more polished than First Contact was. It

looks more fake than First Contact, but it's

more polished, and that's... Kind of a problem

for me. So yeah, that's my thought on that. The

other thing that dropped too was the young Sheldon

first look. And they started out with like, you

know, 30 seconds of, you know, the Big Bang Theory.

And then they have this young kid playing Sheldon

with a train. timed something perfectly with

this model train set. You get to see Sheldon's

dad. You get to see Sheldon at age nine with

his family. The lady they cast as the mother

fits really well into the role. Then you get

the brother and the sister, which they casted

all these people perfectly for their future look.

The show, I'm not going to watch it. The kid

almost looks like he's, and it took me a minute

to find that out, but as I'm like reviewing it

for conversation right now, because they have

Sheldon age nine going to high school. The kid

looks like he's from Problem Child. Like the

same face, even though he's not a redhead. It

looks like it could be that kid's from Problem

Child, like his son in this. I'm curious to find

that out now. I almost want to look. But I'm

not going to watch this. It's another like they're

trying to do the middle type of thing. It's definitely

a one camera type of show. It's not a multi -camera.

It's very much like everything else that's coming

out now. So I'm going to leave that alone. Seth

MacFarlane has a comedy drama series coming called

The Orville I'm not quite sure what channel but

they have the funny thing about this show is

they show the spaceships and everything and it

looks like they could fit in any era of Star

Trek other than the original series and it looks

like it fits better than Like, this almost looks

like it could have fit better than Discovery

does before Kirk, in a sense, just based on the

color palette and the designs. And then they've

got Professor Stein in it as, like, a Commodore

giving Seth MacFarlane's character a ship. And

they're like, yeah, we're kind of short on captains,

so we're giving you a ship. And the bridge, funny

enough... looks almost tng on the ceiling but

it's almost got like some of the original series

like hokiness to it so it actually looks interesting

and neat um john favreau's directing the first

episode it looks like uh they've got some characters

that look like klingons they've got um some other

characters and it looked like bajorans uh in

a sense and they have um The one chick from...

She was on Agents of S .H .I .E .L .D. and held

the batons. I can't remember her name right now.

It's Adrienne Padalecki, who's the first officer,

supposed to be the ex -wife of Seth MacFarlane's

character. It looks like it's going to be actually...

I would rather almost watch this than Star Trek

Discovery, which is pretty sad, saying that I'd

rather watch a spoof of Star Trek than actual

Star Trek. But there's just too much that bothers

me with the new show. So, yeah, I'm probably

going to check it out at least. I'll still check

the other one out. And then, of course, ABC canceled

Last Man Standing, which, if you're getting into

the politics of it, I'm sure that's quite possibly

one of the reasons why, despite its successful

ratings, it got canned. Because it does... It's

one of the few like conservative type shows.

And there's a lot of liberal type shows that

are out there. But that aside, leaving the politics

out of it, it seems like all the stations and

my teacher even kind of brought this up that

I guess I shouldn't say my teacher because he's

not my teacher anymore. But my college professor

that I had when I was going through the program.

It kind of brought up the fact that a lot of

the multi -camera sitcoms are going by the wayside

because they cost too much money, not only because

of the actors, but because of the amount of production

and cameras that they need for the show. So in

that aspect, like in the monetary aspect, I can

definitely see why all of them are getting canceled

with the exception of Big Bang Theory. Because

that one's like a megaton hit, no matter which

way you look at it. That's why it keeps getting

renewed. I'm sure if it wasn't so far along and

wasn't such a hit and it's not the, you know,

and the fact that it's Chuck Lorre doing it,

um, I'm sure that that would be canceled too.

So, I mean, it's ABC just went through the waste.

I just blew away a lot of their multi -camera

sitcoms and CBS did the same thing. So last man

standing is, is not the last man standing cause

big bang theory is. So, um, yeah. So, With all

the shows that I watch. That are on. Now hiatus.

Um. It uh. It's kind of nice. Because I'll get

to refresh and reboot over the summer. And uh.

I won't have to pick up any new shows. As I mentioned

in the previous episode. With Tio Chimo and Mike.

And uh. Pretty much just watch the uh. Like Lethal

Weapon. And uh. All my superhero shows. And.

Big Bang Theory, and that's pretty much it. I

don't really have any other new shows that I'm

looking forward to that are coming this fall.

And I've dropped a majority of the shows I did

watch. Yeah, it's kind of winding down for me

on some of the TV content. I've more so been

watching... Some movies, re -watching shows that

I used to watch. I've been frequenting all the

different Star Trek series on Netflix. More so

because I got back into it because of Star Trek

Online, but now I'm going back and re -watching.

The more I watch TOS, TNG... TNG still has a

little bit of that hokiness, but the story is

a lot better than the original series. DS9 is

a lot more polished, and Voyager has a lot more

kind of random stuff going on. Enterprise definitely

looks more archaic, in a sense, because it's

very, like, battle military. Like, it's not polished

starship, in a sense. And Star Trek, the original

series, isn't polished either. But... The more

I've watched TNG, the more I've discovered that

discovery just doesn't fit with any of it. So

the internet is kind of full of things, and I

mentioned this in the previous episode, that

I had started the annoying thing of the week.

Well, this was actually the episode that was

supposed to come out prior. But I didn't have

it fully recorded yet. And so I opted to release

the other one first and then this one. So this

is actually the debut of the Annoying Word of

the Week. And the one that I've been seeing a

lot lately is the adulting. And it drives me

nuts. Because I've seen like the I Adulted Real

Hard Today. And it's... There's even, believe

it or not, adulting school and classes in Portland,

Maine for, like, millennials. And I find this

to be the most ridiculous thing in the world.

I just don't understand why. Yeah, this is a

thing. They're saying that, like, college and

technology have failed to teach the most basic

skill, how to be an adult. When you grow up,

you pay bills, and you can still live pretty

much the same. I mean, things change, like, if

you have kids and everything, and you get a house

and, you know, a lot more responsibility. But

it's called taking responsibility, paying your

bills, and working. Or striving for something

better, not settling for what you have. Always

for self -betterment. But the fact that there's

college courses for all of this, it's just, I

don't know. I'm baffled by a lot of these. concepts.

Because honestly, if people just asked for help

or, you know, just kind of emulated what they

see in the sense of people being an adult, it's

not that hard. I mean, it's, there are aspects

that suck for sure, but it's not, it's not rocket

science. I just, I don't. I don't get it. But

it's called, the definition of it is to do grown

-up things and hold responsibilities such as

a 9 -to -5 job, a mortgage rent, a car payment,

or anything else that makes one think of grown

-ups. Just the fact that they use the word adulting

drives me nuts. It's like selfie or any of those

other kind of weird words that I mentioned. Kind

of jumping off that boat, I'm going to move over

to something a little less annoying. There was

a report that there are, and I guess this came

out kind of last year in a sense, but it became

something new in the news again. It says a historic

cemetery in Slovenia has... started offering

motion -activated digital tombstones complete

with a 48 -inch screen that show video and photos

of deceased loved ones. I'm not quite sure how

I feel about that. And I'm also wondering how

it's powered and how they intend on not having

it kind of break down, in a sense. Yeah, it's...

I didn't even know Slovenia was a country, but...

Yeah, they show these standing pinnacle towers,

and they've got this digital tombstone thing

going on. And it's an option now. It disguises

a regular headstone, and an emotion center activates

it, and apparently it can display video and photos

of the deceased, and will send audio to headphones

in the future. They're built to withstand vandalism

attempts and bad weather, but I don't know how

I feel about that. It almost sounds kind of creepy,

but I guess each one costs around $3 ,200 in

American money, which is not that much more,

apparently, than traditional markers. But, yeah,

it's interesting. It's almost to the degree of

the body modification tech where they put the

chips in your hands and that kind of stuff. But

I'm not one of those people that thinks that

this is necessary. Granted, traditional tombstones,

they do wear away after time, even though they

kind of polish them up now. But you're kind of,

I mean, most of the time, especially in this

era, people have stuff digitally anyway. The

need to go to your tombstone and have it talk

to you and display things is a little freaky.

Especially when you're thinking of the fact that,

say, you're in an entire graveyard and there's

multiple people that are buried there with these.

And you start walking past them to get to your

loved one and then all of a sudden all these

random screens start popping on. It would just

be really freaky when you're already in a graveyard

where it's supposed to be deathly silent anyway.

It kind of creeps me out a little bit. It's kind

of, in my thoughts anyway, another way to have...

It's almost like you're trolling the people when

you're in the ground, in a sense. I just find

it kind of creepy. Yeah, so as far as movie content

news, there's Spider -Man Homecoming, Pirates

of the Caribbean, all that stuff kind of floating

around, Wonder Woman, Star Wars. They recently

dropped some new Star Wars art with Rey and Luke

and Luke and Leia and Leia and her daughter and

a variety of other characters, Finn and Poe.

It looks pretty interesting, like all the different

covers that have dropped and all these different

graphics that are dropping for the film. I still

can't wait for episode eight, but it's neither

here nor there. So I think I'm going to draw

this episode to a close. I do have Michael Powers

coming up in a future episode and Mike the Birdman

Dodd, so be sure to stay tuned for those. In

the meantime, if you have anything that you want

me to talk about in a future episode, let me

know. Are there any annoying words of the week

that you'd like me to talk about or annoying

words that you think there are? Just comment

in the section below. What movies are you looking

forward to this summer? And, yeah, are there

any TV shows that you guys want to see that we

mentioned last week or may not have mentioned

based on my disinterest in it? So, yeah, just

let me know. And until next time, get altered,

get geeky with the Altered Geeks.