Kodi & Amazon Fire Stick – Watch TV for free!

I don’t think anyone should have to pay for television – especially as we all have to pay the BBC for a license every year even if we never watch the BBC channels.

I have Freeview, but to be honest I don’t even watch very much TV. Give me Game Of Thrones, Judge Judy and as much motor racing as I can take, and I’m happy.

You can get pretty much any film you want on torrent sites or streaming them online. As there seems to be a bit of a crackdown on torrents, and streaming often comes with 3 million pop-ups and a filthy great virus, I noticed some people raving about Kodi.

Kodi is basically a program that you download for free, install another program on that gives you loads of films/TV channels, and then you can watch everything for free and legally by streaming it.

I tried it out on my laptop for a while, simply connecting to the TV with a HDMI cable, and it was all excellent. It’s not very straightforward to set it all up, but once you’ve done this you never have to touch it again.

Visually it’s also not great, and not very intuitive – but again, once you’ve remembered what to click on (eg, Video > Video Add ons > Phoenix) then you’re fine. It just looks a bit crap and isn’t confidence-inspiring to “The Older Generation” like parents (who are happily using it, now).

The downside was that I couldn’t be all ADHD and play around on my laptop as I was watching all these brand new films…

But there is a way to make it all easier!

A few cow-orkers/work monkeys had been geeking on about Google Chromecast and Amazon Firesticks. These are small boxes that plug into your TV, and then you can stream stuff from your PC/phone or just use that to watch paid TV channels. But you can also buy them, install Kodi (for free), and then, as with my laptop, get all the Kodi stuff for free!

This meant I could use a remote control and still pish about on my laptop whilst watching beautiful free stuff!

I decided on the Firestick, as it seemed to be the best choice for me.

Ebay sellers will give you a Firestick (normally around £40) with all this pre-installed on it for another £15-£20. Whilst this isn’t really a rip-off, there are plenty of step-by-step guides and even YouTube videos showing how you can do this yourself!

The best one I’ve found that is up to date is https://seo-michael.co.uk/tutorial-how-to-install-kodi-on-a-firestick/ – it will take between 10 and 30 mins to do, and you can do it all by plugging the Firestick into your TV and then using the remote control.

Personally, I would recommend installing the add-ons Phoenix, UK Turks and Exodus so you get loads of options for watching films, documentaries and TV shows – that way if one isn’t working you still have options. Here’s a step-by step link to install Phoenix once you’ve got Kodi: https://seo-michael.co.uk/how-to-install-phoenix-for-xbmc/

All of the above have some live TV and sport from around the world, but you might also want some more specialist channels if you’re after streaming live stuff. As I only car about motor racing live, these do the job for me!

And that’s it! If you’re paying £70+ per month to Sky then you’re stupid. Even if you just buy the Firestick and then get Amazon Prime you’ll have access to loads of their channels and films (all of which you can also get for free through Kodi), so even that’s a better option for a one-off payment of about £70. Without Amazon Prime, the Firestick still lets you stream stuff like BBC iPlayer for free, so even that combined with Freeview gives you a lot more.

If you’re not watching live TV or any BBC channels, then technically you don’t even need to pay for a TV licence – so you could even go that extra step and get the lot for free!

And it’s all legal!

Enjoy it – let me know what you think or give me any add-on recommendations!

Game Of Thrones – Coming from behind!

It wasn’t exactly that I’d been ‘resisting’ watching Game Of Thrones – I just see all these fad series like ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Lost’ and my heart sinks.

How the feck am I going to commit to watching 657 episodes FFS?

I barely watch any TV!

Last week I sat down with the wench one night and finally plucked up the will to give it a go.

Unsurprisingly, I do quite like a bit of swordage.  I’m trained in using foil, sabre, broadsword (single, hand and a half and two-handed), and a variety of Japanese pointy stuff.

I was happy to see the little girl using ‘Needle’ as well as all the other hardware!

It had zombie things at the start, followed by lies, betrayal, lots of sex (all doggystyle, for some reason?).

In fact, we watched the first 4 episodes that night, and within a week we’ve ‘done’ all of series 1.

The only thing missing was dragons, and now that’s been addressed, too!

I think it’s safe to say I’m hooked on it.  I’m a bit worried about how fast I’ll go through the other 4 series, and be left with nothing!

Maybe I’ll start ‘Vikings’ next?  Or revisit the 1990s and find the excellent prison drama that was ‘Oz’.

Whatever happens, I just hope that little twat Joffrey gets proper done over!

 

 

 

50 Shades Of Grey – Acceptable Porn

I had this rant back in 2012.  I’m pretty sure the whole of society managed to agree on the fact that the books were utter shite.

Well, apparently not.

We have been treated to the film version!

Oh yes! Some skinny wench with ribs hanging out everywhere is now up on the big screen with her brooding-yet-powerful and equally as wooden co-star, and you get to sit in a cinema paddling away at your pink bits while everyone pretends to laugh about it all.

So here is my original blog on the ‘phenomenon’ – just replace the word ‘book’ with ‘film’ and feel free to go at it again:

You have probably been battered around your lady-parts lately by all this excitement over the book ’50 Shades Of Grey’ by E. L. James.

Everyone is going mental over it… err… ok – so by ‘everyone’ I mean the same kind of women who went mental over the Harry Potter books.  Of course, with this book being of actual adult material, it’s been attracting the interest of even more people than the scarf-wearing geeky twat for retards.

And speaking of twats – that’s pretty much what 50 Shades Of Grey is all about!Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for porn.  Just stop trying to dress it up as something else!

Oh, sure – they’ll call it ‘erotic fiction’, but essentially that just means it’s all the writing from pornographic magazines compiled and expanded without the pictures.And ‘erotica’ is never just about straight sex anymore.  It’ll be whips, chains, spanking, klyster suits and two girls eating each others shit out of a cup!

Yes, I AM a bitter ex-writer of erotica – and I’ve had this rant before about how ‘erotica’ these days can’t just be about a couple having sex.  Apparently it’s not ‘sexy’ until a toy soldier gets shoved up someones arsehole.

So this book is pretty much designed to get women, in the words of ‘The Inbetweeners’, frothing at the gash.There will be lots of one-handed reading going on, if you know what I mean?

Even more astounding given this fact, is that so many people are trying to get hold of second-hand copies off others!?!

“Are the pages stuck together?”  Would be my first question!  Then I’d also be purchasing some disposable gloves and anti-bacterial gel.

I suppose one good thing that will come from this mass hysteria is that it may open up the market for erotic writing again… So maybe I should start reposting the stuff I used to put up for Sex Blog Thursday on MySpace?

Crying For Christmas

Merry Christmas to one and all!

Or apparently not, this year – because it looks like everybody wants you to have a fucking cry.

Cute isn’t enough for this festive season – we need a good dose of empathetic misery.

John Lewis released their TV advert this week featuring a penguin who gets all lonely and the boy keeping him gets him an, err, female penguin for Christmas. (then someone sits there with two toy penguins reenacting their penguin porno – but we won’t get into that!)

Sainsburys have gone for the angle with soldiers.  Aww!  Have a quick cry!

M&S soon followed, and the Coke advert, although I haven’t seen it myself, no doubt features cancer, or something.  And, it’s not ‘The Holidays’, you tits.

Have you seen the newest one?  There’s a car crash and someone loses their leg and both eyes, but some cunt buys them a bag of frosted gingerbread from Lidl and a troop of gibbons sits somberly in their own shit around a dying puppy.

Aww!

I’m not sure if this is some kind of attempt at population control, considering the suicide rate increases ten-fold at this time of year?

Well, I say ‘this time of year’, but feel I should also point something else out:

It’s NOT fucking Christmas!

It’s EARLY BASTARD NOVEMBER!

We’ve just had a Halloween party, and the Zombie Jesus was nowhere to be seen, because the cunt wasn’t born for nearly TWO MONTHS!

By the time the 25th December does arrive, we’re all going to be so miserable and desensitised we’ll think nothing of taking the piss out of the latest AIDS or animal cruelty advert, as we tuck into the Christmas pudding that’s already a month out of date.

Mobius HD Action Camera Review/Mounting

I’ve used cameras on my bike for around 6 years, now, eschewing the ‘popular’ (i.e. expensive) cameras in favour of the cheaper options.  I’ve also found that the cheaper cameras are smaller, and so more covert to use.

Whilst looking for a new helmet camera, someone on a bike forum mentioned the new Mobius HD Action Camera.

It’s designed by the same people as the very first Keychain Spycam I used all those years ago.

It’s far smaller than the rest (although bigger than the Keychain Spycam), and a more sensible shape for most fitments than Go Pro’s and the like.  It was also boasting some extremely impressive HD 1080p quality.

The more I read, the more I liked: 80 min battery life – but you are also able to record whilst using external power, great low light resolution, super-wide lens available as standard, and a promise that this is a camera FOR THE PEOPLE.  As such, there is a user designed software set up package and the whole shebang is still being actively developed.  And a good price of £50-£90 depending on where you buy from.

The only thing stopping me buying it was the lack of waterproofing or any cases for it.  This makes it pretty useless most of the time for what I want it for.

Then, after keeping my eye on things for a few months, I saw mention on a forum that JooVuu have created a custom waterproof case for the Mobius – and so I ordered a camera and case.

The Mobius has been developed primarily for use on radio controlled planes and helicopters, because of its small size and light weight.

My ultimate plan was for something to use on the Formula Vee race car this season – and being able to use it on the bike would be a bonus.

Mounting it on the car won’t be an issue (I’m thinking on top of the roll hoop so it give a view ahead and down into the cockpit), but for the bike it posed more problems.

As an initial test I used the supplied Velcro mount stuck on top of my helmet.  This works fine, but wind noise is a major problem – and there is no external mic.  In the waterproof case the wind noise is massively improved, but the overall sound is also far quieter, so you can’t hear much of the bike engine, for example.

The problem was trusting the extra weight when the camera was in the waterproof case…

I ordered a few new mounts, deciding I’d use a permanent stick-on mount screwed into the camera.

As you can see, this took me back to the whole Go Pro situation of looking like a damned Telly Tubby with the camera sticking out the top of my head!

I couldn’t live with this, so found some sturdier Velcro, unscrewed the bolt mount from the waterproof case, and went back to the tried and tested Velcro method.

This is still far less covert than an MD80 hidden behind my tinted visor, but it’s just about acceptable.

All seems pretty stable using just the Velcro up to speeds that wouldn’t be legal off a race track, but I’m sure there would be an upper limit where things might depart company, but it would take a lot.  How fast to RC planes go, anyway?  120mph plus?

So the Mobius Action Camera itself is well impressive.  File size is quite large (about 1.4GB per 15 minutes), but not too bad in comparison to other action cameras.  You would be wise to choose a 32GB card for it, though.  Incidentally, the software program will allow you to set recording to chunks of 10, 15 or 20 minutes.  There is no gap between the files.  There is also an ‘max’ option which will record up to 4GB to each file, but I found reviewing footage could freeze – probably down to my system limitations than anything with the camera, and all footage was useable.

The only fault I can really find is the picture is a bit blurry/pixelated in the bottom right hand side. It just looks like there’s something on the lens, but is such a small area it’s not a worry.  Also, the spare lens covers supplied with the JooVuu case are pretty scratched up (See comment below – I now know there is a protective sticker you’re supposed to remove- doh!).  You can’t see any difference in picture quality when using the case, and I’m sure dropping a quick email to JooVuu’s excellent customer support would mean a few replacements being sent out – I haven’t done this as it really isn’t an issue.

I’d definitely recommend the Mobius Action Camera to anyone, and the fact that it is still being developed for the end user by Mobius and third parties like JooVuu is extremely impressive, and bodes well for the future of this fantastic camera.

 

‘Most Haunted’ Rant

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing this, it’s a UK TV programme where a bunch of paranoid schizophrenic cock-heads go mentalling about special ‘haunted’ sites attempting to film all kinds of spooky goings on.

What we get is some freakishly jittery little cunt who screams at everything and every two minutes will stare at nowhere and say “WHAT WAS THAT?!?” whilst grasping the cameramans todger in a vice-like grip.

Occasionally, she will point at a random ‘orb’ floating around looking ‘spookily’ like a torch beam or glass reflection.

Partnering her is the Psychic Medium Ghosty Woo Gaa-Gaa King.

‘Derek’ is a Scouser, who, after sniffing far too much glue in his teens, has figured out that he can call the shrieky little wench (‘Yvette’, if you’re interested) a “fucking bitch slut whore” in front of millions of TV viewers by simply putting on a rock ‘n roll snarl and saying he’s possessed by a ghost.

As the expert, he’ll also go all misty-eyed and distant, as he describes how an angry ghost called – Phil… Phillis… Fellatio? Oh yes, I mean Stan – once stomped through this stately home in anger after bad mojo made him wank himself to death in the 14th Century.

The camera crew are the ones who didn’t get through the auditions to do ‘The Blair Witch Project’ but their Mommy did buy them a camera that sees in the dark.

They also have a few random chubby people who need a sit down halfway through the episode, and mysteriously feel all ill and queasy.  Sometimes they’ll lay down in a bath and moan about how they’re slipping down as if some Evil Spirit is pushing them down and down and down.  Even though we can all see the cunt-wigs are just sat in a bath having a sook (one for you Aussies, there!).

Every 20 minutes or so, someone will pass out from boredom somewhere on set, causing a nice *THUMP* that will get everyone excited.

If nobody passes out in time, one or all of the crew will hear a thump or footsteps that the cameras weirdly won’t be able to pick up on their sound – but they DID hear it, ok???

Wait!

Did you hear that???

Yes – I’ve just shit in my own hand and thrown it at those paranormal mongs on the TV.

Please fuck off.  Please.

I guess at least it builds up an audience of desperate rubber-heads who will pay to keep the shitty fake Mediums in business…

Porn Is Ruining Our Children

Every so often it flares up in the press and documentaries that the minds (and future sex lives) of our poor innocent children are being ruined by the Evils of pornography.

Getting my knees jerking in unison with theirs, they do have a point.

Almost everyone from a very young age has access to the internet, and even with the parental filters and stuff in place, the chances are a child will still be able to access, or at some point be subjected to a link containing pornography.

If you go to Google and search for porn, you will find it.  Thus, a child may well go online out of curiosity, and potentially have their first experience of sexual arousal whilst watching some slut being raped in the ass and giving a blue waffle and anal gaping.

Religious types have always been banging on about this being terrible, but the fact is that a lot of people’s later sexual preferences will be guided during this early, formative period.

If your first experience of sex is rough gonzo sex videos, there’s every chance that when you finally get to have real sex with a real woman, you will expect to be doing her in the butt, giving her a gagging blowjob, and cumming all over her face at the end.

This will be your view of what sex is, and more importantly, what GOOD sex is.  It will be what you expect to give and receive from sex.  The chances are you and all your mates will chat and laugh about how you fisted someone and then fucked their feet.

To compound this, most parents aren’t too willing to talk about sex, or by the time they do give Little Johnny the ‘Birds & Bees’ talk, he’s already into having threesomes and donkey-punching his girlfriend.

It’s too late.  Porn has ruined your child’s view of sex forever!

Who wants normal vanilla sex, all lovey-dovey and boring?

Hell, even todays erotic fiction (that their parents are reading openly in public – “50 Shades Of Grey” etc) is all about spanking and anal sex!

The future looks grim.  And it looks grim whilst suspended from its nipples in a klyster suit.

All this because porn is so easily available to our kids!

But wait a second!

What is ‘pornography’?

Well, that depends on who you ask.  Some would class a picture of a topless woman as ‘porn’ – some even a woman wearing a bikini.  It could be a video of a loving couple having slow sensuous sex as much as it is a midget sucking off a horse.

Who’s making this distinction?

And following on from that, if your kid is sat there watching ‘anal gape dogging’ porn, it’s most likely because they have specifically gone out and LOOKED for ‘anal gape dogging’ porn!

If you search for, on the other hand, ‘romantic lovers’, can you guess what results you might have returned?  There IS an absolute shitload of ‘nice’ porn out there, showing vanilla acts of sex, possibly between long-term couples who are most definitely both consenting to every act.

So the real problem isn’t porn.  It’s the TYPE of porn that your little shits are deliberately searching for!

And don’t get me wrong – I’d have sought out the nastiest stuff with my mates, too – it’s what kids do.  But I’d have also been able to make the distinction between what is acceptable human behaviour, and what is sick, derogatory, degrading, violent, or not very nice.

Because, you know, I’m not as pigshit thick and completely helpless like all kids today apparently are.  And you’d be hard-pressed to find a way that isn’t the fault of the parents – and not pornography…

‘Actor Hired To Play Batman’ Shocker!!!

Over the weekend, I’m sure that your Facebook feed was taken over by 24,000 posts, pictures, and geeky emo bullshit.

Not because they’ve killed off a Twilight or Harry Potter character – but because They have announced that Ben Affleck will be playing Batman in the next, err, ‘Batman’ movie.

Apparently, there are enough weirdo’s out there who have invented their own little comic book worlds inside their Sheldon Cooper-like noggins, that they expect anyone else to give a shit?

Maybe if they cry long and hard enough about it, the Batman makers will fire poor little Ben (Matt Damons [said in spakka voice] mate, for those who don’t know.), and hire their fat geeky ass or Robert -ing Patterson or whoever else they’ve invented as the ‘perfect’ Batman.

“He’s as bad as Val Kilmer!!!” they whine!

“He can’t act!” tweeted the very wooden Clive Owen in despair.

“Yes Gary!  Act!!” encouraged Spottswoode, before adding an “America! Fuck yeah!”.

“He’s almost as bad as that Granny-faced Unfunny Wimpy Geek Crap-acting Cunt Michael Cera!” one person (me) made up in mock-horror!

So WHY is he a bad choice?

Because you saw someone different in your head?

I was horrified at the thought of a Green Mile film after reading the books – but Tom Hanks did alright in it.

That’s kind-of the clever thing about actors.  They are there to, you know, act in films and stuff.  Until you’re doing the casting for a film, you can go fornicate yourself with an iron stick if you don’t like the choices.

And this stuff is even hitting news headlines?!

WTF?

Dum-de-dah… war declared by ‘Merka… ho-hum… missing schoolgirl… Miley’s ass…whatever… Batman to be played by Ben Affleck?!??  OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!

I mentioned Twilight and Potter fans because they are the same level of mental.

Batman fans are even worse than the comic-book kids, because even those kids wouldn’t give a shit who gets cast to play him in a damned film!

What the Hell is going on, here?  Or is it just me???

Things that piss me off about this even more:

He’s going to wear a -ing mask.

It’s TWO MOTHERFUNKING YEARS away!

It’s a fucking FILM!  A MOVIE!  This is NOT your new bastard President!!!

EDIT:  As I was adding the pics for this blog, I looked out the office window to see the Batmobile and the Trotters 3 wheeler van going past on a trailer.  Seriously.

And the Scooby Doo van has just appeared.  I got some pics:

FURTHER EDIT:

Then on my way home, I got stuck behind Batman for 10 -ing minutes!!!  Is it the Warner Bros Mafia who’ve already been sent out to get me for this blog???

 

 

Veho Technical Support & Upgrading To A ‘Better’ Camera

As none of you will know (because I didn’t tell you), I managed to drop my Veho vcc-005 HD10+ camera onto the hardest damned stone floor in the world.

I have dropped the camera a couple of times in the two years I’ve had it, with no ill effects – but this time the glass covering the lens shattered.

Broken Veho camera

After being sick in my mouth a bit, I established that the glass was just a dust cover, and the camera seemed to work fine without it.

I got in touch with Veho Technical who very kindly sent a replacement glass cover out to me, with full instructions of how to replace it.

Excellent service!

So, as I mentioned, I’ve now been using this Veho camera for just over two years.

In that time, performance has been flawless.  The battery life has dropped to 1.5 hours (about half what it was from new), and I am considering cracking it open and replacing the battery with one from Ebay.  I’m leaving it as long as I can in case I bodge it up and kill the camera, though.

I have found on my YouTube videos there is an increasing number of people telling me that I should ‘upgrade’ my cam to a Go Pro/Drift HD/etc.

These cameras certainly all cost around 3 or 4 times more than it would cost me to buy another Veho HD10.

What nobody has actually been able to tell me is WHY do I need to pay out many times more money for something that, well, doesn’t do the job any better?

 

Let me just break things down against the Go Pro:

• Image quality is the same.  Someone will come and argue that, but look at 2 HD vids on YouTube and there is no difference.  So you’re wrong.  Fact.
• Battery life is less on a GoPro.  Less.  So why would I want something that records less?
• Go Pro and most other cameras record to some weird Neanderthal-like slate.  Nobody uses Super HD flash 6″ Vinyl Micro cards.  Veho record to Micro SD.  Like just about everything else, so you probably already have lots of them lay around.  If not – they are CHEAP.
• Reliability.  I’m sure you’ve all seen the discussions on vlogging forums about how everyone’s cam has some problem, or has just died.  You won’t find Veho mentioned.  I’ve used mine daily for 2 years – why have a super-duper expensive camera that doesn’t work?  And card failure/faults?  I’ve never had a single one!
• Price – I can buy another 3 or 4 Veho HD cameras for the price of something like a GoPro.  Even if I did have that money to spend, why would I want to??

You can view my onboard bike and car videos using Veho cameras here: http://www.youtube.com/nastyevilninja

 The shape of all of these cams is a down-side – especially if you want to shove it on the side of your helmet.  Considering I don’t really want to vlog, and I’ve already experimented with various mounting points, again, I can’t see any of the other cameras doing a better job of things!

So, if you’re one of those who’ve told me I should ‘upgrade’, please feel free to tell me exactly WHY and what I’d actually get out of any such change?

 

‘Most Haunted’ Rant

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing this, it’s a UK TV programme where a bunch of paranoid schizophrenic cock-heads go mentalling about special ‘haunted’ sites attempting to film all kinds of spooky goings on.

What we get is some freakishly jittery little cunt who screams at everything and every two minutes will stare at nowhere and say “WHAT WAS THAT?!?” whilst grasping the cameramans todger in a vice-like grip.

Occasionally, she will point at a random ‘orb’ floating around looking ‘spookily’ like a torch beam or glass reflection.

Partnering her is the Psychic Medium Ghosty Woo Gaa-Gaa King.

‘Derek’ is a Scouser, who, after sniffing far too much glue in his teens, has figured out that he can call the shrieky little wench (‘Yvette’, if you’re interested) a “fucking bitch slut whore” in front of millions of TV viewers by simply putting on a rock ‘n roll snarl and saying he’s possessed by a ghost.

As the expert, he’ll also go all misty-eyed and distant, as he describes how an angry ghost called – Phil… Phillis… Fellatio? Oh yes, I mean Stan – once stomped through this stately home in anger after bad mojo made him wank himself to death in the 14th Century.

The camera crew are the ones who didn’t get through the auditions to do ‘The Blair Witch Project’ but their Mommy did buy them a camera that sees in the dark.

They also have a few random chubby people who need a sit down halfway through the episode, and mysteriously feel all ill and queasy.  Sometimes they’ll lay down in a bath and moan about how they’re slipping down as if some Evil Spirit is pushing them down and down and down.  Even though we can all see the cunt-wigs are just sat in a bath having a sook.

Every 20 minutes or so, someone will pass out from boredom somewhere on set, causing a nice *THUMP* that will get everyone excited.

If nobody passes out in time, one or all of the crew will hear a thump or footsteps that the cameras weirdly won’t be able to pick up on their sound – but they DID hear it, ok???

Wait!

Did you hear that???

Yes – I’ve just shit in my own hand and thrown it at those paranormal mongs on the TV.

Please fuck off.  Please.

I guess at least it builds up an audience of desperate rubber-heads who will pay to keep the shitty fake Mediums in business…