The Mangosity

We have one of those old, square, boxy TVs. It doesn't even let you use component cables! Only the red, yellow and white cables. Still, it's a bigscreen TV, and regular TV still looks good. However, whenever we play the Wii, the Xbox 360 or the PS4, everything looks a little blurry and the text is difficult or impossible to read. Some examples of games that look blurry are Skyward Sword (Wii), Fallout 4 (PS4), Assassin's Creed 2 (Xbox 360) and Dishonored (Xbox 360. My brother actually quit playing this because he couldn't read anything!)

We've had this TV since we were little kids, and my brother and I have been trying to get our mom to get a new HD TV, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. Is there something we can do to get the games to look less blurry? Is this just what the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS4 look like on an old TV? We sometimes break out the PS2 and those games look the same as they always did and don't look blurry at all. Is there a setting we can change to make the other consoles look better, or is this just what we're stuck with?

My mom recently received a Cisco Linksys router from her boss, (model WRT54G2 V1.5) but when I tried to connect it to our computer at home it wouldn’t work correctly. I know it worked fine before her boss gave it to us, so I don’t think it’s defective. From what I can tell, I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do: the Ethernet cords are all hooked in the way they’re supposed to be, I reset everything to “factory defaults” and assigned a new SSID, password, and security key, the entire setup process went smoothly, I installed Network Magic, and all the LED lights on the router are blinking the way the User Guide says they should be. When I try to use the internet though, Network Magic says that I don’t have a connection. And it’s not just the wireless. I can’t even get a connection on my PC (I’m running Vista).

I’ve tried going to Network Magic many many times to troubleshoot the connection, and it actually does manage to fix the connection for all of five seconds. I can actually click on a link or two on my PC or get a wireless connection in these few seconds, but after that the connection just goes away. I thought it might be a firmware issue, but I’m not sure. I don’t think I would even be able to upgrade the firmware if I wanted to, since the router needs to be connected to the computer and actually working to do that. I don’t think it’s a firewall issue either, since I already checked that. I know it’s not a problem with my DSL box, because I’m using it at this very moment.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with my router, but if anyone has any advice, please leave an answer! Thank you!

I was working on a story where this guy gets kidnapped and tied up when something occurred to me: does duct tape ACTUALLY work to keep you from shouting for help? I mean, if it’s just one tiny strip of tape (like it usually is in TV shows) it seems like you could just lick it off in three seconds. And even if the tape were wrapped around your head, couldn’t you just force your mouth open and still be able to talk that way?

I’ve never been in a situation where someone put duct tape over my mouth (hooray for that) but it just seems like it would be really easy to get the tape off, or at least “off enough” so that you could shout out.

So here’s my question: Does duct tape actually work to keep someone from talking? And if so, how does that work? I want to describe it in my story but the way I’m thinking about it makes it seem a little impossible, and it’s throwing me off a little. I don’t want the readers to be like, “What’s wrong with you man?! Just move your mouth around a little!”

Anybody with experience writing a scene like this (one where someone gets kidnapped with duct tape over their mouth, I mean) would be appreciated. Heck, if you’ve had experience actually having tape over your mouth, you’ll be appreciated too!

On a side note, I was going to have the character crawl or somehow make his way over to the other side of the room where there’s something sharp he can use to slice his ropes off. Can you really move around that much when your arms and legs are tied though? To try to gauge this for myself, I decided to try to get up off the floor by only using my arms and legs as if they were tied, and it was really hard><! I had to cheat a little just to get onto my knees, and so I can’t imagine how hard it would be to move for someone who was actually tied! I don’t think my character would realistically be able to move enough to even make it halfway across the room, much less the whole way. To be honest, I don’t think he’d be able to move much at all …

If anyone has any input for either of these questions, please answer! Thanks!

My friend has always said that he's very good at drawing manga. Whenever I see him draw, however, the drawings are not very good.

Lately he's been saying that he's only good at drawing when he draws with a tablet on the computer. He's even shown me pictures that he's drawn, pictures that are way better than the pictures I’ve seen him draw. The thing is, the pictures look like he just went onto Google Images or something and printed them out from there. (They’re a bit blurry and pixilated) Also, there was this time that this guy asked my friend if he could draw him a picture and print it out, but my friend said (very quickly) that he could only work on his laptop, and that he didn't have a printer. The whole thing seems very fishy to me.

I think he's lying about being good at drawing with a tablet, but I'm not sure whether or not to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Can someone be really good at drawing manga on a tablet but stink when drawing by hand? Or do you think my friend is lying?