HD DVD, April 18, 2006 - February 19, 2008

(Story courtesy of WALL STREET JOURNAL)

Toshiba announced on Tuesday (Feb. 19) that it is halting production on its HD DVD players and recorders, ceding the market to Sony's Blu-Ray high definition format. Toshiba said there was no longer any chance of HD DVD winning out between the two formats, especially after Time Warner announced last month that it would side with Blu-ray and Best Buy and Wal-Mart's recent decisions to only sell Sony's format. Toshiba said it sold about one million HD DVD players, including players that can be attached to Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, compared to Blu-ray's 6.3 million sold, including Sony's PlayStation 3 units, which can play the format. Sony's victory can help the company erase memories of its loss in the videocassette war of the 1980s, when its Betamax format lost out to VHS.

(Visit the Wall Street Journal here)

And it sure is nice getting to post these little updates as well:
He's won 10 states consecutively, but there's a big test coming with Ohio & Texas. If he wins just one, it's pretty much over, but he doesn't even have to win them if he can make it close and cut into Clinton's delegate take. Keep those fingers crossed!

Quick update

Just a quick update - I've got two new articles up at Serious Sports News Network. There's one about Ryan Newman winning the Daytona 500 and another one about Superman being spotted at the NBA All-Star Weekend while world conflicts continue. Hope you enjoy them!

I've been crazy busy with ComedySportz remotes this past week and just found out that we're going on our first official "tour" next month as we'll be performing shows at approximately 15 or more high schools over a three day period in the mid-Illinois and Southern Illinois area. In addition to those shows, we're also doing a couple more full days of shows as well, so it will be a tiring week once all the semantics are ironed out. I'll definitely be posting updates from the road (provided we stay at hotels with Wi-Fi) as the tour progresses.

I also want to extend my sympathies out to the students and faculty at Northern Illinois University in the wake of the tragedy there. I have two friends currently enrolled there and they both are safe, but I know there a lot of people affected both on and off campus by what happened. It's disturbing to think that this is the second school shooting in a year, not to mention the Von Maur shooting among others this year. I certainly hope this disturbing trend has run its course.

Take care of yourselves.

Be Very Wary the 10th of February & somebody had a good weekend...

Clean sweep for Obama - 8 for 8 this week!

And has anyone else heard of or been paying attention to the on-going war between Anonymous and Scientology? Apparently, there were a number of protests that happened today along with a continuing internet happening called the Chanology Project. Now I tend to shy away from all things religious - and will continue to do so - but the story behind this movement and its similarity to the film V For Vendetta is very intriguing to me. I loved that movie and seeing tons of people donning Guy Fawkes masks today across the world and taking to the streets was quite a sight to see...

A Bowl game for the ages...no Giants involved.

Has anyone heard of this before?:

Because it was arguably more entertaining than the first three quarters of the Super Bowl on Sunday night.

If you're a dog lover, I'm guessing you already know about this, but I found out about it an hour or so before kick-off and totally TiVo'd it out of curiousity. It's on Animal Planet (in HD) and it's pretty much 3 hours of puppies playing around with chew toys (and each other) in a make shift football stadium. The commentator for the show is that guy who does all of those great voiceovers for NFL Films on ESPN and he, along with a cheesy referee, make horrible puns throughout.

And there's even a half-time show featuring kittens for all you weird cat people out there.

A wee bit re-"pet"-tative for 3 hours? Yes.
Freaking adorable? Yes.

The main purpose of the show is listed as an "alternative" to the Super Bowl, but it also brings much needed attention to pet adoption and taking care of your animals. For more information on Puppy Bowls past, present, and future, check out the Animal Planet website.

(Oh, and congrats to the New York Football Giants for an amazing fourth quarter ruining the New England Patriots perfect season, and making Plaxico Burress look like a damn psychic in the process.)

I think Steph and I must've had dogs on the brain this weekend or something because we also ended up TiVo'ing and enjoying the AKC/Eukanuba 2007 National Championship as well.

As thoughts of Christopher Guest's brilliant film Best in Show ricocheted throughout my brain, I found myself picking favorites and criticizing dogs and handlers alike as if I were auditioning for the lead role in Mean Girls. A Sealyham Terrier won Best in Show and as I'm not a rich elderly woman with poor fashion sense and therefore do not possess the capabilities to judge a dog show, we both thought this judge made a mistake as there were much better looking dogs in the competition. All in all, it was actually a pretty fun time, but we both agreed that it is much more enjoyable watching it on TV than it would be attending it live. I find myself actually looking forward to the next big show - The 132nd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on February 11th & 12th, for those of you that are interested.

Then again, if you are interested in that stuff, then you probably already knew all that as I tend to arrive late to these little pop culture parties.

For anyone out there still clinging to the idea that HD-DVD is going to win the format war, I hate to tell you, but it's over. According to this article at Hi-Def Digest, the death knell has pretty much been sounded for the format as Warner Bros. will drop its HD-DVD support in May and produce only Blu-ray after that - making it 5-2 for Blu-ray in terms of major studio support (plus, the porn industry announced that they're going Blu-ray exclusive as well). So I'd give it until the end of 2008 and the prices of Blu-ray players will be cut dramatically as they become the industry standard and HD-DVD will officially go the way of Betamax. Plus, all of us PlayStation 3 owners can breathe a little easier as we've been enjoying the Blu-ray capabilities for about a year or so now and don't have to worry about ponying up for another hi-def machine.

I still say that the PS3 is a good buy for anyone out there that has even a passing interest in video games and also wants a hi-definition movie player. They're around $400, but you're getting essentially 3 game systems in one (it's backwards compatible with a majority of PSOne and PS2 games), a DVD player, an internet browser, access to on-line gaming, and a Blu-ray player all packaged into one system. Stand-alone Blu-ray players are $400 and up.

So yes, we all looked like idiots when we lined up and bought PS3's when they launched, but it was also the right decision in terms of landing the right choice for a hi-def machine. So all one of you out there that have that kind of money burning a hole in your pocket, get on out there and grab yourself one!

I caught the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards this year and was so pleased to see that the most under-rated show on television right now, that would be 30 Rock, netted both Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin Best Actress & Actor (respectively) in a Comedy Series. Also leaving with an award, and deservedly so, was the cast of The Office. Although Ricky Gervais went home empty handed for Extras this year, I was glad to see he took home a trophy as a repeat winner when the Golden Globes were announced a few weeks back (Tina Fey was a winner there as well).

As I mentioned above, I was also very late to the pop culture party for a great little show that has (unfortunately) been canceled for quite some time called Firefly and its follow-up film, Serenity. Accurately described as a "space western," this show is extremely well written, acted, and so much more than I was expecting from the creator of Buffy and Angel, Joss Whedon. While this scribes former outings were definitely geared towards a teenage/young adult crowd, his most recent offering is very much more adult oriented and character driven. After listening to the commentary tracks on just how badly the FOX network mishandled the airing of episodes and essentially gave up on the show just as it was finding its audience, it's easy to sympathize with the cast & crew.

I have yet to see Serenity, but it's on my short list. From what I've gathered, it's got some pretty big moments that shake up the mythology of the characters quite a bit and I can't wait to check it out.

I'd be re-missed not to mention that the season four premiere of LOST was excellent. This episode was the much-anticipated follow up to the amazing finale of season three, which was symbolic of the series finding its footing again following an admittedly scattered second season. In what looks to be a much more violent tilt than in seasons past, my little LOST viewing party group has theories abound right now as to what's going to happen. The difficult thing personally is that I've only ever watched this series on DVD, so I've always had the luxury of just popping in a DVD and watching as many episodes as I wanted to get my fix and find out whatever it is that I was curious about. But now, I've got to go week-to-week and wrestle with why Thursday doesn't ever seem to come around fast enough.

At the behest of Steph, we also added another show into our little rotation (yes, American Idol is one of them) called Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on The Travel Channel. At first, I wasn't sure that I would enjoy this show as I've seen Bourdain as a guest judge on Top Chef numerous times and always found him a bit pompous and not very engaging (then again, I somehow find Gordon Ramsey on Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen NIghtmares to be must-see television). The show is actually very well done as we follow Anthony to a random country and follow his exploits and sometimes harrowing experiences.

And yes, I did find him much more engaging in this show than in his brief appearances on Top Chef.

And finally, my friend Nathan has now got me hooked on yet another brilliant British series called Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. It's on Cartoon Network at midnight (appropriately). This canceled series is best described as Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital if it was done as a comedy in the early 80's. Filled to the brim with British wit, this self-effacing, intentionally poorly produced and poorly acted series is absolutely hysterical and presented as a mockumentary look back on the "award winning" series. It's definitely worth a look - especially if you enjoy British humor.

Wow. That was a long-ass post. Hope you're still awake. Take care!