But what about listening? Isn’t it more convenient to have a CD you can play anywhere? Not really. I mostly listen to music in my car (from an iPod), on my computer (through iTunes), or when working out at the gym (a different iPod). On those rare occasions when I actually want to listen on my home theater stereo in the living room, I have a wireless dongle that will stream the tunes from iTunes on my computer to my stereo. And there’s even a remote control application on my iPhone that I can use to control iTunes from the living room. I could also probably transfer the files to my PlayStation 3, which is hooked up to my living room stereo, and listen from there.

I will still probably buy physical media if there’s a compelling reason, like the DVD/CD deal above, special packaging, a sonic upgrade, or wanting to support a favorite artist in multiple ways. I’ll still probably buy high resolution discs in DVD-Audio, SACD, Blu-Ray, and other formats as long as they make them. But those I get as much for the surround sound mixes (not typically available in digital versions) as for the better audio. The other issue is that sometimes an album just is not available for download in a digital version, though that’s pretty rare these days.

So, for the most part, I’m going all digital and not looking back. Am I wrong to do this?

Next: What to do about the existing CD collection.

Latre.

Pet Peeve of the Day: People who never update their blogs.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “what if i forget to turn off my ihome alarm before i go on vacation?”.

Videogame(s) Played Since Last Blog Update: God of War 2 (PS2, on the PS3). I’ve been stuck on the Euryale boss fight for awhile now.

For those of you complaining that I haven’t watched enough action movies lately, I just did a double feature over the last two nights. Some spoilers await below.

The first was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I didn’t think it was as bad as people said, but it wasn’t that great either. An enjoyable little romp. In the extras, George Lucas says that since the original Indy trilogy was a homage to the serials of the 30s and 40s, this new one was supposed to be a homage to the SciFi B-movies of the 50s. Well, okay. Then it all makes a little more sense. Or not. It still seemed a lot like an Indiana Jones movie than a 50s schlockfest to me. Simply putting aliens (excuse me, “extradimensionals”) into your movie does not make it a 50s B-movie, especially when said aliens don’t really do anything except merge together, turn Cate Blanchett into her component atoms, and disappear in a big saucer. That’s more like a Steven Spielberg movie than an Ed Wood one. Although having Indy survive a nuclear blast by hiding in a lead-lined refrigerator, and having Indy and the gang survive multiple spills over very high waterfalls, does definitely land the movie into B-movie territory.

Much better was Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. It just did everything better than IJ4. Even the requisite emotional subplots (”Liz is pregnant!”, “Abe’s in love!”) somehow seemed more engaging and “truer” than the ones in IJ4 (”Indy has a son!”, “Indy’s old!”). And of course it was much more of a feast for the eyes. Guillermo del Toro knows a lot about putting fantastical creations on the screen. I thought the the humor was… funnier, too. The sequel was definitely better than the original. Kudos for giving the supporting cast, esp Doug Jones’ Abe Sapien, more to do this time.

The Blu-Ray HiDef presentations of both were spectacular, but I again have to give the nod to HB2, in both the visual and audio departments. The picture for IJ4 looked a little washed-out, not so sharp, like it was done on purpose to look more like those old 50s movies and like the original Indy trilogy. HB2 is one of those movies you could watch over and over again and see or hear something new in the details.

I think Spielberg and Lucas (not to mention Ford) are just getting too old for this sort of thing. Luckily, there’s a lot of torch-passing going on.

Have a great Christmas, everyone!

Latre.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “where are they now loud family”.

Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)

Do you know what I’m referring to?

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you most likely know. But if you just stumbled here and weren’t totally familiar with home theater and new technologies, you’d probably be confused by that statement.

“BD” is apparently the accepted abbreviation for “Blu-ray Disc”, the High Definition media format that is replacing DVD as the hard storage/viewing medium for home theater movies and TV shows. Earlier this year, it won the HD format war against the other HiDef disc standard, HD-DVD.

I believe that one of the reasons the DVD format succeeded is that it’s easy to refer to. Not everyone knew exactly what “DVD” stood for when the format first came out. Most people still probably don’t know what it stands for. Heck, the people behind the format aren’t even sure what it stands for. It started out as “Digital Visual Disc” or “Digital Versatile Disc”, but then sort of morphed into “Digital Video Disc”, which is what most consumers would probably say it stands for if you pressed them. Which means that a “DVD-Video” disc is a Digital Video Disc Video Disc and a “DVD-Audio” disc is a “Digital Video Disc Audio Disc”, but we won’t go there. Whoops, already did.

But it doesn’t matter just what “DVD” stands for. What matters is that everyone knows what it means, and it rolls off the tongue pretty easily. It’s even easier to say than “VHS” or “videotape”, the format it replaced.

I don’t believe this will ever really happen with “BD”. For one thing, I think Blu-ray’s time in the sun is going to be pretty short compared to DVDs and whatever comes next (digital downloads, most likely). It won’t hit anywhere near the market penetration DVD has, and will probably co-exist with DVD for quite some time to come. So there won’t be a real big need for people to refer to Blu-ray discs at all.

And then there’s the fact that “BD” is just sort of awkward to say. I think that generally when people want to refer to an individual Blu-ray disc these days, they just call it a “Blu-ray” and leave off the “disc”. (”Did you get the awesome new Blu-ray of Iron Man that hangs up your PS3?”) This is likely acceptable to the general public, and the people involved in the conversation usually know what is being referred to. It even has less syllables than “DVD”. I don’t like it though. It does not convey the proper information. “Blu-ray” is a format, “Blu-ray Disc” is an object.

I feel that the abbreviation should actually be “BRD” (”Blu-ray Disc”). That’s the same number of syllables as “DVD” and it conveys all the necessary info. I think it has a little better chance of connecting with Joe and Sarah Consumer than “BD” because it sounds more like “DVD”. I don’t think it will catch on though. It just doesn’t sound as good as “DVD”. The “B” and the “R” just don’t roll off the tongue together very well. And most people are still going to wonder exactly what it is.

But in all likelihood, most people will just refer to Blu-ray Discs as DVDs, even after there aren’t any more DVDs. (Will retailers like DVD Empire start calling themselves BD Empire?) The term “DVD” is very ingrained into our popular culture, and like other such terms, it will be used to refer to a generic video storage medium long after it no longer applies. So that should be my greater concern. But it’s not.

Latre.

Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Wipeout HD (PS3), where I got my first PS3 trophies (4 so far) at last. Also did some online Wipeout play. And Heavenly Sword (PS3), where I finally got through the penultimate stage, “Heaven and Hell”. I got out my old beanbag chair and am using that to play videogames from the floor, closer to the TV. It seems to help.

Pet Peeve of the Day: Stuck on the ultimate stage of Heavenly Sword, “Redemption”. That sucker’s hard.

Dear Greatest Customer Ever,

-The Netflix Team

As if I can afford, in this current economic climate, to spend $1 more on movie rentals a month! The hubris! Harumph, I’m on the cheapest plan and I usually don’t watch movies fast enough to get my money’s worth as it is.

What about the people who mostly watch DVDs but only rent the occasional Blu-ray? You’re paying the additional money for Blu-ray access, not per disc. So those people are screwed.

What’s next? Are gas stations going to start charging more for premium fuel??

In other news, all undecided or McCain voters should read this week’s Rolling Stone cover story about the “Maverick”. I realize it’s a hatchet job by an admittedly liberal-biased periodical, but if even half of what it says is true, this man is not at all fit to run the country. Scary stuff.

In really funny news, the U.S. National Debt Clock has run out of digits! Get it – the National Debt is now too big to display there in its entirety! They had to use the dollar sign slot for the extra digit. Ha ha! Isn’t that humorous?!?

Two more reasons why it must be fun to live in Dubai. Why wasn’t I born a rich oil sheik?

Finally, an explanation of why I’m not a very good video game player: It’s genetic! Was that TMI? (Yes, I know that The Daily Show mentioned this in a recent episode, but I wrote this before I saw that.)

Question: Why isn’t the iPhone Developer SDK available for Windows?

Latre.

Pet Peeve of the Day: Direct mail election ads. I got about a thousand of them yesterday.

• NetFlix is talking about charging extra for HiDef movies. Though I suppose it’s inevitable, I’m not happy about it. I came really close to canceling my NetFlix subscription awhile back because I wasn’t watching DVDs fast enough and so was losing money on the monthly subscription. What convinced me to stay with them was the fact they carried Blu-Ray discs at no extra cost. I knew I was going to be getting a PS3, with its built-in BR player, and I also knew that I was not going to go hog-wild crazy buying discs this time like I did with DVDs. I was going to concentrate on renting, and NetFlix made that easy. If you add a movie to your queue and say you have a Blu-ray player, then it sends you the BR edition of the movie if there is one, the DVD version otherwise. No muss or fuss, no decisions to make. I did end up getting a PS3 and sticking with NetFlix, and that’s worked out well. What we’ll usually do is get the movie from the library if it’s on DVD only, and rent from NetFlix if it’s available on Blu-ray or if the library hold list is too long. I’ve been a very good boy and have only bought a few BR discs – ones I know I will watch more than once or twice. If NetFlix is going to raise the price for BR discs, I’ll probably just complain but stick with them. The library doesn’t carry BR discs (yet), so I suppose I don’t have much choice. I certainly don’t want to start purchasing a lot of discs again. I don’t got the money or the room. Someday they may not even carry DVDs at all, though I’m sure that’s a long way off. Blu-ray is not going to replace DVD any time soon. But when it does happen, they’ll probably raise the price on DVDs, since those will be “rare”.
• I saw a commercial that says Comcast is giving away Nintendo Wii’s to new customers who sign up for their “Triple Play” deal. Tempting, but not even that can get me to sign up with The Devil. I’m happy enough for now with my DSL for Internet and my Dish Network for TV. What amazes me is that Wii’s are still pretty hard to come by, aren’t they? Nintendo has a big problem keeping up with demand in the US. And yet they’ve allocated some huge number of them to Comcast to give away in a promotion? Feh. That sucks.
• Spellchecker agendas. I was sending an e-mail to my co-workers the other day about Barack Obama. The spellchecker in Microsoft Outlook said that “Obama” was misspelled and it suggested an alternative. Can you guess what that alternative was? Hint: Microsoft is a tool of the right wing. I guess this explains the frequent faux pas on Fox News – they must use Microsoft products for spellchecking in their crawls and such.
• Bird poop. Forgot to mention that after the reunion dinner on Saturday night, we got to my car in the hotel parking lot to find the front of it covered in mounds of thick bird dung. I actually didn’t see how bad it was until the next morning. I was parked under a tree, so maybe there was a nest of very big birds up there. It looked like I had driven the car into a pile of manure. Took me awhile to clean it all of. That’s never happened to me before.
• Cars that decide to take control when they think you’re in danger. That’s just all kinds of wrong. How am I going to weave in and out of traffic on a busy highway if the car keeps putting the kibosh on it? I have enough trouble just getting the car to accelerate properly when I’m making a mad dash left or right turn into traffic. I don’t need artificial governors on my aggressive driving.

Okay, I guess there’s no theme after all.

Latre.

Jogged Today: Yes (@ 63°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:

• “(Nadia Opening) Blue Water” (Shiroh Sagisu)
• “Greenland” (The Kingsbury Manx)
• “I Take Bribes” (Close Lobsters)
• “That’s What She Said” (The Greenberry Woods)
• “Blue Side” (Rooney)
• “Mondo Sinistro” (Al Stewart)
• “Yourself” (Manic Street Preachers)

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “immature passive-aggressive sex fantasy responsibility therapist”.

The problem is that the antenna is bolted into a rotator that I installed awhile ago in order to rotate the antenna between the two transmission positions: Lookout Mountain and Downtown Denver. The rotator did not allow the antenna to move any further north. Plus, there was an attic beam in the way. My plan was to remove the antenna from the rotator, since I didn’t need it any more, and keep it pointed in one optimal position toward Lookout Mountain all the time, even if that meant moving it to a different place in the attic. The attic is very small though, and there aren’t very many places to move it to.

The entrance the attic is on the ceiling, and I need a ladder to get to it. When I first opened it, I was hit by a blast of hot air that almost knocked me off the ladder in surprise. I think it must’ve been at least 130 degrees up there, especially with the bare light bulb on. Unbolting the antenna was not easy – it was hard to position myself for optimal tooling. I was dripping sweat profusely. I had to wear gloves because the metal on the antenna was too hot to touch with bare hands. But finally I managed to get it out of the rotator and move it. I had to keep coming down and drying off and getting cool before going back up there for the next phase. I know I should’ve waited for a cooler day, or started earlier in the morning, but once I get something in my head…

Anyway, I finally got the antenna into a stable position that cleared up my ABC problem, and also made most of the other stations come in better. I was hoping it would also clear up my problem with the local CW station, which has had borderline reception for a month or two. They transmit from Lookout Mountain also, but not from the new Supertower. But no – no matter where I move it to, I still have reception problems. I just gotta hope they pump more power into that thing or reposition the transmitter or something. It’s a bummer, because that’s not one of the HD stations I get on the satellite. I hope Dish adds it.

When I was done with the operation, my t-shirt and shorts were completely drenched. I think I lost about a gallon of water. But I’m glad I did it and got it over with, even if it was undoing all the work that my friend Phil and I did to install the rotator (and run a line for the controller from the attic to the garage) in the first place. But I always knew that was a temporary thing anyway and that the Supertower would go online eventually. It actually took a lot longer than I thought it would, so I did get a lot of use out of the rotator!

In other news, I’ve been watching Dr Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog the past couple of days. Strongly recommended for fans of Joss Whedon and his crew, and for others who enjoy good, clean, disturbing entertainment. The songs are catchy and cute, although they remind me a bit too much of the tunes from the musical episode of Buffy. Neil Patrick Harris is great as the title character and it’s cool to see him as part of the Whedon Gang. And Nathan Fillion is spectacular as Captain Hammer, a real superjerk. The story is very funny, although it ends up going to an unexpectedly dark place. And most people, aside from supervillains, probably won’t think the ending is a happy one. Definitely worth watching, especially for free. However, the three acts (which total 45 minutes in length) are only available for free viewing on the website until midnight tomorrow (Sunday), so do it quick or pay later!

Latre.

Pet Peeve of the Day: 100 degree heat.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “herb that tastes like cilantro”.

One of the big announcements was that Sony is going live with its video download service tonight, with support from many major studios. So now you can download SD and HD movies and TV shows directly from the PlayStation Network (PSN) to your PlayStation 3 hard drive and watch them from either the PS3 or the PlayStation Portable (PSP). There are different pricing options for renting and purchasing. Seeing as how it takes me a very long time to download game or firmware updates from PSN due to my apparently slow wireless and DSL connections, I don’t see this as a service I’m going to be using any time soon. The thing would be downloading all night. I’ll stick with NetFlix. But it’s an interesting idea and undoubtedly the wave of the future.

It looks like Microsoft and Sony had a lot of interesting things to announce, but Nintendo not so much. They’re resting on their Wii and DS laurels. There’s still not much in the way of interesting third-party games coming out for the Wii, and their announcements do nothing to nudge me any closer to purchasing a Wii. The most interesting (and unexpected) Nintendo announcement was the unveiling of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the DS. Nintendo finally gets a GTA game, and it’s on the DS instead of the Wii! Bizarre. It’s likely I’ll be picking that up when it comes out, especially if the gameplay and use of the stylus is innovative.

Which brings me to a Pet Peeve of the Day: The useless divisions in video game fandom. People, especially younger people, seem incredibly invested in supporting a single company, to the point of endlessly slagging the others. Really, you people reading this who have no exposure to the video game world (probably most of you) wouldn’t believe how strong the vitriol is. I’ve never quite understood it. If I could afford to, and had time to play more games than I do, I would own a Nintendo Wii and a Microsoft Xbox 360 as well as my Sony PS3, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and Microsoft Xbox (I recently traded in my PS2, since my PS3 will play my PS2 games). The main reason I bought a PS3 instead of a 360 or a Wii was because of the Blu-Ray drive. The second reason is that despite the lack of games, it seemed to me like it had the most potential and longest lifespan. That doesn’t mean I don’t see the value in the other machines. The 360 has an incredible library of games and the Wii has some really innovative and fun gameplay. I did actually consider the 360 before I made my PS3 purchase, because it was also going to get GTA4 and Bionic Commando like the PS3. And though the PSP is a more powerful handheld machine than the DS, I still find myself playing the DS more often because of the interesting design and because there are more of the kinds of games I like to play on it.

But you see a lot of very immature and vulgar rantings in the forums and blogs and such about how one particular box is the best and the rest are crap. It doesn’t make any sense. It takes brand loyalty too far. They’re all good systems. It’s like someone’s choice of a video game system is a reflection of who they are, and so they have to defend it to the death. Well, we are talking about teenagers here, for the most part, and they’re still trying to find their identity.

I pay particular attention to the Sony announcements because my main machine is the PS3. But I also keep track of what’s interesting in the other worlds. It’s all connected. Someday there may be a killer must-have 360-exclusive game that will make me run right out and buy a 360 system. Heck, I bought both a PS2 and an original Xbox. And if Wii’s ever become readily available, I may pick one up to use as a party machine. It’s all good, as someone once said.

So, can’t we all just… oh, never mind.

Latre.

Jogged Today: Yes (@ 69°F), though it was a short run with no tunes since the iPod battery was dead. It’s been awhile since I last ran because I managed to pull some leg muscles or something when I was doing yardwork, pulling weeds, on the 4th of July weekend. Yes, I’m pathetic.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “hate my prius”.

Pennsylvania has strange beer laws. You can’t buy beer in grocery stores or liquor stores (!), but you can buy it at convenience stores and “beer distributors”. Also, I think you can buy six packs in bars to take home.

Buses to Atlantic City show schmaltzy movies. On the way down, we saw Martian Child. I didn’t know it was based on a book by David Gerrold, he of “The Trouble With Tribbles” fame. I didn’t totally buy John Cusack as the science fiction writer/widower who had a hankering to be a single parent and adopt a difficult child, but at least it was somewhat entertaining if predictable. Amanda Peet’s role should’ve been bigger. On the way back, we saw August Rush, which would make an especially good flick for the MST3K people to mock. N and I had our own little two-person Greek chorus commenting upon the escalating preposterousness of the plot, but we couldn’t get anyone else to join in. I realize it’s supposed to be a contemporary fantasy or something, but there’s only so much I can take. It almost has to be seen just to take in the spectacle that is Robin Williams-as-Bono-as-Fagan. And how did an 11-year old prodigy with no family and no money get into Julliard? Thankfully they didn’t even try to explain it. And there are so many coincidences in this movie, it makes your head spin.

They have some good BBQ in PA. It ain’t just in the South!

I like assigned seating on planes. I don’t want to have to try to find my own seat once I get on the plane. This was my first trip on Southwest Airlines (N’s also), and we weren’t sure how the seating worked. Because of a driving miscalculation, we got to DIA later than we would’ve liked, and ended up getting put into the final boarding group for the plane. So of course we didn’t get to sit together. But on the flight back, I got to the airport really early and got a pretty high boarding number again. The only thing I can figure is that most people did online check-in and printed out their boarding passes from home. I didn’t have that luxury, not being near the Internet (or at least the Internet and a printer). What’s the whole point of the choose-your-own-seat thing anyway? How does it save Southwest money?

I like flying into Philadelphia a whole lot better than flying into Newark. The drive to the Land of Dundler-Mifflin is a bit longer, but it’s a lot easier. The Philadelphia airport had some oddities (especially the cramped security lines), but I liked it better than Newark.

I like getting a foreign rental car. This year I got a Toyota Corolla, which was a nice change from the omnipresent Chevy Aveo. It felt more like driving my Prius.

Part of me still prefers normal books to ebooks. I took A Feast For Crows with me to read on the trip, in both paperback and ebook form. I almost exclusively read the paperback instead of the ebook, even though it’s huge (almost 1000 pages, of which I read a third on the trip). The only time I used the ebook was in low-light situations.

Gambling would be a lot more fun if there wasn’t all that money-losing involved. Atlantic City was a lot less crowded than last year – I think the economy has hit the gamblers pretty hard. Or at least the ones who go to Atlantic City.

People still don’t know how to set widescreen TVs properly. The hotel in A.C. had a huge widescreen LCD HDTV. It was not actually setup to show HDTV content (as far as I could tell), even though it was definitely receiving HD channels. The display mode was set to “stretch” for everything. There was no way to change it – the TV controls were disabled. At one point, there was 4:3 content showing on one of the network stations that had the proper bars on the side, but the rest of the time everything was off. It was very cool having that big, wide TV, but it would’ve been cooler if it had been setup properly.

Cabbies outside the A.C. casino/hotel like to loudly argue with each other all night and all day. Or maybe they were just having very spirited discussions, which also involved a lot of bodily contact that I was interpreting as “friendly shoving”.

I take a lot of things on trips that I never actually end up using. For example, I took both my Nintendo DS and my Sony PSP, but only played the PSP. And that was just for a little while. I also brought one of my iPods and didn’t use it at all. At least I did go through most of my clothes.

I don’t like heat and humidity and could never live out there. Oh wait, I already knew that one. I do like all the greenery though – I miss that in the west.

Latre.

In the comments to my review of No Country For Old Men, InfK remarked, “You gotta grade on a curve – what else deserved to win in 2007? Juno? Give me a break…”

Well… yeah. I think it deserved to win more than No Country. But comedies don’t get much love from the Academy. It was an interesting and (dare I say it) heartwarming story, concisely told, with characters you cared about and dialog that was actually interesting and funny to listen to. Yeah, at times it seemed a bit too pleased with itself, but that was part of the charm. Maybe it didn’t deserve to win Best Picture, but it did earn that Best Screenplay Oscar for Diablo Cody.

I don’t know what I can say about it that wasn’t already said better by Sue in her review. Yes, that perceptual shift that the viewer undergoes toward the characters of Vanessa and Mark is a key component of what makes the movie so watchable, and even if it does feel a bit manipulative (and maybe even predictable), it’s still well done and a credit to the acting talents of Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. (Hmmm, “acting talents of Jennifer Garner”… I’m not sure that’s something I ever thought I would write.) I must also single out J.K Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson from the Spider-Man movies), who can do wrong and who continues his streak here as Juno’s understanding but concerned father. No matter how long he’s on screen, you always want to see more of him, but maybe that’s his style… always leave ‘em wanting more. Do your job and get out without overstaying your welcome. Still, I wonder what he could do as the lead of a film. And of course Ellen Page is the one to watch. It seems like she’s making pretty smart choices in her career, so I’m going to enjoy watching that career unfold. Thinking about Hard Candy still gives me nightmares. Michael Cera is good in anything he does, but I long to see him in a tough guy role – wouldn’t that be something?

So… Juno 1, No Country 0. Next up in the NetFlix queue is Michael Clayton. Will George Clooney don the be-nippled Batman suit again and save the day?

Latre.

Pet Peeve of the Day: Workers working on the house next door blocking off part of my driveway!

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “my therapist wants me to do new age stuff”.

In theory, at least. For some reason, I can’t get channel 7/KMGH, though I am receiving the other channels. I don’t know what’s going on, since people on the AVS Forums are reporting that they’re getting it today, or at least that it’s not that different in strength from the other channels. I can’t get it pointing to the old location downtown either, though I used to be able to. Maybe they’re still messing around with things. I hope it’s not one of those things where I’m right on the cusp of reception, though I don’t seem to be getting any signal at all for channel 7, even an unlockable one. And why would I be able to get some but not others if they were all coming from the same source? Oh well, guess I’ll keep trying and see what happens.

In the meantime, I’ll drink some champagne today, or at least beer, and make a victory toast for the forces of logic and science (and commerce) over those of fear and NIMBYism. Huzzah!

Latre.