All posts by archangel

Politics, Television

DTV Deadline Slips Again

A lot of fanfare in the TV news about President Bush signing a law that forces analog broadcasters to halt transmission on 2/17/2009. It will all be digital then, and there is money to subsidize the purchase of a digital to analog (D/A) converter box for those with analog sets. Everyone on both sides are breaking their arms trying to pat themselves on the back. Digital enthusiasts should be very disappointed, however. Why?

Because previous legislation required this to happen in December of THIS year.

I just want to call attention to the fact that this is not progress, it’s a big step backwards. They are weasel-wording it by saying we are moving to a hard deadline. Did the previous law have a soft deadline? Yes. It said we’re to go digital by 12/2006, or when 85% of households contained a DTV – whichever came first. So it also had a hard deadline. That law was passed in 1997, giving broadcasters 9 years to prepare, and a lot more than that when you consider this started 43 years ago in Japan.

Kudos to this article at madison.com for not being afraid to include a little history.

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Technology

Blu-ray Discs (Over)Priced

An article at Red Herring discusses the wholesale pricing for Blu-ray discs that Sony has set. $23.45 for new releases, and $17.95 for catalog (older) titles. Again, that’s wholesale, and Variety guesses that will lead to retail prices of $35 and $30, respectively. The Blu-ray player that Sony hopes to release this summer (along with the discs) is priced at $1,800. Toshiba has not offered pricing for HD-DVDs, but plans to offer two players at $500 and $800.

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Film, Rants

Arclight Cinemas: Fuck You!

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Tonight I had a horrible experience at Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood. A couple weeks ago I purchased 4 tickets to The 40 Year Old Virgin, to be followed by a Q&A with writer/director Judd Apatow (of Freeks & Geeks and Undeclared fame). My confirmation email very clearly states that all I need to do is bring the credit card I used to a box office agent to pick up my tickets. I go to customer service, and they can’t find any reservation connected to my credit card! I only use one card, no exceptions. Nothing connected to my name or phone number, either. Nothing they can do about it, and the show is sold out. Yeah, sold out with 4 empty seats! Bastards! And this is after sitting in traffic for 1.5 hours. I am sure they will not deal with this in any satisfactory way, and try to say it wasn’t their fault, or say, “Oops, sorry about that! Now please hang up, asshole.” I have found their web site to be a flakey piece of shit in the past, but I DEFINITELY got a confirmation this time. I fully admit I should have printed it out as insurance, but it also stated I had no need to do so (and I’ve had no problems in the past). Apologies again to Agents Hulagun and Doubledeuce, whose nights were also ruined.

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Film

Movie Car Collection: Cruel Intentions: 1956 Jaguar XK-140

I continue my series on great movie cars with a very elegant automobile in a rather inelegant movie [ Blu-ray ] [ DVD ]:

Cruel Intentions: 1956 Jaguar XK-140
Average price: $75,000
1956 XK-140

This movie has 3 things going for it:

+ Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar performing one of the greatest on-screen kisses ever
+ Reese Witherspoon naked
+ A 1956 Jaguar XK 140

Other than that, not so much. Without giving too much plot away (like you’re renting it for that), Sarah bets Ryan Phillippe that he can’t nail virgin Reese Witherspoon. If she wins the bet, she gets his Jag. If he wins, he can also nail her, and she makes a not-so-subtle hint that anal sex could be involved, and in fact damn well better if he knows what’s good for him. Did I mention she’s his step-sister? Definitely my kind of freak. As soon as he realizes he looks exactly like Ryan Phillippe, he goes for it. I’m sure I would too, if I were in the same situation.
     The Jag is black with a red interior, and I believe it’s a drop head coupe (DHC), not a roadster. A DHC is what we Americans call a convertible. A roadster is what we call a really stupid idea – no top at all! How did they come up with that idea in cold, rainy Britain? Beats me. Anyway, the car is beautiful, but for a long time I thought it was a 1952 XK-120, another very popular model, named after it’s top speed of 120 MPH. I doubt the 140 can do 140, but it’d be fun to try.

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Internet, Music

yourmusic.com – Can Anyone Beat This?

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I recently signed up with CD service yourmusic.com, and so far it’s the best deal in music I’ve seen. If you’re familiar with Netflix, the concept is similar (no, you’re not renting CDs). You go through their catalog and add CDs to your queue. Every month, the CD at the top of your queue is sent to you and your credit card is charged, until you quit the club.
Here is the amazing part. Cost of the CD? $6. Oh, cost with tax? $6. Cost with tax and shipping, you ask? $6. Wanna buy more CDs? $6. Cost per disc for box sets and double albums? $6. Cost if your queue is empty at your “time of the month”? $6 (and they don’t ship you anything).

That’s it. Frankly, I don’t see why you couldn’t just sign up, buy all the CDs you want at $6 each, and then quit. At worst, you leave one CD in the queue if they require a 30-day notice (which they don’t state, I’m just speculating).
My price threshold for CDs at a store is $12 for a disc I really want, otherwise $10 because they?re gonna tax me. Half.com has some great deals, but their shipping charge is $3 per disc. So, for me, this is a pretty stunning deal. Heck, I just saw Coldplay?s X&Y at Sam Goody (yeah, I know) for $20! Who the heck pays that? Hmm, yourmusic.com doesn’t offer that CD, so perhaps that’s a bad example…

The catch? None, really. Shipping isn?t instantaneous. I signed up on a Sunday morning (1/15), they shipped it on Tuesday (1/17) and it arrived today (1/26). About average for free shipping. Their selection isn?t stellar, about 14,000 CDs, but I was still able to find a few good ones. Reviewers elsewhere pointed out that CDs sometimes disappear from your queue, so if you really want something, you might want to order it while you know you can still get it. The only issue for me is that Rhapsody fulfills most of my listening needs, so I?m only buying CDs that are great as a whole, and something I?d want to listen to in the car. When I get a subscription-capable MP3 player, my need may disappear altogether. Until then, my queue is loaded.

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Internet

video.google.com

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I guess this is old news, but Google has a video site now. I didn’t even realize I’d been there before, but my browser completed the URL as I typed it. Some pretty amusing videos there, and the big hullabaloo over them actually charging people for stuff. I got cable, I got Netflix. Why would I pay for crappy internet videos? Even if I didn’t have those, who’s paying $2 for an episode of the original Twilight Zone? For that price I could get it on DVD. However, it is a good source for viral Internet video clips, hosted for free (for now). Like iFilm, but without the mandatory commercials, and with potentially higher quality video.
     There are a few annoyances, like no true browse feature. A link that says “Another 15 popular videos” is a big fat liar. All it does is refresh the page with another random video assortment, so some of the same videos keep popping up. It forces you to use a proprietary video viewer for DRM purposes, but it scales poorly compared to Windows Media Player. And some videos are only available through an embedded Flash player. Being Google, you can of course search, but also like Google, you’ll get a lot of irrelevant videos in the results.

Some of the more entertaining videos:
A reasonable attempt at deciphering Fall Out Boy. I’m not sure if emo can be translated to English, but a solid effort.
Dumbest dog you will ever see.
Bored Russian kids that could teach the Olympics a thing or two about making feats of senseless athleticism entertaining.
The system administrator song.

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Television

Fox Abandons Comedy, The Love We Used to Share

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On the horizon, a dark day for comedy approaches. Fox has decided to cancel That 70’s Show. And Malcom In The Middle. And King Of The Hill. And Arrested Development. And it’s temporarily shelving American Dad so it can try out some new stuff.
     I apologize for such a depressing article, but at least you’re getting it from a guy who cares. There is a tiny bit of hope that King Of The Hill will be renewed, but they stopped production months ago, and considering how long it takes to make animation they said you wouldn’t see new episodes until January ’07 the earliest. Late last year, Mike Judge said it would be the last season of King of the Hill, and I just assumed he was retiring the show after 9 years to move on to something else. Since I heard it reported through the radio, it wasn’t clear that they simply stopped making the show, without so much as series finale, much less a graceful closing story line.
     There is slightly more hope that Arrested Development will be picked up by ABC or Showtime, more likely the latter. If all 4 million viewers moved to Showtime, it would be their biggest show by a wide margin. This is because Showtime doesn’t have good shows. Of course, I’m not into soap operas about gay guys or old lesbians, so I’m probably biased. But I think we can all agree it’s no HBO. Anyway, I would pick up Showtime as long as it had Arrested Development, because it’s simply the greatest written comedy on TV today. Just in case none of that happens, they do have a 2 hour season finale set to air a month from now (only a month, those bastards!).

Just one more thing… If George Michael doesn’t get Maeby, there’ll be hell to pay.

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Politics

The Educational Monopoly

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The Crack Team network is so vast and embedded that no one man can know the identities of all agents. However, I feel pretty confident that John Stossel is one of them. He’s written a fascinating article on the failures of the union supported government monopoly that we call our public school system. It’s geared toward comparing us with the international community, with which we are increasingly competing due to offshoring.
     I am a product of the New Jersey public school system, and I’ve done ok, but I’ve been out of the loop there. In California, at my day job at a large aerospace company, all but one of my coworkers send their kids to private school. The one who didn’t picked up and moved to an area with an acclaimed school system. It’s nice they can afford to do that, but it would be nicer if the government allowed more parents to (as Agent Renegade woud say) “vote with their feet”.

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