The BoormanBlog

If you haven’t heard already, it looks like the high definition “format war” is over. Toshiba, in the face of numerous studios and retailers supporting Sony’s Blu-Ray instead of Toshiba’s HD-DVD format, has finally thrown in the towel and announced that they will no longer develop, market or support HD-DVD products. It seemed inevitable to me. HD-DVD just couldn’t catch a break, even though a side by side comparison showed the HD-DVD was the superior format.

To make matters worse, Blu-Ray still needs firmware updates as it’s an incomplete standard. So you either literally hook your Blu-Ray player up to the internet or download firmware updates to your PC, burn them to a CD and put it in your Blu-Ray player to update the firmware. Rediculous. Remember when companies actually finished their products before they put them on store shelves?

In the end, Blu-Ray won with a large, built in user base with Sony’s PS3. Blu-Ray is alsos just plain catchier. “Blu-Ray” simply rolls off the tongue. HD-DVD sounds like a failed rap group. Although Transformers is available on HD-DVD, so that makes it awesome.

In a few years, the point will be moot because shiny plastic discs will go away and we’ll be downloading everything anyway. Rumor has it that is just what Microsoft is counting on. They want a piece of movie downloads, so they backed HD-DVD just to be a thorn in Blu-Ray’s side, hoping neither format would win out; the engame being movie downloads (and Microsoft) come out on top.

Doesn’t matter to me. I only got my first DVD player a little over 4 years ago. It’s fine for me. I’m half blind anyway, so what good is hi-def going to do me? I don’t even have an HDTV!! Besides, movies suck these days anyway.

I haven’t posted on this subject in awhile. You’ve probably heard about the increasingly weak dollar. You can thank Nixon for starting that one by taking us off the gold standard. The Fed certainly isn’t helping things by slashing interest rates and printing money like it’s going out of style. Eventually, inflation is going to rear it’s ugly head (if it hasn’t already), and our money isn’t going to be worth the paper it’s printed on. So when you’re money’s no good, what do you use? Well, the answer has always been there. Hard assets and commodities. Gold is going through the roof, and silver tends to trade with it. SLV is the ticker symbol for this nice little exchange traded fund that invests in silver. Not the mining companies, the hard assets. Each share represents 10 ounces of silver in a vault. Given that silver prices are up there too, I could only afford a few shares. That’s why I use www.zecco.com. You get 10 commission free trades per month. Trades are just $4.50 after that. So you can sell shares one day, and buy them back if they drop the next morning. Nice! In the overnight, I made a little coin last week. Not a lot, mind you. Not enough for me to quit my job and never work again. Not enough to retire early. Not even enough to take the afternoon off. Maybe enough for cab fare home. But hey, cash is cash! Seriously, though. I reccomend SLV. If things get worse in the U.S., hard commodities are a good place to be.

On another silver related note, nickels, dimes and quarters made in 1964 and before also contain silver. Based on the silver content, they are worth about 10 times their face value. Go through your change and look for them. Save them in a jar. Hoard them. If our currency fails, you may be holding the only viable currency out there for awhile.

Just to give an example of how bad the writer’s strike got, NBC was preparing (and may still make good on its threat) to show it’s webisodes of “Quarterlife”. A horrendous series filled with Gen-X’ers and Y’s indulging in their angst and blogging about it. Before you compare this with “Friends”, let me point out one difference: “Friends” was entertaining.

P.S. That wasn’t a typo. These are “webisodes”. That was an “internet only” series. As in Lifetime or Oxygen or MTV-whatever wouldn’t even show this crap. Yikes! Thank goodness we’ll soon have more fresh episodes of “My Name Is Earl” for me to not watch!

Why couldn’t NBC have shown the new Battlestar Galactica on its affiliates? That would have been cool, unless you’re one of those Original Series purists who are still railing at how much of an atrocity the new one is. Hey, dudes, I feel ya. I’m dreading the “re-imagining” of Star Trek hitting theaters in May 2009.

So Microsoft mentioned that they are shipping the first service pack for Vista sometime this quarter. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any performance improvements or any major driver issues resolved. Oh well. I’ll just keep with my Mandriva Linux, thank you very much. Much more secure than Windows, uses a lot less system resources and oh, is entirely free. The operating system and a host of software. Productivity, internet, games, you name it. There’s even emulator software to run (some) of your Windows software (not very well).

If you can handle some of the more “unique” folks in the user community, and the ubiquitous penguin mascot, then give it a try. Did I mention it’s all free?

So Red Embers is still around, in one form or another. Woody Allen said it best. “You want to make God laugh? Tell him your future plans.” Singer Bill and I are still making music together. We’re rehearsing as an acoustic duo. We’re going to start hitting all the local Starbucks and start making some regular coin! Woo-hoo!

Drummer Bill formed a worship band at his church and invited me to join. I jumped at the chance! We’re called Faith Plus Two. That should be good for a chuckle for all you South Park fans! The only thing that sucks about it is that I’m the oldest one in the group

It looks like after a 2 year drought, I’ll be out playing live more than ever! It will be good to get out there and play again! The road. She is a cruel mistress

And for the first time in 15 years, Valentine’s Day is not something to dread!
Ba da ba ba baaaaaaaaaaa I’m loving it!

Hope Valentine’s Day finds you as much in love as I am. I got a girl who’s crazy about me and life is pretty darn good!

At least that’s the way it seems. The blogger seems everywhere these days. Talk about a guy whose full of himself! Sheesh. He’s a catty little man too. Rowr! Anyone know who I’m talking about?

I got a 5K on March 5th
I got a half marathon in June

I hope the weather improves soon so I can get out and run again. I’m putting on weight

So. Is anyone watching ‘Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew’? I loved him on Loveline. He had good chemistry with Adam Carolla.

I got to hand it to VH1. They actually came up with some reality shows that I occasionally watch.

Someone left a message on my machine at home yesterday looking for someone who was not me. It was “very important” that this person call them back at their 1-800 number.

Red flag went off in my mind.

Tonight I got 2 calls, 20 minutes apart from the same woman asking for the same person who wasn’t me. I picked up the phone and said hello and was greeted with an [initially] friendly woman’s voice asking “Oh, hello! Who is this”.

Right away I’m getting ticked off. If you don’t know who this is, why are you calling me? That’s not the first thing you say when the other person picks up the phone anyway. So I answer her question with another question:

“Who’s THIS?”

“Is this xxxx?” No. There’s noone here by that name.
“Is this yyyy?” No. There’s noone here by that name either.

I’m annoyed because judging by this 1-800 number company’s relentless attempts to get in touch with this person, this is obviously a debt collection agency. The tactics these people use are beyond deplorable. I’d rather steal bread from the supermarket than work for these companies.

I hope I’ve made it clear to these “people” that they got the wrong number. They better stop calling me.

In the words of Chuck Norris in the famed Mountain Dew commercial. “You’re messing with the wrong guy”