CNBC

Hey cool, I just got quoted on CNBC in this article:

Click

Jim Goldman, a technology journalist for CNBC wrote what I thought was an incredibly inaccurate and biased article about Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD, so I wrote him about it.
I guess you can't blame him for being biased. NBC is in bed with Microsoft and Universal, part of the HD DVD axis of evil.

Fun :)

Also, check out this audio interview with Blu-Ray Disc association's director Bill Sheppard regarding the BDA's response to Toshiba practically now giving their players away with the purchase of an Egg McMuffin (just watch, I bet thats their next move)

UPDATE: It's just too bad Jim Goldman used the word 'uniformed' when referring to my e-mail, when I clearly wrote 'uninformed'

Here was my original e-mail:

Hello,
I just wanted to tell you that your article titled "Blu-ray: Picture Gets Dimmer for Entertainment Format" has to be one of the most biased, inaccurate, and uninformed articles regarding this high-definition format war that I've read in the past 12 months. One glaring example would be your implication that Time Warner is exclusive to HD DVD, which is most definately not the case.

Thanks,
-Kody Belshe

-Kody (Hates HD DVD)

HD DVD Will Give You *Gonorrhea

*Note: There is no proof that HD DVD will give you gonorrhea. This is an unsubstantiated claim from myself, a proven Blu-Ray fanboy.

Okay people. I have HAD it! As most of you know, I have become increasingly obsessed with the HD format war. I have pertinent-to-the-subject websites open all day at work, and frequently check them for news. I guess you could say I have an addiction. Why HD media? I can't really answer that. I'm a big movie buff, and a big technology and HD geek, and it all just coalesced into being obsessed with HD optical media. The problem is, there are 2 of them, when there really only should be one. Movie studios are divided, potential customers are confused, and the whole thing is just crawling along at a snails pace.
In the past, I have stated that I just want one format to prevail regardless and stamp this thing out, and that remains true, but I am on Blu-Rays side here, and I am so fed up, I'm going to come right out and say it. I think HD DVD needs to hurry up and fucking die. I'm through pretending to be compassionate about HD in general, I'm on a side, and I want them to win. To me, Toshiba and their HD DVD flunkies are like a bug that you keep stepping on and it just wont die. You need to find something big and heavy and just smash it. Come on Blu-Ray. Lets get this done.
What prompted this rant? Toshiba, in what I look at as a last gasp of desperation to me, has started selling their low end (no 1080p support, long load times, last years model) HD DVD player at Wal-Mart for $198, with a one day fire sale today of $98. Now there is NO WAY that Toshiba is making a profit on this. You can't tell me they can manufacture this thing for less than 100 or even 200 dollars, considering it was being sold for $500 initially just months ago. I believe they have effectively cut out ANY chances that ANY other manufacturer is going to want to make players for their HD DVD brand. Not when they know Toshiba will undercut them.
Toshiba is fucking up the system. New technology costs more. It always has. It always will. When some new format is introduced, players are going to cost more than what its predecessor was. Manufacturers know this, and that is why they have all flocked behind Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray will re-vitalize their income with new technology being sold at new technology prices, also helping to fund further innovations in that technology. Toshiba knows this, and knows that most Americans are cheapskates, so they are trying now to appeal to people who don't like to spend money on cutting edge products. People with the 'walmart' mentality. Well, I have news for you Toshiba. People who walk into Wal-Mart and cream their pants over a 98 dollar HD DVD player are probably going to go into sticker shock when they see that HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs usually cost over 30 dollars. They are used to buying $5.00 DVD's for their $60 DVD player. I personally think your plan is going to backfire when most undeucated masses buy these low end HD DVD players and buy regular DVD's for them, because your name, "HD DVD" is stupid and confusing. People will think it's sole purpose is to make DVD's look HD. At least Blu-Ray clearly gets the point across that its something completely different than 'DVD'.

Now someone might say to me, "Hey Kody, if you are so upset about all this, why not just support both?"
Well, I tried that, and had a horrible experience with HD DVD. I got the XBOX 360 add on and the Matrix Trilogy for HD DVD, and the discs would not play. I don't know who is at fault there, Warner Brothers for the discs or Microsoft/Toshiba for the HD DVD drive, but it all went back to the store. After that, I decided that if I really cared about Blu-Ray winning, all I would accomplish by supporting both formats is prolonging the war. Every HD DVD disc I bought would cancel out a Blu-Ray I already owned or would purchase.
Speaking of Warner Brothers, eliminating HD DVD, or them picking Blu-Ray exclusively(which is in consideration) would make me so happy. They currently release on both formats, but they encode films to the least common denominator (HD DVD) Basically, HD DVD has 20 gigs less storage capacity, a lower audio bit-rate and a lower video bit-rate than Blu-Ray. Warner scales down and compresses the film to fit on a HD DVD, then they port it over to Blu-Ray, where it could be done to a higher quality if they really wanted to, or didnt have to worry about making it fit on an HD DVD.
I now have 34 Blu-Ray movies. I am confident that with Blu-Ray leading in sales, technical superiority, studio support, and electronics manufacturer support, they will prevail. They just need to finish eradicating the virus that is HD DVD.
Wow. I haven't bitched this much in a long time. It felt good to get that off my chest.
And remember kids, Paramount are sell-out whores, and Toshiba are filthy taints.
Have a great day, and go buy some Blu-Rays!
:)
-Kody

PS: On a positive note, after Paramount (Whoramount) took the bribe to go exclusively HD DVD, everyone was banking on HD DVD FINALLY winning a sales week over Blu-Ray when Transformers was released. Oops. Didn't happen. HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

Douchebag Drivers

I would like to take a moment to discuss douchebag drivers simply because I have seen 2 such specimens in the last 2 days on my way to work. Douchebag drivers are the ones who swerve in and out of traffic as quickly and recklessly as possible. The douchebag I saw this morning actually made about 10 lane changes in under a minute as they swerved in and out of traffic. The best part is, despite all their fast and furious douchebagging, you usually end up directly behind or beside them when you get to the off-ramp traffic light where you're going. Way to go douchebag. You win the race! Gold sticker! Everytime I witness a driver exhibiting their doucebaggery, I secretly wish to drive around a curve and see their car upside down and smoking or on fire with the passenger, or douchenger, ejected 100 feet from the vehicle (because you know they probably aren't wearing their seatbelt either)
Does that make me a bad person?

See ya!
Oh, and Paramount Sucks.

(P.S. Dawn, I will get those emotastic pics up, I promise)

Today was Ball-tastic!

Hey everyone. I decided to try something new. I wanted to do a photo-blog of my day. Today, I went over to Lexy's Grandma's house to help make topiary ball wedding reception centerpieces, like the picture to the right. The only difference between the ones we're making and this one is that the ones we're making arent made of candy, don't have any glitter or gold garland, arent covered with rainbow colors, and arent ugly.

So our day began at Wal-Mart's ball section. Okay, it was the arts and crafts section, and my day didn't really start there, it's just when I started taking pictures. Anyway, take a look at Lexy's balls.

Next, we filled some silver spray-painted pots with styrofoam and then jabbed bamboo rods into them. Here's Mary jabbing a silver pot right now!

Then, all of the sudden, everyone did different things all at once. You go everyone!

Lexy and her Grandma Jean cut some bamboo poles.

You won't believe what happened next. Haggrid laid in his little cat bed and looked all cute. Also, his sister cat Hermione molested my head and tried to suffocate me and eat my hair. Awww.

This is Mary's new Toyota. Despite what it may tell you, it did not participate in making the topiary balls.




I decided to try some of the new special edition Halo 3 Mountain Dew. Appearently, a lot of people don't like the taste of it. To those haters I say this: Well, if you don't like the flavor combination of pancake batter, Sweet Tarts, frosting, cherry's and Mountain Dew, then of course you won't like it. But who doesnt like that flavor combo?

The grapevine that is twined around the bamboo has to be soaked in water before it can be flexible enough to use. Still, the result did look like a murder scene and made me cry a little, 'til I realized no one died.

Lexy's mom worked on wrapping the grapevine around the bamboo rods.





There was a spider there, but he was pretty shy. I think he said his name was Howie.





Decibell told me: "I R LAZOR CAT. I WILL SHOOTZ U WIF MY LAZOR EYES!" Then she did. I died, but only for a second.

Suddenly, all the topiary ball pots were painted, styrofoamed, bamboo rod jabbed, grapevine wrapped, and put away to be worked on again next weekend. Everyone lived happily ever after.

True Story. I was there.

PS: If you're like me, you love cats and lasers. Please enjoy these SNL digital shorts, Laser Cats and Laser Cats II

Carnivorous Plants, Iconic Killers, and the Chili Peppers

So I was at Wal-Mart last night, and I happened upon a fresh batch of baby Venus Fly Traps. You know, at the plant section between the bread section and the seafood section, logically. That's one thing I love about Wal-Mart. You can be in the Mexican food aisle and they'll have an impulse buy display for tampons hanging there between the refried beans and the salsa. Always thinking, they are. Anyway. I picked up one of these baby fly-traps since generally by the time I find them in a store all the little mouths are dead and it just looks like a pile of dead brush in a little pot. I had a Venus Fly Trap once when I was about 9 years old, but my mom accidentally put an end to it's life with some bug spray which killed the flies which were fed to the plant, as best as I can remember.

You know, for being such a macho flesh eating plant, the Venus Fly Trap is quite needy. They require constant but indirect sunlight, a specific humidity and temperature, only rainwater (no tap or even bottled water), a very precise mixture of soils, and a few other less significant things which I didn't care to commit to memory. I thought the whole reason that they evolved the ability to eat living creatures was so they could survive in harsh nutrient depleted conditions. I guess I was wrong. So far, I've fed the little guy 2 spiders. I think I should give him a name. Anybody got any Ideas?

So Ryan and I went to see Rob Zombie's re-imagining of Halloween last night. I quite enjoyed it, but then I'm well known for embracing remakes of movies. Ryan on the other hand is having a more difficult time. Halloween is his all-time favorite horror movie, and he's much more critical of remakes than I. I enjoyed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of The Dead, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, King Kong, War of The Worlds, and Planet of The Apes remakes better than the originals. One notable exception would be the remake of The Fog, which was in my opinion a steaming pile of dead babies.

I am quite looking forward to JJ Abrams re-imagining of the Star Trek franchise next year with the new movie simply titled Star Trek. While much of the plot is shrouded in mystery, it is known that it will be taking place, at least in part, at a time before the original Enterprise began her 5 year mission with Kirk and friends. Zachary Quinto (Sylar) of Heroes fame is going to be playing young Spock, which I think is awesome. The only bad thing I have to say about this movie is that it is being made by Paramount/Viacom, which as you know are a bunch of sell-out ass-hat dirty rat bastard punk ass whore slut mofo P.O.S. traitor back stabbing sissy man bitches.

Have you ever had a band that you really liked, but you kind of stopped keeping up with them and any of their new stuff? I re-discovered the Red Hot Chili Peppers yesterday quite by accident. I was watching PBS of all channels, and they had a commercial which used their song "Snow (Hey Oh)" which I had actually never heard. It turns out it was from their 2-disc album from last year titled Stadium Arcadium, and I like quite a few songs from it.

Well, that's all for today. See ya!

-Kody