God Bless Michael Bay

So, I spent the better part of this weekend glued to the computer. Bad, I know, but after the Warner news and with CES 2008 firing up, I couldn't help myself. It was like my fix I desperately needed to survive.
Anyway, Michael Bay has been an outspoken proponent of Blu-Ray for quite some time, and he was none to happy when Pay-amount Pictures dropped Blu, as he insisted that it affected the quality of his Transformers release when it had to be fit onto a lower bandwidth/lower capacity HD DVD with no BD option.

This is his latest ranting, and I find it hilarious! Enjoy.

"I know the look, color, and sounds on my own movies better they anyone in the world. I color-time every single image, and am there for every single audio tweak. I see my films in the editing and final process no less then a 100 times. I know ever single nuance. For some dick wads on these posts who think I can't make an informed choice on what format in the end, has the truer results for my own films. Well you where to shove.... My films finished in Blu-Ray are better - more true. Hd is better than DVD, but just not as good as Blu-Ray. So buying a Transformers Hd is still the best you will see this movie as of today. But when Paramount caves for Blu-Ray in the future - This will happen, then you will see Transformers one day finished in Blu-Ray and I will sure be able to tell the difference. Bay"

Warner Brothers: We're Blu, and So Can You!

Sorry, Stephen Colbert for sort of ripping of your book name in this thread title.
I had kind of decided to avoid rantings about the High Def format war, since I know it may not be of supreme interest to some of you, like it is for me.
I feel compelled today though, to make an exception. Warner Brothers, the last major Neutral content provider for Blu-Ray and HD DVD has announced their exclusive support for Blu-Ray. WB holds approximately 20% of all films under their brand, and this effectively gives Blu-Ray exclusive access to 70% of all films. Reports are buzzing around the internet calling this the final death-blow for HD DVD, and I truly believe it is, barring some sinister scheme from Microsoft, though I think it would be too little, too late. Warner, not being douche hats like Paramount will be honoring their previously announced titles and winding down support for HD DVD as of May 31st, though until exclusive support kicks in June 1st, they will be releasing those HD DVD titles after the day-and-date release of the DVD and Blu-Ray versions of those films.
This news must've caught Toshiba and the HD DVD Promotions Group off guard, as they have canceled their much anticipated 2 hour HD DVD extravaganza this coming Sunday which was the prelude to CES 2008 which begins Monday. Ouch!
The last 2 hold-outs in ending the format war are Universal Pictures, who has been HD DVD exclusive since the start, and Paramount, which went HD DVD exclusive due to 'financial incentives upwards of $150 million' last summer. Many are predicting that Universal may follow shortly behind Universal in joining Blu-Ray, at least in dual-format support if nothing else.
Unless Payamount Pictures has some built in escape clause, they will be standing all alone holding a bag of shit until 2009.
I'm personally excited that it seems like this whole damn format thing has reached a turning point and may be ending rather swiftly.
Long live Blu!

Unspecified

Christmas came and went. New Years came and went. All of it seemed to come and go so fast, as it seems most anything does anymore. I really enjoyed our little friends Christmas get-together. My family Christmas celebration was the weekend after Christmas and really helped to solidify the coming and going of the holidays. No matter how many other other get-togethers or parties, it just seems unofficial without time with the family. I seemed to connect with all of them a lot more than I generally do, which was kind of cool. I guess it means I'm growing up, though I thought I already did that. Eh.
My new years resolution, of course, is to lose this "lazy + junk food + quitting smoking" excess flab I seem to have amassed over the course of 2007. It really affects me on so many levels and I really need to take steps to get myself healthy. I guess to do that, I need to put the bowflex thats been sitting there like a pile of rubble together and buy something besides double quarter pounders.
I'm going to put together a low-carb shopping list and try to force myself to get the bowflex back into a functioning thing. My out of shapeness is starting to make me depressed. I think it has been for quite some time, but I've been suppressing it.

On a non-shitty non-depressing note, I found this video on Youtube. Please only watch if you're a fan of Star Trek: Voyager. This vid won best music video compilation at the official Star Trek convention in Las Vegas in 2007, and it is clips from Voyager matched up perfectly and beautifully with the words and meaning of the song. It's about Janeway wanting to save/protect Voyager.

A Little of This 'N That

I haven't updated this thing in a week, so I felt obligated to do so, and I had some decent topics as well. I will split this up into sections, since they are all so unrelated.

Movies

Ryan and I went to see I Am Legend tonight. I had been looking forward to this movie for quite some time. Not only have I never read the book by Richard Matheson, but I have also never seen the other two films based off of it, The Last Man on Earth, and The Omega Man. While I did enjoy the film and thought the sight of seeing a place like Manhattan completely empty and on it's way to being reclaimed by nature, I thought the film did have some issues. The story begins after the chain of events leading to the end of civilization has already taken place, and slowly, through flashbacks we are given pieces of the puzzle as to what brought the whole thing on. I think Will Smith did a good job at creating a character who you could sympathize with, and one scene in the movie even made me cry.The only real problems I had were some pacing issues, and some of the special effects. The use of flashbacks was well done and they were intermixed at the appropriate places and times, but where the problems come in is with the last 30 minutes of the film. I think so much happens all at once that the events as they play out are not given enough justice and seem rushed. This also leads to an ending that seems rushed.

This film relies heavily on the use of CGI. Animals, effects, scenery, creatures. You will be hard pressed to find a shot that doesn't integrate some form of CGI into it, save for a few interior shots. While a lot of the CGI is well done, I think the protagonists rely too heavily on CGI where they could have taken more traditional approaches with the use of prosthetics/puppetry etc. Some of the CGI involving the creatures has a fair amount of that CGI'ish look too it, which makes it easy to suddenly feel removed from the believability of the film. I think traditional effects would have gone a long way with these creatures being believable, especially considering their origins.

This is the second film I have seen in the last month (The Mist) which is rare, considering that we seldom go out to see movies anymore, since we have a better setup for watching them at home. One thing that I find interesting is that of these two films, both have had very much what I consider a non-Hollywood ending. I have to hand it to the film industry. It is somewhat refreshing to see films that don't wrap it all up in a fun little package with a bow for you to walk out of the theater smiling and being happy. That's what we're all used to already.

Overall, I give this film 4 out of 5 spiders.

Time Flies

You know, the older I get, the more time seems to slip by faster and faster. I have especially noticed this over the last couple of years. The months and seasons just seem to pass ever more quickly. I read an article today which sheds some light on this, and it turns out, this is a natural process of the brain.

Researchers wanted to do a study on why things seem to move in slow motion during emergencies or times when the mind is in great distress. They performed a test whereby people fell 150 feet into a net, and they had them watch numbers flash quickly across a wrist-worn screen while doing so. The actual fall only took 3 seconds, but the subjects felt like they were falling 3 times as long. The researchers theorized that the brain operates at a faster rate, so they assumed that these subjects should have been able to interpret the numbers on their screens as they were falling, which under normal circumstances would not be readable.

It turns out that they could not read the numbers any better during the fall, even though they all felt like time slowed down. As it turns out, in times of great mental stress or stimulation, a part of the brain called the amygdala kicks in and begins recording an extra set of the memories already being recorded by other parts of your brain. This action creates very strong memories which are interpreted as being longer since they are more powerful than standard memories.

How does this all apply to time passing faster as you get older? Well, when people are young and experiencing things for the first time, the amygdala is called into action frequently, making the memories more impactful and giving the illusion of time passing more slowly. As we get older and have "seen it all", the amygdala does not kick in as often and our memory are only recorded once, and interpreted as time moving faster. I think this study is quite fascinating, and it's good to know there is a scientific explanation to the quickening of time we experience.

Well, that's it for me tonight. See you all later.

Vanilla, Ice, Ice Baby

So the forecast for this weekend calls for ice mixed with ice. You know things are going to suck when you watch the evening news and the weather guy says to anticipate widespread and extended power-outages as a result.

I decided to take a bunch of work home with me tonight in case we end up entombed in some kind of ice palace and can't even walk outside come Monday.

Ryan and I are going to stock up on water and non-having-to-be-cooked items tomorrow. I hope it turns out to be nothing, but if it does turn out carppy, below is what it will probably look like:
Speaking of The Day AFter Tomorrow, I have that film on Blu-Ray and have yet to watch it. Maybe I'll give it a spin this weekend so long as I still have electricity. I hear it was a superb transfer onto High-Def.

Stay safe everyone and try not to get ice all up on ya!

-Kody