Aronofsky does Ogami? No way!

So I'm viewing my home page to make sure some new movie reviews appeared correctly, and I notice a random quote at the bottom of the page I don't remember, from some character named "Tappy Tibbons." I search for the name, and up pops Requiem for a Dream and I say oh yeah. Then I decide to see what Darren Aronofsky (director of said movie) is up to nowadays... and what's top of his list due for completion in 2008? A live action version of Lone Wolf and Cub! Now, no one's listed as being in it at this point, but man, that could be quite quite cool. Not to take anything away from the live-action versions that have already been done, but an updated version, maybe a bit Westernized, could be awesome. Must find out more info about this project...

Lone Wolf and Cub at IMDB

The answer is no no no no no and no.

The question? "Should three-year-olds have televisions in their bedrooms?" Hell, if I have anything to say about it, my kids won't have TVs in their bedrooms when they're teenagers. Of course by then they'll have their neural implants so it'll be harder to control. But still, c'mon parents, get a little backbone for crying out loud. The best way to monitor what they're watching is to have the TV set in a public location, not in their room. Same goes for the Internet.

Should three-year-olds have televisions in their bedrooms?

Two for the price of one?

Engadget reports that the Nintendo Wii will come in at a street price of $250 or less. Let's see, $250 for the Wii, $400 for the Xbox 360 deluxe version, and you're just $50 over the price of the PS3. Yep, I'm there.

Wii pricing: $250 or less - Engadget

"A Disgrace"

Strong words for the first HD-DVD player to hit the streets, but that's what Charlie White calls it in his review. About the only favorable thing he had to say is that the image quality was remarkable. Everything else was not good: it was ugly, big, loud, took something like 40 seconds to start up or load a DVD, upsampling of standard-def DVDs was mediocre, HDMI problems cropped up everywhere... yeah, I guess that all might total up to "a disgrace."

Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD Player

HD-DVD on Xbox 360 -- what about HDCP?

More E3 news about Microsoft's external HD-DVD add-on player to the Xbox 360. I don't believe any price was announced, nor a firm release date beyond "before Christmas 2006," but one thing that came out is that it apparently connects via USB to the 360. It's not that USB 2.0 can't handle the data--it can--but more that I don't believe it's possible to implement HDCP protection over USB. And if you can't protect the player's output via HDCP, a disc has the option of falling back to standard-definition resolutions. And you're then in the same stinky boat as the purchasers of the non-HDMI version of the PS3 mentioned in a previous post.

I've just realized that (a) the previous paragraph is totally incomprehensible to most consumers who just want to play some friggin' games and DVDs, and (b) I barely have a grasp on the issues involved and I kind of do this for a living. I think both these thiings indicate that Hollywood have shot themselves in the foot with their futile attempt at locking down their HD content. They've made it so annoying to navigate the minefield of copy protection that it's more of a disincentive to purchase the new format than the promise of HD playback from a disc.

Budget PS3 & Xbox 360 HD DVD accessory run into ICT issues - CD Freaks.com

$500 PS3 to lack HDMI, WiFi, card reader - Engadget

Wow, I go off to Rome for a few days and I completely miss all the E3 announcements, including this biggie from Sony. So the PS3 is pulling an Xbox 360, where they have a lower-priced model (although as Engadget points out, it's hard to call a $500 console "lower-priced"... maybe less highly priced?), and a higher-end model. Everyone picked up on the 20GB vs 60GB hard drive, but others like Engadget picked up on some other big differences. That lack of HDMI will really bite those people if studios decide to implement downsampling their movies over analog connections, as previously discussed in this here blog.

$500 PS3 to lack HDMI, WiFi, card reader - Engadget

Ciao from Roma

Posting to my blog from Rome since I can, courtesy of a public wifi zone provided by the city of Rome (SPQR, baby) called Uniwifi and a cafe in the Campo de Fiore called Magnolia. Speed is very good, not good enough to stream The Daily Show from my MythTV backend but that's probably more due to my lame-o upstream bandwidth.

Vonage VoIP via PSP or DS?

Just saw this on Engadget while sitting in the airport waiting to take off to Rome. It would be sooooo cool to be able to make phone calls on my DS back home while I was there... I'd be able to bring a lot less stuff (then again, if I left my Mac at home, I couldn't be blogging...)

Engadget article on Vonage and DS and PSP