The talent in the family

Had to post this drawing Anna did, it was too chibi to pass up. Me, I can't draw a straight line with a ruler, that's why I have a computer!

Harry Potter and the Dead Disc Format

HD-DVD has been in trouble since Warner pulled support from it just before CES. Then, after a spate of announcements, none of them good, came word that Toshiba was going to throw in the towel and stop production. At first it was just a rumor, but overnight it became official: HD-DVD is dead.

Ironically enough, we watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on HD-DVD last night. I'd gotten the first five movies on HD-DVD for Christmas--now it looks like I better take very good care of my Xbox 360 and the HD-DVD add-on drive, or start investigating how to rip HD-DVDs to hard drive.

The King of Kong

Another documentary, and another topic near and dear to my heart: videogames.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters has gotten such rave reviews that even my sister rented and watched it. And the reviews were positive for good reason: it's exciting, there's heroes and villains, twists and turns, and some truly poignant moments. (Keep watching till the VERY end or you'll miss some final twists... and check out the extras for even more!)

Excellent documentary, highly rated. Go watch it. Oh, and as the t-shirt says, "Billy Mitchell is a jerk."

Coulton and Portal and Myxer

That should probably be Portal and Coulton and Myxer, chronologically speaking.

Since I like videogames (even though I stink at them), I of course had to get Valve's Orange Box, just to play Portal. It's a great, mind-bending puzzle game, with an equally-satisfying plot and some hilarious writing. As icing on the cake (if you will), when you finish the game you get the most bittersweet, hilarious song during the credits, called "Still Alive."

Writer of said hilarious bittersweet song is one Jonathan Coulton. I had purchased "Still Alive" from Amazon but then finally got around to checking out his website and his other songs. Immediately purchased ten of them, including a fantastic cover of, yes, "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. (He also has a very creative song that can't be purchased, but check out "When I'm 25 or 64" on his website, you'll see what I mean and why it can't be purchased.)

Then while tooling around on his website I saw he has ringtones. Well, actually, he points people to a website called Myxer that lets you easily create your own ringtones. So now, just to come full circle, I have "Still Alive" as my ringtone on my Verizon phone without having to pay their ridiculous RENTAL fee for a ringtone song.

HD downloads not so HD

There's been a few articles about this recently; I'll link to the latest one I've seen that shows stills from the Vudu download service. Basically, if I may paraphrase Scotty, ya' canna' break the laws of bitrate. A 4- to 6-megabit per second 720p download to your Vudu or Apple TV or Xbox 360 just can't compete with a 30- to 40- megabit per second 1080p movie played from HD-DVD or Blu-Ray (ok, played from Blu-Ray since HD-DVD is all but dead). At least it can't compete as far as quality goes... it's trying to compete as far as convenience goes, but if these screenshots can be believed, there's not much advantage in quality over the standard definition download, and the SD downloads can start playing much more quickly than the HD ones.

I've bought some HD downloads from Xbox Live, and I've liked the quality, but I also haven't had my eyesight checked in a while. Maybe it's time.

Gizmodo: Vudu Test Confirms HD Download Worries