HD DVD is dead. Long live Blu-ray. Except everyone seems to be ignoring it in droves as well. First off, not one person in a hundred has a TV good enough and big enough to see any difference between a Blu-ray and a standard DVD in a good player. Second, there just are not enough movies out on Blu-ray, and third, the players are still way too expensive. Given time, that could all change. After all, the same could have been said about standard DVD's not all that long ago. But all the pieces are now in place for digital delivery; it's just waiting for someone to put the whole package together. The porn industry, is, as usual leading the way with at least one company offering a set top box that will download and play any movie from a catalog of tens of thousands for a flat monthly fee. iTunes and Amazon's Unbox are getting close as well. Netflix could go full digital at any time. All that needs to happen is the price needs to come down and the studios need to stop trying to make maximum profit from each sale and start shooting for volume. And digitize the vault before it literally turns to dust.
Oil prices are going up again. The soft US economy pushed them down into the $80's until recently. Trading in Asia this morning broke through $96 a barrel again. As hard as it may be to believe, the rest of the world rolls on with or without us. China and India's energy needs continue to sky-rocket with no end in sight, driving up world demand for oil even as we ease off a bit.
From the not-really-news department, Castro announced he is resigning. I doubt he has had much to do with the day-to-day running of the country for some time. I'd like to see us take this opportunity to drop the embargo; it's a silly waste of our resources and just gives ammunition to Castro supporters (Castrati?). Enough already. Of course, it makes sense, so we won't do it and will continue to be perceived as a bully taking out our frustrations on a small island nation.
Some rich assholes in Switzerland who have gotten rich laundering drug money in the Cayman Islands have used the US courts to shut down a web site that documented that they were a bunch of rich assholes who have gotten rich laundering drug money in the Cayman Islands. Not being satisfied with knocking them off-line here in the states, they followed up by launching a denial-of-service attack against the site's Swiss ISP and setting the place on fire. Nice to see that nothing has changed. The site owners didn't even have a chance to defend themselves in court because they were notified of where the suit was filed a few hours prior. By e-mail. Anyone want to bet that a certain judge now has a nice, fat Swiss bank account? And just what reason is there for a Swiss company to file suit against a company with a Swiss presence in US court? Have our courts become that easy to corrupt?
Foo Fighters' Razor now playing.
I see our banks are still in good health, as long as the Fed keeps pouring money-with-the-ink-still-wet into them. The mattress looks like a safer place for our money (in gold coin, of course) every day.
Foreigner's Double Vision is playing.
Business as usual in the White House:
Foreigner's Head Games is playing. I don't remember that being the album cover, and I would have remembered that. For one thing, it would have never made it into my parents' house....
Well, the rest of the English internet appears to be in bed and I've run out of steam here, so I guess I'll head back to bed.
4:40 am. Sigh.
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