I just stumbled across this exciting bit of information completely by accident. The new Futurama movie will be available on DVD November 27. I'm already too excited to wait that long. And at the low low price of just $20 I will be pre-ordering. I will have to plan some big viewing spectacular at my place. And if it's available on HD DVD, I will have to buy myself an HD DVD player in order to watch it in all it's glory. Keep watching your email for the evite.
I thought we had been nearing an end of the HD DVD/Blue-ray war, as all the articles I had read recently had led me to believe that the Blu-ray format had all but won and it was just a matter of time before HD DVD went the way of Beta. Then I came across this article stating that Paramount has announced it will no longer support Blu-ray. That's a pretty big studio and could really swing this thing the other way.
But what I really found interesting in the article were some of the statistics they threw out regarding what influenced Paramount's decision. Apparently Blu-ray's current lead in the market is a little misleading.
More than that, the 2:1 lead is in software, but in hardware, thanks to the PS3, Blu-ray actually has a 5:1 lead. What does that mean? It means that owners of HD DVD players are buying more content per person than the owners of Blu-ray players. From a studio's point of view, that's built in customer loyalty right there
Add to that the fact that HD DVD is cheaper to produce and easier to type but still retails for the same price, and I'm not so sure that HD DVD won't end up on top. And if I had to make the decision today, I think I'd probably go with HD DVD. Primarily because the players are cheaper, but also because I dislike Sony. Luckily for any of you reading this, I don't feel like getting into my Sony rant at the moment, so I'll leave it at that.
It does appear that it is going to be a long time before this shakes out though. I'm going to have to vote with my wallet before any winner is declared, and to be honest, at this point I'm not sure that there ever will be a winner. I think it's entirely possible that both formats could coexist until the next format comes out. Super HD. Maybe I should wait for that.
The Chicago Bears have finally benched Rex Grossman. I still can't believe he's managed to keep his starting job for as long as he has. Sure he has had stretches where he looks like a pro bowler, but he has always followed those up with longer stretches of looking like a deer in the headlights.
Brian Griese is getting the starting job. Personally, I would have gone with Kyle Orton, but I guess that's why I'm not a head coach. I don't think Griese is a very good QB, but at least he's an improvement over Rex. What I really think the Bears should do is find some way of trading for Kurt Warner. With him behind the wheel, I think the Bears are legitimate Superbowl contenders again. Even with all their current injuries. I'm also surprised they didn't make an offer to Byron Leftwich.
I had been planning on waiting until I watched this movie before writing a review, but at this point I'm not sure I'll ever get around to it. My thoughtful sister gave me a copy of the David Hasselhoff western for my birthday. As you can see from the cover art, this is surely a riveting film full of strong character development, thought provoking dialogue, complex plot twists, and some top notch action. If there isn't a bar fight I'll be crushed.
A few things that I have taken note of so far:
According to Rotten Tomatoes, it is also known as Don't Call Me Tonto. At this point I'm not sure if Cowboys Run is an improvement or not.
Not one professional review has been written. That can only be a good sign, right? I guess that means I still have the opportunity to pen the first professional review.
It was directed by Alan Smithee. This particular fact really bothers me. How can the director have been allowed to take a Smithee on this one. He (or she) had to have known what he was getting into with the Hoff involved. He must have really needed that paycheck. I assume that he had some boat payments to make.
I may have to arrange a viewing one of these days. Anyone interesting in wasting a good solid hour and a half of your life is invited. I'll provide the popcorn.
On an unrelated note, I'm not sure why, but sometimes pictures f up my text formatting and it upsets me. This will not be tolerated in the Craw Fu regime.
The state of Oregon has demanded the vanity plates back from all members of the Udink family because it deems their plates offensive. UDINK1, UDINK2, and UDINK3 have several derogatory meanings according to one Oregon official. Not only is it a sexual reference (and I thought I'd heard them all), but it is also apparently a racial slur. The first person who can tell me what race the word dink refers to wins free praise.
I just can't help wondering how much more ridiculous our government can get, particularly on the west coast, in it's ongoing effort to ensure that no one is ever offended. I will predict right now though that by 2010, we will have completely eradicated everything offensive in the world.
Today's quote comes to us courtesy of Andy Borowitz. This particular quote really hits home with me due to the fact that I have had quite a bit of trouble with Starbucks in recent months. Without further ado, here it is:
Starbucks said it will give away 50 million free digital songs to its customers, but in keeping with Starbucks tradition, they will not be the songs the customers ordered.
I rarely look at the Netflix recommendations, but I did today, and now I remember why. Today they told me they think I will enjoy Michael Flatley: Lord of the Dance. I don't know what in the world I gave a good rating to that would lead them to that conclusion, but something is seriously wrong. As if that weren't bad enough, it told me I would enjoy Cirque duSoleil. A few years ago some clowns from Cirque came out to a Mariner game and I can honestly say that they were the worst clowns I have ever seen. And they were in tuxedos. How in the world is a clown in a tuxedo funny? It's not, that's how. So let me end this by saying that Netflix is way off, and if you like Cirque or Michael Flatley then I hate you.
Today's musical spotlight shines down on local band Sweet Water. I'm in another one of my moods today where I can't stop listening to local bands and reliving the glory days of the grunge era when our Seattle bands ruled the universe. Anyway, after listening to some Mother Love Bone, some Temple of the Dog, and some Mad Season, I got it in my head to look up a band I haven't heard in years - Sweet Water. They never hit it big, and nobody has heard anything from them in over a decade - their last album came out in 95, and having listened to 2 of their albums, I can honestly say that with the exception of 3 songs, their music wasn't very good. But those 3 songs were really good, good enough that even now I'm a little surprised they didn't get more attention. Their most widely recognized song would have to have been Superstar. It wasn't their best song, but it got heavy play at Mariner games for a while. Every time that God awful Rich Amaral got up to bat they would play Superstar. Head Down was also pretty good but didn't get much attention. But in my opinion, hands down their best song was Everything Will Be Alright. I loved this song back in the day, and even listening to it again now, I still love it. I don't know why it wasn't a huge hit. But all I can find of it now is two crappy videos on youtube. One is a live recording that the sound is so bad it should never be heard by anyone. The other one the sound quality isn't too bad, but the video is awful. I expect all of you to watch it:
If you want to learn more about Sweet Water, visit your local library. Or this link. Whichever is easier.
And if anyone has an mp3 of this song that they want to send me it would make me happy. The other song I've been dying to get a copy of for years, but can't even find anywhere to buy a copy is the cover of Hold Your Head Up by Mother Love Bone. I hear it on the radio occasionally, but it is absolutely nowhere to be found. If anyone can point me in the right direction on that one too, you'll be my best friend.
Tickets go on sale Saturday 9/22 at 10 am. Ticket prices range from $50-$150. That's kind of a kick in the nuts, but I'm still going to try to get my hands on one. I guess I'll have to wait and see if I can get a ticket before planning any kind of pre-concert event.
***UPDATE***
Tickets went onsale at 10 am this morning, and I was on ticketmaster at 10:05 and it was already sold out. No show for me unless somebody has some tickets they want to give to me....... I didn't think so. I guess I'll have to try to win some on the radio.
I know I promised some of you some pictures of me in a tux, so here's one to get things started. Me and my brother were the only people on time and were getting a little bored, and this is the result.
You can expect a few more pictures in the coming days.
While I was down in Portland this weekend, I was listening to sports radio and heard one of the greatest rumors I've ever heard. As some of you may know, Greg Oden, the top pick in the NBA draft, has already suffered a season ending knee injury before playing a single game. According to the guys on sports radio, Oden was seen limping out of a local arcade where apparently he blew out his knee playing Dance Dance Revolution. While this seems pretty unlikely to me, it still makes for one great rumor. This is the best injury since Bill Grammatica blew out his knee and ended his career celebrating a meaningless field goal. And it's even better than Kaz Sasaki falling down the stairs drunk and breaking his ribs, or Ken Griffey Jr slipping in the shower and breaking his hand. Now that I think of it, I may have a new poll in the works. I'll have to do a little research before putting that up though.
I'm not sure how, but somebody managed to hack Guitar Hero and put in a Dream Theater song. Now I'm dying to get a copy of that, even though it looks harder than hell.
It's once again time to do some advertising. If you're interested in catching some live music from a local band, meet me down at the High Dive in Freemont (across the street from Stalin) on Thursday night to see Skeletons With Flesh On Them. Sure it's a dumb band name, but they are having a CD release party and I've been promised that copies of their brand new disc will be available for the low low price of $1. The price will go up immediately after the gig is over, so it's truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. Plus I think it would be just great if I ran into somebody I know down there. I'm even willing to go out on a limb and guarantee that you might even enjoy yourself a little bit. So bring all of the attractive women you know and I'll see you down there.
....is worth doing right. I have to admit that I actually have some admiration for this Detroit area man. Most people who are going to commit suicide swallow a handful of pills, jump off a tall building, slit their wrists, or maybe shoot themselves in the head. All that was too easy for this guy. He actually went to the trouble of building himself a guillotine in his back yard. That is some unusual dedication. I just admire the guy for putting so much effort into offing himself. And I'm fairly surprised that nobody saw the building in progress and thought to notify the authorities. I have to think that building your own guillotine would most likely be more than an afternoon project, and that somebody would have noticed. Apparently not though.
I was tipped off to this story yesterday by my friend Dale. I understand that a lot of college rivalries get a little heated, but this is one of the most horrifying things I've ever heard of. I'd give you a brief summary of the article, but that wouldn't really do it justice. Suffice it to say that this church deacon's congregation must be very proud of him.
The Makah tribe has legal rights to conduct whale hunts to preserve their culture, however I have to question this latest hunt. While I will admit a fair amount of ignorance on the subject of Makah history, I doubt that they traditionally used .50 caliber machine guns. Now the article doesn't mention it, but I would not be surprised to find that alcohol was also involved. People seem to think a lot of things are a better idea once they get a little booze in them, and unfortunately, gun play seems to be one of those things. There is sure to be an uproar from the animal rights activists over this one.
I had always thought that smellovision was a joke, but it turns out that back in the 50's, somebody actually tried to market this. As odd as that is, it's nowhere near as strange as the news that people are attempting to bring it back. Now my first thought is that I very infrequently see anything on tv that makes me wish I could smell it. As a matter of fact, I could go on at length about all of the things I wouldn't want to smell. I will spare everyone that though.
To me, the bigger concern is developing popcorn lung, a disease I have only recently become aware of. Since the odors of the smellovision are created by releasing chemical scents into the air, I can't help thinking that there is a risk of developing some kind of disease as a result.
The whole thing just sounds like a bad idea to me, and I can't imagine very many people being interested.
The UW looked pretty impressive against Boise State. Maybe they are for real. They've got a nice stretch of games against pretty good teams coming up, so we'll see how they do in the coming weeks, but as of now, they are looking like a bowl team. The offense couldn't manage to move the ball in the second half, but the defense really impressed me shutting down one of the top offenses in college.
The Huskies have a pretty young, inexperienced offense, and as the season goes on, I expect them to get better. I believe they have 3 freshmen starting on the offensive line, in addition to a freshman QB. They've also got a freshman WR who is one of the fastest guys in the PAC-10. When these guys get some experience, they should be a lot of fun to watch. Until then, I just hope they don't take too much of a beating from Ohio State (#12), UCLA (#13), and then USC (#1) in the next 3 weeks.
I've never been much of a fan of Southern rock. It's a little too close to country for my liking. Every once in while, however, a song comes along that's just catchy enough to sucker me in. First Sweet Home Alabama came along. Then for a long time, there was nothing. But now a band with a dumb name comes along with a song with an even dumber title. It took me a while to warm up to this one, but now when I hear this, it's stuck in my head for the rest of the day. I'm sure by now you've all guessed that I'm talking about Alcohaulin' Ass by Hellyeah. For those of you who haven't heard it yet, here you go.
.....except for the not having any money part of it. As soon as I can find a solution to not working yet still having an income, I'll be set. Luckily for me, it looks like my company is going to help me become unemployed in about 6 months. Unfortunately, having the sword of Damocles dangling over my head seems to be cutting into my productivity.
I guess there should be a point to all this since I'm pretty sure I've already filled my monthly quota of aimless rambling, so I guess the point is I need to find a job that pays more and is closer to home and is less hours. Or a job that pays more money and doesn't require me to do anything. Either would be a step in the right direction. So if anyone knows of any high paying jobs in the Redmond/Kirkland/Bellevue area, let me know.
After watching the Huskies dominate Syracuse, I realized a few things, and also came up with a few more questions.
First, I realized that I'm sure glad it's football season. The Mariners and their craptacular 9 game losing streak helped me realize that.
Second, I realized that HDTV was created for sports. Football games are so much better in HD that I don't know if I can go back to standard. God bless ESPN for putting that game on HD nationwide. HD even made WSU look good, even though they got manhandled by Wisconsin.
Third, I realized that Jake Locker is a big, athletic, fast guy. I didn't get to see him throw enough to know what kind of passer he will turn into, but that dude can run. He's like a bigger Marques Tuiasasopo.
As for the questions, I just don't know if this game was evidence of a vastly improved UW team, or a horrible Syracuse team. I suspect it's probably a combination of the two, but it sure does make me more enthusiastic about watching college football this year. And it will make working with my office Cougs more bearable.
ESPN the magazine has a great article about the Red Sox fan (page 17), and the interesting thing is that it's actually written by a Red Sox fan. He goes into detail as to why he hates what has become of the 'Red Sox Nation' since they won the world series. I couldn't agree with him more. Here are the best exerpts, according to me:
Again, I’d rather be a Sox fan in 2007 than 2003. I just wasn’t prepared to root for the Yankees, and as sad as this sounds, we’ve kinda sorta maybe turned into the Yankees. Like them, we spend more money than everyone else. Like them, we make expensive roster mistakes (Drew, Lugo, Matt Clement, Édgar Rentería, et al.) without any repercussions. Like them, we’re detested by opposing fans because we invade their stadiums and taunt their teams. And like them, we’re sucking in all the soulless bandwagon kids who pick their favorite teams in first grade based on winning percentages and superstars.
Of course, it’s tough to ignore three-fourths of a crowd in Tampa screaming for ”Yooooooooook” as the alleged Boston fan behind me asks, “Why are they booing?” Back in the old days, we used late-season collapses and crushing playoff defeats to weed out these fair-weather knuckleheads. Now they’re multiplying like Body Snatcher pods.
As some of you may have read earlier, I have been suffering from sore, swollen, abnormally chapped lips for about a week and a half now. For the past 2 days I've been carrying a tube of chapstick everywhere I go and lubing up frequently. As it turns out, this has not helped as I imagined it would, but rather seems to have made things worse. I woke up this morning looking like Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Completely baffled as to why that would be, I began to think that maybe I'm having an allergic reaction to the chapstick. A quick search of the internet led me to find that such a reaction isn't entirely uncommon. Who would have guessed. Well, I'm off the chapstick now, and I imagine it will take a few days to get back to normal, so we'll see if this cures the problem or not. I sure hope so because this is really getting unpleasant.
"If the roller coaster is broken down, they don't close the amusement park." - Ron 'tater salad' White
At first this may not sound that funny, but when you understand the context, that he was talking about his wife having PMS, it becomes much more amusing. Especially when he follows that up with, "if they did, there'd be a lot of people standing outside the fence saying 'but the log ride's still working'"
In what has to be one of the biggest upsets I've ever seen, Appalachian State (where the hell is that?) beat Michigan 34-32. Somebody will lose their job over that. And some Michigan graduate that I know along with her former Michigan resident husband (my brother and his wife) should be ashamed of this. They won't care though. I know this since I recently asked them to name one Tiger, Lion, Piston, and/or Red Wing. After a few minutes they were able to come up with Carlos Guillen, Chris Chelios, and Steve Yzerman, but no current Lions (my brother immediately said Barry Sanders and then was out of Lions) or Pistons. And I'm reasonable sure the only Michigan graduate my brother could name is his wife. But I've gone on a long enough tangent.
I think it was the 26th of August. Actually, I know it was the 26th of August, and I know it was a Sunday, not a Saturday, but if I'd said Sunday in the park, I know it was the 26th of August, then it just wouldn't have made any sense.
Anyway, this was the day of our annual Koei Kan picnic. You all were invited. Sorry I didn't invite you before hand, but I didn't really think about it. Anyway, I got roped into putting on a short demo. Pictures are provided by Mr Campbell and his fancy overpriced iphone. Not too many action shots, but they turned out pretty well anyway.
Here is a picture of me and Sensei Robles about to throw down with the bogu headgear on.
And here's one of me on the receiving end of a nice kick to the gut. Trust me, I did land some kicks and punches of my own, I just don't have any photographic evidence to prove it.
I had been planning on waiting until I watched this movie before writing a review, but at this point I'm not sure I'll ever get around to it. My thoughtful sister gave me a copy of the David Hasselhoff western for my birthday. As you can see from the cover art, this is surely a riveting film full of strong character development, thought provoking dialogue, complex plot twists, and some top notch action. If there isn't a bar fight I'll be crushed. 
I think it was the 26th of August. Actually, I know it was the 26th of August, and I know it was a Sunday, not a Saturday, but if I'd said Sunday in the park, I know it was the 26th of August, then it just wouldn't have made any sense.
