I've been thinking a lot lately about what I wanna do with my life, and invariably the answer always quickest to come first to my mind is, "not this!"  I never wanted to go into computers, and I did so, really, as a matter of indifference ... I did it because I could.  I'm finding that attitude to be somewhat negative now.

But, I don't wanna sound like I'm whining.  I got myself into the situation I'm in, and I'm willing to take responsibility for that, and I want to gracefully exit out, but at the same time, find something I would rather do instead.  Interestingly enough, I've had two ideas bouncing around my head lately of something I could do.  It seems incredibly risky, but I have so many ideas and I get so excited about it that I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't at least start to look into it.  I've been thinking about either running my own local movie theater or video rental store.

I've always wanted to run my own movie theater, ever since I was a little kid.  Growing up, going to the movies was a rare treat, and I really enjoyed it every time.  Well, except that one time my mom took me to see Bambi, and I thought the movie was pretty boring.  I must have been five at the time or something.  A critic at such a young age.  I still love going to the movies, for just the thrill of the experience.  One of the reasons that working at a movie theater was so much fun for me too, was that I've never found myself so culturally engrossed around people of my own kind as I was there.  First of all, those of us who were long-term workers were really into movies.  There seems to be more than a few shared qualities from that fascination, since I made a lot of good friends working there.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I have some really cool ideas for what would make a movie theater fun to visit.  I especially have lots of ideas on some cool promotions to do (which I might go into later ... right now, they're just floating around in my head).

The same is true for a video rental store.  I know it's in the news this week that Hollywood Video is going out of business, and it really comes as no surprise to me.  I've written before how I think the whole business concept is outdated, and some ideas they can use to brighten things up.  I have lots more ideas on top of those I mentioned there, too.  There's so many things you could do more than just making it a trip to pick up a movie or game to rent.  I gotta write em down.

There's only one small problem -- I'm not really the entrepreneurial type.  Personally speaking, I dislike the ideas of capitalism in general, and I completely glaze over anytime the topic of business comes up, so I'm not sure I'd be well suited to take on such an endeavor as I might run it financially into the ground, quickly.  If I was serious about doing it, I'd have to do my due research, that's for sure.  I'd like to think I've worked with the movie theaters for long enough to know what would be the basics (I've filled every role there -- usher, concessionist, box office, projectionist and management), but it seems like running a theater would be a lot riskier than a video store.  Who knows.  If it was small enough, I guess.

Anyhooms, I'm just thinking out loud for now.  I dunno what I think of the idea, but one thing I'm absolutely certain about -- it's one idea that gets me really excited, and just keeps generating more and more energy as I think about it.  Add on top of that it's something I've thought would be cool  to do for years, so ... who knows?

I guess at this point I'm just wondering if I should pursue the idea or not.  I mean, not commit myself to it, and run out and get a loan from the bank or anything, but rather just ask myself if there's really some sustained interest there or if it's just something to consider.  I dunno.

I can really think of some cool ideas, though.   Maybe I should share them.

I was really skeptical about the movie after seeing the trailers, so I went in with some doubts, but man, they absolutely *nailed* this movie.

First off, you're not gonna see a story so original ever again.  There's just nothing to compare it to.  The main character's name is Hiccup, who is a young teenage viking who is an absolute geek through and through.

And that's where the movie really shines, is in its authenticity as far as how the character in that situation would act.  I kept thinking the movie is really human, for lack of a better term.  It certainly tells the story accurately from that persona's point of view, including the awesome young hawt teenage chick he's chasing, as well as the idiot bullies that get in his way.  It's just great all around.

The animation was pretty incredible, too.  But what I thought was really unique was the cinematography.  When Hiccup is flying around on his dragon, some of the scenes are pretty intense ... I actually got quite the rush from watching it, which was *totally* unexpected, and pretty rare!  I was really surprised.  For that reason alone, I wanna go back and see it in 3D.

Another thing I kept noticing was the attention to detail.  The dragons themselves acted a lot like how animals would really act -- with their motions and reactions and things like that.  Again, it just made the entire thing seem really authentic.  I kept thinking how Hiccup's dragon was acting just like a playful cat, since that's what it seemed to be mimicking.  Really cool.

I won't give away the ending, but it really took me by surprise how true-to-life it was.  I'm glad to see cartoons and kids films in general going back to their roots where actions have consequences and things aren't watered down anymore.  It really adds to the story, and it certainly was *another* thing I wasn't expecting.

There was only *one* minor complaint I had about the film -- the audio track didn't seem that great.  I went and saw it during a weekday, which was a mistake, since there was a small crowd and the sound wasn't turned up very loud.  In fact, I was surprised to find myself  thinking it would sound better at my house.  But more than that, a lot of times the dialogue's audio mix didn't fit with the environment.  For instance, they'd be flying around, and their intonation or volume wouldn't change with the circumstance -- it sounded the same whether they were close up or skimming the water.  I think it's interesting I even *noticed* something like that, but it really did seem to stand out like that a few times.

Final comments, though, go see it, and take your kids.  It's got a lot of action sequences, but I wouldn't classify it as really scary / frightening until the end, and even then, it's still pretty simple fight sequences that wouldn't be nightmarish I think.  I myself am pretty squeamish, and I know there weren't any "ew, gross" moments, if that stands for anything.

Good times.  I'd give it a 4.5 out of 5, I think.

I'm not gonna post any entries this year.  In fact, I didn't even remember about April Fool's til about 2 weeks before this year, and I was like "oh yah ... oh well."  So, no ideas this year.  I'm just outta steam, yo.

However, here's some links to my favorites from last year.

• media-video cleanup
• new audio player (yay, TRON!  I really do own both of those things)
• introducing ubeantoo
• living with cats

Just for the record, I don't recommend having ferrets as pets.  Woodland creatures do not transform well into household environments.  And I'll gladly share stories with you about stepping into puddles of ferret pee.  Seriously.

It was a good movie, I liked it.  In fact, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, which surprised me.  The story was really well done, and unlike some of the other Batman animated movies, it really did a good job of keeping the feel of an original series episode.

That's not to say I'm really familiar with the Batman Beyond series.  I have to confess to seeing only about half a dozen episodes, if that.  I do have all three seasons of them on DVD though.  Again, just never really got around to watching them.  There's a lot of TV shows like that though that I own.  It's pretty common.  I just don't get to them until the bug kinda hits me.

One thing that really impressed me about the movie, that I kept noticing, was that I really liked their art style.  I remember one reason I initially thought the series was going to be cool, was because it borrowed from the same animation style of the original Batman: The Animated Series runs, but now it was based in the future.

I've always loved the retro look of the original Batman cartoons (well, original for younger audiences), and I think that Warner Bros. has always done an amazing job with the art style.  But one thing I've consistently noted is that when you get good animation departments working with a futuristic timeline, they really have a ball and can come up with some really amazing concepts.

That's one reason I like animation so much -- it's much easier to play with fresh ideas.

The story was great, as well.  I'll be the first to admit that other Batman animated movies were alright.  In fact, I remember going to see Batman: Mask of the Phantasm with a friend when it was in the theaters.  We got there about 20 minutes late, which was a real crime, since the story flips back and forth between flashbacks constantly.  We were especially screwed because we came in when they were in a flashback sequence, and the movie was really short, and we were *completely* lost.  It's still a good fun flick to watch, but the story is a bit strained.

This one, though, was much better by comparison.  A lot darker, too.  I've noticed that the newer WB animated movies are going in that direction.  I've got mixed feelings about that, personally.

I won't give any of the story away, but I have always remembered reading one review of the movie a long time ago that said that it was really cool how the Joker came back.  And, I'll agree completely.  I was pretty skeptical how they were going to work it out, but it was well done.  Plus, he is extra creepy in this one, and it seems like it delves into his character much more than before.

For that matter, now that I think about it,  the other main characters (Bruce Wayne and Terry McGinnis) both get some character development in the story.  We get to see a bit more about them as people.  Again, I thought the story was well developed.

The only thing that bummed me about the movie itself was the video transfer.  Warner Bros. is always great about their DVD transfers, but this one was non-anamorphic widescreen, meaning it was full-framed, but still letterbox.  On the flip side, though, the audio track was 5.1 Dolby Digital (not 2.0 like the Amazon.com listing suggests), and it was not too shabby.  It was well mixed, and even I, the non-audiophile, noticed the surround getting used quite a few times.  So, they didn't really skimp there.  It wasn't great by any means, but it was good.

I gotta say again how much I really enjoyed the art style in this one.  They really seemed to put some care into it.  I'm left to wonder if that transferred to the series as well.  I haven't seen any of the episodes in a while, but I'm certainly curious to check them out now.

There were so many great shots and backgrounds, and I would love to post more, but some of them would give away the story.

Good stuff, though.  Can't really go wrong with Batman.  I'm surprised I hadn't seen it before now.  I like.

So, the backstory is that the other day I was making a note of all the projects I have to do,  creating what I call my project tree.  It's basically an ordered list of general projects (Gentoo, home theater system, etc.), and then abstract projects underneath that.  It's nice because I can get a birds eye view of all the stuff I'm working on without going into specifics about any of them.  One of the home theater ones was to get at least ISO disc rips of the Blu-Ray movies I already have, even if I can't decrypt them yet, so I can at least play around with my options as they become available.

Well, I had moved my server setup around not too long ago, so I had two 750 GB harddrives just collecting dust.  I put one of them in an external USB drive, and plugged it into my PS3, which was already running Linux (see this pervious post for all the fun details).

I formatted my external USB drive as NTFS, so that I could read/write to it with Windows as well, and then I would insert a disc and just dump it to an ISO file.  That's easy enough:

$ cat /dev/sr0 > KFP.iso

I grabbed a couple of them (which took awhile, don't let me kid you on that part) so that I could get a good sampling in case I had more luck with one than another.

Once that was done, I trotted the little drive and plugged it into my netbook, running Windows XP, and installed both Virtual CloneDrive and AnyDVDHD.  The first one lets me mount an ISO as an actual disc drive, and the second actually decrypts the disc for me and dumps the contents back to the harddrive.  So, that's two passes now on all the data, which is making this take a long time.  But that's okay, it's fun.

Now that I have the actual contents, the MPEG2 transport streams, I can play it back with MPlayer, ffplay or whatever.  I'm having limited success with latest MPlayer on the files with VDPAU playback support, but it could just be my video card (GeForce 8600 GTS).  On my HTPC frontend, it works almost perfectly on there, with a nicer video card (GeForce 9300).  My desktop just craps out, though.  I can still watch it with Xv video out, though.

mkvtoolnix doesn't support m2ts files right now, so I don't have many options if I wanna change things around.  I'm still in a proof-of-concept stage, so I don't really care all that much.  Plus, my options are already limited.  AnyDVDHD is shareware that will expire in 21 days, and while it's amazing and works great, it's really expensive -- something like $200 for a lifetime license.  Eek.  With that, I'll keep trying my options on Linux.

The second piece of shareware I ran into (which also has a limited evaluation license, though this time for 30 days) is MakeMKV.  The Linux port is always a little more difficult to find, so here's a direct link to the details on the lastest version.  Boy, I never thought I'd be talking about shareware on my blog.

MakeMKV works really nice, too.  It's supposed to be able to do the same job as AnyDVDHD, I believe, but since I don't have the actual Blu-Ray drive, everything I've tried has never worked when just mounting the ISO direcly and trying to access that.  I believe that part of cracking the key involves having access to the drive.  I'm really not sure.  I've read a bit about the whole process, but it's still really confusing to me still.

Anyway, the software will let you access it directly through the decrypted contents, and that's what I did.  The interface is actually really simple and nice, and I would actually consider buying this one (it's much cheaper, at $50 for a lifetime license).  I'm trying to remember the last time I paid for a software license.  One that comes to mind, is that I actually have a valid registration key for Legend of the Red Dragon, the *really* old BBS door game.  Wow.  I think it cost me something like $15.

MakeMKV is pretty nice, though.  It snags the subtitles I select, and already includes the chapters as well as the HD audio formats.

So, that's it.  The whole process is pretty tedious, but it works, and I'm happy.  I don't really care about decrypting it *too* much right now, since I don't wanna go through the pain of trying to play them back over my HTPC just yet.  I'd need to do a lot of tweaks and upgrades to my system, and I really don't care that much.  It's not worth the hassle.  Especially, uh, since I just bought a new Blu-Ray player last month.

Really, though, I'm just doing this for the exercise since when I get bored, often times I'll want to play around with media files and formats and see what I can do with them.

Eventually I'll buy a BD-ROM drive and see what I can do, but for now I'm trying to save some $$$ and the whole point of this was to see if I could rip some discs with just the hardware available, and I could.   Woots.

On a sidenote, I posted aacskeys to the portage tree today, which is one of the tools users need to decrypt the keys on their discs.  Hopefully we can get some more hackers interested in poking at it.  That's always good.

Last but not least, here's an actual screenshot from the final rip.

I love TMNT.   Boy that's a post for another day ... which reminds me, I should get a copy of my home-made videos some day, that I made with my action figures.  Oh man, that'd be awesome.

I had put off watching it for a looong time, pretty much completely until a friend recommended it in passing and I was like "Hmm, it's on Netflix Watch it Now, meaning it's probably not that great, so I'll go watch it."  Yah.  Don't ever expect me to explain my logic to you.

I was really excited when the first one came out, and I was sorely disappointed by how much I thought it didn't live up to the book.  I thought it was good, but I was really bothered by the fact that the "epic" battle scene at the end was seriously less than 5 minutes long, and I don't think you ever saw *one* person do anything battlerific.

The second one, though, was awesome.  Probably about half the movie was one big battle or another one, and well done for the most part.  I especially liked the duel.  Oh yah, spoiler alerts.  Whoops.

The movie was interesting, though.  I don't remember the book *at all*, so that could be why I enjoyed it a bit more.  I thought there was a lot of interesting touches.  There was just one thing that kept nagging me a bit, though.  I kept thinking that, no matter how good the movie was, it seems like they focused on making it a spectacle movie more than a really good story.  It wasn't poorly done, but it wasn't excellent, either.  I often wonder why movies with really gripping stories and dialogue are so few and far apart.  This one went both ways.  At times it had some class and grit and character all its own, and then at other times it took things a little less seriously.  I suppose that's not too bad considering it's a film for kids, and I have to say that, overall, they did a really good job.  I think that the sequel was far better done than the first -- although I will admit it's been a *long* time since I saw the original Narnia, and I should probably give it a nod again.

So, I happened to stumble upon this one cartoon not long ago, that I had completely forgotten about ... Pole Position.  I think I saw a video about it YouTube or something, I don't remember.  80s cartoons is a popular subject in #uphpu.

Watching the video though, I was like, "meh, another old-school Japanese-styled animation show" until I saw the little computer face in the dashboard ... then all kinds of memories came back to me and I was like, "dude, I totally remember this show!"

I managed to snag a copy on Amazon, even though it's been out of print.  I didn't even know it was on DVD.  Since then, I've been totally obsessed with this show.  The theme song, in particular.  I can't get it out of my head.  Probably because I sing it to myself every 30 seconds.

Sadly enough, there were only 13 cartoons produced.  It looks like it could have done well.  I don't know why this one triggered such a response in me -- especially since I didn't even remember the title -- but I think I may have clued in on it a bit.  It features cool cars with electronic devices.  As a little kid, I'm sure I was totally enchanted by that.  Heck, I've always found computers extremely fascinating.  Just that they work how they do amazes me.

I don't remember the show, but I do remember the old Atari video game.  It was fun.  I also remember playing E.T. though, and wondering what the heck the point of the game was.

I've been watching the show since I got it last week, and I love it.  It's really cool, actually.  The first few I've seen so far start out with them (whatever their names are, on the secret Pole Position team) doing a live stunt show, and, it seems like, with totally random moves made up on the fly.  It's pretty hilarious now.  But man I love how old cartoons just do random stuff and don't even bother trying to explain it.  Good times.  I really miss shows like that.

You seriously have to forget the past twelve or so releases that Disney has had that does any animation (not counting Pixar, of course), and go see this movie, because it is a serious throwback to the Walt Disney animation pictures of old.  The animation was top-notch, mixing art styles both old and new, and I could see influences from a *lot* of classic Walt Disney films, like Pete's Dragon, The Rescuers, Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, and more.

Everything about the film just blew me away.  It was hilariously funny with original characters and stories -- I won't spoil it for you, though.  The story was great and it deeply used the local culture to a completeness that, again, I haven't seen since Walt himself made the movies.

I cringed every time a song started up (and there were a *lot* of them, even for a Disney animated film) since I was afraid it would suck, but they were all really good.  I found myself tapping along to them in the theater, I was getting into them so much, which *never* happens with me.

The art style was incredible.  There were some really, really cool sequences with the songs and some of the scenes.  The ones with the Shadow Man just totally made the movie.  And this movie was *not* nubbed down for little kids, either.  It was authentically creepy and scary in parts, just as it should have been.  Extremely well done.

If I had to rank this thing, I'd say it would probably fit in the top five or so of animated films I've ever seen.  I'd say it rated up there with Beauty and the Beast, for me.  That seems like a pretty accurate rating -- not my #1 favorite, but pretty darn close.

So, suffice it to say, I was incredibly surprised ... and the best movies are always ones where you're totally blown away by your limited expectations, I think.  This movie is an animated film in a class all by itself.  Just an awesome treat, to see Disney put out something good again.  From the very opening title sequence, with the Walt Disney Animation Studios opening, I figured I was in for a good treat, and I was right.

Buying it for PS3 had me a bit unsure of what to expect though, because this was a full-blown RPG, and I'd only ever played those on my computer.  One thing I know about them is that there are a *lot* of commands you can issue, and I couldn't imagine not having a keyboard to do that.  Still, I decided to go with the PS3, and hope for the best.

When trying to describe this game, the first word that comes to mind is bloody.  Man, do these guys love absolutely destroying people and making blood splatter everywhere.  Even the backgrounds and maps use blood with an artistic effect.  It's pretty crazy in that regard.  Generally speaking, I hold off on the M-rated titles, because I'm somewhat sensitive to gore and violence.  Not to mention I'm not a big fan of nudity and swearing in games.  In fact, I think this is probably the only M-rated game I have.  There's probably another one, but I can't remember what it is.  Generally speaking, though, I usually make wide reservations for fantasy RPGs because I love them so much.

Anyway, I've been playing this game for a while, and it's taken me a while to understand what the heck is going on.  At first I totally expected something more along the lines of old school RPGs, where they just dump you in an area and you clear it out of monsters (a la gold box games).  That's not the case here at all.  There is tons and tons of dialogue and story to go through.  It had me surprised and confused, really, until I realized that's how the game is *supposed* to be.  It's more like Knights of the Old Republic where the fun in the game is the character interactions and the story.  I made it through 20% of the game already before I figured that, out, though.  Before now, all I kept thinking to myself was, "man, there's too much talking in this game."  Like I said, I've never had a real RPG on the console before -- I'm used to general hack and slash games.

The controls aren't as annoying as I thought they'd be, either, which I'm glad to report.  In fact, it's quite easy to use and I never get stuck.  Sometimes I forget which button to push to change characters in which menu, but most of the time I'm okay, and that's seriously my biggest complaint anyway.  There is so much info available to you, but the menus allow you to easily access it quickly.

Another thing I really like is how it lets you save the game anywhere you're at.  This has always been a nitpick of mine in console games, and one reason I was always slow to adopt to using them -- I hate the idea of having to reach a checkpoint or kill a boss before you can save your progress.  Thankfully, with consoles having harddrives in them now, it makes them much simpler to use that space liberally so save points is becoming less of an issue.

As to the game itself, it's really interesting.  I buzzed through the first part of it so fast, expecting to just run out and kill things endlessly, that I totally didn't pay any attention to the storyline, and so now I'm a bit confused as to what's going on and why it's important.  That's okay, though, since it'll just make my second run pretty fun.

I'm just *now* starting to get really addicted to the game.  The story is starting to pull me in as I pay attention, and I really love the simple controls when it comes to fighting.  And battles on the big screen TV are a lot more fun than on my comparatively tiny computer monitor.  I think I made the right move getting it for PS3.

There's a lot about the game I don't understand yet that I've been kind of ignoring.  Things like crafting and weapon ... specializations or whatever they are.  I'll figure it out later.  As is, when I usually start a new RPG, I'll just create a dumb-as-bricks fighter and pound my way through the adventure as a method of trying it out.  My favorite character to play, though, is always an incredibly annoying and fun thief that can just do whatever he wants, generally roleplaying as chaotic neutral.

One really cool thing about this game is that there are very real consequences to the game depending on your decisions.  I've heard about this, but I'm not sure how deep that vein runs.  For instance, there was one town I visited that was getting slaughtered by creatures at night.  They wanted my help, and I decided to come back later.  Well, once I left, they got attacked again at night, and the town is wiped out.  Whoops.  Now I can't go back there.

That is actually a really cool feature that I like -- your actions have actual consequences in the game.  You can't just say, "Uh, I'll be back later in the game when I'm stronger."  You either do it right then or not at all.  Craziness.

I do have one small caveat about the game -- levelling.  They give you so many points to attribute when you level, that it makes it kind of hard to know what to do with them.  And for a fighter that is just sword and shield, I'm not interested in a whole half of the skills they offer since they have to do with archery and two-handed weapon fighting.  I haven't really seen any penalties for lack of attributes, either, other than strength, so that's what I've mostly been dumping my points in, and spreading them across other ones that look low otherwise.  With the other characters, I usually just auto-level them up since I really don't see much advantage to picking them myself.  Still a bit lost in that area.

Fun game, though.  I think there's also some DLC, I'm not sure, which could really add some potential for add-ons.  I can see myself getting really hooked on this game.

This weekend while puttering around, I decided to check out the latest demos on the Playstation Network, and downloaded one for Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time.  There were two demos, interestingly enough, one for Ratchet and one for Clank.  I got Ratchet's.  As is with most demos, I wasn't expecting much (it's a pretty high failure rate when it comes to interest), but I fired it up to give it a whir.

The game dropped me in a weird landscape with a gun, and I kind of groaned to myself .. not another shooter.  I suck at shooters, which is one reason I've been avoiding console gaming a lot.  But, as I started playing it, here's the sequence of thoughts that went through my head:

1. How the heck do I shoot my gun?
2. How do I shoot my special weapon?
3. Holy crap, I have hoverboots?
4. Oh my gosh, this game is fun!
5. Repeat last step, about 500 times.

Heh.  It was awesome.  So much, in fact, that when I finished, it said that the game came out last Tuesday!?  Well, you know what that means to a man who has spent his whole life evolving a careful sense of patience and self-mastery ...  I paid full price for it at Best Buy 15 minutes later.

I've since played through probably a third of the game, and I'm just now starting to lose steam.  Wow, it is fun.

First of all, the graphics are absolutely amazing.  It's just eye-popping nice.  I'm actually surprised that they'd put so much effort into the artwork for a game that is mainly for an audience much younger.  But the quality shines through in every aspect so far.

The game has one of my favorite features of all time, too -- no penalty for deaths.  It just starts  you back up where you left off.  I love that.  I'm sure one of the reasons I never had a console growing up was because I realized early on that it was an issue-aggragator rather than a calming, enjoyable experience.  Let's just say it's a good thing that those Nintendo controllers were hard plastic -- they could take a lot of damage at high velocity speeds.

Another really nice touch about the game is it has a degree of free-range movement.  There are lots of different places you can go, and while the storyline is linear, you can take breaks from it and go back to where you were before to finish things up or just screw around.  Its fun.  It gives you enough freedom to screw around if you want, or get into a serious adventure if you're up for the run.

The only thing I don't like about it is playing as Clank.  So far, it's just a chore.

The storyline is great, too, and there is some great dialogue / writing in there.  Really original and funny.  Something else I really enjoy too is the ability for the character to upgrade himself and his weapons.  I grew up with the gold-box of AD&D gaming, and I always loved levelling my guys.  This isn't the same level of complexity, but still I think it's a nice touch that your character's abilities improve as the guys get harder in the game.  It only seems fair.

All around, a really awesome game.  And it turns out, as I discovered, that there's apparently a whole series of Ratchet and Clank games, too.  I'm really skeptical that any of the others would be nearly as good as this one, but who knows.  At least they're not as expensive by now.

"Up brushes against the stratosphere with a dazzling, picture-perfect ... transfer that boasts more breathtaking spectacle and stunning scenery in a single shot than many high definition presentations deliver in two hours."

I can't comment on Up since I don't own a copy, but I can say the same holds for Wall-E.

Watching a Pixar movie on Blu-Ray made every single hedge I ever had about the format completely disappear.

Of course, this is all theory since the actual product isn't out yet, but hey, I like a good mystery.

Before I go on, though, here's the sources of the actual news that everyone is feeding off of.  I know when I'm looking for details I hate reading everyone's interpretation of it in an attempt to get a spin on what it means -- which, of course, is exactly what I'm doing.  At least I'm linking back to the source.

• Netflix Blog: Netflix Coming to PS3
• Netflix Press Release
• Playstation Blog: Netflix Coming Soon to PlayStation 3
• Netflix Opt-In Screen

Okay, so, there's three things I find suspicious here about the whole thing:

1. The Playstation blog entry is written by Netflix, not Sony.
2. You need a disc to use it.
3. Sony said back December of '08 that it was focusing on its download service.

My take on the whole thing is that Sony doesn't like it, but they are allowing it, albeit grudgingly.  Using the Playstation Store is a ridiculous experience in DRM that only makes renting movies easier by being able to download them instead of going to the store.  It manages to duplicate the nasty elements of high prices, limited availablity, and poor choice of selections.  Netflix's library isn't that great *right now*, but I'd still rather pay $9 a month to stream as much as I want for one month, versus $5 for one movie limited to a 24-hour viewing period.

Anyway, my big question is, why isn't it part of the PS3 firmware, similar to how it works on the Xbox 360?  Dunno.  Again, I don't know if the disc is a one-time install, or if you need it everytime you want to use the service.  The press release leaves out those details.  In fact, all it says about it is that "Initially, watching movies instantly streamed from Netflix via the PS3 system will be enabled by a free, instant streaming Blu-ray disc that is being made available to all Netflix members."  When they say "initially", I imagine that means that it's not going to be that way forever.

They also say, "Netflix members simply slide the disc into their PS3 systems to reveal movies and TV episodes that can be watched instantly" so I assume that you do have to have it in the box to watch it.

Either way, I guess I'll find out next month if I get my own disc to play with.

The reason I'm watching this so closely though, is because short of the Roku, nothing has come close to delivering a worthy UI to watching Netflix on the TV (that I own ... No 360 for me).  I've written about the Netflix plugin on Tivo before, which is downright embarrassing, so I'm really hoping that the PS3 one will more than make up for that.  I would really hate to have to use the disc every single time, though, since that would really make me lose interest in using it on a regular basis ... and the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that that is exactly what Sony is hoping for.

The movie was good.  I wasn't really paying attention the video this time though.  It was nicer, though, than the DVD.  One thing I managed to notice this time around is that while they did a good transfer, they didn't bother cleaning up the material at all.  That is, the age of the special effects really shine through when it is shown in such clarity (and in fact, I can remember noticing some of them when I watched it in the theater as a kid ... that's one thing I'm proud of, I got to see all the Star Trek movies since IV on the big screen when they were originally released).  They could have cleaned it up a bit, but didn't bother.  Again, I'm gonna gamble and say that they will probably have an "improved" release version in a few years or so.

I think I need to give the Star Trek movies a break for a bit.  I'm running out of steam.  Well, that, and I hate watching movies knowing I'm gonna review them later.  Sometimes it makes me watch them more critically instead of being able to enjoy it.  That wasn't the case this time though.

Alright, I'm tired, and it shows, so I'll just end it there.  It may be a while til the next Star Trek movie though.  I just checked my queue, and it's Insurrection.  I actually liked that one, too.

The colors in this one reminded me a lot of watching The Motion Picture.  I noticed this time, that the most vibrant colors are always present when they are docked somewhere, either at the space station, or the interior shots of the ship.  That's where the variety is and it really shows off how crisp and clean the transfer is.  It just looks great.

This was also one of those films that just kept taunting me, wishing I had a better surround sound system (in fact, I bought a new center speaker this weekend, but I had already watched and sent back the movie.  Doh!).  I really liked the score ... heck, I love everything about this movie.

The Search for Spock can best be described as filler material.  It bridges the story of bringing Spock back to life immediately after he died in Wrath of Khan, and it also is the launching point for the events in The Voyage Home.  In fact, that's the part I like the most -- that Star Trek II through IV are all one big story, told sequentially and chronologically in order.

I should get Star Trek IV either today or tomorrow from Netflix.  I can't wait for that one, either.

My verdict for this one though would definitely be to buy.  It was so good.  The colors were great, and smooth, and vibrant, and it just looked like a well done upgrade.

The human part of the story was really incredible and very moving, and they could have made a movie just out of that part, it was so well done and they were on a great roll.  When he sails off to the island and finds the monsters though, things just get weird.  I won't get into details because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but suffice it to say, it was not what I was expecting in the least.  The general feeling I got the whole time was confusion.  I was sitting there thinking, "what the heck is going on?  and why?"

So, I'm not really sure what to say about it, much less figure out what my opinion is.  I thought it was a bit too .... serious, and a bit disturbing at times.  I dunno.  Weird.  Go see it, though.  Everyone else seemed to enjoy it around me.

Edit: Read Roger Ebert's review.  I generally agree pretty closely with what he writes, and in this case, he puts exactly what I'm trying to say into words much better than I do.

But, my video review is this -- it looked just like the DVD transfer.  It was nice, but nowhere near the picture quality of the first motion picture.  Not even close.  I could tweak my TV of course, and make the colors a bit brighter on the whole, but it just didn't have that Blu-Ray HD look and feel to it at all.

Maybe I got the wrong one, who knows?  There are *already* three versions of the movie out (one, two, three) on Blu-Ray.  It's possible that they are all the same version, just repackaged.  I'm pretty sure the one I got was from the first link.  Which, if that's the case, bummer, because they gave the video a 4.5 out of 5.  Hmm.  I'll probably  need to give it another chance sometime.  Maybe I just wasn't in the mood to watch it.  Who knows.

It's been mentioned, and I haven't done the research since I'm not really picky about this part, that the Blu-Ray version was not the director's cut of the movie.  Having seen the movie so many times, I don't doubt I've seen both versions, but I don't remember anything different standing out, so I have no idea what I'm missing.

Anyway.  I'll probably come back and visit this one again sometime.  The picture just looked grainy and dull to me, and I wasn't ready to sit through it if it wasn't going to the visual overhaul I was expecting.  Hopefully the next two do a bit better.

However, while Netflix is certainly the best contender right now, I think it's worth pointing out that the content is still in its infant stages.  Netflix can stream some movies, sure, but it's selection is not anything compared to say, iTunes, in regards to music availability.  One thing Apple did quite well was it got *all* the major studios to sign on to sell their music.  That means that you can expect to find everything mainstream right there without much difficulty.  Compare that to Netflix, who has *zero* major studios signed on right now.  Hopefully that will change, but everytime I see articles like the Wired one, that tout Netflix's library, I feel the need to clarify to people so they don't get suckered in.

For example, here's a quote from the article, "And the devices won't just be streaming remaindered basic-cable or art-house fare: Already, Netflix customers can call up just about any episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, The IT Crowd, or Lost whenever they like. They can watch recent releases like WALL-E and Pineapple Express. In other words, they can get unlimited access to the kinds of programming that previously required a cable subscription." (emphasis mine).

Just reading that, it *sounds* like Netflix is a drop-in replacement for cable access, which is not the case at all.  Rather than trying to read between the lines and saying something like, "Oh, they have everything between Wall-E and Pineapple Express", it's far more accurate to say "Oh, I can watch Wall-E *or* Pineapple Express."  The selection simply isn't there.

A few weeks ago, I bought my brother a Roku Netflix Player for his birthday (I'm such a nice guy, I know).  He has two small kids, and one of the main reasons I got it was because Netflix *does* serve up a lot of children's programming -- quite a lot, actually -- and I figured he would find that useful.  It's all available on demand, simple bookmarking, easy pause and resume, easy interface, etc.  I talked to him about a week later and one of the first things he mentioned about it was that there weren't hardly any new movies on there.

Right now, their only real provider for new movies is Starz Play.  If you have an account for Watch It Now, and want to find the new stuff, that's really the only place to look.  Plus, it's really hard to find stuff as well.  The website for browsing DVD releases on the Netflix site is amazing.  It's intuitive, it's quick and easy to search and find stuff, it's great at recommendations and it gives you lots of info in lots of ways.  Now, compare that to the Watch It Now navigation menus which are *completely* different.  My take on it is that there is so little content there, that they forcibly dumb down the interface to obfuscate the fact that there's really nothing there.  It's just taking the small amount they have, and spreading it around really thin so it looks like it's more than it is.

So, anyway, while I really hope that Netflix does the right thing, and business-wise, they are poised to take over the market -- Hollywood is holding them back.  I wouldn't blame Netflix in the least.  It's impossible to download *all* the new releases from any service anyway (from what I've seen).  For instance, X-Men Origins: Wolverine came out on DVD the other week, and I wanted to check it out.  I didn't really feel like going down to Blockbuster to get it, so I checked to see if any of my online pals were serving it up.  The Playstation Store had it, but you had to buy the movie, in standard definition, for $14.  No thanks.  Amazon's Video on Demand didn't have it, and neither did Netflix.  I realize that's a small sample to choose from, but there's really not many more services out there -- I think iTunes sells / rents new movies now, but I don't have a way to watch them on my TV anyway, so I didn't bother checking.

Once Hollywood gets on board, then things will really take off.  I read in the news how Blockbuster isn't doing well, and they are the last legacy distribution market.  I kind of can't wait for them to stumble, because if they are gone, the studios will have no other medium to even sell / rent new movies through, except through newer, leaner retailers like RedBox, Netflix, and on demand services.  The future can't get here fast enough for me.

I've driven past the place plenty of times and thought, "eh, I should probably go there."  Then I remember my friend Jason wrote about going there one time, and that made a trip even more necessary.  I don't know how I got the idea to go this weekend, it just popped in my head, but I'm glad I did.  I looked it up online, and it's only $8 an hour to go jump around and do whatever you want.

The concept is so incredibly simple, but it is so well done and so much fun.  There are probably at least twenty trampolines just all next to each other, which make this huge, very fun square that you can just jump around in non-stop.  And you can get going fast, really fast, with a lot of momentum.  And you can flip around and hit the sides and just bail and not hurt yourself.  It's awesome.

There are two areas for trampolines, too, there's a smaller one for kids four feet and under, where the tramps are a lot less springy, so you won't go nearly as high.  The other ones are for any size / age group, and the springs there are really tight.  I grew up with a trampoline, so I know all the tricks and how to get really, really high, and I managed to nearly touch the ceiling I was bouncing so high on those things.  Holy crap, that was a feeling.

Here's a pic of the kid's one.  I really, really wish I had taken my camera with me to get some decent shots.  This one is from my cell phone, which is craptacular when it comes to taking action shots, so I had to tell my bro to stop for a second so I could take his pic.  He does not look too thrilled to pause for me.  I can't really blame him.

The other thing that really amazed me is how fast I got worn out.  I didn't think it'd take that much energy, but man, after the first 10 minutes I was about ready to pass out, I was working my body so much.  I had to constantly take a break so I wouldn't throw up / pass out.  The hour sure went by fast, and I'd say I got more than my money's worth.  I gotta get into better shape, and go back.  It's a total blast, and this post hasn't done a great job in the least documenting how much fun it is.

Switching from VHS to DVD was an obvious decision, an upgrade that would have been hard not to argue for.  I imagine I'm getting old if I can even reminisce about such times.  I remember right when DVDs first started coming out, and I would keep a watchful eye on how things were progressing (anyone remember DivX?  What a nightmare).  It's really interesting to see how much the tables have turned in some regards.  Disney was a huge holdout on DVD, and eventually came along with feet dragging, but now, they make the best Blu-Ray editions, bar none.  Universal sucks across the board -- their Blu-Rays have been less than impressive (I just watched the Bourne Trilogy the other week, and the first two were nothing to write home about).  And then, there's Paramount ... who distributes Star Trek.

All the movies except Insurrection and Nemesis got released on Blu-Ray last week, and I have been really excited to check them out (edit: okay, actually I can't find the first one on it's own release ... I must have rented the one from the trilogy set, oh well.  I know the other ones are out though).  I've thought about buying them out-right, but I'm a bit cautious considering the studio's past foray into the market.  What they tend to do is create a money grab by releasing the films a few times in different editions.  First, they'll put one edition out, just to have something people can buy, and then later on clean it up, add more special features, and tout that one as a better upgrade.  It can be a bit maddening, and expensive.  So, I added the first few films to my Netflix queue, to see how well these new transfers held up, and I got to watch the first one this weekend: Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

All I can say is, wow, they did a nice job.  The picture is gorgeous.  For a movie that is so old, I was extremely skeptical that they would even be able to do anything with it at all.  But on my HDTV, the picture was just ... more clear and vibrant.  That's the best way I could describe it.  Some films don't hold up to the test of time when being presented in a larger format, but this one looks like it just came out.

I wish I had a Blu-Ray drive so I could rip the disc and get some snapshots, but that'll have to wait.  I keep thinking of a few scenes that showed off the detail so well that they would do a much better job explaining what I'm trying to get across.

I can't say much about the sound, since my setup is 3.1 (no rear speakers).  Besides, my speakers are from an off-the-shelf surround sound setup, and not really good quality.  I've got it in my sights to eventually replace it with something decent, but that's a major hop and a skip away.  I'll just wait on that one.  For what I heard, it did sound really good though.  I really love how in this movie, it opens with the score for a few minutes and you just get to hear the long version of the Star Trek theme.  Great stuff.

There was only a few spots where there were any video issues at all.  Again, if I could take a screenshot, I would.  It's not that they were bad, it's that it was more like "uh, how did you miss *that* big black blotch right on the front of the Enterprise."  It happened twice, briefly, and that was it.  Aside from that, the only parts where the film quality was lacking was a few scenes which were probably just notoriously hard to clean up, so they didn't -- the ones where the probe from V'ger is on the bridge of the Enterprise, and it's zapping it's way around.  The shot was really fuzzy to start with, and you could notice a huge drop in quality and cleanup for the few seconds that the shot took place.  Again, not a dealbreaker, and in fact you'll see the same thing on the DVDs.

Overall, I'd say this one was well worth the price.  I started playing around with the special features, but didn't really get far because I was tired.  It does have this cool on screen index you can access while the movie was playing, that I thought was really innovative.  It'd give you descriptions of certain Star Trek topics related to the film.  There was also an audio commentary track, though I didn't bother listening to it.

I'm definitely gonna get a copy of this one though, given the chance.  I've got the other ones in my queue and I'll write up a review as I watch them in the next couple of days.  Tell you what.

First of all, this sucker is freaking expensive.  $250.  Eek!  That's only $50 less than a PS3, although that'd be a little harder to lug around in your pocket.  I still have a PSP-2000 or whatever the number is, I know it's not the first generation one, and it works really well.  Sure the UMD thing is slow and cumbersome and sucks power like uh ... something, but it works fine.  And it's about $100 less retail.

This is my *real* beef though with the system -- it only has 16 GB onboard memory.  That could arguably be a reasonable amount, except that this PSP is entirely digital.  The only way to get games is to download them to the flash drive.  On top of that they are marketing it as a great portable movie player.  16 gigs is not a lot of space to play with.  If they had 40 in there then I might start thinking about it, but that still brings me to the next point.

It *still* only accepts Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo (man, what a mouthful) for the extended storage.  Normally, I wouldn't care -- Sony has their own format, yay, whatever, good for them.  But they are priced exhorbantly high.  A 16 GB flash card, that would double the system's space, costs $72 right now on Amazon.  Not only that, but that's the highest storage capacity available.  So, you're going to cap out at 32 GB.  That's a lot, I suppose, but if I wanted to tout around movies with me, I'd still want more space than that.  I dunno.  But at this point you're talking $320 to carry around max storage.

The last thing that has me worried is that all the games are digital.  I'm a big believer in the second-hand market for used games, and the new PSP just guts that opportunity completely.  You want the game?  You buy it new, and you pay full retail price.  Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with that, but what happens with digital games is that when there is only one source to get them, I've noticed that the price does not go down.  Ever.  At all.  Games that are listed for sale at launch point that originally start at $40 or so, might eventually go down an extra $10 or so, but after time, it just stays there, and it's always going to be prohibitively expensive.  That's a problem.  What's worse, is that you would think that after five years or so the price would come down, but by then the owner / manufacturer / retailer has completely forgotten about it, so nothing ever gets changed.  It's really going to screw up the economics, I think, when there's only one way to get a copy of the game (well, legally, of course).

So, while I'd love to get one, I think next time I have a spare $250, I'd probably be putting it towards getting something else.  I think the PSP Go is a great idea, in concept, but too expensive and not enough storage.  I could get past the all-digital downloads, eventually, I assume.  I'd still like to see some way to get a second hand market in there though -- it would really drive things along.

Edit: Whoops, apparently it uses a different format -- Memory Stick Micro M2 (or whatever order that goes in).  The pricing is just as bad, though.  $80 for a 16 GB stick.