theMediaman.com

Shortly after the breakdown of talks between the Sony camp and the Toshiba camp to release a unified HD disc format, avoiding a costly format war, I registered the domain name, “HDvsBlu.com”.

I intended to make it a central hub analysing the war and how it affects the most important side, the consumers - a group rarely represented in such discussions. However, for one reason or another, I never finished development.

Tomorrow, the domain renewal is up. After a few years of spending a ten-spot renewing it, I’m going to let it expire. The war is over, and Sony is rewarding itself for the win by jacking up the price of players.

I think I’m sticking with DVDs for the time being. Unfortunately, it looks like some material I want might never be released.  A favourite mini-series of mine was the “Biography of the Millennium: 100 People - 1000 Years”. I remember being particularly proud of myself at guessing the number one and two spots as going to Johannes Gutenburg and Isaac Newton respectively.

Regularly, I would check the Internet to see if they had released it on DVD. I remember seeing it on VHS a while ago, and it can still be found on that antiquated format. However, even if the next-gen format may not make it into my home entertainment system anytime soon, I can’t imagine VHS staying much longer.

I contacted A&E to see if they were planning to redistribute it anytime soon. To be frank, I was a bit surprised at the speed of the reponse. About one hour after sending an email, this is what I got.

Unfortunately, this program is no longer available for sale. Most likely due to a rights expiration issue with certain key elements within the program.

Stupid copyright law. Basically what is being said is that, short of going to work for A&E and getting access to their library of episodes, I’m never going to get to see that mini-series again. What a waste.

Thank goodness the 2nd season of “Joey” is coming out next month. Now there’s something the world needs more of. Short-run spinoff series that history will judge as little more than the answer to a trivia question.

So I was finishing up work for the day and Paul came with his son, Matti, to pick me up. We stopped at Canadian Tire on the way back to my place so I could get a new battery for the car.  Paul has a habit of stopping off and shopping on the way to places, and the experience was written all over Matti’s face. He doesn’t like Canadian Tire. Cruel thing to do to a kid, take him to Canadian Tire so much that he doesn’t like it. Hopefully it will become like broccoli, and someday he’ll just aquire the taste.

Paul helped me install the new battery, and Simone and I got to test out the Nintendo Wii on four players for the first time. We need a larger living room to get the most out of bowling, but no one seemed to mind since it was such a great group game. After they left, Simone and I played a few rounds of Wii Tennis. I’m starting to get better at it (finally).

I feel like I have all my energy back, but I still have a bit of depression largely driven by the potential of “the other shoe dropping” with regards to car repairs. Simone’s also been quite successful closing items on the wedding to-do list and I haven’t done much outside our collaborative work.

It’s strange following last month to have no work beating down my door, but have a to-do list that is still so long.

Well, I’m back up for air following over one full month of late nights, weekend hours, and two overnights at work. It feels like every moment outside work has been filled with wedding plans. Aside from the business surrounding my 32nd birthday and sleep, I really haven’t had an hour to do anything but work or plan.

After three days off from work, I managed to catch up on (almost) all the personal To-Do’s outside of work and the wedding. It feels really good to be nearly caught up.  I even managed to set aside some time to beat Guitar Hero III on medium, and get a few stages further in Mario Galaxy. Yes, part of my personal To-Do list was to chill out and play video games. I still have WipEout Pulse, God of War, Darkstalkers and Ratchet & Clank on my PSP to start-and-finish.

As for the wedding, the venue’s been picked and the date is set - September 14, 2008. Following a successful weekend, the band and bridesmaid dresses have even been secured. I need to get moving on the tux’s now.

First, we have to meet with a photographer/videographer studio.  Simone’s the expert in photography, and I’m the video guy, so we decided to split up those duties. However, our first choice for video and a top-three for photography is the same place. Hopefully we can spin enough of a good package deal to justify the cost.

We sat down with all the paraphenalia from the Wedding Show we went to at the top of the year, and systematically went through each website to watch the demo reels. Some ranged from Woodbridgian, MTV-generation, seizure-inducing music videos to sappy documentaries featuring the bride and/or groom doing a voiceover of “why I love him/her so much tee hee”.  I’m serious. An uncomfortably large number of video houses fit into one of these two classifications.

The one we’ll be going to visit tonight is so damned good, our eyes were damp following the first demo reel. That’s a pretty emotional response considering we didn’t even know the couple in the video!

Simone will be taking the TTC up here in order to visit this company. The car’s battery is dead, and I’m worried that the car is going to go into another long stretch of expensive repairs. I’ve already spent over a thousand bucks on it in the last few months, but a new car will cost several thousand a year.

Hopefully I can pick up one of those sleek 2009 Matrix’s (Matricies?) from this year’s Tim Horton’s Roll Up The Rim To Please Play Again.