HD DVD or Not HD DVD

I want a high definition DVD player. So, before I purchase one, I'm following the format war between Toshiba's HD DVD and Sony's Blu-ray with interest, as is "The New Yorker."

"Blu-ray’s technology, which allows you to pack fifty gigabytes of data on a disk, is theoretically superior to that of HD DVD, which manages thirty. But for most users the differences in quality will probably seem negligible—movies look extraordinarily good on both machines—and Toshiba is offering its products at cheaper prices.

"...The obvious solution to this impasse is negotiation. That’s what happened with the original DVD—in the nineteen-nineties, a consortium of companies pooled patents and adopted a single standard. Sony and Toshiba did talk last year, but there’s no sign that any kind of deal is in the works."

Here's my firm position: Somebody win already! Or we won't buy.

Or let the two formats merge into one format with a cup holder. I need more cup holders.

100 Things About Me #84

Mikey's Vids

I've been involved with charities for years. You know those little signs in gas stations?

GIVE A PENNY.
TAKE A PENNY.

I got this cool new TV!


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Another Wal-Mart Bites the Dust and the One Up the Street Just Bites

Hooray! Our ghost Wal-Mart is daid!

The desolate, abandoned eyesore was demolished yesterday and good riddance!

As much as we hated to change our shopping habits, my wife and I have been boycotting the newer Wal-Mart location for months due to their arrogant, kick-in-the-groin painful, customer disservice. That is some sorry, incompetent management in that place.

Nevertheless, the Wal-Mart can continue to insult their customers' intelligence and goodwill without us -- and without the THOUSANDS of accumulated dollars we've spent with competitors recently.

It would be above board to note we have continued to patronize the Wal-Mart's pharmacy, by necessity, and have no complaints there, a tiny tropical island in the sea of Hell.

We've even overheard the pharmacy's personnel openly bitching -- and that is the proper term to use, bitching -- about the gross mismanagement elsewhere in the operation.

So, we're glad to see the old building leveled and trucked away, following the 3½ years of vacant gloominess since the store closed.

I do pray the wrecking crew first made certain no shoppers remained inside awaiting their turn at the check-out counter.

That wouldn't surprise me, not one bit. Business as usual.

100 Things About Me #76-83

Eight Things About Me I Didn't Know About Me

My long-term memory loss must be boundless or my folks didn't share the family secrets. I dunno.

Thank goodness, the Internet knows all, reveals all. I looked up my personal history at The Mechanical Trivium and gleaned some startling information!

You may be seated.

1. Mike Durrett can be found on a Clue board between the Library and the Conservatory.

2. Mike Durrett can give birth 10 days after being born, and is born pregnant!

3. A Mike Durrettometer is used to measure Mike Durrett!

4. If you lace Mike Durrett from the inside to the outside, the fit will be snugger around your big toe.

5. In Japan, Mike Durrett can only be prepared by chefs specially trained and certified by the government.

6. Moles are able to tunnel through 300 feet of Mike Durrett in a day.

7. Ninety-nine percent of the pumpkins sold in the U.S. end up as Mike Durrett!

8. Mike Durrett was the first Tsar of Russia.

This uneasy feeling I'm getting is not good. Perhaps I'm the sequel to "The Da Vinci Code," too?

You may rise.

I gotta run....


_{The Mechanical Contrivium}, via About Humor

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100 Things About Me #75

I Lead a Charmed Life

Moments ago, I caught a previously missed episode of "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" with special elderly guest stars Rose Marie and Jack Carter as bickering apartment cleaners. They got caught naked, having sex on the sofa.

I'm ready to become a nun.

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"Sing a Song of Six Pants"

"Sing a Song of Six Pants" is a 1947 visit with Shemp Howard and his brother, Moe, plus their pal, Larry Fine. These gentlemen were the original The Three Stooges before the movie stardom spurred by the team's Columbia Pictures shorts, beginning in 1934.

Shemp had left the act in '31, due to the behavior of their abusive straight man, Ted Healy. Shemp did well in pictures as a solo character actor. He was called back to the bumbling trio when his other brother, Jerry, better known as Curly, suffered a stroke in 1946, never to return as a Stooge.

I've always had a fondness for Mr. Howard's work, and I long ago promised, if ever called on to serve, I would be proudly anointed as the first Pope Shemp.

Cartoon Carnival

Daffy Duck in "Plane Daffy" (Frank Tashlin, 1944)
_{Can't see the cartoon? Try here.}



Woody Woodpecker in "Pantry Panic" (Walter Lantz, 1941)
_{Can't see the cartoon? Try here.}



"Bad Luck Blackie" (Tex Avery, 1948)
_{Can't see the cartoon? Try here.}

Merry Catmas!

The first Friday in October, of course, is Catmas, the day we trendy hipster blogniks are required under penalty of claws to post a photo or three featuring our family felines.

Here's a little montage I like to call "Morty and the Hummingbirds," and it goes a little something like this....


More Morty: Christmas, 2003
More Catmas: via About Humor