Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Like vultures to roadkill


Someone walked out of the conference room next door and said "there's wraps and stuff going to waste in there." First I thought, "no, surely someone must want them." So I waited, but the call of the vulture was too loud. So I asked my neighbor, "did he just say free food?" Upon agreement, we both carefully tiptoed our way over to the room. Like a pair of siblings sneaking downstairs to see what Santa brought, we maed our way to the food.

Lo and behold, there really were wraps! Greedily, we took our spoils and as we were leaving we saw that the news had already traveled far and wide; there were packs of hungry men making their way across the office in search of the fabled carrion.

As I sat at my desk nibbling on my food, I watched the men walk out with their portions, smiling, happy, victorious. Now I know how the vulture feels after devouring the carcass of some large rodent: a little gassy.

Monday, February 11, 2008

The hi-def update

It appears as though the format war may be coming to an end. HD-DVD looks like it's about to die, and Blu-Ray is still going strong (well, relatively anyway). It's not the side I would have liked to see win, but at least this silly war is nearly over. I just hope HD-DVD concedes Blu-Ray's win soon and allows us to finally get our hi-def on without worrying if it will be the wrong choice.

Ironically, things are not as clear-cut if you want to buy a hi-def TV. As it stands, there are leaps and bounds being made in both the image quality and the display size, as well as the display type. Currently we're seeing LCD and Plasma as what's hot, but OLED and SED are around too, and promise all sorts of good stuff. Even if you stuck with the current image leader, plasma, you'd still be best to hold off. Despite Pioneer creating what's been touted as the best TV ever, they've already shown us that they've got slimmer and better coming in a couple of years. If you're going to spend $6000 on a high-end TV, you'd like it to not be out-dated in 2 years. As far as CRTs go, we've hit the point where it's as good as it gets, I'm curious to see how long it takes for plasma to get there. ...You know, unless SED grows up.

Friday, February 01, 2008

The contractions are getting worse, doct'r

I just had an IM conversation in which the response to my request for confirmation was:
"Ok, I'll".

This is an amazing use of a contraction. Technically speaking, "I'll" means "I will". Saying "Ok, I will" is a perfectly acceptable response to my request, yet something seems so very wrong about using that contraction there.

Do I think he might do it again? I think he'll.