I really managed to outdo myself with yesterday's entertainment slate. Karin I headed out in the afternoon and drove up to Alameda we checked Forbidden Island's one year celebration. We hung out there about an hour and a half, had a couple of tiki cocktails (well - I did anyway) and some Crab Rangoons. After that we headed over the Bay Bridge to Cafe Du Nord where we caught the Secrets from the Future tour - featuring Optimus Rhyme, MC Lars, and MC Frontalot and K.Flay opened.

Cafe du Nord actually has a teeny tiny restaurant, and it's possible to reserve a 2 person table, which we did, so we had dinner there during the show, and had seats which our too-old-to-be-out-on-Sunday bones appreciated. The only real fly in the ointment was that we parked in a garage that closed at midnight, and the show started really late, even by show standards. The consequence was that we only saw half or so of the Frontalot set which I regret but we couldn't stay later anyway. Today is a school day and Karin wouldn't have been able to take the day off so we needed to leave and get the teacher home, regardless of the parking garage.

It's a nice venue, the food wasn't epic but it was decent and it's a nice little layout. I'd recommend the place, but if you're not into moshing go ahead and get the dinner reservation.

As for the show - I didn't know anything about K.Flay (she wasn't even listed on the bill when I bought the tickets) but her songs were enjoyable. Optimus Rhyme did a solid set, but when MC Lars got up there the crowd pretty much went nuts. By the time Frontalot came out the place was jumping and Front didn't disappoint (well except for the part where I had to leave before he was done. But that's not really his fault).

On a very tangential note I don't know that I'll ever get used to the Bay's geography. From my suburban perch just south of San Jose I see Oakland and San Francisco as VERY different places. One is northwest, the other is northeast. I almost didn't research the Forbidden Island leg - since I knew we had dinner plans in SF. But the bar was only 15 miles from the club - so it was a easy jaunt. It's just weird - the two cities are so different, and and some ways are very far apart, but if you get the right pathing then you can scoot right across between them.

technorati tags:concert, Frontalot, OptimusRhyme, K.Flay, MCLars, SecretsFromTheFuture, ForbiddenIsland

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So now that my 360 is dead (again), I suppose it is a good time to discuss the PS3. I in fact have had a PS3 for about a month. I bought it for a couple of reasons, neither of which are PS3 games: I wanted a Blu-Ray player, and I wanted to get a PS3 while it still had the Emotion Engine chip on-board (and thus far better PS2 backwards compatability).

First and foremost, I wanted a Blu-Ray player. Back before the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war got underway my prediction was for Blu-Ray to win based on PS3 sales. Last year for a while that prediction looked false because HD-DVD got a several month head start and the first Blu-Ray player (and titles) were buggy and produced crap images. So Blu-Ray got a terrible start and HD-DVD took an early lead. But over the first part of 2007 Blu-Ray got decent players on the market, higher-resolution titles, erased that sales lead, got a huge advantage in terms of studio support, and got more key exclusive titles. Take a look at this analysis from The Digital Bits, dated 2/15/07.

Let's look at these simple facts: Of the 12 major and mini-major Hollywood studios (Fox, Disney, MGM, Sony, Lionsgate, Paramount, New Line, HBO, Warner Bros, Universal, DreamWorks and The Weinstein Company) 9 support Blu-ray, 5 of them exclusively. Only 6 support HD-DVD, just 2 of them exclusively (one studio, DreamWorks, remains uncommitted). Not counting computer hardware or budget brands, Blu-ray Disc has 9 major set-top hardware manufacturers behind it (Sony, Pioneer, Samsung, Philips, Panasonic, LG, Mitsubishi, Thomson, Sharp), while HD-DVD boasts just two (Toshiba and now LG). HD-DVD is an add-on to Microsoft's Xbox 360, while Blu-ray is built into EVERY Sony PlayStation 3. Nielsen VideoScan is reporting that in software sales, Blu-ray has virtually erased the sales lead enjoyed by HD-DVD since the formats were launched, and is now outselling HD-DVD by a 2 to 1 (and growing) margin.

My Two Cents - Archived Posts (3/2/07 - 2/5/07)

Of course, once I had one I did pick up a couple of games - I bought MotorStorm out of the gate, and after trying the demo I picked up Ridge Racer. I also bought flOw and Lemmings from the online store, and I currently have Resistance: Fall of Man from Gamefly. My verdict so far: I still wouldn't buy a PS3 for the games, even if your 360 dies ;-)

As for Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD . . . meh. Blu-Ray is a nice format and I'd rate the picture quality of the two formats pretty evenly. The thing I like most about it now is that I'm agnostic. The majority of my discs come from Netflix and Netflix will ship me either format. So I can watch Casino Royale on Blu-Ray, then turn around and watch Clerks II in HD-DVD and not really care. I bought a couple of titles on each format, but I don't see myself building up a big library in either format - and I probably wouldn't build up a library if there were only one format. Turns out the way I watch movies means most of them I don't need to own.

There was one shady bit I didn't like at all. I bought my PS3 at Best Buy. In the physical store mind you, with a plain old credit card (and I don't have whatever stupid Best Buy loyalty card thing they have going.) The next day I got an email from Best Buy about new things I can buy for my new PS3. Follow that for a moment. They've connected my credit card number to my email address and didn't ask for permission. It took me a minute to even figure out how they did that - a couple of years ago I used the web interface to buy something for in-store pickup and that required both my email address and credit card. Apparently now they scan any purchases to see if it matches that record. Well! I unsubscribed from Best Buy's email list right then, and I'm sorely tempted to stop using that credit card at Best Buy. I don't like this sort of data mining - it makes it terribly clear that Best Buy is profiling me. What's the privacy policy on this data? Will they give it to the government if they ask? Or Sony? It's entirely not kosher.

So anyway, I guess I'm going to be playing a lot more Motorstorm and Resistance over the next couple of weeks (sigh). And watching Blu-Ray instead of HD-DVD . . . .

technorati tags:PS3, Blu-Ray, BestBuy, marketing

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So, Xbox 360 #2 has died. I just spent 23 minutes on the phone with customer support. Long time readers may remember when the first one was declared dead and the new one arrived. I thought this was going to be under warranty - since 360 warranties have been extended to one year, and I've had this particular serial number less than a year. But no! It turns out my one year warranty is from my original purchase - so my second 360 only had 9 months of warranty. It costs $140 to get the "red ring of death" repaired on a machine out of warranty. Bastards!I was pretty happy with the service I got last time - the unit came back quickly and that was a somewhat dodgy case (since I couldn't consistently reproduce the freezes - this now is that the console has stopped booting altogether.) This whole "We sent you a "new" (read refurbished) box, but didn't give it a full warranty for it." - that's just bullshit.

technorati tags:Xbox360, CustomerService, Warranty

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