Lost coming to Blu-Ray

According to Home Media Retailing Magazine, Disney representatives confirmed that one of our favorite HDTV shows, Lost, will make its Blu-ray debut day-and-date with the DVD set of season three December 11th. No word on possible HD special features or price, but we can expect more details soon

Lost: The Complete Third Season headed to Blu-ray Dec. 11 - Engadget HD

I was just saying to Karin yesterday that I'd like to own Lost, but I was only going to buy it on a HD format - preferably Blu-Ray. So yay!

This was triggered by the discussion about whether we wanted to buy Heroes Season 1. My problem there is that the August package is HD DVD. While I have a HD-DVD player (attached to the 360) I don't think right now that HD DVD will win. I'd hate to buy a TV season in HD DVD, and then later end up having season 2 come out in Blu-Ray only. A first-world problem to be sure but still, I worry about it a bit.

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More on Crush

Two people expressed interest in Crush (a PSP game) when I mentioned it in a previous post, so I felt I should address it in some more detail. I've been trying to figure out if I would recommend it to somebody else and that's a more complex question than it should be. Parts of it are brilliant but parts are pretty annoying and I wasn't sure until today how to express that.

Here's what it comes down to: this game is part puzzle game and part platformer. The puzzle part is fairly clear - given the tools in the levels (switches, balls, whatever) and the ability to crush 3 dimensions into 2, how do I get from point A to point B? This is pretty cool. The platformer part is that sometimes you see how to get from point A to point B but it requires a tricky set of jumps, or something where you have to work in and out of 3d quickly. The problem is that the platformer controls just flat-out suck and that sucks the joy out of this part. For instance the level I just finished had a sequence where there was a string of crumbling boxes that you had to jump from top to top. There's no digital control and the analog control gives you really poor control of velocity. This ought to be a simple basic level one sort of challenge, but because of the controls I had to repeat it 10 or 15 times because it's difficult to jump across the gap, hit the box and then STOP to regroup for the next jump. Adding insult to injury every time I failed I had to run back to the start point, uncrush into 3d, wait for the boxes to reappear, crush back into 2d, and try again. Even worse is that the game gives you a grade and it's based on A) how fast you complete the level, and B) how many crushes you used. So this whole sequence directly impacts your grade. I've given up worrying about the grades - I usually get a 'D' or lower.

So, would I recommend this game? Well, if the puzzle portion sounds interesting you should check it out but I don't know that I'd say "Oh just go buy it." I'd also note that it's not a quick-playing game. Maybe somebody with better 3d visualization skills could play faster but most levels take me between half an hour and an hour to complete. You can't save mid-level and the levels are complex enough that I can't set it down and return later and still remember how to get around effectively. So if you are the sort of gamer who can't commit an hour uninterrupted, then I'd urge some caution before picking up Crush. I'm going to finish the levels (and I'm totally ignoring the "Trophy Stage" mode where you're rewarded for speed playthroughs of the levels.) but I think I would have been somewhat disappointed if I had actually purchased the game.


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Refenestration

I haven't been posting much, mainly because we've been getting new windows and it's been an utter madhouse here. Even as I type, I'm on my laptop at the dining room table (because my office is all rucked up with my desk pushed away from the wall) and I've got headphones on to block out all the hammering and ruckus. Not very conducive to doing any work. But all but one of the windows is in now, so they are down to interior trim and stucco repair, hopefully that's not quite as noisy. Worst case they should finish tomorrow. And then we'll have replaced the 1968 original single-pane aluminum framed monsters with dual-pane low-e3 (basically super energy efficient) windows with working locks, and screens on ALL the windows. And a couple of rooms have larger windows now and the kitchen has a nice casement window that's much easier to open and get great ventilation across the cooktop.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Seven

I actually finished the book yesterday, but we had dinner plans and I had to rush out as soon as I put the book down. Then I thought I'd address something "quick" this morning and it took all day. (sigh).

So the Epilogue closes at page 759. I thought about stopping at page 700 to blog, but frankly there was a big fight and I was running out of time. It got a bit confusing, but I think there were eight deaths in this installment. There's a mention of 50 bodies at one point, but I'm pretty sure the named deaths are more on the order of 8.

Now that I'm done, what do I think of it? Well I'm glad to have read it. It's a bit long, I think some tighter editing would have been beneficial. There is an Epilogue and I think that it is rubbish. The Epilogue didn't address the things I would have been interesting in seeing addressed. I read a comment online that the Epilogue seemed written with the screenplay in mind - it could run underneath the credits. I think that's a fair assessment, I'm not sure that's why it was written but it certainly has that Hollywood beat-about-the-obvious sort of finale to it. I don't like any of the "teen angst" plot threads of the last three Potter books, and this is no exception. The teen angst is reduced compared to book six though, so that's a minor complaint. The "Deathly Hallows" seemed unnecessary to me - it felt very much like she didn't have a "Harry Potter and the Foo" title ready, so she jammed in something the story didn't really need. Very little of the book takes place at Hogwarts and it's something I missed. Hogwarts is for all intents and purposes at the core of the series, almost as much a character as Harry himself. I don't think there's a single scene in the Gryffindor common room, for example. The deaths that really tug at the heart-strings are oddly placed and odd characters to boot.

Overall, I don't think it was as good as book six, but it's a worthwhile conclusion to the series. This is sort of a silly discussion - if you've read the first six books, you'll read book seven. I could almost agree with somebody stopping after book five, but only almost. Six is good enough to redeem the series, and I might not like seven as much as six, but I liked it better than five. Does that help anyone?

Anyway, that's my book excitement for almost three weeks (Amazon says 17 days until I get Spook Country, which I'm excited about, but probably won't rip through in the same fashion I devoured the Harry Potter.)*

*For those wondering why I know how many days until I get Spook Country there' a fabulous Dashboard Widget for OS X called Delivery Status which lets me put a widget up for upcoming dleiveries. It will send messages to Growl as well. So when I said to myself "How long for Spook Country?" I just clicked my middle mouse button, read the status, and clicked again to dismiss the Dash. I know it's sort of cool amongst the internet kids to hate on the Dash, but I like being able to hide a bunch of stuff behind a "click to see" veil. I'll be curious to see how Dashboard and Spaces interact once Leopard ships.

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