Blus

"The movie industry assumes you are a criminal."

-- bluraysucks.com

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Now that I'm in the market for a new (?) laptop,--searching for an Apple G4, ahem yes--I've been spending more time on eBay lately, tracking trends, marking the market. I'm cyber-watching a couple dozen potential my-computers. The search always yields major piles of hits, but I want a comp that comes with the adapter, AirPort, and worthwhile software. It's a mix of good and bad, I suppose, when so many of these notebooks are selling for under $400.

But I stray during lappy time, too. I've added NetFlix and ActorCast accounts on separate whims, and I'm holding aloft the idea of creating a personal acting website, stocked with production shots, resume blips, and the set of headshots I don't have...all financed by money I don't really have.

Spending plans are pending. They always are.

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On the market for movies, as well, looking for titles I want to add to my sad little pile of DVDs. It would be one thing if I owned four or five select picks (some Kubrick, Nichols, and Welles, for instance), shock-and-awe flicks on my movie shelf, but as is, Catch Me If You Can and Storm of the Century seem as lame as library brochures. When you buy your movies from the $5 bin at Wal-Mart, sheepish regret is inevitable.

Searched for No Country for Old Men, just to see what was there, and was floored to see a lot of people selling. Then I saw that a big chunk of the items up for bid, as they say, were Blu-Rays. A lot of the DVDs going for cheap-cheap on eBay right now are the hoity-toity Blu-Ray versions. The Blu-Ray is a product of shorter wavelengths (the tiny blue laser replaces the clunky red) and greater disc space, a capstone to the HD hoopla, and seems like a nice example of sharp techno progress. You can put a lot more on a Blu-Ray disc and, if you've got the gizmos, get more out of them. (Disney is re-releasing all their classics in vintage Blu.)

So why are so many people ditching the new disc? It turns out that Blu-Rays won't play on antique DVD players, and most computers lack the necessary drive and software. So movie owners with far more movies than me would have to buy the new Blu-Ray player (going for around a hundred-and-a-half), and then there's the temptation to replace the existing DVD collection with Blu-Ray DVDs. Buy one, may as well get the rest. It's like a revised version of the VCR-to-DVD shift that's been in the works for about a decade. My dad, for instance, still refuses to replace his anniversary edition Star Wars VHS collection.

Plus to minus, I have no real opinion on the Blu-Ray DVD, though it does seem sad that it's an exclusive thing. A techspert I am not; I only read random quips online. Do be do be do...

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On a audibly-related subject, I've started listening to a lot of B. B. King lately. You don't notice how damn good he is until you realize that the guitar sings better than he does.