DVDs to spiderman to Guinness beer to Ikea
What’s this? Our DVDs that we have bought over the years and even our players may be as useful as our BETA tape players in the next couple of years? This issue of a DVD standard has long been drawn out but it has finally made its presence into the general public. I read an article today in the Toronto Star stating that major Hollywood backers are split between two varying technologies in DVD technology. Both use blue lasers to read the media rather than red lasers, which our current day players are using. With this being said, if either the Blu-ray or HD DVD type becomes an industry standard, this means our DVD collection that we have all laborously collected over the past few years may no longer be compatible. There is no guarantee that these new technologies will be backwards compatable, which means the consumers will be the ones who will be hit the hardest.
The Blu-ray technology holds up to 25 gigs of information on a single layer while the HD DVD can hold up to 15 gigs (current DVDs hold up to 4.7 gigs). Both apparantly have their own advantages and disadvantages, which we will most likely be able to find out for ourselves as of late next year. Blu-ray technology DVD players have a better chance of coming out first as the technology is much simpler than its counterpart. However, heavy-backers like Sony, HP, and Dell are committed to bringing HD DVD to the forefront of DVD technology.
Fittingly, Spiderman 2 was just released today. I was so close to buying it today at Future Shop for $22.99, however opted not to for some reason. I suppose I can just rent it. This movie brings back nice memories of me when I was in Istanbul, Turkey, since that is when I first saw the movie.
I baked a Guinness Chocolate Cake today, which turned out pretty tasty. You can barely taste the beer in it though. As expected, it was a very rich and flavourful cake since it came out of Nigella’s book, Feast. The texture came out just right as it is moist, and perfectly crispy on the outside.
The next cake on my list: Espresso-chocolate cake… or something like that. Anyone dare to taste my inventions? Just come on over and I’ll be happy to give you a plate or two… or three.
I saw the lighting of the Christmas tree in New York City today. It was a touching spectacle. No… not really. But Hilary Duff performed, which was her first performance after her long break in the month of November.
I saw 10 teams count little Ikea stuffed dolls until their brains blew a fuse, or build a desk, which in my opinion seemed like a better task to perform. Afterall, there’s no risk factor involved in assembling an Ikea desk; you know exactly where you went wrong if you did go wrong. But if you miscount the stuffed dolls (and pots and pans), you have no idea where you miscounted so you have to start all over if you get the wrong total.
I ordered my 7 day JR pass today. That’s all for now.

