Hey, pretty soon I’m going to a comedy club! That will be fun! I can’t wait!

But until then, wow! I am confused! It was this… this “trailer” before Lord of the Rings! For this campaign, I guess?! It’s wacky! I have NO idea what they do!

Yesterday I noticed a few surprising titles in my cousin Josh‘s movie collection. When I asked, he explained for those titles a purchase was just a few dollars more, so why not just buy?

A good point, and one Lieberfarb would agree with. But Josh did have one beef with buying over renting: as a man who owns hundreds of CDs, he’s tired of all the silver discs he has to manage. Yet you only get the ability to control your viewing with ownership. (Does anyone believe video-on-demand, which otherwise sounds like the perfect solution to this problem, won’t eventually denigrate into pay to play — each time, every time?)

The solution seems to be a home entertainment server, tucked somewhere out of sight. Copy all your discs to this central machine, and then put them in storage. Pioneer seems to be working on this very product.

Of course, some hairy copyright issues are raised. But that’s for another post.

This month Warren Lieberfarb got an unwelcome Christmas present: a pink slip. The man from Warner who was central to the establishment of DVD and subsequently its chief cheerleader was let go due to what some accounts call a clash with the top.

The timing of the WB move is especially interesting given the recent success Lieberfarb enjoyed with his strongly anti-Blockbuster “price to own” strategy. Just over a week ago, Blockbuster’s stock plummeted as the company met with strong resistance in its efforts to increase retail sales at the store.

Small wonder. On a recent visit to my Blockbuster, newly reconfigured to feature a prominent red “to buy” section, the prices were anything but competitive. A copy of Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain was $12.99 used and $24.99 new — a stunningly poor value in contrast to the $14.44 Target price for the new disc.

So is the Lieberfarb loss Blockbuster’s gain? Time (and the market) will tell.

Still to come: cousin Josh‘s thoughts on renting v. buying, and a bit on the “first sale” doctrine.

Like a foreign film without subtitles. Except those are interesting.

It was the night before Christmas…and my hand fucking hurt. Early in the Eve, I noticed some pain in my right hand. As the night wore on, it intensified until I was babying my hand. By bedtime (2a), I was wrapping presents left-handed.

Sleep was also long coming. As I tried to find a position that integrated elevation, circulation, and comfort, I only managed sleep in two hour snippets. After awaking to pain in my hand, I’d try to roll over and start again.

By breakfast Christmas Day, the situation was untenable. I called a “medi-dial” service and was told that she recommended I “escalate” the problem. Thirty minutes later, I was in the emergency room.

Following a trio of x-rays, the doc told me tendonitis looked like the culprit. He prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs. I’m glad it’s not something more serious, but a terrifying question lingers in the recesses of my mind: is this a precursor to carpal tunnel?

I have tendonitis. It hurts. More later.

It’s not a white Christmas, but I hope it will be merry all the same.

Now off to wrap presents…

Minority Report‘s personalized billboards are almost here.

Fascinating technology. The system “listens” to radio signals leaked from passing cars and determines what station the majority of drivers are listening to. Then it selects an appeal based upon the demographics of those listeners. (The charmingly clichéd examples in the article suggest casinos for country fans and gourmet groceries for NPR devotees.)

Good thing there are no safety implications for, oh, fucking huge video screens on the side of the highway.

Ever heard of a “bookmarklet” (or “favelet”)? No? Stick with me for a second. Bookmarklets perform some action with the current page instead of loading a new one. Example: validator favelets check to see if a page is correctly coded.

Too esoteric? There are also cool bookmarklets available for mere mortals. Jon Udell‘s LibraryLookup is one example. The scene: you’re perusing Amazon or BN and you happen upon a book of interest. You’d like to read it, but perhaps not to own it. No problem. From the seller’s book detail page, just click the bookmarklet and a window will pop up telling you if your local library has the title available. Simple.

For a demo, I picked, oh, the Rochester (Mn.) Public Library. Drag, don’t click, this link [ Rochester Lib Look-up ] to the “links” bar in IE or Phoenix. (You might get a warning, but it’s perfectly safe.) Then visit any Amazon book page (sample) and just click the new button. A window pops up, giving you availability information. Here’s one for ISU: Parks Lib. Look-up.

Notes:

• It works by looking for the ISBN, a 9-digit identifier composed solely of the numbers 0-9 (though the final is sometimes an ‘X’) in the URL, so any bookseller that uses the ISBN in the URL will work.
• Because it works by ISBN and not title, it’s best to search from a hardcover book, the type libraries are most likely to have.
• Some pop-up blockers (and Phoenix) will make this appear to fail. It can be fixed to open in the same window with a little JavaScript. E-mail me for details.

At least one site is reporting MTV{{ plans to pare its playlist down to just 10 different videos a week. An EVP is quoted as saying, “The more impressions, the more penetration, the better the sales.”

That’s a page from the Clear Channel book. Despite the exec’s further comment that MTV is “serious about selling music and breaking bands,” it’s hard to envision them giving over even two slots (and thus 20% of their playtime) to lesser-knowns.

Seems to me that MTV couldn’t have found a better way to argue that mass broadcasting is an inherently inferior way to sample music. Clearly, it’s going to get worse before it gets better: intellectual property and broadband infrastructure issues are going to have to be solved before we can officially re-name it RWTV.

The dancing cereal box is coming.

My father said that a man he knows predicted Lott‘s demise very precisely. His method? The “two Sundays rule.”

Here’s how it works: if a hot-button topic is discussed on one of the Sunday morning news shows (e.g. “Meet the Press,” “Sunday Morning,” or Cheney favorite “Fox News Sunday”) but fades by the next weekend, that means the corrective action was effective.

For Trent, that didn’t happen. Five apologies and one week later, he was still on the news. His spinning wasn’t working, so he had no hope of making the story go away. Bye-bye, majority leadership.

Aside I: Weasel apologies are to be crushed. Trent on Dec. 11 (Fox News, of course): “I am sorry for my words; they were poorly chosen and insensitive and I regret the way it has been interpreted.” Sorry for the interpretation? Somebody needs a refresher course. (Great link.)

Aside II: Those who suffer under the ridiculous delusion that Fox News is anything but a propaganda arm of the GOP need only look at their latest poll on Lott’s decision to step down. First choice: “Yes, it is better for the Republican party.” Even if you don’t add anything about the fact that it was an evil comment, a simple yes/no would do. Fox’s true concern is how it affects the Party.

Amazon‘s “Gold Box” feature has always seemed a bit bizarre to me. What is this random crap they’re shilling?

Pech got the ball rolling when he noted his contained a “factory-reconditioned shaver.” He had a fair question when he said, “Now I ask you, would you buy a used shaver?”

I thought reconditioned likely meant new blades, but he had a follow-up that would leave me speechless: “N Sync #1 Fan Barbie.” This mind-blowing product has a lever in the back that “when pressed as she holds the ‘N Sync poster in the air, makes her hands sway back and forth in true groupie fashion.” One reviewer appears to be in earnest when (s)he writes “My 7 year old daughter is just starting to like cd’s so this is a great cross over!” Probably should have been named Baby’s First Consumerist Drone.

I had no counter. Pech‘s box contained more kitschy, scary treasures than mine did. But I didn’t come away completely empty-handed in the competition. I stumbled upon this:

Knives at a 97% discount? What a bargain! Does Chef Tony know about this?

Haha, I’m so clever! OK. Sorry. Let’s also add these to our list:

• Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
• Jeepers Creepers 2
• Mission Impossible 3
• Rush Hour 3 and 4 (!!)
• Scary Movie 3: Episode I – Lord of the Brooms (director notwithstanding)
• The Whole Ten Yards
• Spider-Man 2

Let’s also hope that the long-rumored True Lies 2 and the newly rumored Meet the Fockers never make it off the mat.

Update [22:03]: Fletch Won? What the hell is Kevin Smith up to?

Nothing but love for Britain‘s Prime Minister. (Seriously.) But wow, this picture (lifted from the Guardian, which has since replaced it with something more palatable) makes me think he’s coming to munch on little children. The oddly empty eyes, half-shadowed face, arched eyebrow, craggly teeth… it all reminds me of a movie I once purchased for a British friend who loved really bad movies. (Holy shit! A sequel!)

Now I promise no more weird side-by-sides for awhile.