I’d like to think I’m ambivalent. I’d like to think I was unbiased… Completely sterile in my logic and reasoning. But I’m not. I’m pissed. These companies (HD DVD and Blu-ray) are absolutely driving me insane. The writing is on the wall, history is laid before them and they are like a couple of giant children with overgrown bank accounts who are playing ‘sissy fight‘ with a couple of marketing companies.
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It’s August. In Florida. I have no AC. My room is already hot cause its got lots of equipment in it that generates heat (PCs, external hard drives, displays, etc)… I’m hot and have moved my base of operation temporarily into the bedroom so I can be under the high-speed fan.

Yesterday Tina calls me over, saying “Clint, there’s a problem!” I come over to find that my ceiling is dropping onto my dining room table. It’s not raining. That means, AC unit is condensing and there is cold air blowing into my attic (you learn these things quickly as a homeowner). I suit up (put on crappy clothes), go into the attic and locate the leak… I have no idea why AC systems can’t simply work – they are obviously loosely-related to the plumbing field (another industry made of up clueless losers who purposely underdesign/make things to break so that they stay employed)

I have bias. Gene has bias. Tom has bias… Dina… heck, I don’t know, she probably doesn’t even care…. But I certainly have bias.

But I don’t wear it on my sleeve and it’s generally targeted towards protecting consumers from the ridiculous cycles the industry goes through… repeating mistake after mistake… after mistake… There’s a reason “ad nauseum” is in our vernacular – it’s absolutely nauseating to see these cycles, and even WORSE to see the stupid “my side, your side” camps that pop up.

OK, my point – I’m getting to them now (there’s more than one)…
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I was wrapping up a review this week – it was a pretty neat iPod/MP3/PC audio player with a wireless iPod dock. It has a couple of speakers and is a nice sleek “lifestyle” (which is code for ‘a tad overpriced but nifty’) product.

Well one of the cooler things about the product was a nice application that allows you to control the device via the PC… set EQ, loudness controls, default input selection, etc. It’s like a mini receiver controller and the PR company sent it to me via email, saying it was available to users…
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I was peer reviewing a loudspeaker review today and had to laugh when I got to the reviewer’s conclusion – which went something like this:

“After hearing this system I can maybe, sort of, in particular cases recommend this product to some people sometimes if they really want it perhaps.”
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