Logical Eccentricity

According to a press release from Warner Brothers the studio will be releasing movies in the Blu-Ray format only starting this May. This is a huge coup for the Blu-Ray camp as they new have 75% of the movie studios behind them. Hopefully now, the format war will come to a swift end.

Here is the text for the press release:

(January 4, 2008 – Burbank, CA) – In response to consumer demand, Warner Bros. Entertainment will release its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year, it was announced today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros. and Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.

“Warner Bros.’ move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want,” said Meyer. “The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers.”

Warner Home Video will continue to release its titles in standard DVD format and Blu-ray. After a short window following their standard DVD and Blu-ray releases, all new titles will continue to be released in HD DVD until the end of May 2008.
“Warner Bros. has produced in both high-definition formats in an effort to provide consumer choice, foster mainstream adoption and drive down hardware prices,” said Jeff Bewkes, President and Chief Executive Officer, Time Warner Inc., the parent company of Warner Bros. Entertainment. “Today’s decision by Warner Bros. to distribute in a single format comes at the right time and is the best decision both for consumers and Time Warner.”

“A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry,” said Tsujihara. “Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the right step in making this great home entertainment experience accessible to the widest possible audience. Warner Bros. has worked very closely with the Toshiba Corporation in promoting high definition media and we have enormous respect for their efforts. We look forward to working with them on other projects in the future.”

I watched this movie last night, and I was disapointed. Since when did Alice gain super-human powers? For some reason, I don’t remember her having any crazy powers in the earlier movies. Also, when did the Umbrella Corporation gain the power to remotely control Alice? Again something that I don’t remember seeing in the earlier movies. But apparently, according to Wikipedia, all of this happened in the second movie. I guess I didn’t see the second one, or I don’t remember all of it.

So, since those two points are moot, the rest of the movie is good. The acion is solid, and the plot moves well. The end leaves you wondering what will happen next, ready for the next sequel.

The movie is worth watching if you like action movies and have nothing else to do. There is no great need to see it right away, watch it if/when you get time for it.

I recently watched the Sweeney Todd movie, and it was pretty good. I had seen the play previously, so comparing the two the play is better. The movie lays out the back story very nicely, and it is easy to understand. We know why Todd is killing everyone. The play on the other hand is a bit more complicated (at least I thought so). The back story isn’t laid out as nicely, and it makes you think more. The play is superior because it makes you think, and more importantly, the play has a very important song that was cut out from the movie, The Ballad of Sweeney Todd. This ballad made the play what it was, and while the movie had the instrumental strings of the ballad, they didn’t include the words or complete the instrumental piece.

Overall, Sweeney Todd is a screwed up movie because of all the wonton killing, but that is the story they are trying to tell. In the end, the movie is worth watching, but I would recommend watching the play if at all possible.

2007 is over, and it is time to over over the highlights of the year. I finished my undergraduate degree at NYU Stern, graduated with a decent GPA. My last semester was actually really good, I was taking only a handful of classes and had plenty of free time. I pledged for, and helped re-activate the Alpha Chapter of Delta Sigma Pi; which was another very rewarding experience. The weekend after graduation, I went to Las Vegas; a wonderful little graduation present to myself; partying in Vegas is similar to partying in NY, but the locations of the bars/lounges are much cooler. One of the places we went to was on the rooftop of a hotel, some 40 stories up. This outdoor lounge gave us an amazing view of the entire Strip. Where in NY would you find a lounge with a view of all of Manhattan?

The rest of the summer was relaxing. My parents threw me a graduation party at the end of May. All of June was spent doing nothing other than watching TV, playing games and chilling. I went to Six Flags a couple of times, and went white water rafting. I’m planning on doing both again this year; going to Six Flags multiple times hopefully, and going rafting on higher level rapids.

I started working in July, and have been since then. I’m working at a compensation consulting firm; in a nutshell we give advice to companies on how much they should be paying their employees, from senior executives down to analysts. The work I’m doing is very different than anything I’ve done before, and I’m enjoying it greatly.

Then of course I had LASIK done on my eyes, and I can see without glasses now. The entire procedure only took like 15 minutes, and I didn’t feel anything while they were doing in. My eyes took a little while to recover completely, but now that they are, I’ve got no issues from it.

I also finally bought a new watch. I got the Omega Seamaster Professional, aka “The James Bond” watch. Bond has been wearing this line of watches since Golden Eye, and this specific one in the new Casino Royale. It is a beautiful watch, and I’m very happy that I bought it.

Finally, to end the year off, there was Sarika’s Sweet 16 on December 31st; wonderfully crazy party with a lot of balloons.

2007 was an excellent year; and to end it off, I leave you with a picture of one of the balloon arches that we created for the 31st (we made two of them):

It is a new year, and a new blog. I dropped the “news” part from my old blog because I really wasn’t writing anything newsworthy. Along the same lines, I moved the blog from AnksConsulting.com/News to blog.anksconsulting.com. If you try going to any of the old pages, you will be automatically redirected to the homepage of this site. All of the old posts are here, you just need to search for them.

Enjoy the blog, I’ll hopefully post more often here.