mikeszekely

She is trying to get out of the hospital not go to the Special Olympics. Actually, she's trying to stay in the hospital, because (unlike an apartment) the hospital hasn't evicted her for not paying her bills.

A shame, but I really think UMD is going to flop as a medium for anything besides games. The UMD doesn't store enough data for movies to have DVD quality video or sound, the PSP's battery life is only about 2 hours when playing a movie, due to the fact that it's constantly accessing the disc, and if nothing else, I really don't see anyone shelling out $20 to buy a movie on UMB that they already shelled out $20 for on DVD. As psyched as I am for the PSP as a gaming unit, even I have to admit that Sony is out of their minds with the whole movies on UMD thing.

They're trying to kick her out of the hospital.

I dunno about that... the ISDs in Star Wars always seem to miss an awful lot (My personal gripe on Sci-Fi: In an age of shields, ion propulsion, and laser cannons, nobody has the brains to invent a slightly better targeting system???) Perhaps, in the future, it's not that targeting systems suck... perhaps the targets' ECM or ability not to be targeted has just advanced that much... In any case, most realistic mecha? Jr. Mobile Suit.

I'm going to throw one in for subs, too. Far too many people today, and I mean adults, not just young people, will say that they don't like to read. This includes subtitles, but some people I know are baffled by the fact that I consider reading a novel to be a form of entertainment. The sooner you get your kids to realize that reading is easy and can be fun, the better off they'll be in life.

Well, I'll confess to not reading Hellblazer (or any of DC/Vertigo's comics), and frankly, I think Alan Moore is ridiculously overrated (the bastard ruined Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.S). So, while Keanu might not fit the part, I'm sure as hell glad not to see another wise-ass Englishman. Fun fact: only movie I've seen in the last three years where the characters spoke with an English accent that I actually enjoyed was Shaun of the Dead.

There is absolutely no way I'd ever consider buying anything to eat or drink at the theater. Again, it's a perfect example of businesses ignoring the law of supply and demand... they assume that, just because they forbid you to bring outside food or drinks into the theater, that they're forced the demand up to the point where they can charge as much as they want, instead of finding that nice point on the graph where profits are actually maximized. I mean, inisde the movie theater, a large drink is over $4. Outside, I could go to McDonald's and get value meal large-sized for $4. Inside the theater, bottled water is $3.25. Outside, I could get a case of bottled water for that price. Um...you do realise the MPAA has NOTHING to do with the food prices at theaters. Film companies like Tri-Star, Dreamworks, etc...foot the bill to get the movie made, they also foot the bill for TV advertiseing, as well as the costs of produceing the thousands of film prints to show in theaters... the ticket sales at theaters pay for leaseing the film print from the distributer, as well as insurance premiums for the print in case it gets damaged...That means theaters make all thier money...money to pay the big film projection equipment electric bills, for heating, airconditioning, property taxes, employee wages and salaries, local advertiseing in newspapers and radio, buisness insurance, maintiance to the projectors and sound equipment...that comes from consession sales... Yeah, I know that those prices have nothing to do with the MPAA. But justvinnie mentioned that he'd bought popcorn and drinks, and I didn't realize there was anyone left willing to pay more for their drink than their ticket. And I decided to rant, since the concession prices and the MPAA's willingness to sue instead of giving better quality/lower prices both show the same lack of good business sense.

I'm not going to go all out and say anything like "Gundam is the greatest show ever!' or anything like that. I've never really been an "otaku" about anything. I didn't grow up on either Star Wars or Gundam... I grew up on Transformers, He-Man, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, none of which I really follow at all now. Sure, I'd seen Star Wars as a kid, then went outside with a wiffle bat and started wailing on my little brother, pretending it was a lightsaber. But damned if I actually remembered the plot. As for Gundam, I'd actually just discovered Gundam recently. As an adult, and without the nostalgia that a lot of fans feel... I enjoy both stories. (I can watch Star Trek and be entertained, too, BTW.) Both stories are entertaining, both stories have memorable characters and technology. Both stories spark my imagination. But neither story, to me at least, is worth being an obsessive Comic Book Guy-ish fanboy over. Push comes to shove, I just like Gundam better. It's like the Apple Jacks commercial... I can't really explain why, I just do. But I still have both the Gundam movie trilogy and the classic Star Wars trilogy in my DVD collection. (Technically, aside from the movie versions of the 08th MS and Stardust Memory, as well as the Turn A and Gundam SEED Destiny series, I have all the Gundam series and movies on DVD, and I have Episode I and II of Star Wars also.)

Keanu's not great, but he's tolerable, and a decent story or supporting cast could make up for it. I'd definately rather watch Keanu than Nicholas Cage.

There is absolutely no way I'd ever consider buying anything to eat or drink at the theater. Again, it's a perfect example of businesses ignoring the law of supply and demand... they assume that, just because they forbid you to bring outside food or drinks into the theater, that they're forced the demand up to the point where they can charge as much as they want, instead of finding that nice point on the graph where profits are actually maximized. I mean, inisde the movie theater, a large drink is over $4. Outside, I could go to McDonald's and get value meal large-sized for $4. Inside the theater, bottled water is $3.25. Outside, I could get a case of bottled water for that price.

I'm probably going to check it out. I mean, I'm sure it's not going to be the best movie I'll see this year. Hell, it might be the worst movie I see this year. But, it's not like there's anything else playing. I mean, I hadn't seen a movie in the theater since 'The Grudge', so I finally broke down and went to see 'Hitch.' And let's not even mention crap like 'The Boogeyman.'

I find your lack of faith disturbing... Hey, I'm with Gui... I'd rather watch, at the least, Gundam TV, Z Gundam, and Gundam ZZ to Star Wars any day.

Another white RX-78 comes from the Mobile Suits Variations, the RX-78-3. Supposedly, it was built from the remains of the two RX-78-2s the Zeons blew up at the very beginning of Gundam, and it was used to test the magnetic coating that the RX-78-2 would get much later in the series. RX-78-2

Yeah, but what's the Force compared to transforming space battleships armed with mega particle cannons and pop divas?

It makes you wonder if anyone out there running any of these corporations took any basic economics classes. I mean, doesn't anyone remember supply and demand? It used to be that if you wanted to maximize profits, you'd figure out how much it cost to produce, then how many you could sell at each price. You didn't sell the prodcuct for outrageously high prices (CDs, if I recall, only started to go down recently. They debuted around $15, then peaked at almost $20). You also didn't oversaturate the market, either (if I see another underage pop starlet/actress come out with another album, I swear I'm gonna puke). Nowadays, instead of finding that point where profits are maximized, it's almost like they want to cram subpar crap down our throats, charge us a premium for it, and sue us if we even contemplate trying to get it from an alternative source. They've already encrpytped movies on DVD, and started suing software manufactures who make software that can decrypt the DVD. They're suing file distributors on the internet. What's next? They sue Blockbuster for allowing people to borrow the few copies of a movie they paid for (and worse, for profiting from it)? Sue HBO for broadcasting the movies on TV? Start suing people who own TVs, and who have ever watched a movie on TV? I don't think this is really that file sharers are cheap. I'm not saying that downloading movies is right, but I think that it's about the value of a dollar. People have a limited ammount of money to spend on things like movies, and the sad fact is that too many of the big corporate movie makers want too much for too little. People just aren't willing to pay it. File sharing could totally come to an end, movies could be released on a new uncopyable format, and retal stores could go out of business, and I still don't think that the MPAA members are going to find that they're getting all that much more money.

John Woo optioned Metroid, if it helps. In any case, there's a petition going around. The undersigned are united in their desire to keep Uwe Boll from making any more movies again, ever, videogame related or not. As for Halo, Microsoft is aware of how poorly videogame movies are doing (and Boll can't take all the credit, since he didn't direct the collossal flop that was Tomb Raider and the Cradle of Life). Apparently, the're getting advice from some guy who used to work for Columbia to write their own script. Ah, found it. Halo movie news.

Thing I don't get is, everyone wants to be in movies, be they writers, directors, actors, whatever. And while sometimes a stinker of a movie gets made, most of the people involved have some talent. I mean, I've seen some bad acting in bad movies, but not on the level of, say, bad voice acting in a videogame or bad dubbing in an anime. But, it's pretty obvious that Uwe Boll has ZERO TALENT whatsoever. How the hell did he get a job in such a competetive industry?

I totally agree, between all the coke and hookers in my life I often forget to recharge my electronics. I recharge my digital camera about once a month, so I'm quite thankful for it's longevity. It's easy to say that 4-6 hours is "enough" but people forget, you get stuck on long plane trips or in traffic or whatever. It's nice to have the extra time. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be great if the battery would last longer... but I don't forget to charge my cell or my SP, I doubt I'd forget to charge my PSP. For car trips, I'm sure they'll sell a cigarette lighter adaptor. And for a 12 hour flight (and seriously, how often do any of us go on 12 hour flgihts?), like Dangard Ace said, you're probably going to sleep for some of that. There's seriously no way you'd want to play a videogame for 12 hours straight. (And, if you're watching MPEG-4 or listening to tunes off the memory stick, the battery life is much longer.) Sorry, but for a few unusual cases, yes, longer battery life would be great, but 4-6 hours is workable. There's got to be a much bigger issue than the battery life to turn me off of the PSP. As for the dead pixels, yeah, Nintendo was taking them back, and yeah, Sony wasn't. But, SCEA's policy might be different than SCEI's, for starters. But in any case, who returns things to the manufacturer anyway? If you have a dead pixel, it's going to take you less than a week to figure it out. Take it back to the store where you bought it.

The only people I've seen jerking controllers were non-gamers. And even then, I've never seen anyone jerking around a handheld. Makes it kind of hard to see.

4-6 hours long enough? Not really. Get on a long flight and you'll appreciate good battery life. 4-6 hours is a bit low, IMHO. 4-6 hours is long enough to fly from just about anywhere in the US to anywhere in the US, and I still doubt I'd spend the entire flight playing videogames. Longer flights usually mean layovers, and I'm sure you could find a place to plug it in at the airport.

Are you kidding? Drivers are poor enough when they're just talking on the thing. Last thing we need is them flailing around first. Drivers need to wait until they park their damn cars before getting on the phone. Yeah, it's actually possible to drive without talking on the cell phone. Rumor has it, before the things were invented, people did it all the time.

the sad part is that it will be sold out on its first shipment What's sad about it? Sony's made a handheld unit that people are going to want to play, and they're marketing it to people who can afford the price tag. The sad part is for 250 bucks I want a highly quality device. not one with QC issues like the japanese version (square button/dead pixels/air bubbles, drive popping out, region encoded, low batterly life (so they can make tons off consumer on the batteries as well), etc... remember Ken said this is "as designed" As I've said before, I've played a PSP, and had no issues with the square button. As for the air bubbles and dead pixels, a lot of people seem to be conveniently forgetting that the DS had the same issues, and in both cases, they were the extreme minority. The battery life is plenty long enough to play games on before it needs charged again, and as for the drive popping out, what the hell are you doing twisting it like that for in the first place?

the sad part is that it will be sold out on its first shipment What's sad about it? Sony's made a handheld unit that people are going to want to play, and they're marketing it to people who can afford the price tag.

Hell, yesterday at Gamestop, I got another reserve on one.

I think the movies on the PSP are sort of their answer to the personal movie players from Creative and other companies. I don't know how popular those movies players are especially since you have to download them and they can be really choppy. The PSP screen, don't forget, is ridiculously large when compared with the GBA or DS. In fact, I'd say it's fine for watching movies. Second, while compression issues may be a deal when you're trying to cram MPEG-4 video onto a Memory Stick, movies on UMD should be fine. The issue, though, is indeed the fact that I don't see a lot of people willing to buy the same movies twice. Now, if Sony sold rewritable UMDs and USB UMD recorders, and allowed you to transfer DVD video to UMD, I'd be down with that. And I know some people, like my buddy who spends a good bit of time commuting from Virginia into DC for work and then back again, who would actually rather have movies on UMD than DVD. He feels like he doesn't have enough time to sit down and watch a movie at home, but he'd love to watch them on the train. And the PSP is certainly smaller and mostly cheaper than the majority of portable DVD players on the market. As for the remote, yes, it's a headphones remote. It's basically a little disc that has things like volume control, and your basic play/pause/skip forward or backward, etc, that you plug your headphones into, then plug the remote into the headphone jack. The idea is that you lock the PSP's face buttons, then keep it in your pocket or wherever while you listen to mp3s. Then if you need to adjust the volume or skip a track or whatever, you use the little disc dangling from your headphones. But let's not forget that, first and foremost, the PSP is a videogame handheld. It's cool that it can play movies or mp3s or let other people check out my digital vacation photos... but if that's all it did, I doubt I'd pay even $100 for it. I want a PSP because there are six launch games I want, and probably more later. I want a PSP because the games look as fun, deep, and graphically detailed as modern console games. Meanwhile, I don't think there's six games I want for the DS, even if I count GBA games, for the rest of 2005, and the DS games I do want are stuff like Wario Ware, which is certainly fun but not nearly as deep as something like Untold Legends is going to be.