January 2009
100 posts
“Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) introduced legislation Friday that would limit...”
– WSJ
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Around the Net: Friday Edition
Videogames
EA announces three Need for Speed games: Pretty smart move I think. A core “sim” game for the Xbox 360 and PS3, a fun arcade game for the Wii and DS, and an online game for the PC. I think it’s smart to play to the strengths of each console although I wonder if this extra effort will result in extra sales, which is what EA really needs.
What the New Xbox...
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Thursday Media Log
In Theaters
The Uninvited (***): Pretty good horror movie (not a particularly big fan of the genre) that mixes the expected mediocre acting with a rather compelling story (and a great twist). The twist comes at you fast but makes sense in the general story. Pretty cool that Elizabeth Banks is a Penn alum, too.
DVD
Heroes: Season 3: I’m a little over halfway now and I’m enjoying...
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Around the Net: Thursday Edition
Tech
Nintendo posts strong results: Nintendo announced that sales increased 17%, operating profit increased 27% but net profit fell 18% due to the strong yen. The company is still doing quite well compared to other electronics/consumer-focused companies, however…
Like Sony for example: Who announced that sales dropped 25% and profits dropped 95%. Unlike Nintendo, this was only partly due...
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Wednesday Media Log
DVD
Hotel Rwanda (*****): Amazing movie that tells a powerful story about millions of a people convincingly through the eyes of a few, not unlike The Last King of Scotland, which I also thoroughly enjoyed. The movie made you care deeply for the protagonists and the larger conflict, too. A bit disheartening to see what humans are capable of though
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Around the Net: Wednesday Edition
Tech
Paul Thurrott agrees with me on Windows 7 SKUs/pricing: He thinks that there should only be three SKUs (Home, Professional, and Ultimate) and be priced more reasonably ( Home or Pro for $99 and Ultimate for $150). Makes sense to me.
AT&T posts lower profit: The company’s profit fell 24% to $2.4 billion on a 2.4% revenue increase. A 19% profit increase at AT&T Mobility...
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Around the Net: Tuesday Edition
Tech
Verizon Wireless doing pretty well: Verizon Wireless added 1.2 million subscribers, improved margins, and helped Verizon increase profit by 12%. Good to see that some industry is still doing well.
Dell’s Mini 9 has a better screen than a MacBook Pro: At least in terms of color recreation. Crazy stuff given that the Mini 9 costs $300 compared to $1999 for the MBP.
Wall Street...
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“Clearly, being a quiet time of year, many, what we thought to be credible...”
– Sony Computer Entertainment lashing out at IGN over PSP2 rumor
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Monday Media Log
DVD
Heroes: Season 2 (****): As I mentioned before, the first half of the season was sort of “meh” but the next few episodes after that were pretty good as was the season finale. Nothing mindblowingly good but enough to keep you hooked for the third season…
Heroes: Season 3: I saw the premiere and came away unimpressed. It wasn’t bad just didn’t really capture the...
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Around the Net: Monday Edition
Tech
Microsoft planning five Windows 7 versions: I’m a huge fan of Windows 7 but at the same time it’s easy to tell that this is just a really fancy Vista service pack. I’m a bit concerned with the pricing though with five versions… I hope they don’t get too crazy with the pricing.
U.S. congressman wants to pass law forcing cameraphones to make click sound: I...
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Sunday Media Log
Games
Left 4 Dead: I had heard good things about Left 4 Dead, Valve’s first-person, zombie-escaping thriller and decided to check it out. I’m quite impressed after playing through nearly two of the game’s four campaigns. I’m glad that I waited to play the game since initially only one of the campaigns worked in co-op. Playing with Maria (and hearing her screams) made the...
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Saturday Media Log
DVD
Heroes: Season 2: I’m halfway through the last season now and I’m quite unimpressed so far. It’s not that anything is bad per se but besides the Peter storyline the rest are kind of meh. Season 1 had some meh episodes, too, but it seems like the first half of Season 2 is all like that. I hear it gets better in the second half though…
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Around the Net: Friday Edition
Tech
Wikipedia becomes less open: Founder Jimmy Wales wants to restrict new users’ ability to edit the encyclopedia by requiring their changes to be vetted by other members. Sounds good in theory although it may create quite the backlog…
Obama’s new phone revealed: I’m still kind of blown away that this thing has a full-on version of Windows with a Start Menu, Desktop...
WatchGood to see that Fox News is still crazy
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Around the Net: Thursday Edition
Tech
Google has pretty good quarter: The company had net revenues of $4.22 billion and EPS of $5.10 (compared to estimates of $4.12 billion and $4.95, respectively). Net income would have been up marginally to $1.62 billion (from $1.56 billion) but was lowered to $382 million due to write-downs from the AOL and Clearwire investments. Overall, though, looks like the core business is strong.
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“It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari”
– Obama spokesman Bill Burton referring to the White House’s technology
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Spotlight: Where the Games Industry is Headed
After summarizing the current state of the affairs in the game industry (which I would recommend reading to get some context for this article), I started wondering where it would go in the future. I came up with three main points:
First, there will be a lot more focus on AAA games. Gamasutra recently noted that the game industry succumbs to the 20/80 rule where 20% of SKUs are responsible for...
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Spotlight: Mixed Signals in Videogame Industry
I typically just comment on the strong hardware and software sales of the videogame industry, demonstrating that as a whole the industry is doing rather well. There were always stories showing that everything wasn’t well but these stories have been picked up a lot of steam over the last couple of weeks.
I reiterate that the industry, as a whole, is doing very well. Total hardware and...
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Wednesday Media Log
DVD
Heroes: Season 1 (*****): Finished the series (yes, I know that’s a lot of Heroes in a short time period) and I’m fairly impressed with the cliff-hanger ending though I’m a bit disappointed about the lack of action. Nonetheless, I’m very excited for Season 2, though I’m told I should keep my expectations in check..
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Around the Net: Wednesday Edition
Tech
SEC examining Apple’s disclosures: I expected this to happen but don’t expect anything bad to come out of it. Apple shares were up 6% today despite the news and another 9% in after hours. In other words, they’re higher than they were when Steve Jobs announced a temporary leave.
In related news, Apple dominates: AAPL “posted revenue for its fiscal first quarter...
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Tuesday Media Log
In Theaters
Notorious (*****): I had a pretty low expectation going into Notorious since I knew that the biopic was executive produced by Biggie’s Mom and Diddy, so I thought it would be highly skewed. The movie doesn’t really answer (or attempt to answer) the more controversial questions (i.e. Biggie’s involvement in Tupac’s shooting) but it does show a very real and...
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Around the Net: Tuesday Edition
Videogames
GameStop has extremely strong quarter: Once again proving that the videogame industry (see related article on 47% growth for Australian game market, following huge growth in America and Europe) is hanging in there through the financial crisis, GameStop reported a 22% jump in sales for December, compared to 9% for the industry. Also interesting is that their margins on used game sales...
“C’s core problem is that it simply doesn’t make money in any of its...”
– Oppenheimer’s Meredith Whitney On Citi’s 4Q08 Earnings
“My body craves food too… You know what I do? Don’t eat.”
– Kevin Ko after losing 8.2 pounds in five days
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Oversharing: Lunch at Parc
As a fan of fine dining living in Philadelphia, I’ve made a habit of eating at every Stephen Starr restaurant (see a list here). Some argue that his restaurants are overpriced (and this does indeed appear to be the case sometimes) but they are all top-notch in quality. As Starr expanded outside of Philly (into New York with Morimoto and Buddakan and into Atlantic City with Buddakan and...
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Monday Media Log
DVD
Heroes: Season One: I’ve always wanted to watch Heroes but never wanted to make the time commitment to start watching from the pilot. (At 43 episodes, this time commitment now amounts to nearly 31 hours or 1,900 minutes). I’m now about ten episodes in and liking the series a lot. Hiro, in particular, is great.
Games
Midnight Club: Los Angeles: Midnight Club was my time sink...
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Around the Net: Monday (and Weekend) Edition
Videogames
Videogames follow the 20/80 principle: 20% of SKUs represented 80% of sales. On the Wii the effect is even more intense. 13% of SKUs accounted for 80% of sales. The top 10 accounted for 44% of sales on Wii, leaving the remainder to the other 450+ games on the console.
Canadian video game industry doing extremely well: Sales of nearly $1.7 billion represent a 23% increase for the...
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Sunday Media Log
No serious media activity yesterday (just watched the Heroes pilot, more to come on that).
In Theaters
Slumdog Millionare (*****): Saw the movie again and I stand by my original 5-Star rating. I’d definitely recommend watching the movie twice since I caught some small details I missed the first time around.
Games
Wii Fit: Managed to reduce my Wii Fit age from 40 to 26. Pretty sick...
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Oversharing: Chipotle on Campus
I tried the new Chipotle on campus and came away fairly impressed. I had a Steak Burrito (since Chipotle pretty much only burritos in various forms i.e. bowls, flour tortillas, shells, ect). I liked that the steak was cut into smaller pieces than Qdoba and found the sauces (pico and corn) to be much fresher than they are at Qdoba. The guacamole is also more flavorful. Seems like the place to go...
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Friday Media Log
Big movie night yesterday. Saw the first two with Maria (she decided to skip out of The House Bunny), and the last two with Sean and Tina. Robert joined us for The House Bunny and Kathleen joined us for How To Lose Friends.
DVD
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (****): Starring Shaun of the Dead’s Simon Peggs, How to Lose Friends tries to showcase the hilarity of Toby...
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Around the Net: Friday Edition
Citi reports $8.3 billion loss and splits into two: The company lost over $12 billion excluding the sale of its German consumer bank, primarily because of a loss of $13.4 billion in the Fixed Income capital markets business. The bank still holds $20 billion in ABS CDOs. Interestingly, in their Equity business, one of the bright points was cash (plain vanilla stock) trading, which was looked down...
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Thursday Media Log
In Theaters
Cadillac Records (***): A decent biopic about Leonard Chess (founder of Chess Records) who helped launch the careers of artists including Muddy Waters and Etta Jones. The movie had great music but my lack of familiarity with Chess and the movie’s lack of breakthrough performances keep it in merely “liked it” range. It doesn’t show anything particularly...