Wow. It’s not often that something surprises and impresses me to the point where I feel I need to share with others, but this was a really nice gesture on the part of Activision.

We bought Guitar Hero III for the Wii a couple of months ago and recently took advantage of ActiVision’s offer to mail in our current disc to receive a replacement one that would play in stereo. We just received our replacement disc a few days ago - it sure sounds nice in stereo!

I came home today to a mysterious package on the doorstep. I didn’t think we ordered anything, so this was where the mysterious part came in. I opened the box and found a pretty cool looking guitar faceplate for the Wii guitar. I immediately assumed my husband ordered it so I called him to let him know we got it. As I was on the phone with him, I found a card in the box from ActiVision. This was a gift from them as a thank you for our patience during the process of getting us our re-mastered Guitar Hero III disc.

Now we get to rock out in stereo and in style.

Thank You, Activision!

I recently was interviewed for the Food Guy and Marcy syndicated radio show. The “Guy” in “Food Guy” is Guy Fieri, winner of the first “The Next Food Network Star” contest. He currently has three shows on the Food Network and a string of restaurants dotting Northern California and beyond. His co-host (and producer) on the show is Marcy Smothers, vintner and wife of Tommy Smothers from the Smothers Brothers.

I was brought on the show to talk about the In-n-Out secret menu, which I do know quite a bit about. I had a pretty good time. Everyone at the show was very nice. Guy seemed like a pretty cool guy. Marcy was great. The producer and the engineer were both friendly.

In general, I think it went well, although I did have one minor gripe. Marcy introduced me as “a self-proclaimed expert on In-n-Out” at the top of the show and after every break. The phrase “self-proclaimed” makes it sound like I put it on my business cards and had t-shirts printed up. I really only know about the secret menu. I don’t know much more about the company. Read the rest of this entry »

The battle for the next high-definition disc format is all but over. Over the past month and a half, HD-DVD has received a series of crushing blows. Actually, its more like HD-DVD was murdered, the corpse was pissed on, buried, dug back up and then forced to perform unnatural acts with a donkey in a Tijuana sex show before being fed to a pack of rabid dingos.

It’s been that kind of month for HD-DVD.

First the studios started leaving en masse. Then retailers started to balk. Netflix announces they were going Blu-ray exclusive. The Pope made renting HD-DVDs a venial sin. etc., etc.

So Blu-ray has won the battle. But was it the best technology? That debate still continues. In an effort to settle the question once and for all, a team of technicians here at the Badmouth Labs have compared Blu-ray to HD-DVD in eight categories:

Cost, Capacity, Picture Quality, Audio Quality, Region Coding, DRM, Interactive Features and Future Proofing

We are purposely excluding sales and studio support. We already know the answer to those questions, and they do not necessarily indicate quality or value. If sales equated to quality, we’d have to admit that McDonald’s is the tastiest restaurant in the world and Wal-Mart has the most fashionable clothes. That’s not going to happen.

So take one last look at how HD-DVD stacked up against the newly-minted champion, Blu-ray. Read the rest of this entry »

At 45 years old, Spider-Man is still one of the greatest comic-book heroes of all time. But that doesn’t mean that every every Spider-Man story is a gem. Recently, Marvel infuriated fans with the One More Day storyline, where Peter’s Aunt May was shot and lay dying for the umpteenth time. Just when you thought they might finally bump her off once and for all, Peter decides to sell his marriage (not his soul) to the demon Mephisto so that his decrepit 80-year-old aunt can live.

So we are supposed to believe that after 10-20 years of crime-fighting and multiple encounters with the supernatural, Peter is not smart enough to turn down a deal from the devil. He’s also willing to junk his marriage with his doting, supermodel wife to save the life of a woman who has been on her deathbed so often she has the funeral home on speed dial. It just doesn’t make sense. Comic book fans world-wide have their Green Lantern underoos in a twist and they aren’t afraid to blog about it.

As stupid as it is, I can see why Marvel did it. Resetting reality so that Peter’s a swinging bachelor again puts him back in line with the movies and allows current writers to shed the baggage of years and years of convoluted continuity. Marvel is counting on the long-time fans returning, even if this storyline sucks goat balls, because they’ve done worse in the past and the fans always come back. One More Day isn’t the stupidest Spider-Man plot Marvel has unleashed on the public. In fact, it’s not even in the top five. Read the rest of this entry »