At my apartment our cable service is provided by Cablevision (which, by the way, is one of the worst companies in terms of customer service ever). As part of our television package (iO Digital), we get a bunch of high definition channels. Those of you in the tri-state area who have Cablevision probably know about the high definition selections in the 700-block of channels. Anyway, the reception that we get on these channels is so-so at best. When there are fast movements on the screen our HD signal becomes blocky, when there is an LCD screen being shown on the show that we’re watching it digitizes the entire picture, etc. It’s just crappy. Thankfully, this stuff only happens in spurts, but it sucks.

I did some research online and it turns out that if your signal entering your home/apartment/building is split too much before it hits your television, then your HD signal will be choppy and crappy. Well, for anyone who knows the dirtbag who used to own this building (my friends from college who read this blog will know who I’m talking about), then they probably know what the problem is with our cable. Our previous landlord was - as many landlords in this area are - a scumbag. He lied, cheated, and stole as much as possible. This applied to everything from rent to security deposits and yes - even to the cable service.

On ONE cable bill he provided “free” cable and internet service to two apartments, an office, a convenience store, a restaurant, and a hair salon. On any given day, there were upwards of 20 people on the internet alone - plus another 15 or so televisions that were hooked up throughout the building. Believe it or not, the signal didn’t suck at the time. However, now that a stronger signal is needed to get a perfect HD picture it appears that the old landlord’s 35+ way split of the service is now getting back at us.

Just some random bitching…

Yahoo Mail recently upgraded its e-mail services so that you can now use a quasi-Microsoft Outlook type of screen to view your mail. There are many benefits to having this type of set-up, but one of the drawbacks is the automatic advertisements that are embedded in different areas of the screen. Alright, so they’re not SO bad, but this advertisement really pissed me off:

Take a good look at that advertisement. What type of support is superior? Personal support? No… Presonal support? Yes!

Presonal support? PRESONAL support?!? What the hell does PRESONAL mean? How the hell did something like this get published on the internet on one of the highest viewed web-based e-mail platforms?! If I was the owner of the company that purchased this advertisement, I’d be off my rocker with aggravation.

But I’m glad that these bozos actually had this pathetic advertisement printed. In reality, this type of shoddy workmanship is endemic in all areas of life and it is becoming more and more widespread as time goes on. What do we expect from younger generations that are completely fine with writing: hI R U up 2 nething kewl 2day??

It’s pathetic.

While I was busy the last few weeks, Joe’s Journal eclipsed 100,000 spam comments captured by Askimet. Talk about pathetic, right? Not only are there losers in this world that are sitting by a computer hitting the “send” button as spam, but there are uber-losers who create software robots to do this automatically!

Talk about people who need a life. As I write this we’re at 102,000+ spam comments. And that’s my sad commentary on sad people.

Two articles were published today that I found interesting. The first is from TheStreet.com and it focuses on how Nintendo’s publishers are not seeing the windfall that Nintendo is seeing with respect to the incredible demand for Wii systems. The second is from PC World which relays information recently released by Nintendo regarding their market research, which happens to be the exact opposite of what TheStreet.com says!

Now, I know that many folks are not interested in reading about this aspect of the video game industry, but I had to get these articles out there. To me, these are fun reads because you have a somewhat serious issue (3rd party profits) being debated between two different entities. How exciting is that?!

Sorry, I’m a professional student at heart. The thought of two opposing arguments gets me excited - even if it has to do with video games! As a side note, Nintendo’s study marks the average Wii gamer at 29 years old. I’m 26, so I’m actually too young for the system!

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The Chief Executive Officer of Square-Enix made the comments below the other day. For me, these are really dumb comments made by the CEO of a really great company:

“The Wii is the antithesis of the Xbox 360,” he adds. “Xbox 360 is strictly for hardcore gamers. The attachment rate for the Xbox 360 is much higher than for the Wii. People who buy the 360 really like games.”

Regarding Sony, Wada believes they need to position the PS3 explicitly as a game machine instead of a supercomputer that also plays Blu-ray movies.

For those FF fans out there, this has got to be concerning. Sure, the CEO’s comments about Sony and the PlayStation 3 are pretty dead-on, but doesn’t reality prove his Wii and XBox comments to be false? Aren’t Wii owners completely infatuated with the younger, less-powerful system because it is strictly “fun to play?” Further, aren’t many XBox owners aggravated that they are paying a great deal of money for nothing more than a PC in console’s clothing and the always-feared “red ring of death?”

I’m not sure if my younger brother gets on to my blog too much any more, but he purchased an XBox 360 a few months ago and it has since had a bunch of technical problems. I brought the Wii home for Thanksgiving and I thought it was a hit. I think the CEO of Square-Enix may need to re-evaluate his definition of people who “really like games.”

And bring Final Fantasy back to Nintendo already, damn it!

The New York Times online is just packed with good articles today! As I was flipping around I noticed this one about the video game industry. I try to stay abreast of what’s going on in the video game industry since I really believe that their cutting edge technology will change the future. The devices and mechanisms used in the United States military were developed by video games and I’m confident that this industry will continue to bring new and innovative technologies to the mass market into the future. Did you know that some doctors are studying actual online role-playing games to watch public reactions to new diseases? I read an article about that somewhere - try Googling it if you’re interested.

I should also say that I’m very interested in investing in some of these companies, hence one of the reasons why I keep an eye on them.

The Times posted an article talking about the merger between Activision and Vivendi Universal’s game unit last Sunday. I found the following bit of text very poignant:

Until recently, it seemed that the only way the game industry knew how to grow was to keep drilling deeper into its core demographic of tech-savvy young men who had few interests beyond cleavage, explosions and touchdowns. And that vein was just about tapped out: over the last few years, the growth of industry bellwethers like Electronic Arts has slowed to a crawl.

But then, over three successive autumns, true visionaries demonstrated a new way to conceive of video games — not merely as a niche pastime for geeks but as the next mainstream entertainment medium, one that could appeal to women, families, older people and all the other demographic groups the industry had forgotten about.

In terms of profits, Nintendo has dominated the competition. Microsoft is dead-set on creating a quasi-computer that runs video games and calling it an XBox and Sony is very concerned about being the center of your home entertainment world. Nintendo focuses on video games and fun; this is why they are so successful.

Anyway, interesting article that I thought some of you may enjoy.

USA Today had a great article a few days back that talked about the rapidly declining PC and laptop sales in the Japanese technology market. It’s a pretty interesting read so you may want to check it out if you get a few free minutes.

The article makes a great point regarding the growing internet capabilities of handheld devices like cell phones and video game systems. It also points out the new abilities for digital cameras to connect directly to televisions and to printers without having to go through a computer.

Again, it’s pretty interesting so take a read if you get a chance, but from my view - I don’t think that the PC is going the way of the dinosaur any time soon. There are too many uses for the machine for it to become obsolete. I do, however, think that prices of new computers need to drop dramatically. And I’m not talking about paying $250 for a personal computer with a 15 inch LCD screen and substandard parts, either. I mean when Dell announces a new XPS and HP announces a new high-end laptop, these things can’t be priced at $2,000! There’s no way to keep the larger home computer market sustainable at that price range - it just can’t happen.

Granted, there are increased costs with creating a higher-end computer and that is understandable, but when computers that were high-end 3 or 4 years ago are still priced out of the general consumer market, that’s a problem. That said, Best Buy is offering a $200 computer for Black Friday, but the specs on it don’t look all that exciting.

First of all, it’s an eMachines computer. I know many folks (old college buddies) that have had problems with these computers, though I also know fewer folks who have not had a problem with them. As the article linked above says:

Don’t expect the world though. The PC is rumored to be powered by an Intel Celeron running at 2.66 Ghz (meaning no efficient and powerful ‘Core’ for you), comes with 512 megabytes of RAM (which is the bare minimum for doing just about anything on a computer these days), has a measly 80 Gigabyte hard drive, and it has no DVD burner.

No DVD burner? It’s 2007, right?

Anyway, check out those articles - they are pretty interesting reads.

Since I haven’t had time to put together a coherent post in the last few days, here are some random thoughts from the last 5 - 7 days. As you’ll see, this is about as disjointed as you can get for a blog entry, but hey - if millions of other blogs can do it daily, then why can’t I do it once in a blue moon?

• You ever watch a football game and the wrong team wins? For those of you who have played football at any level - have you ever been in a game where you are obviously the better team, but you don’t win the game? I watched the Colts take on the Patriots last night and even though the Patriots had a 24 - 20 victory over the Colts, Manning and his teammates are obviously the better football team. At least in my view, that is. And I take nothing away from the Patriots (who are amazing), but after watching yesterday’s game it just seemed clear that the Colts are a better team. I could be wrong, though…
• On the subject of sports, I’m still baffled that the baseball season is over. You know when the football season is over because there is this massive Super Bowl where over 100 million people watch. It just seems like baseball ended this year and no one took notice. How many people even know that the Red Sox won the Series? How many people even care?
• You may recall that I went out over the summer and bought myself a Nintendo Wii. I have a lot of fun playing it, though I certainly don’t play it as much as I used to play video games when I was a little kid. But still, a quick game or two of bowling before I go to bed at night is fun. Anyway, part of the excitement of owning a cutting edge video game system is getting the new game as soon as it’s released. I really don’t have the time for that any more, but I figured what the hell and bought Guitar Hero III the other night. Wow. Talk about a fun game! You get to use this guitar controller to play all of these rock songs. It’s a lot of fun! Though I do take issue with the “Legends of Rock” subtitle…some of the folks in that game are brand new to the music industry and are by no means legends yet. Hell, some aren’t even footnotes yet!
• Last weekend I went up to Roxbury and while I was there I tried to play his XBox 360. Lucky for me, the machine was just having all types of problems. Think about it in terms of how your computer gets all goofy on you when Windows doesn’t work correctly. We eventually got the problem handled and I played a little Halo 3 (which lasted all of 20 minutes because the guy on the screen was hard to control). I just found it funny that Microsoft has managed to not only bring a high-tech gaming system to the masses, but they brought along the bugs and bs with it!
• I don’t know if you heard, but the Hollywood writers went on strike. I’m heartbroken…
• There were a lot of reports this weekend of King Tut being on display to the public for the first time ever. I really don’t like this move. Besides the fact that Tut’s body is petrified at 3000+ years old, putting him on display is just inappropriate (in my view). How many of us would want our petrified, blackened bodies put out on display in the year 5007? I don’t think this is the right thing to do at all.
• Have you guys seen the female wrestler named Awesome Kong? She’s in TNA right now and she’s a beast! And she is easily one of the best aspects of the show right now.
• Finally, I watched the Giants and Dolphins go at it in London last weekend. I understand the NFL’s desire to spread their market and to reward those NFL fans who ARE in other countries, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of the atmosphere. Besides the rain and crappy field, the fans weren’t the typical, rowdy American football fan. All you had to do was watch the extra point and instead of fans standing up and cheering so the kicker sees them going nuts behind the goal post, you had a group of a very nice, very proper Brits sitting there awaiting the result of the kick. Very proper, indeed!

I just wanted to share those random observations and thoughts with you. Have a good one!

Earlier today, CBS News posted a story on their website about the FCC lifting certain restrictions on apartment buildings with respect to cable services. They cite the ability for low-income folks who live in apartments or government-sponsored housing projects to have a choice in their cable provider. In other words, the ability to choose a lower cost provider (which is great!).

As someone who works in an industry closely related to these large-scale, low-income developments I can tell you that the folks who live in these places need all of the breaks that they can get. If that means they can save $5 per month on the cable bill, then so be it!

And isn’t this logical? That competition for services SHOULD lead to a net decrease in costs? Well, not if you’re Comcast Cable. A spokesperson for the company said:

“The net result is that many consumers are likely to wind up paying more for services if the FCC’s interference in the competitive marketplace stands,” Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said in an e-mailed statement.

Huh? Isn’t the “interference in the competitive marketplace” the fact that there is NO competition in these apartment buildings? For those of you that don’t know, many of these apartment buildings sign contracts with cable providers for the entire building, which restricts tenants to using that provider.

I mean come on! This is a no-brainer. For Comcast to come out and make the dumb comment that lifting this restriction will have a net result of higher cable prices for consumers is all sorts of idiotic. First of all, you have the logic argument cited above. Second, you have the fact that a rate increase is decided by the cable companies! In other words, you have cable companies saying, “If you take this action, we will be forced to raise rates. If we raise rates, then prices go up for consumers.”

Here’s an idea, dummies - DON’T RAISE YOUR RATES!

Idiots…

The New York Times ran an article on their website the other day where they talked about Max Levchin, the Founder of PayPal (and the guy who eventually sold it to eBay). Needless to say, Levchin is filthy rich - the kind of rich that the rest of us only dream about. But the point of this article is an interesting one; the New York Times postulates that Levchin, and other young tech-millionaires like him, may be bored. How bored? So bored that they are starting new business and new ventures - in essence, they are in competition against themselves and against each other to hit the next big thing.

I found this to be very interesting. My roommate and I had a discussion the other day about how money does and does not buy happiness. You would think that these guys who have so much money that they no longer need to think about working would be floating on an island somewhere. At the very least, you would think that they are in a low-impact position at some global corporation like Google or Microsoft. Turns out that they’re not - they’re out there trying to make the next Facebook or MySpace.

For my part, I know what I would do if I ever hit it rich. I’d pay off my debts (and my family’s debts, of course) and then I’d set-up an annuity or a trust fund that generated about $100,000 annually in interest (I’m assuming that I REALLY hit it rich). After that, I’d give the rest away. Seriously - what’s the point in sitting on tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars? Why not go to your local high school or your alma mater and give each graduating senior a free college education? Or go to the local senior center and give them the state of the art amenities.

I just think that there are better things to do with millions and billions of dollars than just sit on them. Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to prove that one day - but not quite yet! Anyway, the article is a good read - I suggest it if you have some spare time.