Hollywood reams the consumer yet again

[LANGUAGE WARNING - Pissed off Badger Alert]

I'm not sure if you've heard by now, but I've been following the latest escalations in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray format war. The Digital Bits has had some of the best coverage and it is worth checking out. Basically, Microsoft dropped a chunk of change at Paramount and DreamWorks front door in exchange for them to stop being platform neutral and go HD-DVD exclusive. So, now they going Universal in the HD-DVD camp with the other studios either being Blu-ray exclusive or platform neutral.

What has this done?

Hmmm...how about fucked over the consumer royally? In an idiotic format war that was in no one's best interests, Blu-ray looked to be starting to win and that is when Microsoft acted. Now, it has sown the seeds of confusion within the potential audience and I agree with the prevailing opinion that less people will go with either.

I have been considering my options for some time; cheap MS Xbox HD-DVD drive or stand-alone Blu-ray player (PS3 isn't worth even considering). Now, I can say I have no idea what to do. I think I will likely still with DVD because as usual Hollywood has continued to fuck the consumer and we just continue to bend over and take it...

UPDATE:

So, I have given this more consideration and I've decided they both suck, yet I still want them. Realistically, I will probably not buy either as the waters are just to murky right now :(

I got this of the Digital Bits:

In a poll over at IMDB, fully 63% of the 16,000+ people who responded chose: "I have neither system and this makes [me] want to enter HD media even less. I'll stick with DVD for the time being." The next largest group, 10%, said they had no opinion and another 9% didn't know what HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc were. So that's 82% of people who either just don't care, don't know about the formats or are turned off by the format war.

It's not like we're talking polling people on the street, but this is from a movie junkie website!?!?!? No one (at least in large numbers) wants to go near this mess. That so disappoints me that these two camps our ruining HD optical media for the whole industry...

Blockbuster - part deux

Well, Blockbuster has given me something to think about. When I switched to Blockbuster from Netflix, it was due to getting rentals for the same price, but with the added benefit of being able to exchange my online rental returns in store for a free movies. I wasn't thrilled about switching to a company that is an example of much of what is wrong in the movie industry. Well, today, I got the gift of an e-mail from the corporate giant that explains that they want to begin charging me an extra $7 per month for this privilege. Or I can remain at $17.99 per month and only get 5 in-store exchanges a month. I'm not the kind of person that likes being forced to keep track of simple things such as this. I want unlimited and no worries.

Well, in this same timeframe, Netflix cut their costs by $1 per month. Maybe it is time to restart my membership there and dump the evil corporate entity?

The "plus" sign is a valid e-mail address character

I really need to go to bed, but I thought I would rant for a quick bit.

If you design a web page that asks for an e-mail address is some manner, you really better $%@& well known the accepted standards for e-mail or rather the "internet message format".

I get so pissed off when a web form won't allow me to enter a plus sign in my e-mail address. This is a valid and useful option. You see, everything after the + to the @ sign is presented but ignored for delivery. So, bill@vinsonweb.com and bill+spammingbastards@vinsonweb.com go to the same address, but I can at least see the address it was sent to. Now, when I give my e-mail address to any old company, I can see if I start getting spam on that e-mail account, I know who to blame.

There is no incentive for companies to fix this as it is used by a small group of people. Well, no reason except for the page designer sleeping soundly with the knowledge that he did his work right and isn't completely inept.