Fancy a Playstation 3? Aria are selling them for £399 including vat.

Grab it while you can.

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Gaming/+Sony+PlayStation+3+Console?productId=26741

I've been getting all nostalgic again. Trying to think back to those serialised shows that actually made it big. The list, especially those from the US, is actually pretty short. But lets be clear about this. I'm not talking about Star Trek were each episode is a boxed story in itself. I'm also not talking about the X-Files either, which while it has a current theme and a line of site, it's not what I call a serial. So here's my list... while I'm in a list mood.

Murder One

Murder One was created by Stephen (Hill Street Blues) Bochco and was something of a departure of US television in the mid 90's.

Ted Hoffman defends Neil Avedon in a murder trial with more twists than a roller-coaster at Alton Towers (US readers think Six Flags). This show lasted seventeen years (or so it seemed) but ended in something of a damp squib. But then after so many weeks of superb twists and shocks... it was always bound to disappoint (Damon Lindelof and Calton Cuse take note).

Twin Peaks

Need I say more? If so... what would I say. David Lynch's (with others) seminal part surreal, police investigation, part domestic drama this 90's show surpassed all with the "What the heck is going on?" factor.

Laura Palmer's body washes up on a beach near a small Washington state town of Twin Peaks and FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is called in to investigate her strange demise. That's about all you can say without going into the elements, people in woods behind red curtains talking backwards.

Frequently bizarre and with the odd arresting visuals this series had audiences split right down the middle. Is it brilliant or bonkers. Or in my mind, both.

Kingdom Hospital

Inspired by his own car accident, when he was hit by a truck whilst jogging, Steven King's Kingdom Hospital crosses both supernatural, psychological and Khafka-esk realms in a what was the most original and outstanding television programs in a decade.

What shock you most is that this series was actually only made in 2004. For some reason it seems so much older.

Wild Palms

This 1993 series mimicked the ideas of cyberpunk author William Gibson (who also starred in this mini-series) only set them in a far more recognisable setting.

S. W. Zeat from Holland says this about Wild Palms "LA in the near future, Harry Wykoff accepts a job as presidents of a gigantic TV company. Het is confronted with a total new technology called "The New Reality" where three-dimensional TV animated pictures are projected in living rooms all around the world. Harry launches to the top of the company with his career but once there he is caught in a web of intrigues, betrayal and murder. A game of life and death begins..."

I concur, adding... if your nose bleeds and you hear church bells. It could be time to panic.

Also, it was apparently voted the forth worst US television program of all time by the 'Broadcast' magazine. Now, I can't agree with that.

Why?

Well, I was watching a film on BBC1 (UK) the other day and I was shocked to see who wrote it. So I decided to check out exactly what Joss had penned on IMDB and it's been a lot!

I mean lets ignore the obvious, I think everybody knows he wrote Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and his ill fated sci-fi series Firefly.

Some of you might already know he wrote the screenplay for Alien: Resurrection (1997). The one where Ripley is knocked back up out of her component DNA and Brad Dourif plays yet another creepy character. Wouldn't you just love this poor guy to get a 'nice' role once in a while.

But did you know he co-wrote the screen play for Pixar's 1997 hit film Toy Story?

It seems to start a trend in 2000 when he co-wrote the screenplay for the less than successful, but actually not that bad, Sci-Fi Epic animation Titan A.E. It cost $75 million and made $50 million at best. Ouch. Plus you've got to realise that promotion ISN'T included in the cost of production. So it's actually more like a 50% loss, not at 25%.

I say trend because next up was Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire(2001) for which he did the original treatment. But hey, Disney messed that up. Not him.

Thankfully during this time Buffy was a monster hit (pun intended).

But after Firefly bombing, Angel sinking into oblivion and Serenity not performing quite as well at the box office and his recent departure as the writer/director for the up and coming Wonder Woman movie. It's not looking good. But if you know one thing about the movie industry, it's this. Pockets are deep and memories are short. Serenity, it should be noted, was a top selling DVD (partly because of the Firefly/Serenity fan base) and it fell short of its budget (in the US at least) by just $2 million dollars. Which can be made up in the takings from the UK. So it didn't LOOSE money (as some would say) because the take on DVD sales would have paid off the promotion costs.

But did it TAKE money? That's the interesting question.

And if so, and considering Joss now has time on his hands.... can we expect Serenity 2?

I, for one, can only hope so.

Twenty years ago Sony was a force in the HiFi, TV market. They dominated personal music in a way only Apple's iPod can replicate. 20 years ago you were nobody if you didn't sport a Sony Walkman, and preferably the latest and greatest with built in whuffle tweeters and smerg smoothers or some other technologically advanced gizmo I just made up. Sony were expensive, quality and technology. A byword in how smart a company could be.

But its not all be sweet smelling roses for Sony. In the late 70's early 80's they managed to completely destroy their own good work with the Betamax video cassette, a format far superior to VHS, by being greedy. Sony wanted everybody to pay then for each and every cassette produced. The result was disaster. VHS allowed all comers to use its format. Movie studios switch to VHS, especially those not under the Sony Company control. Betamax was dead.

Ten years ago Sony produced the Playstation. It had advanced graphics (at the time), used simple technology and produced a games empire. They repeated the trick with the slightly warmed up version of the same thing (only with a DVD drive) (don't believe me, check out the 33Mhz CPU). By which time the competitors had split camps into kids go Nintendo and teenagers PLUS go Sony Playstation. Remember the XBox was late to the party.

Now we have the Xbox 360. You can add a HD-DVD to it for very little money. It's also got some awe inspiring games and worse of all for Sony. It's already in the market place.

So Sony are putting all bets on the Sony Playstation 3. Which, and lets be fair, hasn't had the greatest reception. Sub-Xbox 360 games, unit failures, poor supply resulting in a terrible opening month. It's all gone very bad for Sony.

But could it get worse? Well one of their big selling points for the PS3 is that it will play back HD content via BluRay. Which is great. But just a quick glance of Play.com or Amazon shows that MORE titles are on HD-DVD.

Sony must feel that time is on a loop and they are going Betamax all over again.

My own personal thoughts are that as broadband, especially outside the US, gets faster and faster it's going to easier to get content directly from the web. Not to mention that convenience always outweighs quality. Given the choice of download and start watching in 20 minutes for 720p or spend 2 hours going to the shops for 1080p; I think the techie is going for the easy option.

And lets face it, who is going to be getting 1080p/720p movies at present... it's the techie people.

The point being the HD-DVD or Bluray, they are just as redundant in the future as the best floppy disk is today.

Rob (on the road, via 3G broadband)

Tags: Sony

When its some in the UK by school kids.

Want an explanation? Well, I've just come back from a local sports hall after seeing my three daughters (aged 8,7 and 3) strut their stuff. Dancing, pom-poms, marching. That's cheer-leading right?

Apparently not. Because, despite the rocking beat and baton twirling, I'm told this IS Morris dancing.

Now I don't know about you. But my recollection of Morris dancing really focuses around rather camp looking men dressed in white jumping up and down hitting each other with sticks. Usually with bells attached to their legs so normal people can hear them coming and make a run for it.

I can't help wonder if you can get a grant from Europe for 'Morris' dancing while cheerleading isn't supported. What do you think?

OK. I've given it 30 seconds and my top Five Guilty Pleasures list is;

5: Where Eagles Dare (1968)

What's not to like in this shockingly British 'boys own adventure' version of World War II. Not Nazi death camps or the use of occult power (more on this later) but an all out guns and ammo blast of the highest order from start to finish.

OK, so the plots something you'd make up for Action Man (G.I. Joe to you Americans out there) but it's all the better for it.

You should all know the plot. A team of British Commandos are sent in to rescue an American General before the Germans can force him to reveal the details of D-Day. Or at least that's how it starts....

The big question is. Who's sexier, Heidi OR Mary? For me it's Heidi (Ingrid Pitt) I'm a sucker for those Bavarian serving wench outfits.

4: The Frighteners (1996)

What Peter Jackson did BEFORE he came over all Tolkein like. It also stands out as being one of Michael J. Fox's best and sadly last acting roles in front of the camera.

The plot evolves around Frank Banister and his ability to see the spirits. Something mysterious is killing off the people of small town America (actually shot in New Zealand) and Frank, unwillingly, is drawn into fighting it.

It is superb; clever, touching, sympathetic even. There's a real sense of dread and some genuinely funny moments.

3: Tremors (1990)

I promise I'm not on a 'funny horror of the 90's' trip here. Tremors is probably one of the most underrated movies I've ever watched. Nearly everybody I know hasn't heard of it.

In a nutshell, creatures that live under the ground start a rampage of killing in... you guest it.. small town America. This one being a desert town.

Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross and Reba McEntire keep the plot zizzing along with some genuinely funny lines and scenes. Sadly, it spawned a number of VERY low grade follow ups. Best avoided.

2: Hidden City (1988)

Stephen Poliakoff's pseudo spy come critic of the worst of 80's cash or culture film is something of a fond friend to me.

But if you wanted me to put a finger on why, I'd struggle. It does have that wonderful off-beat feel more often found in David Lynch films, plus it does genuinely include something of an original mystery. Which is cool.

1: Blast from the Past (1999)

What can I say. I love this film, it's probably the ONLY romantic comedy that's original enough to hold my interest. The plot, totally ridiculous.

Essentially a brilliant if paranoid scientist builds a huge nuclear bunker under his house to protect his family from the imminent threat of Soviet war mongering. He then mistakes an accidental plane crash for a nuclear war and seals himself and his pregnant wife safely underground for 35 years.

Ping. Back to today the time locks open and its time to see what's left of the world. Well, there once lovely neighbourhood is now in a rather rough part of Los Angeles and; as is the case, is easily confused with a post apocalyptic America.

Such is the shock that polite, well mannered Adam Webber (the son, now 35) has to go on a quest for supplies as its all too much for Calvin (the Dad).

What then follows is a new take on the 'fish out of water' type comedy with Adam being both overwhelmed by the world and intrigued by its 'survivors' - notable Alicia Silverstone.

You know what I like about this film? It never tries TOO hard to be either super significant, romantic or indeed funny. it just is. It's like the comfortable sofa you can't bring yourself to getting rid of because its just so nice to sit down in after a hard day.

I can't recommend it more. Also, keep a look out for Nathan Fillion who would later appear in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I've never watch!), Firefly (and therefore Serenity as Mal) and the recent 'back to the 90's' horror/comedy flick Slither; which didn't make my top 5 but would make a top 10.

There... I feel better now.

Just a personal rant now.

Why don't people look up names before thinking 'that sounds nice' and putting on the birth certificate.

I mean when little Gabriella was born the woman in the next bed was going to name her girl 'Shania'. Presumably after Shania Twain who was massive at the time. That didn't impress me much. (ho ho).

Then there are the two children at my kids school. One is called Georgia (which is of course NOT the female of George... its a state in America and former Soviet state). Next up is Harrison. Which, we are assured, is a real name because Harrison Ford is called it. Which is great, but not exactly the benchmark for saddling a Jones or similar.

Funniest I've heard in the last few weeks is Pasata for a girl. Pasata... that would be the Italian meal starter kit of blended, seeded, skinned tomatoes used as the basis for sauces. Nice....

But funniest of all was that at least two women in the last three years considered calling their daughters Clamidia and only one could be persuaded against it!*

*Source: Midwife at Wythenshaw hospital, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Viacom clearly hasn't a clue. While other networks grin and bear it, and reap the rewards of increased profile and free advertising; Viacom has seen red and decided to take YouTube (and therefore Google) to court for $1 billion smackers.

But YouTube DO have a problem. Unlike BitTorrent that merely acts as a transfer protocol between machines, YouTube are the host. They convert, host and present videos to the general public and it doesn't make any difference if that material is a cat climbing a curtain or Jon Stewart latest attack on the latest US Senator to put his head above the parapet.

So Viacom in a sense have a point. But the bigger picture is that without YouTube thousands of people in the US and many more in the UK would never have realised how good the Daily Show is or to be bothered to find out what channel it is on.

Just so you know, you can check out on More4 in the UK. That's Channel 13 on FreeView or if you are a Sky customer, it's 142. In fact, it's on as I write this!

So are Viacom justified in trying to clamp down on copyright infringment? Perhaps.
Are they mental for forgoing the millions of dollars of free advertising they are getting? Oh, yes. Absolutely. Totally insane.

Well done Viacom

I'm not telling you anything you already know. But Parallels is THE best product to get for your Intel Mac.

At first it might seem like its something of a gimmick, after all BootCamp is free and works very well. It's not even that Parallels allows you to run Windows under the control of a Virtual Machine because VMWare have released BETA (and not very stable) versions of its virtualisation product for free.

No. Because Parallels DOES have a super smart feature under its belt and its something that sounds 'ok' but is in fact such a useful feature you'll find yourself being happy to have paid the £40 or so.

It's the mode called Coherence and its awesome. It's not exactly unprecedented. If you can cast your mind back to when Apple switched from OS 9 (don't get me started on that... OS 8 version 4 more like) to OS X they provided a funny little trick called 'Classic' mode. This allowed you to run old Pre-OS X software under OS X using a virtual Mac. To cut a long story short the system loaded a version of OS 9 into a virtual machine and the software ran within that.

Now, years later PowerPC is a memory and this technology is gone. But the idea of running applications from one OS inside the desktop of another is the pure idea behind Coherence mode. So you get a Windows task bar at the bottom of the screen and the rest is pure Mac Desktop. Click Start on the Fisher Price control and up pops the Windows applications and hey presto your developing new software under Visual Studio or creating charts and diagrams with Visio. In fact the only thing you really can't do with MUCH gusto is play games. Mainly because the graphics are run under emulation which is then connected to the Mac hardware.

After all, MacBook's have Intel graphics, MacBook Pro's have ATI etc. etc. However, what is interesting is that Parallels does have direct hardware support for internal CD/DVD drives, USB devices etc. What's more interesting is that in forums they are suggesting that in the future, direct graphical interfaces will be available.

But I digress from the point because the software is most useful as a business tool first and foremost. The sheer fact that I'm doubling up writing this blog and developing in VS 2005 without having to bootcamp between the two is impressive. But given I can now test how Mac browsers will see my work without having a second machine available. It's FANTASTIC!

If there is a catch it's memory. You can get away with using 1GB of ram in your Intel powered Mac and running XP. But you'll really, really hanker after 2GB. Given the recent and seemingly unrepentant drops in memory prices. Is this such a hardship.

Parallels can be bought from Parellels.com and costs just $79.99. For UK buyers, if your after memory for your MacBook or MacBook Pro can I suggest the SHOCKINGLY cheap Crucial. They offer a 2GB kit for your MacBook (Pro) that's actually cheaper than most Ebay sellers. See the site for the latest prices and offers.

Well, that's about it for now.... back to the grind stone as they say.

Tags: apple, parallels

The Mrs has just informed me that the flights have just hit the optimum price and she's booked.

We are off to Florida! Wahey!

What's more we are ALL going. The previous two holidays there we didn't take Gabriella because she was just a tot. But she's three now and it's about time she met that mouse!

Before the ranting starts... and we are solely blaimed for the

we are low carbon family. All our computers are ultra low power and we work from home as much as possible. What's more, we have a regime for turning lights and TV's off... Hey, we DESERVER to impact the planet! It's not like we are driving a 5.0 litre Range Rover around Chelsea all day!!

Tags: florida, USA, travel

I'll give you the 20 second version. Save time.
1. They said it wasn't their fault and would therefore only part fund the service (in fact they paid for labour and I paid for the parts)
2. It took ALL day.
3. When I went to pick the car up in took them 90 minutes to print me off a receipt!
4. The service light is STILL on - it needs 'zapping' .... or the car wasn't serviced. One or the other.

Going to have to pick up at a later date to get it all sorted. But I was appalled a how I was left to my own devices in the show room (good job I'm a nice guy) and the whole operation was chaos.

Apparently a good complaint can remove a Saab dealership from the main dealer network. If this is even slightly true, why the hell are they so bad!

Tags: wilson & co, saab wilson and co, saab, saab wilson & co