Where is Pook?

Oh no! Where is Pook!? Someone stole him! Pook thief! Pook thief!

I have been very busy with deadlines lately. Don't worry. I'll come back, and there will be many posts ahead as well as the new website.

So I will throw something 'Pookish' out there so you all do not throw digital tomatoes at me. Consider...

Arrogance in adulthood is usually childhood tenderness turned inside out.

He who holds a high sense of honor does so because he has not been honorable to himself.

Those who hold an almost quixotic insistence on the truth do so because their careers are founded on a lie.

Much of physical courage is frenzied intensity to revenge one's failure in moral courage for not being oneself.

Be who you are! The First Pookish Commandment corrects so many self-made flaws. Do not take my word for it. Here is Steve Jobs's speech where a single theme runs through it: trust your gut, follow your interests, be who you are.

That is the only way all the dots will connect in life.

Japanese English training

Why are these english phrases seem designed for women to use? This is what I was thinking until I saw the men start to say them too!

First Video

Second Video

"LOL, let us zoom on their shoulder blades!" These videos are messed up in so many ways.

Is Sony crumbling?

After a disasterous showing at E3 2006, after a series of bad PR since then, and especially after the Blu-Ray diode shortage creating a token launch (and delaying European launch until well into 2007), Sony needed good news. Badly. TGS was going to be where Sony was going to fire all guns and show why they have been the leader in the console industry.

What happened instead was a conference worse than E3 2006. There was no mention of giant enemy crabs and hitting their weak spots for massive damage because... there was no talk of the games! Instead, Kutaragi justed waxed on about the future of networking. The only game showed was Afrika which had elephants (yay!).

The impressions of the games on display at the booths have been very mixed to disapointing. Framerate issues is said to be the cause. Many of the RPGs and other titles for PS3 are unconfirmed as it appears the companies have lost confidence in mighty Sony.

If you don't believe me, look at the game industry media that is all pouncing on Sony for this. Eurogamer just made fun of Sony while they live-blogged the TGS conference. People have no stopped being shocked and are just pointing and laughing. Ouch.

If you've ever wanted to see a major industry turn inside out, just watch the games industry for the next year. Something in the internal business of Sony must have gone massively wrong.

From Gameindustry.biz:

Kutaragi's Tokyo Game Show keynote had been considered by many to be Sony's last chance to make a big impression on an international audience prior to the November US and Japanese launches of its next-generation games console.

But while Ridge Racer 7 was confirmed as a launch title and shown running in high-definition, and there were also spots for Mobile Suit Gundam: Target in Sight, Virtua Fighter 5, Final Fantasy XIII and Afrika, the company's decision to offer a focused technological discussion rather than specifying new products and features is likely to come under intense scrutiny.

In other words, expect to see many mock-ups and Internet memes like Kutaragi on the elephant picture above. The Internet was especially vicious with the E3 2006 Sony Conference:

What is a wimp?

Again, the voices below cry out for more Pookiness. "Tell, oh most masterful Pook, champion of masculinity, protector of the manly way, and the Most Desirable Among Da Women, what is a wimp?"

Remember how real men were leaving television news? If someone acts like this, they are a wimp!

Rage-O-Meter

"Oh godly Pook," the voices shout below, "tell us how we may know the rage of the Aries filled Islam extremists?" In my Great Pookness, I have crafted this lovely chart. Behold:

Has Thailand fallen to Jihad?

It is beginning to look that way.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand's army commander staged a coup Tuesday night and ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra while he was in New York, circling his offices with tanks, declaring martial law and revoking the constitution. Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, who is known to be close to Thailand's revered monarch and is a Muslim in this Buddhist-dominated nation, will be acting prime minister, said army spokesman Col. Akara Chitroj.

One thing I might do is get out my world map and mark the most feminized and, potentially, unstable countries politically. These would be the first to fall.

Anyone remember the Muslim riots in France? (which lasted forever) Wasn't there a new law there that said women could no longer go bare breasted anymore? I suspect that law was made due to placating the growing Muslim population.

One thing that always concerned me about the expat movement is they never really talk about political instability. While America has its faults, it is the most stable of governments. Mexico is on the brink of collapse. I expect to see Canada fall apart in my lifetime (and perhaps some areas become new states like Alberta). Most Americans are spoiled by political stability and don't realize how fragile many governments are.

Madonna is being 'crucified' on the cross for a concert on NBC. Imagine if she mocked Islam as she does Christianity. She will never do it, of course. She'd get her throat slit.

Even more crazy are these sudden repeated requests from the Islam world asking the Pope to convert to Islam.

The elder son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has called on Pope Benedict XVI to convert to Islam immediately, dismissing last week's apology from the pontiff for offending Muslims.

"If this person were really someone reasonable, he would not agree to remain at his post one minute, but would convert to Islam immediately," Mohammed Gaddafi told an awards ceremony on Monday evening for an international competition to memorise the Qur'an.

Notice how Radical Islam is feeding off of the feminized wimps of the West? Do they really expect the Pope to go, "Oh, I want to show I am a 'reasonable' fellow. I shall convert to Islam immediately!" They probably don't but it is a worth a try to them.

Like a shark detecting blood in the water, notice how these radical Islamists detect feminization in certain nations and pounce at it? If the Pope was that feminized (he isn't), he would bow down towards Islam. My point is that they are using the feminization, the wimp-ification of the West against it.

All these 'riots' and 'outrage' in the Islam "communities" are organized and arranged. They are artificial. They are hiding behind their religion. If I, the Pookius Maximus Extroadinarius, say, "You should not threaten to kill the Pope. You should not threaten to kill anyone," the wimps of the west, these guilt filled puss-boys whose only concern is how we (or they) appear to other people's eyes, will say, "Pook, you are being extreme. How dare you not let them be outraged!"

I'm trying to figure out what to do with the Wimps of the West who are being played like a stradivarian by these manipulators. Nice Guys are so stuffed with pride that they NEVER admit they are being played by women. All wimps have some romanticized vision of the world. How do you get through their pride to the issue?

Bah! I've learned people prefer feelings to thoughts. Thomas Paine was dead on accurate when he said, "Time makes more converts than reason." Ever try to reason with a nice guy? Ever try to reason with a wimp?

Perhaps this explains why the school yard instict for children is, when finding a wimp, to beat him up.

World War IV

World War III could be said to be the Cold War. But World War IV is certainly about Radical Islam.

Please watch this. We must expand people's context!

World War I ended in an armistice. World War II ended with unconditional surrender. World War III ended when Soviet Russia was dealt with. But the new conflict is, at its root, religious. They despise the Pope more than, say, President Bush. There will be no armistice, they will not surrender. It is a conflict of those who worship life versus those who worship death. How do you make a deal with someone who straps bombs on their own children?



A larger version is here for your viewing pleasure.

The video talks about how Radical Islam has hijacked Islam and is spread out among the population. But the difference between Radical Islam and their Muslim brothers is that Radical Islam worships death.

Soon, the West will be split among itself. Those Westerners who worship death more than life will, naturally, side with Radical Islam and proclaim death to the West. One of the factions, feminists, clearly falls into this category. It explains why the civilization and religion that brutally treats their women and literally keeps them down, the Radical Islam, is ignored by the feminists. Who are the feminists' enemies? Not just men but life-worshipping men and women. It is you men who do not live for materialism, who do not live for image, who do not live for power over other people. While Radical Islam gets a pass, feminists attack Christianity for 'putting down the women'. Feminists despise life so it is no longer strange to me to see them be unannaounced allies of Radical Islam (as their enemies are the same).

What I suspect is that Radical Islam is not new but very very ancient. It is the viewpoint most civilizations and religions had long ago. The first Christians took the fish as their symbol as the Mill of Time had the constellation of Pisces swing overhead (the previous era was Aries, the 'Ram'). While Jesus was very poor and did not seek violence, it ought to be remembred how 'revolutionary' that 'turning the other cheek' was in that era (the era of the Roman Empire). These Death Worshippers are not new... they are twenty centuries behind the times.

The Mother of All Trailers

Sums up why I hate movie trailers. Watch.

Who is Bush?

One of the advantage of being Pook is that I have access to those who have been around my nation's 'leaders'. Think of Chaucer who got stuck between the high political class and the rest of us peasants. It has always been in my family history for my ancestors to be "serving" the noble class in some capacity. I have a direct ancestor even as far back that was a 'sheriff' in London centuries ago serving some English King (forgot which one). Since Bush and most of the current administration has come from Texas (not just Texas but my local county), everyone I seem to know has had direct contact with these guys.

Bush is not a conservative. He is a moderate but with some conservative leanings. For the conservatives in the Republican Party, they only care about what is referred to as "the three" big issues: foreign policy, tax cuts, and the Supreme Court. Since Bush goes with those, the party generally supports him. With those who really despise Bush, I wonder what would happen when a real conservative gets into the White House. Do they realize that Newt Gingrich is the currently leading among the base in the primaries for 2008? It is still way early but I am curious what would happen if a very ideological conservative came around, how would the Democrat Party act?

Anyway, people tell me that Bush acts nothing at all on TV as he does in person. In person, he is very articulate, very charming, and... as someone described... "robust". Naturally, I ask, "Then why does he just blink into the camera and not talk very well?" And the answer I got was: "Pook, there are two reasons. First, not everyone is good at being personable toward a camera. Take these famous writers. They are brilliant but in front of a television camera they sound like idiots. They just aren't used to cameras. Whereas a Hollywood actor can respond very well with the camera yet, they are often the biggest doofuses. Bush is a people person. He becomes animated around people, not cameras." Then he reminded me, "Remember the debates with Kerry? In the Second Debate with the Town Hall, you can clearly see Bush becoming animated and trying to connect with each person talking. He connects with people, not cameras." So, what about that second reason? "Remember that kid in class who always had the right answer for everything? You wanted to slap that kid. In politics, one must remember perception. Bush can go around swatting answers at anything but its usually doesn't look presidential." His latest press conference in the Rose Garden certainly illustrated that.

Bush actually prefers to be underestimated. "That is his strategy," one person told me. "He wants people to think of him as a doofus." Ann Richards, that feminist governor of Texas who recently died, wrote off Bush when he first ran for governor. Gore and Kerry both did later. Even today, people underestimate his political abilities. I was told that is just as he wants it. "That is what works for him," one said.

The personality of Bush is that he is extroadinarily competitive. If you played a Ping Pong game with him, for example, he would try to win. His focus is winning on anything he does. (This isn't surprising to me as any successful person in anything usually seems to have this mentality. Tiger Woods even admitted that if he played checkers or something, his goal would be to win.)

One unique thing about Bush that differs from other politicians is that he is extremely focused on voting records, demographics, and statistics. Usually, the candidate hasn't a clue of this and the campaign manager deals with this. When Bush would go campaign in, say, New Mexico, he knew the voting records for each county. Karl Rove is apparently a walking encyclopedia on this stuff and much of it must have rubbed off on Bush.

Bush is said to be one of the most 'charming'. (Not a surprise for a mega-politician). Much of the charm is suspected of being machiavellian. For example, when Bush was first president, he and his wife would roll in a birthday cake for Senator Ted Kennedy (and invite him to watch movies). Stuff like this worked in Texas probably since there isn't much to be partisan about down here. But in Washington, this "new tone" never really took off. The "new tone" was Bush's idea that he could charm everyone on Capitol Hill.

Bush is a fanatical book reader. He loves reading biographies. In fact, I suspect the way he acts is how he thinks he will be remembered his future 'biographies' (after all, when you are president, people are going to write biographies on you regardless).

Al Gore speaks better Spanish than Bush does. However, Gore learned his spanish at Harvard. He speaks the text-book spanish. Bush learned spanish at the oil rigs in Texas so his spanish is "off" but it has the Texas/Mexican slang and nuances in it. This is why during the 2000 campaign, hispanics preferred Bush's spanish to Al Gore's.

Bush will do anything to win. To those who don't remember, recall Tom Daschle and the opposition in the first term. What Bush deliberately did was take away Daschle's political issues. Campaign Finance Reform? Bush signed it. Pills and Medicare? Bush signed that, irking all his Republicans. What happened is that by signing practically everything Daschle was supporting, what could Daschle run on? This is why after the election of 2004, Daschle, the Democrat Party Leader in the Senate, was voted out of office (which hadn't happened to a party leader since 1952, fifty four years ago!). Bush is addicted to winning. This is why now, during an election year, we are suddenly seeing Bush become fiesty with the press.

As governor, Bush was very different than he is today. He always joked around. He had afternoon naps in Austin. Either due to the presidency or to 9/11, it's been said he now lacks that 'jovial' attitude he once had.

How did Bush get to the governorship? The South in America has been called the "Solid South" for one reason: it has been universally Democrat. Ever since the Civil War, Lincoln was a Republican, and the Confederacy were Demoocrats back then. After the Civil War, so much resentment was built up that the South was solidly Democrat up until 1994. In 1994 was the so-called Republican Revolution which the South swung Republican and took over both the House and Senate. Bush rode the 1994 conservative wave as did his brother, Jeb, in Florida.

How did Bush get 'annointed' as the presidential candidate by the Republican Party? There are two Presidential campaigns, there is the official public one we all know. But there is a hidden one within the party. Not anyone is going to become a presidential candidate. The party will see if you have the wits to do it, and, most importantly, if you can win. In Bush, they saw the name recognition that his father had. Bush was no stranger to politics or political campaigns as he used to hang out at the White House during the Reagan and the first Bush Administrations. But most importantly, they saw his election results in Texas. The first election against Ann Richards was fine for a political upstart, 52% against 48%. But he grew the gap considerably in the second election. What most attracted the Republican Party to give Bush the presidential nod was that the party saw Bush attracted hispanic votes (as well as some black votes). Bush also did very well with women. With attracting a wide variety of demographics, they saw Bush as a safe choice.

What more is there to say about him? These are all things that have been told to me. I have never met Bush. I have met Governor Perry (who was Lietenant Governor when Bush was the Governor. Perry took over when Bush became President). One thing about Perry is that he has to be gay. He acts like such a pretty boy. When saying the Pledge of Alliegence, I scanned everyone and what was Perry doing during the pledge? He was touching up his hair like a girl. Very strange.

If I think up of more things about Bush or the politicians, I'll add them. One last thing, Bush's ranch in Texas is a prop. He probably does enjoy such a ranch as it is very different from the White House. But it is a campaign prop. He bought it for the Presidential election. Watch him sell it when he steps down as President. He'll probably end up living in an apartment in Dallas. (What!? Why are you surprised? Bush will do anything to win... even buy a ranch in the middle of the boonies.)

Razor blades model is not the standard for consoles

Nintendo says that it will make money off of every console it sells. Analysts are stunned that a console is actually profitable. But really, the 'razor and blades' business model doesn't apply to video game consoles despite what anyone tells you. The idea of the razor and blades model is to sell the razor at a no-profit or at a loss and reap the money back by people buying blades. This model is used on printers and their ink cartridges.

Only one console really does the razor and blades business model and that is the Xbox franchise. The Playstations are sold at a loss initially but, betting on falling computer part prices, the hardware soon becomes profitable. For example, the PSP was not profitable to Sony at launch. But around seven (or so) months, it broke even and became profitable. Sony can do this since it owns many of the factories involved.

Sega tried doing the razor and blades business model by selling hardware at a loss and making it up for games near the end of its cycle. But this failed for Sega.

Atari, NEC, Sega (for the most part), Sony (except at the beginning of each system) and Nintendo have never done the razor and blades model as is commonly understood today.

Keep in mind that the Xbox 360 has sold four million (according to independent sales charts) consoles so far which is pretty lame for a year being on a market with no competitors. PS3 is supposed to ship two million by the end of the year. Wii will ship four million by the end of the year. So despite being a year on the market, Xbox 360 may end up becoming quickly buried. What is humerous to me is that Nintendo will probably outsell both Microsoft and Sony with their Wiis and make money on all of it. I ask you: who has the better business model out of the three console makers? The answer is easily seen in who gets the most money.

Now, there is a real razor and blades model that game consoles can use but it is not in the way how people percieve it. The product of a game system is not the hardware. It is the hardware and the software (if you have just hardware, all you have is an empty silicon box). After all, when you buy a razor it often comes bundled with some sort of blades. This is why I think selling hardware, by itself, at a loss and expect profit from games is not a true comparison of the razor and blades model. A better example of it would be bundling in a hit game, not just any game, and once you put the console in someone's home, they then go and buy other software.

The best example of this would be Kalinske's decision for Sega with the Genesis. Sega makes this hit game, Sonic the Hedgehog, which is flying off shelves. What does Kalinske propose to Sega? Get rid of Altered Beast in the bundle and put in Sonic and drop the price of the overall system. The board was stunned at this. By putting their hit game into the system, they would lose all that great profit they were enjoying from Sonic. And by selling the system for less, it was as if the Genesis would not make that much money! Everyone was appalled at Kalinske, at this American, for telling the Japanese board how to sell their system in America. But the president of Sega went ahead with Kalinske.

By putting the hit title with the console, the system sold extremely well (people buy the hardware to get to the software. Steve Jobs says: "Software is the driver of hardware"). Once the system was in people's home, they would then get other games for it. This is how the actual razor and blades model would work with video game consoles.

Nintendo did something similiar with the NES. Super Mario Brothers would sell very well alone. But by bundling it with the system, it moved the NES to new and bored video game players. Since the Wii is aiming for that same strategy, it is no wonder Nintendo bundled in Wii Sports. But I don't think Nintendo went far enough. They should have tossed in a second controller (wii-mote and nunchucka) as well as Zelda: TP into the box and priced it at $300. They would not make as much money as before, but it would drive the system sales by putting in their 'hit' title with the system. In the same way, Microsoft would be very smart for bundling Halo 3 with the Xbox 360 when it comes out. However, I doubt they will do this.

By the way, I feel sorry for you guys in the UK who have to shell out huge prices (and Australia too). To make it crystal clear for those of us on the outside:

Europe routinely gets shafted by not just console companies but by all the electronic companies. In the UK, their prices are a third more expensive then they should be.

Wii is $250 in America. In UK, it is $336. PS3 in America is $599. In the UK, it is $798.

Also,

I'll be busy this weekend. As you can tell, my life doesn't revolve around this blog. Even most of my writings are sent to someone else for another publication now. But there will be a website soon. It will not be in this blog-like fashion and feature more article type content than these 'malt-o-content' little posts.

Male Feminists are guilt filled wimps

An emailer (who definately gets it) has this to say:

Pooky,

Nothing special, but it did make me laugh, simply because after agreeing with your post on 'the burden of guilt', this guy seems like a real case study.

"A woman calling a man a bitch is a very different thing than a man calling a woman a bitch; the latter is part of a long history of misogyny; the former is a relatively recent phenomenon. We have to judge words by their power to hurt".

"I can rail against the "unfairness" of judging me by the poor behavior of other men, but in this culture, that's fruitless. As men, we do have to accept the fact that collectively, we have given good reason why it is that we ought not to be trusted -- above all in the sexual realm. We can bemoan the injustice of paying for the sins of others, or we can shoulder the burden that our brothers have created for us (and that perhaps, in our own lives, we have helped to create). What that means practically is that I am committed to meeting suspicion with patience, openness, and accountability. I'm no longer hurt when folks don't trust me just because I'm a man -- I accept now that they have every reason not to."

http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/2006/05/someone_named_t.html

You can imagine the guy being trampled on by a feminist in big black high heels, and he'd just sit there going 'aaaah, yes, I deserve it... I deserve it, but... no.. not the eyes! Aaaah! I'd fight back, but it would just be adding further darkness to the cold night of misogyny that is Western history... oooh, my crotch! Aaah!'.

Why are so many males filled with guilt? I think it all comes down to the first Pookish Commandment: Be who you are. These guilt filled wimps are focused on what other people think of them. If feminists and academics say he is guilty, then presto, he is guilty. His value measuring stick is only in how other people percieve him.

I wonder if that is the root of all feminine thought: caring only how others percieve you. I have never met a woman who didn't care what others thought of her. Even the nastiest of feminists will point to fellow nasty feminists agreeing with her as if that is validity of her beliefs herself.

If a woman is bothering me, I have noticed if I say: "You should have heard what the other girls said about you!" BAM! She shuts up and demands to know what was said. As a man, I know I am percieved to be an ass to all women. But I know women care about what other women think and highly regard them so. Their female friends constantly backstab each other (or at least have the potential to). Female friendships are as thin as paper. So if I say, "Your friends said some of the nastiest stuff about you!" the woman will go bonkers. "Tell me!" she cries. "I must know what they said!" It is safe to say that every woman has told her friends secrets, even of the most nastiest sort, so even if I know nothing her fears of her percieved faults emerge. I just don't tell her and it drives her up a wall.

A real man doesn't care what others think or care about him. John Wayne does not ask people what they think of him. He just is who he is. When a male starts caring what everyone thinks of him, almost certainly he begins to adopt strange feminine characteristics. He may start to gossip, begin to dress to how others will percieve him, begin to talk in a way so he will be great in other people's eyes, and so on.

Every person filled with guilt (and I'm not talking about real guilt like the religious sin type) is due to them caring about what other people think. One person said to me, "Pook, do not wear your cowboy hat on your trip for the Californians do not like Texans." My response was, "**** the Californians! I shall lead an army of pick-up trucks and conquer their girly state! I am a Pook! I shall wear the biggest cowboy hat I can find!" The other states complain Texans have too much state pride. I just laugh at them. What else should I do? Should I grovel and feel guilty over nothing? As an American, I hear much anti-American nonsense especially that I ought to be 'ashamed' because there are non-Americans who don't like my country. "They hate us, Pook." So what!? When did nations begin conducting foreign and domestic policy based on being liked by other countries? There is nothing to feel guilty about with looking out for yourself... either in your nationality, in your relations with women, and so on. What is next? Am I to marry bitter washed out career women because... they will hate me if I do not? Please!

Let me get on my knees. "Please have mercy on me, oh most wonderful feminists. I was a silly Pook and thought I had to live life to my own soul rather than the authority of your shame." Screw that! Give me my cowboy hat. I would rather die on feet than live on my knees.

Cast off that matriarch's guilt and, suddenly, all their arrows of shame will bounce harmless off you. They cannot shame you or control you. The guiltless man has no place in their midst.

Chick Radio

Get your tissues! Air America is filing for bankruptcy. They haven't even paid Al Franken in quite a while.

You might ask, "But Pook, there are conservative talk radio in America. Why not liberal talk radio?"

Talk radio is a disruptive media. It is set to disrupt as an alternative to 'mainstream' media. I don't think liberals desire an alternative to mainstream media apart from blogging. There is no liberal discontent at the New York Times or ABC News as there is conservative discontent.

But I think a big element of it is entertainment. Much of the conservative talk radio, especially Limbaugh, is reportedly having an audience of 40% liberals. Why is half the audience of conservative talk radio being liberals? Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democrat leader (he got voted out!) was stunned by this. Talk Radio such as Limbaugh succeed in not because they are ideological but because they are entertaining. They have a 40% liberal audience because that audience is still entertained... even though they hate the hosts!

What was entertaining about Air America? People are also attracted to optimism, not pessimism. When looking back at electoral results, Reagan somehow won 49 states' electoral votes in the election of 1984. If you look at that campaign, you'll find rich sunny optimism and humor. This is the same reason why people flock to listen to Limbaugh or other talk radio. Was Air America filled with sunny optimism... or doom and gloom? Was it filled with humor... or anger? You can be a liberal and have optimism and humor... just look at JFK. But no one wants to listen to doom and gloom all day long. No one wants to listen to people who take themselves too seriously.

But as Air America files for bankruptcy, we have Feminist Radio! Yes, friends, Chick Radio founded by the great feminists of our era: Steinem and Fonda.

Steinem said the network, which is run by women, aims to provide an alternative to current radio talk, which she describes as "very argumentative, quite hostile, and very much male-dominated."

This network "has a different spirit. It has more community. It's more about information, about humor, about respect for different points of view and not constant arguing," Steinem told Reuters in an interview.

Talk radio is male dominated? Since when? And I thought its focus was always community, humor, and information?

But here is the fun quote:

Steinem pointed out that the idea of an all-women network stemmed from a company survey showing an 18 percent decrease in female listeners over the past seven years.

"Women are really fleeing from AM talk radio and now FM music because people get their music in different ways. So there's an enormous window of opportunity, and we're diving in," she said.

This is interesting. Why are female listeners declining? Perhaps they are all moving to the television?

And Chick Radio will fail as well. Notice how neither feminist mentioned its focus to be on entertainment? It is always so 'political cause' or 'social goal'. People want entertainment, not nonsense.

Apple is building the Windows of Entertainment

As the entertainment wave begins to crest and, soon, to wash upon all of us, a gigantic bubble will be made. This is similiar to the dot com bubble of the late nineties. Good ideas but without certain business models are destined to collapse. Make no mistake: Youtube and Myspace are bubbles that will pop. Do not invest in them. Stay away and enjoy their services while you still can.

Amazon's 'Unbox' of music and movie downloads is a desperate act. When was the last time Amazon made a download service? Amazon is good at shipping boxes but not much else. Amazon sees the trend changing towards downloadable content and knows that it will be left behind. Farewell Amazon. It's "unbox" is also certain for failure.

But the big story is Apple's 'iTV'. Why did Apple reveal the iTV early with its prototype name and with it not having a release date yet? Interestingly, this iTV will be competing with the 'top boxes' such as the Xbox 360 and PS3. Isn't Apple worried?

No. In the same way, people thought the Ipod was about the Itunes store or about the Ipod player and so everyone tried to copy that. But Ipod was really the birth of a new platform (the hardware and Itunes stores are just elements of that). No wonder Microsoft abandoned WMA to launch the Zune hardware! Apple is attempting to build a new entertainment platform.

Building platforms is hard and long work. Apple isn't too interested in the individual profits right now as it sees it as long term growth. Microsoft did the similar thing when building up MS-DOS and Windows. Both Microsoft and Sony are being left behind by Apple. Despite the gloom and doom said, Ipod still has a whopping 75% of the marketplace.

The iTV is being delayed due to technological reasons more than anything else. Wireless transfer technologies has advanced very fast lately but video is so much more data than audio. My brother works with such wireless technology and it is incredible by how rapid it is developing. Transferring video wirelessly? Piece of cake fairly soon.



How Orwellian!

Strength Through iTunes
iTunes Through Apple

Apple Prevails

What if IBM makes a commercial of an athletic woman running into a room of Apple brainwashed fans to throw a giant hammer at a screen of Steve Jobs? That would be interesting...

Too much oil

If you are a doomster, please do not read this article:

“The world has only consumed about 18 percent of its conventional potential,” Jum’ah said, contending that should lay to rest fears that the world is in danger of being tapped out within a few decades.

Oh no! This means even if we don't discover anything or are unable to tap into unconventional resources like the tar sands of Alberta, we will have over 130 years of resources! Alas, doomsters! What do you do when confronted with good news? Shall you hang yourselves on news of Human wealth and plenty? It is the doomster who doubts the cornucorpia of freedom and Human genius.

Clooney and Eisner on the Entertainment Wave

An emailer sends in a video about Clooney and Eisner talking about the 'next wave' in the entertainment industry. Since I don't feel like paying for the Google service, I can only get a minute or so of footage before commercials (!) start appearing.

But I wonder if Clooney and Eisner realize that they are going to be ones disrupted by the Internet upstarts? Disney isn't going to be benefitting from the disruption, that is for sure (unless Disney embraces disruption which I doubt they will).

Box Office plummets 26%

Hey Hollywood! Disrupt your entertainment model or you're going to find yourselves disrupted by an upstart outsider!

The box office experienced a horrific weekend in more ways than one. Not only did a horror movie that its studio declined to show to critics lead all others, but it earned just $9 million -- the first time in three years that the top film had made less than $10 million. Moreover, the total for all films was lower than any weekend of the year and down 26 percent from the comparable weekend a year ago to just $54.4 million, according to Bloomberg News. In an interview with today's (Monday) Los Angeles Times, Exhibitor Relations chief Paul Dergarabedian observed that while this is ordinarily a time of year when the box office slows down, "This is not a great way to start off the fall season." It was, however, fairly great for Sony Films, which saw The Covenant become its ninth film to open at No. 1 this year. It earned $9 million, well ahead of Hollywoodland, which garnered critical raves for its star, Ben Affleck. It placed second with $6 million.

The Path to 9-11

I just finished watching the show, "The Path to 9-11" which was only interrupted in the middle by a speech by the President. If you missed it, I would see it. By documenting and re-creating the series of events up to the hi-jackings, the show finally put 9-11 into tragedy.

Tragedy is a word so misused that the word has virtually been destroyed. Tragedy does not mean what most people think: of something very bad happening. 9-11 is not the tragedy. The tragedy is looking back on it and knowing that action could have been to stop it. Imagine a cute little pig-tail haired girl walking with her mother. The mother turns away to look at the sky (or something) and this cute little pig-tail haired girl runs into the street and is smashed by a bus. The smashing of the bus is not the tragedy. The tragedy is when the mother realizes her error for looking elseware at the time of daughter's run into the road. In all the plays, such as the ancient greek plays, that are "tragedies" including Shakespeare, this is the important point. The tragedy of Hamlet is not him dying. The tragedy is knowing that he didn't have to die. In the same way, an elderly 100 year old woman dying due to age is not a tragedy and never will be. But an obese person knowing they are going to die because they were stupid to eat all those milk duds in their life... that is the tragedy. Finally, a film on 9-11 that doesn't just show towers falling down but leads to the tragic elements that allowed the attack.

Three things surprised me after 9-11. First, on every anniversary, everyone tries to inject themselves into the story. "I was going to fly that day!" "I knew someone in the WTC!" And so on. Second, I never thought there would be conspiracy kooks who would possibly think the U.S. Government would be behind the WTC and Pentagon hits (but then again, there are kooks who think NASA never landed on the moon as well). And third, most humerously, I was stunned by the reaction of the Objectivists. The Objectivists, the so-called followers of Ayn Rand, were on television days after demanding nuclear war. They were the most hawkish of any political faction ever. One Objectivist I know was clearly surprised by their stance. I do remember how Ayn Rand literally worshipped the skyscraper and believed firmly in the philosophy of Capitalism. The Objectivists probably saw the WTC as their symbol and its destruction as the worst attack possible in their eyes.

The most amazing thing came when I helped move a friend to a local college. It was a sunny August Texas afternoon. While I was waiting for my friend, I was in the parking lot and something caught my eye. It was a man, with no shirt on, just leaning back on his pick-up. I emphasize the word man because he stuck out in a sea of androgenous beings that fill modern society.

He had an aura of masculinity I have never seen before. Granted, everyone of us, male and female, move in and out of masculinity (or femininity for girls) within our lives. When we get old or lazy, we tend to revert to a more androgenous form. But his form was sharply masculine. Imagine if a shirt-less Schwarzenegger appeared out of nowhere. You'd stare in awe. But this man was not a puffed up body builder. His muscles were hard and not the bubble like form you see body builders have. His skin was oddly tanned... even for south Texas. He was almost red... but not burnt. Almost as if he was bronze. Some people will think it is 'homosexual' to notice this. But when someone of either extreme femininity or masculinity ends up nearby, their sheer aura commands your attention. Everything about this guy was sharply defined. He had a cigar in his mouth puffing away. The best description I can give was that he resembled the Marlboro Man.

I decided to go over and talk to him. He said he was in the military and had just gotten back from Iraq (we were near Fort Hood). He also was helping someone move into the college. But he wasn't just another soldier in Iraq. He was part of a special team. I asked him more about this. This man was extremely laid back. He acted like he didn't have a care in the world (and why should he after returning from a war zone?). He then told me he was part of the team that captured Saddam Hussein.

What do you say to that? "You capture dangerous dictators bent on world domination? Hah! I do... uh... office work... and...fax papers... so beat that!"? Granted, this man could, with his leave from the military, just become a couch potato and shed off any masculinity into an androgenous form. But at that moment (it wasn't too long since Hussein was captured) he simply glowed testosterone. He wasn't "handsome" but extremely rugged. I'm sorry, I lack the talent of language to describe him. Let us just say when you look at an androgenous blog, your mind thinks, "Stillness." But when you looked at him, his aura was screaming action.

He is, as most masculine men are, nameless. You will never see his photo on the news or any parades in his honor. But he is the most masculine man I had ever seen... and probably will ever see in my life.

Letter defending men having options

These women want all the options in the world: to work, to not work, to get married, to not get married, to abort, to not abort, on and on and on.

But are men to have any options other than The Way? Apparently not. This letter (sent by an emailer) is common of many women's attitudes towards a foreign wife.

My favorite quote:

WOMAN: So, how does that make you different from women who are after men for their money or power?

MAN: I have no objections to such women. They can set their criteria in any manner they so choose. I provide an avenue for men to counter such women. I am not trying to restrict anyone´s selection of a spouse as you appear to be.

That sums it up. Never trust anyone who desires to restrict your options.

Cats are men to feminists

An emailer sent me these links. Mirror has always said to invest in cat food since the demand for cat food is going to be insane with all these single women and their cats.

Now we have some proof. These Whiskas commercials show that the audience is single women. Not only are all the 'masters' women, but all the pets are DUMB MALES. Really, you have it to see this to believe it:

Double Post

Due to an error, the Oprah post got double-posted. Instead of deleting the post, I have embarked on editing it into a giant picture of a variety of cheeses.

Mmm... cheese...

Women are desperate to get married

An emailer sent me a link to this hilarious Oprah story. A man was able to marry five women at the same time. Obviously, there are smart, strong, and substancial women who could only get 'played' if the man was a demi-devil. Well, at least Oprah thinks so.


According to all of these womens' stories, Eric's technique was to wow a woman with his false résumé—which often included references to him being a Navy SEAL or a pilot, including a crisp, white Navy uniform, and being orphaned and raised by abusive foster parents. He would then ingratiate himself to the women's families and propose marriage within weeks of dating.

From one of these woman's perspective, she meets a Navy SEAL in his crisp, white Navy uniform, thinks he falls in love with HER immediately, and proposes marriage within weeks.

Anyone who proposes marriage within weeks is crazy. Why would a decorated military officer so jump for marriage with one of these girls? It is because she thinks she is "all that".

There is a joke that I like which reveals women's narcissism. "My girlfriend and I both agree on one thing: we both think she is hot." Women do not LIKE these guys. They just like them liking her. Even if you are a mega-dork, she will still think you are 'OK' because you have good-taste for liking HER (which is obviously the greatest of all goddesses on Earth, at least she thinks so).


Like many of the women, Melissa says Eric displayed a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" split personality. "One day he would just be so sweet and loving and then, like, the next day, all of a sudden, he would blow up. He'd be throwing stuff around and push you around," she says.

Women love this! You become a mystery and are highly entertaining. Despite this 'personality flaw' that Oprah complains about, these women still marry him even after knowing of this.


"He told me he had inherited money from his mother, who had died when he was 2 years old, " she says. "He pretended like he had money, but I never actually saw it. He played it really well. I mean, he had a story for everything."

This guy knew what these women wanted.


A part of Eric's modus operandi, these women claim, was to lie about his own finances and steal from them.

"He stole four checks from my great grandmother, wrote one, made it out to me for $4,000, forged my name to the back of it and deposited it into my checking account," April, Eric's fifth wife alleges. "He also wrote three other checks to pay off some credit cards."

Awesome! A Gold Digger Male!


All of these women were made vulnerable by their emotional neediness, Dr. Robin says, and Eric was able to "sniff out" that they were weak and vulnerable. These women believed that they were insufficient on their own, so his con was sure to work on them. The goal for these and all women is to repair their spirits and eliminate this feeling.

So the doctor's advice is for all these women to become feminists. By not needing a man, they won't be prone to con games! You go Oprah!

What is interesting to me is that this guy did most of his behavior in Houston which I am located. His behavior is awful but if a woman did what he did, she would have been applauded and the man 'shamed' for speaking up.

A woman is allowed to marry under false pretenses. A man is not.

If women are allowed to be con artists in the game of love, why not men? Are these women mad that he wasn't in love with her or that they were not as 'hot' as they thought?

Coming of the Entertainment Wave...

An emailer asks:

I'm looking for some material on the increase number people downloading music,movies, videos, etc. instead of actually going out to get the physical product. i've notice a trend in some interesting articles...specifically this show i saw with charlie rose talking about the future of technology and entertainment...if you know of any books on that subject that would be great.

The way how I gain information on the entertainment industry is just studying the companies themselves. I don't know any books (though I'm sure there are probably some). But if you wait for books, it may be too late. Amazon is already announcing digital downloads. Apple is set for movie downloads. Like a tidal wave, the entertainment wave will echo the 'information wave' of the 90s that flooded the Internet. There will be a company that can network it all together somehow. Whoever that company will be, it will become bigger than Google.

Digital distribution of entertainment is only the very first (and small) step. The big thing will be doing entertainment in ways that wasn't possible before the Internet. Using video games as example, online multiplayer is just internet distribution of the bits. You could do that at home with a few people. But it was impossible to play a MMO at home. So the MMO games begin to create entertainment into a new way than before and generate ungodly amounts of money. I've noticed the game industry tends to hit the trends first before the rest of the mainstream industries.

So instead of television being digitally distributed from the TV company, a more disruptive element would be users distributing THEIR TV made content to each other and to the TV company. What if music was made by thousands of musicians each playing their part seperately and then adding it all together? Yes, this sounds silly. But I'm trying to think outside of the box, and I have no idea what the next 'big thing' will be. But this Entertainment Wave won't end at the 'digital distribution', it will be just as the beginning. Just as the Internet revolutionized information, it will do the same for entertainment.

This columnist didn't do his homework

CNN's Chris Morris says, from another analyst, the PSP will have a price drop very soon. Why does he say this? Because...

PSP sales have been solid so far, with 20 million units shipped worldwide (with over 8 million of those to the U.S.). That's essentially a tie with the Nintendo DS, which has sold over 21 million units - but the numbers don't tell the whole story.

While the DS has been on the upswing, thanks to commercially and critically successful games such as "Brain Age" (which has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide), "Nintendogs" and "New Super Mario Brothers," the PSP has not had a game truly capture the gaming world's attention since the release of "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories" (published by Take Two Interactive (Charts)) last October.

Maybe Chris ought to ask, "How is the hardware selling if the software isn't?" From last month's NPD numbers, GTA: LCS sold the same amount as Mario Kart: DS which is revealing how much disapointment the portable GTA has been. The game sells but not quite as retailers had hoped.

The answer is in those shipment numbers. While Sony has shipped many PSPs to retailers, even at the same level as DS, the retailer sales numbers points a different picture which is why Chris can, stunningly, say that the PSP has lost is momentum while saying its shipment numbers are even with the DS. Chris ought to put two and two together to figure out why Sony won't do a price cut.

If Sony did a price cut of the PSP, Sony would lose much of that money of all those PSPs that have been sent. So what I suspect Sony will do instead is to raise the value of the PSP by focusing more on the non-gaming functions as well as the PS1 game downloads to it. I think Chris is taking the word of this 'analyst' too closely.

How did this analyst get to his 'conclusion'? It is probably because he is busy playing armchair CEO. He gets the sales numbers as do we all and can clearly see a stall within the PSP. He then says, "Price drop imminent!" Sony has, after all, shown that it will do a price drop especially on a system like the PS2 if it goes below 200,000 sales in a NPD month. Also, Sony wants money. Is the PSP still profitable after a $50 price cut? Probably not which is further reason why it won't be cut.

Nintendo got burnt by shipping too many Gamecubes and, since, have been very conservative with their shipments. The DS is facing the issue of severe worldwide shortages this Christmas if Nintendo cannot ramp production. Japan is mainly to blame. Looking through the charts and numbers of Japanese sales is like having people chant 'DS! DS! DS!' all the time as this ytmd shows. System shortages. Cartridge shortages. Shortages every week in the summer months for goodness sakes.

There will some big news this week and next concerning the system launches.

Meanwhile, EA says that it plans for level console field. EA is the biggest game publisher so their word counts for something. Does EA really believe the console market will remain even three way? Of course not. This 'level console field' EA plans for is EA actually saying, "We don't know what the hell is going to happen this console generation!!!! So we will support all the consoles evenly!"

Other third party publishers have echoed similiar statements. Capcom has decided the handhelds are their more attractive option since the console market is "in chaos".

To those who are younger, you might not appreciate the unstable nature of the console market. Atari was once the fastest growing U.S. company with such a meteoric rise... and went bankrupt within a year. Nintendo entered the crashed market and revived it (which you can handily read about in most business books today). Sega arose out of nowhere. Sony, also, came from nowhere. Everyone predicted the DS to flop. I've never seen a more competitive, immature, momentum based industry that is as unstable [risky] (and profitable) as the console game industry. Out of the many companies that have entered the market, the only company to survive unscathed since the 1980s was Nintendo, since the 1990s is Sony. There is such a high failure rate (did you know only 4% of video games ever make money?). Anyone going into the console market has to be downright insane.

I agree with Chris Kohler (from wired magazine) when he says we might lose another big member of the games industry fairly soon (my guess would be Microsoft if it fails to generate money from the Xbox 360). The major investors, such as those who helped create Tivo and Xfire, say that the games industry is sick and it is going to rapidly change. E3 died for this reason.

Crazy Videos

Since Sunday is a day of rest, why not crazy videos instead of crazy commentary?

Interesting shirt technology.



More wacky technology.



Why does this remind me of the Wii?



When Pook's women get angry at him, they act stupid like this:



Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for six years (you see why Emerson says 'eyes are the gateway to the soul', everything changes except the eyes).



Illustration of how technology can overshoot a market (*cough* PS3 *cough*)



A woman finally manages to impress Pook.



A montage from one of my favorite movies. I was trained in the theater sword combat not too long ago and wouldn't mind being like an extra or something (would be fun to get stabbed on a big screen). We need less chick movies and more movies like this:

What Law Hath Joined Together...

Mirror's link to a must read article already covers the good commentary. I'll see what I can add.

Two quotes: beginning:

For the moment, while the Federal Marriage Amendment is moved to a back burner, it's a good time to heighten our awareness of a broader menace. Same-sex marriage is a symptomatic threat to families, compared to the more fundamental effect of "no fault" divorce. “Commentators miss the point when they oppose homosexual marriage on the grounds that it would undermine traditional understandings of marriage," writes Bryce Christensen of Southern Utah University. "It is only because traditional understandings of marriage have already been severely undermined that homosexuals are now laying claim to it." Michael McManus of Marriage Savers writes that "divorce is a far more grievous blow to marriage than today's challenge by gays."

It is true that the same sex marriage is emerging from the wreckage that is already marriage. But here is the question:

Is marriage a matter of Law or is it a matter of Society?

"What is the difference?" Society and Government are not the same. I do not have to go to a court to get a license to make a friendship or to reproduce. So why is there a license for marriage? In short, why is the marriage a matter of law at all?

When people complain of society becoming politicized or feminized, a better term might be Rousseau-ized. Jean Jaques Rousseau, critic to the Enlightenment, believed that the government bestowed its citizens with rights based on the so-called will of the people. Rousseau accepts that Mankind is of total inertness in the presence of legislators. The legislator, to Rousseau, is "the mechanic who invents the machine".

Rousseau's ideas are not compatible with U.S. system of government as the Declaration, and most people, accept people have natural rights and aren't "granted" them by wise politicians. Nevertheless, Rousseau saw the politician molding people like a potter molds his pot.

This infection of Rousseauism is the root of Feminism and even the no-fault divorce. Rousseau believed that society was artificial so there can be no such thing as natural such as friendship, family, marriage, or anything else. Feminists, as we know, do not believe in nature, both in biology and in society's nature. To a feminist, there is no 'natural' order. It is all artificial. This is why feminists believe passing new laws or controlling education in schools will result in changing society (unfortunately, society keeps insisting on reverting to its natural form. Poor Human Nature!).

Aside that society is all artificial and ought to be shaped by law, Rousseau's biggest infection has been the Social Contract. Since Rousseau thought there was no such thing as natural society, that artificial society would be obtained by everyone performing social contracts. It sounds good in theory until you realize that each of these contracts contains the teeth of law. This means instead of having a happy utopian artificialized society, we have law everywhere and anywhere.

The main complaint of marriage by men is that it marries you to the State. This is true. Marriage, which has become nothing more than a legal contract, is flushing law into your life. Now, you are no longer free. You are tethered, by law, to the state. Since marriage became nothing more than a contract, the same-sex "marriage" came about since marriage is now the contract, it now has nothing to do with the two people in it. It is annoying that when people talk about the institution of marriage, they refer to the law and not to the two people which is, supposedly, the reason why that 'contract' exists in the first place. I expect this 'contract' to be expanded to three people. Then many. Brother and sister will marry because it is only a contract and has no relevance in a natural society. (Keep in mind I am not spelling D-O-O-M, only what is the effect when marriage is seen as nothing but a contract).

My biggest disapointment has come from the religious. Marriage is one of the seven sacraments. Could you imagine churches allowing a law to determine whether or not you have been properly baptized?

But now that we concern ourselves that marriage has been destroyed by the adoption of Roussea's Social Contract as the definition of matrimony, the following will make more sense...

The divorce industry has, in affect, rendered marriage a fraudulent contract. While the dissolution of families affects the health of the entire society, parents and especially fathers must demand that marriage be made an enforceable contract. "No fault" divorces granted by family courts also confront church leadership, not only along lines of morality, but as it touches on the validity of their ministry. If marital bonds can be dissolved by government officials with no grounds or agreement between the marriage partners, the sanctity of a wedding ceremony is subject to disregard. Unless marriage is an enforceable contract, there is little point in preaching trust in it. It is not surprising that ever fewer are willing to marry while the marriage contract offers no protection of family, children, homes, or privacy, even to the extent of life-threatening impositions. It is one thing to tolerate divorce. It is another to allow government to impose it on unwilling spouses. When courts stop dispensing justice, they must start dispensing injustice. There is no middle ground.

What surprises me is how much I disagree with his 'solution'. The author of the article wants the contract to be 'enforcable' (HELLO? WHOM is going to enforce it? The State!). Nothing changes with his solution. An 'enforcable contract' still places marriage in the middle of the court room, and chains the State to your life.

By removing marriage from the greedy hands of the Law can you ever hope to take marriage back into society where it belongs (rather than the political kingdom). Whenever the marriage is seen as a matter of law, the State will own the marriage. This is why I believe the author is totally off the mark by recommending a stronger enforcement of the 'contract'. It is the confusion of marriage with the Social Contract that has caused marriage to be something you tie together and undo as simple, and frequent, as tying one's shoes.

Naturally, men avoid this legal leashing to the state. They see it for what it is. Just as naturally, men go off to enjoy their lives and deal with women outside of the matters of law.

We don't need a legislature or judges to fall in love, have children, have a loving family, to build a home, or to be happy with the fruits of life. So why do we need legislatures or judges for marriage?

If I said: "A family is not a natural thing. It is artifical. You must go recieve a license from the state to call you, your spouse, and your children a 'family'." You would think I was mad! But this is how everyone talks of marriage as if it is nothing more than a legal rope to 'tie' ourselves together. What is most disturbing is that this context of marriage, as some artificial contract created by the almighty state, is believed by everyone, including those 'fighting for the family'.

Uptight

Have you noticed how uptight people are these days? It is not so much a 'political correctness' as it is everyone becoming uptight (and using political correctness as their 'reasoning'). If someone makes a joke about something I believe, I try to laugh at it too. I don't see the point of going nuclear on the person.

Feminists are the most humorless people ever. They cannot take a joke and are filled with rage and hatred. Most politicized people are like this.

Even with everyday things do people tend to be uptight. If their food is served at the restaurant a few minutes late, they make a scene and storm out. Or if a guy sees something that is REALLY stupid and remarks, "Damn, that is so gay!" a political jihad is launched against the fellow for hatred and insensitivity. Schwarzenegger once called the outbursts from the California legislature as "girlie men" and, boy, they just got even more outraged. I hear that the uptight people are trying to fan flames on Schwarzenegger's 'hot blood' jokes with his staff.

"I am outraged!" We should call these people The Outraged. They just march around looking for something to be outraged about. They declare war over a molehill and their issues are like straws compared to the boulder events the era pushes on us.

That said, I think there are only a few issues worth getting worked up about...

1) Penalizing laws- These include the divorce laws, the stupid sexual harassment laws, corrupt family courts, and so on. No law is preferable than bad law. Western women do not have to love western men, but they should at least be unable to financially and legally destroy men. No person, male or female, should have such powerful legal leverage over someone else.

2) Taxes and things of this Nature- You cannot dodge a direct tax. My chest swells with pride when, several years ago, the legislature of Tennessee decided they needed more money so they were going to raise taxes (state didn't have an income tax at that point I think). While the legislature debated it, the people decided to give their say so. They marched the capitol, stormed the legislative palace, and made so much noise and ruckus that the politicians abandoned all talks.

3) Blasphemy- I consider it the lowest taste to assault someone's faith. Disagreement and debate is one thing, mockery is another. There was a group that held a play where the actors enacted Jesus and the twelve apostles all having a gay orgy. The play director seemed stunned that people would find offense at this. "Don't be religious extremists!" the play director yelled. But those aren't the religious extremists. I pointed her to the rioting Muslims (over a simple cartoon of Muhammed) and said, "Those are the religious extremists." Historically, people fought wars over their religion. You would think common courtesy and historical practicality would have these people know not to stick a twig in the biggest hornet's nest there is. No other religion tolerates such mockery: Hindusim, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and the rest. These people are spoiled on the easy tolerance Christians have and are surprised when Muslims slit their throats for even the most lighthearted mockery.

4) Ruining education- People can sell garbage as art if they want. But when they try to say that "we are as good as musician as Bach is today" I just have to laugh. There are some, who write in poor iambic pentameter, and think they are as good as Shakespeare. Everyone believes they are the next 'great artist'. If they want to live in a fantasy, go ahead. But changing the very definition of art and saying, "All those skills the artists learned up until the nineteenth century... let us forget about those and learn Modern Art instead." This butchery towards the Humanities ought to be opposed.

What amazes me that if I stand up and fight those four things, I am declared 'uptight' by The Outraged!!! "Why are you so uptight? You should just accept the marriage laws and try to find a good partner." You have better odds with Russian Roulette (and less pain too). "Why should you oppose... say... higher property taxes? It is for the public good! Don't be so uptight!" It is not uptight looking after the Pook good. There is no such thing as the 'public good'. The only reason why they want more of Pook's money is so politicians can become famous. We are just peons to them. "Don't be so uptight! Let us mock the gods with great zeal!" My dear, you are dancing on thin ice. But mockery is one thing, outright lies disguised as truth is another. Why should any faith allow lies about it to be spread? Makes no sense to me. "Art is anything I say it is! Don't be so uptight!" Then stop the hostility to the classics.

You have to pick your battles in life. Pretty much everything political isn't worth getting worked up about. I feel sorry for those whose happiness depends on what goes on in Washington (such as who gets elected, what bill gets debated, etc). The Outraged not only get uptight on all the wrong and lighthearted things (do you ever see Feminists laugh? Do you ever see these Outraged smile and enjoy life?), but they are passive on things that are worth getting angry about. A feminist saying "Stop being so uptight. Just marry, don't try change the law" is like Jim Crow telling blacks, "Don't be uptight! The law will always be what it is. Make sure you do not offend the White Man, and you should be OK."

NPD Sales for August 2006

These are the total sales in America for last month of August according to NPD.

Game Boy Advance 156k
GameCube 41k
Nintendo DS 278k
PlayStation 2 262k
PlayStation Portable 146k
Xbox 9k
Xbox 360 204k

A few of the games:

360 Dead Rising 337k
PS2 FINAL FANTASY VII: DIRGE OF CERBERUS 200k
NDS BIG BRAIN ACADEMY 73k
NDS BRAIN AGE: TRAIN YOUR BRAIN IN MINUTES A 74k
NDS MARIO KART 57k
NDS NEW SUPER MARIO BROS 179k

PS2 MADDEN NFL 07 885k
360 MADDEN NFL 07 477k
XBX MADDEN NFL 07 253k
PS2 MADDEN NFL 07: HALL OF FAME 127k
360 MADDEN NFL 07: HALL OF FAME 92k
PSP MADDEN NFL 07 58k
GCN MADDEN NFL 07 50k
GBA MADDEN NFL 07 3k
NDS MADDEN NFL 07 7k

Madden is probably the biggest franchise in the United States.

So what to make of these sales? Well, there is no handheld contest. GBA has outsold the PSP for this entire year. DS is outselling the PS2. What is interesting about the DS is that its third party sales are now much healthier than than the PSP's. There is no more handheld war anymore. DS won.

For the consoles, what to say? The PS2 is still doing strong. But the real story is the Xbox 360. All together, the Xbox 360 has sold around 3.5 million in America (it's strongest market). It has bombed in Japan and its European sales are not too good. Its software sales are awesome, however.

There is a war on the Wikipedia page about the Xbox 360's sales. In their comments page, fans are saying that the sales are really 5 million because of certain Microsoft financial statements. But the other side of the debate on the comments page is that the actual sales charts show a much different number: around 3.7 million worldwide. "How can their be a debate on those sales numbers?" you ask. Well, a console company doesn't sell their console to the customer. They sell them to the retailers and get their money from them. The retailer then sells the console to you. So the number that a console company sells will be more than the actual sales to customers. If we estimate up, we have 4 millions Xbox 360s in the hands of customers. Probably a million of them in the world sitting on store shelves which then adds up to the total five million in Microsoft's financial statements. Also, there isn't any way Microsoft will sell 10 million by the end of the year.

I hear that one of the main reasons Sega went bankrupt is that they (and their awful accounting) confused those retailer sales with sales to actual customer. So when their Saturn launched, Sega was overjoyed with the sales and popped the cork. No joke. It helped lead to the company's demise in the hardware market.

More frequent updates are coming soon. Don't mind these game industry posts. If someone told you that the (first) Ipod was going to come out and clobber the Walkman and, thus, disrupt the music industry, would it not be fascinating to watch it happen from a more business detail perspective? I'm pissed that I missed all that.

I suspect a similiar wild upset to occur in the games industry. I don't play games (like a normal gamer would) and haven't owned a console since... the Genesis. I'm just sitting back and watching. One unique thing about the games industry is, unlike other industries, young people have turned the 'console wars' into a type of sports game. Their 'team' is a console company (be it Sony, Microsoft, or Nitnendo) and they root for that company to 'win'. They do their damage control, their propoganda, their insane arguments with one another, and my favorite: their photoshops. It is quite entertaining in a strange sort of way.

I have been watching the analysts totally get this industry wrong. Only one analyst has gotten it right so far: Merrill Lynch. Reading this report is almost prophetic about the PS3. The $900 and year delay are accurate (Sony is eating some of that $900 cost for their $600 retail price). Interesting, in other reports, Merrill Lynch says that the Wii will be $200 and, oddly, that users will prefer Xbox 360 over PS3. Here is another analyst explaining just how wrong he has been. He admits to being stunned by the DS's turnaround, the stalling of the PSP, and the general flat sales of the Xbox 360. For the past year, we kept hearing about the 'war' between Sony and Microsoft from the analysts. It was curious that Nintendo wasn't even mentioned. After E3 2006, things apparently began to change. Now, Patcher says that "Wii is going to crush". It may be the only console that doesn't screw up its launch. If Nintendo is able to sell all 6 million consoles by March, it would have surpassed the Xbox 360 and probably the PS3's. "How can that many be sold?" Japan's craziness is one of those reasons.

Speaking of Japan, I haven't bothered putting up those sales charts since they say the same thing: DS at like 160k, every other system at 20k, games in the top ten are mostly DS titles. But one interesting thing going on there is factory problems. FF3 is having problems being reprinted as Square greatly underestimated demand. There are shortages of DS related anything throughout Japan. With the PS3 launching with only 100,000 units in Japan, I don't think it will ever catch up to the Wii once it is released. The big issue with the games industry is that Nintendo has adopted the Apple business model for the Wii, including the Mac font. "Why are they doing that, Pook?" Sony's Walkman was once seemingly invincible, look what happened. Nintendo noticed this big time and looks like it is trying to emulate that Apple strategy against the Playstation. Will it work? Who knows.

Here is something that has boggled my mind that someone brought to my attention. Why would someone tak about the console war in a sex article? Look at the first sentence under 'Medication'!

Ever since I've been anti-Matriarchy, I find those askmen articles to be more worthless than ever. Funny how when you change, other things change as well. The information and writing seem so shallow now, almost femine.

Due to the launches of two consoles coming up, there may be more of these 'game industry' updates (but only if something major like that PS3 shortage in previous post). Now before we go back to the good anti-feminism and Mill stuff, here is some good software birth control:

Sony says: "To hell with you, Europe!"

THIRD EDIT: OK, you guys are mean.

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SECOND EDIT: This gets worse. According to this...

In the U.S., about 400,000 PlayStation 3 machines will be available when they go on sale Nov. 17. About 100,000 will be available on the Nov. 11 Japan launch date.

The production problem is causing about a one-month delay that will reduce the company's supply capacity by about a million machines from the original plan, he said.

People may ask, "So what? People buy it later." They will lose many sales by this. Also, this is very much a momentum based industry. Also consider how much money was spent on the PS3 advertising blitz. All that money will be wasted. Why advertise a product that no one can buy?

Expect Sony stock to plunge today.

Also expect third party game companies to begin bailing on Sony if these launch numbers are true.

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EDIT: Forbes has jumped on this too. Some of you may go, "LOL, stop acting like a dork when talking about these game consoles Pook, LAWL." But this just isn't the video game industry in transition here, it is digital entertainment, the next movie format, as well as that merry 'top box in your living room' war Microsoft and Sony have.

Forbes is saying there will be only two million consoles for launch for America and Japan. It will be very difficult to get one. (Reuters is reporting production starts on September 7th. That is not much time to make millions of such a complicated machine.)

Sony's original plans was to have four million at launch. If they could get three million at launch, they would still launch in Europe. (The Fiscal Year Goals are still the same at 6 million by March but that will be a logistical challenge to meet). But if they can only get two million at launch and that is cannibalizing all the blu-ray parts from the stand alone player production...

I think we're seeing a similar Xbox 360 production fiasco with the PS3. By the time a PS3 is on the shelves where you could buy it easily would probably be in April of 2007.

The delay also includes Austraila and other smaller countries.

Even worse: Sony of Europe just launched their PS3 website yesterday (with trailers and all ready for the big advertising push)! Oh, they must have just learned about this!

I hear in Europe they were selling pre-orders with those 20 [pound] cds (or so). I doubt you'll get your money back for them.

To recap how fast these things change:

-at E3 2006, Sony says 4 million for launch, 6 million at end of fiscal year

-a little over a week ago, Kaz still says 2 million before '07 between 3 territories

-earlier this week, it was clarified to mean 2 million for launch, 4 million before '07

-now, Kutagari says "a little' over 2 million before '07


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The entertainment industry is entertaining to examine the business falls and spikes. But there is no entertainment more fun to watch than the game industry especially at transition. You never know what is going to happen.

Sony has just announced the PS3 will be delayed in Europe until March 2007. That means all those retailers in Europe just got screwed. Nintendo and Microsoft must be ecstatic.

The delay is because of the blu-ray components for the PS3. If they had to take Europe off the list, I wonder how much there will be available for Japan and America for launch. Losing a Christmas season in ANY of the big three markets is very bad. The bulk of game industry sales come at December and November.

But Sony fans should keep their head up. Sony is trying to bring back the UMD with them being cheaply priced. TGS should be big for Sony. There are rumors that the Killzone game will be featured and will be as good as the pre-rendered 2005 E3 trailer.

But also, in other news, Merril Lynch reports that Nintendo stock keeps going up. But it is not just Merril Lynch is saying this, all sorts of groups are noticing what is going on.


Nintendo is mimicking the exact same business and marketing strategy of the ipod. It will be entertaining to see how this strategy works in such a competitive market. Could Nintendo kill off the Playstation as Apple killed the walkman? Very doubtful. But regardless, it will be fun to watch the hysteria ensue within the next few months.

Groundbreaking study finds that narcissism runs in celebrities!

Yes, someone did a study on this.

Celebrities have more narcissistic personality traits than the general population, and people with narcissistic tendencies seem to be attracted to the entertainment industry rather than the industry creating narcissists, according to a groundbreaking study conducted by researchers Drew Pinsky of the Keck School of Medicine of USC and S. Mark Young of the USC Marshall School of Business and the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

As someone who is attracted to the entertainment industries, I would have to agree to a point. Sometimes narcissism can be mistaken for being 'soulful'. You cannot become a cog in a machine in the entertainment industry... unless you are on the technical or finance side of it.

I would say those who go into politics are more narcissistic. The most narcissist are those who go into journalism.

Reality TV personalities had the highest overall narcissism scores when compared with actors, musicians and comedians.

You don't say!

"Our research also shows that many celebrities exhibit narcissistic behavior prior to becoming famous, which could indicate a self-selection bias for the entertainment industry by certain personality types," said Young who holds the George Bozanic and Holman G. Hurt Chair in Sports and Entertainment Business at USC.

Most women have an interest in the entertainment business. This is why they talk about celebrities all day. "HEY, DID YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO KEANU REEVES? OMG!"

Your life is a stage for a woman to play the celebrity role she craves. When you take your life elseware, she has no stage. She cannot play the girlfriend, the wife, the mother, or anything worthwhile. Women love celebrities because they see themselves in them. So next time you fall asleep to a woman babbling about celebrities, remember what the Pook said: "She talks about narcissistic celebrities because, as a narcissist, she finds herself on common ground with them. Beware!"