Double Journey

Despite the fact I stated I never smoke, I was coincidently talked into smoking a Cuban cigar last night. I figured you don’t often get the chance to smoke one in the United States, so I might as well take advantage of the situation while I could. So I sat down with some friends and a few Cubans and a nice eighteen year old scotch.

Now while I don’t actually think the cigar sucked, I really don’t get what was so great about it. Maybe it is because I’m a non-smoker, but I really just don’t get the appeal of this. I honestly tried to enjoy it, but I just couldn’t. I don’t think it was particularly flavorful or anything like that. It just felt like I was inhaling some smoke. Now granted, I have nothing to compare it to. Maybe it is so wise to start out with the very best. But this will be the last cigar I probably ever smoke.

What do you think? Have you smoked a Cuban Cigar before? What did you think?

Figured I would follow up on my original post about trying to pick a winner between HD DVD and BluRay now that the industry is starting to pick sides. Warner Brothers announced that they would only distribute their movies on BluRay. Warner Brothers is the largest distributors of movies there is and this puts the momentum squarely behind the BluRay camp. This means that Sony, Disney, MGM, Fox, and LionsGate all release on only BluRay. These are the heavy hitters when it comes to movies, and

Many believe that when there finally is one format chosen, that this will move consumers away from the sidelines. However, I don’t think this “confusion” on the consumers part is really what is causing the delayed adoption of the next generation DVD format. However, I think this is bogus. I think adoption has been delayed because people are indifferent. While no doubt movies look better, most Americans aren’t going to waste buying a player that cost 5x more than a similar DVD player and disc that carry a 25% premium.

Most people I know think DVDs look just fine on their TVs, even their HDTVs.

So that means the winner is officially … downloaded movies. Seriously, I wonder if anybody really cares about the next generation DVD format. I certainly don’t despite Rick’s urging for me to get a BluRay player and HDTV. While DVDs were a leap ahead from VHS in terms of quality and form factor, I don’t see the same thing here. For god sake, the disc look exactly the same! The next leap is a form factor of nothing. I don’t have to carry it around or get it, it comes to me.

So there you have it. I don’t really care that BluRay seems to have brought the hammer to the HD DVD camp, because in the end, both formats are going to be irrelevant.