pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/mouse_x220.jpg" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2"/I'm no memory or brain expert, having only barely having the necessary equipment, but this a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/01/woman-has-perfect-ep.html"perfect episodic memory/a post on BoingBoing got me thinking about memory and how technology will alter it in the future./p pTo summarize, Jill Price, 42, can remember everything from the year 1980 on. This is fine if she wants to remember exactly when and where O.J. Simpson was arrested, but ihorrible/i if she wants to forget an embarrassing situation, a loved one dying or any slights anyone has ever caused her. In Price's case, she's actually not that great at all types of memory recollection, but can remember exactly how she felt during certain instances./p pThe researcher who studied her case and subjected her to five years' worth of tests, says that it's actually a part of our brain's design that we have to forget things. If there are too many connections, "the brain would be hopelessly overburdened and would operate more slowly." (a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,591972,00.html"Full article here/a)/p pBut in the next 50-some years, super memory may not be relegated to just the realm of individuals with specific genetic quirks, but belong to ieveryone/i by way of computer assisted memory. a href="http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200518/000020051805A0661216.php"Here's one of several research projects dedicated to the topic/a. Here's a a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E3D9173FF933A15755C0A9649C8B63"NYT/a article talking about replacing living neurons with silicon ones. It's all very far in the future, but would you want it if you could?/p pstrongNo/strong: If all it meant was an increase in what we currently have; meaning, the ability to make more memories like Jill Price but no further ability to control it. Not to get too existential, but what would you do if you couldn't forget ianything/i? You'd be like Leonard in a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/"Memento/a, reliving your wife's death every time anything reminded you of her. You'd alienate yourself from not being able to forgive others' indiscretions. No thank you./p pstrongYes/strong: If the technology gave you iextra/i abilities to control your memory. You could access anything you wanted from the pastmdash;a href="http://gizmodo.com/5101998/mamoru+kun-finds-misplaced-glasses-and-slippers-i-no-longer-fear-getting-old"where your keys are, for example/amdash;but control what you wanted to remember. a href="http://gizmodo.com/5067451/forget-for-good-chemicals-could-permanently-erase-memories-one-day"There's already a chemical found to erase long-term or targeted memories/a. Had a bad day at the office? Block it off, or at least block off the emotions that are attached to it. Had a family member pass away? Technologically put some distance between you and the event, letting mental scars heal faster. This option introduces many other implications that are more philosophical than we should get into here, but as we're doing more and more body modifications in the future, it's something we'll all have to think about./p pWhat do you think? Which would you choose? [a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,591972,00.html"Spiegel/a via a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/01/woman-has-perfect-ep.html"Boing Boing/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=91cb849daa6035c690911426bba68646p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=91cb849daa6035c690911426bba68646p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=91cb849daa6035c690911426bba68646" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=ru6xrwD3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=kf9io4zB"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=uA85Ul2q"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=uA85Ul2q" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=NqQX1Ol3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=NqQX1Ol3" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/1s8B003KYKo" height="1" width="1"/

Open Enterprise: "Those with good memories may recall a phase that Microsoft went through in which it issued (and generally commissioned) a stack of TCO studies that "proved" Windows was better/cheaper than GNU/Linux. Of course, they did nothing of the sort, since the methodology was generally so flawed you could have proved anything."

Welcome to this week's Games Update, our weekly summary featuring all new product arrivals from the last seven days.

Releases this week is a little calmer than last week, but still there is a number of sensational products. The true classic Chrono Trigger DS US version is released a week after the Japanese one.

For those who have played the game in the SNES era, you can now play it on your favourite portable system again and relive the fun, and for those who has never played it, you are missing out a lot and is in need of a quick remedy to that.

The decadently glamourous and dangerous place, Liberty City is expanding its territories into the PC landscape. While the English versions are out already, to allow more people to enjoy Grand Theft Auto 4, Simplified and Traditional Chinese versions are coming out within these few days. For more information, please see this special news entry.

Besides the ultra modern cities like Liberty City, ancient cities has its charm and its fair share of danger. Explore Persia in Prince of Persia on your third generation console. Neither the action nor the plot is linear this time round.

By exploiting the graphical capabilities of systems and the creativity of the script writers, the developers bring the hordes of monsters, landscape and plot alive before you.

While Prince of Persia weaves a labyrinth out of Ancient Persia, 428 Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de is an intricate network of plots that surrounds a case of kidnapping. Scoring a 40 out of 40 in Weekly Famitsu, this visual novel is a must see for all those who enjoys deep plots and have the tendency to delve into the bottom of things.

Enjoy some light hearted action after playing the nerve wreakingly exciting visual novel. Kaze no Kuronoa is a game for everyone. Explore the dream world and find out about nightmares. Jump, skip, run and throw, the simple controls and wholesome nature of the game ensures that your whole family can enjoy it.

Play a game of baseball with your family via Pro Yakyuu Spirits 5 [PlayStation3, PlayStation2 vers.] and your favourite baseball stars from the comfort of your living room. The newest data and records on this season's matches are all collected and incorporated to produce this game, giving you a feeling that the national matches are carrying on.

As 2008 approaches an end, Dragon Ball Z announced their last game, Infinite World on the PlayStation 2 platform. This game incorporates all the coolest elements of the series on the last generation platform and is a must have for all fans of this manga/anime converted fighter.

The simple and innovative controls and the smooth, cheerful pastel graphics won Loco Roco many fans when it first came out in 2006. Inheriting the interface, Loco Roco 2 [Asian & JPN vers.], the second installment of the rolling platform game comes with more songs and action. Roll and bounce through this holiday season as a cheerful blob.

As usually, here's a summary of all new releases from this week, followed by a quick preview of what is expected to be hot next week.

Xbox360™
Fallout 3 JPN US$ 78.90
Naruto: The Broken Bond ASIA US$ 49.90
Prince of Persia ASIA US$ 49.90
Saints Row 2 JPN US$ 68.90
Sonic Unleashed US US$ 64.90

PlayStation3™
Assassin's Creed (UBI the Best) JPN US$ 34.90
Brain Challenge ASIA US$ 39.90
Prince of Persia ASIA US$ 59.90
Pro Yakyuu Spirits 5 Kanzenban [First Print Limited Edition] JPN US$ 79.90
Saints Row 2 JPN US$ 64.90
The Eye of Judgment: Biolith Rebellion Set 3: Booster Pack US US$ 4.90

Nintendo Wii™
428: Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de JPN US$ 64.90
Cooking Mama 2: Taihen! Mama wa Ooisogashi!! JPN US$ 59.90
Hori Classic Controller (Light Blue) JPN US$ 29.90
Kaze no Klonoa: Door to Phantomile JPN US$ 49.90
Skate It US US$ 54.90
Ultimate Band US US$ 54.90
Wii Speak JPN US$ 39.90

PlayStation2™
Dragon Ball Z: Infinite World JPN US$ 64.90
Hisshou Pachinko * Pachi-Slot Kouryoku Series Vol. 11: Shinseiki Evangelion - Magokoro o, Kimi ni (Special Price) JPN US$ 34.90
Pro Yakyuu Spirits 5 Kanzenban [First Print Limited Edition] JPN US$ 68.90
Real Rode JPN US$ 68.90
Real Rode [Limited Edition] JPN US$ 89.90
Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi (PlayStation2 the Best) JPN US$ 34.90

Nintendo DS™
Age of Empires: Mythologies US US$ 34.90
All Star Cheer Squad US US$ 34.90
Blazer Drive JPN US$ 48.90
Boku to Sim no Machi Kingdom / MySims Kingdom JPN US$ 48.90
Chou!! Nep League DS JPN US$ 39.90
Chrono Trigger DS US US$ 44.90
Custom Battler Bomberman JPN US$ 48.90
Drawn to Life: Kamisama no Marionette JPN US$ 48.90
Eiyuu Senki Leavadein JPN US$ 48.90
Gokuhou!! Mecha Mote Iinchou: Mecha Mote Days, Hajime Masuwa! JPN US$ 54.90
Hajime no Ippo The Fighting! DS JPN US$ 48.90
Hello Kitty Daily US US$ 34.90
Hisshou Pachinko*Pachi-Slot Kouryaku Series DS Vol. 3: Shinseiki Evangelion - Yakusoku no Toki JPN US$ 48.90
Hisshou Pachinko*Pachi-Slot Kouryoku Series DS Vol. 1: Shinseiki Evangelion - Magokoro o, Kimi ni (Special Price) JPN US$ 29.90
Itouke no Shokutaku DS JPN US$ 39.90
Kageyama Hideo no Hanpuku Ondoku DS Eigo JPN US$ 39.90
Katekyoo Hitman Reborn! DS: Mafia Daishuugou Bongole Festival JPN US$ 48.90
Kikiite Hajimaru: Eigo Kaiwa Training - KikiTore JPN US$ 39.90
Kirihara Shoten Kanshuu: Daigakusei Ryoku Kentei DS JPN US$ 39.90
Monster Lab ASIA US$ 29.90
Mori no Cafeteria DS: Oshare na Cafe Recipe JPN US$ 48.90
Motto Hayaku! Seikaku Ni! Suu Sense Keisan Ryuoku Up Training - SuuTore JPN US$ 39.90
Neopets Puzzle Adventure US US$ 34.90
Prince of Persia: The Fallen King ASIA US$ 29.90
Princess on Ice JPN US$ 48.90
Sally's Salon DS US US$ 34.90
Sekai no Gohan Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi JPN US$ 39.90
Skate It US US$ 34.90
Ultimate Band US US$ 34.90

Nintendo DSi Accessories™
Fit Pouch DSi (Black) JPN US$ 12.90
Fit Pouch DSi (White) JPN US$ 12.90
Hard Pouch DSi (Black) JPN US$ 10.90
Hard Pouch DSi (White) JPN US$ 10.90

Sony PSP™
LocoRoco 2 JPN US$ 48.90
LocoRoco 2 ASIA US$ 42.90
Monster Hunter Pig Pouch JPN US$ 24.90
PlayGear Pocket Slim JPN US$ 19.90
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku (PSP the Best) JPN US$ 29.90

PC Game
EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey (DVD-ROM) US US$ 44.90
Fallout 3 (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 44.90
Grand Theft Auto IV (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 44.90

Guides & Magazines
Arcadia Magazine [January 2009] JPN N/A
Famitsu PSP + PS3 [January 2009] JPN US$ 10.90
Famitsu Wave DVD [January 2009] JPN US$ 16.50
Famitsu Xbox 360 [January 2009] JPN US$ 10.90
Fantasy Earth: Zero Armdedion Official Setting Sourcebook JPN US$ 32.90
Kanuchi: Shiroki Tsubasa no Shou Official Visual Fan Book JPN US$ 37.90
Prince of Persia Collector's Edition: Prima Official Game Guide US US$ 34.90
Prince of Persia: Prima Official Game Guide US US$ 19.90
Ryuusei no Rockman 3 - Databook - Secret Satellite Server JPN US$ 8.90
Super Robot Taisen Z Perfect Bible JPN US$ 27.90
Super Robot Taisen Z The Complete Guide JPN US$ 26.90
Weekly Famitsu No. 1043 (2008 12/12) Special Issue JPN N/A

Video Game related Soundtracks
Devil May Cry 4 Original Soundtrack US US$ 15.97
Fable II Original Soundtrack US US$ 15.97
Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari No Ken Original Soundtrack JPN US$ 21.90
Halo Trilogy - The Complete Original Soundtracks US US$ 29.97
Place Of Period (Higurashi No Nakukoru Ni Kizuna Vol.2 Theme Song) (~Mio Isayama) JPN US$ 11.90
Too Human Original Soundtrack US US$ 15.97

Here is a preview of what are expected to be hot next week:

PlayStation3™
Hakuna Matata (English / Chinese Version) ASIA US$ 49.90
Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan! (PlayStation3 the Best) ASIA US$ 29.90
Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan! (PlayStation3 the Best) JPN US$ 34.90

Nintendo Wii™
Samba De Amigo JPN US$ 49.90
Taiko no Tatsujin Wii JPN US$ 89.90
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Stick JPN US$ 79.90
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes JPN US$ 68.90

PlayStation2™
Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories US US$ 34.90
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (w/ Soundtrack CD & Artbook) US US$ 44.90

Nintendo DS™
Personal Trainer: Cooking US US$ 24.90

PC Games
Grand Theft Auto IV (Simplified Chinese Version) (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 29.90

http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...9-en-84-n.html

12/4/08 - It has been a long time since I last turned more than one creature sideways after declaring an attack. What? Where did that come from? Pretty random right? Considering that these are the words leading into an article written by the local Control-Freak, you can see why I wouldn’t be doing this very often. I mean, there are times that I forget to attack with my Mutavault when there is clearly no one to block, because I normally don’t declare attacks. I am parrying them. So why would I be leading into an article like this? ~Chris Newton~

!-- pageType= magazinesmall slug= ff_blodget section= techbiz subsection= people headline= Financial Industry Scapegoat Reinvents Himself as Financial Reporter authorName= Daniel Roth creditType= photo credit= Mike McGregor caption= Henry Blodgetis back, and his straight-talking analysis of the Web world is earning him new fans. -- pstrongHenry Blodget/strong has never gotten used to the chorus of hate that follows his every move. He's merely learned to live with it. When he started his personal blog in 2005, the comments a href="http://www.internetoutsider.com/2005/10/welcomeand_than.html"dripped with disgust/a. "You are a boldface liar," a reader wrote. "Give me one reason why I should believe what you are writing," said another. And that was just in response to Blodget's innocuous first entry. /ppDuring his years as a star Wall Street analyst, his pronouncements were welcomed and celebrated; now he couldn't say hello without getting savaged. Just last August, TechCrunch mentioned that Blodget would be one of more than two dozen tech celebrities a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/15/4-new-experts-henry-blodget-josh-kopelman-tim-o%E2%80%99reilly-robert-scoble-join-techcrunch50/"judging a contest/a for startups. Blodget knew what was coming, even if his hosts didn't. "Blodget is scum.... He is no longer the arrogant prick we saw in the '90s, but he's still scum," someone wrote. "A lot of people lost money listening to this dirtbag." "Blodget is a Web 1.0, bubble-creating has-been." "He is unethical." "He's as crooked as they come."/p pI meet a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/henry_blodget.html"Blodget/a at the offices of his new business, a year-old site called a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/"Silicon Alley Insider/a, shortly after the TechCrunch beat-down. Alley Insider is one of many tech business blogs that feed news, earnings info, and rumors to investors and corporate insiders. But Alley Insider has one thing that others don't. Blodget. He's smart, he's skeptical, and he's got the kind of self-assured voice that sells well in the blogosphere. As the market sinks, his opinions are even more in demand, though he's still hated by a large portion of his prospective audience./p pThe site shares two floors of a Manhattan office building with programmers and business staff for some of Alley Insider's sister companies, all of which were started by former DoubleClick CEO a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/kevin_ryan"Kevin Ryan/a. Blodget works in a double-wide cubicle near a window, separated by a low wall from the site's two other editors. They spend their days crawling Twitter and RSS feeds, calling sources, and pumping out about a dozen daily takes on the business world, most with Digg-friendly headlines (no easy accomplishment with bone-dry business stories). "Is Facebook Distracting Us From Porn? No" is a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/is-facebook-distracting-us-from-porn-no"typical/a, or "a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/googles_ginormous_food_budget_7530_per_googler"Google's Ginormous Food Budget/a: $7,530 Per Googler, $72 Million a Year." Blodget tells his team to think of the site as talk radio: He wants readers to feel compelled to check in several times a day to get the Alley Insider view on everything going on in their world./p pFor privacy, we duck into a small conference room, and Blodget, tall and skinny, sinks into a ridiculously deep leather chair. His floppy dirty-blond hair gives him a youthful, almost carefree air, but the deep circles that ring his eyes tell a different story. He's managing a 24-hour news startup. It's midday and he's been posting since 5 am. And then there's the burden that comes with being Henry Blodget, digital punching bag./p p"There are obviously a lot of folks who say, 'Now wait a minute, isn't that the guy who....'" He lets the thought trail off. He's legally barred from talking about the incidents that led to his vilification. "To them, I'm emthat/em Henry Blodget. There's not much more I can say. I still can't address specific points. So it's like, 'OK, here's my face. Throw the fruit. When you want to stop throwing the fruit, if you want to listen, great. If you don't, fine.'"/p pIt's been almost a decade since the impulse to greet him with rotten mangos first struck. Back in 1998, as a 32-year-old analyst with investment bank CIBC, he a href="http://www.thestreet.com/markets/analystrankings/977502.html"declared/a that the stock price of Amazon.com would nearly double to $400. Three weeks later it did, and Blodget was a hero. Soon he packed up his spreadsheets mdash; he's never more comfortable than when he is lining up numbers in rows and columns and teasing out their secrets mdash; and moved to Merrill Lynch./p pInvestors followed the new oracle's every utterance, and bankers wanted Blodget to bless the stocks of companies they were hoping to do business with. The lines on his graphs always seemed to point one way mdash; steeply up and to the right. He wasn't just predicting profits, he was selling a revolution: The old metrics didn't apply. Blodget may have counseled people to own only a small percentage of Internet stocks mdash; 10 percent at the most mdash; but nobody listened./p !-- pagebreak -- div id="embed" style="width:370px;" div id="pic" style="width:350px;" img style="width:350px;" src="http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1612/ff_blodget3_f.jpg" alt=""/ div id="caption" Launched in 2007, Silicon Alley Insider is gaining on some of its established rivals. br/ emSource: Compete/em /div /div /div pThen came the crash. Five trillion dollars in wealth vaporized in 24 months, leaving behind unquantifiable amounts of rage among the masses of day traders who had believed briefly that they, too, were market savants. When the bubble burst, so did Blodget's aura./p pStill, it wasn't the crash alone that crushed him. It took Eliot Spitzer to turn Henry Blodget into emthat/em Henry Blodget. Spitzer, then New York's crusading attorney general, investigated Merrill in 2001 for conflicts of interest. He discovered a clutch of emails from the young analyst showing that while talking up certain stocks to clients, he was trashing them internally. Companies like 24/7 Media, Excite@Home, and InfoSpace mdash; firms Merrill was publicly cheering mdash; in private were deemed by Blodget to be "shit," "crap," and "junk" (respectively). According to Spitzer's findings, Blodget would have pulled in $12 million in 2001 mdash; quadruple his earnings in 1999 mdash; if he hadn't accepted a buyout that year. In 2003, Merrill's boy genius agreed to pay a $4 million fine and accepted a lifetime ban from working in the securities industry./p pPublic disgrace usually drives a person into hiding, or at least into a different career. Jerry Levin, the brains behind the disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger, today runs a href="http://moonviewsanctuary.com/staff"Moonview Sanctuary/a, his wife's spa; Spitzer, forced to resign as governor last summer, is currently discovering the a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2008/06/10/spitzers-next-act-distressed-real-estate/"joys of real estate management/a; Health South CEO Richard Scrushy, while on trial for accounting fraud, a href="http://www.richardmscrushy.com/biography.aspx"became a televangelist/a. Not Blodget./p pOne former colleague says Blodget spent the months when he was being investigated trying to grasp why he was singled out for something that was commonplace in the industry. He figured the controversy would blow over once the public realized his conduct was not unusual. "He was incredulous that the investigation got traction; he said it was silly," a friend says. But there was too much anger in the wake of the bubble, and Blodget's embarrassing emails made him an easy scapegoat. Later, when he was inclined to argue his case, the settlement terms prevented it./p pSo Blodget did what came naturally. He began writing about the companies he used to cover, a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2104656/"first for Slate/a, then on his own blog, a href="http://www.internetoutsider.com/"Internet Outsider/a. Was this journalism mdash; or was it therapy? Rather than hide, he started saying in public what he had once said only in private, using the same brutally frank voice that got him in trouble with Spitzer. He marketed his notoriety to a new Web readership hungry for smart, independent analysis./p pWhen Ryan, an Internet Outsider reader, approached him about starting an industry news site, Blodget jumped at the prospect of a bigger stage. Before working on Wall Street, he'd been a freelance writer; now he could combine the two vocations, borrowing freely from both journalism and equity research./p pThrough Alley Insider, Blodget is trying to erase, post by post, Spitzer's portrait of him as a duplicitous, money-grubbing shill for big business. Blodget has always believed that the Internet changed everything, so naturally he believes it has the power to change the world's perception of him. The venue offers all Henry, all the time (and even when his other writers are posting, it's clear they're channeling him). The result is a unique blend of x-ray analysis and tech evangelism./p pAs we talk, Blodget gets up from his chair, antsy to return to his laptop. I ask him if he understands what he's up against. If the hate has lasted this long, why expect it ever to fade away? "If all I knew about me was what I read during that period," he says, "I'd probably have the same reaction."/p pstrongOn a late summer morning/strong, Blodget waits in the lobby of the Nasdaq building in midtown Manhattan. He's all banker today: blue suit, red tie, black cap-toed Oxfords, his shirt so deeply pressed there are creases down the sleeves. It's 10 am and, ready for his second breakfast, he pries open the plastic case of a turkey and Swiss sandwich and starts wolfing it down. In a few minutes he is supposed to conduct a video interview for Yahoo's Tech Ticker finance site. As soon as Blodget started appearing as a regular host in February, the Furies a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/650/Jerry-Yang-Strikes-Back;-Here%27s-Microsoft%27s-Next-Move?tickers=yhoo,msft"reemerged/a. "Did you not find any other decent, credible guy than Henry Blodget?" one of the first comments read. "Why spoil this new feature with such a scum and spoil the Yahoo reputation?"/p pAs producers prepare to tape the show, Blodget wipes his crumbs off the table. He explains the guiding vision behind Alley Insider. "We don't want to do things we don't care about," he says. "It's nice to say theoretically we're the judge of what's important and what's not, but come on, give readers credit. They'll tell you immediately what they want, and that drives coverage. People are fanatically interested in Apple, Google, Microsoft. It wasn't a tough call to know what to write about."/p pBlodget's focus on content is matched by his apparent indifference to the look of the site. Alley Insider employs a cookie-cutter template of scrolling headlines and thumbnail photos dragged off the Web. But design limitations notwithstanding, by September the site was getting nearly 500,000 visitors a month, rivaling a href="http://allthingsd.com/"AllThingsDigital.com/a, the citeWall Street Journal/cite blog edited by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Since the beginning of the year, traffic to the site has more than doubled, and Blodget's words now carry surprising weight. When a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/apple-s-steve-jobs-rushed-to-er-after-heart-attack-says-cnn-citizen-journalist"he reported/a early this fall that Steve Jobs may have been rushed to the hospital after a heart attack mdash; citing an anonymous (and, as it turns out, fraudulent) post on a minor user-generated news site run by CNN called iReport mdash; Apple's a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/technology/apple/"stock dropped/a nearly 10 percent. Critics blamed Alley Insider./p p"I read citeThe New York Times/cite, citeThe Economist/cite, and Alley Insider," says a href="http://www.firebrandpartners.com/principals/index.html"Scott Galloway/a, head of investment equity firm Firebrand Partners, who is best known for his successful public fight to get on the board of citeThe New York Times/cite. "Henry takes a no-mercy, no-malice approach to Web business and media." Valleywag recently called him "the disgraced stock analyst everyone now listens to."/p !-- pagebreak -- div class="wide_img" img src="http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1612/ff_blodget2_f.jpg" alt="" div class="wide_caption" div class="wide_caption_txt" The team at Silicon Alley Insider (left to right): senior editor Dan Frommer, COO Julie Hansen, cofounder Kevin Ryan, and editor in chief Blodget. br/ emPhoto: Mike McGregor/em /div /div /div br/ br/ pFor all the success today, it took Blodget amp; Co. some time to figure out a winning formula. When Ryan, a New Yorker, launched the site in 2007, he wanted to cover the local startup and media scene. Blodget signed on as CEO and editor in chief, bought a minority stake, and hired citeForbes/cite journalists a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/peter_kafka"Peter Kafka/a and a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/dan_frommer"Dan Frommer/a to help him develop content (Kafka was later hired away by AllThingsD). The first few weeks, the site read like a tourist's guide to spotting B-list Internet companies in the big city, with each firm's location prominently announced: "NoHo-based Meetup has quietly launched a Facebook application"; "Flatiron-based YellowJacket Software has raised $1.25 million." Blodget branched out, taking on the bigger names himself mdash; Apple, Dow Jones, NBC, JP Morgan. It quickly became clear to him that New York's tech industry was too small an arena to contain the ambition of the site. And nearly half the readers were in California anyway./p pAlley Insider soon dropped its Silicon Alley focus but stuck with the moniker. And Blodget began to draw more heavily on his research experience. He created financial models of the companies he was talking about and posted the spreadsheets as Google docs so anyone could download and toy with them. He analyzed the potential revenue YouTube could bring to Google, mapping out his assumptions about viewership and ads watched, and offering a clear bottom-line conclusion. Readers weighed in with their critiques, which Blodget used to sharpen the model. He figured he wouldn't just write about Wall Street, he would also usurp part of Wall Street's business by providing high-quality research, the kind brokerage customers used to prize./p pBut visitors to the site wanted more than analytics. They also craved the edgier Henry of the Spitzer emails. Blodget obliged. In one post, a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/1/ben_stein_is_an_idiot"Blodget declares/a citeNew York Times/cite economics columnist Ben Stein to be either "an idiot" or possibly just "delusional." He suggests that the anonymous sources cited by archrival TechCrunch in its reporting on Microsoft's attempt to purchase Yahoo "a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/yahoo_stock_fades_as_techcrunch_microsoft_takeover_sources_sober_up"must have been drunk/a." And in November 2007, when E-Trade lost $9 billion in value as its risky mortgage bets turned to dust, Blodget offered only one piece of advice to the company's shareholders: "a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/11/etrade_etfc_total_cost_of_screwup_9_billion"Cry/a."/p p"On Wall Street, I'd consistently submit a report that would say, 'This is going to be roadkill,' and it would come back rewritten as 'We see some weakness,'" Blodget says. "Now I can say, 'It's going to be roadkill.' That's very satisfying."/p pBut even as he delights in railing against corporate giants, he's still disciplined enough to run the underlying numbers mdash; Blodget loves the drama, but he loves the spreadsheets just as much. One post about craigslist should have been something only an accountant could love: a complex set of assumptions and analyses to determine what the company might be worth. Yet Blodget wrote the whole exercise as if it were a mystery plot, parceling out details and stringing the reader along until the very end./p pWhen Yahoo announced this summer that it had hired Bain amp; Co., a consulting firm usually brought in when a company is about to start swinging the ax, Blodget a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/yahoo-fat-farm-how-many-people-does-yahoo-need-to-fire-to-get-fit-"sharpened his own pencil/a. "We're mad as hell ... especially now that Yahoo's wasting millions on Bain." He offered his own, free advice (spreadsheet attached) cataloging how many people Yahoo should fire in each division mdash; 1,804 from its "positively obese" sales and marketing arm alone mdash; in order to goose operating margins to a "more respectable" 20 percent from its current 7 percent. "He pushed us early on to ask, 'What does this mean for profits? How does any news affect a company's numbers?'" Frommer says. "It's great if it makes a company look bad or look good, but is this really going to affect the numbers?"/p pBlodget is also trying things that no mainstream-journalism-trained blogger like Swisher or GigaOm's a href="http://gigaom.com/"Om Malik/a would ever dare. He makes serious-sounding offers to buy companies that he wants to demonstrate are significantly undervalued. It's pure showmanship, but with Blodget's background in finance and his ties to folks up and down Wall Street, no one knows just how far he will take the joke./p pHis first target was CNET. With the a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/12/announcing_our_friendly_takeover_offer_for_cnet"slightest of winks/a, he wrote a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/1/cnet_update_on_our_offer_and_restructuring_plan_part_1"post after post/a explaining how he'd a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/jana_here_s_our_plan_for_cnet"purchase the company/a. At first he proposed a sort of reverse merger, with CNET buying Alley Insider for $50 million in stock, at which point Blodget's team would take over every aspect of the company. Then he detailed the operational changes he would make./p !-- pagebreak -- pRyan got nervous about Blodget's new direction. Blodget's deal with the government forbade him from giving individual research advice, but it didn't say anything about jumping into the private-equity space. Still, there might be legal issues. "Look, why don't we run this by a lawyer just to make sure, because we're getting into securities stuff here," he said to Blodget. When the lawyer asked them "Is this a real offer?" there was a brief silence. For the first time the two really thought about it./p p"You know, yes," Ryan replied. "If they said yes, we would accept $50 million at that time to buy them. So it is a real offer. But we're actually asking them to buy us." The lawyer signed off on the convoluted reasoning./p pAfter Blodget's taunting posts went up, investment firm JANA Partners announced a hostile takeover attempt of CNET. It failed, but by spring 2008 CBS a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/cbs_buying_cnet_for_1_8_billion"stepped in to buy/a the company for $1.8 billion./p pFor one CNET executive, memories of Blodget's unwanted attentions still rankle. "The way you make a big name for yourself on the Web today is to make, for lack of a better word, ridiculous statements," says Zander Lurie, former senior VP of strategy and development at CNET and now CFO of CBS Interactive. Lurie found himself reassuring employees who sent him Blodget's postings and wondered whether their company was at risk. "Everyone knew there was nothing in the offering: He didn't have the capital, the expertise, or any specific insight into our business," Lurie says. "He makes the ridiculous statement and it gets sent all around, and then he claims credit when there's an event the following year, which obviously he had nothing to do with. Less than zero to do with. We all have reputations. And his track record is well known."/p pBlodget has been a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/how-the-new-york-times-nyt-can-save-itself"waging another/a half-serious acquisition fight, this time for the New York Times Company. All he wants is the Web site mdash; the print side is dead, he says. He thinks the paper needs to cut about 80 percent of its costs, at which point it would be the perfect size to be the digital paper of record for a long time to come. "It's a serious offer from our perspective, but it hasn't been taken seriously," Blodget says./p pstrongIn the wake of Wall Street's latest meltdown/strong, Blodget finds himself in even greater demand. He's doing regular TV appearances and is posting again on Slate. When NPR wanted someone to talk about the Wall Street culture of greed, they a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94667073"brought in Blodget/a. The reporter introduced him by pointing out that Merrill is now gone, "and Henry Blodget is gone, too; he's banned from Wall Street after being charged with fraud."/p p"Thanks," Blodget said, stuttering for a second, "especially for that horrific introduction." They both laughed. But by the end, the host was treating Blodget like an elder statesman./p pRecently Blodget has been expanding his franchise. He and Ryan have launched two sister sites: a href="http://www.clusterstock.com/"Clusterstock/a, which will compile and analyze Wall Street research on a much wider range of industries, and a href="http://www.businesssheet.com/"the Business Sheet/a, which will focus on corporate scandals. A third is in the works. For each new site, Blodget provides the bulk of the early posts, seeding the new enterprise with the Blodget touch./p pBlodget is broadening beyond tech to get ready for what he sees as a coming shakeout in the news-blog industry. He says he might even start making acquisitions if the price is right. Ryan's suite of companies has raised $50 million in the past few years, possibly enough to buy out some other interesting small blogs. The winning formula for this new kind of business remains elusive: It's a matter of finding the balance between gossip and analysis, between aggregating news from other sources and doing original reporting. Revenue models that go beyond basic advertising have also been slow in coming. "If you look at the development of every new medium, there's been a new form of journalism that has been made possible by it, and there has always been this period of transition," Blodget says. "There is collective experimentation as people figure out what works and what doesn't, and usually you have some very important publications that are built."/p pAnother way to expand is to sell to a larger media company. Blodget says he'd consider an offer, but Alley Insider is still defined almost entirely by one man. If he left, the value would plummet. Also, some media institutions mdash; the grayer, stodgier ones mdash; may find Blodget's unique baggage unacceptable. The endless barrage of comments, the angry mob that seems to follow him everywhere, may be too much for the sensitivities of some management teams, even in these freewheeling days of media transformation. When Blodget wrote a few small items for citeThe New York Times/cite, the newspaper's a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11pubed.html"ombudsman went haywire/a. "The citeTimes/cite luster may help Blodget," he wrote last year, "but some of his taint rubs off on the citeTimes/cite."/p pIt's just the sort of comment Blodget has come to expect from, well, everyone. That may change, but only if this latest reinvention succeeds in burying his past forever. In which case, he will have been right: The Internet really does change everything./p pemSenior writer Daniel Roth /em(a href="mailto:daniel_roth@wired.com"daniel_roth@wired.com/a) emwrote about the a href="/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi"future of the electric car/a in issue 16.09./em/pbr style="clear: both;"/ a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:e5509a1338aa2d046a0f36f53c86fd46:KTSfKmr30cBfHohgGm6zBCE5aLDI579Ry5%2FoG9QrW9e1KIT2xpDAJhCNE%2FP6%2BodTaIRTxDwhJCc5xg%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to Facebook' alt='Add to Facebook' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:85af8ef1f22075639f5e1be7151d039b:KjXRBL7FimCdPfkcPkDUOZbe%2BR8tiL4gaeJxl%2FnucFQ8UL28mzRmZSeHpMqoJwFUINppaALMULUa'img border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:db4d557cf92ff9467e13e01b1aee6530:PWDj6Lri2aPp2F0l1o37LwimABRJS%2Bw%2FOQMMPSWuRMZRLZhLRGI4Q9jz2JLAIoyYna2BguNYIBWs'img border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:064842e7a9d26f4e96559df7ad75369c:Ri7lRQ2YuIojw9J42qFhanIkt9g%2B2lNj7ky0mPfhji4DJCDrd66IrgRLO78oVkOke9RGBuQDA3ra'img border='0' title='Add to Google' alt='Add to Google' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png'//a br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c54405cdda6d6c80dfe38fdee8a0c2a5p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c54405cdda6d6c80dfe38fdee8a0c2a5p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c54405cdda6d6c80dfe38fdee8a0c2a5" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?a=V04TVZ"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?i=V04TVZ" border="0"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~4/474334201" height="1" width="1"/

Author: McPheeeee Keywords: David Archuleta Added: December 3, 2008

I have a very old iMac G3 that's still working. I was wondering whether I should upgrade it to Tiger or Panther, but I'm not sure whether it would be capable of running OS X. I tried looking for the computer specs, but I couldn't find it. It's running OS 8.6 right now.
I am still not sure whether to upgrade, because this computer gives me so many memories. The Operating system and the files give me all these memories from the past, but a simple back-up of all of the files doesn't sound good to me, because the operating system is a big thing. The big question is... should I upgrade? Can I dual boot the system to OS X and 8.6 as well? Please help me. Thanks!

EDIT: I also have a MacBook, so I wasn't sure whether I should upgrade it to OS X. I haven't used the iMac for a while, because 8.6 doesn't seem as great as OS X. Do you think I should upgrade it to OS X?

I've long been of the opinion that nostalgia should be left in the rose-tinted memories of the past, where it belongs especially in the case of video games. The sad fact is that our wonderful memories of yesteryear's games often don't age well when presented with modern gameplay advancements and HD graphics (caveat: Megaman 9).brbrThis sentiment was unfortunately lost on Calling all Cars game designer, a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/david-jaffe/4553" id="tag" title="videogame designer and director"David Jaffe/a who sought to recreate the magic he felt playing circa 1993's span style="font-style: italic;"Rock 'n Roll Racing/span without appropriately modernizing his creation for 2008. He explained that this was indeed a bit of a mistake on his part over the course of an eight minute YouTube video on the topic:brbrp style="text-align: center;"object height="344" width="425"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eZE_qQwCmPEamp;amp;color1=0xb1b1b1amp;amp;color2=0xcfcfcfamp;amp;hl=enamp;amp;feature=player_embeddedamp;amp;fs=1"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eZE_qQwCmPEamp;amp;color1=0xb1b1b1amp;amp;color2=0xcfcfcfamp;amp;hl=enamp;amp;feature=player_embeddedamp;amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"/objectbr/pbrhr style="width: 100 ; height: 2px;"span style="font-weight: bold;"brRelated Articles:br/spanullia title="David Jaffe: God of War III looks like a painting come to life" href="http://ps3.qj.net/David-Jaffe-God-of-War-III-looks-like-a-painting-come-to-life/pg/49/aid/126619"span style="font-style: italic;"David Jaffe: God of War III looks like a painting come to life/span/a/lilispan style="font-style: italic;"a title="David Jaffe gives ballpark date for next game: 2010, perhaps sooner" href="http://ps3.qj.net/David-Jaffe-gives-ballpark-date-for-next-game-2010-perhaps-sooner/pg/49/aid/126491"David Jaffe gives ballpark date for next game: 2010, perhaps sooner/abr/span/li/ulbrbrimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/qj/ps3/~4/Re2VkAQOwrU" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/logitechmice.jpg" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="750" height="289" style="display:block;float:none;" /I love Logitech mice, so I actually dug a href="http://gizmodo.com/5101257/logitech-timeline-of-mousery-is-full-of-memories-logitech-advertising"their shameless mouse timeline/a. Even more awesome, though, are these a href="http://blog.logitech.com/2008/12/03/one-billion-logitech-mice/"amazing prototypes that never left their lab/a, like the three-scroll wheel monstrosity and hockey puck above./p pThey get wonderfully cheeky about them too, saying that the hockey-puck mouse "looked cool but turned out to be less than comfortable." (WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE.) Here are a few of the more ridiculous ones, but be sure to check out the whole run. It's hard to believe some these even made it off the page, much less into a polished, physical form in some cases. Of course, none of them will ever top my beloved, retired MX500./p pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/logi4.jpg" width="807" height="420" style="display:block;float:none;" /br img src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/logi.jpg" width="807" height="468" style="display:block;float:none;" /br img src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/logi2.jpg" width="807" height="329" style="display:block;float:none;" / Really fantastic. I wish more companies would show us some of their aborted lab creatures. [a href="http://www.logitech.com/pub/onebillion/multimedia/mice_that_didnt_make_it.pdf"Blogitech/a (PDF) via a href="http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/03/the-logitech-mice-th.html#more"BoingBoing Gadgets/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=60017905ab25bb03f20416cc0491c25ep=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=60017905ab25bb03f20416cc0491c25ep=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=60017905ab25bb03f20416cc0491c25e" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=nOK7PTdp"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=NCMLgdVy"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=iKjOUBXS"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=iKjOUBXS" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=yletBNf8"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=yletBNf8" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/_yqO8_8NHEI" height="1" width="1"/

Long title eh? Gameplay vid for RE Chain of Memories, showing Riku battling some heartless. Vid from IGN

Author: blitzballer007 Keywords: kingdom hearts RE Chain Memories sora riku ps2 gameplay Added: December 3, 2008

Episode 14 de Xam'd Lost Memories, fansubbé par Requiem : [Requiem] Xam'd Lost Memories 14 VOSTFR (.mkv)

Carlos Sluzki’s cat died a while ago now, but he still sometimes visits. Now more of a shadow cat, the former pet seems to lurk at the edges of Sluzki’s vision, as a misinterpreted movement amid the everyday chaos of domestic life. All the same, the shadow cat is beginning to slink away and Sluzki notes that as the grief fades his erstwhile friend is ”erasing himself from the world of the present and receding into the bittersweet world of the memories of the loved ones.” nbsp; nbsp; The dead stay with us, that much is clear. They remain in our hearts and minds, of course, but for many people they also linger in our senses—as sights, sounds, smells, touches or presences. Grief hallucinations are a normal reaction to bereavement but are rarely discussed, because people fear they might be considered insane or mentally destabilised by their loss. As a society we tend to associate hallucinations with things like drugs and mental illness, but we now know that hallucinations are common in sober healthy people and that they are more likely during times of stress. nbsp; nbsp; Omnia mors perimit et nulli miseretur.

via Games Industry


Red Bull is the first brand to sign up for dedicated space in Sony's online virtual world, Home.

According to a report by Brand Republic, Red Bull will have its own island within Home, and feature a racing game based on the real-world Red Bull Air Race.
"The game gave us the first opportunity to recreate in the gaming world what we try to do in the real world, which is to facilitate interaction, to give people stories, memories, experiences and a really good opportunity to interact with the brand," offered Red Bull's John Beasley, marketing manager for the company.

"It's an easy environment for brands to take that first step into gaming," added Beasley. Home is expected to be open to the public by the end of the year, although thousands of PlayStation 3 users already have access to the service's beta test.

pa href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigsource/3081303186/" title="Qwak by tigsource, on Flickr"img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3073/3081303186_b042f2c149.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Qwak" //a/p pWe covered Jamie Woodhouse#8217;s a href="http://www.qwak.co.uk"Qwak/a almost two (!!) years ago, when it was a href="http://tigsource.com/articles/2007/01/03/qwak"a homebrew span class="caps"GBA/span game/a #8211; even that was a port of the originals, which came out for the span class="caps"BBC/span Micro and then the Amiga. Now it#8217;s returned for the PC, and it is (in this author#8217;s opinion), better than ever! The basic game mechanics have not changed, although the levels now do not scroll. What has changed are the graphics, which have been overhauled for the PC. They#8217;re incredibly bright, colorful, and big, and combined with the compact level design, are almost overwhelming to the eyeballs./p pThe main premise of the game remains the same: find the keys and proceed to the exit. The original games were always fairly fast-paced, but this version feels even more so (no doubt in part because of the compressed size of the levels). It#8217;s really frenetic and arcadey, and packed with all manner of collectibles and power-ups, including what I believe are the biggest fruit-to-player-character ratios I#8217;ve ever seen in a game./p pQwak plays slightly like a steroid-injected kitten inside a small box filled with over-sized catnip toys, and if you can believe it, that#8217;s actually a compliment. Even better with two kittens (co-op), to rekindle fond memories of playing games like Bubble Bobble with my friends./p pSo yeah, somebody approach this man and help him get the game on span class="caps"XBLA/span! It would be a perfect fit./p pstrongTIGdb:/strong a href="http://db.tigsource.com/games/qwak"emEntry for Qwak/em/a/p

Derbyshire Arts Development Group was established in 1999 to pool the expertise of all the arts development organisations working within Derbyshire. The visual arts group of DADG started to look at ways to raise the low visibility of contemporary visual arts in the county – which is primarily due to a lack of venues – back in 2003, and commissioned London based Proboscis to research the potential for touring and showing visual arts across Derbyshire. The initial research included the commissioning of two site-specific works, Out of Curiosity by Lothar Goetz in Ashbourne, and Memories of the Little Things by Hannah Carvell at Erewash Museum Gardens in Ilkeston, in order to explore the potential for site-specific commissioning as an alternative to gallery exhibitions.br / br / Curator David Gilbert began a wider research and development process in 2006, which resulted in securing funding from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Arts Council England for a two-year programme of site-specific commissioning. Over the two years there will be at least four major site-specific commissions of national significance, and a programme of up to eight curatorial interventions across Derbyshire. br / br / Proposals are now being sought from artists, curators and arts organisations who would like to develop innovative proposals, with further information available at www.re-place.co.uk.img src="http://rhizome.org/syndicate/nothing.gif?f=announce" border="0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rhizome-announce/~4/473837984" height="1" width="1"/

Being both an early adopter, someone without a bunch of money, and a gadgetophile is a hard combination to pull off. Back in 1999, that was me as a teenager, and the thing I wanted most that year was a standalone DVD player. Sure, I had the DVD-ROM drive in my Sony Vaio desktop computer, but my monitor was only 15-inches back then, and I had a 28-inch television. Who wouldn’t want to watch DVDs on their awesome 28-inch television, with ghetto stereo sound?

That year, my girlfriend at the time decided she would surprise me with a Sony DVD player. If you weren’t in the market for DVD players back then, allow me to fill you in. Those $25 deals you are seeing this holiday season on players at Target and Wal-Mart? Yeah, prices have fallen exponentially. My first DVD player sold for $399.99. A serious token of her love, most certainly. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t have gotten a DVD player otherwise.

I immediately snapped up The Usual Suspects and a couple of other titles that I don’t even remember. I didn’t even care, I was just all about the slick new piece of technology.

What about you? Any fond memories of holidays past, where you gave or received an awesome gift? Let us know in the comments

Tags: christmas, dvd player, dvd players, gift guide, holidays, memories, sony,

Holiday Gift Guide: Remembering my first DVD player originally appeared on Gear Live Holiday Gift Guide on Wed, December 03, 2008 - 3:43:56