YouTube Slips Again

Copa was pretty fun last night! Things were looking grim for a while with more guys than girls, but everything worked out in the end! That's everyone except Adam and Laurie, who will have to just make it in a future picture. Anyway, you probably came here for YouTube, not to hear recaps of my late night adventures, so on with the show. Their deal with CBS seems to have slipped through their fingers. Poor YouTube, things aren't as rosy for them as when they were acquired by Google. CBS is still in talks with them, but for small potatoes now, not the big stuff. What I don't get is what the Hell YouTube is saying in these negotiations that's turning everyone away? Maybe Eric Schmidt should step in and talk some sense into them? Comedy Central and Viacom are by no means small clients, and I'm sure that it's making other big players skeptical as well. Could this be the end of YouTube as we know it? Probably not, Google wouldn't let that happen. They're not totally screwed yet or anything, but they need to get their act together and fast. Once they lose the excitement they've had built up for them all this time, people will start to realize that the video quality on YouTube really isn't that awesome, and they'll start facing more lawsuits. I really do believe that time is ticking for them, the same clock that ticks for like-minded startups. It's really brutal out there for a tech startup, and buzz alone isn't enough to support a company, especially one that's still not 100% legit and may never be. I'm rooting for those guys, but things really are looking grim.

Are we all agreed that Canon is freaking awesome? Ok, I guess I'm biased because I love my camera and their products just have such impressive lifetimes. But anyway, to the left here is a $500 camera, the PowerShot TX1, that can film in 720p HD. How sweet is that? This is aside from all the sweet features that's on board (face detection, intelligent orientation, etc). Oh but wait, that's not all. There's also their new Digital ELPH models, one of which feature a stylish two-tone casing. I'd probably still prefer the SD 700 IS though.

So remember how the Sirius and XM merger was supposed to be cool and all? Um, not so much so. They're not actually merging the services, no no. That would make too much sense. They're just, merging the companies themselves, at no benefit to the consumers. Great. Oh, and it'll be a while before that happens even, so sit tight.

Firefox 2.0.2 is out, I just thought I'd mention that real quick. It's mainly security issues fixed, but those are still important things to patch.

CompUSA is hurting really really bad right now. So much so, in fact, that they're shutting down nearly half their stores. With the big boys beating them bad (Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-mart), and the interweb and all, they just can't compete. Sad, they used to have really good deals, too, and now they may go totally bankrupt.

Google has finally released a product to the masses that's not free: Google Apps Premier. It's just a premium version of Google Apps for Your Domain, and it's actually not at a bad price either. Not too shabby, Google, not too shabby at all.

We haven't heard much from the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD fronts for a while, so how about another comparison of the two? I like this one, it has pretty graphs and draws worthwhile conclusions. Still, I don't think people care about special features as much as video quality, and HD-DVD just seems to win there (though this article doesn't cite that as being very different between the two).

It looks like I've missed several trailers in the past couple of days. In the trailer for Next, we get a story that sounds like a spinoff of Minority Report where Jessica Biel can't pull of being Nicholas Cage's girlfriend because he's old enough to be her father. The movie doesn't sound that bad, but just not that amazing either. I was far less impressed by the trailer for Vacancy, as eerie as the premise of a hotel room where you're being watched and supposedly tortured is. It's just your standard horror fare. I thought that the trailer for Talk To Me was pretty cool though, even though it gave us a little too much information. I always love seeing Don Cheadle on the big screen because he's by far one of the most talented African American actors around.

I guess nerds should unite now in the announcement that wheels are turning for the creation of a Justice League movie. I just don't think they'll put together a good enough story with great enough actors to pull of making this movie what it should be. I can't imagine how they'd get Christian Bale on board if they wanted to stay true to that depiction of Batman, and I'm surprised that DC is even allowing this given that it could conflict with Superman Returns and Batman Begins in terms of character development.

Great news for other geeks though: Sin City 2 is ready to roll and could start shooting as early as later this Spring. Supposedly, the Austin heat may delay things a bit, but I'm sure that Rodriguez wouldn't let the Texas weather bring him down. I hope they're filming while I'm in town so I can try to figure out where they're filming and snap pictures!

Now for Friday's Feast:

Appetizer
Where on your body do you have a scar, and what caused it?
Right on my forehead, though I don't think you can spot it in the picture above. I was running with my cousins in India back when I was 12 on a gravel track and ended up tripping and falling, which jabbed my glasses into my forehead. Yeah, it wasn't a pretty sight, from what I hear (I decided to not look at myself in the mirror before it got stitched up). My mom's reaction was, "Good job, son."

Soup
What is something that has happened to you that you would consider a miracle?
Surviving my car accident last May. I don't care what people say about it just being because I was in a Volvo, that was the scariest thing to ever happen to me and I came so close to killing myself and hurting others. It was a miracle that the worst to come of it was totaling my car.

Salad
Name a television personality who really gets on your nerves.
Rachel Ray. She's so freaking annoying on Food Network, and even worse on that new show of hers. *shudders* Why can't you be more like Giada?!

Main Course
What was a funny word you said as a child (such as "pasketti" for "spaghetti")?
I'm going to plead the fifth here =P I don't think I care to publicly reveal the word I have in mind. Maybe if you press my brother he'll reveal it to you.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I have always thought ______ was ______.
This is pretty easy. There's dancing/awesome, Texas/hot, Austin/badass, booze/delicious, etc.