Scott McPherson's Web Presence

Not that I really miss the 1960s.  I was fat, had a crew cut, and was a geek.  Today I am overweight, do not have much hair left, and I am a geek.  But those intervening decades were wonderful!  And I make a handsome living being a geekmeister.

So I was so happy to see this article on MSNBC.com today.  It brought back many happy memories.

Dozens in Texas town report seeing UFO

Large silent object with bright lights was flying low and fast

STEPHENVILLE, Texas - In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO.

Several dozen people — including a pilot, county constable and business owners — insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.

"People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it's the end of times," said Steve Allen, a freight company owner and pilot who said the object he saw last week was a mile long and half a mile wide. "It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts."

While federal officials insist there's a logical explanation, locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object's lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane. People in several towns who reported seeing it over several weeks have offered similar descriptions of the object.

Machinist Ricky Sorrells (pictured) said friends made fun of him when he told them he saw a flat, metallic object hovering about 300 feet over a pasture behind his Dublin home. But he decided to come forward after reading similar accounts in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune.

"You hear about big bass or big buck in the area, but this is a different deal," Sorrells said. "It feels good to hear that other people saw something, because that means I'm not crazy."

Sorrells said he has seen the object several times. He said he watched it through his rifle's telescopic lens and described it as very large and without seams, nuts or bolts.

Maj. Karl Lewis, a spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth, said no F-16s or other aircraft from his base were in the area the night of Jan. 8, when most people reported the sighting.

Lewis said the object may have been an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes. Lights from the aircraft would seem unusually bright and may appear orange from the setting sun.

"I'm 90 percent sure this was an airliner," Lewis said. "With the sun's angle, it can play tricks on you."

Officials at the region's two Air Force bases — Dyess in Abilene and Sheppard in Wichita Falls — also said none of their aircraft were in the area last week. The Air Force no longer investigates UFOs.

One man has offered a reward for a photograph or videotape of the mysterious object.

About 200 UFO sightings are reported each month, mostly in California, Colorado and Texas, according to the Mutual UFO Network, which plans to go to the 17,000-resident town of Stephenville to investigate.

Fourteen percent of Americans polled last year by The Associated Press and Ipsos say they have seen a UFO.

Coincidentially, today also marked Sony's release of the classic film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers on digitally remastered DVD, with Dolby 5.1 surround (!) and in color as well as black and white.  Now before you condemn the senseless colorization of classic B&W, keep these points in mind:

Ray Harryhausen himself advocated and supervised the colorization process.  Harryhausen is the effects genius who learned his craft by watching Willis O'Brien do such films as King Kong. 

The remastering was, I am sure, in anticipation of a future Blu-Ray release.  Sony has already done this with 20 Million Miles to Earth, another Harryhausen effects classic, which on Blu-Ray looks almost like it was made yesterday .

You can toggle back and forth between the two versions:  Remastered color or remastered B&W.

The extras on the DVD are superb.

Another old Columbia Pictures classic, It Came From Beneath the Sea (starring my personal favorite, the late Kenneth Tobey) also came out today in a 2-disc, remastered set. 

Yes, life is good.

Computerworld magazine does a fine job of keeping pandemic preparedness on the minds of Chief Information Officers (that's Head Geek of corporate and government IT-dom), as well as decision-makers and IT personnel.

Anyway, in their latest issue appears this gem of a story:

Eight-day IT outage would cripple most companies

Gartner survey finds business continuity plans lack ability to withstand longer outages

January 10, 2008 (Computerworld) -- A Gartner Inc. poll of information security and risk management professionals released today shows that most business continuity plans could not withstand a regional disaster because they are built to overcome severe outages lasting only up to seven days.

Gartner analyst Roberta Witty said that the results of the poll show that organizations must "mature" their business continuity and disaster recovery strategies to enable IT operations and staffers to endure outages of at least 30 days. Such efforts would require additional IT budget spending and collaboration across enterprise business units at most corporations, she noted.

Gartner surveyed 359 IT professionals from the U.S., U.K. and Canada during 2007 on their business continuity efforts, and nearly 60% said that their business continuity plans are limited to outages of seven days or less.

Further, results showed most companies focus on rebounding from internal IT disruptions, not from regional disasters that could also damage facilities. A very shortsighted tactic, remarked Witty, considering damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as well as potential harm from outages, terrorist attacks, pandemics, service provider outages, civil unrest or other unpredictable event.

"If you start looking at some of the events we've [experienced] over the last few years, companies must plan for events that actually take much longer to recover from," Witty said. "This is an issue [businesses] have to deal with -- it's in front of everyone's face right now." 

The survey found that 77% of companies have come up with a business continuity plan covering power outages caused by fire, while 72% have a plan to get up and running after a natural disaster. Only 50% of companies are prepared to rebound from terrorism-related IT outages.

Witty did say that companies are starting to take pandemic concerns more seriously than in the past. The survey showed that 29% of organizations now have pandemic recovery measures in place, up from just 8% in 2005.

To withstand an outage of up to 30 days, companies must improve cross-training efforts and streamline emergency management, notification and incident management techniques for quicker response, she added. "That's what [business continuity] is about. If you don't have people to manage it, a data center is useless," Witty remarked.

I lectured on pandemic preparedness at Gartner's international conference in Orlando in 2006, and I know Ken McGee of Gartner, who (along with yours truly, of course) is one of the few recognized bona fide IT pandemic experts on the planet.  So Gartner is extremely well-focused on this topic.  Their research on this, and other topics, is first-rate.  It's "take it to the bank"-type material.

So when Gartner says sixty percent of American corporate and government organizations cannot sustain disaster recovery services beyond seven days, believe it.  And that is extremely bad news for any calamity, be it caused by a virus or a match.

Let me take you through the world of telecommuting plans.  They all originate in large data centers -- operations centers with floor tiles raised over twelve inches from the floor to accept conduits full of cables and cooling pipes and to keep equipment high and dry if those pipes burst and water seeps in.  They are also very chilly, so they can keep the multitudes of computers cool and, thus, more efficient.  (Heat is the enemy of computers, which is why you should blow out all computers thoroughly with canned air at least once a year.)  These data centers are also stuffed with what we call remote-access servers.  These servers are powered by UNIX, or Linux, or Microsoft Server products.  They run Windows Terminal Services, or Citrix, or some other emulation software.  And they need lots and lots and lots of bandwidth and processor power and energy.

And the stuff in data centers breaks sometimes.  Computers are machines, too, like the washer. Anything from a poorly-seated accessory card to a botched software patch can render a million dollars' worth of remote access equipment unusable.  That, in turn, requires hands-on work to fix.  You can't fix a physically broken appliance remotely, even if it is a computer.  You occasionally, sometimes frequently, need to take the machine physically down and get into it up to your elbows.  That takes people, people.  And if you are down 30% to 40% on your server team staff, you are in deep trouble.

Now the remote-access packets of data pass through the network; banks of appliances called routers and switches, any of which can break, for the same reasons as above.  Then after this leaves your organization's firewall (another appliance), you have to rely upon the Internet, and the same dynamics apply to all the equipment that runs the Internet.  Finally, you get to your PC or laptop, maybe in a hotel in Burbank, or your home in Tuscaloosa.  So if your cable/DSL modem is working properly, AND if you can get to the Internet, AND you can get back to your hosting data center, AND that remote equipment is running, AND you can log in to your validation server:  Well, that's a huge bunch of "ifs", even on a good day.  The fact this stuff even works most of the time is a huge testament to IT everywhere.  So hug a geek today!

This applies to all the participants in the work-at-home food chain:  The organization, the IT service provider, the telecommunications provider, all the way to the electric company.  If any of these links fails (and it will in a pandemic), the entire chain is worthless.  That is why corporations and governments alike must prepare to make the calls to bring people back into their offices when the Internet becomes unreliable.

That is also why these same organizations must undertake measures NOW to acquire masks, gloves, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes.  But that is a lesson left for another day.

The biggest concern after staff shortages and broken stuff is the issue of supply chain failures.  The Just-in-time supply chain, as we all know and preach, is lethally exposed during a pandemic.  During the runup to Y2K, we drilled incessantly in Florida for supply chain failures.  We even went so far as to have the National Guard ready to escort convoys of Winn-Dixie food from warehouses in Alabama to their distribution points within Florida's Panhandle. 

In a pandemic, everything will be constrained and in short supply.  This especially means spare parts and replacement equipment for IT, since so much of it comes from overseas (Asia).  It is difficult to get some networking equipment delivered quickly on a good day, let alone in the middle of an influenza pandemic.  In fact, Michael Dell told me personally in 2006 that the SARS experience has fueled Dell's initiative to try and develop a Singapore-to-Ireland revolving door of manufacturing during a pandemic.  The theory is that while one area is savaged, the other might be on the path to recovery.  The company is making the best assumption it can; namely, that it must find a way to continue operations, or perish.  Dell will also try and maintain larger inventories of certain parts, although those components change so quickly that it is an egregious violation of Dell's own business model to store anything in too much quantity for too long.

It might surprise some to know that Dell has taken such a proactive approach to pandemic planning.  But I know Dell to be a forward-thinking and forward-leaning corporation, so it is not surprising to see them adopt such an approach.  The problem is that Dell is so alone when it comes to such planning.  And this is reinforced by Gartner's latest study, which again reinforces the limitless, ignorant arrogance of people -- including IT people and their superiors, regrettably -- to think a calamity will never happen to them.

Lower Manhattan and New Orleans professionals know the tremendous impact an extended calamity can cause.  That is why companies such as Merrill Lynch are global Best Practices at disaster recovery.  There's nothing like experience to help shape attitudes. 

Dengue Fever is headed to the United States.

From Bloomberg.com: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWqWwATk6DpA&refer=home

Dengue Fever Threatens U.S. as Tropical Bugs Spread (Update2)

By Catherine Larkin

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Dengue fever, a potentially deadly virus usually found in the tropics, could begin spreading widely in the U.S. as mosquitoes that transmit the disease move into more states, according to two leading epidemiologists.

The disease has already struck Hawaii, Texas and Puerto Rico after decades of absence in the U.S., Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and colleague David Morens write in the Jan. 9 Journal of the American Medical Association. They expect the threat to persist with increased air travel and urban development.

More than 760,000 cases of dengue and almost 20,000 cases of its deadly form, dengue hemorrhagic fever, were reported in the Americas in the first 11 months of last year, according to the Pan American Health Organization. With no specific treatments or proven vaccines to prevent the infection, an outbreak could overwhelm communities, Fauci and Morens said.

``This is an important problem, and our options for control and prevention at the moment are not very good,'' said Morens, Fauci's senior scientific adviser, in a phone interview today. ``It's easy to forget when a disease has been away for a long period of time.''

Dengue can be caused by four kinds of flavivirus, a family of viruses that also includes yellow fever and West Nile. The Aedes mosquitoes that transmit dengue have been around for hundreds of years and have re-emerged in greater numbers since efforts to prevent yellow fever waned in the 1970s, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Climate-Change Effect

Increases in rainfall, temperature and humidity caused by global warming also favor the spread of mosquitoes. These types of weather changes may more than double the number of people exposed to dengue worldwide by 2080, according to the United Nations' 2007-2008 Human Development Report.

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 50 million cases of dengue infection occur each year. The flu-like illness leads to about 500,000 hospitalizations, mostly in children, and at least 2.5 percent of patients die.

Symptoms include high fever, headaches, joint and muscle pain, vomiting and a rash. Usually people with dengue recover within two weeks, according to the National Institutes of Health. The infection can be life-threatening when it turns into dengue hemorrhagic fever, which causes bleeding from the nose, gums or under the skin, or dengue shock syndrome, which causes massive bleeding and shock, according to the NIH.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, based in Bethesda, Maryland, allocated $33.2 million in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 for research on dengue and the development of vaccines, medicines and tools to diagnose the disease, according to a statement released today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Larkin in Washington at clarkin4@bloomberg.net .

And from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0847856420080108?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews

Tropical dengue fever may threaten U.S.: report

WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Dengue fever -- a tropical infection that usually causes flu-like illness -- may be poised to spread across the United States and urgent study is needed, health officials said on Tuesday.

Cases of the sometimes deadly mosquito-borne disease have been reported in Texas and this may be the beginning of a new trend, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and his senior scientific adviser, Dr. David Morens.

A warming climate and less-than-stellar efforts to control mosquitoes could accelerate its spread northwards, they cautioned.

"Widespread appearance of dengue in the continental United States is a real possibility," they wrote in a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Worldwide, dengue is among the most important reemerging infectious diseases, with an estimated 50 to 100 million annual cases, 500,000 hospitalizations and, by World Health Organization estimates, 22,000 deaths, mostly in children."

They compared dengue to West Nile virus, which first appeared in New York in 1999 and has now spread to the entire continental United States, Canada and Mexico. West Nile killed at least 98 people in the United States last year.

Both viruses are carried by mosquitoes. Dengue can be carried by the Aedes albopictus or Asian tiger mosquito -- first seen in 1985 in the United States -- as well as the more common Aedes aegypti species.

Most people infected with a dengue virus have no symptoms or a mild fever. It can cause minor bleeding from the nose or gums, but can also cause severe fever and shock and without treatment can kill.

"The combined effects of global urbanization and increasing air travel are expected to make dengue a growing international health problem for the foreseeable future," Fauci and Morens wrote.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox; editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Todd Eastham)

Could Florida and the Southeastern United States be added to the list soon, because of the proximity to the Caribbean, cruise ship passengers being bitten and taking the virus home to their home states, combined with the resurgence of Dengue in Puerto Rico?  Unknown but quite possible.  Perhaps even likely.  We certainly don't suffer from a lack of mosquito activity.  And look at the epidemics of norovirus that rage routinely now on cruise ships everywhere.  Maybe that DEET repellent should be required slathering when passengers disembark at tropical ports, especially San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The global press is fawning over today's bird flu-related statements of Bernard Vallat, head of the World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE.  Here is the MSNBC story, culled from, among other sources, Reuters and AP:

Were bird flu fears overblown?

PARIS - Fears of a flu pandemic originating from the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus were overblown, the head of the World Organization for Animal Health said Thursday.

The Paris-based body — an intergovernmental organization responsible for improving animal health worldwide — has been at the forefront of global efforts to monitor and fight H5N1, which scientists have tracked because they fear it may mutate into a human flu virus that starts a pandemic.

But "the risk was overestimated," said Bernard Vallat, director general of the animal health organization, also known as the OIE.

Vallat said the H5N1 virus has proved extremely stable, despite concerns that it could mutate into a form that could spread easily among humans.

"We have never seen such a stable strain," Vallat said.

He said concerns a few years ago that a flu pandemic from H5N1 might be imminent lacked scientific proof.

"It was just nonscientific supposition," he told reporters.

Prepare for pandemic
At the same time, the United Nations influenza coordinator said that governments around the world need to do more to prepare for the dramatic economic impact of the next flu pandemic.

On Thursday David Nabarro said his team had recently collected information from nearly 150 countries to see how prepared they were for a pandemic and the picture was mixed.

“Most countries have now focused on pandemic as a potential cause of catastrophe and have done some planning. But the quality of the plans is patchy and too few of them pay attention to economic and social consequences,” he told BBC radio.

“The economic consequences could be up to $2 trillion -- up to 5 percent of global GDP removed,” he said, reiterating previous World Bank and UN estimates.

Nabarro will deliver a lecture at the London School of Economics later on Thursday on the global state of preparedness for any pandemic.

Father infected by son
Separately, a Chinese man who died of bird flu last month likely passed the disease on to his father, but there is no evidence the virus mutated into a form which can be easily passed between humans, an official said Thursday.

The man in the eastern province of Jiangsu was diagnosed with the H5N1 strain of bird flu days after his 24-year-old son died from the disease.

This rare case of two family members struck by the disease drew concern from health authorities, because humans almost always contract H5N1 from infected birds.

H5N1 has infected more than 340 people and killed at least 212 since 2003, mostly in Asia. The virus strain does not easily spread between people, however, and most patients had been infected through close contact with sick poultry.

With the world’s biggest poultry population and millions of backyard birds, China is at the centre of the fight against bird flu. There have been other cases of human infection without confirmed outbreaks among birds in the same area.

The latest cases in China brought the number of confirmed human infections of bird flu in China to 27, with 17 deaths.

'Always be a risk'
While playing down concerns of a pandemic, Vallat said bird flu "will always be a risk" — not just H5N1, but also other strains that could mutate and become more virulent for animals.

He said vaccination campaigns were needed in countries where H5N1 has become endemic, including Indonesia, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Nigeria.

Risks from H5N1 would be "greatly diminished" if the virus were eradicated in these countries, which have become "reservoirs" for bird flu, he said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22590623/

An AFP wire story expands somewhat on Monsieur Vallat's comments:

H5N1 bird flu virus reassuringly stable: animal health chief

PARIS (AFP) — The H5N1 virus that causes deadly avian flu has proven remarkably stable and action to curb outbreaks of the disease are highly effective, the head of the world's paramount agency for animal health said here Thursday.

Since the end of 2003, mutation of the H5N1 virus so that it can be easily transmissible among humans has been a nightmare for the world health community, raising concerns of a global influenza pandemic that could claim tens of millions of lives.

But Bernard Vallat, director general of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), said no evidence of any such genetic shift had emerged.

"We have never seen a virus which has been so stable for so long. Compared to other viruses, it is extremely stable, which minimises the risk of mutation" into a pandemic strain, he told reporters.

Vallat said a system to beef up veterinary surveillance, especially in poor countries, had borne fruit, enabling outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry flocks to be identified and swiftly eradicated.

"It took two years for our voice to be heard," Vallat said. "If we had been heard before, the virus would have been stopped in its tracks."

Vallat said, though, "there are three countries, Indonesia, Egypt and to a lesser degree Nigeria, where the disease is endemic, and this creates reservoirs from which it can bounce back."

"If we could eradicate the virus in those countries, the problem of a pandemic from Asian H5N1 would be resolved," said Vallat.

The H5N1 virus is lethal and extremely contagious among birds. It is also dangerous for humans who are in close proximity to sick poultry, who can pick up the virus through nasal droplets or faeces.

H5N1 has killed 216 people since 2003, principally in Asia, according to the latest toll posted by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Hundreds of millions of chickens, ducks and geese have died from the virus or been culled as a preventative measure.

In other comments, Vallat said that climate change, combined with the acceleration of cross-border trade under globalisation, was posing a growing threat to animal health, which in turn raised a challenge for human health.

He pointed to mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile virus, which has become established in North America, and Rift Valley fever, which is edging northwards in Africa "and could quite easily become established in the Mediterranean."

In other comments, Vallat said the OIE was in talks with Beijing over opening a reference laboratory -- an internationally validated lab for checking samples -- in China as part of the global surveillance network for monitoring animal health.

At present, the only OIE-accredited reference labs in Asia are in Japan, but the agency is pushing hard to have these vital facilities much closer to the outbreaks of disease.

China's participation in the 172-member OIE had been dogged for 15 years over the participation of Taiwan, but the row was resolved last May.

Three Chinese labs have been put forward as reference facilities, Vallat said.

Vallat said that consumption of meat would probably rise by 50 percent by 2020 to respond to the needs of the burgeoning middle classes in Asia, and this required stronger veterinary safeguards to prevent further health scares.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jpPvXJJ3VTHifJCBo7w3zW8DCzsQ

In related news, pigs were seen flying alongside migratory wildfowl; billions of chickens worldwide began clucking in gratitude; and mute swans in England were actually heard talking with cockney accents.

I don't know how often the OIE talks with the UN's FAO and WHO.  But judging from Monsieur Vallat's comments, they apparently don't talk enough.  Risk communication as it relates to pandemic preparedness is a tricky thing.  But the experts all agree that transparency and consistency are two extremely important concepts to adhere to.  For a leader of a global organization to make summary statements about the virulence and pandemic potential of a virus without first double-checking his data is reckless and not befitting someone of his stature.

The damage Monsieur Vallat's comments has caused to the pandemic preparedness effort worldwide cannot yet be calculated.  Perhaps the damage can be assessed later, in terms of lost human lives and poultry.  But for now, we are left with a sense of bewilderment and, quite honestly, some sense of betrayal.

Let's look at Vallat's quote again:

"We have never seen a virus which has been so stable for so long. Compared to other viruses, it is extremely stable, which minimises the risk of mutation" into a pandemic strain, he told reporters.

I have always been told that H5N1 is a mutating fool of a virus.  In four years, four distinct clades have emerged, with many subclades and mutations in abundance.  How any expert can call any influenza A virus "exceptionally stable" is beyond my comprehension, let alone H5N1. 

I have asked my expert friends for comment.  I will post them when they are available.  And it is important for the WHO and FAO to answer Vallat's comments, lest their entire bird flu eradication effort unravels.  So too, our combined efforts at preparing our leaders and decision-makers for a pandemic.  It is time to answer, and answer in unison.  But the scientists and the policy makers must pick up the gauntlet thrown down by the comments of one Monsieur Bernard Vallat.

By the way:  Judging from the abundance of photos of Monsieur Vallat on the OIE Website, it can be determined that the most dangerous airspace in all Paris is the distance between Vallat and a camera lens.

Just a quick note on the eventual demise of the HD-DVD format.  As you probably know, the high definition DVD market is plagued with two competing and non-compatible formats:  Toshiba's HD-DVD, and Sony's Blu-Ray.  HD-DVD is unbelievable, and Blu-Ray is equally awe-inspiring.  The technology basically allows a thinner, more precise laser beam to put many times more information onto a DVD disc.  Thus, you can get much richer video (more information stored on disc) and, in an increasing number of films, uncompressed audio.  I own a Blu-Ray player and HDTV courtesy of my wife (well, we gave each other the stuff for Christmas), and this has directly affected my ability to churn out quality blogs in real time!  In other words, I find myself sitting on my behind more often, watching things like "3:10 to Yuma" or "2001: A Space Odyssey" in Blu-Ray with my mouth and eyes wide open, amazed that I finally have motion picture quality exceeding that of a movie theatre in my own home.

But I digress.  Sony, hurt badly several times by losses incurred (both moral and financial) due to bad strategery with formats in the past (recall the VHS vs. beta battle in the 1980s and other, more recent A/V muckups), wised up this time and got in step with their usual competitor, Philips.  Thus was Blu-Ray DVD born, and the format is truly spectacular.  Sony also lined up five major motion picture studios to back the product.

In contrast, Toshiba lined up Paramount and Universal to support HD-DVD.  Universal was HD-DVD-specific.Paramount had been making hi-def DVDs in both formats, but last year decided to move to HD-DVD exclusively. 

Bad decision. 

Warner Brothers, whose films account for about 20% of all titles, had also been licensing in both formats.  But, due in no small part to what they see as an inevitable recession with resulting timidity in the buying public, along with a recognition of superior marketing by Blu-Ray, announced several days ago that WB would be Blu-Ray-specific by mid-2008.  This announcement was quickly followed by two business partners, New Line Cinema and HBO Films.

Universal's exclusive HD-DVD contract with Toshiba expired on New Years Day.  It is anticipated that Universal will also jump on board the Blu-Ray bandwagon sometime this year and start releasing films in the format.

So here's what you can look for:

A long, slow roll to oblivion for HD-DVD.  Dropping prices, coupled with frantic efforts to lure smaller boutique studios to their format.  Probably won't happen, since those smaller studios desperately need cash, and Blu-Ray is the ticket.  Also look for better and better bundles from HD-DVD and Toshiba.

Meanwhile, Sony is in the process of licensing Blu-Ray technology to more and more manufacturers (something they did NOT do in the VHS-Beta war).  This will allow more players, which will cut prices, which will increase demand for movies in Blu-Ray.

The Blu-Ray Disc (BD) marketing people are also now smelling blood, and moving in for the kill with great sales and specials on titles.  For example, Amazon has been running a buy one, get one free BD special on selected titles, and offering huge price cuts on BD discs as well.  Best Buy has been selling AFI classics like Goodfellas and Deliverance for $14.99 on BD, and has been running its own Buy One, get One Free Blu-Ray specials online.

This, in turn, will put even more pressure on Toshiba to reduce prices.  But the tide has officially turned, and unless Toshiba can come up with a huge innovation, or make HD-DVD movies as cheap to buy as standard DVD, the format is doomed. 

But do not wait until then to get on the bandwagon for Blu-Ray.  The format is so impressive, you are truly  doing your eyes and ears a disservice by NOT moving to high-def now, today, absolutely this minute!  I use two Websites to evaluate the auality of individual Blu-ray discs:  http://www.blu-ray.com/ and http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/ .  If a disc gets reviews for quality of video and audio with both of these sites' reviewers, I get the disc.  That is not to say I would go out and splurge $30 on a Blu-Ray of Superbad, for example.  But if I thought "McLovin" would be any funnier in HD, I might be tempted.

So get out there and move to Blu-Ray with confidence that your butt will be completely numb for months to come.  Eye and ear candy of the highest magnitude.