***MAJOR SPOILERS***

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Bill Gates showed a video at CES of what his last day at Microsoft will be like. (Thanks to my Mashable co-worker, Adam Hirsch, for posting this on his blog… I had been trying to find it)

While funny, it reminded me a lot of Bill Clinton’s video from when he was leaving the White House.

What does this all prove? I want a job where I’m big and powerful and can take time to make silly videos…

While watching the BBC World News on BBC America Monday night (the 7 PM EST showing), the anchor, Matt Frei, twice referred to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) as a “gathering of geeks”.

Normally someone referring to myself, or those around me, as a “geek” doesn’t faze me. Whether it was from my time in the comic book industry, the toy industry, or now the technology industry, I’ve heard it more times that I can count. Heck, I even call myself a geek, a gadget head, tech fiend, etc, etc.

The problem here is that Mr. Frei is a journalist. Not only is he a journalist, but a journalist for one of the most esteemed news sources on the planet. The fact that he would refer to a gathering of people from a multi-billion dollar industry as a “gathering of geeks” is distressing to me as a journalist, not as a member, albeit on the cursory edge, of the tech community. This was a cheap shot, and one well beneath such as esteemed organization.

So, did I just complain here? No, I didn’t. I did send a note via the BBC America website to express my disappointment that their anchor would lower himself to such a low-brow comment.  I don’t expect an apology, nor would I want one, but if matters such as this aren’t brought to the attention of those in charge, then it will continue to happen more and more.

Think back, when did it become so accepted to say that something you find silly or stupid to be “retarded”?  When did it also become okay to call things you disagree with, “gay”?  Never mind neither has a real connection to their current usages, but they were allowed to continue to slip, and now it’s okay to use terms originally designed to describe a group of people as something derogatory.

So when someone such as a BBC anchorman calls a group of people “geeks”, doesn’t that give the concept some credence as being socially acceptable?  And I don’t want anyone to think I’ve being politically correct here, because I’m really not, but as a journalist, he should know to pick his words better.

I haven’t touched heavily on the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) strike the past couple of weeks due to the holidays, but it’s time for another roundup of what’s going on because now people are showing their fangs.

As I mentioned in my post, Return of the Late Night Talk Shows, Leno admitted to writing his monologue, and that this seemed to surprise the WGA as it violates the strike rules. Not much seemed to happen about it, but now the rank-and-file writers have complained, and the WGA has had talks with Leno, and this may be followed up with some sort of punishment.

As a member of the WGA, Mr. Leno is not allowed to write material during the strike, but NBC says he is allowed to write and perform for himself. I’m betting this is where the problem is in that he is actually performing for NBC as they own the show.

But, that’s not where the fun ends! It appears Leno and Jimmy Kimmel have been whining to the WGA about the fact that David Letterman and Craig Ferguson have their writers due to the interim agreement reached with Worldwide Pants. Well, whine all you want, but it’s allowed. If Leno and Kimmel should be whining to anyone, it’s their corporate bosses, NBC and ABC respectively, and to the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP). They are the people not negotiating, and they are the ones who last threw a wrench into the works.

So Leno and Kimmel’s solution to this whole debacle? Why, to be guests on each other show’s this Thursday night, of course! Yeah, that’ll show them!

But it’s not just TV where things are popping. According to Deadline Hollywood, United Artists, now run by… Tom Cruise, has struck their own deal with the WGA. This deal is only in place until the strike is over, and if the final overall deal would be more favorable to UA, they will be able to switch over to that deal. Rumor is the other studios are furious… boo hoo. Get the AMPTP to head back to the bargaining table, with a real deal, and you can have your writers back also.

Any way you slice it, things are a mess, and I only shared the tip of the iceberg with everyone. For the lowdown on everything that’s happening, there’s no better source than DeadlineHollywoodDaily.

The unassuming little router pictured here is your key to free Wi-Fi all across the planet. I’m surprised by how few people seem to know about Fon, but it is gaining in popularity all the time.

The premise is simple enough. All you have to do is buy this router for $53, and it works as a normal Wi-Fi router at your house or work. The difference is it has two separate channels: A private, secured channel, and one for the public to access.

Private access is handled by entering the router’s serial number, so it will be fairly difficult for anyone to use it. The public channel is done by entering your Fon ID and password to log in.

Now, that’s actually where the fun part comes in. If you have your own Fon router, and you’ve registered it with the company, you now have the right to use any Fon router in the world that you come across by just using your Fon ID.  The only caveat is you do have to keep your router up and going, you can’t just buy it and then not run it.

So, for a one time fee of $53, you get worldwide Wi-Fi access no matter what country you are in.  You can look up where spots are located around the world with this handy Google Maps mashup.

The question I always asked my self was “Well, if only 10 people do this, it’s not worth it.” However, there are now over 100,000 users around the world. They also recently struck a deal with British Telecom to blanket all of England in Fon routers. There’s been no word yet on where else they may strike similar deals, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

Course, my next question was how do you locate the other Fon routers in the world? Easily enough you can go to the Fon maps page and enter your desired location to look up and you’ll see the green dots pop up all over the place in most major cities.

I am sure afew of you are thinking, “But, Sean, you live in a small town, why do this?” Because my company now has free Wi-Fi access all over the planet. It was worth the money to me just for that!

At long last, that draconian bastard child of the music industry, Digital Rights Management (DRM), is dead.

For quite a while now I have bemoaned how this stupid system shouldn’t even exist, and Sony BMG, the last hold out in the seemingly never-ending fight, has given in.

For those who don’t fully grasp why this is a good thing, this was the nasty little bugger that made it so if you bought a song on iTunes, you couldn’t play it on a Zune, and vice-versa.  The real battle to end DRM began on February 6th, 2007, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, wrote an open letter to the music industry entitled “Thoughts On Music“.   He basically said DRM had to be removed to free the consumers, and for his troubles, some music companies pulled their content from the company.

Here we are, 11-months later, and all of the music companies have finally bowed to the pressure.  How ironic that they scoffed at Jobs, and then learned he was actually more in touch with what the consumers wanted.  What a wild concept!

DRM still exists in the world of movies, and was part of the reason I chose HD DVD over Blu-ray, but hopefully the movie studios will see this and realize that consumers don’t want to be tied down by silly security that serves no one but the corporate overlords of the entertainment companies.

Good-bye DRM, we won’t miss you.

Well, I said on November 23rd, when I ordered my HD DVD player, “Now that I’ve picked a side… expect a surge in Blu-ray sales.”  Well, instead, I got the death of a format.

No, HD DVD is not officially dead… yet… but the news that Warner Brothers is going Blu-ray exclusively as of May, pretty much seals the coffin.  This is going to give Blu-ray control of 70% of the released content, meaning HD DVD will slowly choke on a lack of product.

It’s unfortunate because I genuinely believe HD DVD is the superior format for a laundry list of reasons.  The format will probably not die off until February of 2009, when the exclusive deals with Dreamworks and Universal end, but it’s not going to be pretty for the next year.

*Countdown to Roy mocking me… 3… 2… 1…*

Okay, sorry, but I need to unleash another rant. You have to admit I’ve been doing good!

Salad bar etiquette. Actually, any buffet etiquette, but salad bars in particular are where I see this the most.

YOU ARE NOT CREATING A WORK OF ART!

There are people behind you, they are just as hungry as you, if not more so. Don’t pick up one to two pieces of lettuce at a time… don’t pick 2 leafs from one style of salad, and 2 from another (I actually saw this today)… don’t arrange the cucumber pieces in a design around the plate (also saw this today)… and for the love of all that is holy, don’t stop moving along the line while you chit chat with your lunch buddy!

And then, when all is said and done… don’t turn and smile at me like you’re doing me a freakin’ favor by finally getting out of my way.

Yes, I know this is a little thing, and believe me, this was not the only day this has happened so this wasn’t a sudden onset of anger, this has been happening for a while now, and I just got fed up with it today as there were about eight people ahead of me, all doing the “Oh, let me make a pretty design with the food” trick.

Make your salad, move along, and learn some damned etiquette when it comes to other people standing in line.

As just about every blog in the universe has done, I sat down and watched the late night talk shows last night to see how they each handled their return. I did, however, skip Jimmy Kimmel Live mainly because I’ve never watched his show, so it would be difficult for me to judge how it was.

Late Show with David Letterman – Dave came back with his “strike beard” and it made him look about 20 years older. (he likened himself to a cattle-drive cook, or a lost hiker) He was definitely on his game, and made easy transitions from his normal comedy and commentary on the strike and how he fully supports the writer’s demands. As one would expect, the humor was very strike heavy in subject matter, but it all worked and never felt heavy-handed.

Robin Williams was his normal, chaotic self. Not sure how anyone over the age of 4 still finds him funny.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno – I don’t find Jay Leno particularly funny, and this held true last night. His humor seemed a tad more desperate and pleading. While he never bluntly said it, you could almost feel a sense of “Pity me, Dave has writers and I don’t.” I was somewhat surprised to see him do a monologue, especially when he admitted to pre-writing it. Seems the WGA is a bit surprised also as that violates the strike. He also did some comedy bits about surly stage hands which was such a Letterman rip-off it was amazing.

Mike Huckabee was a fairly bland guest, but there was a very odd moment during the Emeril Lagasse cooking segment when oregano was used in the recipe. Jay turned to his band leader, Kevin Eubanks, and asked, “Didn’t you get arrested once for buying a bag of oregano?” Seeing as Mr. Eubanks is African American, and a musician, I’m not sure which stereotype that was more directed at, but you could see that both Eubanks and Lagasse laughed nervously.

It was a passable job, but I won’t be tuning back in.

Late Night with Conan O’Brien – Conan also came back with a “strike beard”, his ven got a song sung to it by the band. It was very odd. Anyway, Conan did a monologue also, but no one seems up in arms over it for some reason. He also ha a VERY scripted looking video segment, but not sure where that falls in the rules. Overall he got into the swing of ad libbing things pretty well, and did a fine job I felt.

Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Seeing as this show is also owned by David Letterman, they had their writers back also. Seeing how happy Ferguson was to be back, he skipped having guests and did a full hour of sketch comedy and monologues. I have to say, it was pretty damn funny, and mainly because you could tell Ferguson was aching to get back to work. His excitement was infectious and made him a joy to watch. His humor is a bit “in your face” for my tastes, but I had a good time watching him last night.

It was a mixed bag as everyone tried to find their sea legs, but the only one I felt really didn’t do a good job was Leno, but that’s probably part of my personal bias against him. I wasn’t a big late night watcher before the strike, and I doubt I will be now, but I will probably check everyone out again with the exception of Leno.

Over at TECH.BLORGE.com this past week, I’ve been writing a bunch of stories about the HD DVD vs Blu-ray war, and it’s getting more and more interesting.

It seems that hardware manufacturers are getting more enamored with the idea of releasing dual format players. LG has already done this, but ringing in at a cool $999 (list price of $1,049.99), it’s not exactly a super fast moving device. Now there are rumors that a sub-$500 model may appear next week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and this is followed by news that by 2012, 66% of the HD drives in computers may be dual format.

So, is it the hardware manufacturers who are behind this?  Have they seen that their lack of sales of the HD players is due to the studios being stubborn, and it’s time to take the decision away from them and the consumers?  One has to wonder what’s causing this move.  They obviously see the war as being in a stalemate or else they wouldn’t be investing the money in these new players.

Could it really be this simple?  Could we really see the ‘war’ settled with both formats just co-existing for their entire product life-cycle?  It would make me laugh if this is how it all finally shakes out.

It’s that time of year again. Let’s take a look at my resolutions from last year and see how I did.

* Lose even more weight!

Well… yes and no. I didn’t actually lost any POUNDS this year, but I did lose fat. My weight is the same number as this time last year, but I’ve lost about three pants sizes and I have the most toned muscles I’ve ever had in my life.

* Keep blogging at least once a day!

Done… and then some.

* Work on optimizing the sites for better search engine indexing!

* Work on a couple of projects I will announce at a later date.

… I would love to remember what these were.

* Blog more heavily on the store blog (it bores me)!

Yeah… this one didn’t happen.

So, what about this year?

• Continue getting in shape.  I’ve made it this far, no reason to stop now.
• Work on those Blogging Goals For 2008 that I set.
• Maybe… possibly… finally take a weekend off to go see a friend.

That’s really it.  I’m getting pretty happy with the way my work life is going, and with everything I’m doing, I really don’t have time to take on any other projects.

So, what about you oh-so-faithful readers… what are your resolutions for this new year?