Brief Update

Just checking in briefly here. To answer everybody’s first question, no, I don’t know what’s up with Steve. Haven’t heard from him in about three weeks, and I’m guessing he’s busy. I know I am. As for myself, I’m going to be incommunicado between Christmas Eve and New Year’s, so unless Martini Boy pops up, y’all probably shouldn’t count on finding anything new here next week.

In the meantime, here are a couple of things that caught my eye this morning. On the college football obsession front, I am reacting to the Associated Press sending a cease-and-desist order to the BCS with unmitigated glee. Now the AP needs to take the next logical step and cancel its football poll altogether until and unless a playoff is instituted in Division 1-A.

Everybody with a blog is going to link to Lileks’ demolition of snob-blogger James Wolcott. Never let it be said that we here in the Vodkasphere are afraid to join the crowd when it’s called for–and in this case, it’s called for.

I’m going to be in the market for a large, flat-screen HDTV in 2005. I’ve been leaning plasma, since they’re just entirely freakin’ cool, but now I read that Sony is abandoning plasma technology in favor of large-scale LCDs. My question is, how large, and how much? LCDs have been small and pricey compared to the other formats thus far. If Sony can make them large and cheap (well, okay, just not astronomical), that’ll have a major impact on my decision, and I imagine a lot of others, too. On the other hand, the Motley Fools think Sony is just getting out of a business that’s on its way to being commoditized and less profitable. Hmm.

Okay, so this guy is probably a nerd’s nerd. It’s still a heck of a lot cooler than a homemade Tron costume.

In case you missed it, Christopher Caldwell has an interesting piece on the Islamification of the Netherlands and recent repercussions. Well worth the read.

UPDATE: A reader points to this article, in which Sony denies they’re getting out of the plasma business. My suggestion to Sony: send me a freebie for evaluation, and I’ll advise you on whether or not to build any more…