Benheck.com Podcast Episode 52

Possibly one of the cheesiest graphics ever on Benheck.com

We’re back with a new podcast. Topics:

  • New Xbox X-Perience – We discuss the latest and greatest Xbox dashboard update, what we like and dislike.
  • Xbox 360 4 America – Regarding the current America economic downturn, we go patriotic and tell everyone that if they need to buy a game console this Christmas, they should buy the only American one – the Xbox 360! This really isn’t rocket science, people shouldn’t complain about the job market while walking out of Target with a Japanese Wii. We aren’t paid to promote the Xbox, and it’s nothing against Japan (I love my Sony stuff) but hey, at some point you just have to do your part in some way. We also discuss how the vast majority of big hit 360/PS3 games are made in America.
  • Blu-Ray vs the Theater – Having seen several movies now on Blu-Ray that I also saw in the theatre, it begs the question – is Blu-Ray better than the theater experience? At least focus-wise? We discuss!

Podcast includes my brilliant idea to get gas-guzzling SUV’s off the road, and other random topics. Enjoy!

Listen to Benheck.com Podcast Episode 52

www.benheckpodcast.com

25 thoughts on “Benheck.com Podcast Episode 52”

  1. you are probably right and it’s better to wait for the blu ray but i haven’t seen many movies worth seeing more than once and you’d have to wait to see a movie

  2. yes, people (well, at least I do) still listen to your podcast. If you ran for president I would totally vote for you guys. I doubt you have enough experience in politics, but that doesn’t matter as the position of President is more for publicity and image than actual leadership.

    also, kudos on the sound quality. don’t know what you did different but it worked! keep up the good work guys!

  3. As far as picture quality goes, I’ll agree with you… most theaters are kind of awful. (I won’t give Marcus Theaters another dime.)

    The one exception I’ve found is the iPic theater at Bayshore mall in Milwaukee. All screens have digital projection, and the picture quality is amazing… it really makes a big difference.

    Plus, no commercials, no one under 21 after 7pm, large plush seats, and a full bar and restaurant.

  4. @yoss

    We went back to using the ancient Sound Forge 4 (developed right here in Madison, WI) for doing the audio. As you noticed, it works much better!

    @Dave

    That is the most amazing movie theater I have ever heard of! I’ll have to make a special trip to Milwaukee just to check it out. So they must actually card people when they go in? That is pretty sweet! That would be the end of rugrats kicking my seat. 🙂

  5. Yes we tried using Adobe Soundbooth on the laptop side but yeah, it wasn’t lean and smooth like good old Sound Forge.

    So yes, we use ALL Madison-area software in the podcast.

    I like Adobe but their stuff is bloatware and can be pretty doggy sometimes. It’s funny how they seem to KNOW which programs of theirs are buggy as certain ones have autosave and others don’t.

  6. It costs $11 to go to a movie where I live.
    Needless to say I only see about 1 movie a year, this year’s choice was RAMBO.
    I was satisfied.

  7. Hey Ben,

    The entire Chinese Democracy album was available via live steam on the GnR myspace page. I can tell you that I was not among those who bought the album out of “morbid curiosity”. I dare say that the songs were so painful to listen to that I had to whip out Appetite For Destruction just to remind myself of a time that Axl Rose wasn’t a washed up hack.

    If it doesn’t have Slash, then it’s not GnR.

    ~Neil

  8. Oh, another thing. It’s not merely enough for us to buy American, and really, it doesn’t matter which console you buy. To really get the economy back on the right track, we need to tell the American government itself to step off and let the market do its job. People don’t want to hear this, but virtually all of the programs that the government has put in place to help the little guy afford a comfortable living have actually done most of the damage.

    Take minimum wage, for example. In principle, minimum wage sounds nice, but the problem is that it’s built upon this notion that your average American employer can afford to pay all of his employees whatever the enforced minimum wage happens to be, as if money is infinite. Obviously, this isn’t the case. Money has to come from somewhere, and sometimes the cost is job cuts. This is the dark side of government meddling in middle class affairs.

    What happens is that employers can only afford a finite number of jobs. If the government forces an employer to raise his base wage, then the number of affordable positions reduce. The result is twofold: 1) fewer jobs are available, and 2) the jobs that are available now come with the workload of more than one person.

    Unfortunately, the political left has this idea that we need minimum wage to compensate for cost of living increases. But what causes cost of living increases? Well, when you force employers to raise the wages of their employees, the money has to come from somewhere. (Remember, money isn’t made of magic.) So, the cost of goods and services goes up, which causes the cost of living to go up, and then the government raises minimum wage to compensate the very problem that they’re causing. And unfortunately, we just elected some guy who plans on making this even worse.

    And getting back to my point, it doesn’t matter which console you buy, because buying American isn’t going to do anything to the economy. In an ideal market, in which American companies can afford to have industry in the states, then you could say that buying American is good for the economy, but that wouldn’t follow that buying foreign is bad, either, because if America still had a lot of industrial jobs, then trade with foreign companies would be beneficial as well.

    Obviously, we don’t have an ideal market, and thus American companies, like Microsoft, have to farm out the industrial work to countries like China and Mexico. And thus, buying American doesn’t really help the American economy, because it’s still not making jobs for the people who actually need them in the states.

    The point here is that the slogan “buy American” is rather pointless in light of what the actual problem is.

    We need to urge the government to reform some of its policies so that companies can bring jobs back to American soil and reverse some of the damage that these well-meaning but ultimately foolish programs have caused.

    And no, minimum wage isn’t the only catalyst, and I’m not a Republican. The conservatives are just as much to blame for this as the liberals.

  9. “Rated PG. May include Patriotic Garbage” – to quote a really good game.
    Made in Edinburgh, Scotland 😛

  10. I understand the reasons for buying American and the 360 is a really good console so it isn’t a bad choice however.
    However, if this were the 90’s and we had the same problem would you (as a gamer first and an American citizen second) honestly recommend an Atari Jaguar (the American console at the time) over a SNES or a Genesis?

  11. I think in yalls next podcast you should talk about netbooks. Just a thought because those things are a realy hot topic right now.

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