A report by the University of Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center says the potato industry should start producing Bioplastics, which are made from plant starch rather than crude oil and petroleum products. Wow. Not only can these Bioplastics be used to produce carpeting, upholstery fabric and recyclable plastic bottles, they also have the technology to turn out such items as "spudware," or plastic silverware made from potatoes.

Are you kidding me right now?! Plastic from potatoes? Brilliant! Nothing pleases me more, don’t get me wrong I’m all for being environmentally conscious and "green" but what I’m really excited about is the branch from Bioplastics to the medical profession. Think about it. No longer will it be called "plastic" surgery, but "potato" surgery. I predict by next week or so we will have real life "potato" heads running amuck in Los Angeles County!

Imagine, all those snobby, latte sipping, BMW driving, shallow people in L.A getting "potato" surgery. But of course we wouldn’t tell them that, we would just let them get their physical augmentations, and enjoy looking at Mr and Mrs Potato Head all over again. The plan is flawless!

HOLD THE PRESSES FOLKS! This just in – Plastic surgery does not really require any sort of "plastic". The word "plastic" derives from the Greek plastikos meaning to mold or to shape; its use here is not connected with the synthetic polymer material known as Plastic.

The Snobbs – 1

Me – 0

I’ll get you next time Snobbs, and your little dog too!

Sony has begun shipping out their newest blu-ray disk player to major electronic retailers. The BDP-S300, now at an affordable rate, is expected to "broaden the high-definition disc player market." As a product of Sony, the player is not without its tricks. It hypes an output of 1920 x 1080/24p high-definition video, which is the highest resolution high-definition signal available through an HDMI connection. And speaking of HDMI, it could be used to create a multi-channel linear PCM digital audio output for excellent surround sound. Any owner of an entertainment system would be sure to love this feature. The player can also support various video formats, including MPEG2, MPEG4-AVC and VC1.

The new BD player is compatible with most standard DVDs, as well as the added bonus of 1080p upscaling through HDMI to 1080p capable HDTVs. It supports BD-ROM, AVC-HD Media, DVD video and DVD playback from DVD/DVD+R/+RW encoded discs, CD playback, as well as MP3 audio files and JPEG images stored on DVD recording media.

The player will be available in the near future at Sony online stores and other retailers nationwide at the price of $499.

Last fall, NEC took its WARPSTAR lineup into the realm of draft-N with the Aterm WR8200N, and thanks to all this Draft 2.0 hubbub that’s going around, apparently it figured now would be a good time to hop on the next bandwagon. The Aterm WR8400N four-port router and Aterm WL300NC PCMCIA card both tout theoretical transfer rates of around 300Mbps, are backwards compatible with 802.11a/b/g devices, support "Multi SSID" / WEP / WAP protocols, and can automatically detect and connect to signals in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. No word just yet on price nor availability, but we’re sure it’ll get lost in the crowd of similar alternatives before too long anyway.