I’ll probably get a little more done on the web front after moving, and hopefully hit 40 Contracast episodes by New Year’s. But that’s all secondary to not waking up and checking to see if I’ve received any job news.

Synopsis: A timid and innocent mechanic is also a getaway driver. Ryan Gosling works for Bryan Cranston, both fixing cars and driving them. The movie follows Gosling as he drives, meets a girl, meets her husband, and gets into trouble.

Loved: The movie is stylish, and knows it. The cinematography is excellent, as is delivery. The film has a very muted color palette, which serves to really make bright colors pop, even if they are sparse. The movie does something Immortals did too, and that was to make you uncomfortable, more on that below.

Hated: Drive is not an easy going film. From the first scene on, interactions feel tense, danger is imminent, and later on- it is expected. You don’t want the main characters in bad situations, they’re too nice. Your wishes aren’t granted though, and bad situations get worse. In a lot of ways this film reminds me of Pulp Fiction, but where Pulp has fantastic dialogue, this film has only uncomfortable situations. The lack of dialogue- (I imagine the script is pretty brief)- leaves character development up to actions and body language. This works- somewhat- but Gosling still seems nearly as mysterious at the end as he did at the beginning. One last note- the pacing of this film is somewhat uneven. It seems that to punctuate key moments, we have to slow down time before them, and that leads to some scenes taking a while to play out, and not in a good way.

Conclusion: I liked Drive. I don’t particularly agree with the massive amount of hype it has received, but that said, it was alright. It is a well made film with good actors, and an ok plot. Something like a short mix of Pulp Fiction, Running Scared, and A-ha’s “Take on Me”. 7/10

This is Contracast! This week we’re talking about a few new things! Like Occupy Wall Street, the internet, us, the show, Immortals, the future, and other fun topics.

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This is Contracast! This week we’re talking Battlefied 3 and other Fall games, social networks and your employer (part 2!), Blizzcon 2011, iPod turns 10, Android 4.0, lame things in tech, and much more!

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This is Contracast! Join us as we talk about Google’s revenue and Google+’s huge increase in users: CNN Money/Engadget, Blackberry trouble: Blackberry BBM goes down Wired, guest blogging and its troubles, and much, much more.

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Mike: Twitter, Facebook
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This is Contracast! Join us as we talk about Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Kindle, the Battlefield 3 beta, Spotify, iPhone 4S, and the breaking news that Steve Jobs has died. Engadget

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Amazon announced their new 7-inch tablet last week, dubbed the “Kindle Fire”, and it’s already caused quite a stir in the tech community. It’s 199.99 price tag has ensured that word of the device spread fast, and has worked to cover over some of the devices missing bits. It isn’t an iPad competitor, at all really. Devices like the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 have sought to be direct competitors, by attempting to be clones. They are similar in size, shape, and feature set, and are marketed and positioned squarely against the iPad.

The Kindle Fire on the other hand, doesn’t look anything like an iPad. It’s smaller, has less storage, no cameras, less apps, and yet- it has a shot at being the fastest selling tablet since HP’s firesale earlier this Summer. The price of sub-200 dollars and the right features is what has really kicked off excitement for the tablet, and if it does well, the Fire could dramatically reshape the tablet PC market.

The reason the Fire could compete against the iPad- and not simply exist in the market next to the Apple slate- is that people will see it as sort of a PC vs. Mac scenario. Let’s expand the prices by a multiple of 2 and insert in different names. Now you’re a customer looking at a 400 dollar Windows laptop, and a 1000 dollar Macbook Air. (Sure, the Pro is a better case, but it throws off my math.) You recognize the value of the Mac, understand its features, but ultimately- with price heavily influencing your decision- you go with the Windows PC. Sure, you got an inferior product, but you were right when you said “I’ll probably be fine with this one”. The same goes for the Fire.

Consumers are good at justifying purchases, and the Fire will be no exception. Less apps? Price makes it ok. No cameras? Don’t use the tablet camera and/or I have one on my phone. Smaller size? It fits in my purse/bag better anyway. The iPhone offers more, in the same way that high end PC’s offer more than cheap ones. In the end though, money usually wins, and people go with what costs less, even if they are totally aware that they could have something better.

I’ll go ahead and predict what sales look like in a month. Customers come into a store to check out tablets, and play with both tablets. In some cases, people will buy the iPad. Maybe they know of specific apps they want, maybe they’re just too feature-filled to not get, whatever the case- there will remain a market for the device. However, when people play with the Fire they’ll begin to treat the iPad like an Apple PC, IE- “that’s great, but it’s more than I need.” The iPad costs 150% more, and will likely be seen as a ‘premium tablet’, rather than a ‘cheap Apple computer’.

This shift will have a dramatic effect on existing and future tablet prices. The Android tablets costing 4 and 5 hundred dollars right now will be forced to either drop in price, or risk sitting on the shelf forever. Cheaper tablets will be forced to step up their performance and features, to compete with a superior device. This happens all the time when we get a “shock PC” on the shelf. Here’s the scenario: we have 5 computers with dual core processors, 4gb of memory, and 500gb of hard drive space, all priced at 379.99. Sunday morning a new PC hits the shelf, 379.99, quad-core CPU, 4gb memory, and 320gb HDD. Until that model is gone, including the display and any trace it existed, the other PC’s will not sell. No one wants to pay more for less, or pay more for the same, and that is why the market will see rapidly dropping prices for a solid few months in tablets.

If I had to map out the next 6 months for tablet sales, I’d create something like this.

This represents percentage of new sales for tablets in a case where other tablet manufacturers wait to change prices or don’t change them enough, and where growth is gradual for the Fire. Rather than insert 4 more charts, let me break down some ways this graph could change. A first and most obvious example- the Fire could be a flop. Every indication for this is negative, but you can’t be sure. If that were the case, regular tablets might drop a small amount in price, but not a lot would change. A second case to consider is that other manufacturers do act, and quickly to counteract the Fire. Should this occur they would see short term losses against it, initially, but after November they would outpace the Fire significantly. A $299 10.1 inch tablet would likely make as many waves as the Fire. One more plausible situation is worth considering, and that is the one in which the Fire sees much more explosive growth than I predict. I have the Fire taking 25% of December’s tablet sales. Should it release to rave reviews, be well stocked, and a hit with consumers, it could be nearly 50% of Christmas tablet sales. Customers are already wary of buying an iPad 2 now- as many believe (rightfully so) that the iPad 3 is coming in March. The iPad will be huge for Christmas though, regardless. The question is simply “how big”, and that really is up to the Fire right now.

The Fire hits the right price note for the current tablet market extremely well. People are not buying a replacement device to not use their PC anymore, they’re buying a complementary device- to use on the go and on the couch. At 200 dollars, a complementary device is a lot easier to swallow than 500+. Now we just have to see if all this actually comes true. One argument against it happening is brought up when you discuss the Nook Color. I want to address that for a brief paragraph before my conclusion.

The Nook Color is- in theory- very similar to what the Kindle Fire is. Not an iPad competitor, but a functional tablet that hits an attractive price point. That being said, the Nook Color falls short in so many ways to the Fire. To not get terribly technical, let me just say that the Fire is a much faster, and much more responsive tablet, with much more attractive styling, and a price that does not encourage buying the next step up or down. The Nook Color is simply a mediocre tablet compared to almost every other major tablet.

I think until roughly mid-December we won’t have a good feel for how the Fire will play out, but we’ll be able to gauge it then. This is going to be a tablet that’s initial sales will be very high, and those numbers will skew the overall numbers right after launch. If it truly doesn’t prove to be the device that does what most people want it to do, then it will fail. If on the other hand, it launches, and appears to be a steal at 199.99, it could and most likely would take over tablet sales in the short term. In any case, expect tablet prices to go down.

1. Contracast 36 is coming in the next couple days. Tomorrow, if I can help it. We’re talking the Kindle and Kindle Fire, Battlefield 3, and a few other fun topics. I may write an article introducing parts of the discussion in a few minutes. Maybe.

2. My car destroyed a belt. Or a belt destroyed itself. Or something like that. My water pump belt totally frayed, as in- there was nothing but guitar strings and plastic bits wrapped around its pulleys. Thankfully I caught it quickly- as I’m one to glance at the oil gauge every few minutes. Advance Auto proved a tremendous help, and popped on the new 11.99 belt at no cost. The fun thing about all this is that a local shop told me 2 years ago that I needed a new belt because this one was “weeks away” from breaking. They offered to put it on for 100. Ha.

3. I picked up a copy of the 40th anniversary edition of “What Color is your Parachute” at Barnes and Noble the other night. So far it has been excellent. It has the kind of job hunting advice I wish I’d read when I was 18. At the very least, I’m still only 22, and thus- have time to get on the right path, or as the book says “design my career”. Right now I’m really up in the air about whether to return to school for a graduate degree, or to hang in with the job search and hopefully lock down a great job. I have to choose very soon though.

4. I still really want that motorcycle.

I did write an article earlier today, but not for myself. It is posted over at Scifiandgadgets.com, and talks about the augmentation concepts from Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The site is owned by Brian Dunaway, of Film Sack and Comics Coast to Coast (both great podcasts). I wrote a few guest posts back in early 2010 for the site, and found it again today when looking at “similar sites” via an SEO extension.

I’m reading a bunch of books right now, but chiefly “Trust Agents” by Chris Brogan. Having read lots on social media and new marketing, its nothing really earth-shattering, but it is worth a read.

I’m working on a new business card, and that is tonight’s primary focus.

I watched the Google sponsored Republican debate earlier, and at the least- it’s cool to see Google+ get some exposure. I did come upon a great way to build up my own G+, Twitter, and Linkedin accounts though. I imported my Facebook contacts into Yahoo, then exported them as a .CSV file. I then imported that into Gmail, and used the Gmail connect option on Twitter and Linkedin. Success.

In particular, as you’ll hear, 5 Minutes of Interesting will be coming back, and I’ve really been meaning to get a few more shows started. In particular, something short-form, that I can kind of do whenever. I’m testing out a new microphone as well,