There’s nothing certain in this life but death, taxes and endless frustration at my inability to score with Monica Bellucci, but Peter Ha over at Cruchgear reads the tea leaves:

Increased output of blue-violet diodes hints at future price cuts. Production of the diode — a key ingredient of the PS3’s Blu-ray drive — is currently at 1.7 million a month and Sony is now prepared to up that to 5 million which will decrease Sony’s materials cost which should result in price cuts for the PS3.

I hope that the price does drop. And I hope it’s the biggest news of the entire year. I hope all this just because I laughed when people rushed out and bought $3000 PS3s off Ebay, just for the honor of having it about 10 days before their neighbors. The ultimate in “gotta have it now” mentality resulted in insanity for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of pimple-faced fanboys. It also resulted in enormous windfalls for those who bought the gaming consoles for sticker price and then played on the fanatics who couldn’t wait to get one, or couldn’t be bothered to turn off World of Warcraft for long enough to haul themselves down to Toys R Us or wherever to buy one. Sheesh.

I also hope the price drops so that I can buy one.

Hey, my hypocrisy runs only so far.

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Maybe she wasn’t attractive. Maybe he was nervous. Maybe, just maybe, his brother spiked his orange juice.

Whatever the cause, some schmuck in an Indian village lost his bride-to-be to his brother, all on account of his staggering drunkenness.

“The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride’s family and local villagers chased him away,” said one local official. It was obviously an arranged marriage, so the groom’s brother volunteered to take his place. I do’s were exchanged, kisses were planted, and the deal was sealed.

This from the same moral police that flipped at Richard Gere for his illicit act, a story so laughable that I’ve been forced to sort of defend Richard Gere. Seems like a conflict to me.

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Style.com has just posted a story detailing thirteen new timepieces introduced at this year’s Basel show. Though this list of thirteen includes the utterly ridiculous Titanic Watch, there are at least a few models of note.

The Glashutte Original pictured above, for example — a stunning combination of timeless details and cutting edge technology. My other favorites include the Panerai Radiomir chronograph and the Richard Mill 012 Tourbillon (at $450,000, how could you pass it up).

If you’re in the market, there are many, many wonderful options all inhabiting the world beyond Rolex. Have fun exploring.

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