Oh John C. Dvorak, I could read your stuff all day long. And your weekly web show, Cranky Geeks, keeps me looking forward to Wednesdays now, if only to catch a fleeting glimpse of the crankiness that’ll undoubtedly ensue.

Now the crankiness has spilled over into the HD DVD versus Blu-ray thing. The very thing that I, believe you me, am sick of writing about, hearing about, and reading, yet I can’t pass up a good old Dvorak word-tantrum.

The basic premise of his latest column is that “this whole thing was a Microsoft scheme to mess with Sony.” Mm-hmm.

He then goes on to point out the attacks on Blu-ray about the discs scratching easily and that things got worse when HD DVD players were so much less expensive than Blu-ray players, compounded by how long it took Sony to release the PS3. No fair!!!

Then an epitome…

“There was a sense that the entire HD DVD war was just a grand scheme to submarine Sony and the PS3 in some way.”

It’s an interesting idea, although I’m not sure that if HD DVD would have won (which was never its intention, according to Dvorak), the PS3 would have been sunk. Still, it’s a fun read if only for bits and pieces like,

“In hindsight, I have to conclude that the entire exercise was a sham, plain and simple. Perhaps it was part of a larger marketing effort to screw with Sony…This was not a Beta versus VHS battle. It was something unique and weird and onerous. And it was a big waste of everyone’s time and money.”

I can’t argue with the last sentence.

R.I.P. HD DVD [PC Magazine]