You may recall that my dearest mommy got me a big ol’ television set for Christmas this past holiday.
Well, I’ve finally got it running at full capacity now that I have a TiVo-HD (got a deal on a refurb from Woot!) and boy is it something.
Of course, the CableCARD install wasn’t perfectly smooth, but at least it turned out to just be a bit of an annoyance while the cable guy fiddled with it for an hour or two. It was definitely not the sort of tragedy I had read about on various TiVo forums, etc.
It’s funny what HD does to you, though. Two words to illustrate my point: Sunrise Earth. My friends (who were all way ahead of me on the HD curve) all told me about this hypnotic show, and I always pointed at them and laughed. Turns out they were right on the money. It’s just mesmerizing. Even beyond that, though, I’ll watch a nature show or rock concert in HD before just about any other option now. Good times.
The Wife’s favorite bit - aside from when I blew her mind by showing her how we can watch shows from our old TiVo unit on the new one - is the dual tuner action we get from the TiVo-HD. Now “Boy shows” don’t automatically trump “Girl shows”. Peace reigns supreme at the Lazy ‘S’ Ranch, though it does give the TiVo twice the opportunity to record one of it’s off the wall suggestions…
Random tidbits once again:
- I’m really pleased with the results of my latest slate tile project. Now I’m itching to switch into woodworking mode. I’m super excited about the new episodes of the New Yankee Workshop: Norm is building kitchen cabinets. I plan to eventually build cabinets for the mudroom and perhaps the garage (as practice for the potential “big job” of the actual kitchen). I think I’ll go ahead and buy the DVDs.
- I’m gradually building up my home entertainment system to match the new TV. I’ve gotten a fancy HDMI-switching receiver and a fairly cool iPod dock thingy. Next on my list is a TiVo HD. Then some surround speakers of some sort (I’m still living in stereo, folks…). And then maybe an Xbox 360, finally. (Still holding out for GTA4 on that one.)
- On the fitness front, my weight dipped below 200 pounds for the first time in a while yesterday. It’s back above today, but we’ll assume that’s temporary. I’m going to join a climbing gym soon, I think. A great new motivator I have is the Garmin Forerunner 205 I got for Xmas. It’s not as sexy as the new 405 everyone is drooling over, but it’s pretty darned cool. Of course, now I’m obsessed with tracking the slightest walk / jog / jaunt to the mail box. When The Wife teased me about it I quipped, “Are you kidding? I’m gonna track my trips to the bathroom from now on!”
- Lots of interesting gossip about former coworkers and new coworkers. That’s about all I’ll say about that, I suppose.
- I’m still an Obama cheerleader, though I don’t generally like to air my politics on this site. I like the look of things right now.
- Trent Reznor isn’t exactly excited by the results of the Niggy Tardust experiment.
- TV sucks almighty ass right now. I know there’s a writer’s strike going, but why aren’t networks taking better advantage by replaying some of the good stuff we might have missed previously? Example: AMC’s Mad Men? (Ooh! There’s an encore starting Jan 21. Nice.) At least I always have books to read.
So yeah… What’s new with you?
My dear mother has made the leap to Apple computing hardware, which I welcome wholeheartedly. Of course, she had to do it whole-hog by getting an iMac and a MacBook, but I can’t begrudge her having her toys. Plus she got a discount through her employer, so she was able to get everything nicely upgraded.
Now I just need to get down there this weekend and install the wireless router I got her for Xmas…
Then we can figure out that crazy screen sharing action in iChat. That’ll be awesome for remote troubleshooting, should it ever be needed.
Some random crap:
My mommy got me a 40″ Sony LCD HDTV for Xmas. I was planning to get something in the 46″ range later in 2008, but 40″ turns out to be plenty big (plus, it’s free, yo!). That mother of mine is pretty cool. Even if she does have a thundering herd of Great Danes at her house (including this one and this one, who will make you cry).
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Did you hear the Lakota have decided to secede from the US? I figure this is roughly equivalent to them going on strike. They’re grabbing some attention and might get some sort fo concession from the US government, but in the end it will amount to nothing. Though, Brozo and I think it’d be fun if they started tolling traffic on I-90 and formed an army. How long do you think it would take for them to be labeled “terrorists” if they did that?
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Did you hear that monkeys are as good at mental mathematics as college kids?
“We had them do math on the fly,” Cantlon said.
The task was to mentally add two sets of dots that were briefly flashed on a computer screen. The teams were asked to pick the correct answer from two choices on a different screen.
The humans were not allowed to count or verbalize as they worked, and they were told to answer as quickly as possible. Both monkeys and humans typically answered within 1 second.
And both groups fared about the same.
Great. Just great.
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Maybe they can help economists decide whether there’s going to be a recession or not.
“A lot of the underlying resilience of the U.S. economy seems a bit unappreciated,” says Citigroup economist Steven Wieting. “It’s not clear that this is so large a burden that we can’t muddle through this.”
That’s the best this guy could come up with? Muddle through?
I hate the Apple Store. I have from the beginning. I guess some people like it (or did like it), but I’m not one of them.
I like to be able to actually buy things in stores without having to enlist a fulltime escort. Nothing frustrated me more than needing a new iPod, walking into the store, seeing a table loaded with iPods packaged for Christmas joy… BEHIND a friggin’ rope. I stood there frozen, staring at my just out of my reach goal, thinking “How… Do… I… Buy… One…?” until I got frustrated enough to walk out and buy the iPod online from home.
Conversely, I was fine with the expectation of having to talk to someone when I wanted to buy my iMac. That’s a big purchase with options involved. I’m fine talking to someone about that. I shouldn’t need to talk to someone to buy an iPod, though. At least not until my credit card is out.
So after successfully waiting for the release of Leopard (the latest version of OS X), I ran out the other day and plopped down my rewards-earning MasterCard to purchase a 24″ glass and brushed aluminum sculpture known as the iMac. It’s the 2.8GHz CPU with 2GB of RAM, and the 500GB hard drive, and it’s the tits. I even dig on Apple’s new waffer thin keyboard, somewhat to my surprise.
Continue reading ‘Back on the Mac’
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