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My Almost-daily Journal |
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| About I love trying out new things, especially when it comes to internet technology. I never really kept a journal, but it's something that I've always wanted to do. Now, everybody will get a chance to look inside my twisted, and somewhat-warped mind.
I've also subscribed to Audio Blog, so a few times a week, I'll leave actual voice blogs. Very cool!XML Newsfeed  |
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Crazy Physical PhenomenonTop Ten Geek Lists...Not sure where I found these, but they're so apropos: Ten reasons it isn't always easy being married to a Geek Top ten reasons Geeks make good fathers Ten reasons why Geeks make good friends The Do’s and Don’ts of Dating Geeks I must be a hybrid geek, because on the first link, it assumes that geeks can't fix/repair automobiles. The only auto repair I haven't done is rebuild an automatic trans. The lists are pretty easy reads. posted by Dino at 9:56 AM (permanent link) (0) comments Saturday, January 28, 2006
Home Theater UpdateFinally, we're making some progress on our new living room home theater. When I was living in bachelorhood, the living room was pretty much an unused room. Josh had some furniture in there, but it was mainly because it was the only place to put it. We spent most of our time in the basement, which included the home theater as well as the computer room. After Josh moved out, and after I married Danielle, the computer room was moved to Josh's old bedroom, and the basement home theater was temporarily retired. Right before Angelina was born, we gutted our kitchen, and purchased a new sectional for the living room. The house now started taking the shape of a home. It takes us a long time to make decisions in this democratic household of indecision. A few months of window-shopping later, we finally agreed on some floor lamps. They look marvelous. Now to the home theater... we finally decided on a plasma after almost six months of research. We decided on a Panasonic 42X500U, which was Panasonic's flagship 42" plasma. I pulled the trigger in October, utilizing the Ford Employee Network discount given by Panasonic to Ford employees. Shhhh... I'm not a Ford employee, but luck has it, I have a CDS ID since I'm a supplier to Ford, and it worked on Panasonic's Ford employee discount site. January has come and gone, and still no word from Panasonic. After calling them (and waiting 45 minutes on hold), they told me that they're so backordered on the 42" 500U, I'll probably never see it. The rep recommended that I just cancel my order and take my business elsewhere. That sure left a nasty taste in my mouth. The delay in a plasma purchase may have been a good thing. Danielle is now finally convinced that we'll probably be better off with a 50" plasma. You don't have to twist my arm with that opinion... "Umm... 50 inch plasma? Yeah, I think I can make that work." So now I'm on the lookout for a 50" plasma. I WANT a Pioneer Elite 50" plasma. That's probably the best plasma money can buy right now. Unfortunately, a 50" Pioneer Elite costs about $6500. The next best thing is a Panasonic 50PX500U or a Samsung 5072. Well, the Panasonic 500U is plagued by the same Panasonic supply issue: there are none... anywhere. Coincidentally, I did manage to find a 42X500U at ABD warehouse, but we're now in the 50" market. The Samsung 5072 is available from several places... one of them is Pecars, which is a high-end home theater boutique in Troy. The Samsung looks better, since it's all black. The Panasonic has a silver bezel. What are plasma manufacturers thinking? Who wants a nasty silver bezel? Pioneer did it right. The bezel is tiny, and it's gloss black. It's beautiful. Samsung almost got it right... the bezel is almost non-existent, and the entire TV body is black. I'd pull the trigger today if I could, but I'm indecisive, and I've been researching that TV non-stop. I've discovered that many people share the same decision: either a Panasonic 50PX500U or the Samsung 5072. What I've been reading is that the Samsung excels when rendering a high definition digital signal, but when you run a standard broadcast signal through it, the picture is "fair". Ouch. It's going to be a tough sell because Danielle watches plenty of day time and prime time television. Last thing I ever want to hear is, "This TV sucks!" So I'm back to research mode again. Maybe if we wait long enough, OLED TV's will be out. We also recently purchased our TV and stereo component stand. That also took months of research. They don't make too many TV stands with center channel speakers in mind. The one I have is 22" long and 7.5" high. Most stands made either weren't high enough for the speaker, or not wide enough. We ended up with a stand made by BDI, and it looks marvelous. As far as my old Klipsch speakers go, I got the executive nod that I can get newer and more stylish speakers for living room. Yippeee! I have the Definitive Technology Mythos speakers in mind. I was thinking about the bipolar ones made by Definitive, but the Mythos are just too damn stylish. I gotta get them! Aside from home theater decisions and purchases, I've been playing with my new Dragonfly 4 remote control helicopter. I took a digger last week and had to order a new main shaft for it. Total cost was $8, so it wasn't a fatal crash. Got the part yesterday, and I've been flying it all weekend. I'm slowly getting the hang of it, but flying an RC helicopter is very difficult. I still have the training balls on it, and I don't think those will be going away any time soon. Other than that, Angelina learned how to roll over last week. We were practicing rolling her over on Wednesday, and by Thursday morning she mastered it. Now she won't stay on her back at all. Even when she sleeps now, she has to be on her stomach. It's amazing watching her and realizing that her brain is a total sponge. Everything is brand new to her. She's totally amazing... more fun than RC helicopters and home theater components. That's all for now. :) posted by Dino at 4:14 PM (permanent link) (0) comments Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Holiday RecapIt's been quite a while since I've posted anything on my blog. It's a combination of laziness, new parenting responsibilities, as well as lack of time (mainly due to games like World of Warcraft and Civilization 4... yes, I'm an addict). Our baby girl, Angelina, get older day by day. Everything she sees or does, it's usually for the very first time. Everything is brand new to her. I have a blog dedicated just for her: My Baby Blog. I'm trying to write more often. The link is also a permanent part of this blog listed on the <-- left hand nav bar. Over the holiday break, I did nothing productive other than install a set of automated running boards on my father-in-law's RAM truck. I planned on painting the kitchen, getting family room carpet, getting living room lamps, ordering my plasma, buying a plasma TV stand, installing Danielle's remote starter on her Pacifica, catching up on much-belated web work (I'm such a procrastinator), cleaning up the basement (boxes and junk need to be pitched), fixing the dryer (I did manage to order some replacement parts), organizing my utility room, organizing my pile of 2005 bills, receipts and tax info, and visiting friends. The big accomplishments were the running board install, dismantling and putting away the Xmas decorations, selecting a type of carpet, buying a pre-lit artificial middle-of-the-road Xmas tree, and mastering three scenarios of world domination in Civilization 4 (I hardly played any World of Warcraft). This week, Danielle and I need to catch up on most of the neglected items above, mainly cleaning out the basement so we can get our eliptical (so I can start to drop the 50 lbs that I have accumulated in the year after marriage). I really need to get motivated and catch up on my neglected web work. Interesting... as I write this, a web customer is calling me on my cell, probably wondering why the month-old changes haven't been completed. I'm a slacker. Actually, I want to get out of the web business. It's now just an annoyance. I have one "high-needs" customer that needs support almost weekly. I just want to design front ends and layouts. I hate the updating, the webserver support, and the home-office support that usually is associated with my level of service. I'm in too deep, and many customers have been around for almost a decade. I wouldn't even know HOW to migrate them to somebody else. If anybody is interested in buying my customer base, please let me know. I want out. Oh yeah... I also planned on compiling our wedding videos and start putting together a wedding photo book. That never happened either. On the brighter side of things, Angelina is now a full-blown human baby. She laughs, smiles, and is starting to get interested in specific things (TV mainly). She's a total joy. She sleeps through the nights, and often times we have been able to "sleep in". She is addicted to her pacifier, though, and she gets into whiney fits if it falls out. That mostly happens in the evening. She's still pretty good about sticking her hand in her mouth if she can't find her pacifier. And like always, we're taking 100 pictures or more per week, so be sure to visit the photo album... which reminds me... we get to start another album year! Woohoo! Christmas was great this year! We celebrated the eve with my parents, Peter, Michelle, Gina, and Kyle at my parents' house. Christmas morning was spent exclusively with Angelina, Danielle and I. Then we celebrated Christmas afternoon at our house with Danielle's dad, Rhiannon, and Rob. We cooked up some nice vittles with the help of Honeybaked Ham, including a roasted turkey and all the fixings. Pretty darn good turkey too! New Years Eve was celebrated at Pete and Dre Gulisano's house with the usual crew, and special guests Peter & Michelle, and Jon & Dawn. It was a great time, though I did get a bad spell of vertigo (i.e. motion sickness) playing 4-player Call of Duty on Pete's new Xbox 360. Graphics were phenomenal. Then, I thought that I had to go to work on the 2nd, until Danielle reminded me that I didn't have to go to work until the 3rd! That was a nice treat that occurs maybe once every few years (i.e. you wake up to go to work, and realize it's Saturday). posted by Dino at 1:17 PM (permanent link) (0) comments |
