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I recently upgraded to a
Blackberry 8700g.
Email, cellphone, web
access, and PDA all-in-one.
I love Canon digicams.
I had an S330, then an S230,
now an SD400. They're solidly
made, they take great pictures,
and they're ultra-portable.
I've gone back to the dark
side. I once again have an iPod.
This time it's a 60gb iPod Photo.
The Dell Latitude D620
is my current work laptop.
It's a cleanly designed
Centrino Duo machine with
amazing battery
life and a nice screen.
My home laptop is a
15" Apple MacBook Pro
dual-booting both Mac OS X
and Windows XP. Hooray for
Boot Camp!
I recently upgraded to a 20"
Dell 2001fp LCD. It has great
image quality, and convenient
USB ports on the side.
My current PC is
a P4 system based on an Intel
D915GAG motherboard in an Antec
Sonata II case. 200gb Seagate
SATA hard drive, nVidia GeForce
6600GT video card, SB Live 5.1,
and NEC DVD-RW drive.
Just like with digicams,
I like Canon inkjet printers. My
i860 is quiet, fast, and produces
first-class color prints.
Not much to say here.
If you're an aviation enthusiast
and you have a fast PC,
go buy FS2004 now.
If you get hooked on
flight sims like I did, you'll want
a good flight controller. The
CH Products Flight Sim Yoke USB
is probably the best all-around
flight controller out there.
It ain't cheap, though....
My Current Reading List
Eastward to Tartary:
Travels in the Balkans,
the Middle East, and
the Caucasus
by Robert D. Kaplan
Falling Off the Map
by Pico Iyer
Great Bridge: The Epic
Story of the Building of
the Brooklyn Bridge
by David McCullough
The Polish Way: A Thousand
Year History of the Poles and
Their Culture
by Adam Zamoyski
Best of Europe 2006
by Rick Steves
2008
October (2 entries)August (1 entry)
June (1 entry)
May (2 entries)
February (2 entries)
2007
July (1 entry)June (7 entries)
April (5 entries)
February (4 entries)
January (11 entries)
2006
December (5 entries)November (3 entries)
October (10 entries)
September (6 entries)
August (4 entries)
July (7 entries)
June (5 entries)
May (7 entries)
April (15 entries)
March (9 entries)
February (7 entries)
January (15 entries)
2005
December (4 entries)November (6 entries)
October (15 entries)
September (4 entries)
August (9 entries)
July (18 entries)
June (10 entries)
May (12 entries)
April (19 entries)
March (18 entries)
February (10 entries)
January (20 entries)
2004
December (9 entries)November (21 entries)
October (9 entries)
September (15 entries)
August (7 entries)
July (7 entries)
June (8 entries)
May (10 entries)
April (5 entries)
March (12 entries)
February (18 entries)
January (9 entries)
| 03/31/2006 20:29 |
| Part impulse buy, part fulfillment of childhood dream, I ordered a 1985 Kansas City Royals jersey yesterday. It's a George Brett road jersey, the powder blue one. The current Royals uniforms are pretty dumb looking, although I did see they've gone back to a simple home jersey that is reminiscent of their clean look in the 1970s and 1980s. Still, why promote the newer suckier Royals?
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| 03/26/2006 08:48 |
| Yesterday we rode the Amtrak train to Portland. We had been looking for a reason to take the train somewhere, and this made perfect sense. There is a "buy one get one free" coupon code for the Amtrak Cascades train, so we took a day trip to the City of Roses. We left on the 8:50am train, which didn't actually leave until 9:05am, getting us to Portland at 11:40am. We walked to Powell's Bookstore, then around downtown to the Columbia Sportswear flagship store and the Apple Store at Pioneer Place. We had good Thai food at Pioneer Place, then rode the Max train to the Lloyd Center. After that we went to Chinatown and had tea and cakes at a dim sum place. We went back to Powell's a second time, and bought a few books, then wandered around some more. After a quick stop at Whole Foods Market to get snacks for the ride home, we headed back to the train station for the ride home. It was pretty darn cool, and more interesting than driving down to Portland.
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| 03/20/2006 09:25 |
| "If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." -Mario Andretti |
| 03/14/2006 20:11 |
| I ordered a wireless bridge to use with my newly-modded Xbox, and it arrived yesterday. It's a nice US Robotics 802.11g bridge, and it worked perfectly right out of the box... I moved the Xbox into the bedroom, where it is connected to the 20" TV we have in there. I can now lay in bed, totally sedentary, and access all the various types of digital content stored on my home network. To celebrate my modding success, I blew $5 at eBay for a chrome skin for the Xbox. Ah, it's good to be geeky.
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| 03/13/2006 22:13 |
| I just had an experience that demonstrates how some online merchants "get it" and others don't. I have an Alaska Airlines Visa card through Bank of America. I use that card any place where I can't use my trusty American Express. BoA offers a version of online banking that is almost unlike every other online banking service I've ever seen -- and not in a good way. For example, there are a million different pages that look like the main login page for credit card accounts. You never really know if it's the right login page or not. Their monthly emails that indicate when your bill is due have links to a login page that is different from the page I bookmarked when I signed up, and my login and password don't work there. Also, they have a byzantine combination of login IDs, passwords, site keys, and confirmation codes that can't possibly make sense to anyone, and must be the product of decision by committee. The "site key" is a little picture that you're supposed to recognize, but what happens when you do or don't recognize it is not very clear. Once you're logged in, there is a tiny little link for "Pay Your Bill," surrounded by ads for other BoA services. When you click the link to pay your bill, you get a bill summary page that shows the due date, the total amount you owe, etc. Perfectly fine. However, once you click the next "Pay My Bill" link, you go to a page that no longer indicates how much your balance is, or how much that month's bill was. The "amount" box is pre-populated with $10.00 as a minimum payment, but if you want to pay the entire balance (shocking concept, I know), you have to navigate back and look again. You have to pick what day you want the payment to be made, never mind the fact that you're there making a payment because you, say, want to make a payment. BoA clearly doesn't have many customers who subscribe to the "pay it all, pay it now" school of financial planning. American Express does all of this so well, maybe I'm just spoiled. Still it does seem like BoA's site is needlessly complicated and difficult to use. It's not like the Alaska Airlines card is a no-annual-fee card either, I'm paying for the privilege of navigating the clunky BoA site, and having it periodically ask me what state I'm in. Surprisingly, not one of the states in the list is "Confusion."
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| 03/05/2006 18:11 |
| New shoe alert. I spent my REI dividend check and got the members' 20% discount on a pair of Merrell Ventilator cross-trainers. Very comfy for my fat high-arched feet. Knowing that it's difficult for me to find shoes that fit well, I took it as a sign, and bought them immediately. I got the 20% discount, so they were only $60.... I also got some Nalgene travel bottles (the big assortment) with the $5 dividend check... Gotta have indestructible shampoo and conditioner bottles, you know... And, having a touch of OCD, I'm printing labels to stick on them right now....
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| 03/04/2006 12:50 |
| I'm like a broken record with regards to XBMC, but it really is that good. Here's a screenshot, now with extra majesty!
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| 03/03/2006 22:59 |
| I seem to collect travel quotes like some people collect bumper stickers. Granted, I hate bumper stickers, but that's not the point. In "Eastward to Tartary," Robert Kaplan wrote: "There is no magic like traveling alone, without friends or colleagues to condition one's opinions. It is the very loneliness that makes travel worthwhile: to be in isolation with historical forces, with only landscapes and books as guides." I don't always agree with that sentiment, but at times I do. It's a different kind of travel, that's for certain.
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| 03/03/2006 22:14 |
| After much searching for the right items, and much crossing of fingers, I successfully modded my Xbox. I have it running Xbox Media Center now, and it is truly impressive. It can play/show/stream any audio, video, or picture type you throw at it, it's easy to configure, and it looks great. All hail XBMC!
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