|
Jan062006
|
Week of January First |
Yet again, I haven’t been motivated to post each day at the beginning of this new year. Not much has been going on anyway. Dad made the ‘traditional’ white beans and cabbage rolls for dinner on the first. I worked for a little while on Tuesday. This week I’ve been watching Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes which I missed while I was at Tech. I’ve also watched a number of Battlestar Galactica episodes again, in ‘preparation’ for the show’s return. One thing that’s had my attention this week is the Consumer Electronics Show. I’m obviously not lucky enough to be in Las Vegas for this, although I’m sure I will be someday, I’ve been following the online coverage pretty enthusiastically. I watched the Bill Gates keynote webcast on Wednesday night some interesting stuff. Overall there’s been lots of cool stuff announced. Of particular interest to me are new PMP’s with Windows Media Center Edition and 300 gigabyte holographic versatile discs. Ofcourse CES wouldn’t be complete without big-ass TVs too, like Matsushita’s 103 inch plasma. In the end though, there are just two kinds of products shown at CES: really cool ones and really cool ones nobody will buy. I guess the whole Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD thing is newsworthy too. I think HD-DVD is gonna come out on top though. Simply being backed by Microsoft is pretty insurmountable in my opinion. It’s also cheaper, region-free and there’s less DRM bullshit (no AACS). On Thurday, we had a high-definition satellite system from Dish Network installed in the house. Technically, the service technician from an independent contractor. He was here from about four until about eight. I guess that wasn’t too long considering the work involved. The dish had to be mounted from a pole for some reason rather than bolted onside the house probably some legal crap, because I can’t believe the dish is that heavy. The pole was put in the middle of the back yard, which I’m sure mom is non-too-pleased about. He also had to dig a trench to bury the cable to the edge of the house. Judging from the work after-the-fact, he didn’t have the right kind of shovel for the job. A small switch box had to be mounted on the side of the house and coaxial cable had to be run to three rooms in the house. Lines were run to each of our houses three bedrooms. While I’d love to believe I now have satellite TV in my bedroom at no personal expense due to my parent’s generosity, I tend to think the cost was the same for just one room. The way it’s set up, there is no actual box in my room. I have an radio frequency remote that operates off the DVR in my parent’s room with some sort of dual TV mode. There’s a generic receiver box in Andrew’s room. It’s nice not to have any more hardware cluttering my room, but having just a coax cable coming into my room prevents me from using my stereo for audio since I don’t have audio out jacks on my TV. In any event, I hope to eventually have this hooked up to my eventually HDTV capable computer. SciFi Friday returned this evening, a big deal in my universe. There were new episodes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and most importantly, Battlestar Galactica. Each show ended with a cliffhanger a few months ago. While both Stargate shows were pretty decent, and I’m a fan of both, they now seem like mere pre-game shows for BSG. I’m not in the habit of reviewing TV shows in my log and I’m too tired to start now, so I’ll let it suffice to say tonight’s episode was fantastic. There was plenty of action and tension to spare. I think I can safely say the show is going to get even better and by better I don’t mean things are looking up for the characters. Judging by the large size of this post, I guess I better get back to daily entries.