Plasma TV Blog

There are too many ways to watch TV these days. Cable TV is good, but satellite is even cooler. Internet TV is quite powerful considering that anyone can watch it mostly without commercials. There used to be just a handful of channels and it was quite a monopoly of the news system. However, with more channels and new ones every year, people can live in the world of their choosing. I like fishing and now I can live it 24 hours a day. I heard that satellite TV can be troublesome but there are FTA keys that work with your system and can make life easier. You can fix your own minor issues with the right information and now you can get it from a website offering help and ways to correct it. There has got to be a huge market for this since so many millions of people watch TV all the time. TV is a big part of people’s lives these days. Have you ever tried to change the channel when they are watching it?

Looking out from my balcony in sunny, bright LA, I am wondering how I fit in the big picture of the city. I found a site online that sells GPS gadgets. I really want another toy to play with since my other 50 gadgets got eaten by the dog or sunk in the pool.

I headed down to the local electronic gadgets store and I found something new. I bought a Garmin 496 GPS. It is small and light but has lots of features. So far I found that it comes in 5 colors, although I always choose the black ones. I took it to the park and found that it was very accurate too. I think it could be much more handy when I got hiking or get lost in Beverly Hills. I actually do get lost often but usually its in the city.

I dropped it while at the supermarket yesterday and it didn’t get a scratch on it. It really is much tougher than I expected. I dropped my Ipod and it shattered last time. I really hate when that happens. I go through the trouble of picking a new color and I end up breaking it and having to go back and pickup the black one again. The black colored gadgets never seem to break.

Can someone tell me why laptop batteries are so damn expensive? I recently purchased a new Fujitsu laptop and whilst I love it’s functions and usability, the battery life is just way to short. For this reason I decided to purchase a second one so that when I am sitting on a long 12 hour flight somewhere I will still have enough power to complete my business reports. But this plan all changed when I discovered that a battery for my particular model was several hundred dollars.

What a rip-off. I mean really, why is it that batteries cost like a quarter of the price of the laptop? They don’t even last that long either. My current battery only lasts about 3 hours and it seems it never really fully charges. If I do go ahead with the purchase I just hope I get the additional 6-8 hours of battery life that it promises!

Finally competed the paperwork for our new home and we are now officially ready to move in. We haven’t finished paying off our current home but nevertheless we have decided not to sell it. Instead we are going to rent it out and let the rent pay its mortgage. So far we have been really good about paying on time thus making this possible. By my estimates the house will be paid off in about 15 years but that is a short time to wait so that I can give this property to my kids. As a surprise twist; however, the Missus and I decided to leave it furnished, which means we can charge more and actually make a little money on the rent. Well probably not really as most of that will go towards maintenance. In any case what this really means is that my wife gets to bring all her old stuff and I get to buy new toys, except for my plasma, no that one comes with me. But she will get a new podium. This weekend we’ll be shopping for new furniture, beds, sofas, tables, and what really interests me, home entertainment centers. I’m thinking mahogany.

It’s funny sometimes looking at my current situation. Never in my wildest dreams as a new husband and father did I imagine I’d be looking at the prospect of owning two houses. I’m happy mostly for my kids; my wife as well, but I know that her and I would be happy living inside my old Euro van driving along the Mexican coast line, crossing the border now and then to rob banks.

Hey, I’m a poet and I don’t know it! Right… This week has been rather hectic. Not only am still working on this deck job which was delayed do to rain, I also have the new office being set-up which is going ahead on schedule, my kids both have a full week of recitals and sporting events, and the Sopranos finale was also this week and being the only guy with a nice, big, fat plasma on the block I had to play host right? Right? Please help me excuse what could be considered negligence in the light of issues with more priority. I have been missing the NBA Championships after all. Anyway, that’s over and done with so now, of course the kids take precedence over the new office but I still have to get that deck thing done ASAP. It was only supposed to take less than a week but this rain every other day has really delayed the ‘finer aspects’ of that work. As for the office: it is almost done, only the wiring and plumbing (and decor *sigh*) remain. At least the phone, an Inter-tel Axxess model, is up and running now and I can have Marge dispatch orders, but she’s gotta go next door to Subway to use the john.

Good news is that the little ones did well on their extra-curricular activites. Well, are doing well as my son still has a semi-final and hopefully a championship game left this week. His team made it throught the quarter finals on Tuesday basically routing the other team. They had a near perfect record this season! My daughter also had a successful recital and only made one mistake but no noticable to most members of the audience. Oh well, I should get off the computer, just got on to check e-mail and write this quick quick entry but I can’t afford to distract myself anymore this week.

I have my whole video, audio and computer system integrated in the entertainment area of my apartment. It feels like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, there’s so mush gadgetry all linked together. The only problem is that I have three roommates. Two of them are cool, but one guy I don’t know real well, so I installed a keylogger on my system, just in case he decides to use my stuff without asking me first.

So far I haven’t noticed any problems with my equipment. But in a few months I’ll have a bit more peace of mind about the whole living situation anyway, as I’m moving into my own apartment. The new place has a hi-tech security system, and if I wanted I could get a dog. Right now that’s out of the question because my current rental contract prohibits pets, but in the new building it’s fine.

You really have to wonder if technology can get any better than this. I mean, now we have plasma televisions, I-Pods, dvds, and presonal computers that actually look cool. I remember back in 2000 a lot of people were grumbling because, well, here we were in the much-hyped Year 2000, and nothing much of note was going on - besides the release of the new Volkswagen Bug, and the then ubiquitous “Millennium Bug”.

Come to think of it, I think the biggest preoccupation everybody had in 2000 was learning how to spell “millennium.” 2000 really didn’t seem to live up to the futuristic image we’d all been hearing about. Even the “Millennium Bug” turned out to be just another minor blip; clocks were reset, and life rolled on.
But things have finally started moving towards that sci-fi movie image of 2000 most of us have been eagerly anticipating.

Just looking around my own apartment provides some evidence of those changes. Back in 2000 I was still listening to analog cassettes, and using a massive, ugly wordprocesser; my living room looked more like a high school metal shop than the bridge of The Enterprise. I just wish I could find a way to whittle myself down to just one remote.

I promised myself this was the year I was going to really figure out the black box of computing. Since the year began everybody I know has upgraded their choice of laptop or bought some kind of MP3 player, and I’m pretty much clueless when it comes to the whole technology thing. Was it always like this? It seems that recently all these IT schools are the place where young people are heading instead of doing a BA or MA at a regular university.

It is amazing how things speed up and you can just get lost. My son Heinz stays up all night “chatting” on his computer. I heard him telling the mailman that he met a girl from Uganda online. In my day that sort of thing was out of the question.

There is one new thing that Heinz showed me which looks pretty easy to figure out. It’s those new plasma televisions. Once I get my raise at the plant I’m going to get one and hang it on the wall in the den. Right where my ex-wife’s picture used to be. Oh Yeah.

When I started thinking about redecorating my place, I started looking through my girlfriend’s architectural and business magazines for ideas. I also watched a few episodes of Extreme Makeover and Queer Eye, and I was ready for action.

We started by throwing out as much of my out-dated gadgetry as possible and replacing it with newer, higher-end stuff. This included getting rid of my 1980s-era Montgomery Ward CRT TV and getting a wall-mounted plasma screen, and replacing my giant old stereo and stereo speakers with MP3s from my laptop and reflecting speakers. This alone added an extra room’s worth of space to my cramped apartment. Then we hit carpeting, the sofa, and finally, the closets.

All in all, I didn’t spend too much, and my place really does look great. Minimizing not only the amount of stuff you have, but also the size of the stuff you are going to keep makes all the difference in the world.

About two weeks ago I won a substantial amount of electronic goods through an online competition that I had entered. The total prize value was approximately $30,000 and included a plasma screen, PS3, stereo unit with amplifier; several surround sound speakers including subwoofer and a notebook computer. You can imagine my disbelief when I came home yesterday only to discover someone had broken into my house and stolen everything! I couldn’t believe it. Luckily, I remembered that included in the prize package was a guide on asset tags. I quickly found the paperwork and discovered that all of the products I’d won had in fact been labeled with asset identification tags that included a barcode, number and security hologram. You might be thinking well why not just scratch it off? Well, apparently if you tamper with the tag it will leave the i.d. number embossed on the product.

I guess now all I have to do is wait to see if these assholes who stole my stuff try to sell it at any of the local pawn shops, or second-hand electronic dealerships. I guess this could be hopeful thinking as they have probably set-up their own apartment with these items. When the police came to investigate I was adamant that it had to be someone from my street. When the goods were delivered to my house, it was quite obvious to see what items I’d won. It just seems too coincidental that I would be robbed only days after winning these great prizes. The Police said that unfortunately without any proof it would be impossible to randomly check my neighbor’s houses.