Blog

  • Sitting, Waiting, Wishing…

    Sitting, waiting on an AC technician to repair our not so cold AC is becoming a bit of a joke, especially when I’ve done this two times before… To cut a long story shirt, our AC unit isn’t running to it’s full capacity, it does chill, but not as chilly as it once was, luckily Atlanta has been cooling down recently so it’s not been as big a deal as it might have been.

    So now I’m waiting for a third time, cause I have nothing better to do, I just hope it gets fixed properly this time.

  • Scotland 1 – 0 France

    I’m stunned, utterly stunned… Was it not a mere 3 months ago France were penalty kicks away from winning the World Cup? Now Scotland have put them to the sword (so to speak) and we’re riding high in the European Championship qualifying group b with 9 points from 3 games… Bring on the Ukraine on Wednesday I say.

    Gary Caldwell scores against France...

    But let’s not get too carried away here… After all, beating France is nothing new, but during the Berti Vogts years, that muddy March night at Hampden must have seemed like a long time ago… So yeah, a nice win over Ukraine on Wednesday and the Tartan Army can pretty much look at booking hotels in Switzerland and Austria for June 2008, never mind that we have to play France again (in France) and world champions Italy twice… We almost beat Italy last time we played them, next time should be easy.

    Yes, optimism reigns supreme here.

  • American Dad vs. Family Guy Kung Fu

    American Dad vs. Family Guy Kung Fu. The Smith’s and the Griffin’s battle it out in mortal kombat… Freakin’ sweet!

  • Google to Buy YouTube?

    Google to buy YouTube for $1.6 billion? $1.6 billion for YouTube? Has the world gone mad? If it does prove to be true, I guess Mark Cuban has found his “morons.”

  • OLN Name Change

    I never really noticed it, cause, well, I never really had a reason to watch the old Outdoor Life Network, but recently it changed it’s name to Versus, and my first impression was “damn, that’s a silly name.” That is until I figured it out last night while watching bits of the Buffalo Sabres win over the Carolina Hurricanes while waiting for Lost…

    Buffalo Sabres vs. Carolina Hurricanes

    Now I think it’s the most awesome idea ever, I mean, we live in a world where people nitpick everything, like the big banners ABC/ESPN used during this years World Cup (a few examples) but this banner idea is pretty damn cool…

    Buffalo Sabres vs. Carolina Hurricanes

    Basically it reads as BUFFALO VS. CAROLINA, a natural way to read it… Genius!

  • Tick, Tick, Tick, Boom!

    Our desktop PC died yesterday, and as it’s the PC I use 100% of the time (Robyn has her wee laptop) I made it my duty to make it work…

    But alas I failed as the motherboard and processor had let slip the mortal coil, so in between going to the Braves final game of 2006 we went to CompUSA and eventually Best Buy where we picked up an open box Compaq (I know, I know) and cannibalised the old Compaq to make Super Compaq™… For a little over $500 we now have a PC that prolly retails for over $1,000, and after the Vista incident of a few months ago, it now takes me less than a day (with sleep in between) to rid the PC of all the crap it comes preloaded with and install all the good stuff I need as well as running patches, hotfixes and updates along the way. So yeah, we’ve basically doubled the spec of the old machine for half the price Robyn paid for it a little over 2 years ago. I remember when computers were hellishly expensive, my first PC was a Pentium II 266Mhz, with 64mb of RAM and a 6GB hard drive, that cost me £1,000 give or take… The new Super Compaq™ is an Athlon 64 2.41Ghz, with 2GB of RAM and (adding all the hard drives together) around 650GB in hard drive space. You think it’ll run Photoshop?

    Plus it came with Windows Media Center Edition preloaded (we all know my struggles with that before) and it works with my TV card, sweet…

    Also, as I mentioned Vista, the new RC1 DVD plopped in our mailbox today, I think I’ll load it onto Robyn’s old laptop for testing purposes, she doesn’t use it as she has her aforementioned wee laptop.

    Also, speaking of wee (kinda sorta), our local Target already has an empty isle dedicated to the upcoming Nintendo Wii, I’m interested to see how the nunchuck controllers work, more so in a shopping environment.

  • Yet Another Actual Conversation

    I swear, sometimes Robyn and I act so weird it’s just too funny for words, like tonight for instance, Robyn was talking about a strange “organization coaching session by an outside consultant” at her work, and all the weird phrases that was getting bounded about, as well as her yearly evaluation earlier this week…

    Me: Well, I get to give you your yearly evaluation in November, and it doesn’t look good.
    Her: Neither is yours…
    Me: I don’t think you’ll be getting a raise
    Her: You don’t have money to give me a raise anyways
    Me: I might by then… But it’s not all bad, you get plus points for your cooking
    Her: You hate my cooking!
    Me: Yeah, that should tell you how bad it’s looking…
    Her: Not cool!

    At which point we both crack up and end up in fits of laughter for minutes afterwards. Just an average day in our married life.

  • Mark Cuban Says Only a “Moron” Would Buy YouTube

    Billionaire investor and dot-com veteran Mark Cuban had harsh words on Thursday for YouTube, the online site that lets people share video clips, saying only a “moron” would purchase the wildly popular start-up. Cuban also said YouTube would eventually be “sued into oblivion” because of copyright violations. “The only reason it hasn’t been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue.”

  • Must See Tee Vee

    Since the new fall season is in full swing, this year I shall be watching…

    Sunday

    Desperate Housewives, 9pm on ABC. Yes, I’m a sucker for Wisteria Lane…

    Monday

    Heroes, 9pm on NBC. The new drama tells the story of seemingly random people from around the world, including New York, Japan, India, and other places, discover that they have strange abilities, but are not quite sure how to react to them. At the same time, they find their lives intersecting randomly.

    Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, 10pm on NBC. Another new show that takes place behind the scenes of a fictional live sketch comedy show, similar to Saturday Night Live. The show-within-a-show, also called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

    Tuesday

    House, 8pm on FOX. See here for everything you need to know about House, best show on TV.

    Standoff, 9pm on FOX. This new series focuses on an FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit whose members negotiate hostage situations and share relationships, plus it has Ron Livingston, what’s not to like?

    Boston Legal, 10pm on ABC. A very funny, well written drama, who can’t like a show with characters like Alan Shore and Denny Crane?

    Wednesday

    Lost, 9pm on ABC. Do I even need to say why?

    Thursday

    My Name Is Earl, 8pm on NBC. Either you get this or you don’t, I really like it, not only is it funny but the characters are great, especially the dynamic between Earl and Crabman.

    Grey’s Anatomy, 9pm on ABC. This was edge of your seat stuff towards the end of the last season, it had everything you could want in a medical drama.

    Friday

    Doctor Who, 8pm on Sci-Fi. Yes, I’ve downloaded this series already while it was airing in the UK, but it’s that good I’ll watch it again.

    Battlestar Galactica, 9pm on Sci-Fi. Great Sci-Fi show that looks to be getting better and better as it progresses, how will the humans survive the takeover by the Cylons? Only one way to find out…

    So that my must see TV, good thing none of them overlap otherwise TiVo would be working overtime.

  • iTunes Letdown

    Is it just me or is download times on the newly renamed iTunes Store more than just a bit lethargic?

    iTunes Download

    Now I appreciate they have doubled the resolution of the files to 640×480 which more or less tripled the average file size, but back in the day episodes of Lost never took 20+minutes to come down the pipe… In fact it took around 3 minutes, seriously…

    Not only that, but if I view the videos larger than actual size, they get a bit choppy. Sure my computer may not be up to much, but it can run downloaded HD torrents no problem. Not exactly a great place to start with video-on-demand, especially if a movie will take over 2 hours to download, speaking of which, the only movie I’d consider downloading is Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and apparently that’s not available anymore. How odd considering it was the centrepiece of the launch…

    EDIT: Nevermind, Pirates has mysteriously reappeared… Dare I download it?

  • A Week in Walt Disney World

    Flickr: PartnersSo in case you’ve been living under a rock, Robyn and I spent a week in Walt Disney World, and when you spent a week in a world where the outside world rarely leaks in, it can be quite bizarre…

    But anyways, we left Atlanta early on Saturday morning and we were in Epcot by 10:30, and then came the sudden realisation that no body was here. Seriously, a full 90 minutes after the park had opened and we walked on to Soarin’, this was the ride that had a 2 hour wait and ran out of FastPasses by 10am when we came last year… This would be a recurring theme.

    After Epcot we headed to Downtown Disney to take in the Cirque du Soleil show “La Nouba” before heading back to our hotel room in the Boardwalk to see the Illuminations fireworks display from our balcony. The next day we went to the Magic Kingdom and basically rode everything by 11am, seriously… Everything! It was becoming clear we’d have a lot of time left over at the end of the week, either that or we’d be riding everything at least 3 times… Robyn took a nap on Sunday afternoon and I went to Epcot again and walked on Test Track and Mission: SPACE multiple times.

    The real kicker was Monday, we went to Animal Kingdom early for the extra magic hours and waited patiently for the park to open so we could rush to the new Expedition Everest ride like everyone else, after getting to the ride we had to wait about 30 minutes while they ran some “tests” on the ride, we got on the second train of the day, loved it, got off the ride and walked straight back on with no wait at all, this was craziness! We ended up riding it 3 times in that morning, along with riding Kilimanjaro Safaris, Kali River Rapids (3 times in a row again) and DINOSAUR we were out by 11 again, we didn’t need to go back to Animal Kingdom again. 3 hours and out.

    September is really the time to go, the weather is bearable, a bit hot but cools off at night and a little chance of rain, no lines at all, the only downside is the mating Love Bugs which were only bad one day we went to Blizzard Beach. I’ll take a mass of bugs over lines any day.

    To top if off we went to Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party on our last night which was a lot of fun, a cool parade and awesome fireworks show as well as cast members handing out candy to kids of all ages. Highly recommended…

    So yeah, late September is the magic time it seems, we’ll definitely remember this next time we plan to go…

    Walt Disney World (Set)

    Originally uploaded by FLC.