Just a blog

The movie about 2 guys who crossed America using just a Segway just released their movie trailer.

read more | digg story

I used to remember seeing this show on PBS and never understood the facination. Then one day a friend of mine said that there was going to a new series with the ninth Doctor. So I started to watch it. And I quickly joined the cult of Doctor Who. So it never surprised me when an article had showed up regarding stolen Dalek parts.

Now someone has sent back the plunger with a ransom note. They want to talk to the Doctor.

I’ve been a TIVO owner now for almost 5 years. I loved the idea of being able to set it record every show for a given a season. I’ve ’season passed’ a great number of shows and quite a few on the NBC network. Some of my favorite shows are on that network. As this blogger states:

After a couple years of NBC tweaking start and end show times to push their advertising dollars (and tweak PVR owners in the process), it seems they’re abandoning the practice of starting early and ending late.

NBC has finally realized the problems they caused all DVR owners out there less than conventional ending/starting show times. Usually my TIVO had no problem accomdating the 1-minute deviatoin to the the normally scheduled broadcast time of on the hour or on the half-hour. I only had issues when I wanted to record something else right after, which normally would start on the hour. So I would miss the show because of a scheduling conflict.

I would hope other networks (broadcast and cable) will learn from NBC’s switch back to starting shows on the hour/half-hour. Unfortunately, as one of the commenter’s stated, Discovery is starting to end their shows 1-minute after the hour. I, too, am starting to miss the last minute of Mythbusters.

busy busy busy… thats what its been like the past few weeks. But I did take a little time off from work to do something fun…..

I just got back from my (now) yearly trip up north to the garlic festival. Last year was my first year going. However, I’ve been wanting to go for a few years. So when I got an invite from my brother & sister-in-law, I jumped at the chance. It was a win-win situation for me. I get to spend some time with my sister-in-law (& brother), and I get to go to the festival.

Well the festival was one of the highlights of the weekend. I got up to the San Jose area fairly early on Friday morning, so we decided we were going to go shopping (after our Starbucks fix of course). After visiting my brother at his work, we stopped for a yummy lunch at a little mexican restaurant close to my my brother’s work. They make some strong margaritas, which were quite good. Then we decided to shop. I picked up a bunch of little goodies for the house and a cute pair of pants and a new top. Had a nice dinner, and just relaxed at the house for the rest of the evening (we were going to have to get up early the next morning for the festival .

We drove down early for the festival, arriving there before the doors (or the ticket booth) even opened. We were practically the first peeps in line. Once we got in, we made a bee line for the food. Among some of the things we munched on are: garlic ice cream, garlic fries, stuffed mushrooms (with garlic, parmesean cheese and parsley), garlic sausage sandwhich, shrimp scampi and a buffalo kabob. Many of the foods we split between us 3 and we were so stuffed when left. Then we shopped for all things garlic (and since I didn’t write everything down I may of missed a few purchases). One of my favorite purchases this year, is my garlic bobble head (click here to view). I’m going to try and get one every year (well maybe). One of the yummier things I picked up was the garlic kettle corn. It is very good, so much so I had a couple of orders from a few co-workers. That pretty much sums up my the festival. The rest of the weekend consisted of a little pampering (mani/pedi), a little drinking (some yummy drink recipe from the Mirage in LV) and dinner with my sister-in-law’s mom. All in all, it was a busy and fun weekend.

For photos of the weekend, check out Garlic Festival Photos

Ciao!

An iTunes phone?

French newspaper giant Le Figaro has a piece (English Babelfish translation here) saying the iTunes-compatible phone being developed by Apple and Motorola will finally launch tomorrow, with at least one American phone carrier agreeing to support it.

I caught this article while checking my RSS feeds. This looks pretty cool. I’m an iPod owner and have bought some of my songs from iTunes. I would love a phone that I could put some of the music I’ve bought from iTunes. I like having options for the things I buy. I think having an option of purchasing music, ringtones or other options for your phone promotes competition and variety. Alot of times you won’t find that one song you’re looking for, but you’ll find it at a different site.

Monopoly Live

What will they think of next?

I wonder how cool this game really is.

I decided that I wanted to play tag. Picture tag that is. I thought this site was quite cool. I’ve been popping into it every couple of days to see if anyone else is playing too. So far it only looks like its been me and Lizziedaisy have been the only ones using pictures we’ve taken with our cameras. Hopefully we’ll see others getting in the spirit and post some of their snapshots on the next ‘tag subject’.

Check out the site here.

I think so. One of my friend’s, John, exposed to the ‘cult’ show of Doctor Who. When he first described the show I didn’t think I would like. But then he had me watch an episode, and I enjoy it quite a bit. I just wish that the states would pick up the show. Our northern neighbors (Canada), get it, so I don’t see why one of the cable channels (like BBC America) doesn’t carry it. But such is life. So I only really get to watch it on our ‘Doctor Who days’. When I come over and hang out… then watch the weekly episode of Doctor Who.

I think this probably one of the best things that has happend to a TV series.

I just started watching Stargate SG-1, and I’m starting to wonder…. What have I been missing?

This is a wonderfully entertaining sci-fi series. I did like the original movie, but I just never got around to watching it. I also never quite knew what time and day it was on. I’m glad that I rented the DVD series, otherwise I wouldn’t know what a great show it is. I’ve started on season 1… and eventually I’ll make it to the current season (I don’t remember if its final season as well). I did start watching Stargate Atlantis, which I enjoyed somewhat. But I like SG-1 better.

There are a few other episodic TV that I have on DVD. I tend to buy the ones that I think I will watch over and over again. Some of other favorite shows have been CSI, West Wing and the X-Files.

Prior to reading this little commentary on John’s Thoughts blog, I didn’t know there was an alternative to a hardware KVM (keyboard, video, mouse). I ts called Synergy, and it emulates a hardware KVM switch.

Synergy is a software that I recently found which allows me to use two computers with one keyboard and mouse. A sort of KM switch without the wires. It works over your home network passing the mouse and keyboard info to the other computer via network. When I move the mouse off one screen it switches to the other computer.

Until I read this blog I never knew such a piece of software existed. I had to go and buy my hardware KVM switch, which I love btw. Is has come in handy a bunch of times. Especially when I’m refreshing computers for friends and family. With a KVM switch (hardware or software), I don’t need to do a complete separate setup when I’m working on someone else’s computer. I just plug it into the switch, and viola! Its easy for me to go from one system to another.