Chad Johnson legally changed his name to Chad Javon Ocho Cinco. I don’t care what anyone says, that’s just awesome. Still, I hope that he gets back to focusing on the Bengals a bit this year, after some of the stuff that went on this offseason.
I got a sweet bonus last week (I suppose all bonuses likely fall into that category), and like any good American consumer, I decided to spend a portion of it on stuff I don’t really need. And, like any good American man, I decided to upgrade my home theater system (i.e. TV speakers just don’t cut it).
First on the short list was a decent receiver. I went with an Onkyo TX-SR606. It’s nothing super fancy, but it does a few things that were very important for me:
Next up were the speakers. I got the Definitive ProCinema 800 set, which is (only) a 5.1 set. Originally I was looking for 7.1, but then I heard these at Magnolia and was thoroughly impressed. According to CNET, they “redefined [their] expectations of what a small surround speaker system can do.” I figure I can always buy two more later on, but I’d rather start with quality.
Unfortunately they’re not due here until Friday, but considering I got 0% interest until 2012, I’m willing to live with that. I don’t seem to buy anything these days unless I get some 0% interest financing. If they want to give me free money, I’ll take it. Seriously, how can they afford that?
Oh, and of course I bought my speaker wire from Monoprice.com. Nobody can beat them. For real. Nobody.
Anyway, it’s going to be awesome when I set this shit up and get some gaming in. Nobody’ll be able to sneak up on me anymore when I’m playing CoD4. Or, perhaps more importantly, I won’t be able to blame my deaths on that anymore… 
I had my advanced drivers training today that will allow me to drive on the proving grounds roads. It consisted of a lot of evasive driving techniques.
First, they put us in a high speed lane change situation. Basically, we had about 60 ft to change lanes at high speeds without touching the brakes. We’d drive down this little lane of cones with a wall of cones in front. The instructor would yell, “Left!” or “Right” and we would change to an unobstructed lane accordingly. It’s much harder than it sounds. The wall of cones is actually very close, and the car slides a bit when you change lanes. I actually lost control of it completely at 65 mph. It felt like the car was going to flip over.
We did a slalom course along with this test, but it was pretty uneventful.
Next was the low friction surface. They have a skid pad there that they spray with water to simulate ice and snow. We drove onto this skid pad and then immediately started sliding around. This was pretty fun. Basically, they were teaching us to regain control of a car with the back end fishtailing. My driving partner was pretty bad at this, unfortunately. I was in the back seat, and we did numerous donuts on this surface. The crazy part, though, was when the car returned to regular pavement and violently corrected itself. I was flying all over the place back there. Then, we did some ABS brake tests. They had us do 2 wheels on/2wheels off and then slam on the brakes. With no ABS, the car just spun like mad. With it, it was pretty well in a straight line. Lucky for me, my new car doesn’t have ABS, so I could be having some fun this winter.
The last test was stopping and maneuvering under a locked-brake condition. It was pretty bland compared to the other two. Nothing really worth writing about. We finished up by taking the car on and off the pavement at highway speeds to show what this is like in the real world.
Basically though, I had a blast doing this. I wish I could go out and do stuff like that every day.
In other news, I’m going to another meetup tonight. There are 13 people RSVPed to come. Hopefully more than one person will show up this time. I’d hate to be in another blind date type situation over dinner. That would far more awkward than the movie theater. On the other hand, it could result in a very good story.
Steve Jobs announced iPhone 3G. It’s pretty well exactly what I was hoping for the last time around, too. It’s thinner, slicker, has 3G support, built-in GPS, 3rd party app support, and enterprise support. What more could you honestly hope for out of a phone?
A price cut, that’s what. And, fortunately, that’s exactly what Apple’s delivered. When I bought my iPhone a year ago, I paid $599 for that sucker. The price for a 16gig iPhone 3G (twice the size of mine) is now a measly $299, fully half the price it cost a year ago. For 8gigs? $199, 1/3 of the cost less than a year ago. Damn!
No matter what you might think of cloning and whatnot (for the record, I don’t like the idea of clones myself, but this is actually pretty far from it), this is just damn cool. Apparently doctors have created this thing they call “pixie dust” from pigs, which “encourages” stem cells to do their thing. If it actually works out, I can only imagine the long term benefits within the health community. Check out the story right here.
I finally broke down and bought Rock Band the other night. I pretty much knew it was only a matter of time before it happened. I’ve played it a few times, I own Guitar Hero 2, and I really like them both. Now, obviously I wasn’t going to pay full price for this bad boy if I could help it.
Typically the game goes for $170, and sales tax up in these parts (since there’s no income tax) is near 10%, bringing the retail store total to about $187. I looked around a bit and found that Newegg sells games. Who knew? They had it for $153 with three-day shipping and no tax. Booyah.
For my birthday recently, my parents got me an awesome present. It’s called Henrietta Hen. Basically, it makes boiling eggs ridiculously easy. Pour some water in the thing, put the eggs in there, and plug it in. That’s all there is to it, and it beeps when it’s done.
Of course, I happened to get a broken one. It doesn’t beep. It just keeps on cooking and cooking. Honestly it’s not that big a problem–I’ve got like three timers in the kitchen right around the thing, so it’s still easy. But, I mean honestly… Come on. Mine had to be broken?
Anyway, I love me some hard-boiled eggs, so Henrietta has a full-time job these days.
I’m not sure how many of you folks have heard, but Stephen Colbert announced he’s running for president (…in South Carolina, heh). According to Jordy, he plans to run as both a democrat and republican, which makes it just that much better.
I happened to be flipping through the channels the other day, and I caught O’Reilly talking about it. He had some “behavior analyst” person or something on, too. It was hilarious. The conclusion good ‘ol Bill came to was that Colbert is “just trying to be hip.” Oh thanks, Billy. I guess that’s your attempt to belittle him, eh? He must be doing something right…
Kyle was explaning to me yesterday that oftentimes cable companies will broadcast a number of channels in HD for free. Typically this means all the major networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. As it happens, that’s the case for me with Comcast, and I didn’t even know it. I’ve had my TV for a month now, and I hadn’t watched any HD TV yet.
But late is better than never, I suppose. Right now as I type this, I’m watching the Broncos on Sunday Night Football in glorious HD. It’s really a huge difference compared to standard definition.
Now I just need the Broncos to get their heads out of their asses and finish this game out. So far it looks like they’re trying their best to lose. Two losses in a row is never a good thing, much less four.
I want to warn you this post is probably going to put the ‘ol spit glands in overdrive. You know, with the drool and such. It might not happen–it’s not really something I can promise. I just felt a warning was appropriate.
People who know me have most likely noticed I use the phrase “that’s how I roll”. So, I figured I owed it to everyone to know what that actuall entailed. This is what I came up with.
There’s my brand new 50″ 1080p plasma. It’s a Samsung FP-T5084, to be exact. It’s amazing. My buddy Ian and I beat Halo 3 on it last night, and I enjoyed every second of it more than I would have on my old 20″ RCA.
Every good TV needs a good stand, and this one is no exception. That stand is 62″ wide, and as you can see, every bit of that shelf real estate is used. From top to bottom and left to right we have a 360, PS3, Xbox, Comcast digital cable box, and my Media Center Edition PC (aka my mythbox).
Lastly is just a quick side shot to show off how thin this beast is. So far, I really couldn’t be happier with this thing. Also, I’d like to give a big “Happy Birthday!” to the K-man.
I need to brag a little bit, so I’m gonna use Newegg’s help to show off the components of the computer you got to see in the last post.
Case: Antec Nine Hundred (link)
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 (link)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz (link)
RAM: OCZ Platinum Revision 2 2GB (link)
GPU: EVGA Nvidia GeForce 8600GTS 256MB(link)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SATA150 400GB (link)
DVDRW: LITE-ON 20X DVD±R Dual Layer SATA w/ LightScribe (link)
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX (link)
Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech LX 710 Laser (link)
Monitor: Acer AL1916WAbd Black 19″ DVI Widescreen LCD (link)
It runs Windows Vista Ultimate with a 5.4 user experience score. That would be higher if I hadn’t skimped on the hard drive. I got a deal though. As did I with almost every part on this thing. I’m so proud.
So this is my new rig and the desk it sits on.
I think it’s delightfully obvious that only the Japanese could have invented this. You’d be a fool not to be impressed by stupidity of that bad boy right there. That’s about all there is to that.
It’d be a horribly bad idea in the first place, but on top of the normal level of craziness, it’s USB-powered. You really could only wear it while you’re sitting at the computer. And sure… You’ve got to look good while you’re on the computer–I’ll grant you that. (Not a problem for me. I always look good. Booyah.) But seriously, what if want to look awesome and and stay cool when you’re not sitting in front of the monitor? Well then you’re out of luck, and that’s just sad.
I managed to procure an iPhone today. While it definitely seems to have been worth it so far, I have to mention that I was right when I said waiting in line with a bunch of Apple fanboys would suck (though at least I only had to wait about 1.5 hours). Most of the people I was around were alright, but some of them were just assholes. That doesn’t matter, though. What does is this:
My initial thoughts? The keyboard is surprisingly easy to use–significantly easier than was implied by the first reviews. I haven’t had issues using dual thumbs at all. The screen is simply amazing. I’m consistently delighted by its clarity. The interface, as expected, is great. In particular, this really is the best iPod Apple has ever produced. As you can see from the last two pics, it’s relatively small. My previous phone was an E815, which isn’t exceedingly large. It’s no RAZR in terms of slimness, but most phones aren’t.
Oh, and Safari on the iPhone? Magnificent. It really does render pages exactly as it should. Zooming in and moving around is very easy, and I imagine I’ll do it a lot when I’m just sitting around. Lastly, as a nice little surprise, when I dock the phone I’m able to pull pictures off it directly through Explorer. Windows just recognizes it as a camera, which is pretty handy.
[Edit:] Wow, I really need to dust off my desk, eh?
An email I sent to Bill Simmons was used in his latest article at ESPN.com. I feel extra special.
Link to the blog entry. I’m “Kyle H., Herrin, IL”.
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