I bought a Wii this weekend. It’s been on my “want” list for quite some time now but I kept putting it off due to financial considerations. I still had those considerations on my mind, but I needed some retail therapy. Nudge me via email to swap Wii and MarioKart codes :)
I ended up snagging the used Wii for $200 at GameStop, and since I had $60 worth of trade-in games I walked out of there with the Wii for $140 – not bad! Along with Wii Sports I snagged Mario Kart and Wii Play (extra controller!). I then spent the entire weekend playing games and watching TV. It was a good weekend, I needed the down time badly. And now I have a shiny fun console for when my sister arrives on Friday (I have a PS2, but few multiplayer games).
Now that I’ve finished Burn Notice and have watched the Dollhouse season finale (hooray for it being renewed!!) I needed something else to watch. I ended up watching all of The Big Bang Theory last week and watched the entire first season of Dexter this weekend. Both great shows. I really lost faith in the quality of television a few years ago, but I’m either lowering my standards lately or the quality of programming has improved significantly. I’m also very pleased with the availability of programming. The networks (and PBS!!!) now offer much of their popular programming for free through their websites, both hulu and youtube offer significant amounts of programming for free. Cable? Don’t even remotely need it, and quite honestly unless all of it is available on demand it would be pretty useless to me, flexibility is too important to me. Rushing to the TV at a certain time to catch a program? How quaint!
I’m bringing Blinker (my 2000 Pontiac Grand Am GT) to the shop tomorrow. I’ve taken it to a couple places for diagnosis and the consensus is that it’s got a bad A/C compressor. Estimates have been from $700-1000 for replacement, which is unpleasant but I’ve budgeted accordingly, the shop down the street gave me a quote of $770. The shop is helpfully within biking distance (walking too, it’s only 1.5 miles away) so that’s convenient. I made sure to stock up on things this weekend so even if it takes until Friday to be completed I’ll be alright without a car. And if all else fails I can ride my bike down to Wawa.
I’ve been looking at smartphones lately and finally decided upon the Nokia E71x with AT&T. This is the culmination of piles of research and a bit of “settling” for something less than perfect. The truth is that perfect doesn’t exist. The G1 came closest, but it’s a bit pricey and t-mobile is not a great option in my area, this Nokia is a nice second. I’ll be getting it in the next few weeks – yay! No more stupid phone! Oh, and pink covers and face-plates exist, that was a vital part of my research.
Spent this evening with a bit of Season 2 Dexter, a giant chicken burrito from a local Mexican place and then an Ubuntu Learning Team meeting (I’m now on the team board, hurrah!). I think I’ll be turning in early tonight, sleep is nice and I have to be up early tomorrow.
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 8:12
Here in the UK, whilst we have all the modern-technological-whizz-omatic-PVR stuff, there is a huge cultural tradition of rushing home to catch the latest this, that or the other.
For example, the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day on the BBC is watched ‘live’ as it is being broadcast, very rarely PVR’d for later consumption…. also the same for Doctor Who, most people watch it at the time of broadcast, and this is also especially true one a special edition airs, such again, at Christmas. There are many others, but I think it comes down to that here in the UK, we really only got multi-channel TV on a large basis roughly in 1989, and before that it was traditional to watch at the time of transmission, as repeats were often months or years away of a particular programme.
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You are active in the Ubuntu community Pleia…. did you at any point feel unable to ‘break in’ to it at all?
I ask because I feel that although I am not a programmer I am knowledgeable about Linux/ubuntu and passionate about FOSS, in particular introducing children to alternatives other than MS in classrooms…. I just don’t know how to go about helping….if you get my drift…
There does seem to be a clique mentality at play sometimes… newcomers are eyed suspiciously or not at all…..