sMoRTy71

Engadget is reporting that the U.S. Court of Appeals has struck down the FCC's broadcast flag which limits what kinds of digital content can be recorded. The flag was going to force TV manufacturers to build technology into their sets (starting on July 1 of this year) that would recognize the flag and prevent users from recording content that was flagged by the broadcaster.

I'm not sure what recourse the FCC has for appealing this decision; however, I can bet the MPAA already has their lobbyists working on it.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000207042541/

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This weekend has been a blur with projects around the house. We've still got quite a few to do; however, we knocked out a bunch on Friday and Saturday.

Friday: Planted smaller plants and bushes out front; Added mulch and small plants to the side of the house; Cleaned tree pollen globs from gutter guards

Saturday: Installed another light fixture in playroom; Installed a new dishwasher (and removed the old one that died on Wednesday); Mowed the grass; Trimmed bushes and trees; Finished pressuring washing the front sidewalk; Applied polyurethane to new wicker patio set.

Whew! Luckily, today is Mother's Day so we can take a little break. I'm taking my mom to brunch at Lynn's Paradise Cafe. Later, the kids and I are taking Amy to dinner.

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Whether it's drugs or pressure or just creative differences, there will be no new season of Chappelle's Show any time soon. Comedy Central has been promoting the hell out of the May season premiere; however, CC has apparently pulled the plug on production.

I guess I'll just have to be content with watching the Wayne Brady skit over and over when the DVDs from Season 2 come out on the 24th.

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Attendees of the taping of MTV's upcoming XBOX special apparently took photos of the new console. It looks as if they are exactly like the photos that Engadget posted yesterday.

The third photo shows a remote for the XBOX 360 that looks like it features a Windows Media Center Edition start button. Hmm.

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My new issue of MAKE magazine arrived today. I guess I will need to stop all of these silly house projects and focus on building a droid out of old Dr. Pepper cans and a 9 volt battery. Sweet!

CORRECTION: Upon arriving home, I was a bit disappointed to learn that MAKE had sent the premiere issue (instead of the new issue). While it is cool to get the first one, this is one of my all-time magazine subscription pet peeves. It always seems like a way for the magazine to shorten your subscription period. After all, what if I had already bought the first issue and sent in the subscription card?

I guess I can build the $14 steadicam while I wait for the new issue.

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I was pretty excited to watch the XBOX 360 infomercial on MTV last night. I wanted to see the hardware, hear about the features and see some games in action. What I got was Elijah Wood playing the role of Downtown Julie Brown in a flashback to Club MTV.

What sucks the most is that it appears that MTV shot lots of great footage. For example, they sent Sway, one of their worst on-air "personalities," to the Microsoft campus to learn about the development process for building the new XBOX 360. Instead of getting anything substantial in the way of product specs or features, all we got was a rapid-fire montage of all of the physical mock-ups that didn't get chosen and J. Allard comparing the XBOX Marketplace to an online retailer.

The show actually spent more time pimping their own show (with the Pimp My Ride guys building a custom XBOX) and promoting the Killers (why we they there again?) who sang two songs during the 30 minute show. Overall, the show was a total dud.

The release date for the console was not mentioned. It has been widely speculated that it will launch on November 15th, the 4th anniversary of the original. If so, it is a bit curious that they showed Madden NFL 2006 as a launch title considering that the NFL season is almost half way over by then.

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Our realtor called today and said that Wednesday is the day we list the house. Seems like we still have a few things to get finished; however, I guess if we don't set a date, we'll continue to let it slip.

I finished up the kitchen this morning. I'll have to do a couple of things in the yard and on the exterior of the house today.

After that, it will really just be a matter of getting everything clean and keeping it clean (that will be the hard part).

So if you know anyone who wants a great house in a terrific neighborhood, let me know.

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Well, it didn't take long to get totally hooked on Burnout 3 again. After working on the house this weekend, I stayed up way too late working on the "World Tour" mode of the game. I think I completed something like 25 events (with Gold medals) yesterday.

Mahlon and Miles have been wanting to play it a lot, too. They love to play the "Double Impact" mode. It is the first video game for the XBOX that Miles has been able to play by himself.

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Amy has been slowing (but surely) converting all of the food in the house to organic, soy-based products. I usually give her a hard time for all of the stuff she buys (except the soy milk which I love). However, today I discovered the Clif Bars she bought. Damn, these things are good. I tried the Crunchy Peanut Butter one and I immediately wanted to eat about 10 more.

For those of you that don't like to mingle with hippies at Whole Foods or Wild Oats, you can order direct from the Clif Bar website. 12 bars for $14.25.

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Seems like every site I go to has some other cool detail about the XBOX 360 that makes me want one.

Tom's Hardware got a demo of the 360 and found that you can plug other USB peripherals (iPod, PSP, digital camera) into it for plug and play access to digital photos or MP3s. It also says that users with a media PC (probably a Media Center Edition PC only) will be able to stream HD video through the 360.

Plus GameSpot has a bunch of video clips from upcoming 360 games. Sega's Full Auto looks like Burnout 3 but with missles and machine guns. There are a bunch of sports games (my personal favorite genre) slated for the 360 including Madden, NBA 2K6, Tiger Woods 2006, Top Spin 2 and Amped 3.

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Well, it has been several weeks in the making; however, the blogs functionality is live. I, personally, think it's pretty cool, especially the import feature (that allows you to import your existing blog into your TR blog).

Let us know what you think about them in this discussion thread.

I got the second issue of Make magazine in the mail today and it has a project that I am dying to do - bass shakers that mount to your home theater seating. I think it will be the perfect addition to my manroom.

I had seen these similar devices from Buttkicker in the past; however, they were pretty expensive. The Make version, though, is only around $40 if you have an old stereo receiver around.

I ordered the Aura Bass Shaker speakers from partsexpress.com tonight for $29 (they were originally $100). Once I get them, the entire thing should only take about 30 minutes to get up and running. I'll post pictures and first impressions when it's finished.

BTW, Make has this couch hack available for free on their site.

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News.com is reporting that the upcoming Playstation 3 will have specs that rival those of the XBOX 360 - super-fast processor, wireless controllers, wifi and gigabit ethernet.

According to the upcoming TIME magazine cover story on the XBOX 360, Microsoft intends to release Halo 3 at the same time that Sony releases the PS3.

IMO, backward compatibility will be the key issue for a lot of gamers. If Sony delivers it (which they say they will) and MS doesn't (they haven't said either way), it could be trouble for the 360.

Also, MS is killing Sony in online gaming. Sony will have to really prove themselves there to stay competitive with the hard-core gamer.

The next 12 months should be fun to watch. I'm definitely sticking with the XBOX; however, it will be interesting to see if the 6 month headstart in the market (and the promise of Halo 3) will be enough to move XBOX closer to the top.

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The broadcast flag was killed last week on the grounds that the FCC did not have authority over a digital signal once it had reached the TV. Now, the MPAA is proposing legislation that will give the FCC that authority.

If you support fair use, then I urge you to contact your representatives in Congress and voice your concern over the broadcast flag.

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My co-worker Bryan challenged me to a little NHL2K5 on XBOX Live tonight.

We have a friendly little rivalry that extends back to last football season when a glitch in NFL2K5 gave Bryan (and his heartless Titans) a win. Since then, Bryan refused to play me (think he knew it was a fluke?).

Even though it was a different sport, I figured I should take any chance to redeem myself, so I agreed to play him. To say that I am fully redeemed would be a bit of an understatement.

In Game 1, Bryan was outscored 12 (yes, 12!) to 4. And I even scored one of his goals for him. In Game 2, it was a little bit closer. Bryan was only outscored 10 (yes, 10!) to 2. And this time, Bryan scored all of his goals himself! Atta boy, Bryan! Let me know when you're ready for more...

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Ever want to build your own robot? And I'm not talking about the female robot you wanted to build and take to the prom. I'm talking about a Star Wars-style little droid.

Well, White Box Robotics has got you covered. They are building a series of low-cost (under $2,000), plug-n-play robots that use standard PC parts.

Their 914 model kind of looks like the lovechild of R2D2 and a karaoke machine. Check them out at whiteboxrobotics.com.

BTW, Philip Torrone has posted more about WBR on the Make magazine blog.

I knew it was coming; however, it is still a bit surprising to see the "For Sale" sign in our yard. I was playing a little Burnout 3 after work (I am sMoRTy71 and I am a Burnout 3 addict...) when I noticed a guy sticking the sign in the yard.

Houses in our neighborhood sell pretty quickly, so I am hoping that this will be over soon. I don't know how long we can keep the house clean before the kids revolt.

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I was checking my Gmail account tonight and noticed one of those eBay phishing e-mails. When I opened it to take a closer look at it, I noticed that Gmail places a big red warning above the body of the mail that says: "Warning: This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information."

There is also a link to a page that explains phishing and what to look out for.

I'm glad to see them taking steps to stop users from falling victim to such scams.

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Well, Bryan decided that one night of hockey beatdowns wasn't enough, so he asked for a little more.

Before I recap tonight's games, let me note that Bryan went so far as accusing me of cheating when he was confronted with his lackluster performance at the office today. That's low, Bryan.

Anyway, pretty much the same story tonight. First game, I won 6 to 3. Second game was yet another victory for me. This time, it was 9 to 3. And to top it off, two of our players got in a fight and guess what? That's right, I won that, too!

For those keeping score at home, my NHL record is now 4-0 against Bryan. I've also outscored him 37 - 12 over those 4 games.

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I am one step closer to hacking my couch. My Aura Bass Shaker speakers arrived today. I probably won't get a chance to play with them until this weekend. BTW, it was first time ordering from Parts Express; however, I would definitely recommend them. I received my order in two days.

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News.com has a poll on which new gaming console, the XBOX 360, the PS3 or Nintendo Revolution, is "the best." For some reason, the PS3 is in the lead (as of this post). I bet you can guess how I voted.

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OK, I know I've posted a lot of video game-related stuff lately; however, it's E3, so gimme a break. Anyway, GameSpot is streaming live video from E3 for the entire length of the show. They are also archiving all of the video in case you miss something.

I'm getting ready to check out some of yesterday's stuff right now. The one that immediately caught eye was "Holy Aftertouch, Batman!" Batman Begins, Burnout 4, Burnout for PSP." Burnout 4!!! MUST.. HAVE... IT!

http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3live.html

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OK, I know I've posted a lot of video game-related stuff lately; however, it's E3, so gimme a break. Anyway, GameSpot is streaming live video from E3 for the entire length of the show. They are also archiving all of the video in case you miss something.

I'm getting ready to check out some of yesterday's stuff right now. The one that immediately caught eye was "Holy Aftertouch, Batman!" Batman Begins, Burnout 4, Burnout for PSP." Burnout 4!!! MUST.. HAVE... IT!

http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3live.html

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When will the MPAA and the RIAA learn that hating your customers will never payoff for them? The latest in the long line of user-hostile measures involves a UCLA researcher who is trying to develop a biometric, RFID-based DRM system.

According to this WIRED article, the system, which luckily seems doomed to fail, will require a user to enter a password or scan their fingerprint (seriously!) in order to watch a DVD that they purchased (that they purchased!).

The article doesn't say for sure; however, I would be willing to bet that the MPAA is underwriting this guy's research.

Instead of treating every customer like a criminal, maybe the movie industry should adjust their business model to meet customer needs. Hmm. There's a thought.

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Well, a few co-workers and I went to see Episode III this afternoon. I think I kind of liked it. Way better than the last two. My biggest complaint (besides the acting) is the quick turn to the Dark Side for Anakin.

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I just about have all of the pieces for the bass shaker couch hack.

After failing to find a cheap 2-channel receiver (50 watts per channel or less) on eBay for a decent price (everybody wanted $20 or more for shipping), I decided to check out ShopOnkyo.com. I purchased my current 6.1 receiver and speakers from them and got a ridiculously good deal.

I was able to pick up their TX-8211 receiver, which lists for about $250, for around $80 and that included shipping and tax.

I'm sure some of you (including my wife) are asking why the heck I needed another receiver.

My plan is to not only use the TX-8211 to power the bass shakers in the couch, but to also use it to power the speakers I will be installing on the patio at the new house. I figure $80 for a $250 receiver is a pretty good deal.

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Well, our first week of member blogs has been a success with nearly 300 members blogging. We've had over 200 new blogs created today alone.

We are currently building new features (WYSIWYG editor for posting, editing comments) and new pages (blog door where all blogs can be searched or browsed) that will improve on this first release.

Look for some cool new stuff next week.

I just received the new "Home Theater Hacks" and "Smart Home Hacks" from O'Reilly. After thumbing through both, there looks to be a lot of good info. I'll be posting interesting tidbits from them here as I read them.

Coincidentally, Hack #40 is all about adding Aura Bass Shaker speakers to your couch. Hmm, that's an idea. Hack #41 even shows you how to modify the Bass Shakers to reach lower frequencies.

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Members over at HackingNetflix are mixed in their opinion of the news that Wal-Mart will ditch its own DVD-by-mail business and use Netflix instead.

I, for one, am glad that Wal-Mart is out of the market. I never thought the idea made sense for them.

I just hope the lack of competition (there are rumors about Blockbuster getting out of the DVD-by-mail business) doesn't slow the innovation that we've seen from Netflix over the past year. They didn't really start adding new features until Wal-Mart and Blockbuster started their services.

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We got a call from our realtor's office this morning at around 10:30 AM. They wanted to show the house at 1:30 PM. So I headed home over my lunch hour and helped Amy get everything squared away for the showing.

While we were doing that, one of our realtor's partners came by to take all of the photos of the interior and exterior for the listing, so it was pretty crazy.

Hopefully they will like it...

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Well, I have been playing through the single-player mode on Burnout 3 for the past couple of weeks. I felt like I have been making pretty good progress; however, when I checked my "Driver Details" last night, it turns out that I am exactly 50% complete.

I guess I shouldn't complain because I am having so much fun playing it; however, it was a little disapointing to see that I still had so far to go.

I don't really need that much sleep, I guess.

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I just got an invite to Vimeo from Jakob Lodwick (one of the guys behind Vimeo, College Humor and Busted Tees). I had bugged him for one a couple of weeks ago and he was kind enough to hook me up.

Even though I've only spent about 15 minutes using my new account, I can tell I am going to be hooked. I've got hours and hours (and hours) of DV footage just waiting to be uploaded - stuff of the kids, stuff from film school.

I hope to post something tonight or tomorrow. First, I need to find my Firewire cable, though. Check my Vimeo page for updates.

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I got my Onkyo TX-8211 today and I hooked it up to the bass shakers that I installed in the couch over the weekend. I'm listening to The Roots "Things Fall Apart" CD right now and the sensation of the bass shakers is awesome. It's better than awesome.

This is definitely the best add-on I've done to my home theater in years.

If you've got an old receiver, you can't go wrong picking up a $30 pair of bass shakers and building them into your system.

I have the capacity in the new receiver to add to more shakers (since I installed them serially). I might eventually add a couple more in the back of the couch so that they hit your lower back.

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I got my Onkyo TX-8211 today and I hooked it up to the bass shakers that I installed in the couch over the weekend. I'm listening to The Roots "Things Fall Apart" CD right now and the sensation of the bass shakers is awesome. It's better than awesome.

This is definitely the best add-on I've done to my home theater in years.

If you've got an old receiver, you can't go wrong picking up a $30 pair of bass shakers and building them into your system.

I have the capacity in the new receiver to add to more shakers (since I wired them serially). I might eventually add a couple more in the back of the couch so that they hit your lower back.

UPDATE: I tried them out with the final battle scene in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" using the discrete 6.1 soundtrack and the effect was even better than with a CD. I could feel every footstep of the approaching army and every impact of the battering ram. Amazing!

Unfortunately, I didn't get any effect when playing Burnout 3 and Halo 2 last night. Even though my receiver was getting a 5.1 signal from the XBOX, the subwoofer never kicked in.

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I've been reading through (and applying some of) the hacks in O'Reilly's "Home Theater Hacks" book. Hack #67 is "Set You Speakers to "Small" in Your Receiver Setup" (page 243 for those reading along at home).

This hack explains how most home theater speakers should be set to "Small" in your AV receiver's options. Apparently, the "small" or "large" distinction isn't really about the physical size of the speaker. It is really an indicator of your speakers' dynamic range and determines "when low frequencies are diverted from your front speakers and into your subwoofer."

My speakers were set to "large," so I made the change. It does seem like my subwoofer is a bit more active than it was (but that could just be the bass shakers talking).

According to the author of the hack, there are very few home theater speakers that should be set to "large." So check your AV receiver's settings. You may be missing out.

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This article (from a Peanuts fan site?) explains all of the attributes and options that Amazon uses to format it's images. This includes things like adding the % off bullets next to the book covers, changing the % off value and changing the image orientation. Not sure what you can really do with this; however, it is kind of cool to see how it is done.

One of the Amazon image hacks that I use a lot is the one at slothradio.com. I use their search to pull down cover art for the DVDs or CDs I am ripping to my HTPC.

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Check out the iGuy on Engadget. I think it easily wins the title of dumbest iPod accessory.

For those TR members who win the iPod minis, there will be a mini version of the iGuy available in June.

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I finally got around to uploading a couple of clips to Vimeo. One is from a game of basketball we had at the office today. The other is of Mira naming the members of KISS.

I'm hoping to shoot a couple more tomorrow. You can grab to my Vimeo RSS feed to keep up with my latest clips.

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Well, it looks like
interest in the house is definitely picking up. We had 2 showings
yesterday, 2 showings today and we've got 3 scheduled for tomorrow. I'm
not really looking forward to being out of the house all day (while the
showings are going on); however, if it sells, it will be worth it, I
guess.

The open house is going to be next Sunday. If you want to buy our house, please stop by then... with cash.

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I've uploaded a couple more clips to Vimeo on Friday. One is from a game of basketball we had at the office on Friday. The other is me terrorizing a co-worker with a Nerf gun. I have a feeling I'll need to take that one down once she sees it :)

If anyone would like an invite to Vimeo, shoot me an e-mail.

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I did something that I
haven't done for over a year - I bought a CD. Two actually. I've been
using Rhapsody for the past 3 years, so I don't buy a CD unless
Rhapsody doesn't have it or unless the CD is just really, really good.
I think the last one I bought was "Tyrannosaurus Hives." And before
that, it was "Elephant" by The White Stripes.

Well, today, I picked up Weezer's "Make Believe" and Hot Hot Heat's
"Elevator" at Circuit City. They were having an "All CDs under $9.99"
sale.

This 2 CD shopping spree made me realize that the reason I don't
buy CDs isn't because of Rhapsody. After all, I wouldn't have heard the
Hot Hot Heat album without it. It's the fact that CDs are too
expensive. If all CDs were always $9.99 or less, I would definitely buy
more of them.

In fact, I'm planning on picking up The White Stripes' "Get Behind Me Satan" on June 7th. I just a read a glowing NY Times piece on it and I absolutely love the "Blue Orchid" single. If you use Rhapsody, check it out.

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I drove by the lot today to see if they had started on the house.
To my surprise, they had already poured the basement and the garage
floor. Even though it is still a few months from being finished, it was
nice to see some progress.

I also got a first glimpse at our next door neighbors and our
neighbors directly behind us. Neither of them looked crazy, so that's
good, too.

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I drove by the lot today to see if they had started on the house. To my surprise, they had already poured the basement and the garage floor. Even though it is still a few months from being finished, it was nice to see some progress.

I also got a first glimpse at our next door neighbors and our neighbors directly behind us. Neither of them looked crazy, so that's good, too.

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I reported last week that
my couch speakers didn't work with my XBOX. Well, it turns out that
they work great. I just didn't have the volume set correctly. Why, you
ask?

Well, both receivers are from Onkyo, so they share the same remote
code. That means that when I tweak the volume on the main receiver, it
messes with the volume on the new receiver. So when I was testing them
out with the XBOX, I had obviously turned them down inadvertently. Duh!

Guess it's time to break out the good ol' electrical tape and cover the IR sensor on the new receiver.

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Today's "Featured Mix" on
Rhapsody is "Worst covers of all-time." There are some really great,
bad covers including Pat Boone doing "Enter Sandman" by Metallica and
Celtic Frost doing "Mexican Radio" by Wall of Voodoo.

Of course, there is also the requisite "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by William Shatner. Funny stuff. If you use Rhapsody, check out the playlist.

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The good news: Hulger, formerly known as POKIA, has finally started selling their retro cellphone handsets that I love.

The bad news: The handsets are $70 plus another $25 for shipping and they will arrive in 21 days. Bummer.

I still want one.

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Voting is open for the ROME logo contest that I entered
a couple of months ago. You can register and vote for the one you like
the best. I'll be the first to admit that my logo isn't the best one;
however, you can still vote for it! BTW, 5 is the highest score, 1 is the lowest.

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Esther Dyson has an interview with Jim Griffin who manages ebay's user reputation system.
He explains the importance of such systems and explores some of their
limitations. Interesting for anyone working on social networking or
community features online.

The 14-minute video is part of Esther's ongoing "New Ideas That Matter" series.

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I don't remember ever reading a more positive review than the one I just read about the White Stripes' upcoming "Get Behind Me Satan" on RollingStone.com.

Rob Sheffield says:
"But
the music is so wild, it could make you weep over how pitilessly the
Stripes keep crushing the other bands out there. Having clocked all
rivals, the Stripes have to settle for topping their 2003 masterpiece,
Elephant, the way Elephant topped White Blood Cells. If you happen to
be a rock band, and you don't happen to be either of the White Stripes,
it so sucks to be you right now."

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I just noticed that Rhapsody has an exclusive preview of the new White Stripes album. You can't buy it until Tuesday, so check it out in Rhapsody.

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This news is a couple of
days old; however, I forgot to post it. GameSpot is reporting a rumor
that the XBOX 360 will be priced at $299 and that MSFT will be taking a
$76 loss on the hardware.

In a separate story,
they also confirm that game prices are going up for the 360 games.
Looks like you can expect to pay $59.99 (Ugh!) for the launch titles.

I think that $300 is a reasonable price for a new console with the
specs of the 360; however, I am really hestitant to pay $60 per game.
Price is part of the reason I don't buy more games now.

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Although this WIRED
article is about an Apple technology (and we all know what an oxymoron
I think that phrase is), it raises a great question: Why are we still
using the folder metaphor to find things on our PCs?

Having been a Google Desktop Search user for several months, I think
that its quick search method is so much more simple and efficient than
browsing through folder after folder after folder in Explorer.

Maybe the article makes too much over the
death of folders. I don't think folders are any different functionally
from tags or Gmail's labels.

So, to me, desktop search tools
and folders/tags/labels aren't mutually exclusive. I think one is
better at finding information and the other is better at
getting/keeping it organized. I think that they can continue to coexist.

While we're on the subject of organization, Esther Dyson's Release 1.0 has an interesting article titled "Ontology is Overated: Categories, Links, Tags" (free registration required) that is definitely worth a read if you're interested in this topic.

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Today, we launched a new feature called "Links." It is very similar to
our old Favorites functionality; however, it has been updated to take
advantage of the latest thinking in community / social networking like
tagging.

We think Links will be useful to our members because it provides a
single location in which to maintain all of your IT bookmarks. So if
you aren't at your PC, you can still access your Links from any PC with an internet connection.

We think that the Link collection that our members build will be useful
to the community at large. Each member is basically contributing to a
large collection of the best IT resources. Unlike a Google search, a
search of the Links feature is filtered through the collective wisdom
of our members.

So, take Links for a spin and let us know what you think. Over the next
couple of weeks, we plan to make additions to this feature including a
Links door where members can search by tag, browse the most popular
links and see the most popular tags.

We are planning on going to Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend (Urge Overkill show, IKEA, Taste of Chicago, etc), so I went to Priceline tonight to book our room. We've used them several times and have always been satisfied. In fact, the last time I went to Chicago, Priceline got me a terrific price on a great room in the heart of downtown.

Tonight, however, it didn't work out well at all. I requested a 2 1/2 star hotel Downtown and Priceline found a match. In fact, they upgraded me to a 3 star hotel. Unfortunately, the 3-star hotel they upgraded us to only has a single queen bed or 2 twin beds. They offer no double-double rooms at all. None!

Of course, Priceline tells you that they can't guarantee bed choices; however, I feel like that their 3 star upgrade (which I didn't request) is what messed it all up. After all, how many hotels don't offer double-doubles? Now, we've paid for the room and have no other option than to tough it out.

I called both Priceline and the hotel and both told me I am out of luck. The Priceline customer service rep agreed that, in this case, their free upgrade didn't work out very well for us.

On the bright side, we don't plan on spending much time in our room, so maybe it won't be so bad. After all, I get to see Urge Overkill (for the 3rd time in a year) and go to IKEA.

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PVR Blog posted a short piece about Snapstream, the maker of BeyondTV and the Firefly remote (which I love), profiling users and their Home Theater PCs. They are using a Flickr group to evaluate submissions, then posting the ones they like on the Snapstream website.

Because I just happen to have a million photos of my home theater on Flickr, I added one of my photos to their pool. Hopefully, it will be selected.

If you want to submit your HTPC, go to Snapstream's submission form.

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My wife bought me a DVD recorder (an early Father's Day present)
and, because I had added a couple of different components over the past
few months, my equipment rack was pretty much a mess of tangled cables
and mismatched components.

So Friday I decided it would be a good idea to pull everything out, clean everything off
and put everthing back in. Two hours later, I decided that it wasn't a
very good idea after all. And about 3 hours in, I was finished.

The good news is that my DVD recorder and my Omni streaming
receiver are now hooked up properly. Also, I have like components
(satellite receivers, home theater receivers, dvd players) grouped
together in the cabinet where they are easier to get to. I even have an
extra shelf (XBOX 360, maybe?).

The bad news is that the tangled mess of cables behind the equipment rack
is just as crazy as when I started. Plus, I get to do this all again
whenever we sell the house (I forgot that little tidbit before I got
started).

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As I arrived to work at
around 8:30 this morning, I noticed a strange fog enveloping our office
building. From a distance, it almost looked like rain. As I got closer,
I realized that one of the cars in the parking lot was starting to
smoke.

As I got out of my car and approached the building, I realized that
it was the car of one of my co-workers, Beth. So I alert our office
manager and Beth that there is a smoking vehicle in the parking lot
(seems no one notices that kind of thing anymore).

The next thing you know, the front end of the car is engulfed in
flames and the fire department is busting out the windows and using the
jaws of life to open the hood (that had melted shut). After about 10
minutes, the fire is extinguished and the car is toast.

Being a sensitive bunch, we all decided to take Beth out to lunch
to cheer her up; however, we all kept making fire jokes ("We should go
to the Sizzler" or "How 'bout some Krispy Kreme for dessert," etc.), so
I'm not sure how much it helped. I figure that late in the day someone
is going to make a seemingly innocent joke and Beth will strangle
them... I can't wait to see who that is!

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OK, I haven't been keeping up with video game news like I should; however, this GameSpot article about the XBOX 360's graphics processor contains a little blurb that discusses backward compatibility:

"Huddy goes on to shed some light on backward compatibility.
Each Xbox game is written with specific Xbox hardware in mind, and the
360's move to PowerPCs and ATI graphics doesn't jibe with the Xbox's
Intel chips and Nvidia graphics processors. To add to the difficulty,
the 360 wasn't designed for backward compatibility early on in
development.

To solve this, Microsoft has implemented the use of emulator programs that will let the Xbox 360 play Xbox games."

After searching Google, I did find a blog by Michael Brundage
who claims to be working on the emulator project for Microsoft. He
confirms backward compatibility as well (and he claims it was announced
at E3).

And then I found this official press release from Microsoft where Robbie Bach says:

"Now, many gamers have been asking us if they'll be able to
play their favorite Xbox games on Xbox 360. Tonight, we are very
pleased to announce that Xbox 360 will be backwards compatible with the
top-selling Xbox games."

Damn, how did I miss this? I thought I stayed on top of all of the
XBOX 360 news during E3. I guess I need to pay more attention.

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I finally got around to adding all of the new components to the home theater section of my site. Check it out.

This post originally appeared on an external website

I
stumbled across this new show from "Super Size Me" director (and fellow
West Virginia native) Morgan Spurlock last night. It takes the premise
of "Super Size Me" and applies it to other activities.

In this
premiere episode, Morgan and his fiance move to Columbus, Ohio for 30
days to see what it is like to live on minimum wage. Morgan takes on a
landscaping job while his fiance, Alex, washes dishes at a coffee shop.

Like
"Super Size Me," the show succeeds because of the sincerity, humor and
charm with which Spurlock approaches the material. He really wants to
show how difficult it is to make ends meet for low income families. It's
really more a statement of a social activist than a reality show (and
that's definitely a good thing).

This first episode was great. I can't wait until next week. In the meantime, check out TV.com for more on "30 Days."

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I have enabled comments on my blog, so start blabbin'. BTW, I am still tweaking the CSS that displays the comments, so that may look kind of fugly for a few days.

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Last week, several sites were reporting that DVD Decrypter, my personal favorite DVD ripper, was shut down. Now, the MAKE blog is reporting that DVD Decrypter is back.

From the new DVDD website:
"I just would like to spread the
word and let everyone know, you can now find DVD Decrypter at:
http://www.dvddecrypter.r8.org After a lot of hard work, I've brought
the website back!"

The bad news is that the guy now needs a bunch of programmers to
keep the app going. If you want to work on it, send an e-mail to lightninguk.dvddecrypter@gmail.com

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My buddy Rob sent out an e-mail update on the state of his long- (really, really long) awaited film "Waiting..."
The release date has been moved up to September 23rd and Rob says that
we should start to see lots of promotion for the film as that date
approaches.

Also, there is now an official website for the film and a director's blog.

One interesting note is that nowhere in the first few posts of his blog does Rob mention that I totally launched his film career. Hmm. Maybe he's working up to that. I guess we'll see.

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Well, I've spent the last couple of weeks tinkering with my new DVD
recorder. Up until yesterday, I was about to throw the damn thing out
the window. It was failing to finalize about half of the discs I
recorded regardless of which brand media I used (from cheap Office Max
to Memorex to Sony).

However, thanks to a thread I subscribed to on AVS Forum, I was able to update my firmware and fix most of the problems I was having.

Since the update, I am 3 for 4. Not too bad for a $97 DVD recorder.

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We had a house showing tonight at 8:45, so we decided to go and
check out the progress on the new house. It had been a couple of weeks
since we last checked on it, so we were curious to see how much work
had been done. Much to our surprise, most of the framing of the house
is finished!

I'm not sure how much longer it will take, but it seems like they should be done well before September 30th.

One thing we did notice is that they put our coat closet in the
wrong location. So I guess they still have some framing to do to fix
that.

Here are some more photos of the progress

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The White Stripes will be
playing the Louisville Palace on September 13th. Tickets go on sale
this Saturday. Sweet! Thanks to Paul S. for passing this along.

This post originally appeared on an external website

Tickets for the September 13th show went on sale this morning at
10AM. Of course, as luck would have it, both Miles' and Mahlon's
baseball games were at 10AM.

My plan was to head down to the Palace box office (I refuse to pay
Ticketmaster's "convenience" charges) after the game. During the games,
though, our realtor called and scheduled a house showing at 1PM. Since
I hadn't cleaned the house prior to the games, I couldn't get the
tickets at 11AM as planned.

To make a long story a little less long, I ended up getting
downtown around 1PM to get my tickets. The floor of the Palace had
already sold out, so we ended up with 3rd row balcony tickets.
Considering that I've had to sit in the next-to-last row in the balcony
(and it wasn't bad), I'm pretty pleased with our seats.

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I love the Queens of the
Stone Age and Will Ferrell. So when I saw that they were re-airing the
5/14/2005 Saturday Night Live that featured Will Ferrell hosting and
Queens of the Stone Age performing, I decided to stay up and watch.

Imagine my surprise when, during the QOTSA performance of "Little Sister," Will Ferrell appeared onstage as his classic "More cowbell" skit
character to perform a little cowbell action. Because "Little Sister"
features cowbell throughout, Ferrell was able to jam the entire time.

Thanks to Beth for finding the video on Google. Check it out.

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While we were on vacation in Chicago (long post coming about that soon), our realtor called to tell us that someone had made us an offer on the house. Unfortunately, the offer was too low, so we countered with something a bit higher.

Much to our surprise (and delight), our counter was accepted. The sale is contingent on our buyer selling their house first; however, our realtor thinks our buyer's house should go quick.

This means that we will probably be moving twice (which is bad); however, we may rent one of those crazy Pod things to store all of our stuff in. Pods seem like a good idea because we can have it parked at the house for several days while we load it, then they haul it away and store it until we need it.

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We spent the long 4th of July weekend in Chicago. With all of the house selling and house building stuff that we've been dealing with, we figured it was best to get out of town for a few days.

Friday

We arrived in Chicago Friday afternoon. Our hotel (see photos) was right in the middle of downtown. We were less than a block from the Sears Tower and about 3 blocks from the Art Institute on Michigan Ave. So we parked our van in a parking garage and opted for walking or public transit over the next couple of days.

Friday night, we decided to walk down to Michigan Avenue and go shopping (see photos). Taste of Chicago was going on, so there were a ton of people out and about. I had forgotten how far all of the shops were on Michigan, so we ended up walking waaaay too far (So far, that I ended up giving Miles a piggyback ride back to the hotel).

We hit the GAP, Crate and Barrel, and the LEGO Store before calling it a night.

Saturday

We got up early Saturday morning and headed out to the Field Museum (see photos). Mahlon and Miles really wanted to see Sue the T-Rex that was on display.

The weather in Chicago was great on Saturday. It was around 80 with very little humidity (a nice break from the 90 degrees and high humidity in Louisville).

Because we have a Louisville Zoo and Science Center membership, admission to most of the museums in Chicago was free. Sweet! The Field was nice. I found myself marvelling more at the architecture of the museum than at the exhibits.

Next, we grabbed a bus and headed out to the Navy Pier (see photos) to check out the Children's Museum (more free admission!). The bus trip was pretty chaotic. Tons of people on the bus and our bus driver was a maniac.

The Pier was packed with people, so we slipped in the Children's Museum for about an hour. Not a really big museum, but the kids had fun. I think our favorite exhibit was "The Big Backyard" which featured this really cool video installation that uses your shadow to change the images on the screen. On one, you could change the direction of these multicolored raindrops based on where your shadow was. On the other, a swarm of butterflies would move based on how your shadow moved. Very cool.

After the museum, we decided to head out to the Pier; however, it was just too crowded. We did order some ice cream, though, and, while I was waiting in line, I ran into Rex from work. He was heading up to Milwaukee and had made a pitstop. How weird is that? We're in Chicago in the middle of the Navy Pier and I run into someone from work. Crazy!

The rest of Saturday was spent shopping over on State Street on the way back to our hotel.

Sunday

Sunday would end up being our longest day in Chicago. We got up early and grabbed a bus for the long trip up to the Lincoln Park Zoo (see photos). They just opened the new Children's Zoo area on Thursday, so this was great timing.

The kids really enjoyed seeing the lions, cheetahs, gorillas and bears.

After spending a couple of hours at the zoo, we took the bus back to the hotel to change clothes and get ready for our trip out to Naperville for Ribfest. Why the hell did we want to go 30 miles into the suburbs? Urge Overkill (see photos), of course. UO was playing at 8:30 Sunday night, so we figured that for $14 total ($7 for adults, kids free) we couldn't go wrong.

After spending 30 minutes on the CTA bus, spending 30 minutes on the open road in the car seemed like a treat. We found some free parking and hiked the 3/4 mile or so to the festival. It was much more state fair-ish than I had expected (Ted Nugent was the headliner on the main stage, so...); however, we ended up having a good time.

The kids ate funnel cakes and drank lemonade. I dogged out some ribs. Mahlon and I even bumped into Ed from UO out among the festival goers. He was very nice (as usual) and introduced himself to Mahlon. Mahlon thought that was pretty cool.

Urge played about an hour and fifteen minutes and sounded great. The crowd was pretty respectable for a band that hadn't released an album in 8 years. We even managed to get an encore out of them ("Woman 2 Woman" and "Stalker").

Monday

We checked out of our hotel early on Monday morning and headed back out to the suburbs for a day at IKEA. Amy and I are pretty much IKEA junkies and the fact that there isn't one in Louisville always puts IKEA on our itinerary when we're anywhere near Chicago.

Of course, the place was packed because of their big July 4th sale. We ended up grabbing a $.99 breakfast before shopping for several hours and then grabbed lunch before we left (Total cost of both meals for 5 people was under $20). We only spent about $150 (mainly because the car was already too packed) so we felt pretty good.

We arrived home around 10PM Monday night. The cool part was that we crossed over the I-65 bridge into Louisville just as the fireworks display was in full swing. The fireworks were being shot up from a barge in the middle of the river, so the view was fantastic.

Tuesday was spent unpacking and relaxing. Now it's back to work.

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Well, it's that time of year again. The time when we ignore our friends and family every Sunday in order to stay on top of our Fantasy Football scores.

I set up our NFL.com league (which is now free!) today and we already have 7 of the 12 slots filled. Our draft is scheduled for August 16th.

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According to WIRED, my most-anticipated consumer electronics device, the Slingbox, may be facing future legal battles.

The
Slingbox allows you to placeshift TV or other video content. You
connect your Slingbox to your home network and to a video source like a
satellite receiver or cable box. You can then connect to your Slingbox
from anywhere on the internet.

I am planning on using it in our
new house as a way to distribute video. We have way more PCs than TVs,
so I am hoping to use the Slingbox to video enable all of them.

Maybe I should snatch one up now...

This post originally appeared on an external website

We spent the long 4th of July weekend in Chicago. With all of the
house selling and house building stuff that we've been dealing with, we
figured it was best to get out of town for a few days.

Friday

We arrived in Chicago Friday afternoon. Our hotel (see photos)
was right in the middle of downtown. We were less than a block from the
Sears Tower and about 3 blocks from the Art Institute on Michigan Ave.
So we parked our van in a parking garage and opted for walking or
public transit over the next couple of days.

Friday night, we decided to walk down to Michigan Avenue and go shopping (see photos).
Taste of Chicago was going on, so there were a ton of people out and
about. I had forgotten how far all of the shops were on Michigan, so we
ended up walking waaaay too far (So far, that I ended up giving Miles a
piggyback ride back to the hotel).

We hit the GAP, Crate and Barrel, and the LEGO Store before calling it a night.

Saturday

We got up early Saturday morning and headed out to the Field Museum (see photos). Mahlon and Miles really wanted to see Sue the T-Rex that was on display.

The weather in Chicago was great on Saturday. It was around 80 with
very little humidity (a nice break from the 90 degrees and high
humidity in Louisville).

Because
we have a Louisville Zoo and Science Center membership, admission to
most of the museums in Chicago was free. Sweet! The Field was nice. I
found myself marvelling more at the architecture of the museum than at
the exhibits.

Next, we grabbed a bus and headed out to the Navy Pier (see photos)
to check out the Children's Museum (more free admission!). The bus trip
was pretty chaotic. Tons of people on the bus and our bus driver was a
maniac.

The Pier was packed with people, so we slipped in the Children's
Museum for about an hour. Not a really big museum, but the kids had
fun. I think our favorite exhibit was "The Big Backyard" which featured
this really cool video installation that uses your shadow to change the
images on the screen. On one, you could change the direction of these
multicolored raindrops based on where your shadow was (see video). On the other, a swarm of butterflies would move based on how your shadow moved. Very cool.

After the museum, we decided to head out to the Pier; however, it
was just too crowded. We did order some ice cream, though, and, while I
was waiting in line, I ran into Rex
from work. He was heading up to Milwaukee and had made a pitstop. How
weird is that? We're in Chicago in the middle of the Navy Pier and I
run into someone from work. Crazy!

The rest of Saturday was spent shopping over on State Street on the way back to our hotel.

Sunday

Sunday would end up being our longest day in Chicago. We got up
early and grabbed a bus for the long trip up to the Lincoln Park Zoo (see photos). They just opened the new Children's Zoo area on Thursday, so this was great timing.

The kids really enjoyed seeing the lions, cheetahs, gorillas and bears.

After spending a couple of hours at the zoo, we took the bus back
to the hotel to change clothes and get ready for our trip out to
Naperville for Ribfest. Why the hell did we want to go 30 miles into
the suburbs? Urge Overkill (see photos),
of course. UO was playing at 8:30 Sunday night, so we figured that for
$14 total ($7 for adults, kids free) we couldn't go wrong.

After spending 30 minutes on the CTA bus, spending 30 minutes on
the open road in the car seemed like a treat. We found some free
parking and hiked the 3/4 mile or so to the festival. It was much more
state fair-ish than I had expected (Ted Nugent was the headliner on the
main stage, so...); however, we ended up having a good time.

The
kids ate funnel cakes and drank lemonade. I dogged out some ribs.
Mahlon and I even bumped into Ed from UO out among the festival goers.
He was very nice (as usual) and introduced himself to Mahlon. Mahlon
thought that was pretty cool.

Urge played about an hour and fifteen minutes and sounded great.
The crowd was pretty respectable for a band that hadn't released an
album in 8 years. We even managed to get an encore out of them ("Woman
2 Woman" and "Stalker").

Monday

We checked out of our hotel early on Monday morning and headed back
out to the suburbs for a day at IKEA. Amy and I are pretty much IKEA
junkies and the fact that there isn't one in Louisville always puts
IKEA on our itinerary when we're anywhere near Chicago.

Of
course, the place was packed because of their big July 4th sale. We
ended up grabbing a $.99 breakfast before shopping for several hours
and then grabbed lunch before we left (Total cost of both meals for 5
people was under $20). We only spent about $150 (mainly because the car
was already too packed) so we felt pretty good.

We arrived home around 10PM Monday night. The cool part was that we
crossed over the I-65 bridge into Louisville just as the fireworks
display was in full swing. The fireworks were being shot up from a
barge in the middle of the river, so the view was fantastic.

Tuesday was spent unpacking and relaxing. Now it's back to work.

This post originally appeared on an external website

Starting last Sunday as we were about to leave Chicago, all of the kids have gotten sick one by one. First, it was Miles then Mahlon and now Mira. Mira has it worst of all - fever, congestion, cough. She slept about 3 hours last night. The boys are feeling better; however, they're still not 100%.

Now, I'm starting to feel a little run down. I'm going to try and fight it off until Thursday. I have to fly to San Francisco (and back!) on Wednesday. Should be a fun week.

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I wanted to back up some
of my movies, but I wanted to remove all of the menus and junk first.
Unfortunately, I was having trouble getting DVD Shrink to recognize
some of the DVDs that I have ripped to my HTPC. Seems Shrink didn't
like the names of some of the IFO files.

Using the free IfoEdit app, I was able to rewrite the IFO files and create new ISOs that worked perfectly with DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter.

The interface isn't the most intuitive; however, once I figured out what I needed to do, it was a snap.

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The site for the movie "The Wedding Crashers" has an area where you can put your face into the trailer for the movie. By uploading a photo and selecting a few checkboxes, the site will put your face on a character's body. It will even more your lips with the dialogue.

For my first attempt, I chose Owen Wilson. I think the hair acuually looks good on me. I had forgotten what that feels like. The second one is as Vince Vaughn. Not nearly as good as the Owen one.

Check out my trailer as Owen. And then check out my trailer as Vince. Oh, and the site says not to show this trailer to anyone under 21, so I'm trusting you.

BTW, thanks to Beth for sending this my way.

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I got a call today from a producer at WFPL our local public radio station here in Louisville. They are planning to devote an episode of their State of Affairs call-in show to blogging. So either on July 19th or some time in early August, Rex and I will be on the radio discussing the basics of blogging.

Of course, everyone I've told about my upcoming appearance has
vowed to prank call the show. I just hope they have good screeners.

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The trailer for Waiting... is now available. It's starts off a little slow, but it gets funnier as it goes along. Having read an early draft of the script, I am surprised that they were able to find enough profanity-free footage for a trailer.

Waiting... will be released this September and you should go see it. In the meantime, watch my short film that launched Rob's career (NSFW).

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I'm not what anyone would call a frequent flyer. Before Wednesday, I hadn't flown since October of 1999. It's not so much the actual flying I've been avoiding. I kind of enjoy that part. It's more a fear of crashing and dying.

However, there were two events in San Francisco on Wednesday that required my attendance, so I bit the bullet (and an Adivan) and got on an airplance for the first time in almost 6 years. And to make matters even wackier, I decided to fly out of Cincinnati at 9AM (so that I could take a direct flight) and then to leave SF for Cincinnati at 2AM. In my mind, it seemed like it would be easier for me if I just got all of the flying over with in one day. Plus, I figured I could sleep on the plane trip back to Cincinnati before driving back to Louisville. Turns out that I'm an idiot.

Wednesday

5 AM - I wake up and get dressed for my trip. Because I will be attending a sales meeting at a client's site, I am forced to wear a suit.
6 AM - I leave for the airport, grabbing some Starbucks for the 80 minute car trip to Cincinnati.
8 AM - I arrive at the airport, park the car and head for the terminal. I had already printed out my boarding pass at home, so I bypassed check-in and headed for security. Of course, this is my first flight since 9/11, so I didn't know what to expect from the security check-in.

As I arrived at security, I was probably the 150th person in a line that eventually splits into 3 or 4 checkpoints. After winding through the line and showing my photo ID a couple of times, I got to the scanners where I had to take off my jacket, my belt and shoes, then remove my laptop from its bag. I then had to load all of these items in separate plastic bins before sliding them through the scanner.

Of course, on the other side of the scanner, there are half a dozen people trying to get their shoes and belts and coats back on while grabbing laptops and cameras from the conveyor belt. Lots of fun.

8:30 AM - The waiting begins. I buy a neck pillow, a Rolling Stone, a USA Today and an orange juice and sit down at the gate. For some reason, the flight is pushed back 30 minutes, so we aren't set to depart until 9:31AM. Considering that I had set up an 11:30 AM PST meeting with a co-worker in SF, this was going to make it a mad dash from SFO to downtown. In order to "mentally prepare" for my flight, I take my doctor prescribed 1/2 of an Adivan and wait for it to kick in.

9:30 AM - We've boarded the plane and I'm waaaay back in row 30 of a 737 (I think there are only 32 rows) wedged between two other guys. For the next 4 hours, we did not really communicate at all. One guy wore noise-canceling headphones and read the WSJ, so I found myself yelling "I NEED TO GET OUT FOR A SECOND" when I needed to go to the restroom. The other guy alternated between napping and reading a bar exam study guide.

Even with the Adivan, I still wasn't crazy about takeoff. However, I felt pretty calm compared to other flights where I had been known to claw at the emergency exits and scream "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" for the full duration of the flight.

Because I was too wound up to sleep, I ended up watching the in-flight movie ("Sahara") and preparing my PowerPoint presentation for the Community Summit I was attending that evening.

Due to a less-than-anticipated headwind, the flight was going to be 4 hours long instead of 4:35 minutes, so I still might be able to make my 11:30AM meeting.

11AM AM PST (2PM EST) - We arrive at the SFO gate and start to exit the plane. However, since I am in row 30 of 32, I don't get off the plane right away. Then I have to make the hike from the terminal to the lower level cab stand. By the time I find a cab (that will accept credit cards), it is 11:15AM. The cab driver says that the trip should only take "abow fivteen meenose." I'm feeling pretty optimistic. Unfortunately, "fivteen meenose" is not equivalent to 15 minutes.

11:45 AM PST (2:45 EST) - I arrive at our headquarters downtown. It's my first visit, so I have to get signed in at the receptionist's desk before heading to what remains of my 11:30 meeting. Of course, because this is my first time to the SF office, I wander aimlessly for the next 10 minutes trying to find it. At the Louisville office (40 employees), you can ask anyone you see where someone else sits; however, in the SF office (600 people), I got quite a few slightly indignant "I don't know who that person is" responses for directions and then looks of suspicion because I am wearing a suit and talking like a hillbilly while everyone else is wearing jeans and faux vintage t-shirts.

11:55 AM PST (2:55 PST) - I arrive at my co-worker's office (which has a fantastic view of the SF skyline) and apologize for being late. Because he has another appointment, we agree to postpone our meeting until he visits the Louisville office next month.

12 PM PST (3 EST) - I grab a sandwich at Subway and return to my temporary desk at the office to check e-mail and complete my Powerpoint for the Community Summit.

2-5:30 PM PST (5-8 EST) - I meet up with 3 of my co-workers for the 1-hour drive down to San Jose for a client meeting. We meet with the client for an hour before taking a 1 1/2 hour drive back (rush hour had started by the time we left).

5:30 - 9:00 PM PST (8:30 PM - 12 AM EST) - We attend the Community Summit meeting at Autodesk with reps from Netflix, IBM, Intuit, Dwell, Babycenter.com, SAP and Autodesk. Because we agreed that "what's said at the Community Summit stays at the Community Summit," I can't give a lot of details about the content other than to say that I presented about what we are doing with Community and how we have implemented Member blogs. The feedback I got was pretty positive and felt good about what we've built this year.

Afterward, we grab a taxi and head for the airport.

Thursday

9:30 PM PST (12:30 AM EST) - We arrive at the airport (I'm flying back on the same flight as my co-worker). We grab a sandwich and then go through security. The next hour is spent waiting for our 11:05 PM PST (2 AM EST) flight to board.

10:45 PM PST (1:45 AM EST) - The flight boards and I am lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me. So I get my neck pillow out and prepare to sleep. As I am about to doze off, I notice a guy coming on the plane at the very last minute. Even from the 26th row of the plane, I knew he looked familiar. As he approached, I realized that we would be flying with the one and only... MC Hammer. As he got to his row and waited for the other two people to get up and let him into his seat, we made eye contact. I gave him the "you're-f*cking-MC-Hammer-right?" look and he gave me the "yeah-but-please-don't-bring-that-sh!t-up" look. So even though he may be a super dope homeboy from the Oaktown, that night, he was just another passenger. As I was about to close my eyes, panic! In my flight-weary head, I realized that lots of pop stars meet their end in airplanes. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much after that.

6 AM EST - We arrive in Cincinnati. Because our client meeting isn't until 1PM (I didn't realize that when I agreed to tag along), we checked into the airport Radisson to sleep for about 5 hours.

12 PM EST - I'm up and dressed (I've been wearing the same suit for 30 hours now). My co-worker and I each have our own car, so our plan is to caravan down to the client location and then find some lunch. I hadn't eaten since midnight and I seriously needed some caffeine.

Unfortunately, the Yahoo! directions we got totally sucked, so we spent much of the next hour in the absolute worst areas of Cincinnati (Thanks, Yahoo!). We saw prostitutes, a drug deal and a telephone pole that we decorated with teddy bears and candles and signs for someone who had been shot there. Fortunately, I was in a Volkswagen and my co-worker was in a Lexus. I figured if the sh!t went down, I had a better chance of making it out.

1 PM EST - We finally find the client location, get a parking spot and head right to the meeting. No food. No caffeine. As soon as we get into the conference room, we notice the agenda for the meeting projected on the wall. It spans 3 hours!!! I almost started crying; however, I was too tired to muster up that much energy.

The meeting turned out to be pretty good, even though I was miserably tired and hungry. The best part was that we finished up in just over 2 hours.

3:30 PM EST - I grab a Dr. Pepper and find my way back to the interstate to make the 90 mile drive back home.

5:00 PM EST - I arrive home, hug my wife and kids and pass out in the bed. It's over.

This post originally appeared on an external website

As the release of the
XBOX 360 in early November looms, it is becoming difficult (and a
little frustrating) to figure out which games to buy now on the XBOX
and which games to wait 2-3 months for on the 360.

For example, Burnout Revenge
is set to be released on September 1st for XBOX. Burnout 3 was my
favorite game last year, so I am dying to get my hands on it. However,
I know the game will look so much better on the 360.

Another example is Madden 06.
As previous readers of my blog know, I have sworn to never buy a Madden
game (I feel the gameplay is inferior to the Sega 2K series). However,
because EA has effectively wiped out all competition for NFL, I may
have to cave in and buy it. As with Burnout Revenge, I can buy Madden
06 for the XBOX in early August (just before the NFL season) or I can
wait until November (midseason) to get it for the 360.

My plan, as of right now, is to buy Madden in August for the XBOX
and then wait until the XBOX 360 launches to get any more games
(although I am getting the LEGO Star Wars game for the boys' birthdays
next month). I figure that Burnout Revenge and NHL 2K6 will be worth waiting for on the 360.

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and now I have proof!
I've long speculated that Netflix has adjusted my "unlimited" service
based on both my length of membership and my rental activity; however,
it has been difficult to prove.

For example, when I first joined, movies would ship out the same
day and arrive the next business day. As my membership has gone on and
my rental volume has stayed pretty high, I've noticed a pretty dramatic
drop in the level of service I receive. In addition to "Shipping
tomorrow" being the norm for items placed in my Queue, they've started
to ship movies from Denver even though we have a NF facility here. Of
course, shipping from Denver slows down the turnaround time and reduces
the number of rentals I can get in a month.

Recently, my co-worker Bryan joined the service. As a test, I asked
him to add a movie to his queue. See, I have had "The Pacifier" at the
top of my Queue (for my kids, not me) since before it was released. And
since the day it was released (over 2 weeks ago), my Queue says "Very
long wait." Kind of hard to believe for a movie like "The Pacifier."

So when brand new customer Bryan adds "The Pacifier" to his Queue,
guess what it says? Come on, guess! COME ON! That's right, it said
"Now," meaning that it was available right away.

Hmm. Isn't that curious? Netflix supporters often dismiss the idea
of throttling and say that it has more to do with the capacity of the
shipping centers (i.e. they can only ship so many discs per day, so
often they can tell you early the previous day that your movie will
have to ship tomorrow). However, this has nothing to do with capacity.
After all, I'm not being told "Shipping tomorrow," I'm being told "Very
long wait."

How can it be available for Bryan "Now" and I have a "Very long
wait?" After all, we're both in the same city and use the same
distribution facility. The only explanation is that Bryan is getting
priority based on his length of service and his rental volume.

Limiting unlimited services got some of the telcos in hot water a
few years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix finds itself in the
same predicament.

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We got word today that
our house is officially sold. It was perfect timing because our builder
was going to require us to arrange for a bridge loan if we didn't
remove the contingency today. Whew!

Today was also our pre-drywall inspection at the new house. It took
about 45 minutes and was basically a walk-through with the construction
superintendent and the rep from Ball Homes. Everything looks great and
we should be ready to move in in about 70 days.

The one thing I forgot to arrange for in the new place was home
theater speaker wire. I will need 6 pairs of wire run (4 for surround
speakers and 2 for bass shakers in the couch) in the family room. I
need to figure out how I am going to get that run before the drywall
goes up.

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Am I the only one getting really (really) tired of this whole open-source vs. Microsoft
debate? It's been going on for years; however, I have managed to stay
pretty much on the sideline. Today, though, I read this post from
apotheon's blog
and this section struck me as worthy of comment (please note that these
aren't apotheon's words, they are from an article he was referencing):

"Microsoft essentially spearheaded the
commoditization of software in the US, turning OSes into prepackaged
"products" sold by unit. Microsoft is often credited with
"revolutionizing" the industry in this manner, making it into a
powerhouse by virtue of the commoditization of software, but the truth
of the matter is that technology advances as it's needed, and it would
have happened whether the software was sold as product units or not. In
any case, this commodity profit model was only possible by strictly
enforcing copyright law in a manner advantageous for maintaining
Microsoft's revenue streams, and continued to be profitable only by
lobbying for ever-stricter copyright law in Microsoft's favor. It's not
only Microsoft that has done this, of course: every large proprietary
software vendor has had a hand in it, but it's Microsoft that led the
charge, and continues to lead it."

I had always seen the open-source vs. Microsoft debate as more about
features and functionality and that open-source, because it was being
developed by thousands of loyal fans, could advance more quickly than
software created by large corporations like MSFT. After all, even a
company as large as MSFT can't afford to hire as many engineers as many
open-source projects have. I think that side of the open-source
argument definitely has merit. Just look at Firefox. It has thousands
of developers improving the product and they are clearly outpacing the
IE team in terms of innovation.

However, the comment above plays it up as an
ideology that says that software vendors shouldn't be allowed to profit
from
their software. I'm not sure how this makes sense outside the Dancing Rabbit
co-op. Nor do I understand why
Linux or open-source advocates should care what others use.
They've made the choice to
use open-source software and they like it. I'm just not
sure why
that product choice now has to be inflated to the level of an ideology. First of all, that seems like a pretty big stretch. And
secondly, it makes you look like kind of a nut (generally a bad thing
when you're trying to turn your product choice into an ideology that people can get behind).

It's kind of the same reason I hate to listen to the Apple verus
Microsoft debate. You love Apple? Great, go use it (I personally have
no use for it and am turned off more by the zealotry of the user base
than I am about the features of their products). But don't sit
around crying about how evil my choice is and telling me how I am
guilty by association. You made your choice and I made mine. Neither is
"wrong."

I guess now I have to start lumping some open-source advocates
into this holier-than-thou camp that Apple users have been so
diligently decorating with their minimalist white tents.

Or maybe the old adage that you should never discuss politics or
religion in mixed company should be updated to include operating
systems...well, except on TechRepublic's blogs and discussion boards, of course.

This post was composed in Firefox on Windows XP :)

Wow, I've gotta get one (or two) of these TVs!
BenQ just launched a line of LCD TVs (14-46") that connect directly to
your home network and allow you to access content on any PC in the
network.

As I've been building HTPCs over the past couple of years, I've
realized that a networked display would be much easier and more
efficient.

The software is being written by Mediabolic and you can read their press release here.

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