Oceanic 815

Yes we watched Lost, and then Eli Stone just to see the Oceanic commercial. The skewed URL said find815.com, which was launched a month ago, but is now blank...or so it would seem. Anyone have theories on the second Oceanic 815 found in the ocean? (Patin - aren't you a Lost fan?)

By the way - this is the DVR recommendation of the week. Should be bonus replays this weekend or next Thursday...

What's your domain?

Recent conversation I had with Julie Whitaker aka "julesdwit":

Julie: "I lost julesdwit.com, can you believe it?"
Me: "Really?!?"
Julie: "I guess there's always Julesdwit.org"
Me: "I've always pegged you as a julesdwit.biz, seems more street..."

And the conversation digressed from there....the point of the story is to register your domain early and often, so in honor of julesdwit, I am registering fullthinktank.com. I will post when the site is up and running. Gotta protect the value of the name. And register fullthinktank.biz for some street-cred.

Julie is also on IMDB....apparently she is famous....

Alarm Systems

For those who might own the alarm system that came in your house, here is an interesting alternative to the $30/month+ Brinks or ADT home alarm monitoring services.

Basically, for $5 a month this service will send an email/text/call to your cell phone if you alarm is triggered or if a smoke alarm goes off. Or for $12 a month they will dial the police or fire department just like Brinks/ADT.

Here are some reviews - take them for what they're worth. I'll update the blog if we decide to switch over to NextAlarm.

Speaking of alarms, have you seen the ADT commercial where the guy puts on his hood and then does a round-house kick to the lady's front door during the friggin middle of the day? Seems pretty likely. Especially the hood part. Straight up Unabomber. These commercials are the worst at preying on people's fears....sorry, couldn't find the video....

Selling on Craigslist

Craiglist is slowly becoming my favorite site - I bought a TV, washer, couch, and fridge, and sold a car, fridge, and lawnmower since we've been in our home. Now I just surf it by location (like Downtown or Pearland) looking for stuff to buy. A family friend sent me an email this week asking for advice on how to sell on Craigslist, and here was my advice:

• Put lots of good pics (4 max).
• Search current items for sale to get an idea of asking price.
• People like to haggle, so price your item 10% above what you want.
• Accept cash only - too many fake checks/money orders out there.
• Have another person present when the transaction takes place - there can be some weirdos.
  
• Also advertise in local cities (i.e. San Antonio and Dallas for us in H-Town) since people will travel for large purchases.

I am currently selling my old HDTV - check out the sweet pics with the Arrested Development DVD...

The Terminator

Over the weekend, we powered through the new Terminator series on Fox, and I am not sure if I enjoy it or not. It might be due to a lack of new episodes because of the writers' strike and I am driven to watch anything that is not a rerun.

Pluses for the show - Really, this picks up right where T2 left off and there are lots of references to what happened in T2 (i.e. Cyberdine) and I am glad to say that it forgets T3 ever happened (what a mess). Also, you kinda have that inkling that John Conner is going to hook-up with the female terminator - not sure how I feel about that, but we'll count it as a plus for now.

Problems - The time-travel inconsistencies are a mess. As the story line grows more complex and more robots and people have jumped to the past, historical record vs. current event contradictions begin to mount. This is the whole problem with time-travel: nothing could have happened in the past without it becoming part of the historical record. So Terminators searching for John Conner would never have happened - those in the Future have a historical record and attempts by John to evade the terminators would only amend the historical record for those in the future.

This is all rendered moot (vocab of the day....) since Terminators had the right idea in T1 - kill Sara Conner before John is born. Why would they choose to jump in later when John is a young man, the jig is up, and resistance is greater? Logic says they would continue to jump back in time to when Sarah Conner unaware of the Terminators, or was still pregnant, OR when she was just a baby, OR go even further back and destroy her parents, OR destroy Mankind in it's infancy.

This leads Susan to say "Just enjoy the show...you're thinking too hard". Agreed.

Other items - the action scenes are somewhat illogical - too much busting through walls - and why are the robots bound by human limitations? Example - they scale a fence just like humans (even when their cover is blown). Shouldn't they be able to jump 30 feet in the air with their mechanical legs?

Check out this quick article on the CEO of iRobot (you know, those vacuum cleaners) - he makes a great point that Sci-Fi says that robots need to look like humans, but in reality robots need to be built to carry out tasks that the human body is not naturally built for - if you can build a machine to take on a particularly grueling task, why would you choose the human form?

My First Car

Since there has been so much talk of cars the past week, Kyle made me promise I'd post a story on my first car - a 1986 Olds Cutlass with rally wheels, 305 V8, and 60K miles in 1996 - but it was the features it didn't have that make the story.

When I bought the car it didn't have A/C due to a bad compressor, so we got a great deal in Houston where A/C is mandatory. But here's the best part - after a month or so the transmission lost reverse. That's right, I could go forward but not backward. This lead to some techniques I collectively deemed "strategic parking":

1) Never pull into a spot with a cement block
2) Always pull thru a spot and never give someone a chance to block your front end - cause they will....
3) Always have a younger brother (Craig) or friend willing to push the car out of sticky situations
4) When parking in a driveway, make sure there is a slight grade that will allow you to coast back out in neutral.
5) Parking at Sonic is out of the question

My favorite part was getting up in the morning for school, starting the car, and then sticking my left foot out the door in order to Flintstone my way out of the driveway. Needless to say it built character...

Having a baby!

Susan is pregnant! Here's the blog we setup to cover all the action...

http://babyeidson.blogspot.com/

(Check out the PhotoShop work...)

This ain't your Grandpa's Caddy

Altough the new Cadillac CTS commercials give me the creeps - you know, the one's with the doctor from Grey's Anatomy (I've just been corrected....Private Practice), and she is all over the car like (insert metaphor here).

At any rate - the fact that the new CTS comes with a manual transmission got me doing some research, and sure enough, those CTS-V cars that you see every now and again are freaking sweet - starting in 2004, GM dropped the LS6 Engine and Transmission from the Corvette Z06 and offered it as the CTS-V - 400HP, manual transmission, upgraded suspension, and Brembo brakes. Not bad. Looks like you can get a 2004 for about 22K with low miles.

In 2006 GM upped the ante with the LS2 engine, which gives another horsepower boost. The 2009 CTS-V (sound) will have the latest 550HP supercharged Corvette engine, which is shared with the Corvette ZR1 (unreal...check out the ZR1 see-thru hood and carbon fiber)

The selling point for me - the CTS-V edges out its only price-point competition (Dodge SRT-8 Charger) not on looks, but on the standard manual transmission.

Check out this video...never would I have expected a Cadillac to sound like this. This car is sneaky fast.

2007 Return on your money?

So, I find that a lot of people will brag "I made 30% on that stock last year", or "I doubled my money on fund XYZ". But rarely do they admit what their overall return was for their investments for the year. So, in the spirit of transparency, here are my returns (albeit modest) including dividends for my investments over the past 3 years:

2007 - 10.6%
2006 - 10.1%
2005 - 12.4%

Take the poll on the right column to let me know how you did - show me up! If you did better (which I am sure some of you did), post your picks for all to see using the comments.

Milestone Ahead

Well, December had just over 500 hits, and now January is on pace for over 1000 hits. Let's see if we can break 1000...

Good thing the most popular blogs get up to 10 million hits a day. Nice...

Gladiators - This week's DVR recommendation

So last week I recommended the Late Night shows without writers, so I thought I'd make this a regular feature.

This week - if you want a real piece of Americana, record AMERICAN GLADIATORS. Hulk-Hogan plus mouthy amatuers plus awkwardly large gladiators plus real injuries = riveting unintentional comedy. I was convulsing on the couch watching this. Indulge this coming week, record American Gladiators or watch it online....

This week featured Andy, a youth minister whose spiritual gift is trash talking. You cannot write this stuff.

Getcha' Popcorn Ready

I thought T.O. was really being sincere, ...really. I will admit it though - it makes me uncomfortable to hear another man cry. Getcha' popcorn ready at the 1:50 mark...

Famous Car Voices

My new favorite game is guessing which celebrity voice-over is being used in all these new car commercials. Here's what I got so far:

Mazda - Patrick Dempsey
Jaguar - William Defoe
Hyundai - Jeff Bridges

The Jaguar ad is the most mesmerizing. Contrast that to the existentialism of the Hyundai ad, and you have yourself a term paper.

And I also like the Chevy Malibu car commercial where the bank robbers jump into a tan sedan, and then are passed up by the pursuing police because the car was so bland that everyone didn't see it. The voice then says "presenting the new Malibu, the car you can't ignore". The great catch is that they used an old Malibu as the bland tan sedan - so basically mocking themselves for destroying the Malibu name with a faceless money-trap of a car that blended into the road with its bean-like style. Very self-deprecating.

Remodeling the house online - FINISHED!

Our water here in Pearland is very hard and leaves all our fixtures with calcite build-up, so it is now time to replace most everything in the house that uses water - dishwasher , refrigerator, water heater, faucets, shower valves, etc. Our house was built in 1995, so I guess it is about time. My goal is to buy everything on Craigslist or eBay for under $1000 total. First caution - check for recalls on the items. Most every appliance maker has recalled one of their products over the past 5 years for some reason or another. Here we go:

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Black GE Dishwasher (used, 2002) - $40 Craigslist - Blayton helped me grab the washer from a fellow Aggie whose wife wanted a bigger model. It looks brand new, and the retail is $299 at Home Depot.
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America Standard Faucet Fixtures (new) - $25 each eBay - saw the design we wanted in Home Depot for $46 each, but we needed four and they only had two in stock. So I Googled on the phone and bought SIX for $150 on eBay. That's right, I purchased these while on Home Depot's wireless network as I was standing in the plumbing isle. My bad.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moen Shower Trim and Cartridge (new) - $67 eBay - the plumber told me these parts are getting rarer, and to look on eBay. Sure enough...
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Whirlpool Refrigerator (used, 2005) - $300 Craigslist - we'll see how this turns out. I feel like refrigerators are the most issue prone devices in the modern western world. Well, outside of the power widow motor on the driver's side of your car (I've just jinxed you - your window will break tomorrow as you attempt to give the Sonic car hop a pitiful 25cent tip...mark my words)

Update - worked out great. the fridge was from another Aggie and it was near perfect.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hot Water Heater ($387 minus $275 cash ) - I just missed a new one for $175, oh well. Install costs alone are $308 at Home Depot, making the total purchase $655! This is the standard price from another local plumber as well. I might try to do this on my own, given that I have already replaced the pipes in and out of the current tank.

Update - After looking for two weeks, I decided I had to buy a water heater from a local store - there's just not a big market for new/used water heaters on Craigslist. But! I listed my old fridge on Craigslist and it sold in 2 hours, leaving me with $275 cash to spend on a water heater. And I decided I am installing it on my own.

So......drumrolllllllll.......

My budget was $1000. I spent $ 809.95 (including install costs), leaving me $110.05 under budget. Done and done.

iPod + Car

I broke down the different ways for getting the iPod to play in your car for my friend Ty.

I didn't mention a full custom job - check this out...

Here are the options for your enjoyment...

1) Cassette adapter
2) FM Modulator - tune your radio to a FM station and pick up the
iPod, but pretty spotty here in h-town. Really easy to install, plug
and play, bad audio...
3) Factory radio + wired iPod adapter - most difficult - you have to
wire in an auxiliary input to your factory radio, then run an RCA or
mini-jack cable from your iPod to the input - great sound, tough
install.
4) Aftermarket radio ($200) with built-in auxiliary input - buy a
radio with an aux input on the front from Crutchfield, install it (1
hour) and run a mini-jack cable from the headphone jack to the radio -
this would your best bet
5) Aftermarket radio + iPod dock connector ($250+) - this is what I
have, the radio connects to the iPod via the dock connection, and you
control the iPod from your stereo. Great audio, but difficult to
control the iPod with a car radio - too complicated....

MacWorld and Steroids

Busy lunch today - I went back and forth refreshing two different blogs - MacWorld 2008 and George Mitchell's appearance in front of Congress. Macworld was more fun...the new notebook is unreal, it looks like you could break it in half on accident.

Vista - First Impressions...

Quick Showdown:

Old Computer - Pentium 3 866Mhz with 256MB SDRAM, Windows XP Professional

VERSUS

New Machine - AMD 64 Dual Core with 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, Windows Vista Home Premium

Positives for Vista...

• Search Feature is intuitive and finds what you want.
• Sleep Mode is quick and lets you boot fast
• Haven't found the hot-key for the Aero windows yet, but that may come in handy soon
• RSS reader built into the desktop is sweet, as is slide-show feature
• Management of pictures/music/videos/documents is taking some time to figure out, but I like the new navigation and tags
  

Negatives...
The Mac commercials nail these right on head - the "UAT" prompts me anytime I try to run a process that connects to the internet or makes adjustments to my computer (this can be overridden), 2 of my 3 external devices were unsupported, lots of bloat-ware running in the background, but so far my setup has no problems processing it all.

Expectations...
It feels faster, but not as fast as I expected - 8 times the memory, 4 times the processing power, but my new Vista machine runs just slightly faster than my old super-clean XP machine when running day-to-day apps like Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, etc. Granted, there are a ton of Vista processes running in the background that could be stopped. The real stunning part is video rendering - what took me 7 hours now takes 7 minutes, and ripping my Tivo files to DVD is super-fast (video editing was but a glimmer in the eye of my old machine). So this performance has won me over, even though it may have more to do with the new PCs awesome specs than the actual OS.

Supported Devices
Good story here - my internal Wireless G card and my internal hard drive were not supported by Vista. Both are less than a year old. And to top this, when Vista tries to redirect you to the "Unsupported Devices" web page, the page told me that my browser (FireFox) was "unsupported" by the "Unsupported Devices" web page. I may have just entered into an infinite loop of unsupportable insupportability.

Conclusion
The new look and features are worth the change, so if you have enough memory (2GB in my application) I say go for it and upgrade to Vista. You can get an upgrade disc for about $60 if you catch a sale. Plus, it's always good to know your way around the most current operating systems.

Writers Strike = Best Late Night TV in YEARS

Go to your DVR now and set it to record some of the late-night shows (Conan O'Brien first and foremost). Do it now. Really.

With the writers on strike for 2 months now and no talks planned, NBC has sent it's late night shows back on the air without writers and the result is perfect comedy. No pre-written bits or jokes, just great comedy, honesty, and ad-libbing. Conan really shined on Wednesday night's show - his unfiltered thoughts and jokes were right off the cuff, and he was in his element.

Conan also did a tribute to his "strike beard", followed by a video of what he does in his office each day (this included Conan strapping on an electric guitar and trying to thwart co-workers playing Rock Band, and then singing the Beastie Boys' Sabotage as Edith Bunker).

Jay Leno did a segment where random people asked questions and Jay had to quickly quip back - even though Jay normally does this, the people and questions are pre-screened and setup, but this was completely random. The questions were so pointless that Jay had to really try hard to make a joke, and even offended one audience member who retorted "Bite me!" three times over. It was so simple that it was brilliant.

So, can this last? Jimmy Kimmel made an interesting point in a podcast last week with Bill Simmons. Jimmy figures that the novelty of the shows sans writers will be fun at first, but will wane as weeks pass. Jimmy thinks we'll miss the setups, hosts reading jokes, and pre-filmed bits. I think he's wrong, but time will tell.

True, writers are essential to dramas, sitcoms, and even "reality" shows, but late-night TV was meant to be writer-less, the last frontier of television, the wild-west of programming, the SeaQuestDSV of sea exploration (and I have derailed...). The hosts leads and we follow. Keep the jokes coming boys...

New Year's Resolutions

My New Year's resolutions read like a laundry list of stuff I would do if I had more time. Maybe I should make more time. That being said, here's what I'll try to accomplish...

Go fishing on my way home from work, write new songs and perform somewhere, read a book, sit on the tailgate of the truck and talk to my neighbors as they come home, pay off the Xterra, work out more often, learn to do a front flip, sell things I don't want in a garage sale, max out IRA contributions, buy iTunes for all the MP3's I downloaded in college, print out some digital pictures and put them on the walls, change the transmission fluid in our cars, vote in a local election...

Christmas Pics

Here are some memories from the holiday break....Dad got everyone a Nerf gun from Amazon's toy bin, and so we had a couple all out Nerf wars in the front yard. Even the kids from next door got Nerf guns from my dad. It was incredible fun...check out the pic where I land a dart right on the camera lens (you can see the dart mid-flight). I still have the touch...

Meet The Duke

I asked my brother-in-laws for some John Wayne DVDs for Christmas, and they came through with flying colors. My interest in John Wayne films was sparked by a retrospective on PBS's American Masters series - "John Ford and John Wayne" which highlighted how these early western films really set the bar for great directing and acting, especially when Ford and Wayne worked together.

So, in honor of my quest to watch every John Wayne western, I'll be updating this entry with the movies as I watch them and provide my comments. Here's the current list:

Hatari! (Watching Now)
El Dorado
North to Alaska
The Quiet Man
The Alamo
Rio Lobo
True Grit
Big Jake
Rio Bravo

Pop's new Mustang

Well, after window shopping for the past 2 months, my dad pulled the trigger on a new Mustang GT with some really unique options:

5spd Manual w/ 4.6L V8
Black Clear Coat w/ RED leather interior
18" Painted Aluminum Wheels
Spoiler delete (Steve McQueen style)
GT Appearance Pkg w/ painted hood scoop

Here it is sitting at the dealer...



Pretty wicked package overall. After accompanying him to several dealerships over the holiday break, I now have the muscle car itch. I really liked the Mustang GT with a Roush Stage 1 kit which includes custom seats, exhaust, body kit, side vents, and window louvers. It really has an understated look, especially in white or silver with the 16" Cragar style wheels. Here's a perfect example....

Music and WIRED

Very cool articles in this month's WIRED magazine on the Music industry...here are the quicklinks:

Radiohead's Thom Yorke talks about the whole name-your-price music experiment which netted the band $3 million - with none of that going to a record label. One real note is that he does not advocates this method for other bands - if you're a new band and try this, you will not make any money. Another interesting point is on the continuing need for the album format (i.e. 12 songs grouped together for a release every 2+ years), versus releasing tracks digitally as they are created. LINK

Talking Head's David Byrne breaks down the various music distribution methods and contracts, and how digital models have changed the game. LINK

Alamo Bowl

Although we sat next to some ridiculous "fans" and the Aggies lost, the trip to the Alamo bowl this year was overall a great experience. Here's some pics from the game. And yes, we are wearing matching jackets proving that the word 'Alumni' is not a noun, but a verb...

The Present Run-Down

We had a blast over Christmas - here's a run-down of the present opening festivities. Please bear with the parenthesis (sorry)....

I got Sue a new knife set and a new ceiling fan for one of the rooms, we gave my mother a Senseo coffee maker and my dad a bunch of Playstation accessories/games. We gave Sue's father a NFL Films DVD History of the Cowboys, and gave her brothers the first two seasons of The Office and the Band of Brothers set.

One of the best gifts was a scrapbook that Susan had spent months creating for her mother Sharon. Over the past couple months Susan had been stealing undeveloped film from Sharon's desk (this film was from the early 80's) and my father was having it developed and restored at the local film shop. Susan then created a scrapbook out of the pictures (which Sharon had never seen, and were from when the kids were toddlers) and gave the book to Sharon for Christmas. You guessed it, she cried with every turn of the page.

As far as me...Sue got me some new golf clubs (replacing the mixed set I borrowed from K-Shot), the parents gave Susan and I a new computer (replacing our P3 setup from 1998), I also got some Xbox games (including Halo 3 with the helmet and everything - check out the picture), and so many DVDs that I probably need to take a couple of days vacation just to watch them all. And don't worry (cause I knew you were), the Whitley's got me the pots and pans I wanted. Time to cook.

Back from the break...

Well I'm back from the Christmas and New Year's vacation, and I have a slew of blog updates and new entires on tap for this week. Once I've landed firmly back at work I should have some time each evening to get some updates done, so I hope you enjoy....welcome back....