Playstation 3 Dilemma

So I wandered into the local Best Buy — half looking for Clerks 2, and half looking for a Nintendo Wii — and walked out with a 60GB Playstation 3. I can probably eBay it for a couple hundred in profit, or Craigslist it for somewhat less, or I can just keep it and enjoy (my birthday is next week after all). Any opinions?

Update: I ended up returning the PS3 to Best Buy on the 22nd of December. They had around 50 of them in stock at that time.

Long time, no post

I admit it, I’ve been slacking. Not just with posting, but in general. Hopefully this post will signal the beginning of a more active period overall. There’s plenty I’ve been meaning to post about, and hopefully you’ll hear about some of these things and ideas in the coming days:

Building a HD MythTV system
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
101 things in 1001 days (thanks Kevin!)
Wii! Video games are fun again
My new (old) bike
End of a blog

But for the moment, I’m looking for two bits of input.

First, my 35th birthday is coming up, and I’m trying to figure out what to do to commemorate it. The current plan is to invite everyone to meet me someplace in town to celebrate next Friday night, but if people have a better idea (or even just a good venue for the event itself) let me know!

Second, I’m looking for a cool gift to give myself. Anyone have a good suggestion? Of course this might be easier if I post my 101 things first…

Of Lightning Strikes and Motorcycles

It was a long weekend.

Thursday night the torrential downpours brought with them a lovely spate of lightning; which in turn struck the oak tree just in front of my house. While chilling and interesting at the time, the real relevance didn’t become evident until somewhat later. Our DSL modem and Linksys router both got fried. It appears that the previous owner of the house (who was mostly awful at doing things around the place) unhooked the ground wire from the phone box. After allowing the phone box (NID) to dry out (the cover had been blown clear off the box), and purchasing a new DSL gateway, we’re back on the Internet, but it’ll be a couple more days before the network configuration issues are all worked out.

The repairs to the network were somewhat complicated by learning to ride a motorcycle. Which is to say, that I spent the weekend taking the Maryland Motorcycle Safety Course. Three days/evenings and some nervous practice later, and I’m apparently allowed to operate a motorcycle unsupervised in the state of Maryland. I don’t buy it, and you won’t have to worry about seeing me tooling around on two-wheels on any of the major thoroughfares in the region, unless I’m on my bicycle.

But, I am looking for a practice motorcycle (something absolutely cheap, I mean really cheap, I’m not kidding here). If anyone has a line on a (mostly?) functioning motorcycle that can be had for peanuts, let me know.

Quick Movie Reviews

Friday was the first light day I’ve had in a while, so I decided to binge on a couple of new movies. Here’s the quick cuts:

the Last Kiss
Really a good movie; funny and at turns poignant. Not a typical romantic comedy, with a couple of cringe worthy moments (and that’s a good thing).
the Black Dahlia
Ok, I enjoyed this movie – but then again I’d enjoy any hollywood period piece. Truthfully, in this type of film, the coherence of the story – and it wasn’t trying too hard on that count – takes a back seat to the sumptuousness spectacle.

Londres

I’ve been meaning to post for a while now, but I’ve been just busy enough to give me an excuse. A little nudging, and here I am again.

Which oddly enough isn’t in D.C. I’m in London, England for the Google Conference on Test Automation. My advisor is speaking here, and I tagged along for the ride (especially since I have never been to London before). I arrived at 6am yesterday, just a couple of hours before the conference began, and pretty much had a full-day till 7pm, then down the pub midnight. Back up at 4am to work on data for a paper deadline (Saturday 12pm), and back to the conference in a couple of hours.
If anyone has recommendations for places to visit, I’m here for the weekend and have some freetime to explore; the camera is in tow, so hopefully there’ll be new stuff over on the photoblog soon.

Otherwise life hasn’t had much to blog about in particular, hence the lack of posts. Labor Day was a haze of: lame party, board gaming, and all-night at the drive-in :-D!

Quick reviews of the movies from Bengies:

  1. Cars: Pixar, good.
  2. Wicker Man: remake, lame.
  3. My Super-Ex Girlfriend: better than I expected, still pretty forgettable.
  4. Da Vinci Code: better than I expected, mostly forgettable.
  5. the Decent: we left at the start, so I don’t have a comment.

I have nothing against Evangelicals

What I am opposed to are people that belong to a political party because of single-issue politics, “other-side is evil”, or “my parents were *, so I am too”. Faisal linked to a great article that sums up some of the reasons that I’m opposed to the current republican party, “When Would Jesus Bolt?“.

I’m interested in many of the same issues that conservatives across the country care about: safety, security, economic prosperity, lower crime rates, lower abortion rates, and bringing our military servicefolk home safe. I might disagree on the methods of accomplishing these goals, but I’d be interested in open discussion about the issue and any progress on these goals would be better than what we’re getting today. The current GOP simply fosters hate and discord to further their own political agenda – an agenda that only focusses on the interests of big business.
But that focus on big business doesn’t improve America when the big business being catered to isn’t even american; the president’s ill-fated attempt to turn our ports over to middle-eastern companies is a perfect example. The interests of big business are well-cared for by their money and influence; they don’t need our govenment to protect them. But that protection is what they receive, and in spades – just look at Enron, WorldCom, Microsoft, telcos, tobacco, and the oil industry. This country wasn’t founded on the protection of the corporate profit, and no company has ever bled for freedom. Men and women, american men and women, have given their lives to protect our freedom, and we should honor their memory by electing a government that is willing to live up to those ideals – that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are individual liberties not the rights of Wall Street. What this country needs is a government that looks out of the interests of it’s people, all it’s people. And on this I think we can all agree.

We cannot, and should not, ask our elected government to change. We can only tell them that their time has ended and to replace them with civil servants dedicated to the cause that so many have died to protect. We have no rights as a people where we will not accept the responsibility to act in defense of those rights. Take back your government; reclaim the rights our fore-fathers paid so dearly to obtain, so “…that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Impersonal Kitsch

For some reason, I thought this was totally cool:

Message: ———————————————————-

THIS IS A ONE TIME NOTICE!

Student: Fouche, Sandro
Advanced to Candidacy on: 09/01/2006. If he has any current aid
offers, please check that they are updated to Step III.

—————————————————————–
This email was automatically generated

One of the perks of going to a state school is the unintentional comedy of the impersonal.