New HDTV!

Here's some pictures of my new tv, as well as my whole home theater setup.


Well I finally did it, I got that TV that I've been looking at for months! It took a trip to Circuit City where I didn't even plan on buying it, and a very good price matching discount from the salesrep to hook me on the deal. They price matched the Samsung 4051-D HDTV from Buy.com, bringing the total price just about where I would have paid online from buy.com. The rep even made another deal with me...he said I could get $150 off of any surround sound system, if I signed up for digitial cable. I held off on this for a few days, but then later returned to buy a surround system from Sony for $180. So I got a nice set of Sony 5.1 Surround Sound 800W speakers for $30! I hooked these up an noticed that the left rear speaker had static noise coming through. I returned this speaker to CC and the new one worked perfectly. I later called the Time Warner to have them install digital cable and the HD channels. I really didn't need to do this to make the deal work, but its something I wanted to do anyway. A few days later they installed the digital cable/hd channels. I have to say, I love the HD channels (the true HD channels). I've noticed quite a bit of non-primetime programming is still standard or digital cable brought into the HD range. These pictures are really a disgrace to HD stations and shouldn't be allowed at all. However, stations like Discovery HD and WXXI HD make it totally worth it. These stations often show nature in its finest HD detail, the pictures look beautiful! I can't wait to watch YES HD this coming April!

Best Gaming Video Cards for the Money (Jan 07)

Well I was just reading up on TomsHardware that the video card that I selected for my PC was actually a pretty good choice. They recommended that if you're going to upgrade you at least get a card that is three tiers or higher from your current card. I went from a Radeon 9500 Pro to a 9600XT which is no jump in tier at all. I'm okay with this cause I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a dead horse (AGP). So the three tier jump happened with my new system where I purchased a X800GTO. It is three tiers ahead of my current 9600XT. I do things right every once in a while. :-P

My New Video Card

I recently updated my dying Radeon 9500 Pro AGP 8x video card, with this upgrade Radeon 9600XT. I am trying to stretch my current system out for another year or two before I totally scrape it for an updated motherboard that accepts PCI-E and maybe a Core2Duo. But that's another story.

After 3 days this card has been running great.
Here's the specs...
Sapphire Radeon9600XT
AGP 4x/8x
Core 500Mhz
256 MB DDRII RAM
Memory 580-650 Mhz
Shader Units 4
Memory Bandwith 10.4 GB/sec

3DMarks 3733 -
My old card had 3659 when it was stable, I got up to 4252 with overclocking but I think this may have accelerated my video cards death. I have no plans to overclock my new card.

Skiing at Bristol

Yesterday, I went skiing with Ramon at Bristol. The weather was pretty good, except at the top of the mountain where it was very cloudy/foggy/snowy/sleaty. Either way, the snow was still pretty loose and it wasn't too crowded. I ended up doing most of the Medium difficulty trails and the all the Easy trails.
The trails I did were...
- Milky Way
- Nova
- Shooting star
- Sunset
- Infinity
- Southern Cross
- Eclipse
- NorthStar
- Lower Meteor

Sunrise and Sunset

I like to keep track of when the sun is going to rise and set. I like to know how many hours of sun (or lack of it since I do live in Rochester ;-P) we are expected. We gain 2-3 minutes of sunlight every day from Dec 21 to Jun 21. Here's some links to sites that list this info for our area.

Site 1
Site 2
Site 3

Adirondacks High Peaks

This is a site I stumbled on when searching for hikes in the Adirondacks. This guy and his friends are totally devoted to hiking the High Peaks in the Adirondacks. They go it seems every month, even the winter months. The pictures and descriptions of the trails are amazing. I really appreciate this site. It also makes me want to go back there very soon!

Top 5 Selfish Electronic Wants Right Now

Things that I would buy if I had the money, and didn't owe quite a lot on student loans. Maybe I can splurge a little after tax refunds (if there is any)...
1. Parts to build a brand new computer. Core 2 Duo, 1 GB of DDR2-6200RAM, Nvidia 7950.
2. If not the above, at least a working AGP Video Card for my aging Pentium IV system, that has a slowly dying video card on hardware that is not supported. Maybe the NVidia 7600.
3. Samsung 20.1" LCD Monitor.
4. Samsung 40" LCD HDTV 4051-D.
5. Hauppauge WinTV-PVR250MCE PCI Interface Video, on sale at
NewEgg

HDTV Buyers Guide

I really love the folks at TomsHardware. No matter what I'm looking for or whatever I'm interested in they always seem to have an article right then and there to help me out. Take for instance my new obsession lately has been gawking over a 40" LCD HDTV from Samsung model 4051-D (or 4041-D). I know I want this so badly, and its current price of around $1300, its not a bad deal for what your getting. Anyway this article basically reviews all different types of tvs and discuss what you should know before buying one. I found it to be very useful, so I thought that I'd share it.

My job

I'm realizing today that I am really lucky to have such a great job. My job at Xerox is a financial analyst. Right now I am building tools to automate tedious tasks. It's fun because I get to use skills from my BS in Computer Science that I haven't used in a while. Eventually I'll get to use some analytic skills from the MBA degree. Plus, my boss and co-workers are very cool, and allow you ample time to work on things and are just all around good people. Plus, I get to work from home from time to time...like today. ;-)

What an awesome weekend!

Alright, so this weekend I set out to visit my friend Bob who lives in Albany. The plan was that Friday I would get up there, we would just drink and chill that night. The next day we planned to go to the Yankees game in NYC. The drive to Albany was fine, no problems at all. So I start unpacking my stuff for the weekend. About an hour after getting to Bob's, I realize I made a huge mistake! I called up my girlfriend in Rochester and said "Honey, I made a big mistake...". She thought I was going to say that I cheated on her or something, but no, this was just slightly less worse than that. I said "Baby, I forgot the tickets at home!" You wouldn't believe that I have the best girlfriend in the world if not more than 30 minutes after telling her this, she was on her way to drive the tickets directly to me. Albany to Rochester is a good 3 1/2 hour drive mind you, so this is nothing to sneeze at, plus she started driving at around 9PM at night. Sweetie, if I haven't said it enough I LOVE YOU....you were definitely a life saver this weekend!!!!!

So, Melissa and her friend spent the night at my friend Bob's house. Early the next morning they took of to visit Melissa's brother in CT. Bob and I spent the morning playing video games. Then we drove to Yankee Stadium, got lost in the Bronx (which was a little scary), but eventually found a parking spot.

SO then the game started. The Yanks started off great...Jeter's first at bat home run, next up...Giambi..home run! Back to back homers to kick of the first inning. That's about it though for highlights from the Yankees, after that they totally sucked. Johnson's pitching was awful...he gave up at least seven runs in the first seven innings. It only went downhill after that...the final score was 19-6. One of the worst games I've ever seen, let alone attended. Oh well - it was still fun going, it was something I've always wanted to do.

The next day, I meet Melissa on the NYS Thruway and we drove back together. It was a crazy but yet fun weekend....I wouldn't have it any other way.

melissa's b-day

This was the weekend of Melissa, as we celebrated her 24th birthday. We went to Letchworth on Saturday with about 20 other people. Fun was had by all. People went for hikes on the nature trail, people went off the nature trail and walked on the edge of the waterfall, and others scaled down the cliff of the opposite side of the park for a unique view. We had some hots and burgers, and drinks. The weather couldn't have been nicer too. I should put up some pictures soon...come back for those.

$$ Gas Prices $$

So, I've been thinking about gas prices lately and how much they have gone up. One of the things I've noticed is that the bands of variation in price fluctuations increases as the price is higher. For example last week, a gallon of gas at the local Delta Sonic cost $2.72, today a week later that price is up to $2.89. More than a $.15 hike in a week. Besides the price of gas continually going up, I think we will continually see major jumps like this. Oil prices depends on a number of things including supply, the world's demand for oil, and fear. That's right, fear is a signicant reason for the jump in price per barrel. Fear over terrorism, over lack availability contribute. Last I heard it was something like it adds $10-20 to the true price of a barrel of oil.

I'm also sure that the technology exists somewhere to make cars much more fuel efficient, getting much better mpg. However due to current political agendas and various lobbyist concerns (big business), people will never see this new technology. Its not until years and years after a known issue becomes a large problem, when the government may begin to seek change (such as what happened with the global warming issue). Scientists have known we are destroying the environment with fossil fuels and other hydrocarbon pollutents, but the true extent of the damage never really gets out to the public due to lobbyists agendas (comming from tobbacco, oil companies, car companies, etc...) All of which do not want things to change immediately because it may impact their business now.

I'm not really sure where i was going with this, just sucks that gas prices have to be so high. And I'm not really complaining that much cause my Saturn gets great gas mileage (about every 300 miles per refill), I feel bad for other people who dont have as fuel efficient vehicles. My next car will likely be a hybrid.

Plant Progress - Day 21

I didn't forget about the plant (in case you were wondering). It has been doing very well, and 12 days after my last update I present you with...Plant Progress Day 21!

whistling

I have been trying for a while to learn how to whistle using finger, you know the kind that makes a really loud noise. Well after many attempts, I figured it just wasnt happening. SO being the dork that I am, I looked it up online. Here's what came up in Google. I did manage to get a few whistles out of it...so i guess you can say today was a success!

new jersey

My roommates and I decided that we would take a little trip this past weekend. We went to see a few bands by the names Deathcab for Cutie, and Franz Ferdinand. I'm not big into either of these bands, though I have heard a few of their songs, which are for the most part good and enjoyable. I mostly decided to go on the trip for a chance to get out of Rochester for a while. The concert was in NJ. Getting to NJ was quite an adventure of its own. There was a freak snow storm, followed by hail in the middle of PA. This led to many accidents and turned-over vehicles, and general slowdowns. Once we pasted Philly, Camden was just a hop across some river (Delaware maybe?), then we had hours to kill before the start of the concert. This is what we did...

We parked near the Tweeter center, and across from our garage was this Aquarium. So we decided to check it out, at first we thought it would be expensive, which according to the main gate it was! It was like $16 per person, plus it said it closed at 5 (the current time was about 4). So we were like no way would we pay that much. So we went to the back and people seemed to be exiting a building. So we checked it out. This exit turned out to be the exit for the Aquarium, and other people were going in as some were going out. So we went in too. Man we're we suprised.

The first exhibit in the aquarium is the Hippo exhibit. Hippos are ginormous! They are also suprisingly very graceful underwater, which was a very cool feature of this place, to be able to see them swimingly underwater. We then checked out other things such as octupus, seahorseas, and jellyfish. But the coolest part was a walk through shark exhibit, where you walk through a tunnel, and sharks are literally swimming all around you! It was pretty amazing.

After that, we were really hungry, so we decided to get some eats. Frank saw a couple of girls and yelled "Hey, do you know where we can eat?" They said they were looking for a place too. So we tagged along, introduced ourselves, and made some friends. We searched for quite a while, because little did we know Camden is really really rundown. We walked down whole city blocks that were completly deserted and boarded up. We found one restaurant at the end of a series of deserted buildings. We went in and ordered some food. The food turned out to be not so bad, it was a small old fashioned Italian joint.

We then went to the concert, and continued to hang out with our new friends. We didn't go to our assigned seats, but it didn't matter. It was all fun. The ride home was pretty exhausting. We left NJ at around 11:30 and got to NY around 4 am. Around Syracuse I noticed TJ driving more erratic than he had the last few hours, he started breaking for no reason. When asked about this later he claims he saw "Arms growing out of the truck ahead of him" and "Shadows that I thought were people". So I drove the rest of the way home after that, we got back to Rochester around 5:45 am.

All in all, an awesome trip! I will put up some pictures as soon as I get them from TJ. Oh! And I was talking to someone later about the trip, and they informed me that they were from NJ and that they avoid Camden whenever possible. When asked why he said because it is America's Most Dangerous city. Camden Who knew we were risking our lives walking through Camden?

Plant Progress - Day 9

Plant progress - Day 9.

Today was fun, we went to a party for my grandma at my aunt's house. We played frisbee and hung out outside. We had a nice dinner, got to see family and it was a lot of fun.

Plant Progress - Day 8

Here it is again, another exciting episode of Plant Progress - Day 8

boxing and sunny fun

I went to RIT today to work out, but got a little sidetracked. I remembered hearing someone say that RIT had a boxing room, so I decided to ask about it. Indeed they had a boxing room, said the friendly sports equipment room girl. So I thought I'd give it a shot. Boxing is tough! You gotta be at the top of your game to be good at it. Some of the bags I could barely hit, if they were moving. I tired myself out after about 30 mins, and 3 bloody knuckles later. I returned the key to the boxing room, and asked the friendly sports equipment room girl for a basketball instead. That was slightly easier than boxing. It was also beautiful out today and anyone who was inside all day, I feel sorry for them.

Plant Progress - Day 7

Plant Progress - Day 7

Plant Progress - Day 6

Another exciting episode of name that plant! Plant Progress - Day 6.