[via Chris>

Yesterday we went to Marie Callender’s to meet friends for our 5th? annual Thanksgiving lunch. This year I opted out of having turkey, since I knew I would be eating it again today, and then of course on Thursday. Instead, I got the meatloaf sandwich on grilled Parmesan sourdough bread. The sandwich was good, but the bread was awesome! I gotta learn how to do it. It seems just like butter and Parmesan, but there must be some secret… It was delicious.

I downloaded the official non-beta release of Miro the other day, and have been really impressed! It’s basically a free, multi-platform video player where you choose from a library of channels. The channels are so varied, from National Geographic, to the Onion and Adult Swim. You subscribe to a channel, then you can download (or auto-download) episodes of that channel. It uses bittorrent as the download mechanism, so the distribution is shared. It’s kind of a neat way to present bittorent video.

Another cool thing is that you can add any folder from your computer as a channel. So, I can add our shared network drive that has all of our dorama on it, and they will appear in Miro. This has me thinking of building a cheap box and hook it up to our LCD and using Miro as the video player…

The UI is attractive, but there are a couple little things that annoy me. For instance, when adding a subscription, it takes you to the channel page, but it is not easy to “go back” one click to the browse page. They need a back button, or even a breadcrumb like iTunes Store. It’s actually easier to add channels from their website in a browser. Although there is the ability to export your channel list (OPML), they should have an option to have the list linked to your account. (Signing up for an account is totally optional) That way I can sync with multiple computers. Also, it has crashed my Ubuntu machine twice. It’s the only app to ever crash that system. Hopefully an update will fix that issue. Lastly, even though you can add local video files to Miro, there seems to be a bug that all folders aren’t showing up as channels correctly. They show up in the Library just fine, but not in their little channels.

I guess we should expect these problems since it is just out of beta, but I am hoping that they will be fixed shortly. Otherwise, Miro is a nice way to watch videos on your computer.

I bought an RCA antenna to pick up the local stations for the new TV. After some adjustment, I finally got five channels to come in. The three networks, plus the local PBS affiliate and of course Univision! KEYE here in the Austin area has their morning newscast in HD, and of course it looks great. I am looking forward to watching some Sunday NFL in HD, even though I am not a huge football fan. All-in-all, the antenna is great, not only because of the HD, but because we don’t currently have local channels via our Dish Network plan. Now we have access to those channels, plus they look awesome.

I saw this one on Manny’s blog.

1. What is the first music album you remember owning?

Star Wars and other Galactic Funk by Meco

2. If not the same, what is the first music album you purchased for yourself?

Pretenders I

3. What artist currently occupies the most space either in terms of shelf space or megabytes on your hard drive?

Zard

4. How many different types of music media (vinyl, cassette, CD, etc) have you owned in your lifetime?

LP, EP, Single, cassette, CD, CD Single, MD, Digital Download

5. Who or what has had the biggest effect on your music taste?

My friend Colin during HS.

6. How do you currently prefer to listen to music?

iPod via Sony V6 headphones

7. In terms of music memorabilia, what is your most prized possession?

Don’t really have anything. Maybe a Puffy (Ami Yumi) poster.

8. Have you ever “swapped headsets” with a complete stranger (meaning have you ever unplugged the earphones from your listening device and plugged them into someone else’s player and had them do the same)?

No

9. Have you ever been completely obsessed with a particular artist? Who and to what level did your fandom go?

Right now I am obsessed with Zard, but not really to the point of crazed fandom.

10. What is the farthest you’ve ever traveled for a concert?

Not far. From home in Torrance up to Hollyweird? (45 mins)

Who have you seen in concert the most?

I have seen Everything But The Girl maybe 3 or 4 times.

I have finally decided on a paint scheme for my Victoria-class RC sailboat. It’s going to have a black hull with blue wave graphic. As you can see in the pic, the rudder and keel will also be black. I saw a photo of a Vic that had a black hull with bright green graphics overlayed on top and it looked really nice, so I figured I would try something similar. I think he used stickers for the green parts, but I am going to probably hand-paint the waves. Time to put my fine-arts degree to work!

I read some articles on the Web that indicated that most RC sailboats which are built for competition are not painted because it just adds weight and drag. I am not so concerned about maximizing for speed, however. I just want it to look nice! Also, I decided on the name, “Brezza di mare” which is a Zard album name, and means “A light wind which blows from the sea to the land”.

Click the pic above to open a larger version graphic.

Yesterday we bought a brand new LCD tv at Best Buy. This is to replace our downstairs family room television, and we decided to just go “cheap” with this one, but then later get a really nice one for our upstairs “media room” when we have some furniture! The requirements for the downstairs LCD were connection to PC (to watch Japanese dorama over the network), 720p, and it had to fit in our entertainment center. At Best Buy, we looked at the entire range, and settled on the Insignia brand, which is Best Buy’s house brand. It looked pretty good, actually, and the price was great. Plus it was 1080p!! We also used a 12%-off coupon, so we were stoked. When we put it in our entertainment center, we found that it just barely fit, with maybe ½” clearance on each side (including the top!). Unfortunately, there is a set of RCA inputs in the side which are inaccessible at the moment, but a little drillwork to the side of the entertainment center will fix that.

I also picked up a set of component cables for the Wii, and now the Wii looks amazing! The menus are really sharp, and the games look fantastic in 16:9 widescreen. The only things left to buy are a set of component cables to hook the dvd player up to it, and perhaps an over-air HD antenna. Once I get those, we will have everything set and hooked up, including our archaic VHS machine.

I really want the Asus Eee PC. It’s tiny (a little bigger than a dvd movie case) and runs a custom version of Linux. The cool thing is, it can play DivX and Xvid videos, which means it is perfect as a J-dorama viewer! It’s relatively cheap too, at $399. The specs are pretty modest, but running Linux, it doesn’t have to be so beefy. And with all the storage on flash memory, the thing boots up in 15 seconds.

I will be following the Eee PC community closely to see how people’s upgrades go (memory, OS, etc). Loading Ubuntu on my old laptop has really turned me on to Linux and has shown me what a great alternative to Windows and OS X it really is. If I get one, I am not sure if I would change the OS to Ubuntu or keep the custom preinstalled version of Linux, Xandros. All the apps are there with the default installation, including Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Skype, and the movie player. I am not sure if you can add more apps with Xandros, which may lead me to installing Ubuntu, but I will let the Eee PC community work out the details!

You know, this thing would make a really nice e-book reader as well. It’s way more versatile than the similarly priced Sony Reader or forthcoming Amazon Kindle. I bet those two companies aren’t too happy about the Eee PC coming out!

In the end, I probably won’t get one (budget!), but it’s fun to do a little wishful thinking.

No no no!!! But it looks like it is gonna happen. WTH?!

Appetizer

Which snack do you like to get when you go to the movies?

Popcorn, if anything.

Soup

What year did you start using the internet?

I think it was 1994

Salad

What is your first name in Pig Latin?

Arronbay

Main Course

Name something you are picky about.

Can’t think of anything!

Dessert

Fill in the blanks: I [u>felt[/u> [u>genki[/u> yesterday and I [u>am[/u> [u>tired[/u> today.