Soupergenius

I wish I could get a laptop with a 15.4 Led LCD monitor, dual 100GB SSD hard drives, Intel quad core processor, 8GB or Ram, Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo writer. I want all this with bluetooth, 802.11n, and the ability to turn off the touchpad. I also want it to run cool, have 5 hours of battery life with wifi on and not weigh more than 7 pounds. Next year at this time, this will probably be a bottom of the barrel computer, but know it would be pretty nice to have. I also think it would be neat to put a computer into my car like the mini-box. I don’t really know if there are any advantages to this, but it would be a fun project. I have also heard of people putting mac mini’s into cars and that would also be a fun project. My delima is that I will probably not keep my car long enough to make it worth while.

Finally, snow arrived in the Washington DC metro area this weekend. We have had nothing all winter long, except one individual who made his own snow up in Maryland. Snow brings out the worst drivers in the world. If you have never lived north of Maryland, you should just stay home until all snow and ice is melted. I saw two instances of people sitting in their cars right in the middle of the road, not moving and causing traffic because they were unable to drive. Word of advice, don’t stop on an ice covered hill, wait at the bottom or top so that you can avoid spinning your tires trying to get traction. Other than that, our little IG finally got to see what snow is and seemed to think it was ok except for the cold. It took him awhile to step in it, but after he did he had no problem walking around. Our Aussie thought that it was a big pillow to run and jump in and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have grown tired of my website name and am in the process of changing it to something else. I started coming up with ideas and may have settled on the new name, but am not sure. Today is going to be fun, I get to change front brakes on a Honda Accord. I don’t think it should take more than 30 minutes or so, but it is getting really cold, so I am not looking forward to it. Oh well, it is something that really needs to get done. I also need to update the yahoo widget that I created to show that the Junkies are no longer on the air in Baltimore. Maybe this weekend. I also want to update the look of my site and make the gallery match the site. Luckily not all of it needs to be taken care of right away.

This has been a very exciting season for the Washington Wizards this year. They are finally winning games in the final minutes (even though they should not be this close at the end!). Teams are keeping it close but they have been having difficulty stopping the wiz kids. It seems like if the Wizards lose, it is more their own fault for settling for jump shots instead of attacking the rim. I really thought that it was going to happen again, but they one the game by getting to the rim when their star was double teamed. I also have to say that suites are very nice there. Here are some shots of the seats that we had.

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This is a picture of my new friend. I found this little guy in my office at work. He was just a little guy, but I was able to convince him to get in my box for a field trip. He was released back into the wild and should be doing fine.

I think this is my new second favorite channel (following FX as number 1!!) . Futureweapons is a show in it’s second season on The Discovery Channel. This show had a couple of really neat tools for the military. The automatically flying drone helicopter, the time delay bazooka round, and the semi-automatic sniper rifle were all very interesting. I think the rifle was my favorite as it could fire 5 .50 caliber rounds accurately at over a mile. That leads to the saying “you can run buy you will die tired”. The helicopter was probably my second favorite thing. You type in where and when you want it to fly, and it will run the whole mission profile without any user input. Very useful for reconnaissance and resupply. I tried to watch the Mythbusters episode about the Hindenberg fire, but it was on too late and I fell asleep, but I hope to catch that later. I am also looking forward to new episodes of Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch, both very good series. Having a DVR with quality channels like this is great. You can check out their website at Discovery Channel. Some day I might have to look into getting a job over there.

Went to the 2007 Cycle World show in Washington DC this weekend. There were a few bikes that caught my eye. The first was an Aprilla. I thought that the maintenance on these would be equivalent to a Ducati, but I was corrected by the guy in the booth. Apparently your service is only 2.5 hours at 650 miles and at 6000 miles unlike a Ducati which I was told it was every spring no matter how far you rode, plus mileage stops. The bike that really impressed me was the Suzuki GSX-R 750. Very light with plenty of power. I don’t think that I could ride a sport bike every day though. I did not get a chance to see the Ducati’s because I missed the booth, and did not see any Triumphs, but saw pretty much every thing else. I really like the Yamaha FJR 1300. Paddle shift, grip warmers, electronic windscreen, detachable luggage, and ABS. Very innovative and comfortable to sit on. I was disappointed that there were not more aftermarket groups showing new innovations in gear and accessories though, but there were a few. It was a pretty small show, I would think that they could definitely bring more stuff, but it is what it is. I believe the yearly car show is coming soon, so I may go check that out. There are pictures of some Indian Larry and Roland Sands bikes in the gallery at Bike Show Picks.

Wow, there are a lot of new neat toys showing up at the CES show this week. Unfortunately I am not there and only get my information from other blogs. I saw new remotes using the Windows Slideshow and am wondering how those are going to compare to the remotes from Logitech and Monster. If they are cheaper, then I may be looking into getting one. I already have about 10 or 15 remotes laying around the house and would really like to stash those somewhere and only have one. Another interesting product is the Powerline product from Linksys. I had heard bad things about networking over powerline in the first generation of these products, but if it gets up to the theoretical 100Mbps then it could be very useful. I am not to fond of trying to run Cat 5/6 cable all over the house, so now it is all wireless, but those speeds are always less the farther you get from the base station. Sony also has a HDTV in the 27 inch range. To me this is the perfect size for a bedroom or computer room. Especially at 1080p and with 1,000,000 : 1 contrast ration. Finally, this may be the year to move to HD with DirecTv. They have announced 100 national HD channels to be broadcast to the home. This is a lot better than the 9 or so that they have now. To me it was not worth it for so few channels, but 100 would definitely make it worth it. Hopefully the cost of the DVR receiver comes down at the same time. I also hope that soon it is part of the standard broadcast package to have HD programming and not a separate charge.

I just got the Samsung WEP200 bluetooth headset. I am impressed with the sound quality and battery life so far. There has been no static noise when using it and the phone has been under my car seat, in pockets on the other side of my body, and right next to it. It is fairly comfortable, but I am thinking about getting a different gel to hold it in my ear. I have had people say that they were unaware that I was using a bluetooth headset until I told them and then they said they could tell a little bit. I have mostly used it in my car with the windows up and radio off. People on the other end can here if the radio is playing and hear the traffic if my window is down. I have not had any problems with wind noise yet. I wish I could turn off the led or have it flash less often, but that is a minor thing. I also wish that I did not have to have the case to charge it, maybe they can put a micro-USB port on it in the next version. There were no problems pairing it with either my phone or computer, both recognized it right away. Of course, I have only had it for a week, so I will update if I find anything that I really like or dislike later.

Well, it is time to try to find a dog food that our little guy will eat. The other two don’t care what they eat, but our Iggy is really particular. I am thinking about trying Fromm’s and Solid Gold, not sure which direction I am going to go yet. I just hope that whichever is chosen is palatable to all the dogs.