March Madness and the General

When Bobby Knight resigned as head coach of Texas Tech earlier this year and handed the reigns over to his son Pat, I figured that was the last we'd see or hear from Knight, Sr. in the college basketball realm.

Silly me.

ESPN announced today that they had signed Bobby Knight for the March Madness coverage on ESPN. 

That's right.  Just a few more days and March Madness begins!

College Basketball at it's finest.  Will the UW Huskies get in?  Will the Zags get in and do some winning?

Who knows....but I'm looking forward to it, and it's good to see that the General will be helping out with his insight.

Come on Madness!

Technorati Tags: Bobby Knight,ESPN,March Madness,College Basketball

Laptop versus desktop (again)

Again I'm struggling with the laptop versus desktop issue.  I'm having severe issues with my laptop, which is my main work and home machine.  It's about 3 years old, out of warranty.  But I really like it.  It's not the fastest machine on the block, but it has worked well for me.

When I buy a new machine, I want a fast machine.  Very fast.  I want a large monitor.  I want lots of memory.  Lots of disk space. 

I almost bought a new machine today.  I got a deal in my RSS feeds for a Dell x64 Desktop, 2 gig of RAM, 160 gig HD, XP Pro, 22" Flatscreen.  $449.

But I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger.

I also looked at a Dell laptop for about $50 more.  Slower, with less disk space, less memory and smaller display.  But very, very portable.

I guess I'm spoiled.  I love the laptop form factor.  But for a lot of the tasks I perform, a fast desktop would far outweigh the laptop.

My second consideration was to buy the desktop, leave it at my office and use the laptop for home use and use the desktop at work for both work and photography stuff.  Inconvenient, yes.  But doable.

I'm torn.  I need XP if it is to be a laptop, as the VPN doesn't support Vista.  If it's a desktop, which I leave at work, Vista is OK, as long as it is Vista Ultimate or Vista Business, as we have a domain.

Choices, choices, choices......

Technorati Tags: Laptop,Desktop replacement,Hardware

News Choppers = Vultures

I checked CNN.COM this afternoon, and there was a link to a LIVE streaming video from Miami airport about an airliner (MD80 from American Airlines) that was going to be attempting to land with (what was initially reported) as no front landing gear.

So I watched for  a while, and the air traffic control came on and told some of the other airplanes in the air that there were six news choppers at 600 ft at one end of the runway.

Next, I hear one of the pilots say "Vultures!", to which the air traffic controller responds with "You have vultures?" and the pilot responds "No, not us" while I can hear someone in the background, maybe another pilot, laughing.

At this point, the tower voice feed went away and we only got voiceover by the news chopper crew.  Which frankly was a bit sad, as it is always interesting to listen in on the tower chatter.

Thankfully, the MD80 landed successfully, it appeared to have a wheel chock stuck in it's front wheel, but it was able to land successfully without incident.  Thank God for that.

Technorati Tags: Miami,American Airlines,Air Traffic Control,News Choppers

Damn Writers Strike....

I've mentioned before that I don't find many shows on TV that are worthwhile of my time.

Ace of Cakes is one show that is worthwhile.  24 is another.

Due to the (stupid) writer's strike that recently finished up, my favorite show, 24, has been postponed until next January.  WTH?

I was really looking forward to this year's season, and the writer's just squashed that whole "looking forward to " idea.

 

I have found two other series that at least are mindless enough that are worth watching.  One which is a throwback to my childhood, and one that well, I just kinda like.

The first is Knight Rider.  With the awesome Shelby Mustang.  It's not the original KITT, and it's quite implausible, but, good all the same as long as I don't think about the implausibility of it all...

The second is Lipstick Jungle.  Not a big fan of Brooke Shields, or Kim Raver (who reminds me a of a former co-worker), but the designer reminds me of a young Valerie Bertinelli.  Not a kid-safe show, but that's why I TIVO it and watch it later.  Yep, it's probably a chick flick.  Oh well.  I liked LA Law when it was on too. :)

Check 'em out.

Technorati Tags: Writers Strike,24,Knight Rider,Lipstick Jungle

Networked TIVO? You need AudioFaucet

This is probably one of the coolest pieces of software I've seen for  awhile now.

It's a Home Media Application add-on to the TIVO that allows your TIVO to attach to your ITunes library (or libraries, I would assume) running on machines on your network and play the music through the TV.

Very very cool.  It appears to be in a beta right now.  I hazard to guess what they will charge for it, but I'm fairly positive if it is a reasonable cost, I will be buying it.  It's that useful to me.

My TIVO is wireless, my computers are both wireless and wired.  But it works well with either wired or wireless conenctions.  I'm going to assume that you will get better results from wired connections (natch!), but wireless does work, let me tell you.

Check it out here .

Technorati Tags: AudioFaucet,Audio Faucet,TIVO,Network Music

Beware the Rocstic

 

I have transitioned my entire CD collection to MP3 and have it on my IPod.  Works great, I use it in my car via an attachment that plays through my stereo.  I don't even use my radio anymore, just the IPod.

So I was looking for a way to play my music in my office at work and came upon a product called a Rocstic.  Essentially it is an IPod dock that has speakers at either end of a long tube.

I thought this was a great idea, and the price was right.  So I put it on my wishlist for Christmas and my wife bought me one.

I got it Christmas day and used it.  It played music for about ten minutes, and then the IPod would spontaneously reboot.

I thought I had a defective Rocstic. So I called them, got an RMA number and sent it back.  They sent me a new one.

Same issue.

With no resolution in sight, I've moved on.  I'm looking for  a new solution, and chalking the $50 I spent on this Rockstic up to experience. 

Beware.  You have been warned.

Libraries are not set up well for bedouin workers

As I write this, I'm sitting in a cubicle space in a library.  I have a meeting this evening at church, which is fairly close to my office.

However, I wasn't too interested in sitting in my office for a couple of hours before I went to church (there is always work to be done, and heaven knows, I'd probably work).

Anyway, so I went to the library so I could find internet access and read my newsfeeds online for a bit before I go to church.

I walked around the library for  a while before I found an empty space to park myself.  There were plenty of spaces available, but none near power outlets.

Finally I found one.  But heaven forbid I would do this on a daily basis.  I'd have to get to the library very early to be able to get a prime spot near an electrical outlet.

This library, however, is one of my favorites.  I don't particularly care for the local library, even though it is close to my house.  I prefer the Edmonds library, which is about 4 miles away.  Right now, I'm at the Mukilteo library because they have free wifi and I can use it without guilt, I don't have to buy a latte or hot chocolate every hour just to justify my taking up space.

Oh well.  At least the wifi is free. :)

Technorati Tags: Bedouin,WiFi

Super Bowl 2008

Nice game.  Congrats to Eli Manning and the Giants.

I usually watch the game but especially am interested in the commercials, but the commercials seem to be sorely lacking this year.

A few bright spots

• The Thriller commercial with (I think) Naomi Campbell.  I kept waiting for her to throw her cell phone.
• The commercial where Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons were going to be run over.  They both were missed by the car.  Oops.
• The mouse Doritos ad from the guy in Beverly Hills.  Funny.

 

I also saw a few movies coming out that I'd like to see:

• New Narnia
• The Assasins movie with Angelina Jolie
• The Jim Carey Movie (maybe)

All in all, I'm glad that the Giants won.  I don't feel like I wasted the day watching the game, as it was a really good game.  On to the Pro Bowl!

Technorati Tags: Super Bowl,Doritos,NY Giants,Patriots,Ads