Contracts and Cucumbers

I hope all of you survived yesterday. I wouldn't want any undead readers.

I'm very excited that we will be seeing at least another four years of my hero, Keith Olberman, on MSNBC. He's one of the few that probably deserves a 4+ million contract, because he is doing a fine job of educating the public about the activities of neocon scum.

I've been eating meals at my various favorite restaurants recently, of course, but I've been ordering the same stuff that I always order. I had a particularly good time with AE, LA and AT at the Thai Cafe last weekend. Afterwards, we went to Sips, the coffee shop in the same complex. I was pleased with my mocha and I'm surprisingly picky about them. The atmosphere at Shade Tree Coffee is a lot nicer, though. I also enjoyed a nice serving of chicken salad at the Symposium Cafe, with DS.

Here's a photo of last Friday's post-guitar-practice Cafe Zen sushi.


Ok, I also can't forget the tuna and pickled cucumber salad small plate that I had at ACME on Sunday.

Last night I went to a wonderful Duke Symphony Orchestra concert with my dad and AN. They played pieces by Abel, Bach and Mendelssohn and it was lovely.

RSS DVR BSE

I've added a link to my rss feed. Once I got it working, I was horrified at how the standard orange XML button looked with my color scheme, so I made my own button using an interface to Bill Zeller's button maker application.

Thanks to Karl, who sent me a link about plans to offer HD TiVo for Direct TV. It sounds as if it will be a little pricey, ranging from $699 to $899. Do I really need a clothes dryer? Now I just have to think about getting that view of the southern sky. I'll have plenty of time to contemplate that while I'm waiting for the price to come down.

My family has spent a lot of time recently worrying about the food supply and what we're going to eat, especially after reading this article. I think we're just going to continue to avoid eating beef and try to only eat free range meat, whenever we can. Well, that's what I'm going to try to do at least. One of the things argued by the article is that other meat, such as pork, isn't safe, because the animals are slaughtered when the pigs are young, years before the spongiform encephalopathy would be expected to show up. Hearing about high levels of pollutants in farmed salmon doesn't inspire confidence about the alternatives either. I'm just going to live on smoothies.

Excitement and Earth Shattering Dilemmas

On the way home from work this evening, my van sounded as if it might stall while it was at a traffic light. The temperature gauge seemed high, although it wasn't in the red zone. My dad has wondered whether my radiator hoses might need replacing, since it has recently been possible to smell antifreeze after I've driven. We're going to take it to the shop in the morning. That, yes, that, was the excitement for the day.
I also wrapped a baby gift.

So, there are two earth shattering dilemmas that have come up in recent months. 1) Do I get cable or satellite? 2) Do I wire the great room for surround sound?

I have lots of trees around my new house, so it may take a effort to get satellite. I'd certainly have to put one on a pole and even then, it's not clear that I'd have a good view of the southern sky. One of the reasons that I was leaning away from satellite, even though I love the DirectTV service that I gave my parents last year, is that you can't use it to get high definition signals. I just read, however, on a link off of Gizmodo that RCA will be releasing a DirectTV receiver in February that receives high definition signals. That sounds interesting. If they would make a receiver that handles high definition AND TiVo, then that would be something.

I don't know what to do about the second issue. I'm going to have my TV flat against the wall in the corner of a square room, which I've been told is unacceptable. That's where it's going, regardless. The kitchen counter will be across from it. I'm just not sure it's worth it. I don't even have a stereo. If people want to hear great sound at my house, they're just going to have to bring their own headphones.

First Day Back

Today was my first day back at work and I did survive. In fact, it wasn't quite as bad as I had imagined, despite getting up at 6:30am in the morning. It was fairly quiet, since some people will be back tomorrow, I guess.

I've decided that the best thing I can do to solve the anonymity problem is to simply add a level of abstraction. I can refer to people as the owner of their pets. For example, I enjoyed talking with the owner of Curious today and I had a nice chat with the owner of Sable and Sheba. The owner of FIFO is going to strangle him if he doesn't stop chewing on her chair. Oh wait, that's me. Maybe this would get a little tiresome if I kept it up.

Intel's announcement of chips that will make large flatscreen televisions more affordable should push off my purchase by about 6 months. I had planned on getting one shortly after I move into my house. I guess that's ok. Maybe I can get some new dining room furniture. More realistically, perhaps I can pay my electric, gas and water bills and even buy groceries. In fact, this is great news. I had my eyes on the 50" 16:9 Sony Grand WEGA LCD Rear Projection TV, model KF-50WE610. I read several consumer reviews on it and they don't sound good. You see all these reviews from people who say the picture is beautiful and they are so glad they didn't get some other brand and then you see posts saying that the same wonderful television has spontaneously completely quit working and that there are rumors of a recall. I'm thinking that I'd rather put my $3,000 in cattle futures right now.