Greater Satellites

For all of you born on February 29th, 1984…

Happy 7th Birthday!

For a long time, I’ve considered going the route of scooping up a fairly recent, possibly refurbished Intel Mac mini and using it as my DVD player, DVR, audio streamer, DivX player, and all around Home Theater PC. There are even several friggin websites dedicated to helping people set up their dream system.

That dream was shaken at the core when I bought a PS3, which plays Blu Ray movies, upscales DVDs, and handles most video formats I’d want to play on it with the most recent firmware upgrade. Sony recently released a bad little MF’er by the name of PlayTV, which is an additional component for a PS3 that allows you to watch and record television directly to your console. This is pretty friggin sweet. What’s more is that the files it records (in high def or standard def) are DRM free. That’s right — you can record ‘em on your PS3, move them over to your computer to re-encode them for an iPod/iPhone, or burn them to DVD with no icky rights management debacle. What’s the catch? It’s currently unavailable in the US as it’s only compatible with PAL. You can bet your ass I would scoop that up the minute it’s available here in the states.

On a kind-of related note, there a really interesting media server being announced by a company called Conceptronic. The specs seem pretty decent and if the price is right, maybe this will grace my home entertainment setup:

• Built in analog tuner (blah, but I’ll take it)
• 1TB internal storage (saweeeet!)
• Component, composite, and firewire inputs
• HDMI (woot!), component, and digital audio out
• Optional networking adapter
• Codec support: DivX, XviD, WMV9, SVCD, and VOB

Hopefully the price will hit the sweet spot.

My submission to The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks finally got posted! Check it out here: “Unofficial”

If you didn’t know, that site is one of my favorite things to check out in the morning before I start “work”.

My wake up schedule is something like this:

1. I have Alarm Clock (http://www.robbiehanson.com/alarmclock/) running on my iMac at all times so I can easily set up
   alerts and, of course, alarms.
2. At precisely 8:40 AM, my Alarm Goes off and plays my iPhone Playlist, which currently has around 900 songs from every frickin genre known to man.
3. I usually snooze in 10 minute intervals until 9:20, unless a song comes on that I particularly like and then I’ll lay there half awake, but still rockin out.

Today I heard a song that started off with some bells, drums, and a strumming guitar. It wasn’t the metal that makes me angry to wake up to, so I let it play out as I drifted in an out of slumber. Shortly thereafter I heard the line “Sodomy is such a part of you”, which violently woke me up.  How could something so blatantly homosexual be in my playlist? Using my hands to shield my back side, frightened and alone, I pulled the covers back up to my eyes.

I realized that the song was Disarm by the Smashing Pumpkins and when my mind actually kicked on, I recalled that the true lyrics are “Inside of me and such a part of you” (which still could also suggest sodomy, ironically). Regardless, the way he sings it REALLY sounds like sodomy.

I’ve removed that song from my wake up list and triumphantly yelled “No Homo!”.

~Fin~

This is some pretty cool news. I finally knuckled down and purchased, in my humble opinion, a bangin’ automobile: a 2006 Jeep Liberty Renegade. Up until today I think I had an identity crisis with it; Sometimes I’d call it a car, sometimes I’d call it a truck. Now I’ve just decided to call it my Jeep (good call, Jackie).

I purchased it this past Tuesday after looking at a few different SUV and pickup trucks. One of my pre-requisites was that I wanted a car that I didn’t have to duck into. Example:

So I was looking into a few different rides, including but not limited to: Ford Explorer, Jeep Cherokee, Chevy Equinox, Chevy Trailblazer, and the GMC Envoy.

In the end, after a few test drives and reviews, I ended up loving the feel and sheer sex appeal of my Jeep. The Renegades have a pretty unique look about them, both interior and exterior. I’m glad I didn’t opt for the regular Liberty or the Liberty Limited.

So here I am, the proud owner a sweet new ride.

Road trip, anyone?

Recently came across the site for the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (a sports magazine that even I enjoy) and found a hilarious crossover of humor and sex appeal in a shoot featuring Heidi Klum (rhymes with boom, if you didn’t know) and one of my personal favorites, Will Ferrell. These are promotional shots, I would assume, for his upcoming movie, Semi Pro, and are pretty damn funny. Heidi never seemed like a typical supermodel to me because you always see her smiling and having fun, unlike other super models who always come off as looking bitchy, catty, or otherwise pissed off.

The official website has a boatload of pictures (the body painting is especially hot this year) and a few brief articles. Can someone remind me again why I should buy the actual magazine?