You know it’s next week. What you didn’t get me anything yet? Well here’s a list.
Renew my PDGA membership fee. (or money for it)
Silverback Gorrila Boy Disc Golf Bag
Roku XDS
Lego’s Falling Water
3-man Chess board
Money will also do. Just Paypal it to me and I’ll buy what I need.
This year we are going to be trying a new media front. A new means to bring outside content to us. We are tired of the high cable costs we spend. It wouldn’t be so bad if the channels had decent stuff on during the times we watch TV. Most of the shows my wife and I catch are always off the DVR.
What are we paying $70 or more a month for? We watch the same content over and over when we aren’t using the DVR? Reruns of The Office, My Name is Earl, Suite Life on Deck, iCarly, etc. We pay for 300+ channels where we probably only watch 10%. Sounds like a big old waste of $840 a year. What how much…? I think smoking is still cheaper than cable TV.
We are looking into set top boxes to deliver online content to our TV. Something usable, easy, and reliable. Something that supports Netflix (which is everything these days), Hulu Plus, Pandora, and options for user created content. Those are just the necessities. The big players in my search are the Apple TV, Roku XDS, or Boxee. Apple TV is too limited for me. Being what some claim “Apple Fanboy”, I do not own enough IOS devices to make it worthwhile. I’ve heard great things about Roku and they are half the price of the Boxxee. The Boxxee design and awkward cube look is quite the conversation piece. However, content options and price points it will be a Roku XDS in the near future.
Two big downfalls, sort of, is teaching everyone how to adapt to a non-cable provider way of watching TV. My wife is leery on new technology. The other is lack of sports. I don’t watch a lot of sports these days. I can get my soccer fix with ESPN 3. Football is going to be my biggest loss. I guess with the money I’m saving I can walk down to the bar and watch. Or I’m coming over to your place to watch the game and drink your beer. Or pay the premium fee to stream hockey games. (Experiment begins after Super Bowl next month.)
My quick cost numbers is $100 for the Roku and about $200 a year for Netflix and Hulu which means a savings of over $500.
Plus, we are hoping that if we have more structured content to watch, we might watch less of it. We definitely won’t be watching the same rerun sitcoms between 10PM and midnight anymore. (If we do need our Office fix, we will just stream it from one source or another.) Might even free up more time for video games and board games.
It’s that time to throw out what I plan on doing this year. Some are either carry overs from last year and some are on going goals for every year.
Roll overs from last year:
-Get all the rooms on the first floor painted.
-Stay well under 200lbs. (Optional goal is 180lbs.)
-Complete 1 certifications for work.
-Place 1st in a disc golf event.
-Disc golf in a new state. (Likely candidates this year is Massachusetts, Maryland, or Virginia.)
New ones:
-Ride bike more. Not for exercise but more for pleasure.
-Start saving for a Disney trip.
-Go fishing with the kids more.
-Use all my vacation days wisely.
-Insulate 2 of the 3 crawlspaces.
-Replace the ceiling fan.
-Replace the kitchen sink.
-Mount TV on wall and purchase surround sound.
-Decommission one of my servers.
-Pay off student loans and computer.
-Earn Xbox Gamerscore of 10000.
NO!!!!
-Place 1st in a PDGA sanctioned disc golf.
–No, only played one PDGA event this year and it showed.
-Disc golf in a new state. (More than likely Maryland or Massachusetts.)
–Yes, Connecticut.
-Upgrade my home computer and run network cables throughout the house.
–Yes, new iMac.
-Purchase a newer vehicle for myself.
–No.
-Get all the rooms on the first floor painted.
-No…only four out of seven rooms complete.
-Redesign and landscape the front yard
-Yes…for now.
-Stay well under 200lbs. (Optional goal is 180lbs.)
Yes…optional goal not reached.
-Complete 2 certifications for work.
–No, only one if your count CPR…lol.
What to pick for 2011?
Well it’s been a few years since I upgraded my machine at home. The last time I bought a Mac was 2003 and it was my iBook G3 900Mhz and it was an awesome machine and lasted me this long. Ever have a Windows laptop last you for 7 years as your primary machine? Sure it was a little long in the tooth towards the end, it still is a working machine.
Now I have a new iMac i3 3.02Ghz. Check out the benchmark tests that are attached. Huge difference, don’t you think?
Be interesting to see what the iBook benchmark looks like after I wipe it and reinstall the OS.
The name in the title will only stick out to that MTG nerd out there…yea yea Magic The Gathering. The following is my post on the annihilation that I have occured onto Garruk on the Xbox 360 Magic The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalker XBLA title. It took me quite awhile to orchestrate the below attack and nearly crashed and burned my Xbox as smoke was starting to pour out of it. I was waiting for the dreaded Red Ring of Death and maybe even a Blue Screen of Death to rear it’s ugly head. (You ask why I spent over an hour setting this up? Because I am nerd-like, it was late at night, and I was bored. Plus the opportunity presented itself.)
This was a regular match I was playing in an attempt to unlock all the cards for all the decks. Yes for the achievement! This was for the last card in the Ears of the Elves deck. A decent green/black deck with a ton of elves that work together to boost their strength and numbers.
Over my vacation I got to watch some movies. Of course most are movies I’ve seen a dozen of times. I got to watch Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, two of my favorite full feature cartoons to come out of Japan. Both movies are directed by Hayao Miyazaki. (I’ve yet to see Ponyo…it’s on my list.)
Anyways, the reason I bring up Howl’s Moving Castle is I want to showcase someone’s dedicated time (or too much time on hand) and their massive collection of Legos. My kids love Legos so this was right up their alley. Someone actually built a full fledged Howl’s Moving Castle. Good work imagine’s brickzone!!! Click here to see his work.
My kid’s only wish they had half the Legos it took to build this. My kids are fully addicted to them like Pookie hooked on crack.
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