Instant messengers

I haven't used an instant messenger program in years but I remember how convenient they used to be. So, I was curious if any if y'all still use them.

BK's beach bash

Who all is going? I have the weekend off and I am thinking of heading back but I don't know yet...I need some convincing.

Vacation Details

Nick / Adam,
We arrive in New York (JFK) at 8:45AM on Saturday, Oct 13th.
We depart in Boston (BOS) at 3:30PM on Sunday, Oct 21st.

Nick, if there's no conflict, we're with you guys until mid-day monday, possibly tuesday morning. Adam, due to the proximity of my family, there's a bit more room for adjustment on visiting you. It really just depends on if you'd rather us stay during the week or the weekend. We could stay with you until Thursday and with my family for the weekend, or the other way around. It really doesn't make any difference to us. Let me know what you guys think.

good ol' winn dixie

my morning

Happy Birthday Dr. K!

Happy birthday buddy! I'll talk to you soon to see if we can hammer out this trip to NYC/Boston.

Feed the need

Since there's so much hdtv talk going on, I figured I'd let everyone know about http://www.antennaweb.org. This website will let you put in your address and find out exactly what kind of over-the-air digital television you can expect to receive. It takes into account terrain not just distance from transmitters.

Based on my address, it told me I should be able to get 10 channels just by putting up a small omni-directional antenna (yellow - uhf). So I borrowed a uhf antenna (read: indefinitely :)) from a co-worker and after figuring out how to get my tv to use the antenna tuner rather than the cable tuner, I was able to auto-detect 11 hdtv channels (all the network stations including 3 cbs channels and a couple spanish channel which might come in handy for soccer games). I didn't even have to take the antenna outside I was able to pick it up right in my living room.

I'm now chillin' out to high-def Jay Leno for free, check it out...

Happy Birthday Jae!

Finally 25...you now have nothing else to look forward to.

Trip to the Northeast

Nick / Adam,

Would you be able to put us up for for about 3 days each around mid-late October? Christina and I would like to take a vacation to visit you guys, my family, and soak up some nice NE fall weather. Let me know if you have any date conflicts or if it will be a huge issue altogether, and if not, I'll get back to you once we have specific dates and plans.

More TV questions

I am planning on buying a new TV this week and I am having trouble deciding. I have narrowed it down to an LCD (about 46") or a DLP with LED technology (about 50"). Both are 1080p capable. I am probably leaning toward the LCD because I think that it is newer technology and won't be out dated as quickly and it can be mounted on a wall if I choose to do so in the future. I also would not have to worry about the screen becoming dimmer as I move to the sides of the TV, but it can pixelate a bit with fast movement. However, the DLP is cheaper and the LED eliminates the annoying color wheel humming noise. Both TVs seem to have very nice pictures. Money is not a big issue since I have a generous mother that wants to help me buy it as a birthday gift. I just want a good HD capable TV that will work well with the Xbox.

I know that several of y'all like plasmas but I would prefer to avoid them because of stories I heard about problems they can have.

Also if any one knows more about the new DLPs with LED engines and if it has had any issues, please let me know.

Any advise would be appreciated!

Lucky Me

My xbox 360 wireless adapter that I ordered off ebay arrived in the mail yesterday and to my surprise there were actually two adapters inside. I don't know exactly what happened but I'm not about to write the seller and ask. Both have been tested on a friends 360 (since mine is off for repairs) and both work great. I'm gonna sell one of them back on ebay with no reserve and no shipping to recoup some of the expense of the first one. Could this be Bill Gates way of saying sorry for selling you a broken console? He does control the universe you know.

So I have been off the blog for somewhile now

But Nick still sucks and is pasty white.

Halo 3 four player online co-op

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/31/the-full-details-on-halo-3s-online-co-op/, alright boys, saddle up (sept 25th). who's coming with me?

Xbox 360 failure

My 360 has gone to the crapper. It is experiencing the "Three red lights of death" as described in the link in the title...

For those of you who don't know, Xbox 360s have some fundamental design flaw that causes a large number of them (rumored to be every single one of them) to fail. Microsoft has really stepped up to the plate, however, by extending the warranty by 3 years on all 360s.

I guess I am lucky in that mine failed when it did, hopefully I can get it repaired and back before Halo 3 & GTA 4 come out.

So I called up customer support and you know right off the bat that this is a huge problem because they have already worked the 'three-flashing-red-lights' problem into their automated messages. After waiting on hold for 30 minutes, I got through to an agent who helped me arrange for my prepaid shipping box to send my 360 out for repair or replacement. ETA on the shipping box is 3-5 days. I read online that some people got their box overnighted, we'll see I guess... ETA on the repair is 3-4 weeks (Yikes). I guess this gives me an opportunity to catch up on some house projects.

For my troubles, Microsoft is giving me a free 30 days of xbox live (a whopping $5 value). I guess they are hemorrhaging too much money on the shipping for all these defective consoles. Not to mention they lose money up front on every console they sell.

Believe it or not, this has not turned me off from the 360 nor Microsoft. I think they're really making of effort to correct their mistake. And I'm still over-all very impressed w/ the 360. After working in hi-speed circuit design now it's a no wonder they didn't get everything exactly right on the first try, that shit is tough :).

Btown and the mob

Check the link. Watch out down there Mousseau's. The New York mob may be paying a visit to ya'll. If you catch any heat just drop my name, you will be good.

Nick D

Show me the money!!

So as many of you know, I have spent the last year kicking-ass at my job at Capital Markets, and it finally paid off. Anyway, I had my 1 year review last week and it went exactly like I wanted it. I got top marks across the board and a ridiculous 20% bump in my salary! Just figured I'd share because I'm super excited. Oh, and I also started trading, so I'm officially a securities trader now!

PS. I'm hoping to get some pics of the office soon, just to show you all where I work.

This has got "bad idea" written all over it

Pic of my next-door neighbor & his son.

Brew Sack Legal Defense Fund

Check out the link. I used to send her more than 500 e-mails during my last job. And just to clarify, nothing I sent was at all related to what she testified about. But none-the-less in the near future I might be asking for donations to my Legal Defense Fund, Rory graduate law school very very quickly.

So I Installed Vista Yesterday...

I installed Vista yesterday, and I was wondering if anyone else had it installed and what they thought about it. I really like it, I think it's a nice upgrade from XP. It's not as much of a memory hog as I've heard, it looks great, and everything runs very smoothly. The new sidebar, photo gallery, dvd maker and upgraded media center are great and immediately usable to me. I haven't had any problem installing any of my old programs with the exception of Nero 7, which doesn't support Vista (but I can write dvd's from Vista now anyway). My only beef as of now is that it doesn't seem to let you run unsigned (or unapproved I guess) programs at startup. I have a feeling there's a setting somewhere to change that, but I haven't found it. So for now I have to tell it to start the one program that doesn't at startup. Anyway, let me know what you guys think.

Hippies - I hate them so much

God damn hippies are killing our society. I blame Al Gore and all those people who think ethanol is good. They are killing America.

Happy 4th of July

Hope everyone had a nice 4th of July. We grilled some burgers and brats with the family and watched the fireworks at Heritage Harbour, a good time was had by all. Earlier today Christina and I went to see Transformers, and I must say the special effects far surpass anything else that has ever been done, and it was a good movie to boot. I highly suggest that all of you see it in the theaters asap. I've included a video of the last few minutes of our fireworks, it was a pretty good show.