life, and a little more

Nathan's Basketball Game

Jan 31

metalman777family, videos basketball, family No Comments

I was blessed to see my son Nathan play basketball this morning and he was awesome!  Below is some footage from the game:

[viddler id=950dbca3&w=437&h=370]

(after viewing it online, I apologize for the volume levels.  I tried adding some background music but set the volume too high.  I’m such a noob!)

and you can visit my smugmug account to see some photos!

to Dream, to Dream

Jan 30

metalman777apple, tech apple, imac, macbook, price comparisons No Comments

Ever get that hankerin’ for a new toy?  I’ve been feeling the urge for a new MacBook, but gracious, I just don’t have $1500 to throw around.  Still, it is fun to jump on-line and do the internet equivalent of window shop.  Here are some interesting facts I found.

A new MacBook and a new 20 inch iMac are just about the same price!

A lower end aluminum MacBook starts at $1299.  To the left, you can see that it comes standard with 2 gigs of RAM and a 160GB hard drive.  It’s actually not a bad deal.  It’s portable and light, has built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The only drawback is the entire lack of firewire!  I’m still trying to figure out why Apple removed this feature! (maybe they are getting ready for USB 3.0)

The MacBook would make an awesome addition to my Mac family.

But then the greedy, Tim The Tool Man Taylor “more power” part of me takes over so I think it would be nice to have a brand new iMac.  My brother in law has a 24 inch model and it is super sexy beautiful.  I practically drool everytime I see it!

At first glance, the 20 inch iMac is actually cheaper than the 13 inch MacBook.  But the oberservant observer will also note that the 20 inch iMac only comes with 1 gig of RAM and a 250GB hard drive.  The graphics card is much beefier than the MacBook.  Of course, you lose the mobility of a laptop.

Being the techno geek that I am, I of course, would have to upgrade if I were either one of these beautiful machines.

This is where the pricing really levels off.  After upgrades, the two computers are just about $25 apart!

After upgrading the MacBook to 4 gigs of RAM and the hard drive to 250 gigs, the total cost is $1549.  I guess that ain’t so bad.  The only other two items I would like would be a Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter ($29) so I could connect a bigger monitor to it, and a notebook mouse so I could navigate the computer easier.

There is the obligatory RAM upgrade, to 4 gigs.  Since the iMac is a desktop, I’d like to have a 500 gig hard drive too.

I hate Apple mice.  I’d buy a nice Logitech or something.

So, if anyone has an extra $1500 they want to throw my way, feel free!

Jughead recap

Jan 29

metalman777Lost Lost, recap, television No Comments

I’m so glad that Lost is back on!  What other show on tv to give you answers, only to make you ask twice as many questions.  Love it or hate it, Lost is at the top of its game as episode 3 of season 5 premeired last night.

Normally I would copy and paste the episode’s recap from Lostpedia.com (which you can still find here), but my wife thinks it is jut too much to read.  So instead, I have read dozens of blogs today and will bring to you all the juicy tidbits I found.

1. Remember Boone’s story about his nanny? That he was a snot of a kid whose nanny would come every time he rang a bell, so he rang it constantly, forcing her to run up and down the stairs, until she tripped, fell and broke her neck? Then we had Ana Lucia’s mother, whose name was Teresa Cortez. And now… Daniel Faraday apparently destroyed the life of a woman named Theresa by giving her the Eloise experiment and not telling her to grab a constant along the way. But why is she comatose and not bleeding from the nose? Somehow she’s jumping through time, but not to the extent others are.
2. Okay, “Jones” actually being Charles Widmore was the biggest squee moment of the episode for me….I loved that he refused to answer Widmore’s question about Penny, but I don’t know why Widmore wasn’t even more direct about her safety, and simply said, “Ben Linus has vowed to kill her if he finds her. Don’t let him find her.” Widmore doesn’t know that Ben is WITH Faraday’s mom right now, and he’s just walked Penny right into the trap. Something doesn’t feel right about this. I think Widmore is more omniscient than that. Hmm… (from Nik at Nite’s Lost Blog)
3. Richard has lived on the island forever.  For all intents and purposes (is that right?) Richard can and will live forever.
4. Richard talks about the US Army as if it’s Dharma, I wonder what the difference is.  Did the Army start Dharma, or were those military tests nothing more that bomb tests?
5. The first time I watched this show I suspected that Ellie was Penny’s mom, but as I rewatched parts of it to write this revlysis I began to suspect that she is Ms. Hawking (I got her name right this time).  If you watch again it really seems like the actress is doing her best Ms. Hawking impression.  And Daniel did say they he recognized her.
6. I think we were supposed to see the significance of Juliet choosing to go with Sawyer instead of Locke.  If she had chosen Locke then it would have proved that she was still an Other at heart.  It’s a pretty repetitive realization, but the writers continue to emphasize it in case we still doubt her devotions.  (from Not Confused Just Lost)
7. Note that Miles gets his vision of the four US soldiers when they walk over the ‘fresh grave’, meaning he can’t just commune with the dead haphazardly. It seems he needs to be in proximity to the corpses, which explains why he asked to be led to Naomi’s body. That doesn’t explain him being able to read the spirit of Mrs. Gardner’s grandson in his flashback though, although Miles did specifically call for his spirit that time. But even stranger, notice how Daniel doesn’t question Miles ability at all – he simply asks if the spirit told him what year it was. I’m thinking maybe Daniel had prior knowledge of Miles abilities, or maybe happenings on the island are so way far out there that no one really questions such unbelievable things much at this point. OR…… Maybe Daniel’s a bigger key to the time travel puzzle than we originally thought: accumulating past and future knowledge the same way Ben and Locke currently are. We already know he’s got a constant, which will keep his mind straight as he skips through time. We know for a fact that he eventually arrives at the Dharma era, and probably a whole lot of other time points. His brain is sharp, and the fact that he believes in and comprehends most of what’s going on can’t hurt either. And don’t forget that Daniel also arrived on the island with existing precogniscent knowledge, as evidenced by him trying to predict the cards from last season. The donkey wheel hadn’t even been turned yet.  (from Dark UFO)
8. Follow this link to see an article from Popular Mechanics and see if the writers and makers of Lost got close to reality concerning Jughead, the hydrogen bomb on the Island.