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No Profiles on Netflix?
I have been a Netflix user for years. I probably only watch one movie a week, so they are making money off of me. It doesn’t really bother me that I am not getting full use out of my Netflix account. The main reason I like it is that I never forget what movies I want to watch. When I hear about something that sounds good I just add it to my queue and I get to it when I get to it. I am years behind, but I don’t really care.We have the “two at a time” plan. It works well for us because of multiple profiles. I have my queue and my wife has hers. We each can watch the movies we want on the schedule we want.
Now, for some stupid reason Netflix is getting rid of their multiple profiles option on September 1st. That’s going to make me look at other options. I have never looked at Blockbusters online rental options because I was very happy with Netflix. Coming September that might change.
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New Theme
It seems like I am changing my blog template more often than my underwear. For my last template I wanted something simple, and something that brought all my social network posts together. Shortly after I released that one, Chris Pirillo came out with his WicketPixie theme. It is pretty cool because you can enter all your social network links and it will automatically get the favicon and integrate them into your blog. You can visit my “social activity” page and see all my social network activity. I still have some CSS tweaking to do. I ran out of time last night, and wont have much time to play with it for a while now.
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XBox Withdrawal
I don’t really believe in superstitions. I have some, but I don’t really believe in them. Nothing bad has ever happened to me on Friday the 13th, but I am always leery about them. Well, this past Friday the 13th was a bad one. Our XBox 360 suffered the dreaded “Red Ring of Death”.
Someone on Twitter suggested that I try the wrapping it in towels so it overheats trick. Supposedly overheating it melts some solder points and then fixes them. I was pretty skeptical about that, but I thought I would give it a try.
I was right, it didn’t work, so we will be sending it back to Microsoft to get fixed, so we will be XBoxless for four to five weeks. It’s not going to bother me that much. I don’t play it all that often, but the wife is going nuts already.
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How Many Computers are too Many?
My wife’s desktop PC and laptop are both getting a little old. She always ends up getting my hand-me-down computers. I am happy with my current computers, so I just bought her a new laptop. She figured she could replace both of her computers with a laptop.
So that means I am going to inherit two more computers. I currently have five computers at my desk. Is that too many? I think I will turn her old PC into a Windows Home Server, which will go into the closet, and I think I will run Ubuntu on her old laptop. I have always wanted a Linux based laptop. I always seem to find a use for my old computers. I think I have only gotten rid of three of my really old computers. Yeah, I need help.
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Time Management
I am subscribed to enough feeds in Google Reader that I always have something to read. Many days are wasted reading feeds all day. This week I am starting to use my time more wisely. I am only going to read my feeds a couple times throughout the day and that’s it. I don’t get any more read when I am reading then constantly.
I am also scheduling time in my day to read. I like to read, but never seem to get any done. I can’t read when the wife is home because she is always calling for me to do something, or making noise distracting me. I use to read before I went to bed, but I am finding that harder to do. When my eyes get tired it’s hard for me to read. Now I bring my iPod to bed and use that time to listen to audiobooks instead.
So far after two days, I am really liking my days off schedule.
5:00 AM: wake up. (yeah I know I am crazy waking up that early on my days off, but I hate wasting time sleeping)
5:00-8:00: read feeds and listen to podcasts
8:00-9:00: read my book
9:00-noon: blog if I have anything to blog about and work on whatever computer projects I am working on
noon: eat and catch up on feeds
afternoon: work on household projects, or play xBox, or watch Netflix movie
3:00: get caught up on feeds before the wife gets homeI know it sounds kind of stupid to schedule some of this stuff, but it’s stuff that I want to do and I work best if things are scheduled.
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Soul Asylum @ RibFest
Saturday night we went to RibFest. We had some amazing ribs and some roasted corn. It was all yummy, but spendy. I think we spent $40 on food, and we really didn’t eat that much.
The main reason we went on Saturday night was to catch Soul Asylum. They played RibFest a few years back and were awesome. They were one of my favorite bands from the 90s, and being from Minneapolis, always made them special. It’s kind of amazing that the band is still together with very few member changes. They formed it 1983 and have had a few different drummers, and with the death of Karl Mueller, they have a new bass player.
They played quite a few songs off of their latest album, The Silver Lining, which came out in 2006. I thought it was a great album and was surprised it didn’t get any radio play. Since most people didn’t know the new album, the crowed was kind of mellow when they played those songs.
We were right up front against the fence. At one point a fight or something started out in the crowd. We didn’t really see what happened, but the cops were on the lookout on the side of the stage. One of Soul Asylum’s roadies ran by and the cops grabbed him, and almost arrested him. It was kinda funny. Towards the end of the concert Soul Asylum had their roadies come on stage and play with them. The one that was almost arrested mentioned that. I glanced over at the cops and they were smiling about it.
Overall it was a good concert, and I wasn’t even bothered much by any drunks for a change.
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Streaming Netflix
Another thing I played around with over the weekend was streaming Netflix videos to my TV. I am sure a lot of you have heard about the Netflix streaming box from Roku. Well, you can do pretty much the same thing with a media center PC. There is a plug-in for Windows Media Center called vmcNetFlix. It allows you to watch streaming Netflix videos in Windows Media Center. I was able to watch streaming Netflix movies on my XBox 360. The software is a little slow and buggy, but for the most part worked really well. The quality wasn’t quite DVD quality, but that is Netflix’s problem mostly caused by the slow internets we have here in the US. It was more like standard definition TV quality. I don’t know if I would watch a movie this way, but it works great for TV shows. I watched and old episode of Criss Angel Mine Freak and it was quite enjoyable. I love having more and more ways to view what I want when I want.
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Beta
I am usually not afraid of beta software. I am always looking for the latest and greatest thing, even if it breaks stuff sometimes. For some reason I was shying away from the FireFox 3 Beta. The main reason was that most of my favorite plug-ins weren’t FireFox 3 compatable. Now most of them are. Over the weekend it was pissing me off how slow FireFox 2 was. I love the browser, but it was just getting too slow for me, so I went to FireFox 3 Beta on all my computers. I was shocked how fast it is. There are lots of other new features too, but I haven’t dived down into much of them yet. One thing that is taking a little getting use to is the different themes. On my Macs it looks like an Apple app and on Vista it looks like a Vista app. -
Election Issues
I know where I stand on most issues. I am against abortion, but I don’t believe I have the right to make the decision for anybody else, so that makes me pro choice. I am against the death penalty because I think killing people is wrong. I don’t care how bad the criminal is. Lock them up for life, don’t kill them. We as a society are better than that. I don’t think we should stoop to the level of a criminal and kill.
Next Tuesday we are having local elections for some local offices and a smoking bad. I don’t know where I stand on the smoking ban. I love it that people can’t smoke in restaurants around here now. I can’t stand going to bars though. Most bars I struggle to breath and come home reeking. Good thing I don’t go to bars very often. So obviously I would love to see a smoking ban, but at the same time I think bar owners should also have the right to choose if they want a stinky bar or not.
Yesterday at work the radio was filled with ads for both sides of this issue. I think one ad I heard help me decide. They tried to bring the war into it. It said that our soldiers are fighting for our freedoms and we don’t want them to come home to some lost freedoms. Give me a break. That is just stupid. It’s not like we have total freedom in a bar now anyway. If we did I would buy a case of beer and sell it myself if a bar for half the price and make a killing. There are many things you can’t do it a bar. I don’t agree with the war, but I commend the soldiers. They are doing their job, and it is a tough one. I hate it when people use them to try and sell products or in this case get votes. That’s just wrong.
So since I didn’t quite know where I stood on the issue, an ad trying to get me to vote against it will actually make me vote for it. Stupid ads affect me more. You can have all the positive ads you want, but if you have one I don’t like, and I am on the fence, you are more likely to lose my vote than to gain it.
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Pork & Beans with Tay Zonday and Brian Bell
So Weezer’s new album came out today. I picked it up at Best Buy for $18, kinda expensive, but hey, it’s Weezer. I haven’t had much time to listen to it yet, but here is a cool version of “Pork and Beans” sung by Tay Zonday of the “Chocolate Rain” fame.