JohnA lifeBlog

Okay, so, unfortunately for all of my obsessive female fans, tonight’s post does NOT include any new HOT pictures of me. You’ll have to wait for this weekend, when I post some pics of me swimming shirtless at my Dad’s club in New Orleans.

No, tonight’s post is two-parted. First, I want to offer one of my patented “DUH! Everyone’s seen that movie but you” reviews. Second, I want to talk about the latest controversy facing the next generation of optical media. Quite the combo, no?

I just finished watching the movie Sky High. I rented it from Netflix after my brother’s recommendation. As I waited for it to arrive, I saw James Berardinelli’s review of the film, which was an amazing 3.5 out of 4 stars. But tonight, after watching the film, I agree. In fact, I would be inclined to give it 4 stars.

The bottom line for everyone reading right now is that this is the ultimate family film, almost to the level of the first Spy Kids film. While marketed to the tween / teenage set, the film is most appreciated by someone a decade older.

Sky High puts a number of “Made for TV” actors in a major production, and they all steal the show. The story was great, the acting was impeccable, and I genuinely cared about the characters. Bottom line, it was brilliant, and I ordered my copy immediately from Amazon. If you’ve not seen it, rent it!

So, moving on. I have recently read that Best Buy, the world’s most evil big box retailer, has chosen to push HD-DVD aside in favor of the more expensive, lower quality (but higher margin), Blu-Ray product lines.

Not being one to settle for second hand happenstance, I decided to check it out myself whist on vacation here in Houston. And, surprise, surprise, the article was accurate. Against the wishes of the store’s operations manager, I took pictures. They tried to tell me that it was illegal and that I had to forfeit my memory card, but again, I told them that they were incorrect, and that my photography was protected by the public interest. They backed down when I threatened to call my lawyer.

Anyhoo, here are the pics. First, here is the HD-DVD display, in all its glory:

As you can tell, Best Buy has chosen to relegate HD-DVD to the corner, not even hooked up to a display. Compare this with the much-more-expensive BD-RAY presentation:

The bottom line? You cannot rely on ANY big-box retailer to tell the truth. Those who have seen HD-DVD side by side with Blu-Ray clearly prefer HD-DVD. And, with the constant disappointment that is the PS3 means that HD-DVD will succeed.

So, buy Blu-Ray at your own risk. Myself, I will continue to enjoy my HD-DVD player.

Purchase Blu-Ray at your own risk… it will make a great addition to that stack of Betamax tapes you own.

Tonight, Mom & Scott took me to dinner at Taste of Texas, one of the area’s best steakhouses.

We had a lot of fun, and as always, there were pictures.

Taste Of Texas Gallery

Saturday Night, I went out with Mom & Scott. First, we went had dinner at The Downtown Aquarium. Here’s a picture we had someone take of us on the stairwell up to the restaurant:

After dinner, we went to a terrific local blues dive bar called The Big Easy Social and Pleasure Club, where we heard a great musician named, well, I don’t remember his name. But anyway, it was a lot of fun.

Here is a gallery of all the pictures I took that evening. I had forgotten my digital camera, so these are from a disposable camera:

Dinner & Blues Photo Gallery

Today we went to The Kemah Boardwalk, a touristy boardwalk about 45 minutes from Houston. We had lunch at Joe’s Crab Shack, which was nice. Our table overlooked the harbor, so we got to watch lots of boats coming and going. Lots of fun. Here’s a pic of me and mom:

And here’s a not-so-good pic of all of us:

I have a bunch of pictures from last night, but since I forgot my digital camera, they were taken with a disposable camera purchased on site. I should have them developed tomorrow.

Does anyone else find it difficult to actually relax on a vacation? At this point, aside from sleeping later than usual, I don’t really feel like I’m on vacation.

The flights here weren’t bad at all, I had a short layover in Salt Lake City, where I was completely unsuccessful in getting the airport-wide wifi to work, so I ended up using the data cable with my Sprint PCS phone instead… woohoo! 100 kbit/sec!

After arriving in Houston, I was greeted by my brother, as well as my grandmother & aunt. We drove home, got lost on the way, and ended up eating JitB for dinner.

On Wednesday, we had lunch at Chick-Fil-A. It was simply amazing. I’ve not actually had Chick-Fil-A to eat in almost 2 years. We then went to Wal-Mart, which is part of my grandmother’s daily ritual. Later on that evening, we all went to Red Lobster for dinner.

Yesterday, everyone kind of veg’ed out. My first batch of Netflix movies arrived. My grandmother made her world famous red beans & rice, which were SOOOO good. We all then sat around and watched Men At Work

I think I’m going to take my grandmother & aunt to see The Breakup today. I’m not particularly interested, but they really want to see it.

Anyway, that’s the vacation so far. Exciting, no? Yeah, I know, not really.

So, I’m back home after one of the longest weekends of my life! We have been planning almost a dozen upgrades over the last six months, and all of our planning finally culminated this weekend with a marathon 36 hour data center visit in Emeryville, CA. Aside from 4 hours of sleep, we spent 10am Friday until 10pm Saturday working in, and traveling to / from, our data center in Emeryville, CA. We installed over $50,000 worth of new hardware & software, as well as drank almost a case of energy drinks.

It was still fun, though. We had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen on Friday, then we headed down to the Bay Street Apple Store, where Jonathan set off the alarm, and I created a feedback loop that shut down the entire store. Good times.

That night at around 10pm, we got down to business. We proceeded to install and configure the most significant upgrade to the UC architecture in over 3 years.

After yelling at Dell’s overnight support, we got our CORRECT memory upgrades delivered to our hotel by 6:30am. I wonder how much money that cost. We slept for several hours, then had the breakfast buffet at the hotel at 11:00. The food was okay, but the scenery was amazing… One of the most beautiful women I have ever seen was sitting right across from us.

Back to the data center, we completed our upgrades, and got our new servers online. We googled the address for the closest Macaroni Grill restaurant, and celebrated with a glass of wine and a glass of vintage Diet Pepsi.

All in all, a great weekend. But I wish it hadn’t gone on for so long.

Anyway, when you’re self employed, that is what it takes to EARN a vacation.

P.S. - Thanks for the e-mails saying “Where are the Pics?” Well, I took some, so here are a couple I particularly enjoyed:

Did you ever see $850 doors before? Nor had I.

Our Work Area… Thank goodness for Wi-Fi!

It is no secret that I don’t want to spend my entire life in picturesque Merced, California. For years, I’ve wanted to live in Ireland. More specifically, in Dublin or Cork.

So, here’s where I am at. Do I keep doing the same old thing to find my wife, or do I simply wait until I am living abroad to find the right woman?

I don’t have the answer, but hey, if you guys have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

And, yes, I fully intend to live in Ireland sooner rather than later. It is something that I need to do to complete my goals and dreams.

Oh, it’s on! The FIFA World Cup is in full swing, and I’ve been watching every match religiously. The hardest part has been avoiding the results in the mainstream press, since I usually can’t see the matches almost 12 hours after they are complete.

Anyway, I have noticed something really unique. As most of my fellow Americans realize, the coverage offered by ESPN / ESPN 2 seems really bland. Tonight, I was able to find the England vs. Paraguay match from BBC 2 before I could find the ESPN feed. And, I was floored. The level of coverage, and the insight offered, by the BBC feed was LIGHT YEARS ahead of what I had experienced from ESPN.

So the question becomes, why don’t Americans embrace Football? This sport is amazing, and requires so much talent. I mean, at the risk of pissing off a number of my regular readers, it takes much more talent to address a soccer ball than it does to drive on a track where you never turn right.

Yeah!!! I finally have planned my vacation. For those who are obsessively monitoring my blog, here is my Itinerary. I will be gone June 20 through July 4.

Anyone else have fun and / or exciting summer vacations coming up? I promise to take lots of pictures, as long as you will do the same!

JohnA

Today I took a nap using the Pzizz nap profile. I set it up for 60 minutes, without any “mid-nap” voices. It worked really well, and I felt more refreshed than a normal nap.

Does all of this mean the product is a silver bullet? No idea… yet. But I’ll try the sleep program tomorrow night and see how it works.

Stay tuned!