Saturday, January 01, 2005

Update, Upgrade, Downgrade

Sorry about the lack of update, but since it's the holidays, there really wasn't much that I could do about not writing for like a week. I honestly feel lousy about it because I know when I log on, I like to see new content, damnit! But I also spent quite a bit of time just watching the news about the tsunami, and realizing that life is fleeting. And a lot of material things don't matter when it comes down to it, people do. On that note...

I tend to do this every year, whereby I'm just looking for change in any way I can. In my case, it's readjusting my wants and needs for no real logical reason, but it just feels better anyhow. I think from this post, anyone can guess that I'm pretty nerdy.

Upgrades

Well, it hasn't happened yet, but I'm planning to switch over from Comcast Cable, the monopoly bastards, over to Dish Network. I was initially looking for cheaper alternatives to the cable giant, because honestly, with this many people using cable, it still shouldn't cost 50 bucks a month for TV. It's downright ridiculous. So, I was researching alternatives and the Dish seemed pretty cool. For the same price every month, you get 120 channels including Sirius Satellite radio, and the option to use a DVR, which is like a digital recorder. Next chance I get, I'll be upgrading to that for sure.

Also, after missing an entire year of movies, I've decided to look into Blockbuster.com, which allows me to have 3 movies mailed to me at a time, and watch new releases without going to the store. Now this "Not Going to the Store" thing is a huge deal, being how taking two babies anyway has become such a major production. The cost is fairly reasonable, and there are some Hong Kong movies buried in their library, you just have to look for them. And no adult rentals... Nazis.

After avoiding the PC platform for so long, I finally bought a firewire port for the PC downstairs because my iMac wasn't cutting it. What that means now is that I can now encode DVDs in about 6 hours, instead of four whole days on my iMac. It's really not my iMacs's fault; it's older and slower. So I'm just making DVDs of the babies one after another, before I get completely buried in the hours and hours of baby footage. It's also easier to sift through the footage when it's on the DVD format. One can only watch that many clips of babies staring into space while drooling for that long.

Downgrades

Another reason why I'm veering away from the cable giant, my cable internet bills have top 50 bucks. Yes, that's one hundred dollars that we pay to this company for entertainment. I've been making excuses and avoiding this for some time, but I've decided to rid of the high-speed goodness and get back to basics with Dial-Up. The collective groan of sympathy is heartfelt, but it's no longer wise for us to have it anyway. Most times I don't even get a chance to go on the computer anyway, so it's probably for the better. Some of the video clips might not work right now for that reason.

This isn't so much a downgrade, but the result of one - the dumb PC downstairs apparently doesn't come with a modem (it didn't come with an ethernet port either) so I either have to buy one, or network it to my Mac upstairs. Which is dumb. Networking a dial-up connection is just silly. It's like trying to relieve the parched with a straw filled with water. So, downgrade.

Dunno Grade

Sure, there's going to be couples out there who will read this and say, "What? They don't have a joint account yet? What in Hade's backyard is wrong with them? They're in America now, they can't do that!" Well, the only reason really that we haven't ventured into a singular account is mostly because it's been working just fine. We split the bills, and we help each other out. At this point of our marriage though, we're not spending any money toward personal gain anyway, so it's pretty much community money. It's not like I could be sitting on any money without helping her or vice versa - this family would just not survive. What that means though, is that I'll be the accountant of the family. Yuck. I'll be sitting in receipts.

Okay, that's the Update em... Update.

Now for a baby post.

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