Entertainment

Poker Last Thursday

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Thursday we played poker. I got luck (man did I make dangerous moves) and ended up winning big (for me). Dan won more than i. In the first hand I took all of Jon’s & Miguels money. We all went all in on the second dealt hand.

In the end I took allot from Jon and Miguel. Dan took some of his brothers money back from me, and I ended up quadrupling my investment in the game.

I did talk some smack. I am sorry for those affected, but it was mainly aimed at Jon, Dan & Miguel. Dan & Miguel is ok to talk smack to, and Jon is related to Dan so I guess it is ok too. Everyone else I was nice to! We had a good time. We didn’t’ play tournament style like we did last time. It was just cash in and cash out when you wanted.

Jon, & Miguel lost big. Dan won big. Cari, barely broke even. Danny said he drank his losses in beer. Jay lost a bit, and Manor didn’t do so well. Joey lost a bit, but not too bad. I think we all had a good time. There were some interesting hands, that is for sure.

Working on a Saturday

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I worked most of the day today. Busy, busy, busy. See the work Blog for details. After a late lunch at outback I was tired. I didn’t go to the beer garden for Dave’s birthday like I hoped. I ended up relaxing at home and walking to Best Buy.

I am now updating my version of Beyond TV to the latest revision, and at the same time looking through the TV guide for anything on TV that looks good to record over the next 2 weeks.

While running my software update I have been giving serious consideration to dropping the Tivo in favor of a second computer based DVR (PVR). My reading has proven that I can plug a second USB Video capture card into my desktop and use the existing Beyond TV software to record 2 shows at once, or watch one and record another. Some would say that is overkill, but even my mom who has a Time Warner DVR has asked to watch something and record something at the same time. Right now I have 2 cable box’s with one plugged into my Tivo and another one into my computer. The thing with Tivo is it costs $12.95 a month. With a video capture card going for a little over $100 depending on what I get the device pays for itself in 10 months. That is assuming I get no money for the Tivo I have.

I am still pondering what I want to do.

I Do Listen To People, Just Not Right Away

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One thing Gus suggested to me over a year ago was to read the book Getting Things Done. It is a personal productivity book. I am not one of those people into personal enhancement by reading, or going to a seminar, etc. The thought of improving my organization and allowing me to get stuff done at work quicker was appealing. So after much delay, I bought the audio book version of Getting Things Done. I am listening to it on my iPod.

It is too early to tell if I will get anything out of this book. My hopes are high that I can improve my personal organization. I always pride myself on being organized, but I am also always open for improvements. I am only 1/3 through the book. I already redesigned how I keep my email inbox, and have about 20 new items of “stuff” that I wrote down that need attention. More as it progresses…

Star Wars Episode III

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I “finally” saw the new Star Wars movie today. Rich, Amanda, & I bought tickets last night for the noon show by their house. I got up early and trekked out to Forest Hills to see it. It was worth it. The theater was not that packed, and we had stadium seating. They have stadium seating in Manhattan you may say, but it wasn’t crowded. I would have traveled to Iowa to see the movie if I knew it wasn’t going to be crowded.

I won’t bore you with details about the movie, except for the fact that Skywalker IS Darth Vader! Why didn’t anyone tell me! Seriously, it was a good movie. Most people could predict most of it, but it was still a good story.

After the movie we walked along Austin Street. They had some street fare. I had a crab cake sandwich for lunch. The thing was like the size of a hamburger. it was good, and didn’t hurt my stomach. I got some peanut butter fudge for desert. Cold stone creamery beaconed but it started to rain before I could get over there. Still not sure why there was a fair, but it was interesting. I passed on the funnel cake. No one else seemed to want it, so I didn’t want to pig out on my own. I searched but could not find a churro guy. Man street fairs are great for really bad for you (AKA very tasty) food.

Star Wars III

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I have been asked by over a dozen people what I was doing for the newest Star Wars movie. I have told everyone I didn’t know, but if I anyone wanted to go and had tickets so I didn’t have to wait on line I would be there. Well everyone agreed with that assessment of not wanting to wait on line, but no one had any ideas. Sometimes I think I hang out with people who have no creative ideas what so ever on what to do (at night). Of course I am the same way, but that is getting side tracked. So I have potentially like 12 people to see Star Wars with, but here I am Saturday morning and I have no firm plans yet to see the movie.

I will probably call my friends Rich and Amanda and see what they are up to. They are the biggest Star Wars fans I know, I think. I haven’t seen them in ages, and I want to get together with them anyway, so this sounds perfect. But knowing them, they may have gone already! I will know soon.

Poker Night a Bust, Well Sort of

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Started the day off with a hair cut. Then I headed down to help my friend Cari finish moving her stuff into her new apartment. My timing was off. Due to traffic I beat (she called when she thought she was 30 minutes away) her to her place. I met Karen there and we ended up waiting for like 30 minutes for Cari, Jayson & Gretchen to show up. It was funny that we ended up waiting to unpack her car longer than it actually took to unload stuff. Because there was a bunch of us, and she didn’t have much stuff, we were done in like 20 minutes. Note to sell, my original thoughts on never living in a walk up are still valid. Don’t even think about it!

After moving stuff in we went out for pizza. I mean she does live in Little Italy. For me I then headed off to the office to kill about 2 hours until I had to show up at Dan’s for poker. I got some light work in, and Jayson met me there. He had to drop off his fish to our office tank. We then both headed over to dan’s.

Turns out most people couldn’t make it to the poker night so we only had 5 people (4 if you consider jayson didn’t want to play and just came to hang out). We played a bit but not the typical tournament style. Dan lost. I made $2, Dari broke even, and Billy (Dari’s brother) took all of Dan’s money. We had a good time for a small game. Jay brought Pierre, so he and Cooper played the whole time. Watching 2 dogs play is always funny!

Poker Night

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Saturday I went to play poker at Dan’s. Conventional wisdom said I should stay home and continue to rest. I should have, but I wanted to get out. We had a total of 8 players, many of them new to the group. Even though I was tired I figured a few hours of playing was ok. When I spoke to dan we both joked (but weren’t really kidding) that if I got tired I could just bet stupid and get out. That is exactly what I ended up doing. I was faring ok, and wanted to stay in until we broke jayson out of the game. Unfortunately I was getting tired and didn’t want to continue to concentrate. So I took a hand that I would normally never play and put a bunch of money in. Joe won. Then I did it again on the next hand with nothing and Joe won again. It gave him the ammunition (along with some other fantastic winnings from right before then) to come in second place. I kind of regret loosing, but I didn’t have the strength to continue, so I don’t feel that bad about getting out. Jenn eventually won the tournament. I have no idea how that happened, but congrats to her for doing it.

Other players included Joe, Dan (who even being tired I still managed to stay in longer than), Heather, Ed, Jayson, Jenn, myself and Dari’s cousin. Dari came by but didn’t play. I had a good time, but I should have left when I got out of the game instead of hanging out for a while afterward.

Tivo To Go, Got It, Don’t Like It

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As if by weird fate I wrote my waiting for Tivo to go post a few weeks ago and never posted it. I put it up yesterday. Then I sat my lazy ass down in front of the TV and what was the first thing that Tivo showed me? It had a big message saying hey you got the latest software on me so now you can go and use that to go crap you have been bitching about. So that is what I am trying now for the first time. I am copying a 30 minute episode of the Daily Show onto my laptop.

First impressions are that this will suck and I will never use this software. I have a 100 megabit switch and it is saying it will take 50 minutes to copy a 30 minute show. What is that all about. I turned off my wireless so it should be going at 100mbit. that would mean 5-10 minutes TOPS for a show that size. But now, it is slow! More news as it develops. At this rate I will be sleeping by the time this show copies.

Big Brother Is Here

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Big brother is here. Yup, the large networks and cable companies are soon going to try and control when and for how long I can keep recordings of shows that we make. Check out this article. This will become a bigger problem when everything goes all digital. for now someone like me who uses an analog device to convert to a digital mpeg-2 file is safe since I don’t get any broadcast flags. Thanks Snapstream!

PVRblog noted that someone reported not being able to fast forward on a PVR during a show. No one knows if this was a bug or a taste of future “features” of DVR’s provided by cable companies.

A few years ago everyone I worked with had Tivo’s. Now I look around and I see people with DVR’s from their cable companies. I say screw the cheaper easier buy DVR from my cable company. The things they are looking to do scare me. But my parents, my sister, and several friends all have Time Warner DVR’s.

Beyond TV With Cable Box

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I got my IR Blaster (product is called USB-UIRT) yesterday. it is a little device that plugs into my desktop’s USB port. I then can control my cable box from Beyond TV via my ATI Remote Wonder. After reading the newsgroups I thought I might have some issues doing this. It turns out that I got everything to work just fine on the first try.

I did have to play around a bit with Beyond TV’s program guide to get all my digital cable channels to show up, but after a few minutes I was all set. My next upgrade is to go from Coax, to RCA cables from my cable box to my USB-2 video capture device. I figured I would do that after I was sure that the IR Blaster worked.

Now I can be a bigger couch potato now that I can fill up any hard drive space that I can get my hands on with MPEG-2 video of my favorite shows, movies, or anything else I get lazy and want to record. I am living it up now, because in July the recording flag or whatever they are calling it will screw anyone wanting to record digital TV. More on that after I bask in my recording ability glory today!