The restaurant is clean and as always, really in good shape.  I didn’t take any pics of the place, but I should have.  Next time I’ll take pictures of the inside of the place.

Since the amount is pretty fair for the Baja burrito, the only extra for me is the enchilada style (which Baja’s receipt shows as “Enchilado”):

Something interesting tonight was the broken water faucet.  Though I don’t get drinks at Baja Fresh when I’m taking food home, sometimes I’ll get a cup for water.  I didn’t choose to get water this time, but did make mention that their water dispenser was perpetually on:

Baja use to have the nicest, thick white napkins.  I actually had a co-worker that would stop by Baja Fresh once a week just to steal their napkins.  He was Chinese and his mother (also Chinese) seemed to really have an obsession with their napkins.  Things have changed though, as the environment changes so does Baja Fresh.  No more nice fluffy white napkins, now it’s recycle time:
 

I chose to get the steak Baja burrito, and because I like the extra cheese, I ordered it enchilada style.  If you haven’t tried it, you really should.  The extra cheese and whatever-sauce is good and makes for a good meal that just requires a fork and knife:

Of course, I ate the whole thing and felt too full to move around, thankfully I had some Diet 7-up next to me so I didn’t need to get up and actually move around too much.  This helped me to be lazy and just sit and digest food.

I wonder if its true that the body digests food better while sitting up than it does laying down.

I went to the site and looked through the 6 traditional letters (shown below).  I didn’t choose one of the Christian letters because I wanted something less serious, something my kid could understand and read without anyone’s help.  Being 6 years old means that reading something on your own is more special than having someone read it to you.

First the order form.  Quick and easy.  After entering my name and address, I started making my choices.

I checked out the letters. They were short and easy reads. I could have just stopped at the first letter but decided to read them all.

Next was checking out time, but I got interested in the “good list” certificate, so I got that too.

The total seemed reasonable at this point, so I figured it was time to click the button and buy.

Order complete. Nice. Time for me to start counting the days down until my kid gets the letter from Santa Claus.

And a thank you to you too Santa!

Link: Santa letter

So while researching phones, or actually PDA devices, I found a couple of interesting websites and also revisited a website that I haven’t been to in a long time.

The long lost website which I ventured back to is PostSecret.  If you haven’t been to PostSecret, you are missing out.  If you have been there than nothing is really new, well, there are new pictures and posts and comments, but the same format and purpose.

PostSecret is a website dedicated to having people send in post cards anonymously.  The idea is that you write some secret onto a postcard and send it in to PostSecret, which then displays your postcard onto the Internet for other people to comment on.

Several of the postcards make people think or will have people associate their feelings.  Some cards are stupid or pathetic.  Other’s actually can make you question your current reality.  Here’s one of my favorites I found while surfing their site:

This is really a sadness and reality in life.. can you associate?

This post actually had someone post their phone number on the Internet (on a heavily traveled website) that wound up having several people from all over the world call.

One of the interesting websites I found was PhoneDog.  I like some of their site functions and comparisons, though just trying to find general information about a phone without having to read about service plans is annoying.  I’m guessing they get paid by cell services, so I understand their reasoning, I just don’t have to like it.

My favorite site for checking out phones is Lets Talk, they have the most amount of information and probably the easiest to use interface.  Though there isn’t a lot of sort functions on the site, it does prove to be very useful for it’s in-depth coverage of all cell phones.

So now I know more about cell phones (smart phones and PDAs) but just have more confusion added to the mix, as now I don’t know if I want a Nokia N95, Nokia N70, Nokia N80ie, Palm Treo 750, AT&T Tilt, Blackberry Curve 8310, or an HTC product. 

Links: PostSecret; PhoneDog; Lets Talk; HTC

The watches are from Romain Jerome in Switzerland.  Romain Jerome is attempting to get the attention of a special audience by making watches and other accessories from massive accidents (I’m looking for the MC Hammer Hindenberg pants). 

Technical information on the watches is extremely lacking.  By lacking, I mean there’s a MS Word document available for download that has relatively little informaion:

Watch description: Titanic-DNA – Tourbillon rusted steel version
Bezel made of extreme rusted steel forged with authentic parts of the Titanic.
Case made of titanium and blackened steel.
Black dial integrating recovered coal from the Titanic.
BNB 1000 RJ Tourbillon movement.
Diameter 46 mm. Black paws with titanium screws.
Can be set with brilliant or trapeze-cut diamonds.

Here are a few pictures of the watches, they look quite amazing and if there was a way to find out pricing and availability, I might show some interest.

While surfing around the Intenret, I was unable to find a price but a lot of websites think that the pricing will be really high and mostly make the watch cost prohibitive.

If you find the price or actually decide to buy one of these watches, please let me know!

Not that I would buy one of these, but I could imagine a few people I know with extra income that they can’t find enough things to spend their money upon.  Perhaps that’s where these watches are meant to eventually wind up, in the hands of people with more money than common sense.

Flash animated and annoying to navigate website

Workaholic, that’s probably the term most used to describe me (at least when I don’t have my daughter).  Workaholic is defined on Answers.com as: One who has a compulsive and unrelenting need to work.  I’m not sure if I am a workaholic but it does define me pretty well.

What do you do when you have a day off of work but no family around to spend the day with?  I logged into the servers at work (remotely) and checked log files, queues, backups, work email, and then started IMing with some people from work.  I’m not doing a lot of work, but I am working.

In the background I had my TV on and during the first few hours I listened to CNBC (Squawk Box, Squawk on the Street).  After those shows were boring and I finished my daily trading, I flipped through the stations until I found a movie that I haven’t watched in a long, long time.  Before I tell you the movie, I want to share something and ask you all something.

If you have a DVD of a movie, and that movie comes on a movie station (like HBO or Showtime or Cinemax), do you watch the movie on the station instead of putting in the DVD you have of that movie?
What if the movie started like 5 or 1o or 15 minutes before you started watching?

The reason that I ask is that I started watching Princess Bride (you can buy it at BestBuy for $14.99 or Buy.com for $13.99) this morning.  I didn’t watch from the beginning and actually only saw the last 15-20 minutes of the movie (right after Weslie is only kind of killed by Prince Humperdink), but instead of putting in my Princess Bride DVD which my sister bought for me years ago as a present, I just watched the last part of the movie and that was it.  Even now that I’m thinking about it, I’m wanting to put in the movie and watch it.

So why not just put the movie in and watch it?  I don’t know.  Immediately after the end of Princess Bride on HBO I switched to Independence Day on Encore.  It’s not even the high definition version.  Why am I watching it, in the non-high def version?  I don’t know.  Maybe someone can tell me.  Oh ya, and the TV watching thing I do, it’s a bad habit, but since I have the full compliment of stations on DirecTV I feel guilty if I don’t use them.

links: Princess Bride on BestBuy, Princess Bride on Buy.com, CNBC.

This isn’t a post for just you, this is for my family, friend, and neighbor too.  I might have found a deal for the neighbor and my friend and maybe, just maybe, the family member.  Maybe not the family member.  No, not the family member (*explained below).  But the other two, yes.  Here’s what I’m hinting to…

BestBuy currently has a deal on a Toshiba Satellite 520 laptop (A135-S4656), a $399 laptop.  This Tosh isn’t going to compare to Alienware or a desktop in regards to speed, but the laptop is inexpensive and will work fine for reading email, writing stories, playing solitaire (or spider solitaire), and surfing the web.

The basics on the Toshiba Satellite 520 are:

•  Intel Celeron 1.6GHz processor
• 512MB RAM (self-upgradable to 2GB – Crucial.com)
• 15.4″ display (1280 x 800 native resolution)
• Double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW
• 80GB HDD (5400 RPM)
• built-in card reader (Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital and xD-Picture Card)
• Windows Vista Home Basic
• 6 pounds
• 4 USB & 1 Firewire port
• wireless (802.11b/g)
• S-video output

The negatives are few: single PCMCIA slot, 1 year warranty, 6 pound weight, and shared video memory.  But since this laptop is inexpensive I can overlook a few of the minor things in exchange for having a good company’s product (Toshiba).  I’ve personally used and setup over 50 Toshiba laptops in my computer career and have never had anything wrong with one of them.  To compare, I’ve setup over 100 Dell desktops and 30 servers and have had approximately 7 DOA hard disks.

I’m actually thinking of buying this as a secondary laptop for home & work.  It’s not the same as my current Sony VGN-A290 for power (also bought at BestBuy) but it would definitely allow me more battery time then my Sony and it’s 45 minutes.  The Toshiba would probably be faster than my Sony too.  <sigh>

Now the question about why not for my family member (I know you were wondering about that).  Since the last time a computer was purchased was 5-6 years ago, I don’t think that a laptop is going to have that sort of staying power. 

Toshiba site about A135-S4656

BestBuy ad:

Burn Notice is about a spy that was given a burn notice, making him disavowed by the US government.  While trying to figure out who issued the burn notice, he helps people along the way.  The shows is on the USA Network.  Usually I avoid the non-premium cable channels unless it’s CNBC or ESPN or now, especially now, USA Network.  Before I tell you more about why Burn Notice is the best show on cable, I want to remind you that Monk and Psych are back off of re-runs so there are a few shows now on USA worthy of watching (and recording for watching at more convenient times for me).

Alright, back to Gabrielle Anwar.. oops, I mean Burn Notice.  Never mind, I just skipped ahead and brought up the lead female in the show.  Gabrielle’s character’s name is “Fiona Glenanne”, or Fi.  Fi is totally hot.  Some of Fi’s attributes: auto mechanical knowledge, uses and likes using guns, able to put on a dress and act sophisticated, looks great in a bikini, and she has a look that shows she’s dirty during the right times.  You may not remember Gabrielle by name, but you might have seen her in one of the 40 plus shows/movies she’s been in.  I remember her from For Love or Money (think Michael J. Fox, 1993).

The male lead is Jeffrey Donovan, who plays “Michael Westen”.  I’m sure that you have seen Donovan in another show, he’s been in so many TV shows and movies that it would be pretty unlikely that you haven’t seen him.  He plays this part well, not too tough guy and not too soft.  While “Fi” is ready to do anything for him, it seems that he’s playing it smart and not actually being too nice or interested in her (a future article will be about this and my learning experience).

You should add Burn Notice to your weekly recording/viewing list and we’ll talk about it later.  Oh ya, it’s on Thursday’s.

So I decided to take pictures with my Canon SD550 and Canon SD700IS, of the exact same items, so that I can compare the two and decide which one I want to use as my primary camera. The main difference between the cameras would be the pixel rating (SD550 = 7.1MP; SD700IS = 6.0MP), zoom (SD550 = 3x; SD700IS 4x) overall looks of the camera.

Check out what I found and make your own decisions, then let me know what you think that I should continue to use.

	Canon SD550 Digital ELPH	Canon SD700 IS Digital ELPH
Megapixel rating	7.1MP	6.0MP
Zoom (non-digital)	3x (7.7-23.1mm 1:2.8-4.9) 37 – 111 mm equiv	4x (5.8-23.2mm 1:2.8-5.5) 35-140mm equiv
w/o flash, not on macro mode
	larger / larger full detail / full size	larger / larger full detail / full size
w/macro mode, no flash
	larger / larger full detail / full size	larger / larger full detail / full size
full zoom, w/flash
	larger / larger full detail / full size	larger / larger full detail / full size

Based on what I’ve taken so far, I’m liking the Canon SD550 more. Let me know your thoughts!

I’ll probably be shooting more pictures with both this weekend and will post up more pictures at that time. I have probably about 30,000 pictures taken with the SD550 so far and around 2,000 taken with the SD700IS, but only comparing two pictures of the same subject, at the same time, from the same distance will make for a good comparison.

(Since my original purchase of the SD550, the pricing has come down considerably. I have bought one of these cameras as a backup for if mine ever fails. I bought one for a friend as a birthday present and bought another as a repayment for helping me out at some times.)

Let me know if you have other thoughts about this.

I priced this with the best packages that were available, using a 5 receiver base.

I did not take into the equation any sports packages or PPV. 

At work and home I have gone through a lot of different LCD companies.  The fact that most LCDs are branded by someone other than the manufacturer no longer surprises me (even learning that LG made Apple Cinema Displays at one point).  What makes me wonder is why the large spread of pricing, I guess it’s a function of greed or poor consumer understanding.

The Acers will be replacing some Dell 2001FP 20″ LCDs, with those going to replace some Viewsonic 17″ and 19″ LCDs.  No LCDs will be thrown out in this process, but one or more people might soon have dual displays on their desk (they should thank me later).

The specs are as follows:
700:1 contrast ratio (meaning that it’s bright and easy to see even in well lit environments);
16:9 aspect ratio (you’re old Die Hard movies won’t be squashed and those black bars framing the picture will be gone);
1650 x 1050 resolution (more icons and stuff on your desktop will fit).

Though I have only seen one of these LCDs so far at work (on a co-worker’s desk), I’m highly considering replacing my Viewsonic VG2230wm with this display, especially for sub $230.