Drove a Prius

Last week Hertz gave me a Toyota Prius as a free rental "upgrade" because I guess the typical "Intermediate" class cars like the Chevy HHR were all rented out. This was the first time I've driven a hybrid. Things I liked/thought were interesting: The "Power ignition button," the "joystick-like shifter," the LCD display showing you a model diagram of when the battery or engine or when both battery + engine are being used/charged, how dead silent the car becomes when you are idle (you literally think the car has turned off but tap the gas and you're off to the races again!), the real gas savings: I drove 3 days to & from work, ran errands, lunches, and went from SJ -> SF -> SJ and gas was only $16 to fill up - I know I would have spent probably close to double that or maybe more on my Honda, and last but certainly not least the feeling of being more green. But I know it's easy to get jazzed up about the savings since I don't actually OWN the hybrid as from what I understand there are justified concerns about battery replacement costs down the road and I don't know how much maintenance costs are either. But from a rental point of view, the Prius is great!

It's official: Transformers HD DVD rocks

My camera shots don't accurately reflect just how good the HD video quality is but this disc lives up to the hype and the extremely high expectations. As with any Michael Bay film the action moves FAST and if you pause the movie at any given point chances are you're gonna see a blur. So is Transformers my new reference disc? Yes - mostly. King Kong is still what I would consider to be the cream of the crop in terms of video quality but Transformers comes pretty close. With Transformers there is a touch of softness while King Kong is razor sharp. I'm really nitpicking here as the HD DVD has plenty of detail, nice saturated colors (but in the third picture above, my camera has a weird orange push on Shia's face but in reality you don't see it on the screen. Also the 4th picture above is too blue), and a nice, well contrasted image. The characteristics above could also be attributed to my S400 camera settings (ISO100 + AWB), my projector not being fully calibrated and/or the stylized intent of Michael Bay (ie the HD DVD is simply showing the movie and it's picture characteristics as the director intended). Again, I am being a real nit pick here. Even if Transformers does not dethrone King Kong for reference picture quality, it definitely takes the throne for being my favorite demo disc.

Despite the rants from a lot of people about the soundtrack "only being Dolby Digital Plus" (vs lossless Dolby True HD) I have to say that even on my modest Sony ES Dolby Digital decoder, the soundtrack is fantastic. The dialogue comes out clean and clear from the center channel and film score is enveloping. Surround channels are generously utilized during the action sequences greatly enhancing the level of immersion. The ultimate use of LFE for was the Iron Hide "rocket jump" scene. WOW, talk about DEEP BASS extension. My Def Tech subs really came to life. I was just blown away. In fact, I've bookmarked this scene since it is so freaking AWESOME.

The special features on disc 2 are actually insightful (not just EPK fluff) and in HD. And similar to "300," disc 1 has a cool "HUD" PiP video commentary.

If you are curious to know the differences between the HD DVD release and upconversion of the SD DVD release, check out this article. It wouldn't surprise me if Toshiba sells a lot more HD DVD players this holiday. If you've been looking for a good excuse to get into HD DVD, Transformers is probably a good one. Ok ...I know by now, I sound like a total marketing/sales weasel but seriously, this disc really does showcase the next gen format. The experience is even better in the comfort of home. I have not smiled this much while watching a movie at home for as long as I can remember.

Secret BOGO sale at Circuit City

I love the AVS forum. It has saved me a good chunk of change. There have been a lot of HD media BOGO sales since this past weekend (Frys, Best Buy, Amazon, etc.).

At CC, the BOGO deal was not advertised at all. Even the cashier was completely surprised. I don't know how the AVS folks found this out and on another thread but I sure am glad they did. Some folks didn't fare so well and got denied the offer but most seem to have been successful so it could be a system error. Dunno. Whatever. I was fortunate to pick up Transformers HD DVD and The Hulk HD DVD together for the price for less than $30! I then went back and picked up Knocked up HD DVD, Syriana HD DVD, Lord of War BR, Troy DC BR, POTC DMC BR, Stranger than Fiction BR and they were all BOGO :-)

So I know all this is petty. Getting all giddy over DVDs but who isn't happy to land on a deal? If you are a movie collector like me, then you already know that HD DVD and BR discs are expensive ($20-30 online, +$5 @ B&M) at this stage of the product lifecycle. As much as I love my hobby, it's tough for me to justify paying full price and so I often wait for a good sale. I did make an exception with 300 HD DVD because well, it's 300.

Oh and I now have to correct what I said earlier about "Forget CC.. They charge full MSRP." Forget about them most of the time. But not when there is a huge sale like this.

Lust, Caution

is a film that should be judged after you've had some time to sleep on it. Let's just get one thing out of the way. There has been a lot of buzz & controversy over the explicit sex scenes (be warned - the film has a NC-17 rating). By no means were they gratuitous but they were also not Hollywood romanticized either. "Raw" and "honest" are probably the best adjectives and after letting the movie sink in a for a little bit, I do think the explicit scenes (with judicious use of the medium shots and close ups) were effective in illustrating the "lust," repression, anger, loneliness and later on "love" between Mr Yee (Tony Leung) and Wang Jiazhi (Wei Tang). So my initial shock and awe has gradually turned into sympathy and appreciation. Like the trailer , the characters say a lot even when they say nothing at all. There's a lot of subtlety that can easily be written off as wooden or mundane. The cinematography is what you would expect from an Ang Lee film - simply beautiful. Clocking in at 2hr 38 minutes, I did feel the movie could have been shorter and yet still deliver but maybe Ang Lee felt the time was needed to let his characters breath and really develop (In fact, it would seem that he feels this way a lot ;-) Just watch "The Hulk"). Being a very limited release, Viks and I had to drive all the way to Irvine to see this one. Well worth the drive! More info on the film here.

Apple's New iProduct

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2nkoGLhrE

LOL. Hilarious.

Paranoid but sticking to the plan

I was watching NBR last night and the bull market reached it's 5th birthday. It's been interesting how the outlook has changed since 2002. And the obvious question asked was how much more steam has the bull market got? Of course no one can really say for sure and day-to-day sentiment is always fickle and ever changing. However what I hear/read over and over lately is that overall valuations seem to be in check (vs dot com days), inflation is in check but (always a but!) the effects of housing may not be fully realized until 2008 and so there is still a reasonable risk of recession.

I've always tried to resist making drastic decisions based on media news/noise, and hopefully that won't change. Take aapl, goog, and vmw as just one example. They certainly get a lot of press these days. We don't own these (the P/E's alone are enough to scare me away) and I'll be the first to admit that it is sometimes frustrating to be on the sidelines and to see them soaring to new highs every day. And I know they have a greater perceived upside potential. But owning a meaningful number of shares of these stocks would break our risk adjusted plan, diversification strategy, and keep me well awake at night.

I am a bit obsessive & paranoid by nature and so I do check our MF & 401K account very frequently to make sure things are going according to plan. Can't help it. I think it's really interesting how emerging market and european market funds have outpaced the domestic funds (ie S&P500) in the past two years. I'm starting to get a little "tech heavy" (just no aapl, goog, and vmw) but I figure if you wanna reap a little more reward, you gotta take a little more risk.

Going to be useless at work next Tuesday

One can infer that based on the early reviews of the SD-DVD version, the HD-DVD version will have reference level picture quality and sound (despite "only" being Dolby Digital Plus - I hope Paramount gives it a 1.5Mbps encode vs 640kbps). I have mine from an online pre-order but Wal-Mart now seems to carry HD DVDs and Blu Ray new releases on the same "new release Tuesday" as their SD DVD counterparts. Hmm. Costco is still pretty slow in stocking HD DVDs & Blu Rays and the selection is extremely limited but the ones available are reasonably priced. Forget Best Buy and Circuit City. They still charge full MSRP.

Got Ants? Think Terro

Ants in front of our porch. Work in progress!

Within 3 hours. I think Mikey likes it!!

Ants around our kitchen island. Within 1 hour of bait.

As I posted a while back we've had a major ant problem for the past few months. I have tried ant bait (I think dry, powdery form) and ant spray with limited success. Ant spray would kill the ants effectively on contact but the ants would keep coming back. We also weren't comfortable using a fumigator.

Recently a co-worker highly recommended a liquid ant bait from Terro. My co-worker has tried many other ant control solutions as well but claimed Terro worked well for him and was the best solution he's ever used. It was funny to hear the level of animosity in his voice toward the ants in his house -> "the little bastards.. they are drunk with the poisonous elixir." I was skeptical about the effectiveness but figured the methods used in our home were not really working and potentially dangerous to our health. Terro is a liquid bait with Borax that the ants attracted to but doesn't kill the ants right away and the ingredients are supposedly non toxic to humans but very toxic to ants. EXCELLENT. The Terro liquid bait allows the ants to feast and live long enough to bring back to the colony where you know what happens next.

You can get the pure liquid form and make your own little baits which is what I have been doing or you can get the "no mess" bait-in-a-container as well as the outdoor version.

After 3 days, our indoor problem has pretty much been resolved. I put liquid bait in our kitchen countertops and in one of our bathrooms. I did see one straggler in the kitchen on day 4 but I vacuumed him up and there haven't been any more since and I've left food in the sink and on the counter tops as a test. It would seem that we can finally eat in our kitchen worry free now.

I am still working on our outdoor problem. There are a LOT outside. It does take time - supposedly several days to two weeks depending on the size of the colony. I think I've turned more Dr. Evil by the day -> "Muhahahaaha!" I've been obsessed with checking on the progress of each of my outdoor traps at least 3 times per day.

Knotts Berry Farm

Ghost rider. More intense than Great America's Grizzly IMO

Viks and I went to Knotts Berry Farm with her fellow residents. Many of the Attendings brought their families so it was more of a dept event. I haven't been on roller coasters in ages and the first ride we went on, "Silver Bullet" was pretty intense and I had some major dizziness after. After the 2nd and 3rd ride I was better but I have to be honest. I just don't have the stamina for these rides like I use to have in high school.