Mash-up

Lately I've had this itch to blog about quite a few things but instead of multiple posts here's a SUPER SIZED post of random stuff ...

• Cholesterol results - I had my blood test last week and got the results today. Total cholestorol well below 200 and my Triglycerides finally went below 200. HDL went up and LDL about the same. Dude, diet and exercise actually works! It really does motivate me to stick to it. I am also more motivated because basketball season is in high gear. I was bummed the Bruins lost to USC this weekend but no excuses - we simply got outplayed. There are a lot of Lakers and Clippers games this week on KCAL9 and KTLA. More time to work out!
  

• And even more babies - Last week, I went to visit my cousin Ed and see his newborn son, Kenneth. 7 days old. Pretty amazing. I still have this fear of holding new borns. I also wonder how many men yearn to become fathers before their wives nudge them. I know at least one person who wanted to be a father before his wife wanted to be a mother but he seems to be the exception rather than the norm. For me, I think when it actually happens I know I will be very happy and excited but to be honest, I don't have that longing right now to push for a family right at this very moment. It's partly related to progressing my career but let's not kid ourselves here - it actually has more to do with my hobbies. In case it's not obvious by now, I really, really....really enjoy my hobbies - so much to an extent that most people probably do not / would not understand. And that's ok with me. I make no apologies for the above. Indeed I am lucky that Viks loves me just the way I am (and vice-versa). I think DINKY represents that small window of freedom & peacefulness that maybe I am content with at this time and just not quite ready to let go of yet. On the other hand, if I knew a baby was on the way I would not be disappointed either. Funny how that works.
  
• Bear market - Well, it looks like underlying fundamentals have finally caught up with the market. Check out these charts. I'm not even going to pretend like I know where the bottom is. Viks pretty much leaves the investing to me although I do run every decision by her to make sure she is comfortable. It DOES hurt to see the drop but I am not doing any panic sell off. It's too hard to predict when to get back in and you end up missing a great bull run. Everyone will have their own view but I am in the camp that believes if you have a quality, diversified holdings there's virtue in acquiring more when everyone else is running for the hills. So to avoid being a hypocrite I'm trying to muster up the courage to pick up more quality investments at "discounted prices." But man, talk about catching falling knives right now. I am thinking of reducing our exposure to emerging markets since it's been so hot for the past two years or so.
  
• New home theater - Ah, the grin that comes with putting together your own home theater. My friend Danny recently moved into his new pad and just got his home theater set up so of course I had to go check it out. It's a pretty sweet set up and it's amazing how much performance you can get nowadays for a very reasonable amount of money. I brought over my SPL meter and I calibrated his speakers. Much better post calibrated! I also brought over my PS3 and we demoed the scene in Spiderman 3 where Flint Marko falls into the experimental reactor and transforms into the Sandman. As I've said before, this scene has some of the best LFE of any movie soundtrack. Initially there was very little LFE but after some troubleshooting, I corrected his subwoofer out setting and the LFE goodness was finally there.
  
• Discovering multichannel audio / Rediscovering 2 channel audio - The PS3 continues to astonish me and surprise me with its abilities and it's quality. It turns out the PS3 is a fantastic sounding CD and SACD player (note: only non 40GB version supports SACD). With FW 2.10, Sony added "bitmapping type 3"which supposedly enhances CD and SACD playback. I've compared it with my old Toshiba SD-9200 (which is a former Stereophile class A machine) and no matter how I hooked up the Toshiba - toslink, coaxial, or 2 ch analog - the PS3 is less harsh and much smoother sounding via it's HDMI connection. I borrowed Jimmy's Norah Jones - Come Away with Me CD. Wow. I am at a loss for words in describing how great it sounded. I also just purchased my first SACD - Karajan's (1973?) recording of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. This is my first taste of hi-resolution multichannel audio and I'm diggin' it. I've always disliked listening to my classical music CDs because more often than not, they sound more like old recordings than live performances. In both instances above, I experienced that audiophile cliche of being "involved" with the music. But seriously I literally stopped what I was doing at the time (reading a magazine, cleaning, etc.) and felt compelled to just listen and not do anything else.
  
• Kick ass home theater seating - Over the weekend, Viks and I went to Costco and we sat in these cool black home theater chairs that were displayed on the floor. They come in a three pack and were actually very soft and comfortable. They also feature electronic reclining which I thought was very cool. Go ahead and flame me for being materialistic here but dude, I want these!
  
• Warhammer 40K Soulstorm - Real time strategy fans rejoice! Relic / Iron Lore is releasing the third expansion pack for the DoW RTS game on March 4th . Warhammer 40K is truly my favorite RTS game. The SS demo has just been released and I'm impressed by what Iron Lore has done. The Dark Eldar race is pretty fun to play and have some really cool abilities. I can't wait for the full game release. Warhammer DoW and Valve's Team Fortress 2 have really breathed new life into my almost 4 year old PC. I had previously thought that cutting edge games like Crysis would make me want to build a new PC but that has turned out not to be the case. Both Relic and Valve have proven that great games that are truly FUN to play do not require significant investment in state of the art graphics. I am also hoping the highly anticipated StarCraft 2 that will be released later this year can run decent on my current rig.