I got a new toy today:

It’s a Toshiba Satellite M115-S3094. Cost me 600 bucks, 150 cheaper than at the regular price. I got to Best Buy this morning right as they opened, and felt sort of numb: About fifty people were lined up outside. I thought to myself, Shit, and glumly strode up to the entrance. People were going in, though. People other than those in line. Turned out my neighborhood electronics superstore had just gotten in a batch of Wiis, and that’s why people were lined up. Several long, tense moments later (There were a few people in front of me, also purchasing laptops; I thought I might have to murder a very nice lady who was torn between the laptop I was after and a different, cheaper Compaq) I strolled out, a brand new piece of hardware I didn’t really need clutched under one arm and a shit-eating grin on my face. Good times.

For those who care, here are some of the basic specs:

- Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2050
- DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
- 14.1″ widescreen
- 80GB hard drive
- 512MB PC4200 DDR2 SDRAM
- 5-in-1 bridge media adapter

Since this isn’t my primary computer, I didn’t really want a 15″ screen. I wanted something a little smaller, a little more portable. I missed this one on sale a few weeks back, and was fucking excited to see it in today’s ad. What amazes me is, compared to my other, four-year-old lappytop, just how much goddamn lighter this one is. I love it.

JAB

Hello, friends. I just took the technological plunge and signed up for Netflix. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s the online video rental service where you get a movie shipped to you, watch it, ship it back, then get another one, all for a set fee a month.

I usually rent most of my movies from the book depository (i.e., the library), where one has pretty fair bility to reserve DVDs, and is free of charge. Two reasons, however, finally convinced me to sign up for Netflix:

1) Limited Selection – the library is great for popular and recent titles (though it can take a while to receive these DVDs, which I suppose is another reason altogether), but some of the older and/or more obscure titles are harder to find. Like Trancers 6 — it’s not at the library nor any of the other local DVD shops. Netflix, however, has it.

2) Stargate SG-1 – this fucking show, which I have quickly come to love, cannot be found on DVD at any of the Blockbusters and Family Videos around here. The library some of the seaons, but certain disks they have no holdings for. So I can rent the second seasons, I just won’t get the first disk. Jason lent me the first season of SG-1, but that cheap bastard hasn’t bought any of the later seasons yet. And I certainly don’t want to pony up the money on seven seasons of it, each fifty dollars-plus, especially after having recently done so on a combined total of twelve seasons of Buffy and Angel. Fortunately, Netflix has all seven seasons of SG-1, and I’m slated to receive the first disk this Friday. Not a bad turn-around time at all, in my opinion.

In addition tocomparing and contrasting Netflix and Blockbuster’s online service — and I might add, I ultimately went with the former because I hate Blockbuster — I spent a number of hours researching LCD monitors. I fancy myself quite the expert on them now, and will probably purchase this bad boy in the next few days.

The reason why I’ve been quietly working on my new desktop computer, and why I’m gung-ho about buying a new monitor — aside from the fact that they’re fucking sweet — is that my laptop is in serious need of a complete memory wipe. Forgetting the fact that it’s been attacked and infected with an abundance of viruses and ad ware, it also has so much shit on it that it’s always getting bogged down doing the most complex of tasks, like opening Firefox and Microsoft Word. To quote Nick: “What shit.”

JAB

I find this extremely fascinating:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Inventor Ray Kurzweil takes 250 nutritional supplements a day in his quest to live long enough to reap the benefits he expects from biotechnology. He says he’s trying to reprogram his body, as he would his computer.

— snip —

Kurzweil, a well-regarded scientist who invented the flatbed scanner and a reading machine for the blind, claimed his pills appear to be helping: Biological tests conducted at a clinic in Denver found his body resembles that of a man in his early forties, he claimed, rather than his true age of 56.

At MIT last week, Kurzweil described a future in which he’s convinced immortality — or a drastically longer life span — will be possible thanks to emerging technologies. His new book, which will hit stores in a few weeks, outlines a special “longevity program” of diet, exercise and nutritional supplements aimed at slowing the aging process.

— snip —

He described three stages or “bridges” on the purported road to immortality. First is his healthy living program designed to correct “metabolic imbalances” and keep people alive long enough to benefit from the second stage. In stage two, a decade or so away, he contends biotechnology advances will block diseases and slow aging, because the decoding of our genome is already leading to tissue-engineering techniques for regrowing cells and organs, and to the creation of genetically targeted drugs and gene therapies.
These techniques, he said, should help some people reach the third stage — about 30 years away — when nanotechnology will allow humans to radically rebuild and extend their bodies with help from “nanobots,” itsy-bitsy robots smaller than human blood cells that will slip into our bloodstreams to fix DNA errors, fight pathogens and expand intelligence.

At that point, he declared, humans may be able to live forever.

Dr. Kurzweil sure is going through a lot of work to live forever. I mean, I wanna live forever and see the future too, but you don’t see me stuffing myself full of 250 pills a day. I just sent these guys ten bucks and then sat back, content to enjoy my first life here and now and then eventually enjoy my second life eons in the future.

Hmm… Maybe I should put Dr. Kurzweil in touch with Alex Chiu, the maker of the Eternal Life Rings. Then he can more easily live forever and look fashionable.

JAB

I went to ComputerFest with my Dad today. Man, has that thing gone down hill over the last few years. Time was, when all of Hara Arena would have been packed wall to wall full of vendors plying their wares and geeks buying those wares. Since the Internet has become such a popular tool to order computer hardware and other stuff, less and less people go to conventions such as this to buy stuff. As it was, big green dividers were placed everywhere, cordoning off huge chunks of empty space, thus making it seem like the place was hopping.

One of the more interesting things I saw was a guy giving a demonstration on a little video camera to an enraptured crowed. He was very convincing, friendly polite, and dressed in a long white lab coat, like the ones I wear at work, to appear “knowledgeable.” He spouted terms like “removable hard drive” instead of memory card and said his little camera could take pictures, act as a voice recorder, and play mp3s. It really wasn’t that bad of a camera at two-hundred dollars. If I didn’t work in a photo lab and deal with this shit every day, I might have been willing to plunk down the money for one.

The other really cool thing — which I wish I’d known about earlier — was that one big room was devoted solely to LAN gaming. I peeked into the room and I saw an assload of people sitting at computers playing things like City of Heroes, Warcraft 3, some form of Unreal Tournament, and even the classic Starcraft. I talked to one of the dudes and he said the gaming had been going on and would continue through the night for 48 hours. I neglected to ask how much doing so costs, but I’d be willing to pay quite a bit to get in on some of that. I think next spring, when the next convention occurs, if they have the LAN gaming again, I’m gonna see if Nate wants to go with me and we can play Starcraft — or Warcraft 3, since I suspect I’ll really be into that game by spring — for hours on end. It certainly sounds like it’d be a blast.

JAB