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IronHeart
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Name: Alex
Location: Canada
Birthday: 7/30/1981
Gender: Male
Interests: Sleep. Chat on phone. Surf the Net. Do weblog (*gasp*)
Expertise: Sleep. Assume the worst. Memorize numbers. Estimate anything that can be quantified.
Occupation: Engineering
Message: message me
Member Since:
1/15/2003
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| It all began on January 21st, 2003. Wow, for nearly 6 years, you were my first, and only.
It all began so innocently. Perhaps naively. You helped me connect to people I would otherwise have not. I read about their lives, their thoughts, as they read up on mine. At first, the comments were like fuel to the inner blogging fire, but soon the fire no longer needed the fuel to keep burning. You became a venue for expression.
There were times when the politics haunted my friends. Who are the subscribers? Who do I subscribe to? Who do I show on my main page as my subscriptions? eProps? What's the meaning of anything other than 2 eProps? There were many things about you I never understood, but I stood by you regardless, because you were my first, and where would I go? Yes, even after you swallowed up many of my posts because you weren't listening when I clicked on submit.
I shared with you many laughs and tears, rants and reflections. When I was down, you gave me encouraging comments. When I was up, you lifted me higher. When I was lonely, you made it seem like the world was listening. When I had endless nothings to write about, you patiently accepted them all.
Slowly, you changed (but I do have to give you props for still using the term weblog instead of blog). Our values drifted apart. You had more and more features I did not care about, and the features I cared about either weren't there, or weren't free. I understood you had competition. Friends gradually found others and turned their backs on you. People I subscribe to started to update less and less, and I felt less and less connected. Still, I stood by you. But nevertheless, I became uneasy about you holding my memories in hostage, not being able to easily download them unless I pay the ransom. This was perhaps the biggest reason why I decided that I should be more independent.
I tried doing my own site. I wrote a bunch of php pages that could do all the basics of what you do. All that was important to me anyway. But that never took off. And then there you were, still there for me, free. I appreciated it. Really. You weren't like the other sites where they whored themselves out and then withered away.
But I started working, got engaged, prepared for the wedding, moving, food, honeymoon, baby, miscarriage, moving again, vacation... Then all of a sudden, I forgot to check my subscriptions months at a time. Life was happening too fast, and I forgot about you. It really shocked me. I was freed from your spell. I no longer needed to know what my few-friends-still-on-you were up to.
Now looking back on the archives, I posted the most during the first few months, and a lot during my time in Japan. The record was 36 posts in a month! And it was an average of 8 - 10 posts per month, every month, until about November 2006. Wow, I sure invested a lot of time on you.
I don't hate you. Really. I simply want to be able to control all aspects of my blog. So it's time to move on. For real this time. I know you saw it coming, as I have hinted on the previous post. But I won't forget you, and you can still find me at http://www.dezalex.com/alex/. We'll still be friends. Thanks for the memories. | | |
| After 1.5 years, Dez and I have both paid off our student loans! I'm proud of our accomplishment, since in that time span we had to pay rent, pay for the wedding, and pay for the honeymoon, which are all fairly big costs. There was also a ridiculously expensive Sleep Number bed for $3300+... I think we minimized the amount of interest to about $3K, which is less than 8% of the total principle amount.
Did you know government interest rate is prime + 2%? We started off with 8.5%. Because of the prime drops lately, it is now 6.78%. It's a lot. Even after the whole "student loan interest is tax deductable" argument, we're still effectively paying 6.6% (instead of 8.5%). Good thing I wasn't confident enough to focus money into some BS fund that has a long term gain of possibly 10% or whatever, instead of paying off the loans (look at the market now). Now we have no more student loan burden, and the extra cash now can buy more shares of those same BS fund.
Despite the government trying to squeeze new grads, at least they gave us the option of paying as much as we want. If it were a traditional loan, there would be a cap as to how fast they let you pay it off.
So, finally, we'll now have real savings and exercise our investment muscles.  No more interest payments. Now lets see how long we can hold out before needing to purchase a car, or a house/condo. Those two should be the only other things that would put us in debt.
This will most likely be my last blog on Xanga (maybe 2nd last), since I have already secured a web host and had wordpress installed. As soon as I figure out what to put on that, and how to customize it to my liking, I will officially resume blogging on there.
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| Where's the hundred?This is what happened a few weeks ago while we were sleeping... Alex: *sits up in bed with eyes closed* "Where's the hundred?"
Dez: "Huh?"
Alex: "Where's the hundred??" *ruffling the blanket*
Dez: "Huh?"
Alex: *eyes open, looking at Dez* "Where's the hundred???" *more ruffling and looking beneath the blanket*
Dez: "What hundred?"
Alex: *closes eyes and lies back down to sleep* Of course, I have absolutely no recollection of these events. I also find it intriguing when Dez brings it up next day, starting with, "Do you remember what you did....?" Other than these weird episodes, I normally sleep like a corpse in the sense that I don't move. I can probably sleep in a coffin, given good ventilation. So, people: don't tell me anything so important that I can't blurt it out in the middle of my sleep. | | |
| ClarificationPC points = points I earn when I use President's Choice Mastercard. For every $100 spent on the card, I get an equivalent of $1 in points, for use at Superstore (and some other PC affiliates). Once $20 (or more) is accumulated, it can be used to pay for stuff.
Ever since 2002 I've been "saving" these points especially with the PS3 in mind. I didn't have enough points when the PS3 first came out, but my expenses exploded during the wedding / honeymoon / stuff, so now I have enough to basically get a "free" PS3 whenever I decide to get it. I want to wait until FFXIII comes out, and I want to wait for those "we-pay-for-your-tax" promos from Superstore (there were 2 that I know of from last year). If those 2 condition happen on the same week, then I'd be the first to line up. DVD upconverting/upsampling/upscaling simply means that the video processor takes a low resolution and blow it up to a higher resolution. Good upconverters use intensive algorithms to make the image smooth and sharp. They also take advantage of those "digitally-remastered" DVDs. There can be a big visual difference between output from a good and a crappy upconverter.
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| Upconverting, DivX/Xvid standalone DVD playerOn Friday I got my weekly Futureshop newsletter, and I spotted the Samsung DVD-HD870 player on sale. It said both DivX and Xvid are supported, and it costs $70 instead of $90. I was ecstatic! For the longest time I was sort of keeping an eye out for players that supported both DivX and Xvid (specifically), but most don't ever mention Xvid. We always wanted to play some Xvid discs without using the computer. And now, especially, onto the bigger TV we have. Anyway, in addition to its DivX and Xvid support, I read that it's also a great upconverting player -- i.e. our DVD library will see an "enhancement". Both of these reasons were good enough for me to spend that extra $70 + tax. Once I got to Futureshop, I was having second doubts. There was a player sold for a bit more, but supported 1080p. I know especially for standard DVDs, I doubt 1080p upconversion would be very different from 1080i, since they're all converted from 480i anyway. But because of this, I decided to wait and do more research at home. Further research has made me realize that it's not all that rare for a player to have both DivX and Xvid. There's a site that has a pretty detailed "compatibility list" for a whole lot of DVD players: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers. But, this site has also pointed me to some customer reviews that this player does upconversion really well. So I decided that I would go buy it, now. And then I was suddenly reminded of the PS3. Hm, does it support DivX / Xvid, I wonder... So I googled. And turns out it does! Holy macro. And it was just recently supported by the firmware update on Dec. 20th, 2007. Amazing. All the more reason to go for a PS3. But does it upconvert DVDs? Initial google search brought up a bunch of links dated back to November of 2006, where people said the PS3 did not upconvert. I was a bit disappointed, but I thought, hey, maybe a firmware update would've changed that. And turns out, I was right! It does indeed upconvert old DVDs and apparently some people liked the quality. And this happened even before the DivX / Xvid support! Wow, it almost makes me want to go out and buy redeem a PS3 with my PC points, right NOW! Well, almost, but no, I'm still waiting patiently until FFXIII comes out on it. Maybe by then the PS3 would be even cheaper, or slimmer, or shinier with a different color, or with even more fancy awesome firmware updates, or all of the above! (yes, I know everyone gets firmware updates anyway, through Internet) So yeah, now I've completely scrapped the idea of buying this nice Samsung player, and now the PS3 suddenly feels cheaper. Not to mention Blu Ray is here to stay, so it's even better!
I really look forward to the PS3 now. My growing PC points await.
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