Shawn Parr

Well, people have been asking, so here it is, the Christmas list for 2008.

Updated: 11.24.08
Updated: 11.26.08: Jessie now has a list!

They have Robert and Vivienne.

We now have up pictures from Robert's birthday yesterday, and of Vivienne's birthday today.

Enjoy!

I wrote up an article on the new Google Chrome Web Browser today.

Basically it is a good thing. Fast, efficient, secure, and user friendly.

They even wrote a Comic Book about it. Although it gets a bit more technical than most of the readers here would care for. I wrote the article to hit some of the important bits in a less technical fashion.

If you have Windows and are worried about malware/spyware and or other attacks to take your time and money away, check it out at the Google Chrome website.

With Robert's birthday starting to get close, we are putting up a list of things he has asked for and/or we think he will want. Since this year he is also getting a sister right around his birthday, and knowing how frustrating it can be basically having everyone be crazy about a baby at your birthday time, we are doing something special for him this year.

We bought him a Wii. We are also going to get an extra controller & nunchuck, a charger station that can charge two Wii-motes, and a couple of games. We are then going to let him have the stuff we got him a bit early so that he can spend a few nights having different friends over to have mini-Wii parties up until the baby comes.

So we are going to be adding a few Wii games to the list that we think he may like even though he doesn't know it is happening yet. :) Oh, and yes, we actually physically have the Wii in our possession, so there will not be any 'whoops, it's still out of stock everywhere' incidents.

I'm also going to give a link for everything, most likely via Amazon, but wherever I find them available, so that people can see what we are talking about. You don't have to buy it from where the link goes, it is just for your information.

Wii games:

• Mario Kart: comes with the wheel attachment, rather new and very hard to find, so it is probably a good one to skip on

We went and saw WALL•E this weekend. It was a great movie. I would suggest that everyone go and see it. It was entertaining, moving, and it had a few really good messages that were not hit over your head with a sledgehammer.

However, in seeing it we pretty much re-affirmed everything I have thought about seeing movies for the last few years. Since slowly starting to build a home theatre type setup (which is quite humble compared to most) back in 2000 I've had a belief that seeing movies in your own home is a much better experience than going to the movie theater. At first many people thought I was nuts, but slowly and surely some have come to my side.

This weekend, even Jessie agreed that the Movie Theater experience could not even come close to our home experience. Here in Natchitoches it is very easy to come to this conclusion as the theater in town makes absolutely no attempts at customer satisfaction.

You see, when we saw the movie, it was out of focus. The entire time. Normally I would go and complain, however the last movie I saw at this theater (Cloverfield for those who are curious) had a similar issue. With Cloverfield the focus would come and go at a rate of once every second. For those who like to complain about the cinematography of that specific movie, it occurred during all the trailers as well.

The narrowing process has begun. I hope to have the poll ready to go tonight!

Update: The baby name poll is up! Go vote!

Since I've started making my own soda I've been trying to find a good way to get it to work. I've used a travel mug that was okay, and I now have a mini thermos (500ml or about a pint) that I've been using.

Here is the problem. There are a lot of those things out there, and quite frankly many of them suck. A lot. My mini-thermos mostly works, except it leaks out from where the top screws on almost as much as what I pour out of the nozzle. Not to mention it is a replacement as the first one I got the vacuum seal failed the first use.

Does anyone out there have a mini-thermos type thing that really works well? I'm looking for real advice from people actually using them. I can Google/Amazon search, but without real live usage you can only trust those reviews so far.

I think I want to stick with Thermos style (i.e. little cup type lid with a pour spout) rather than a travel mug. And 16oz/500ml is a pretty good size for me.

Alrighty then, Road Warriors, what is your fav? P.S. budget is $25 or less.

Update: The pricing info was a bit confusing, look at the full post for what I think is the correct pricing.

Today AT&T announced their plan pricing for the new 3G version of the iPhone.

Turns out it is good to have the old model. We currently have a 700 minute family plan, with one iPhone and one non-iPhone. It costs just under $100 per month. The pricing was:

• $60 for the base plan with 700 minutes and the ability to add another line
• $20 for the iPhone data plan +200 text messages
• $9.99 for the second line
• Nearly $10 in taxes and fees

It was announced some time ago that AT&T was going to raise the price for the data plan to $30 on the new iPhone, and subtly shown that text was no longer included as well. Our plan on the new pricing scheme would be either $145 or $155 per month based on what we have seen thus far:

• $129.99 for the base plan, which includes the $30 iPhone data plan
• $9.99 for the second line
• $5 to add back the 200 text messages
• $10 in taxes and fees