Month: February 2009

I’m pretty sure I just heard a werewolf outside. It also could have been a coyote but I’m not ruling out werewolf just yet.

A few weeks ago I was at an evening gathering of young people at someone’s residence. Someone called it a “house party” or something. Anyways, it was basically a day after I barely escaped the layoffs at Black Box. With my good fortune, I knew I was going to be able to go through with my apartment purchase.

At the party, I saw a young married I couple I know, “Dave” and “Joyce”. They had recently just bought a place themselves, so we had lots of stuff to talk about. The conversation turned to furniture, specifically placement of said furniture. I explained to Joyce that despite the absence of a den, I was still planning on having a modestly-sized desk (with my computer) in my apartment. Joyce was adamant about not placing the desk in my bedroom. She said a desk in the bedroom evokes images of a university student who studies and sleeps in the same room. I believe Joyce said the bedroom should be the place for only three things: sleeping, watching porn, or having sex. Joyce also said that no woman would take me seriously if she saw a desk in my bedroom. She said to get a small corner desk and place it in the living room.

I was slightly skeptical about her claims but then again, I have no idea what women are thinking about 99% of the time and here was a woman telling me what other women would be thinking, so I had to give it some serious thought.

To get another opinion, I spoke to my very good friend “Ron”. Ron flat out said Joyce was crazy and not to listen to her. He said that I should place my desk anywhere that I wanted to because after all, it’s my apartment, not Joyce’s. Ron then also gave quite the compelling statement:

“If you found a girl that was willing to reject you based purely on where your desk was in your apartment, then that girl really wasn’t the one you deserved in the first place.”

It was if I was back in a small mud hut on Dagobah again. I could not find any argument against Ron’s wisdom.

So here’s my thoughts on this. I don’t like the idea of placing a desk in my living room. I’ve seen it done in other places and it looks very messy. The living room is for entertaining, it should be kept neat, tidy, and clean. I also imagine I’ll be doing most of my guest entertaining in the living room, so I want it to be a nicely decorated space. Having even a small but random desk in a corner doesn’t help me achieve that goal. While I do think a desk in the bedroom is a better choice, keep in mind the desk size and shape will be respectful of the space it occupies. It won’t have tons of papers or crap on it. It’ll have my monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, maybe a book or two, and perhaps a few papers I’ll be reading at the time. I plan on keeping it clean and minimal.

I’d like to open up this topic for discussion among my readers. Where do you think my desk should go? Please leave your thoughts as a comment. I’d like to hear what you have to say about this.

After some thought, I am going to hold off on my TV purchase for at least another three weeks or more. After talking to some dudes whom I respect, I’ve been talked out of buying the $4000 LCD TV from the future. It’s just too high of price for a TV that only displays pictures. Had it also cooked and cleaned for me, then it might be still in the running.

Since then, I’ve given more thought to buying a plasma TV. After doing some research, I came across a report on Panasonic’s new plasma offerings for 2009 (my emphasis added):

“The G10 series is offered in 42”, 46” 50” and 54” screen sizes. Unlike the above series, the G10s are standard depth plasmas (around 3.5”). The G10 uses Panasonics new “green” (low power) Neo PDP technology with Infinite Black and 40,000:1 contrast ratio and full 1080 lines of motion resolution. Features include VIERA Cast Internet connectivity, THX Certification, SD card slot for still photos & AVCHD home movies and 3 HDMI inputs. The 42”, 46” and 50” models will be available in March with the 54” arriving in May. The model numbers are TC-42PG10, TC-46PG10, TC-50PG10 and the TC-54PG10.”

This bit of info is important for several reasons. First, Panasonic has quietly positioned itself as one of the best plasma TV manufacturers in the world. Second, they’ve somehow managed to reduce the power requirements of their plasmas to apparently 50% of their 2007 models. For their higher-end models for 2009, this means some of them are about 1″ thick now. Hopefully, this will also mean they’ve done away with the fans that were necessary with older models. I’m fine with a thicker TV but if they’ve reduced the amount of juice it requires then it becomes cheaper to use, it’s better for the environment, and it’s quieter since it doesn’t require fans now.

Availability is supposed to be in March but unfortunately no pricing has been announced. So for now, I’m going to wait.

I received a letter in the mail today from one of the banks I do business with. They were informing me they were about to cancel one of the credit cards I have with them. Apparently there was a security breach with a large payment processor based in the US. Heartland Payment Systems discovered some malicious software in their system and made the breach public in late January.

It’s not known if any of my credit card info was compromised. What is known is that somehow my card went through their systems in a legit transaction. It could have been something I ordered online but it’s my trip to Vegas that probably connected my card with a US payment processor.

I’ve looked at my statements and nothing has looked out of the ordinary. Every transaction has been mine. As a precaution, my bank will be issuing me a new card with new microchip-based security. I was scheduled to get this new fancy credit card a year from now but this breach has moved that timeline up. Interestingly, for retailers who have new terminals that support chipped cards, I will now be required to enter in a PIN to complete the credit card transaction, much like debit card. That’s another PIN to remember.

As far as I know, this is the closest I’ve come to someone trying to steal my identity.

Until this weekend, I wasn’t sure which TV was the one I wanted. After some research I have determined the Samsung LN46A950 is object of my desires. This 46″ marvel of technology is the first in the “9” series for Samsung. It features LED backlighting with the ability to provide local dimming. If that didn’t make any sense to you, it didn’t to me either until Saturday but in other terms, it means that this TV produces extremely deep blacks and faithfully reproduces stunning colour. It’s quite possible this model is the best LCD TV for its size on the entire planet. You can read a review here.

Of course, with such accolades, one can’t expect this thing to be cheap and unfortunately, it is not. The LN46A950 retails for just about $4000 CAD which is on the crazy upper-end of the price spectrum for LCD TVs. With prices dropping as the trend for the last two years and some decent models for even under $1000, this model stands out with its luxury price.

I haven’t totally ruled out buying this but I’ve already started investigating alternatives. For example, I’m also looking at plasma models which could possibly offer somewhat similar performance at about half the cost. One drawback of plasmas are significantly higher power requirements. For example, with average use, the LN46A950 would cost about $45 a year to run. A similar sized plasma would cost about $130 a year to run. Of course, I’d have to keep my plasma for about a bazillion years before the operating cost savings of the LN46A950 would equal the initial difference in price.

Anyways, I’ll do some more research.

On Tuesday the lender for my mortgage was holding off on releasing the funds because they required some documents from the seller. After short number of phone calls, this is was resolved today. With that, it appears there are no more hoops to jump through. On Saturday at noon, I will pick up the keys to my apartment.

Saturday isn’t exactly what I would call a “move-in” day as I still haven’t bought a bed, couch, or TV. I’ll be moving in quite slowly but that’s a luxury I don’t mind having. I am thinking about bringing on Saturday some toilet paper, a towel, and some soap. At least I can use the bathroom on day one.

Based on a random draw done by the all-mighty being that is the Internet, Zanne has won the copy of skate 2. I thank the other contestants for participating and hope they enjoy their second-place prizes of et.com women’s thong underwear.

I received two free copies of skate 2 from the studio. I’m obviously keeping one copy for myself but I’m giving away the other one. So if you’re interested in a copy of the NTSC (North American) version of skate 2 for the Xbox 360, just leave a comment on this post with your first name. The lucky winner will have their copy mailed to them.

In the interest of fairness, after 24 hours I’ll put all the names in a professional lotto ball machine and the winner will be the first name drawn. Though to be very honest, I’m expecting no one to leave any comments in the next 24 hours. The last time I decided to give away free stuff, which happened to be my et.com t-shirts, I was literally begging people to take the shirts from me (which included postage as well). I guess you can’t give away anything.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLXVuy0h29c&hl=en&fs=1]

So undoubtedly some of you have now heard the audio of Christian Bale going on a tirade on the set of Terminator 4. If you haven’t, the clip above is available for your listening. Be forewarned though, it contains about a billion f-bombs and he gets very, very angry.

Supposedly, Bale lost his cool because the director of photography or DP, wandered into his sightline while he was doing a scene with actress Bryce Dallas Howard. From what Bale says, this wasn’t the first time that happened. Bale’s fearsome verbal assault on the DP is stunning in its ferocity. Though only the audio is available (for now), you can imagine that this is happening on the set with dozens and dozens of people on hand to listen. Bale essentially rips the DP a new one and he wasn’t at all kind about it either. It goes without saying that the DP probably felt belittled by Bale. The threat of violence near the end didn’t make things better either.

I think Bale is a great actor. It’s clear he commits to his role fully and he’s well-known for the lengths he’ll go for a movie. He wanted to starve himself to 100 lbs. for The Machinist and he didn’t only because he was stopped by the filmmakers who were concerned about his health. So it’s clear he’s very intense when it comes to his craft. Despite this passion, I believe it doesn’t give him the right to belittle another human being in front of his peers. His tirade was very unprofessional, even if the DP did walk into his shot for the second time. What was at stake? A life or Bale’s millions of dollars? No. It was a scene in a movie. Yeah, I get he’s really into his work and no one likes it when someone else screws with you while you’re working but this was way over the line. Being respectful and professional are qualities you don’t leave behind just because you’re a highly-paid actor.

In a similar situation but reversed, consider what happened on the set of Three Kings, the 1999 George Clooney movie. Director David O. Russell was having a difficult time during shooting and was under tremendous stress. For whatever reason, Russell began treating his crew badly, both verbally and physically. Clooney stepped in to defend the crew knowing he was probably the only one in a position to do so. After Russell threw an extra to the ground, Clooney verbally admonished Russell for the act. Depending on what account you read, Russell either did engage Clooney in a fistfight or at least the two got very close to brawling. You can view this in a few different ways but my take is that Clooney is a dude that never forgets about the importance of having respect and being professional at all times. You might wonder if pumelling a director is being professional but I bet if you asked the crew of Three Kings, they’d probably tell you damn right that was the right thing to do. It’s not difficult to understand why Clooney is well-liked on movie sets.

So yeah, that was a dickhead move on Bale’s part and I hope that since that clip was recorded (in July 2008), Bale has had a chance to apologize for the way in which he expressed his displeasure at being interrupted. Having said all of that, I will mention one last thing. If you’re going to put yourself out there and act like a raving asshole for millions of people to hear, I’m pretty sure he did it the best way possible. He didn’t stutter or trip over his words in any of the three and a half minutes of bile. He was crazy intense the entire time and the switching of accents between American and Welsh was unbelievable. He’s even laser-focused when he’s angry, that’s amazing. He loses a few points for mocking the guy though.

I wonder if this little bit of drama will cause more or less people to see T4 when it comes out.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my plea for insurance guidance. I just have one more question. How many of you have opted for earthquake coverage? Why did or did you not opt for that?