summation

As my final entry for 2006, it seems fitting to look back on the year and reflect on all the significant moments and achievements. It's definitely been a year to remember for me. A year full of scenic beauty, and carnivorous intake, and marked by moments of joy and some pain.

We saw the coming and going of two puppies, Chanel No. 1 and Chanel No. 2. The emotional impact of their brief stays in our home has not quite faded. In the end we decided raising a puppy was not for us, but we have found some more simplistic companionship in our betta fish Spencer.

2006 saw the arrival of my fabulous silver steed, the Lexus IS350. It also seemed to mark a period of conspicuous technological consumption, as I moved to upgrade my life in other aspects of technology, such as a new mobile phone. On my list of cool gadgets though the biggest coup has to be my honey V getting her hands on a Playstation 3 before Christmas.

In my moments of leisure I had the opportunity to have some fun on the road and at the track. My vacations also embraced a disturbingly indulgent pattern of stuffing myself silly.

For our family, the most significant event of 2006 would be the addition of a new member -- little baby N. His arrival brings smiles and happiness to all who surround him.

All in all, it was a very good year. Would I change anything? Not a damn thing. But I have a feeling 2007 will be even better.

Happy New Year everyone!

reprieve

When we bought our big 50-inch Panasonic HDTV about 2-3 years ago, we took advantage of a great deal at Best Buy -- free delivery, and a free home theater system (worth $150) came with the TV. That home theater system was made by Koss Electronics, which I guess was a subsidiary or side-venture of Koss Corporation. Koss is best known for their headphones, which I believe have a pretty good reputation. Unfortunately when they got into the home theater and stereo business it appears their products were not nearly as good, and eventually Koss Electronics went out of business. Um, that can't be good.

So for the first 2 years or so, the Koss KS5192 system that we got was working just fine... it played DVDs, was easy to setup, and the 6.1 speakers sounded pretty darn good with Dolby surround and DTS movies. It wasn't until this past year that we started noticing some weirdness. The DVD player would freeze in the middle of a movie for just a split second, even with brand new DVDs. That was annoying. Then I wanted to connect my PS2 or my Comcast cable box to the receiver to get surround sound using the optical input. The sound came through, but there was a noticeable delay in the audio that made it worthless -- the sound would come half a second after someone spoke in the video, or sound effects were delayed in a game. OK, annoying but I'll let it go. The last straw was when the Koss player started making loud grinding noises whenever you turned it on ... sounds like the cooling fan is vibrating or hitting something. Well what do you expect for a system they were selling for $150? At least I got it for free...

I starting looking at new receivers. I figured the Koss speakers are actually not that bad, maybe if I just get a dedicated DVD player and a new receiver I can still use the speakers, and the problem is solved. I was looking at the A/V receivers by Denon, because I have a connection that can get me virtually half-off of retail price. The AVR-2807 is really attractive, with all kinds of great features like HDMI switching, but it's not cheap. And I wasn't sure I needed such high-end audio hardware for my peasant ears. So i kicked it around in my head, but never made a decision to buy.

Then the PS3 came into my home entertainment system and with it came HDMI outputs, Blu-Ray playback and hopefully someday soon the possibility of functioning as an upscaling DVD player. With all the issues, the Koss just wasn't cutting it. Time to upgrade! Well before I dropped some mad cheddar for the 2807 I thought I would give the Koss one last chance. I went online to see if others were having the same issues and see if there were any fixes.

After a little searching I came across several online discussions about the KS5192 and its little brother KS4192. Most of them complained about the same audio delay and grinding fan issues, and most people said they ended up buying better receivers. They also reported that customer service from Koss was a joke, seeing as how the remaining Koss company was trying to distance itself from the Koss Electronics demise. I was about to give up and get the Denon but then I came across a thread that mentioned some kind of firmware upgrade that could fix the audio delay problem. The website for Koss Electronics was no more, but thankfully some other users had archived the upgrade files. It was a little risky -- some people reported it fixed their problems, while others reported it rendered their player completely useless. No pain no gain, so I downloaded the files, burned them to a CD and followed the upgrade instructions. Amazingly it worked like a charm -- now the audio syncs up to the video just fine, and I can play games on my PS3 in full glorious surround sound.

As for the video skipping or freezing, I put in a lens cleaner disc and let it run for a few minutes. That may have helped as the movie I played after that worked fine. So it looks like I may have bought myself a little time with the Koss system, until the fans disintegrate and the whole system fries.

prolific

Yeah, it's a quiet day at work so the internet is my friend... I thought, hey what's up with Chow Yun-Fat these days? Plenty it seems...

Chow Yun-Fat stars as the Chinese Emperor in a new epic Chinese movie that's out now in select theaters, The Curse of the Yellow Flower. The movie also co-stars Gong Li and Jay Chou. The movie is directed by Zhang Yimou, who also directed Hero and House of Flying Daggers so you know there'll be plenty of people flying around and crazy swordfights.

In March 2007, a videogame titled John Woo Presents Stranglehold will release for the Playstation 3. It's a third-person shooter that brings back the Inspector Tequila character from the 1992 Woo classic Hard-Boiled, in a battle against the mob. The characters will be computer rendered but the voice will be done by Chow Yun-Fat. Being a huge Woo and Chow fan I most likely will have to pick that up.

And we all probably knew that a 3rd Pirates of the Carribean was in the works, but how many of you knew that Chow Yun-Fat was cast in it? I guess the characters sail to the edge of the world, and run into him. He plays "Captain Sao Feng", and photos from the set show him sporting a shiny bald dome and a mean-looking Fu Manchu moustache. Hey now I know who I can be for Halloween 2007...

departure

James Brown
1933 - 2006

The Godfather of Soul, James Brown died on Christmas morning at the age of 73. JB was one of my favorite soul/R&B artists while I was in high school and college. His music had a huge impact on the world of music and the R&B, soul, and rap of today. He will be missed dearly.

R.I.P., JB. I will be listening to your CDs all this week.

http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/12176089

christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope Santa left everyone something nice under their tree. Hopefully you were good little boys and girls so you deserve what you got under the tree. As you know I am such a good boy that even though I didn't set up a Christmas tree this year I got a nice Sony Playstation3 dropped down my chimney.


Sony also dropped a great gift on all the PS3 owners this weekend -- the Gran Turismo HD Concept demo was released on the 23rd and it's completely free!
As you can see from these screenshots, the graphics are pretty amazing. The cars look photorealistic, and in high-definition 720p or 1080i the game is fantastic!

And I got some really cool gifts from my family as well. I have a wireless mouse and keyboard set to use with the PS3; I got a 600-chip poker set in a killer aluminum carrying case (them chips are heavy man!); a nifty little device that helps me look up cocktails. So I'm totally set for this holiday season, I've got gaming, gambling, and drinking. All I need is a crew of tough guys and I can open my own casino.

But let's not forget that Christmas is not all about presents and cool gadgets. More importantly it's about spending time with your family and loved ones, and celebrating the Christmas spirit together. In my family that usually involves obscene amounts of food, but still, family comes first. Followed closely behind by lots and lots of prime rib, and lobster ... oh man I'm still stuffed from last night.

Season's Greetings!

-p.

playtime

I dropped off my Lexus at the body shop yesterday to get the scratch repaired, and I am driving the Spyder to work this week. What a nice opportunity to reacquaint myself with the 5-speed manual transmission, and the satisfaction of revving and snarling my way around every street corner, exhaust and engine singing together behind me. Sure, a brand new Porsche Cayman would be nice, but this will do just fine for now.

The weather has been actually pretty nice this past few days, no rain for a while. But man is it cold outside at night. I don't know if I have the courage to put the top down for a drive. Maybe a short one. V. just bought me a new hat to keep my big dome warm, so maybe with that and a heavy jacket I can tough it.


Still haven't received my games for the PS3 yet. To my chagrin however, the Best Buy gift card arrived separately today. Well I have been downloading a bunch of demos from the Playstation Store, and so far they are impressive. Of course the first demos I downloaded were racing games. MotorStorm is pretty awesome. It has quickly become the best-selling game for PS3 in Japan. The graphics are amazing but what is really cool is you can turn on the motion sensing for the SixAxis controller, and tilt it to turn like a steering wheel. Formula One Championship Edition is also fantastic. The sights and sounds of racing were so realistic I thought I was actually watching an F1 race on TV.

For more arcade-style action I checked out Blast Factor and Cash Guns Chaos DLX. Both are fast-pased arcade shooters where the goal is basically blow everything away around you. They're both fun at least for a little while but I don't think I will buy either one of them -- just playing the demo gives you a taste and you can imagine how the rest of the game would play out: just more of the same.


And last but not least I checked out a sports game, the demo for NBA 07. Along with the Formula 1 game this is probably the most challenging game to learn I have seen so far. There's a bunch of buttons for offense and defense, and special moves you can make while dunking, etc. Visually the game is very nice in hi-def but to me the players' skins seem a little too shiny -- it's like they're all sweaty even before the tip-off. The demo only has a quick game mode where each quarter is 2 minutes. I got slaughtered my first game, I didn't even score by the end of the first half. I'm getting better with my defense though, but I still can't land a 3-point shot to save my life. Maybe it's because I'm trying to use Shaq to shoot them...

ignition

Well the wait for my PS3 is over ... I came home today and Santa left me a big present by the fireplace! Actually his lovely and beautiful elf helper V. helped out by casing the local Best Buys and today they had a shipment come in... she hustled down there and grabbed one of the last boxes.

I was surprised at how heavy the box is, that PS3 console is actually pretty dman heavy. I unpacked everything, hooked it up to our 50" widescreen using my old PS2 component video cables and powered it up. Almost immediately it needed a firmware upgrade and wouldn't let me connect to the web until that was done. But that only took maybe 10 minutes and then I was surfing the web, emailing my friends and family, and generally having a grand time. Well as grand a time as one can have when you don't have any PS3 games to play! Ooops. Well I am working on that part, BestBuy.com actually has a special promotion right now where if you buy 2 PS3 games, you get a $20 gift card back and free shipping which is pretty cool. I hope they ship the games quickly, I ordered Resistance: Fall of Man and Need For Speed: Carbon.

In the meantime, I have the included Blu-Ray disc of Talledega Nights to enjoy, and I signed up on the Playstation Network so I can download free demos from the Playstation Store. I'm downloading the demo for Formula 1 Champtionship as I write this, hopefully it is worth the wait! It's a shame I can't call in sick tomorrow, cuz my coworkers are all taking the day off and I'm the only one left on duty!

foodquest

Well as they say, 'tis the season to be jolly, and nobody ever got jolly by going on a diet. I had a week off from work and no travel plans, so JT and I decided to spend it touring the bay area and visiting some of the best food places we know to eat the things we crave. It was a whirlwind tour of good eating and good times, for sure! If you are looking for some good indulgent food, try one of these places:

• Home of Chicken & Waffles in Oakland
• Arinell's Pizza in Berkeley
• University Chicken in Santa Clara
• Marvin Gardens in Belmont
• Barbara's Fishtrap in Half Moon Bay
• El Farolito Tacqueria in San Francisco
• Heidi's Pies in San Mateo
• Cafe Durant in Berkeley

There's nothing like the taste of fried chicken and waffles for breakfast -- they just taste right together at the Home of Chicken & Waffles. I couldn't believe the amount of butter they serve with the waffles and grits though. That's Southern style cookin' for ya!


The thin-crust pizza from Arinell's is one of the best NY-style pizza in the Bay -- Vito's is the other top contender.





JT takes on the Global Thermo Nuclear chicken wings from Chicken University. At the lower levels of hotness the wings are fantastic, but at Global level they are just downright painful. Your mouth and lips go numb for at least 20 minutes, and you'll be paying the price for hours if you know what I mean...

The fried calamari at Barbara's Fishtrap. They're pretty good, although I have to say I like the garlicky calamari at the Flying Fish Grill even more.




The banana creme pie and the blueberry sour cream pie from Heidi's Pies are very tasty but they don't come cheap -- they're like $10 each.






The strawberry and banana crepes at Cafe Durant. Good food, generous portions, and low prices make this a favorite college student hang-out near the Berkeley campus.




We did end our fantastic culinary tour with some disappointment though ... we made the journey up to Woodland so JT could try the triple-prime burger at Ruby Tuesday's but when we got there the restaurant was closed that day for repairs. Unbelievable! In search of a memorable burger experience we went to Red Robin instead but the meal was only decent. I did score an extra free milkshake when they brought out the wrong order ... we left completely stuffed for sure. At the end of the week I am up 8 lbs. so it is time to reacquaint myself with the treadmill...