Mancave Update

Today I finally finished painting the interior trim that I am planning to put up in the Cave.  It’s been too cold lately to paint, at least colder than I wanted to deal with, so I wanted to wait until a day when the weather was warm enough for the paint to dry in a timely manner.  It seems like all the warmer days we’ve had lately have shown up when I am either out of town or have other plans and can’t get to the painting.

I’m still continuing with my P90X workout.  I have 2 weeks until I plan to start the Insanity routine.

Most of the afternoon I spent reading my current book in the Cave.  I’m really enjoying my current book, which is Star Wars: Darth Plagueis – It is an incredibly good read that ties in the Darth Bane Trilogy to the Episode 1 movie.  When I am done, I’ll be writing a review over at my other blog, readingrookie.com

President’s Day

I’ve really slacked off on blogging daily. I looked at the blog today and realized it had been 5 days since my last post.  Right now I am sitting in bed and reading Darth Plagueis from the Kindle app on my BlackBerry PlayBook.  I’ll post more tomorrow and catch up with events going on this week. I’m almost done with this book and I want to get back to reading.

New Demon Hunter Album

New Demon Hunter album scheduled to drop on April 10.  True Defiance.

Close of the Weekend

Yesterday we participated in the Sweetheart Wine Trail, in Grapevine.  We walked around to 7 different wineries in downtown Grapevine and got to sample a variety of wines from each venue.  All venues also includes a small snack of food.  Overall I think it was a really good experience, I just wish the weather had been warmer.

On Sunday evening we kicked off our Spring semester of Lifegroup for our church.  We meet on Sunday nights with couples from the church who don’t have children.  For the first time, we are also including some singles from the church in our group this semester.  We are looking forward to seeing how the group grows and what new-comers have to bring to the group for new perspectives.

This week I’ll resume my workout schedule, and I have some follow-up to do with the eviction proceedings that we are dealing with.

Harry Potter for Kindle

I found this funny today…

For a while now, I’ve been thinking that I want to read the Harry Potter books.  I haven’t seen any of the movies and honestly I haven’t had much interest in the series at all.  However, with my renewed interest in reading, I decided that I want to pickup some of the popular series of books and give them a read for myself, to see what all the hype is about.  The series I’m interested in include Harry Potter, Twilight, Game of Thrones, and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I’m also on the look-out for others.

With these titles I don’t really care to take up space on my book shelf,  so I planned to buy them for Kindle on Amazon.  Low and behold: Harry Potter isn’t available.  In the pic above you can see 4,041 copies of the original book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, starting at $0.01.  I find this comical, not only because it is just a penny for over 4000 copies, but also because the author or the publisher apparently refuse to sell the book in Kindle format.

From a seller’s perspective, what is the advantage of a Kindle formatted book?  Here is one:  no resell ability.  You can’t take a Kindle book to Half Price Books and sell it for pennies on the dollar, and you won’t find any half-priced Kindle books at HPB either.  So why would a seller (publisher or author) refuse to allow Kindle Book publications?  If I wanted to buy this book online, I wouldn’t purchase a new one when I could get a used one for a penny.  I’ll likely end up buying it at HPB anyway because I don’t want to pay for shipping, and it is likely I can find it for less money at HPB than some of these sellers are charging to ship.

BlackBerry Playbook

There is much debate about the BlackBerry Playbook in the internet media right now.  Most people think it is “ok” but many blogs are still referring to it as a “failed attempt” for RIM entering the tablet business.  Whatever your opinion may be about the Playbook, I have been using one for 8-10 months and I think it is one of the best tablets on the market.  If another company besides RIM would have released it, I believe that it would have been more widely accepted.  But the “hip” thing to do these days is hate-on all products released by RIM, so uneducated consumers who only read BGR might never actually pickup one of these tablets and do an unbiased comparison for themselves.

To say that the Playbook is the best tablet on the market right now would be a bold statement.  I haven’t tested every tablet out there, so I can’t make that claim.  However, the hardware used in the Playbook is well-above standard and the QNX operating system is smooth, fluid and reliable.  The main drawback about the Playbook is the lack of apps.  It is a newer-than-most tablet with an OS that needs apps specifically written for itself, just like any other proprietary OS.  And BlackBerry Appworld traditionally has had fewer apps than its competitors, so it should be no huge surprise that the Playbook apps can’t compare to those of Android or Apple tablets.  But to me, this isn’t a determent.

I’ve used the LG G-Slate Android Tablet and I found it rather slow.  I don’t use Apple products for various reasons;  I own an iPod, but that is as far as I am willing to go, and even with that I refuse to use iTunes.  Ubuntu Linux has an app called Rhythmbox that interfaces with the iPod perfectly, and with Amazon selling DRM-Free MP3s, usually at a lower rate than iTunes, I really don’t see a reason to even own an iPod anymore.  My wife bought my current iPod for me as a birthday gift, and I use it semi-regularly, but if I ever go to replace it, I doubt I will choose an Apple product.

Enough rambling about Apple.  Those of you who know me, know I don’t like them.

I’m going to start posting some information and test-results that I find while using the Playbook.  My purpose isn’t to talk my readers into buying one, you should choose whatever tablet works for your own needs.  But since I have so much experience with the Playbook, I’ve decided that I want to share it with my blog readers.

If you have any thoughts on the Playbook, I’d like to hear them.  I’d prefer to hear from people who have actually used the product and have educated comments about it, whether good or bad.  But anyone is welcome to comment.

Hotel Wailea in Maui

Hotel Wailea, Maui, Hawaii

Get Glue

Recently I’ve been using this app from my Smartphone called Get Glue.  Get Glue lets you “check in” when you are watching a TV Show, or Movie; or reading a book, drinking wine, thinking about a specific subject (which includes most anything).  You can ‘friend’ other users of the app, and follow them, similar to Facebook or Foursquare.  When you check in to certain movies or shows, others see your check in and can follow you.  Also, when you check in to a specific show, movie or book a certain number of times, you can qualify for stickers, which Get Glue will mail to you for free once you obtain a certain number of them.

Also, Get Glue links to your Twitter or Facebook account and will update your status on each service whenever you check in to Get Glue itself.  I’m adding a widget to this blog that will track my check ins.  If anyone has an account on Get Glue, or wants to create one, add me as a friend.  My username on there is kc5hwb.

Avengers Trailer from the Super Bowl

Loki: I have an Army
Tony Stark: We have a HULK!
/win

Eviction Court Today

We went to eviction court today for one of our tenants who is 4 months behnd on rent. She didnt show up at court so we won by default, but we would have won anyway, with TX being a landlord state. Court was at 10am this morning, after leaving work only 4 hours earlier. After it was over, I came home and went to sleep until about 5pm.

Tonight I am working some overtime hours from 11pm-5am.  They offered a lot of OT hours at work this week, so I decided to take advantage of some for the extra cash.  I’ll post more tomorrow…

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