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Well, last weekend after all of the iPhone stuff died down I began working on a Windows Vista Media Center PC for my living room.  I had all of the parts laying around already other than a media center case which was delivered on iPhone launch day.  After getting the machine put together I began doing some testing.  I hooked the machine up in the living room and began playing around.  I placed a BD / HD-DVD drive in the player and loaded the software that came with it to play these discs with moderate success.  The cyberlink software that came with the player would play both types of discs but with limitations and the full version of the cyberlink software wouldn’t do HD-DVD’s.  The HD-DVD’s would play fine but I couldn’t get 5.1 Dolby Digital out of the software due to its limits.  The software I used for the Blu-ray discs would output in 5.1 however.  The other issue was that neither one of the software packages had support for Media Center.  You couldn’t start or stop the software or the discs while in the Media Center software package with or without the remote.  Finally, after doing some research I finally found a piece of software that would do it all DD 5.1, BD, HD-DVD, and Media Center integration all in one.  The software package is Arcsoft’s TotalMedia Extreme.  After doing all the updates to the software and playing around with it I have decided that it is probably one of the better pieces of software out there for use with a Media Center PC.   Two thumbs up for anyone else who is considering building a MCPC I would definelty consider it.

Well this weekend sure as flew by.  I guess that’s what happens when you stay semi-busy the whole time.  My Saturday consisted of mowing the lawn, going grocery shopping (and the car acting nuts), watching a movie, playing WoW, doing housework and laundry. The car decided to go wonky and cut off while I was turning into a parking spot at the grocery store.  Then a message saying “Service Brake System” kicks on for about 2 secs and the car will not turn over like the theft deterrent system kicked in.  After pulling the keys out and putting them back in I was able o get the theft deterrent to reset and all seemed well after that.

Sunday was about the same watched a couple of movies, played WoW and continued the housework and laundry.

Movies Watched:

Alien vs Predator – it was OK

The Invisible – Very good movie

Dan in Real Life – Good movie

Well, we had some fun up my way earlier this morning about 3:00am. A tornado decided to role through the area after all the NWS tornado warnings had expired giving everyone a litte supprise. I was still awake at the time and heard the wind blowing hard outside but didn’t realize that there was a tornado only about 1/2 a mile to 2 miles away blowing trees down and ripping roofs off of buildings.
Here are some of the news sites pics and stories about it if anyone is interested.

• WSOC Channel 9
• WCNC
• Gaston Gazette
• Charlotte Observer

Boy this week has been dragging!!!  I woke up today thinking it was (or should be) Friday.  Of course to my utter dismay it is only Thursday.  Hopefully the rest of the day will be quiet just like the rest of the week has been but, it could be moving a little faster .  I installed a new printer at my house last night.  My poor Dell 3010n has been giving me streaks when printing (only the color items).  I figure it is either the drum kit or something goofy with the laser assembly.  If its that drum kit then that will cost $200 bucks or right at to replace.  If it is something with the laser assembly than I believe the printer is still under warranty.  The only problem there is coordinating with a Dell tech to come out and take a look at it (alwasy fun when you work and also live alone).  After pricing the drum kit replacement I opted for  buying a new printer which Ifigured was only $70 dollars more than the drum kit.  I decided to go with an HP Color Laserjet 2605dn this time.  This way I know what I get will fix the problem !!  I may still call the Dell tech to check the printer and go from there once the diagnoses is made and confirmed.  Oh well back to the grind for now.

I have to say that this weekend has been a total blur!  I worked around the house almost the entire weekend and still feel like I didn’t get a darn thing done.  I did get time to setup my Apple Time Capsule finally.  It only sat for a couple of days.  Installation on it was rather simple once I realized I had to put the thing into bridged mode in order for it to work correctly on my existing home network.  It was a lot different interface wise to figure out than a Linksys or Netgear device.  After getting that all set I began setting up Time Machine on both my Macbook Pro and my Imac.  Took a little while to back both of them up but they did finally finish.  Lets see what else, I ended up changing all the batteries in my smoke alarms this weekend not to mention the home alarm system.  I hope everyone does this at least once a year to help protect yourself and your family in case of fire.  I also changed all the air filters in the house.  This is something that I have to admit I forget to do.  I think it had been like 4 months since I had changed them last.  Anyway,  with all of this mess going on I did have time to relax on Sunday and played a little World of Warcraft with some friends I haven’t talked to in about a month.  How was your weekend (other than to short)?

Only 4 days left until the vegas vacation begins.  I am ready for a little break from more normal reality where the day to day isn’t the same .  I am just hoping that there is no weather issues on Sunday/Monday for the flight out.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

I just don’t understand the need for car inspections! I think it is all a racket by states to earn more revenue and make dealerships & repair centers spend money on expensive diagnostic equipment.  I concede that older cars should be inspected to check for emissions problems etc but new cars maybe 8 years old or newer shouldn’t really need this type of inspection.  I guess waiting for my own car to be inspected has irritated to the  process. What do you think?

There is exactly 1 week to go and it’s wheels up to Las Vegas.  I am so ready for this trip which has been in the planning since June of last year.  I think it has been close to 2 years since my last trip out there so it’s time for another trip!!!  Well back to the grind for now.

It is hard to believe but there are a lot of one year anniversaries coming up for me in the next few days.  For starters tomorrow, February 2, marks the 1 year anniversary of the day that I purchased my house here in the Charlotte area.  That is really hard for me to comprehend because it seems like it was just a couple of weeks ago.  February 3 marks the day that I actually moved with much help (thanks to all of you that pitched in to help me) and changed my address from Hope Mills, NC to the Charlotte, NC area.  Then if that wasn’t enough chaos for one month, February 5, marks my one year anniversary working for my contract company.  Looking back I still find it hard to believe that everything changed so much in the course of about 5 days total.  Its amazing what all can be accompolished with the help of friends and loved ones in such a short amount of time.