Netflix on Tivo

The marriage of convenience and technology in my household is now complete.  I got a nice surprise the last time my Tivo downloaded a system update.  Netflix!  It has only taken 3 years to finally come to fruition but it is finally here!  While the selection is currently a bit limited for downloads, [1]you can still have movies unavailable for download mailed to you but that is so 90’s. the quality is on par with standard def. TV broadcasts.  Surprisingly, when they say “watch instantly“, they mean it.  I’ve watched about 10 movies so far and every single one started within minutes and played thru to completion w/o pausing or hanging on the download.  Fast forwarding is a bit slow to start and stop but not unexpected for on-demand content. 

Of course, I’ve been able to stream Amazon movies thru the Tivo for about a year now.  The Amazon service is quite different though. For one, Amazon charges by the movie vs a flat monthly fee for unlimited downloads.  Amazon’s downloads also take quite a bit longer as the content is uncompressed and not optimized for streaming.  Usually, for a 2 hour movie, I have to wait 30-45 mins before I can begin watching if I wanna watch all the way thru w/o the movie pausing.  To be fair, Amazon does have a much larger selection of movies for download.  However, if they hope to compete, they’d better get their act in gear because I can easily see Netflix kicking their ass soon. 

I have yet to try HD content as I’m still streaming over a 54g wifi router.  You need a hard line connection or the newer N speed wifi routers to really stream HD content seamlessly.  I’m sure as the availability of movies increases, I’ll spring for faster wifi.

Once the selection improves, it will also give cable companies a run for their money.  Seriously, imagine having almost any movie or TV show ever made available to watch instantly for a low monthly fee.  No more exorbitant cable bundling fees to worry about.  No more getting stuck with 100’s of channels you don’t watch just to get a few you do watch.  If I were the cable companies, I’d be shitting in my pants about now.  Of course, they’d still make money on primetime channels, first-run content, and broadband so their money stream isn’t totally screwed just yet.  That said, I’ll quickly dump all of my movie packages once Netflix boosts their downloadable content. 

Yes, I know, I’m a geek.  But you knew that already.

References

References
↑1 you can still have movies unavailable for download mailed to you but that is so 90’s.

Blog?

I’ve gotten several emails, comments, inquiries as of late regarding my lack of blogging.  Besides being extremely busy at work, the simplest answer is I just haven’t felt like it.  It seems to be a trend as I’ve noticed many of my regular reads have slacked off lately as well. 

For my part, I’ve always catered to the idea that blogging shouldn’t be forced.  Forcing it often leads to resentment which defeats the whole purpose, IMHO.  Never fear, I haven’t given up and this blog is NOT closing, not even close.  I still have tons to say and lord knows I have an opinion about everything.

On the flip side, I’ve met several new people thru my blog as of late.  Not 1, not 2 but 3 guys have come forward as regular readers who rarely comment but wanted to meet.  The first guy has apparently been reading for years and only just recently decided to see if I was up for meeting. [1]He lives locally  We had dinner and got to know each other a bit.  He got to see my tattoo the very same day I got it.  Anyway, dinner was nice and I enjoyed it.  The 2nd guy was totally looking to get laid. [2]I obliged him several times. *EG*  The 3rd was a bit odd.  I got the distinct impression he was testing to see if my blog was real.  His questions sounded more like accusations than interest.  He seemed to give up at one point after several “discrepancies” he pointed out were nothing more than perception.  I was secretly amused at his persistence and annoyance that he couldn’t trip me up.  He also discovered how blunt I can be when he asked questions I felt were inappropriate.  I doubt he’ll continue to read.

I’m always curious as to what inspires someone to come forward to meet after waiting so long.  I see myself as a very approachable and clearly I have no problem being open.  The irony here is I often get way more private emails than I do posted comments.  In talking with other blog buddies, I seem to the exception vs the rule in this arena.  I still haven’t figured it out but it doesn’t really matter.  I’m still flattered every time someone new “pops up”.  I don’t see my life as all that exciting to be honest.  But having grown up in the middle of nowhere TX, I can relate on the perceptual differences.  lolol 

References

References
↑1 He lives locally
↑2 I obliged him several times. *EG*

Gracias

Thanks for all the kudos on the tattoo. I appreciate it. I go back on the 2nd for the color and shading. I’m still extremely excited about my tattoo. Considering it is permanent, I guess that is a good sign. lol The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone is eager to see the final look. *hint – so am I.*

As for work, I got a little embarrassed yesterday. The #2 guy in the fire dept. chain of command came by to personally thank me and shake my hand. [1]To be clear, he was there for other reasons but took the time to seek me out. I don’t always take compliments well. And to have the #2 guy personally shake my hand was a bit unnerving and daunting. hehehe He was clearly sincere and gave me a great honor by telling me to call him by his first name instead of sir. If you are familiar with military and/or para-military organizations, that is almost unheard of. I didn’t expect it but I quickly recovered and promptly picked my jaw up off the floor.

References

References
↑1 To be clear, he was there for other reasons but took the time to seek me out.

Emergency? What Emergency?

Monday night was probably one of the most stressful of my career. I’m basing that on the knots in my stomach and the bottle of wine I consumed after work. [1]Yes, you read it right, Mr. Light-weight downed a bottle. In a nutshell, a circuit panel blew out in our building and a full two-thirds of our system(s) went down in the blink of an eye.

As part of our ongoing reconfiguration, I am currently detailed to the Fire/EMS side of operations. At the direction of the RC, [2]the highest ranking medical officer on duty I quickly ran down the hallway and setup one of the few functional terminals. Within minutes, I had a summation of everything going out and coming in. Let me clarify that statement. Instead of being in charge of one channel focused on a section of the city, I’m now in charge of 5 channels encompassing the entire city! No pressure right? No, not at all. lolol Anyway, with the help of my co-workers and others I managed to bang thru it. I don’t think I did anything exceptional as frankly, it is my job but whatever. The work itself wasn’t overly taxing but I just couldn’t shake the awful feeling some calls might have fallen thru the cracks. There was no way to stop and check and I was too busy at the time to worry beyond the present. There was easily a 10 minute window between when the system went down and getting it back up. Meanwhile, call-takers are still trying to input calls into the terminals that did not go down. I know I bitch and moan at times about the crazy public but, I take my responsibilities very serious. It bothered me thru the whole ordeal and all thru the night afterwards.

The system came back up just in time for me to get off on time. [3]Ironic huh? I left relieved but I tossed and turned all night worrying some calls might have slipped thru the cracks. I personally felt like we failed the public that night. There is a silver lining here though. After polling all the terminals yesterday, we discovered there was in fact no lost calls. Everything got handled. A huge relief, I don’t mine telling you.

Yesterday, we were on a patchwork system which apparently went down again mid-day (prior to my shift). My shift went off without any problems. Parts are being flown in to create a permanent fix from what I’ve been told. There is also a redundancy system being added to hopefully avoid such a catastrophe in the future. I shudder to think what would have occurred had this happened on a busy night like New Year’s Eve. And I could go the rest of my career and not have to do that again and be completely happy.

References

References
↑1 Yes, you read it right, Mr. Light-weight downed a bottle.
↑2 the highest ranking medical officer on duty
↑3 Ironic huh?

Ink

Ink - Oh yes!

As you can see, I finally started the half sleeve on my arm.  I’m very happy with it so far.  This is just the outline mind you.  I go back in early January to start the shading and color.  It is still evolving in my mind so it may take me a few months to finish it completely.  You can’t see from the pics but it extends up onto my shoulder blade.  That wasn’t what I had originally planned but to get the scale right it had to. 

I’ve been gung-ho to get it started but the the biggest delay has also been with me.  I knew I wanted a DNA helix but I couldn’t come up with a design that matched my vision, looked good, and complemented my form.  I’ve seen a lot of tattoos that looked good but didn’t look good on the person.  Anyway, it was Luke’s idea [1]the tattoo artist for the multiple strands.  As soon as he mentioned it, I was sold on the idea!  We talked and he created several sketches for me to choose from (I was really impressed with how much prep work he did).  He also clearly got the look and the design were equally important to me.  He never once tried to sell me on “his version” or change my mind.  He listened to what I wanted and filled in the gaps.  I really appreciated that. 

Ink 2

Having finished the brainstorming, we got started on a stencil to show me how the final product would look.  The end pieces are strategically placed in case I decide to add on more later. [2]I doubt I will but still nice of him to think of that.  By the time he got the stencil on me, I almost wet my pants I was so happy.

To be honest, I didn’t think we’d actually get to the outline.  We spent an hour just modifying and updating the design.  But, as luck would have it, his appointment right after me called to cancel.  The outline took about 2 hours.  I have no problem admitting by the end of the 2 hours, I was more than ready for him to stop.  The outer arm part wasn’t bad but the inner bicep hurt like a bitch!  By the end, my pain tolerance had completely waned.  I’m grateful he did the inner arm part first. 

There was a moment about half way through where he totally flattered me w/o even knowing it.  We were just exchanging small talk and he mentioned he’d never done anything like my design before and thought it would look very original.  I’ve always wanted artwork that didn’t come off like I’d just picked it out of a book.  He also wants pics of the final product for his art book. 

Anyway, I’m extremely happy so far.  The outline by itself looks awesome!  It flows well with the muscle and covers most of my upper arm.  Having had a chance to get used to it, I do have a couple tweaks though.  I think the middle and lower strands need to be extended a bit to finish off the balance on my arm.  Then comes the color and shading.  The outer strips on each strand will get shaded to give’em a 3D look.  The inner chemical bonds will be opposing colors that fade together in the center of each one. [3]I’m still deciding on how the colors will look.  I’m also concerned about the open spaces between the strands.  Nothing definite there yet.  I wanna see the finished look before adding anything new.  Oh, and one more thing, my inner shoulder seems a little bare.  *giggle*  Again, we’ll see how the final image looks before adding more. 

I’m still excited, can ya tell?

References

References
↑1 the tattoo artist
↑2 I doubt I will but still nice of him to think of that.
↑3 I’m still deciding on how the colors will look.

Twitter me this

I got the opportunity to make a new friend this weekend.  Slickdome aka JJ from twitter was in town for a conference.  He currently lives in frosty Chicago.  I didn’t realize at the time this was his first trip to San Francisco.  Anyway, I was more than impressed and came away wishing we lived closer as I really enjoyed hanging out with him and definitely feel like I made a new friend.

We met up Friday night at Firewood for dinner and some good conversation.  He had a lot to say as I grilled him on every aspect of his life.  What?  I couldn’t help it.  Having only interacted with him in a limited capacity on twitter, I didn’t know much about him and let’s fact it, I’m nosey. *giggle*  Seriously though, I didn’t have any real expectations about our meeting but I had a blast.  I will say his twitter pics do not do him justice.  He was much more handsome in person.  He was also very nice and came across in a very unaffected genuine manner. 

After the inquisition, I decided to take him by Daddies, aka 440 Castro.  We hung out talking and oggling menz.  I think he really liked it.  Not being fed up with me by closing time, we hopped over to Orphan Andy’s for a late night fatty snack.

Saturday, Adam joined us for a late dinner and a movie.  They talked shop a lot as they work in somewhat related fields while I gorged myself on food.  Afterwards, we watched the new James Bond flick, which I loved.  I thought it was just as good as the first. 

He leaves tomorrow but my weekend is over so he was left to wander the City on his own today.  He finally made it over to the Golden Gate bridge and I’m gathering from his tweets he enjoyed it.

Other than hanging out with JJ, there wasn’t much to my weekend.  I hung out with the roomie a bit and got a few chores done.  That pretty much sums it up. 

Oh and one of my regular readers sent me a box of homemade cookies for Christmas.  That was very sweet (literally).  The roomie and I have all but polished off the lot of’em. lol 

Post Holiday “Something”

The great gobble gobble has come and gone.  I worked and it was pretty uneventful.  In my line of work holidays can be a mixed bag.  More people leads to more problems.  Also the depression that some experience over the holiday seasons can sometimes lead to unfortunate results.  We had a nice big feed and I ate more Turkey than I probably should.  heehee  I had some sweets but not too much.

The weekend is a bit of a blur.  Since the roomie is out of town and I had no prior obligations, I used the opportunity to be a bad boy. [1]Are you logged in? You should be!  I also ran into my old friend Tim W.  I hadn’t seem him in ages and we hung out and had dinner all the while catching up on the latest geekiness and gossip. 

Friday is a blur of sleep, xbox, and a few random errands. 

Saturday, I went to see Transporter 3. OY! Some very tasty flesh scenes with Jason Statham.  The movie is very typical of the series.  If you liked either of the first two, you’ll love this one.  There were only a couple of really “over-the-top” scenes but the martial arts fights are top notch, as usual. 

*

In other news, I am once again signing up for my schedule for the next 6 months.  The bad news, I’m not going to get a full weekend slot on my current 5-8 shift. Even worse, I’ll end up being bumped off my current shift all together.  The upside (depending on how you look at it) is I’ll still end up with a weekend slot, just on a 4-10 shift.  I’ll either get Friday/Saturday/Sunday or Saturday/Sunday/Monday off.  There are certainly worse options however, if you’ve been reading for awhile, you know I’m not the least bit thrilled about going back to a 4-10 shift.  In a nutshell, it plays havoc with my gym schedule.  All things considered, I’m not really complaining as it could be a lot worse.

References

References
↑1 Are you logged in? You should be!

Delayed

Well, I showed up all excited to start my tattoo this morning. “Sorry, he is out sick today”. Shit! Now I have to wait 2 more weeks. Damn it, my whole holiday season is ruined. Ba-humbug!

Ok, just kiddin’. lol He was out but it’s all good. I waited this long, two more weeks won’t kill me. Sorry, you’ll just have to wait for the pics.

Ok, I Admit It…

…I haven’t been reading my blogroll.  I’m sorry, really I am.  I finally just cleared “clear all” in my RSS reader.  I know, I know, shame on me for letting my life get in the way of blogging.  In my defense, I have been rather busy.  I mean with the new bike, new xbox games, gym, sex, and work, who has time to blog? 

Anyway, the roomie is out of town for the holiday(s) till the first of the month.  I’d never admit it to him but I miss him already.  He is a good roomie and for all his drama, a good friend.  He is stopping off in Louisiana to see his ex-bf so I’m sure he’ll have all new tales of drama upon his return.

Speaking of the holidays, I gave most of my holiday fund to the NoOn8 and NoOnH8 campaigns.  However, I finally got the refund check for my old bike.  And in even better news, it was $500 more than I expected!  One might say it was karma…I’m just sayin’. [1]Does anyone else hate that phrase?  I know I should put it toward my credit cards but why pay now when I can pay later?  lol  Ok, I am putting some of it toward the cards.

Having already given away a lot, I’m not spending much on the holidays this year.  The last couple of years I’ve spent quite a bit.  I’ve already purchased most of the gifts for friends/family.  Other than Christmas cards, I’m about 70% done.  Oh, and if you want a card from me and I don’t have your addy, email me your info. 

My present to myself this year is a new tattoo(s).  I’m starting a half sleeve on my upper right arm.  I’ll also eventually be getting one on my inner left forearm.  Anyhoo, I’m finally going this weekend to start’em.  I’m so excited I’m giddy! lol  With the bike refund finally coming in, I’m all caught up from the accident.  I am still undecided between 2 different designs.  I’m gonna basically throw both of’em out there and see which one the artist improves on.  Both have a missing component I need help with.  If anyone has any tips or ideas on the actual process, feel free to chime in. 

References

References
↑1 Does anyone else hate that phrase?

Weekend “Stuff”

This past weekend was rather fun.  I went for a 150 mile ride two days in a row.  The first day I went solo and the 2nd day I rode with a friend from the sports bike group.  The 2nd day was the most fun as we drove down to Big Basin park.  The views were awesome and the windy roads even better!  There was a moment when we were taking a break where this very friendly guy came over to chat with us.  I first pegged him as gay…well until his wife sauntered over.  He was very friendly.  One might say too friendly for your average straight guy.  My friend and I both thought there might have been a ‘story’ there. lol  Anyway, the rides were awesome.  I’m loving the new bike more and more every day. I am kicking myself for waiting so long to upgrade.  As for the shoulder, it is healed up nicely.  I still have some numbness around the wound from nerve damage but it is better every week. 

Friday night I also had dinner with Adam & Brad.  I hadn’t seen them in ages and it was nice to catch up.  They seem very acclimated to life in the big city now. heehee  Brad is looking rather hot as he has been hitting the gym pretty hard.

*

I finished Gears of War on the first 2 difficulty settings. The hardcore mode is proving rather difficult.  I can only imagine what “insane” mode is going to be like. lol  The online mode for this one is way ahead of the previous version.  I have to admit the game has consumed a lot of my free time as of late. 

*

TFA was in town this past week as well.  We had an awesome time, as usual.  He gave me the nicest compliment w/o even realizing it.  While I was undressing (get your mind out of my gutter), he casually mentioned, “someone’s been working out“.  It was so unrehearsed and off-the-cuff I knew he meant it vs just trying to flatter me. hehehe  So…he got it extra hard just for that, twice!