The title says it all. If I were a New Years resolution type of person it would be to do regular updates to the blog.

So, welcome to 2010. And just so you know – I’m saying two thousand ten NOT twenty ten. The latter feel’s awkward to me. I’ve been saying two thousand [whatever] for several years at work and I ain’t changing now! So there.

Loving the Kindle. I have transferred several ebooks from my computer onto it. I also have a peice of software that takes non-Kindle documents and converts them to something the Kindle can read. I did buy a couple of items from the Kindle ebook store. One of them was just $0.99 – the works of HP Lovecraft. I have never read any Lovecraft but have always wanted to. I got over 60 of his works for that low price.

About the Arkham Horror boardgame. I left it with the kids. They really wanted to learn to play. They have it all figured out now and will be bringing it to me then next time they visit. I am anxious to learn how it plays.

Only got about a fourth of the way into my It Might Get Loud dvd. Just haven’t had the time to watch it all. Soon though.

I guess that’s about all for now.

I had a really good Christmas this year. I got some nice presents. On that I have not received yet is a Kindle eReader. It is due to arrive early this next week. I’m quite excited about it.

Andy, Laurie and Asher got me a really cool boardgame – Arkham Horror. It’s a cooperative game in which the players work together to try to beat the game system. It’s rather complicated to first play, but has good rules and documentation.

LaRue got me a book I have been wanted to read. It’s Heat Wave by Richard Castle. This is a novel based onthe tv series Castle. If you’re not familiar with it, the basis of the tv show is a mystery write, Richard Castle, is called in to consult with New York police detective Kate Beckett. All through the first season of the show he is writing a novel based on the experiences he has with detective Beckett. This book is the result of that first season of research. If you haven’t watched Castle I would highly recommend it. It’s a really fun series.

Finally, I picked up the dpocumentary It Might Get Loud. I have written about this before on JohnStuff (here). It is a documentary featuring guitarists Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), the Edge (U2) and Jack White (White Stripes). They are 3 generations of guitarists who come together for the first time to talk and play.

I also went to see Avatar in 3D. I will have to do an entry on that at a later time.

Scratch all the eReader stuff. I’m still undecided. Now leaning towards the Sony Touch.

Someday I’ll make up my mind.

I have looked again at the Kindle eReader. It seems that they have upgraded the software so that it now reads PDF files natively instead of having to run them through a conversion process. That makes it much more appealing.

And Amazon has over 340,000 books available. So it seems like the combination of Amazon and Kindle is the best overall situation.

As a side note there is a book I have been trying to buy for several weeks but isn’t available due to being sold out. But if you want the ebook version it’s available right now. Another reason to get something like the Kindle.

If you’ve noticed on the right column I’ve changed the book I’m currently reading from Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol to The Bat Strikes.

First a few wordsd about The Lost Symbol. As with the previous books featuring protaganist Robert Langdon, this is a story of hidden symbols and meanings in plain sight. This one being a great mystery centering around the Freemasons. However, this one seemed to be a more confusing mish-mash of metaphysics, religion and Dan Brown’s personal belief system. It was not as good as Angels and Demons or The Da Vinci Code. Of the three I enjoyed Angels and Demons the most.
There were times in The Lost Symbol when I felt the story just plodded along. It didn’t really get any sense of tension until about 300 pages in.
In the end I thought it was okay, but could have been better.

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Now onto the book I’m currently reading:

It a set of four pulp novelettes from 1934 & 1935. Here’s a short description from Amazon.com:

The inspiration for Batman! For the first time in one collection, all four appearances of the pulp hero The Bat, as written by pulp legend Johnston McCulley (Zorro). These stories from 1934-35 detail the adventures of Dawson Clade, a man who was inspired to fight crime by a bat’s sudden appearance. Includes an all-new introduction by pulp historian Will Murray.

I have just barely started it, but it is good so far. I was interested in this one because it was one of the characters that inspired Bob Kane in his creation of Batman. I am anxious to see how The Bat stories play out.

I have been doing a little more research and have decided that the BeBook is the one I would prefer to buy. It handles more formats than the others including pdf, mobi, lit, epub, doc, html, txt, prc, fb2, jpg. It has 512MB internal memory and an SD slot.

I’ve been doing a little reasearch lately on e-Book readers. I do have my little Palm Z22 and I have read several books on it. I love the convenience of reading this way, but the screen is a little small.

I’ve been looking at 3 different devices.

First, the Kindle from Amazon.com:

It seems like a really good reader, but I a little put off by the books having DRM (digital rights management). There was a case a few months ago where Amazon sold a book to Kindle users that they later found they did have the digital rights to. So, when the Kindle owners synced their readers to their computers, Amazon deleted the book from their devices. I understand the reason to do that – Amazon had no right to sell the novel in the first place. But I really don’t like the idea of a company being able to stick their electronic fingers into my reader. There was no warning to the Kindle owners. I also understand that some formats of text do not play well with the Kindle. I want to be able to read multiple formats or at least convert them to something a reader can display properly.

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Another eReader is from Sony:

It handles more formats than the Kindle and has slots for expansion cards. I haven’t heard anything negative about the Sony devices, but like the Kindle the ones I have seen are in the $350 range.

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Finally, I was looking at the BeBook:

It seems to handle almost any text format and is less expensive than the Kindle or Sony and has a lot of nice features.

Bottom line is one of these would be nice, but a bit out of my price range right now.

Remastered seems to be the buzz word these days when it come to old tv programs and music.
I wrote earlier about The Beatles box set of remastered cd’s. The other day I was at Walmart and wondered if they had the set. Not at our WalMart. But they did have the individual cd’s. So, out of curiosity I picked up the remastered Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

It’s a really nice tri-fold cd that contains a booklet with pictures, articles and the song lyrics.
I thought I would do a quick comparison of the “new improved” sound quality. I put on my older cd of the album and listened to just the first track. Then I popped in the remastered cd. Holy mackeral! What a difference. The sound was so much clearer, crisper and bright. Now I am anxious to listen to the rest of the cd. This has convinced me to either buy the box set or gradually acquire each cd individually.

Also on the topic of WalMart and remastered media. I saw the remastered sets of Star Trek the Original Series. The price was fairly decent, but I thought I ought to check Amazon to see which is cheaper. I often buy dvd’s and books from Amazon since the price is normally quite a bit less than the WalMart price. However, in this case Amazon wanted $80.99 for season 1. WalMart was about half that price. So, I bought the dvd set from WalMart.

As far as the remastering of Star Trek, I have also included an example of how they improved the older graphics. The original is on the left and the remaster is on the right side.

I have only watched the first episode and am quite pleased with this set. Eventually I will pick up the other two seasons of the original series.

I got my new Zune HD 32 Gig model in the mail today! I set it up on my computer and got it all synced for my music and podcasts.

I love the touch screen interface. It’s really nice. The radio has HD radio capabilities. Unfortunately there are no HD radio stations in my area. But there is one station that displays song and artist information while the song is playing. And, if you like the song, there is an option to go to the Zune marketplace (wirelessly) and purchase the music. That’s not something I’m going to do. I would rather rip my cd’s to the device.

The internet function works quite well. I have used it to check my GMail account and log into Twitter. I will probably add more sites to the bookmark function.

Finally, the OLED screen is simply wonderful. It’s easily readable in all lighting conditions and angles.

Well, I’m going to cut this short and go back to playing with my new Zune HD.

Well, I broke down and did it. I pre-ordered a new Zune. I have had my 80 Gig model for almost 2 years and I have loved it. I originally got the Zune because of the way the Zune Marketplace and the device itself handled podcasts (which is what I listen to almost exclusively). Plus the Zune earbuds fit well and have excellent sound. I also liked the fact that it could sync wirelessly.

When I first heard about the upcoming Zune HD I got really excited. It’s a touch screen device that reviewers have said has a better user interface than the iPod touch. The Zune HD can also output HD video to an HD tv (with optional connection device). Best of all the new HD has an internet browser!

Well, the device becomes available September 15th. I debated between waiting and just picking one up at WalMart and pre-ordering through Amazon. The price would be the same for the unit, but it came down to tax vs. shipping. The tax to buy locally is $21. Amazon ships for under $6. No contest. And I should still have it by the 15th.

I will do a follow-up posting when I have had a chance to play with it a while. And, I will probably give the Zune 80 to Mrs. JohnStuff.

Here’s some shots of the Zune HD:

Coming September 9th is a box set of newly remastered Beatles cd’s. These are the 13 studio albums. The original studio tapes were recently re-digitized in a much higher quality than ever before. From the reviews I have read, the sound is vastly improved over the current cd’s on the market now.

Here’s part of what was said on the Rolling Stone magazine website:

On September 9, 2009, after a nearly 22-year wait, digitally remastered versions of all of the Beatles studio albums will be released, a press release has confirmed. Each album will feature the track listings and artwork as it was originally released in the U.K. and come with expanded booklets including original and newly written liner notes and rare photos. For a limited time, each of the Fab Four’s 12 proper albums will be “embedded” with a brief documentary about its making. The rereleases will include the Beatles’ 12 studio albums and Magical Mystery Tour as well as Past Masters Vol. I and II, which will be packaged as one collection. All 14 discs will be available with DVDs of the documentaries in a stereo box set, and a set titled The Beatles in Mono featuring 10 discs will also be released.

You can read the entire article here: Beatles Remastered

I own all the Beatles vinyl LPs and the current crop of cd’s. But I would sure love to hear these new remastered discs. I am reminded of how good the sound was at the Beatles Love performance by Cirque du Soleil with re-mixed Beatles tracks.

But from what I have been able to find out, the set is going to run in the $250 neighborhood. That puts each cd in the $20 vicinity. Maybe someplace like Amazon will offer this at a discount.

I am surprised at how well this little Grundig G6 works. This evening I sat down and just scanned through the shortwave bands for a few minutes. Using just the small telescopic whip antenna on the radio I was able to pick up Radio Taiwan, Radio Sweden and the Voice of Russia. I also came across one of the “numbers” broadcasts on a military global frequency on single sideband. The radio picked up just as well as the older desktop unit I had used in the past.
I am considering some sort of better external antenna. Tomorrow I might just take a length of wire and outside with it to see if that makes a difference. Perhaps I should research and build some sort of portable antenna I can hook up anywhere I go.

I was in a mall the other day and happened to walk into an electronics store. Okay, I meant to go there.
I was intending to look at some portable radios when this one caught my eye:

Really nice, small portable radio. It’s the Grundig G6. Here are some specs:
* AM (520-1710 KHz), FM (87.5-108 MHz), Aircraft Band (117-137 MHz), LW (150 KHz – 510 KHz) and Shortwave (1711-30000 KHz)
* Set 9/10 KHz AM tuning; set FM tuning range
* Single Side Band (SSB)
* Dual conversion (1st IF – 55.845KHz, 2nd IF – 450KHz)
* Digital tuning with digital frequency readout (LCD)

Here it is out of the box:

Haven’t had time to really play with it much. I just put the batteries in and fiddled a little. I will be programming it in the next couple of days. It has 700 memories!
I am thinking again of how I can put up another outside antenna for this one. The antenna I had several years ago is long gone. Perhaps a good inside antenna….
I’ll post more later after I have had a chance to play with it some more.

Shortly after I received my copy of Pandemic I got this one:
It’s Duck Duck Go. Here’s a description from the manufacturer’s – APE Games – website:
Bathtub rubber ducky racing has long been a popular sport. Every year rubber duckies from all walks of life train in bathtubs, spas and small ponds around the world to prepare for the annual Kenducky Derby, the premier bathtub ducky race.
duck! duck! GO! comes with 6 REAL rubber duckies, and a rubber bird dog. There are over 100 duckies in the set – which ones will YOU get?
Each round, choose a movement card from your hand. When it is your turn, race your ducky according to the directions on the card.
Be the first ducky to touch all the buoys and get back to the finish drain to win!

I set up and played a game today with LaRue. She beat me. We played the basic level and it was a lot of fun. I am anxious to try it with more people. Up to 6 can play. And there are advanced rules that make the game more challenging. It’s a game that kids can understand and adults can enjoy as well.

Here is what a typical game looks like:

Last week I received Pandemic in the mail.

Here’s a brief explanation of the game:
Four diseases have broken out in the world and it is up to a team of specialists in various fields to find cures for these diseases before mankind is wiped out. Players must work together, playing to their characters’ strengths and planning their strategy of eradication before the diseases overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks. A truly cooperative game where you all win or you all lose.

Here’s a picture of the game board:

I got a chance to play this last weekend at a family reunion. Since it was the first time playing we didn’t have all the mechanics figured out and did some things incorrectly, it was quite fun (even though we lost to the diseases). I have since reviewed the rules and am anxious to try another game with the proper gameplay. It is the first cooperative game I have ever played and that was one of the reasons I purchased it.

I got another new game which I will talk about in a future entry.

I also discovered that Pandemic is available online at the BrettspielWelt site. I have not tried an online game yet.

This is a documentary that I really want to see. It was shown at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is scheduled for release in August.
It’s already available to save on NetFlix.

From the film’s press kit is this brief synopsis:
Rarely can a film penetrate the glamorous surface of rock legends. It Might Get Loud tells the personal stories, in their own words, of three generations of electric guitar virtuosos – The Edge (U2), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), and Jack White (The White Stripes). It reveals how each developed his unique sound and style of playing favorite instruments, guitars both found and invented. Concentrating on the artist’s musical rebellion, traveling with him to influential locations, provoking rare discussion as to how and why he writes and plays, this film lets you witness intimate moments and hear new music from each artist. The movie revolves around a day when Jimmy Page, Jack White, and The Edge first met and sat down together to share their stories, teach and play.

And here’s a review on IMDB:
An incredible doc featuring The Edge, Jimmy Page, and Jack White. The film is very, very well done. The opening credits are pretty cool. The thing is, at many times this film seems to work best for Edge and Page. It really is amazing to watch Edge go over the technicalities involved in creating his trademark style. Page is incredible; it’s especially funny in one scene, where the other two are singing, and he flatly declares, “I can’t sing!” – hilarious. Jack White seems to be a little out of his element here. He’s the young gun of course, and over time perhaps he’ll be thought of in a similar light to his legendary predecessors. But really, there is nothing to complain about. There is some classic footage of U2 (dressed in new wave clothes??) that may leave you laughing! The vintage reels of Page and U2 still give me the chills. Guggenheim has done a fantastic job. I look forward to seeing it again.

I was really excited to get this DVD set for Father’s Day. I have been trying to find a DVD copy of Woodstock for several years. When I saw the 40th anniversary collector’s edition I had to order it. When it arrived I didn’t open it so I had no idea what the set contained. Inside was all this stuff:

Here’s a short video on Amazon.com about the contents of the package – Woodstock Package

The round emblem on the outside of the package is actually an iron-on patch and that material on the box is really suede leather with fringe.

I remember very clearly going to see the Woodstock movie in 1970 at the local drive-in theater. We were blown away by it. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever figure back then that I could actually own a copy of the movie (or any movie for that matter).

I am looking forward to watching this with the sound system.

”The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” — Cicero, 55 BC

These people sitting on the sidewalk should be ashamed! ‘Nuff said.

I had this idea to post entries about dreams I have. But I wonder how exciting a dream is since we sleep through them!
Anyway the other night I dreamed my wife and I were driving somewhere when we had some kind of wheel problem with the car. And, of course we’re in the middle of nowhere. So, I call for a tow truck. I told my wife I had $300 on me so we should be okay.
Well, the wrecker picks us and takes us to a garage. Then he says it will be $1200! I open my checkbook adn see that I have a balance of only $56! But the woman at the garage said she could take some money off the bill if we would give her and her dog a ride to the next town to see the vet.
Then I woke up.
And now I’m afraid to drive out of town.