Using the Flux Capacitor
So on Saturday night Kelly and I jumped into my modified
Delorean and fired up the flux capacitor to check out a totally rad concert put on by my brother's band
Yesterdaze Gone. If I have never mentioned it before my middle brother, Luke, is the bass player in a band with his old high school buddies. They are a cover band and are really good. This last weekend they decided to put on a totally 80's themed show at a local bar in the town were we both grew up. Their music list included only music from the 80's (though, a few from the early 90's popped in). Everything from
Metallica to Michael Jackson (the latter surprised me but they did a great rendition of Beat It). On top of the music list they all dressed up like they were in a hair band. As you can see from the attached pic, Luke made a pretty good Nikki
Sixx, and yes that is eye shadow you see! The bar also set up an
80's themed trivia game and had a contest for the best 80's hair and outfits.
Oh, and Kelly was not to be outdone. As you can see from the pic! The costume contest was totally bogus with some local girl in a pink tutu winning. You got my vote Kelly, fur sure....!
By the Skin of Their Teeth
Well, I am not sure how but they did it but the men's Fighting Illini basketball team managed to survive day one of the Big Ten tournament with a first round upset of the Penn State Nittnany Lions. The Illini have now won 3 of their last 4 games which is a major feat considering how this season has gone so far.
For those of you who haven't been following, the Illini have been putting together their most disappointing season since 1998, which also happens to be the last season that they had a losing record. To say this team has been frustrating to watch this season is an understatement. They have looked less than confident all season and have lacked true floor leadership from any of the players.
But today Illini fans can take solice in the fact that our unbroken streak of first round Big Ten tournament wins is still intact. The Illini managed to build a 10 point lead with 3 minutes to go but pissed it away and were down by 1 point with 30 seconds left on the clock. After a couple of timeouts, the team came out and Calvin Brock missed his shot, but a timely offensive rebound got the ball back for the Illini and with only 7 seconds on the clock, Chester Frazier (of all people) made a reverse layup to put the Illini up by a point. Penn State took a desperation 3 point shot but missed at the buzzer.
Next up is the second seeded Purdue Boilermakers. Illinois has played two close games this season against the Boilermakers and lost both of them. The likelihood they win this game is low, but if they can shoot their free throws like they did today, they may have a chance at another upset. I'm not holding my breath, but I do bleed orange and blue, so go ILLINI!!!!!
Labels: Basketball, college, Illini
Rockin The New TV
So last year, I got a bonus from my employer for helping the company meet its goals for the year. This is money that is above and beyond the annual salary that I get so its kind of like money you found without expecting to get. Well, I was very responsible with that bonus last year and put the entire amount toward paying off my Jeep which allowed me to have it paid off over a year ahead of when I was scheduled to.
Between that time last year and now, I was awarded a promotion at work which boosted me to a higher bonus level at work. Again I was awarded the whole bonus amount for a what my bosses proclaimed an excellent job in building up a new team and coordinating the creation of a new service that we offer to our business partners. As Kelly can attest too, this was no small feat and I spent a lot of stressed out weeks last year making this new service work and it finally paid off. So this year I decided I was going to reward myself a little and splurge on something fun. Those who know me know this wasn't an easy thing to do because I usually play it safe and tuck the money away or put it toward paying off any bills or debt I may have.
So, after I got over the initial apprehensiveness, I decided to purchase a new flat panel TV. Since I graduated from undergrad back in 1998 I have had the same 27" projection TV and it has always served me well. After Kelly and I moved into together we moved my TV to the office and set her slightly nicer TV up in the living room. After careful consideration, advice from family and friends and lots of online research I finally decided on a 50" plasma TV. I spent some time going over the pros and cons of the Plasma vs the LCD, but decided on the plasma after reading reviews of how the plasma performs better when watching fast moving action (e.g. sports) and has a deeper palette of colors than the LCD. I was kind of worried about the fact that plasmas tend to show more glare than the LCD, but after talking to my dad I found out that some models come with a special coating that helps reduce the glare, so I included this in my "requirements" for the new TV.
I narrowed it down to a couple of different models that were highly rated and settled on the Panasonic PZ700U. It was one of the highest rated plasmas at that 50" size and Panasonic is one of the leading producers of quality plasma TV's. It also comes with a special remote that allows you to run all your High Definition (HD) components from one remote as well as a resolution capable of picking up 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p broadcasts. I checked out a couple of different locations but quickly realized that it was going to cost more that I was really wanting to spend. Then one day I happened to be talking to a coworker about buying a new TV and he told me he has a cousin that works at a local electronics store that could probably cut me a pretty good deal. So he put me in touch with him he was able to get a price below cost for the model plus he threw in two HDMI cables (used for HD devices) for half price for being a "friend of the family" :). Which was cool because those cables are normally about 35-50 dollars a piece.
The TV is going to be delivered next Saturday morning (delivery is free) and Kelly and I are excited to get it set up. I included a picture of the model in this post.
While were were researching we got to talking about getting a new
BlueRay DVD player since it was just announced that this would be the new DVD format going forward. A
fter careful consideration I decided to purchase a
Playstation 3 gaming system. The reason for this was that it was only 100 dollars more than a
BlueRay player but included intern
et access, and a video game system. Plus we found a package deal where we could get an extra controller, a PS3 game,
BlueRay movie, and a
bluetooth remote control thrown in. We also found out today that we made a good choice because it turns out that the current
BlueRay players on the market will not be compatible with the next generation of
BlueRay DVD's that are coming out soon, but the PS3 is (lucked out there). The PS3 is coming sometime this week so we should be set.
No worries though, I still have a good chunk of the bonus that will be going into my savings account, so I didn't blow it all on toys.
Labels: entertainment, technology
80's themed trivia game and had a contest for the best 80's hair and outfits.
