Television... Or Lack Thereof

In front of my couch, an Ikea "Pilbo" table sits atop a multi-coloured rug, and then an empty space looms in the distance. That empty space should clearly hold a big TV stand/shelf unit with a television, DVD player, and so on. But I've been here for six months now and the spot is empty. And honestly I'm not in any rush to change that. My reasoning for this is multi-pronged:

Televisions Are Expensive - If I wanted to get a nice, new set to watch my DVDs and such, after taxes, a cabinet, cables, and more, I'd be spending between $1000 and $2000 right there. And frankly it is more important for me to have money to spend on a vehicle in case the Camry craps out on me. That vehicle is starting to show its age... Its days are numbered. This is also why I'm not setting any date for throwing money done for a new MacBook.

LCD vs. Plasma - This big fight is by no means settled. Technology is continually improving and the customer will be the winner. Time is on my side, and waiting will only mean the prices will come down and technology will get better.

What's On TV Anyway? - I got tired of broadcast television many years ago. The truth about television is that we, the viewers, are the product and our eyeballs are being sold to advertisers. The programming is just a "necessary evil" that allows this business model to flourish. And honestly, I resent being treated as just a mindless pair of eyeballs. It's demeaning. And there's no way I will pay Rogers $40, $50, $60 per month for the privilege of being part of the networks' slave-harem of viewers. No thank you.

The good TV shows can be bought on DVD anyway, which confers many advantages on the viewer: Watch it in DVD-quality videos. Watch it whenever you want. Watch it as many times as you want. Pause, rewind, slow-motion. No advertisements. DVD extras, interviews, etc. Resell it on eBay when you're done. I have hundreds of DVDs sitting around that I've been watching on the computer. Watching these on a bigger screen from the couch would be my main incentive for getting a television. That and the Wii.

The HD War - One of the big draws to new televisions is HD resolution in anticipation of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, plus upscaling of existing DVDs. But my take on the HD war is unconventional. I think that the present high-definition battle will end up in a stalemate. The vast majority of users will avoid the early-adopter prices and stick with DVD until they know who "won" the format war. Who wants to buy a video playback device when nobody is releasing movies for it? The war is so hyped up that nobody will fight it. And as such, neither standard will be adopted and DVD will continue to reign supreme. And again the industry will have spent billions of dollars on nothing, learning what they should have learned decades ago. Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD in terms of movie delivery systems will be relegated to the same side-show as Super-Audio CDs, DVD-A and DAT. I think that if I spent big money on an HD display with fancy HDMI support and all that, it would ultimately go to waste. That's not a good way to spend my money. In my opinion, it's the next format after Blu-Ray / HD-DVD that will supplant DVDs.

My Computer Monitor Is Fine - I've got a 19" Dell 1905FP LCD. Unlike most LCDs, this one has 8-bit colour accuracy. My DVDs look just fine on it. It's not landscape mode and a bunch of people can't sit on the couch and watch a flick, but it is good enough for now. And I can live with that.


And that, in a rather large nutshell, is why I'm in no rush to buy a TV. Dear Rogers, if you want me to be a part of your business model, you'll have to give me the display and programming for free, and then maybe I'll choose something to watch. Maybe.

Wine As A Hobby

The dark burgundy elixir in the wine glass to my left presents an elegant, stately, yet tempting appearance. But image is nothing. Thirst is everything. I'm drinking a pomegranate & blueberry juice mix. I generally don't indulge in Merlot this close to bed time because it disrupts my sleep.

Wine became an interest to me in the Summer of 2005 when I toured Italy, which has both the highest wine production and consumption levels in the world. Ten days and many glasses of wine later, I finally understood why some people had basements full of rack upon rack of dusty bottles. The amazing variation in texture and variety, and the overall enjoyment that comes from drinking a nice glass of wine is greatly underrated.

These days, I would prefer a $20 bottle of wine over a $20 DVD. There's more enjoyment inside.

But, like collecting limited edition DVDs, wine is expensive. I drank some expensive wines in Italy and they were extremely nice. I've also enjoyed some much less expensive wines in Canada and they were also very nice.

Some people stock their cellars with bottle-upon-bottle of really expensive stuff and age it for years. Maybe I'm just not cultured (or wealthy) enough yet to indulge in something like that, but I think the enjoyment is independent of the price. If an inexpensive wine is excellent according to you then there's no reason to throw down four times as much for some limited edition reserve wine. That's really what it's about.

I think some people display their wines and other liquor in an attempt to give an impression that they are "cultured" or that they are of a "higher" social class. I equate this to showing off your thick literature collection or stacks of arthouse movie DVDs. It's all vanity. And I reject that. Thirst is everything.

Tomorrow I'm opening a bottle of Jackson-Triggs Sauvignon Blanc. It's been sitting around for months and I picked up another white (Inniskillin Riesling) this evening, so I won't be in violation of my Rule. The Rule is that you must always have at least one bottle of red and one of white on hand in case there is an impromptu wedding. But that's another story altogether.

By drink is done. Bed time. I am gone.

MacBook

My old reliable iBook has been a workhorse for me, but it's really been showing its age these days. I have been mainly a PC / Windows guy since I started with computers as a toddler; This has given me a number of benefits since this platform often requires a lot of fixing / maintenance / problem-solving /etc. This process comes naturally to me. Since I fix things, I've made plenty of money fixing people's malfunctioning Windows boxes.

But notebooks are not nearly as modular as desktop machines and you're a lot more reliant on the manufacturer when something goes wrong; You can't just open it up and easily swap a failing fan or obsolete motherboard if you need to do it. If I want something that I can't just take apart, I want that something to be a Mac. I want everything to be integrated together from top to bottom, hardware to OS. Over the last 3.5 years, I've really become a fan of OS X, and think it's the best platform for just sitting down and doing your work. You don't have to remember that it's a computer with an operating system to use it. You can treat it like a black box appliance. And even though I'm a fixer of things, I still like to be able to sit down and enjoy the smooth ride without worrying about manually ensuring that everything's not falling apart.

Some people at work deride me for wanting to spend money on a "crapintosh" and such; I used to use those same arguments and retorts as late as 2001. But honestly I think you just have to sit down and use it for your work and experience what it's like. There's no single "explanation" or "comparison" that would really convince a technial person that using a Mac for your work is a good choice. In fact it often looks pretty stupid considering the profit margins that Apple makes. Though even I wouldn't want to be in a Mac-only environment because there are a good number of bleeding-edge activities that I need my PC desktop for that I simply can't do on the Mac. Not to mention games.

I've debated just sticking with my present iBook G3 800 MHz for a while now, but it's starting to become unmanageable. I don't want to spend a pile of money upgrading the OS so I can run the latest apps. The CPU is just barely fast enough to play a DVD through the Apple player, and can't handle the same through VLC. It can't show a high-bitrate MPEG-4 video without it looking like a slideshow. Manipulating graphics is simply painfully slow. Everything is feeling slow on it these days.

So the point is that I think I'll be buying a new MacBook within the next 12 months. I'll watch ThinkSecret and purchase right after they upgrade the line, either saving money by buying what's now second-best or getting the latest right when it's new. The only thing left is to save my money.

Always Thought This Might Be Fun

I figure out how things work and then fix them when they're broken.

These 'things' are generally computer-related. That's my calling, I suppose. It's what I do.

As to the blog itself, I was never really enamoured with myspace; It feels overly WalMart-ish and frankly overly generalised and unelegant. And I generally like the "tight" feel of blogger. It just feels better overall to me.