Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series of books has passed away. For those of you who don’t read fantasy books you might not know Robert Jordan or the fact that he was in the process of writing the last book of the Wheel of Time series (11 of 12 books were published). It is considered to be one of the most successful (if not *the* most) series of all time, considering every book was a New York Times Best Seller. I sincerely hope that someone completes his work, it would be disappointing for the story to end this way.
Literature
The Toronto Sun has a fantastic article on Colin Farrell taking a well known homeless guy (”Stress”) on a total shopping spree, then set him up with some cash, and a place to live for the rest of the year. Supposedly he dropped $10K. I hope the guy takes advantage and gets off the street.
Movies
There are some remarkable photographs from the 2007 International Photography Awards Competition. I would have to say that my personal favorite would be the water photograph.
Photography
The Logitech Harmony 880 is the most awesome remote control on the planet. When it works. ;) I don’t know if it is the remote or the charger but it finally stopped working this weekend after I don’t know how many months of erratic charging. The remote itself is not exactly cheap (around $175 ~ $295 depending on if you buy it off a truck) and so I didn’t have high hopes when I made my call to Logitech to see what my options were.
I went through the usual Tier 1 support process, turn it off, turn it on, clean the contacts with rubbing alcohol, etc. It didn’t work, and I was also advised during the conversation that my remote was clearly out of warranty. :( I requested that they transfer me to the replacement dept. anyways since I didn’t have anything to lose. We went through a few more processes involving the USB cable and after explaining my dilemma and the fact that it appeared that it was a manufacturing issue on their end they agreed to send a replacement remote and charger (free of charge).
I was shocked to say the least but quickly thanked the Tier 3 support person and am now waiting for my confirmation email telling me they’ve sent my shiny new replacement remote. I have a LOT of products from Logitech but this is the first time that I went through their replacement process and I just want to say THANK YOU to the wonderful people at Logitech because life without a Harmony is no life at all. 
TV, Technology
I neglected to mention that I got the new HP “Verve” for my birthday. I can easily say that it is the most visually appealing laptop ever. I suppose the artwork could be considered as trendwhore but you can’t deny the fact that it is nice to look at. The dv2550se has an Intel Core Duo 1.5GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, and Intel X3100 graphics which is quite capable of handling a lot of recent game titles, including Guild Wars and Company of Heroes without any issues.
It also has a Lightscribe drive (that allows to you make labels for your DVDs), a web camer for MSN Messenger, and interestingly enough “two” headphone jacks for when you are watching movies on an airplane or somewhere where speakers just won’t work. I am still a little (a LOT) hesitant about Vista, especially considering my entire world exists on Mac. It is functional though, and I have to say that being able to game on my laptop is probably the one feature that annoys me so much about my iBook (and iMac for that matter).
I suppose most laptops have all of the features listed about, but I just thought that I would share.
Technology
We went out with some friends of D.G. Saturday night. Dirty. My illusions of a quiet September quickly disappeared after three bottles of Grey Goose and a 4am departure from the shawarma joint (where one of our crew got their lambada on with a girl from the latin club next door). It was hilarious. Sunday wasn’t as enjoyable. If there was a day that I wish I could have slept through that would have been it. We couldn’t though, because D.G. had to go to a bridal shower (that she almost missed). I got to spend the day cleaning up the disaster was our condo. D.G. came home with the entire car filled with boxes. We got some amazing gifts. And absolutely *no* where to put them. I think we’re going to have to replace the rest of our registration list with shelving.
What else. We cancelled our cable. It wasn’t a financial decision or anything, but we realized that we don’t actually watch TV with the exception of SCIFi, The Food Network, and of course football (which I have no doubt I will miss). After the first 48hrs you really don’t miss it. We also finally started to get around to watching the 650+ movies that we have. If nothing else, we’ll get to spend an additional $100/month on stuff.
I also got my new grill (read teeth) and you wouldn’t believe the difference. I had been waiting to get my teeth fixed for quite a while and I can totally appreciate why people make the investment. I only got the top done but I’m contemplating getting the bottom done before the end of the month. I imagine I would get them all replaced if I had the time and several thousand dollars.
Life
