If this is the year we get a new TV, I am putting all of my electoral college votes toward one of the new 2009 Panasonic G10 plasmas. 50″ TV, naturally.

Panasonic G10 series

There’s a really nice new development near us that we really do like. Beautiful houses, nicely-sized lots, great amenities, sales still going strong between $700-900K. I would have thought that the housing slowdown would have affected the area around, and brought the pricing down a bit to less stratospheric levels. I was wrong, but I’d like to know who can still afford these houses in the economic disarray we are all in?

Call me crazy.  Ok, stop calling me crazy.

I’ve been considering the pros and cons, benefits and disadvantages, wants and needs, should I or shouldn’t I of buying a console game system.  Specifically, an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.  I generally like playing PC games, as it helps me wind down on the weekends or at night.  I’ve been a PC gamer for years, playing single games on my own, and multiplayer games with my friends.  Sure, I dabbled with the original 8-bit Nintendo, but I’ve always favored the PC games.  Real-time strategy, first-person shooter, etc.

The predicament is that a PC reaches obsolesence after a few years, and I’m at the juncture where I decide how much more to upgrade, or to forgo the PC upgrades, and get a console system, which doesn’t require upgrading.  My PC is great for regular use and most intense games up to 2006/2007.  All the newer games would benefit if I upgraded to a dual or quad core CPU, heftier video card, and a newer power supply. Heck, a larger monitor would be peachy.

Here lies the conundrum.  How much free time do I have to actually play games?  Once in a while, sure.  Used to be more, until all the little Ipes started running around, and I have a fully developed family that I want to spend time with.  We also have one TV, so I’d be time-sharing when my wife and kids wanted to watch TV and chill out.  I have tasks/chores like anyone else to do around the house.  Finally, I have a lot of objectives at work that I want to hit this year, including finally getting certified as a CISSP.

These are what whittle away my free time on a daily basis.  What does that leave me?  Playing a game after midnight on a Saturday night, after everyone has gone to sleep?  Hmmmmm.  I don’t know.  I want, but I don’t know if it would really benefit me.  Of course, even playing on the weekends would be fun, but wouldn’t I want to snuggle with my wife?

The ultimate tech nightmare: time to clean out the wire box | Digital City Podcast – CNET Blogs.

My wife can attest that I also have a wire box.  I don’t know if I should be proud to have this badge of geekiness (or techie superiority) or I should hang my head in shame.

A number of us who were in the office today watched Obama’s inaugural speech via live CNN streaming video at 12pm today.  Good speech, but let’s see what gets accomplished.  I watch expectantly, hopefully.

Born January 18, 2009 at 12:55 AM weighing in at 6 pounds and 6 ounces. Congrats to Jimboy, the proud father. I’m very happy for you kids.  Now you’ve joined the zombie parent club.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimboy/3205224369/

Send me a nice pic for posting!

Honestly, every weekend should be a 3-day weekend.  Your regular weekend is just two days long, and goes so fast.  The first day is all about cleaning, mailing, washing, drying, packing, folding, driving, etc.  By the time you are ready to relax, it is Sunday night.  Unfair.  Three days allow you to get stuff done, yet still have two days to relax.   If I ever get elected to Congress, I’m writing a proposal for 3-day weekends all year long.

This weekend, we watched a movie, put together a bookshelf for the kids’ room, shopping at the wholesale club, grocery shopping, took my in-laws out for a birthday/anniversary dinner, downloaded new music, cleaned the house, played a lot of PC games, and we cooked some nice meals.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?”

We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.

We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.

We can never be satisfied as long as our chlidren are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “for whites only.”

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exhalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

We watched the latest film in our queue, the 2004 comedy-drama Sideways. My wife didn’t quite like the movie, and stopped watching about halfway, but I soldiered on until 2am.  The move stars Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, and Sandra Oh. It’s basically a character piece, as you spend the entire movie watching the characters talk and interact.  Miles (Giamatti) and Jack (Church) go on a road trip for to the Santa Ynez Valley in Northern California as a last hurrah before Jack gets married. However, Miles is depressed/traumatized over his recent divorce, and is still a mess. Over the course of the week, Miles has find himself.  Jack too, but it’s basically about Giamatti’s character.  Here’s an excerpt from IMDB.com about it:

As they’re both nearing middle age with not much to show for it, the two will explore the vineyards while ultimately searching for their identities.

Giamatti’s character is a wine lover, or oenophile, so there’s a lot of wine tasting and drinking.  They meet up with Madsen and Oh, and life ensues. Madsen and Oh were enjoyable.

I was wondering what all the hubbub was about this movie when it came out, as it was nominated for many awards, and won other others, such as the 2005 Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, The Golden Globes Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, etc.  It’s an interesting movie, if only to watch the actors interact and emote, and the writing was excellent.  It’s not a life-changing movie, though I may want to try a nice pinot noir the next time I’m out for dinner.

Sideways (2004)

I had not realized that there are many interesting movies are coming out in 2009.  I knew a few particular movies were being released that I would be interested in, but looks like I have more options to choose from.  See Wired.com’s 2009 Movie Guide. There is a Land of the Lost movie being produced?

The movies of 2009

The ones I’m interested in are:

• Coraline
• Watchmen
• Monsters vs. Aliens
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine (maybe because it looks to be on the wrong side of cheesy)
• Star Trek (if the reviews are good — I’m not fully convinced on the reboot)
• Terminator Salvation (most definitely)