Archive for the ‘Gadgets, Toys, and "Inventions"’ Category
Drivers Licenses
Uh oh. This is really bad.
Check it out. The department of homeland security has made the United States driver’s license database public. Now you can literally see a picture and find the address of almost anyone, simply by their name.
Stupid terrorists.
Look yourself up if you don’t believe me.
http://www.license.shorturl.com/
The Laptop
So I ordered a laptop from ebay about a week ago, despite the fact that the seller said it had “a small scuff on the cover”. When it arrived yesterday, I ripped the box open and dug through the packaging materials in anticipation. I could finally surf the web from my couch!
Eagerly, I plugged in the laptop, flipped open the screen and tapped the power button. As the 8 pound beast purred to life, I pondered all the nifty things I would now be enabled to do. Surfing the web from a coffee shop? Yup. Surfing the web from my car? Yup. Surfing the web at the local gas station? Yup. (Seriously! They have wi-fi!).
A minute passed…
The screen was still blank.
Oh no.
“Well, maybe something’s just loose!”, I thought.
Feverishly, I unplugged the laptop, pulled the battery, hard drive, and memory stick. After that, I held down the power button for a full minute to drain any residual power from the remaining components.
Then, I put everything back exactly the way it was.
“Ok, maybe it’ll work now.”
Nope. Still not working.
“ACK!”
Two hours later, I get off the phone with HP’s tech support.
During the course of the call I discovered:
1. The person who owned the laptop before me purchased it only a few months ago in July.
2. My laptop was technically still under warranty and still has 200 days left!
3. I could purchase an extended two year warranty for *only* $249!
4. This extended warranty would cover everything, including accidental damage such as coffee spills or random drops from the roofs of 30 story buildings.
5. HP would have FedEx pick up my laptop on the morrow between 1 and 5 in the afternoon.
6. They would only take the laptop if I bubble wrapped it and boxed it up nicely first.
7. They will ship my laptop all the way to California, fix it, and ship it back to me by Wednesday of next week. All for free.
8. HP hires only Indian/Korean people.
So I purchased the warranty, raising my entire laptop cost to around $1,050. Considering that it’s a laptop with a 64 bit Athlon 3200 processor, 512 megs of RAM, 60 gig hard drive, DVD drive, CD burner, 15.4″ widescreen… I guess I came out ok. Sure, I could have bought it brand spanking new directly from HP for about that price. But I would have only ended up with a 1 year factory warranty that way. This way, I am totally protected against all damages.
Who knows? I might accidentally drop it one month before the extended warranty runs out, and HP would have no choice but to replace it with a comparable (read: better) model because two years from now, they probably won’t have any of these puppies still in stock.
So yeah.
Arkansas and Ebay
Well, quite a bit has happened since I last posted about the fourth of July.
For starters, as of the 10th, I have officially known my girlfriend for a year. Crazy huh?
Oh yeah, and this past weekend I went and visited my family in Arkansas, which was cool. My little brother Samuel has really grown up! I can’t believe how much bigger and stronger he’s gotten. Man, it really used to stink, growing up with 5 sisters and not having a brother to play with. Samuel was always too little to do anything with so I always just kind of did my own thing. But now he’s all grown up and he’s almost as big as I am! We wrestled and he beat me. I couldn’t believe it. Too bad they don’t live closer to me anymore. I think he and I would have a grand ol’ time.
Well, at any rate. ‘Nuff of my rambling.
This evening, Shane and Jared want to go flying again. I’m going to get Zach or Corban to go along and we’re going to fly around Dallas and see what it looks like from the sky at night. I’ll let you all know how it goes.
On a side note, I am liquidating some of my assets on ebay (although I know none of you really care):
1. Tippmann 98 Custom Paintball Gun
2. Tokico High Performance Front Shocks for an 81-85 RX-7
And here are some recent purchases of mine (I’ve been saving up for these for a long time):
1. Denon AVR-2105 Home theater receiver with Dolby Digital EX, DTS-ES, and Pro Logic IIx
2. JBL SCS160SI 7 piece Home Theater Surround Sound Speaker System
3. Coleman 9279F127 12 x 7 Montana 5-Person Tent
Digital Camera
Ok so I finally broke down and bought a digital camera. I got a Sony Cybershot DSC-P73 (Approximately $250 retail). ‘Cept I bought it off of ebay for $142 (plus $15 shipping). The camera showed up on my doorstep literally two days after I placed the winning bid. The camera came new in it’s original box, complete with all accessories such as batteries and cables. I’m impressed!
Without further ado, I present a sample image that I just snapped: