Days one and two

I must be brief. Internet access is 8 pounds for 1 hour here. First things first...

We went to Hyde Park, near to our hotel, on the first jet-lagged morning we arrived. It was a cool, crisp, sunny day with folks wandering about. We bee-lined it to the Peter Pan statue.

The thing about this park is, people have horses here and enjoy riding them around. A noble-ish "come on then!" spurred these two horses to gallop by us at a decent speed shortly after Caitlin snapped this pic.

I believe snapping one of these is customary for us silly yanks.

We then headed to a market in the northern part of town, near Notting Hill. Here's a snapshot.

The London Eye, Of course, which we later went up.

Westminster Abbey, which is fantastic on the inside (no pictures allowed though)

Later on, we noticed this. Luckily, The Doctor noticed it too, and he took care of it.

Out of sync, but Here's Big Ben and Parliament from up on the Eye (Of London, not Sauron).

This was too funny not to share. Outside of the Victoria and Albert Museum, there's a poster advertising an upcoming medieval/renaissance exhibit. Someone added an extra touch, but kept it rather tasteful. Now, instead of a medieval king, he's a Jack of Diamonds.

My big prediction for 2009

Something big... Very Big... in a marketing sense... will happen on September 9th, 2009 (9/9/09). It might involve an angry action hero diving through the air with a glowing fist cocked or some kind of giant gun. It will be subsequently available on blu ray.

Heh heh... OLED

My extended research on display thises and thats has coughed up a new nascent technoloy for flat panel display. OLED - Organic Light Emitting Diode televisions. Only a few millimeters deep, flexible, bendy screens with brighter, punchier displays than LCD and contrast ratios and refresh rates far beyond even plasma's capabilities, it'll be interesting to watch as sizes get bigger and prices get more reasonable.

Oh, and for anyone really looking for a deal... It doesn't get much better than this. At least for now. Who knows what'll happen next week with our wacky, scary as hell economy.

Wah

I ran the Turkey Trot last Thursday. It's a very good time. I highly recommend it to everyone regardless of skill level. Very festive, very beautiful part of Buffalo, and a great way to earn your thanksgiving dinner. I got to see Haley and I got to see Nick Hoffman twice (once before the race started, and once again after mile 4 when he blew by me).

I'm happy to report that this time, I ran it end to end without any of that wussy walk-run crap that I was reduced to during the Shamrock Run. I crossed the finish line at 54:33, but my "net time" according to the timing chip strapped to my shoe, was 50min, 56sec. See what they do is, they track when you finally cross the start line and subtract that time off from when you finish. That equates to about a 10:15 mile average pace, which is much slower than I'd have put myself at if I had to guess.

My brother and his wife crossed the finish line 7 seconds after me and I met them in the chute. I had no idea they were right behind me, nor they that I was right in front of them. But their timing chips awarded them a net time of 49:15, a much more respectable time (congrats to both of them should they ever read this). Talking to them about where they were in the pack before the race started, it seems like they were very near to where I was. So how I managed to cross the start line a full minute and a half before they did seems to me to point to some sort of chip error.

Here's my case for shenanigans:
1. The clock above the starting line was malfunctioning, and kept flashing "4:11" once it got to that time after the race started (and before I crossed the start line).
2. The race didn't start at 9. Rather, at 9:05am, the National Anthem was sung, then someone mumbled for about 30 seconds into the microphone, then I believe an airhorn went off signalling the start of the race, but it was another 5 minutes before I even started moving, and about another 45 seconds before I crossed the start line.
3. My "bib" number was not searchable during the results, only my name.
4. I crapped out and walked portions of the Shamrock Run and still ended up at 52:10. So running the whole way this time only gets me an extra minute? I declare Shenanigans!!!

I have no real proof though, so all this amounts to is a big "wah" post. None the less, I'll be wearing my own stopwatch next race, and I'll be performing better.

Wii issues continued

I went to Nintendo's website. The short trouble-shooting page recommended that it needed repair. I called in for repair and got a snotty young girl who suggested it was the TV.

Here are some pictures. If it is the TV, time for a return, but then why does the HD and even normal programming look better than this?

Help wanted

I recently purchased a 42in HDTV. And it's great, now that I've finally stomached my buyers' guilt. It's a Philips, it's 1080p picture is fantastic except in one case:

The Nintendo Wii. I love playing the Wii, but the image, even in 480p mode with component cable input, is very pixelated and aliased. Mario appears to have claws, that's how jagged it is. You kind of get used to it, but it never feels like that's how it should look, especially since some textures, like background clouds, galaxies, etc, show none of this and look clear and crisp. I never had this issue on my old 27in CRT, and indeed all the TV's in stores showing Wii games don't seem to have this problem either, but they're all smaller.

I did some int'net research and the forums bitching about these issues vacillate from "mine looks fine" to "it depends on the TV, I have a Sony and it looks beautiful, some technologies don't adapt well" to "its the Wii, that's just how it looks, go get a PS3 if you want high def".

I'm sure Philips would agree with the last point, so no use calling them. I instead reach out to my friends in the know. Is the Wii just stretched out too much on a 42in to avoid jagged pixelation or is it my TV?

The McGreg-Ogrega plan for ecological responsibility

1. Strictly enforced cap-and-trade. Caps decrease every year. All businesses are subjected to immediate full audits to ensure they're not just fronts being created to provide more credits to parent companies. Such audits will be conducted randomly over time for companies in case any sneak or bribe their way through. Any business that exceeds their pollution cap is slapped with a scaling, extremely encumbering penalty tax until they receive new credits at the start of the next fiscal period.
- Caps are all inclusive. Not just carbon emissions, but all activity such as mature tree removal, water and ground pollution, garbage waste, and ecological harm to native species are all tallied in an organization's "ecological impact".

2. Incentives are offered for research and development to cleaner energy, waste disposal and recycling technologies. Companies and individuals using such technologies will be given tax incentives.

3. Foreign imports and services will be subjected to equal scrutiny. If a foreign product is made by a company unable to comply with these standards, it will be embargoed. All compliance will be verified by a committee in the same manner as IAEA investigation teams. If the team is barred from a complete investigation, the product will become unavailable on US shores. This will force the global economy to get in step with us or lose the entire US as a market.

This isn't that hard if people cut back on greed and laziness.