The venerable Troy Brown has agreed to return to the Patriots for another year marking his 15th year in the league and with the Pats. The receiver corps has been drastically revamped from the past couple of years with the addition of Moss, Welker, Stallworth and Washington to complement the returning Caldwell and Gaffney.
For long time fans of the Pats and Brown this is welcome news indeed. Even if Brown doesn’t get an opportunity to contribute on offense, I’m sure his versatility to play DB will be handy, and here’s hoping to them not need it this year!
Cheers
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Shorts
Sony has cut the price of the PlayStation 3 by $100, or 17 percent, in the United States, a move that should boost the video game console’s lackluster sales.
The PlayStation 3, which includes a 60-gigabyte hard drive and a Blu-ray high-definition DVD player, will now cost $500, or $20 more than the most expensive version of Microsoft’s Xbox 360. #
This is definitely a start and now if the game catalog were to get better perhaps Sony might have a chance after all, no?
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Shorts
Microsoft has announced that they’re going to extend the warranty of all XBOX 360’s to three years from the date of purchase. This includes issues of the 3-rings and any other faults. They will handle the repair free of charge, including the shipping.
I wonder how the people who’ve already paid for the shipping and repair feel about this and what Microsoft is doing for them. Also, on a more personal note, my XBOX 360 is a used one that I got in July of 2006. I have no clue how long the previous owner had the console before I acquired it, so I wonder how I would make myself avail of this service should the need arise.
In relation to this particular announcement, Microsoft also indicated that the potential repair would run them close to $1 Billion. It’s good to see that the company is spending the money to keep their current customers happy which will only garner them future customers.
Cheers
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Gaming,
Technology
The “hardship” placed on Scooter Libby by the judicial system just got a lot lighter after he paid the $250,400 fine. OK, since President Bush already commuted the prison sentence, that leaves the 2 years of probation. Wow, it must be good to not only be a friend of the President but to have that kind of money lying around.
Ridiculous, indeed.
Cheers
I’d been using Mapquest for all of my mapping needs until Google decided to unleash Google Maps on us. I never bothered looking to Mapquest again for anything. However, one feature that I wish I could do was to have Google Maps re-route if I choose to go a different route than what it had figured out.
That is, if it said RT 90 was the best way of getting there and I wanted to avoid the tolls, I was hoping for a way to direct the tool to draw me a route using RT 2 instead. Well Google Maps now provide this feature and it’s very cool!
Check out the animation below for me re-directing Google. 
Cheers
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Technology
Did you hear? The Apple iPhone went on this sale this past Friday, June 29th. All of the tech Blogs endlessly gave a minute-by-minute update on long lines formed by the early adopters across the US.
The weekend elapsed and now we have a plethora of those early adopters complaining about everything from the ring tones to the unsuccessful phone activation. I just find this sort of bouncing attitude very amusing. Before buying their beloved iPhones, these people were certain that Apple could do no wrong. Forget the fact that you’re being asked to pay $499 or $599 for the 4GB and 8GB variety of the iPhone AND a2-year contract with AT&T (the exclusive carrier) that you have to sign to even use this sucker.
There aren’t any numbers that I’ve seen tracking the number of people who bought the iPhone for their own use as opposed to trying to make a quick buck selling it to other fans who were not willing to sit in line for days. But, I can imagine that a large number of iPhones were sold and now imagine that many people all sitting at home on the weekend trying to activate their respective phones. Is it really that much of a surprise that the AT&T servers were overwhelmed? But I guess to some, it truly is surprising as they’re whining about not being able to use their shiny new iPhone.
As much as the features of the iPhone are intriguing, AT&T’s prior history of lackluster service and Cingular’s spotty network hasn’t convinced me to switch over from my very reliable Verizon service. I might someday consider the iPhone, when Verizon starts to offer it and the price as dropped to about $49.99 for the 8GB variety and I can get it as a free upgrade.
Early adopters be damned. You guys can figure out all the quirks and issues, I’ll wait for everything to be ironed out and the 2nd generation phones to hit the market before I even think about getting the iPhone.
Cheers
The picture here is of the unfinished deck as the builder left it. It is 14′x16′ in dimension with a 4′x4′ stairway and landing. We couldn’t wait to get the necessary furniture and grill to start enjoying the deck as soon as possible. The builder has initially suggested that we let the wood be in it’s natural state for a couple of months to ensure that the heat dries the wood as much as possible.
After looking at the amount of sun we get in the back, he promptly changed his mind and suggested that we should seal the deck sooner rather than later to prevent any long-term issues. A quick trip to the local Home Depot and we settled on a sealer and stain-in-one with the color of Natural Cedar. The end result is pictured on the left. We managed to get a single coat on all of the exposed wood over a weekend and got to see the result of our hard work almost immediately when the rains came. With the sealer in place, the rain now nicely beads on the deck as opposed to getting absorbed into the wood and causing havoc.
We thought the color was initially going to be too bold and over-powering, but the color that has actually come once the stain has dried is absolutely stunning.
Check out all the pictures of the deck in the gallery.
Cheers
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Personal
The license plate of the car in front of me this morning merging onto the highway and then traveling at sub-highway speeds? TARDIE. You may read that how you want, but I intend to read that as “tardy” and it fits!
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Humor,
Shorts
So let me get this straight. Paris Hilton has gained fame and fans (really pathetic) by doing absolutely nothing but being born into the Hilton family.
She’s spending just over a month in jail for violating her probation for DUI and people can’t stop talking about how she is doing in there? Jeez, maybe the time in jail might actually be good for her and the rest of the world!
But what is absolutely confounding to me is that NBC is offering her $1 million USD for a post-jail interview. Yeah, like she really needs that $1 million and what kind of message is this sending to the public? Become famous, break the law, go to jail for it and become even richer when you get out?
Just pathetic!
Update: NBC Denies Rumor
Turns out that NBC is now denying the “rumor” of the $1 million for the Paris Hilton interview.
Now was this always a rumor or did some buffoon actually make the offer and now the network is rescinding the whole thing based on what people must be saying on the ‘Net??
Cheers
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Perspective,
Rants
I’m about ready to dump my traditional phone service provided by Verizon and switch over to a VoIP provider.
I tried, unsuccessfully, to reduce the amount of money I pay Verizon for my seldom used home phone and found that I’m still paying about $45 each month and that’s just ridiculous. Most VoIP providers have full-featured services starting at $24.95/month.
Just looking that the savings from switching to a VoIP service, I began my search with Vonage and found that there are many more providers. It also looks like Vonage’s service isn’t as highly praised as some others, so I would love to hear from other providers and your first hand experience with them so that I can decide.
Currently, I’m looking very favorably at Allo.com and Voip.com.
All of your thoughts requested…
Cheers
