I’ve been wanting a new monitor for a while now as the 15″ has started to feel cramped when many windows are open (i.e. coding) so I braved the Black Friday madness last weekend to get one. I arrived at Staples at 5:30 for a 6am opening, thinking I was pretty early, but there were already around 100 people in line. Luckily they had 40-50 of the monitor that I wanted so it wasn’t a problem. My parents bought it for me; it’s a Christmas present but I convinced them to let me take it back to school already.
The monitor they were selling was a Samsung 205BW (20″ widescreen). It has a resolution of 1680×1050 and its brightness is 300cd/m^2. It is dual-input (VGA/DVI), and it supports HDCP. It swivels 360 degrees, is height-adjustable, and tilts up and down. It has a few different selectable color modes, which I’m not sure that I will use, but I’m going to try them when I watch a movie to see if I notice a difference. Unfortunately it does not rotate to go from landscape to portrait mode, but this is not something I’m overly concerned about. It’s normally $350 but it was on sale for $180. I really love it - the quality of the display is phenomenal and it is really bright. In fact, the display is so bright that it makes my Powerbook G4’s screen look dark in comparison, so I have to run the monitor at 80% brightness so it doesn’t look out of place.
The form factor was as important to me as the specs. I wanted a monitor like Apple’s cinema displays, with a really small, symmetric bezel. Also, I wanted unobrtusive buttons. The Samsung meets both of these requirements and overall has a really clean appearance. With this and my recent purchase of TextMate, I can now say that I am programming in true Mac nerd style.
The Jones SodaHoliday Pack is fast becoming a Thanksgiving tradition for me. The first time I had them was last year when my family celebrated Thanksgiving at my uncle’s house. This year I actively sought them out and shared them with six or seven kids on my hall. The flavors mimic an entire Thanksgiving meal from start to finish, and that’s the order we drank them in.
This year’s flavors were Dinner Roll, Pea, Sweet Potato, Turkey and Gravy, and Antacid. My favorite flavor was definitely the Sweet Potato - it was sweet and it had a hint of caramel flavor. It was what I imagine butterbeer both looks and tastes like. Pea and Turkey were both gross but drinkable, and Dinner Roll had a buttery flavor and was actually quite good. Antacid was right on the money - it smelled strongly minty. Drinking it was like drinking toothpaste water. It was over the top minty sweet. As a final homage to the awesomeness of Jones Soda I mixed a quarter ounce of all of the flavors together and drank it. The mixture retained each of the individual tastes quite well - strongly Antacid, with a good Pea/Turkey aftertaste. Gross, you think? Meh, I’m a savage.
It’s possible that time has modified my memory, but I think that last year’s flavors better matched the labels on the bottles. Cranberry was downright luscious, Pumpkin Pie was good enough to finish, and Wild Herb Stuffing was absolutely the most rotten thing I have ever willingly drank. This year’s flavors had too much sweetener, to the point where I think I could have finished off all of the bottles by myself (but not at the same time!)
You can get a Holiday Pack for yourself at Target, but make sure you have people to drink them with! My #1 wish for one of next year’s flavors - Rhubarb Pie. It would be a great bitter taste to round out the sweet and salty. Maybe it could go in the dessert pack.
I’m obsessed with this song really catchy song called “Längst Fram I Taxin” by Swedish rap group Snook. One of my friends who spent a semester in Sweden at Uppsala Universitet introduced me to it.
I have no idea what the song is about, what it means, just that it has something to do with a taxi. Listening to music in other languages is great because you can just concentrate on the sounds. I think the way that these guys dress and dance is so awesome - especially when all three are just chilling on top of the building. I also like the way that certain clips are played backward and forward a few times in a row, like a visual record scratching.
Here’s the music video, courtesy of YouTube (skip the first 30 seconds):
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About
I am currently a junior at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY studying Electrical and Computer Engineering. For Spring Semester 2008, I'll be studying in Sydney, Australia at the University of New South Wales. I enjoy running, reading, music, photography, and spending time in the beautiful outdoors of Vermont, my home.
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Right now in Sydney it is
11:51pm on Thursday, August 28th, 2008
I’ve been wanting a new monitor for a while now as the 15″ has started to feel cramped when many windows are open (i.e. coding) so I braved the Black Friday madness last weekend to get one. I arrived at Staples at 5:30 for a 6am opening, thinking I was pretty early, but there were already around 100 people in line. Luckily they had 40-50 of the monitor that I wanted so it wasn’t a problem. My parents bought it for me; it’s a Christmas present but I convinced them to let me take it back to school already.
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