Gadgets R Us

I was so excited. My birthday was coming up and I was lusting after a new LCD monitor. The Dell 2005FPW went on sale for $487, and I jumped.

Now I’m sad. My monitor arrived today, and it has a giant crack on the inside of the screen. It looks like a pixel spider set up shop in the top left corner. Replacement is on the way, but I was all geared up to try it out. To experience the joy of widescreen gaming. I is not as if I have it bad now though.. I have a 21″ Sun workstation monitor (sony tube) that I bought from a CAD shop a few years back. It is a beast of a monitor (will put your back out) but has a nice picture. I would love the 2405, but I can’t justify that price, I’ll wait.

I’ve always put a big emphasis on monitors, it seems silly to me to spend so little on the translator for your electronic information. I remember plugging my first 19″ monitor in (back when 15″ was normal), and being blown away at how big text was on the boot screen. I think I will have to upgrade to a 50″ DLP to get that kind of feeling again.

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Mia phono seems to be decent so far. Signal and clarity seem good. I haven’t figured out how to connect the thing to my computer yet though. I tried with IrDA on a laptop at work, but it was a no go. I have a usb-bluetooth thingy on the way and usb-IrDA from someone else, so I should be able to get it up and running. I don’t care about the calendar or any of that crap, I just want to sync up my contacts so I don’t have to enter them all.

I played with the camera and memory card some more. The camera does surprisingly well outside, but inside it isn’t worth using. The memory card has been fun. My wall paper is Playa Manuel Antonio from my Costa Rica trip, and my ring tone is the howler monkey I recorded at night from my camera. The camera doesn’t do mp3, but it does resampled wavs, which don’t sound too bad on the phone. The camera also has a voice recorder that works surprisingly well.

Update: Managed to get it synced up, but found out that the software doesn’t work with outlook 2003 + patches. Uhg. Ah well, will have to find a pc around here to update it.

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Anna, Elaine, and I went out to Borrego Springs yesterday to check out the wild flowers. Seemed to be a lot more than last year in the usual spots, but some of the spots were over grown with other stuff so you couldn’t see the flowers. Too much rain I guess. Should have some photos up tomorrow or the next day.

My favorite part, the citrus orchard perfume, was in full force. It was an assault on your nose – but in a good way. We picked up some bags of grapefruit, tangelos, and dates for 3 bucks a bag. I’m in heaven.

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Anna and I managed to catch only one film at the Latin Film Fest this weekend, but hope to catch more this week. We watched Caribe, a Costa Rican film. It was not as polished as we are used to, but it was a good show. It made me want to visit the caribbean side of the country, where the film took place. We only did the center and the pacific side when we were in Costa Rica, it would seem a caribbean side visit is a must as well. So little time and money, so many places to visit.