I paid exactly $1999 for my HP m280n this weekend while I was in Delaware. Shopping.com says that’s the same price as the online/retail cost for the machine. Rock on. HP charges tax for online purchases, plus there’s the matter of shipping an 83 pound box — all avoided by journeying 30 miles into Delware. I like it… a lot. I’m using my Compaq MP2800 projector instead of a monitor, so a slight apartment rearrangement was necessary to maximize viewing comfort. I think the projection is, like, 100 inches diagonally on the wall. [insert happy nerd grunting sounds]. The media center found my Comcast cable guide with no problem. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a cable guide that matched the wacky channel line-up that I’ve had to put up with for the last 1+ year. I thought for sure my channel line-up was top-secret as some kind of punishment. Wrong. So I ”subscribed” to record the entire seasons of Joe Schmoe, Enterprise, and that Nick Lachet / Jessica Simpson reality nightmare on MTV. The playback is very good even in ”Good” mode and there were very few problems other than a couple of glitchy jumps when I was doing 2 other CPU intensive things on the computer while I was recording. Okay, admittedly, I started copying a 13 GB file over to see if I could screw up the machine. It handled it WAY better than the old machines. Another cool thing is that Media Center records live TV so you can pause the thing if you need to run to the bathroom. I captured my Prague video so eventually you’ll see that whipped together. My other machines had failed all previous attempts. The Klipsch speakers are snap. It’s my first subwoofer that wasn’t a hand-me-down. I know, I’m late to the sub-woofer party. I wonder if my neighbors in the apartment below me are pissed about the party.


I am working from home today. I’ve got a strange tight sore throat. It’s not tight like good tight. I briefly considered that I’d been poisoned or that this was the onset of initial Lock Jaw symptoms. Perhaps a touch of meningitus? Am I paranoid or what? Anyway, I still have a lot of stuff to do so this will be a short entry during my ”lunch” break which is basically just me running down 3rd street to the Cafe Olay. I wonder what would happen if I called and tried to order a bottle of Oil of Olay.