Got this in an email at work. It made me laugh out loud. It was simply titled, 5 Rules:

I am sooo ready to buy a new tv already. I bought a tv stand from ikea already. It’s all set up in the living room. I have the ps3 and the vizio sound bar & sub all setup on the stand, too. All that’s missing is the tv.

When I was living with Chris in Merced, he had a 55” samsung led tv (that we camped out for on Black Friday two years ago), and it’s soo sweet. I hated watching stuff on it because it made my 26” non-led monitor look like crap. Didn’t even compare. So I want to get something similar. Here’s what I’m looking for:

required:

• 46” (preferred) or 55”
• < $700 for a 46”, < $1000 for a 55”
• LED edge-lit (back-lit w/local dimming, if within price range)
• at least 120Hz refresh rate

optional:

• internet apps (Netflix, YouTube, etc.)
• 3D-capable

I’ve actually already found 2 tvs that I want. The first one is a 46” Sony, KDL-46EX720. It fits all my requirements, and it happens to be 3D and have apps too. It was on sale at Frys at the end of August for $699, which is like way below a Black Friday price, cause it’s normally $1599. I totally wanted to jump on that, but they didn’t have it in stock, but luckily they gave me a raincheck (does not expire) for that sale price. I’ve been waiting ever since for Frys to get it back in stock. I figured, for that price, it’s worth the wait.

But if my impatience gets the best of me, my backup tv is a 47” Vizio, M470VT. Costco has it for $649, but I’d have to get it online because they don’t carry it in-store, and I’d have to pay an extra $50 for shipping. So it’s the same out-the-door price as the Sony, and comparing features, the Vizio doesn’t have internet app and isn’t 3D-capable, but those two were on my optional list anyways. The benefit of buying the Vizio from Costco is Costco’s 90-day return policy.

The Sony’s clearly the better deal, if it ever comes back in stock. I’ve been patience thus far, but I don’t know if I can hold out for much longer. And I’m kinda leery on buying a tv this close to Black Friday. But the thing with Black Friday, is that it’s more or less a crap shoot. There’s no doubt that there will good deals, but will they be exactly what I’m looking for? I know every year, there are deals for 32” and 42” lcds, and some bigger tvs like when Chris got his 55”. Ideally, I’m looking for a 46” or 47”.

So I’m thinking about just buying the Vizio now, and if Frys ever gets that Sony back in stock, or if I happen to find a better deal on Black Friday, I can just return the Vizio. I’d have 90 days anyways. My plan is sound, but I’m still really hesitant on pulling the trigger.

Haven't really been motivated to write, as of late. Though, I guess it's kind of ironic that my lack of motivation to write has motivated me to write about my lack of motivation to write. That's irony, right? I had to google it, and I'm still unsure.

Anywho, my last idea to write was about my office either being way too quiet or way too loud, with no inbetween, and that it was kinda weird how I wanted both. Specifically, I wanted one when the other was present (silence when noisy, noise when silent). But I'm almost positive that I wrote a very similar post within the past year about the very same thing, except it was in my old Fresno office. So I decided not to post that entry, but since I kind of posted the main parts of it in this entry, I guess it's failboat on my part.

I need to start taking pictures again. That'll give me something to post. I still have almost a full roll left in my camera. I need to start taking my camera with me when I go out.

It kinda bothers me that sometimes, I have to be told to give a shit (or a flying fuck, rats ass, etc). I basically have a "whatever" attitude towards more or less everything. It's just easier that way. But sometimes there are things/times where I should care, but don't, well not immediately, until someone tells me to do so. That shouldn't be the case. But it is. I don't know why, and it kinda bothers me.

Normally, on my commute to and from work, I have my headphones on, listening to some kpop or a podcast. It makes the commute seem to go by faster. And I just got some new headphones, v-modas, that have really nice bass and are sound-isolating, so it really blocks out ambient noises.

Just to see the difference, I decided to leave the headphones at home and try the commute without listening to anything but the actual sounds of the commute.

When I came up with idea, I thought it was going to be hella interesting. A lot of the time, I noticed that there were a lot of things going on around me, that looked like it sounded cool, but I couldn’t really tell since I had my headphones on. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

morning commute to work:
Basically just the sounds of cars passing by, whether if it was waiting at the bus stop or walking from the my stop to the office. Really, it was nothing else. Oh, and birds. The birds were especially loud today. Maybe it’s the weather, I dunno.

And today, I happened to stop by Starbucks, where it’s usually buzzing with activity. Just my luck, it was super slow, and aside from the brief conversation with the cashier, it was just the sounds of the espresso machines doing their thing, and some random song playing in the background.

I thought there’d be more conversations on the bus, but everyone more or less just kept to themselves.

afternoon commute home:
More sounds of cars passing by, but at least this time, there was an interesting-ish conversation on the bus. The bus driving was a female hispanic, possibly mexican. When I got on, there was an african-american girl, maybe in her late teens, that got on too, but she didn’t take a seat, she just stood up front next to the bus driving, and started talking to her. In Spanish. Like, full on fluent, typical fast-paced Spanish. It was kinda crazy. In the 3 months that I have been taking the bus, that’s the first time I’ve seen/heard that. The bus rides are more or less very uneventful.

So what did I learn? Some cars are louder than others, and I’m not really missing much by  having headphones on during my commute.

I guess old habits are really hard to break. In the 12 years since I graduated from high school, for about 8 of those years I’ve been doing the same routine: go to school/work during the week, then go back home to Vallejo on the weekend, & repeat. In college, I had plenty of good reasons to go back home: I had work at The Good Guys (in Fairfield, then later on in Concord), I had to do laundry (basically free at home), get food & money from the parents, hang out with my friends (we all went to colleges in different cities, but Vallejo was still our “home base”), and to see my family (the parents and the cousins).

Then after I graduated from college, and got a job in Emeryville, I lived at home, but planned on moving on into a place of my own, until the whole unemployment thing. Then when I got hired by Caltrans in Fresno and stayed with Chris in Merced, I still came home every weekend despite the 2 hour drive. That one’s a no-brainer, since it’s Merced: nothing to do there but drive hella far to go do something someplace else.

Now I’m in working in Sac, and I’ve got a place of my own. I live near one of my friends for the 1st time since college. Yet I still go home every weekend, primarily to hang out with the friends & cousins. I was thinking about this the other day, and it struck me as hella weird, that I hadn’t gone into “Sac Mode” yet, if that makes any sense. I know Vallejo will always be home base, but I think I really need to kick the habit of automatically going back to Vallejo on the weekends and try to make a life for myself up here in Sac. What or how I’m going to do that, I have no idea, but I have to make at least make the effort.

I understand that in public, I have to censor myself to not offend anyone or hurt anyone's feelings, you know, common courtesy (even with the whole "freedom of speech" thing, which in my opinion is a bit misleading). What pisses me off is when I have to censor myself on here, on my own personal blog, that although it's public, I am not forcing anyone to read. I mean, I don't have to censor myself, but I just feel the need to, just in case someone that I write about happens to find their way onto here somehow, let's say through Facebook (which is exactly the scenario that I'm trying to avoid).

So yeah, more protected & private posts when I have to write or vent about someone who may or may not be reading this. Fucking fuck that shit.