New Car!!

Yesterday was an exciting day. And it wore our hands out with signing things. Our current apartment lease expires on September 30, so we went in to sign our renewal for next year. We like our apartment by the way. However, it didn't end there...

We have been kicking around getting a second car for some time now. Especially in earnest when our beloved Trailblazer had to go into the shop for a few days in June. We'd settled on this fall, and most likely a Ford Focus due to our budget. Rachel's brother-in-law works for Ford, so we get that nice family discount. :-)

However, on the discovery that Thursday began 0% Financing for up to 72 months on all 2006 models in stock, we decided that yesterday would be a good day to go have a look. So after the lease signing, we went to Jerry's Ford. While almost nobody had 2006 Focuses (Foci?) in stock, the 0% dropped the Ford Fusion into our price range. Which, to be honest, I really wanted anyway. When we got there, we found it almost right away. I took it for a test drive...and then a couple hours later, we went home with a new car. How exciting. :-)

This one's for Jerry (our Brother-in-Law):


-Kal

This One's For You, Too!

This one's for you, VDOT: Thanks for putting the President in his Place. The HOV halts for no one.

This one's for you, Apple: Thanks for my new iBook battery. But please, don't let it take 4-6 Weeks to get here. I bought a notebook for portability.

This one's for you, SciFi: Thanks for ruining my week. You Suck.

Farewell, Stargate Command

I'll miss you. *snif*

-Kal

R.I.P. Dr. Pepper

Rest in Peace, Dr. Pepper. Diet Dew could never take your place in my heart...

(Though it did take the spot in the office Pop machine...)

Yours Forever,
-Kal

Router slowing me down?

My internet connection and download speeds in particular have been noticably slow as of late. Pages load slowly, streaming video starts buffering after 2-4 seconds, downloads are like molassess. Part of me worried that it was my iBook. It's pretty well established that while a Mac makes a decent internet machine, the page rendering really just doesn't match up to IE6 or Firefox for Windows. I didn't think it would make this much difference though.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) I put it to the test. I went to the CNET Bandwidth Meter Speed Test. My connection rated a whopping 280kbps. I checked it a couple more times with different browsers and got a range of about 260-400kbps. This was not cool! My first thought was that Comcast was pulling the switcheroo! My service is supposed to have speeds up to 6000kbps!

On a whim, I decided to connect my iBook directly to the Cable Modem and test again. While I can do this with my Mac and remain reasonably secure, you Windows folks may want to avoid doing this. If you're running XP SP2 with your Windows firewall on, you're probably ok too, but don't say I didn't warn you. Disclaimer over.

Anyway, I switched over to a wired connection to my cable modem and tried the bandwidth test again. BAM! 3000kbps on the first shot! I ran it a few more times and got a range between 1180-3100kbps. Still, this is not the 6000kbps that Comcast promised, but it is a lot closer and has provided a more enjoyable page-loading experience in the last hour or so.

What does this all mean? I think my MR814 router is finally on its way out. I'll be making a trip to CompUSA this weekend to search out a replacement. Dear Lord, please help me to stay away from 802.11n just long enough to run out with a cheap 802.11g. Oh, and keep me from buying "speedboost," "Super-G," or any of the other gimmicky router "features" that my Airport Extreme card doesn't utilize. Amen.

-Kal

This One's for You!

This one's for you, Bethesda (Wisconsin Ave) Subway workers:

If I wanted my sub toasted, I'd go to Quiznos! When I go to Subway, I want one thing - a nice and cool (or at least room temp) Italian BMT on white bread.

This one's for you, Bethesda drivers:

When I'm waiting for the car in front of you to pass so I can cross the street, I'm going to wait for you too. I've committed to waiting, so you don't need to stop, get all hot and bothered and wave me across. Just drive, I'll wait! I don't trust you crazy Marylanders anyway!

And finally, this one's for you, Mikey:

U.S.S. Google

-Kal

Changes Afoot

Ryan has been pestering me about posting for a while now, so it's time. I've been contemplating a move away from blogger to Wordpress, but I just couldn't get into the full move. I've been enticed to stay by the flexibility of being able to change my template however I want and by the new features coming down the pike - See the recently announced Blogger Beta in the Blogger Buzz.

Look for more on a (hopefully) consistant basis...and subscribe to my RSS feed, Powered by Feedburner.

-Kal