This morning my wife and I decided to head on over to Best Buy just to kill some time so we could get hungry enough to eat a decent amount of dim sum for lunch. Best Buy opened at 11am and when we arrived, we got there maybe 15 minutes after the store opened. There was a huge line for the checkout line and almost everyone in it was holding a Wii. I could only say to my wife "suckers" since I didn't have to wait in a huge ass line to get my Wii :)
Right now we're playing Wii Golf and a game called Trauma Center which is definitely a different type of game all together and there's no way any other console could do this game without the inventive Wii-mote. I'm off to my client tomorrow so no more gaming till Friday. I'll just have to keep myself entertained with Lego Star Wars on my wife's PSP till I get home.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Wii Power!
Yesterday I went out and bought myself a Nintendo Wii for me and my wife. I have to say that the Wii has provided the most fun gaming experience I've had in a long time. I haven't bought any real games for it yet, I might go ahead and rent some later this weekend though just to try things out. The fact that I can use it with some of my older GameCube games is awesome. Right now I'm playing Wii sports that came with the console and its pretty damn fun. I'll probably play it again tonight with Claire to see who's best :)
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Almost stuck in NY
On Sunday evening I was supposed to get on a plane with my wife and sister-in-law to head back to Ft. Lauderdale on Spirit Airlines. My wife and sister-in-law get their tickets just fine but I was having problems so I go to the ticket agent to get my ticket. When I give her my info they tell me that my ticket was never purchased and that there were no more seats on the plane. I had gone through my company travel agent to get my ticket on Spirit but because they're not one of the approved carriers, its a little complicated for them to get me a ticket.
I call up my travel agent to see what happened because everything that I have with me says that I'm confirmed for the flight. The travel agent scrolls through the record and finds a notation that my ticket wasn't purchased because of an invalid credit card. How that was possible is beyond me considering that my credit card is my corporate card and I've been using it for months. Since I couldn't get on the Spirit Airlines flight I ask if there are any other flights home, no matter what the cost because I just have to get home. My wife, being the excellent wife that she is, is checking with Jet Blue which isn't too far away from Spirit in the terminal to see if there are any flights and there is for over $300. I put that in the back of my mind just in case I need it and proceed to discuss travel arrangements with my travel agent. At first it sounds like he has me on a Delta flight which isn't bad because I can get extra points with them, the only downside is that I caught him buying a ticket for Newark to Ft. Lauderdale rather than La Guardia to Ft. Lauderdale. For my friends who know the tri-state area, we all know Newark is no where close to La Guardia.
After trying out different options, most of which did not leave from LGA or left the next morning, I decided to purchase my ticket on JetBlue. Although I might be out $300, I'm going to fight it out with my travel agent to get some of my money back considering something went very wrong with this trip. I'm all booked up for my flights to my client for the next few weeks and I know those are OK because I have seat assignments and everything.
All I can say is that this past weekend was the worst traveling experience I ever had, its a good thing I didn't have checked luggage because I know that something would have happened to it if I did and then I really would have had a terrible weekend travel-wise.
I call up my travel agent to see what happened because everything that I have with me says that I'm confirmed for the flight. The travel agent scrolls through the record and finds a notation that my ticket wasn't purchased because of an invalid credit card. How that was possible is beyond me considering that my credit card is my corporate card and I've been using it for months. Since I couldn't get on the Spirit Airlines flight I ask if there are any other flights home, no matter what the cost because I just have to get home. My wife, being the excellent wife that she is, is checking with Jet Blue which isn't too far away from Spirit in the terminal to see if there are any flights and there is for over $300. I put that in the back of my mind just in case I need it and proceed to discuss travel arrangements with my travel agent. At first it sounds like he has me on a Delta flight which isn't bad because I can get extra points with them, the only downside is that I caught him buying a ticket for Newark to Ft. Lauderdale rather than La Guardia to Ft. Lauderdale. For my friends who know the tri-state area, we all know Newark is no where close to La Guardia.
After trying out different options, most of which did not leave from LGA or left the next morning, I decided to purchase my ticket on JetBlue. Although I might be out $300, I'm going to fight it out with my travel agent to get some of my money back considering something went very wrong with this trip. I'm all booked up for my flights to my client for the next few weeks and I know those are OK because I have seat assignments and everything.
All I can say is that this past weekend was the worst traveling experience I ever had, its a good thing I didn't have checked luggage because I know that something would have happened to it if I did and then I really would have had a terrible weekend travel-wise.
A night out in NY
I was in the NY area for a little over 24 this past weekend because I had to go to a baptism where I was playing Godfather. I did make time to go out with a few friends from back home on Saturday night. My friend Johnson, being the good man that he is, was able to drive Claire and I to NY. We were meeting our friends Lucy and Luan at Penang near NYU. I used to go to Penang in Queens but I don't know where it is anymore and there isn't anything to do in Queens after dinner anyway so this location made the most sense.
The food there was as good as the food at the Penang in Queens, the location was nicer too. Since we arrived late, Lucy and Luan came from a bar and started to get hammered but they didn't get too far since we arrived only half an hour after we were supposed to. There I had all my favorite dishes and appetizers as well as this really good watermelon drink that I had never tried before. There are pictures from the dinner and all and I think Claire posted it on her MySpace page.
After dinner we all decided to go to a bar. The bar was FAR no matter what Luan says. The bar was actually really nice, it was black and red with some plasma TV's above the bar. I only had one drink and everyone else had at least two or three. Things got really funny when all of a sudden the movie that was playing on the TV changed over to some really bad porno. The movie was so bad it was hysterical and the fact that we had been drinking only made it that much funnier. Needless to say we left that bar to try and get into another bar but the one that we went too was just too full so we made this huge loop and ended up walking through a little bit of Chinatown as well as Little Italy.
The end of the evening was at a bakery near Penang. The place we went to was called Bruno Bakery and I must say I was surprised that it was open at 11pm. We all had some dessert to top off all the food and drinks we had earlier that evening. The evening was really fun and I hope to do it again when I take another trip to NY. I'll see if I can get some pics together and post them on Flickr, I'm not at all skilled at using Slide but eh, I'll use what I got!
The food there was as good as the food at the Penang in Queens, the location was nicer too. Since we arrived late, Lucy and Luan came from a bar and started to get hammered but they didn't get too far since we arrived only half an hour after we were supposed to. There I had all my favorite dishes and appetizers as well as this really good watermelon drink that I had never tried before. There are pictures from the dinner and all and I think Claire posted it on her MySpace page.
After dinner we all decided to go to a bar. The bar was FAR no matter what Luan says. The bar was actually really nice, it was black and red with some plasma TV's above the bar. I only had one drink and everyone else had at least two or three. Things got really funny when all of a sudden the movie that was playing on the TV changed over to some really bad porno. The movie was so bad it was hysterical and the fact that we had been drinking only made it that much funnier. Needless to say we left that bar to try and get into another bar but the one that we went too was just too full so we made this huge loop and ended up walking through a little bit of Chinatown as well as Little Italy.
The end of the evening was at a bakery near Penang. The place we went to was called Bruno Bakery and I must say I was surprised that it was open at 11pm. We all had some dessert to top off all the food and drinks we had earlier that evening. The evening was really fun and I hope to do it again when I take another trip to NY. I'll see if I can get some pics together and post them on Flickr, I'm not at all skilled at using Slide but eh, I'll use what I got!
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Crash and Burn PS3!
I was perusing some of my regular tech and gaming sites earlier today and I came across an article that detailed that so far Sony has lost 2 billion (thats right kids, I did say BILLION) dollars on the PS3 so far. I will admit its a superior gaming machine when it comes to graphics, the Blue Ray DVD player, and 60 gig hard drive compared to my Xbox 360 (which is currently at Microsoft for repair). To me thats an incredible amount of money no matter how you slice it. Even MS is doing better but the real winner for this generation of game machines I think is the Nintendo Wii.
I plan on getting a Wii next week if I can along with Zelda and maybe another game. I may not be home a lot to play it but hey, I might as well get it because it just looks too damn fun not to!
I plan on getting a Wii next week if I can along with Zelda and maybe another game. I may not be home a lot to play it but hey, I might as well get it because it just looks too damn fun not to!
Stuck in Michigan
I was going to take what is known as a flex trip at my company, meaning that I was going to head off to another destination besides my home location of Ft. Lauderdale. Right now I'm writing this from my hotel room in Michigan because I wasn't able to leave because I made a critical error in my travel plans. That mistake was using Chicago's O'Hare airport as a transfer point.
My flight was originally scheduled to fly out of Michigan and go to Chicago at around 6:30PM. I found out later that morning that my flight was delayed which wasn't so bad. Then about an hour or so later I found out my flight was canceled. Needless to say I was beyond pissed. My co-worker was nice enough to get the airline to switch our flights to an earlier flight at around 3:45 so that was pretty cool, but thats not where this ends. As the day goes on we find out that the flight is delayed till 8pm. Well that kind of puts a cramp in my day considering my connecting flight was at 6PM central time. So that leaves me here, stuck in Michigan just slightly pissed and just a little disgruntled. I dare say that I will probably try to avoid Chicago like the plague in the future.
To be thwarted because of a little wind and rain! GAH!
My flight was originally scheduled to fly out of Michigan and go to Chicago at around 6:30PM. I found out later that morning that my flight was delayed which wasn't so bad. Then about an hour or so later I found out my flight was canceled. Needless to say I was beyond pissed. My co-worker was nice enough to get the airline to switch our flights to an earlier flight at around 3:45 so that was pretty cool, but thats not where this ends. As the day goes on we find out that the flight is delayed till 8pm. Well that kind of puts a cramp in my day considering my connecting flight was at 6PM central time. So that leaves me here, stuck in Michigan just slightly pissed and just a little disgruntled. I dare say that I will probably try to avoid Chicago like the plague in the future.
To be thwarted because of a little wind and rain! GAH!
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Going for the Gold (or Platinum)
As you can tell, I'm trying to catch up on my blogging since I let it sit for quite a while before I post anything new. Well anyway...........
Since I am the great traveler these days (even though until about August it'll be to Michigan), I've been trying to build up my points on various different airlines, hotels, and car rental places. The ultimate goal is to get Platinum status for most of these places. Granted it takes a long time to get status with these places, you gotta travel a lot! My trips to Michigan have been slowly but surely increasing my point status but I've been kind of scatter shot. When I was going to Ohio I could always count on around 2000 miles on Delta and quite a few points at the Hilton or Westin hotels.
My Michigan trips have me running around on 3 different airlines so my point totals aren't what they should be. Platinum status is cool as hell because you get like double points most of the time, free stuff all over the place, and normally you get to board the plane first. But the best part? UPGRADES!! The points that I accumulate can be used for different upgrades whether they be car upgrades (premium rentals are SWEET) and even free stays at hotels (which I will definitely use when vacation time rolls around). I think it'll be at least 2-3 years before I get to where I want to be but once I'm up that point, vacations will be so much sweeter than they already are.
Since I am the great traveler these days (even though until about August it'll be to Michigan), I've been trying to build up my points on various different airlines, hotels, and car rental places. The ultimate goal is to get Platinum status for most of these places. Granted it takes a long time to get status with these places, you gotta travel a lot! My trips to Michigan have been slowly but surely increasing my point status but I've been kind of scatter shot. When I was going to Ohio I could always count on around 2000 miles on Delta and quite a few points at the Hilton or Westin hotels.
My Michigan trips have me running around on 3 different airlines so my point totals aren't what they should be. Platinum status is cool as hell because you get like double points most of the time, free stuff all over the place, and normally you get to board the plane first. But the best part? UPGRADES!! The points that I accumulate can be used for different upgrades whether they be car upgrades (premium rentals are SWEET) and even free stays at hotels (which I will definitely use when vacation time rolls around). I think it'll be at least 2-3 years before I get to where I want to be but once I'm up that point, vacations will be so much sweeter than they already are.
Traveling with extra gear
This week is especially hard since I'm traveling around with some extra stuff in my bag. I got a new game for the PSP and my wife let me take it with me. The game I got was Lego Star Wars II which I rented for the Xbox 360 and beat but I enjoyed the game so much I decided to actually buy it. The PSP though adds quite a bit of weight to my bag. There's the extra A/C adapter and the PSP itself which I also lug with me to the office because I don't want to leave it in the hotel because I'm just not trusting like that.
I'm also starting to carry around extra clothes in my suitcase just because the weather outside is getting nice and I really don't want to go out after work in my work clothes. Shorts and t-shirts are the name of the game for after work activities. While this adds a bit of extra weight, I look at it as semi exercising while on the job. HA!
I'm also starting to carry around extra clothes in my suitcase just because the weather outside is getting nice and I really don't want to go out after work in my work clothes. Shorts and t-shirts are the name of the game for after work activities. While this adds a bit of extra weight, I look at it as semi exercising while on the job. HA!
SUV Upgrade in Michigan
Normally when I get a rental car for my client up here in Michigan I get a car. There was one instance where I got a small SUV but for the most part I've been driving cars. This week I got a nice surprise when I received a Ford Explorer. I'll be the first to admit that I think the car is pretty sweet in terms of the ride and the look. The gas mileage kinda sucks but overall this would have to be the best car I've gotten. Avis has been pretty good to me so far, so much better than Hertz. I'm gonna build up my points with them and the free iTunes songs after ever rental doesn't hurt either. :)
New RSS Feed on MySpace
I finally found a way to post blogs on MySpace kinda sorta. There is a cool Flash based widget that I just used to show an RSS feed for my blog. The only bad part is that it doesn't show all of my post, just a little snippet but its good enough for me! Total sweetness!!
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