I've been watching the next gen ereaders for a while, I like reading and I read a lot sometimes a book a day. I've never been that interested in eBooks partly due to the fact that I quite like dead tree books they never need charging and the display dots per inch is pretty good random access and the ability to display full colour pictures and even animation (flick books).
So I managed to find somewhere nearby that had the new xbox 360 s in stock so I drove over and picked one up. This new model supposedly has fixed the red ring of death issue that plagued the early models and it incorporates the hdmi port of the elite and now has built-in wireless. Having had to replace 3 xbox’s due to red ring of death to get rid of that would be great.
Something I saw today was this maybe 5 to 10 year old otherwise stock mini van with spinners on the wheels. Which besides looking crap actually was a little worrying as it looked like the wheels were still going when the thing was stopped, which at a junction is not what you want.
When into the target down in Sunnyvale and picked up a few bits, among them a kettle. So I can finally make a decent cup of tea a landmark event.
Saturday I decided to visit Techshop over in Menlo park area which is 20min or so down the 101 from me. They are one of these Hackerspaces or membership run workshops. They had an open day on saturday so I toddled along.
Monday I did most of a day of work then had to rush over to SFO to drop the rental car and catch a flight over to orange county. Normally when I fly there it’s an 11h trip to LA then a hours drive so the 1h30 trip this time was refreshingly brief.
So I spent the morning in IKEA and came away with parts of a bed and a sofa on order. I got back and began assembling the thing.
Damn that stuff is labour intensive! I got most of the base assembled and then found I needed a screwdriver.
So I managed to sort out an international money transfer so I can pay the rent and deposit on the new place who only take checks. This took till now to clear and transfer and yet more fees.
So I drove down this morning to sign the lease and pay the deposit pick up the keys.
It seems like my current lack of a social security number is not an obstacle to getting various services so long as I have the cash to pay for all sorts of extra fee’s. This has the effect of making everything that much more expensive. It doesn’t help that the bank in the US is playing silly buggers holding on to checks I deposit because it’s a new account.
So I spent the day looking for an apartment, work paid for a guy to help me out show me the good neighbourhoods etc and he drove me round. Nice guy named Leo who was also a musician in a Santana tribute band. Anyway we drove round 10 properties in the immediate area and further afield.