So I signed up for a few personal training sessions at my gym while changing my gym plan…J.P at the 24 Hour Fittness a block from home signed me up with a prepaid plan and now for the same price I would have paid over a 1 year period with my monthly plan, I get 2 years FREE! Well that’s one way to think about it…cost divided among a 3 year period is 1/3 of what I would have paid in 1 year…anyway getting off track.

So today was session #2 with the trainer and he KILLED me…last time I worked out that hard was back in high school when I used to run track and field…..I’m sure if Lin or Regesh reads this they’ll remember how the first training session of the track season was always also so intensive (well mostly because the 3 of us we pushed ourselves harder then the others) we ended up throwing up haha. Haha..good old days! Lin mate you still do that running the 400m for your aussie club team ay? 

By the end of the session just barely had enough energy to drive the 0.2 mile distance between home and the gym. First thought that passed my mind as I hit the shower? -> “I need to sign up for more sessions!”

Have 2 more sessions remaining…looking forward to getting my ass kicked again…what can i say..maybe I have a thing for pain?

(10:31:14 AM) s(name_withheld): why dont u blog about pinky promises
(10:31:20 AM) shiva nair: i should!
(10:31:30 AM) shiva nair: and i should make my blog pink!
(10:31:46 AM) shiva nair: been lazy lately..havent been blogging
(10:32:12 AM) s(name_withheld): oh yea
(10:32:14 AM) s(name_withheld): turn it pink
(10:32:23 AM) s(name_withheld): everyone will think that u are “happy”
(10:33:35 AM) shiva nair: but i am happy….not gay..but happy happy

UPDATE: Geek Dreams is back to its normal colors, but if you wanna check out the pink theme that was up for a day click on the image below

Saw a crazy accident today…so this mini van rans a red light..hits a accord… and then the mini van swerves into the opposite lane and then the driver tries to steer it back into the correct lane..and ends up hitting the curb causing two of his wheels to go off the ground and his van goes a certain distance with two wheels and then finally lands back on all 4 wheels. We stopped since we were witnesses….the guy in the accord was shaking…in shock..but thankfully no one was injured..his first accident so was asking us what he should do etc…in the meantime my buddy Fuzzy (hey that rhymes!) called the cops..but before he gives the location, the cops are already there! Was impressed by the quick response time..and by quick I mean less then a 1min and a half! The driver of the mini van was early 40s or so with a SIX year old kid in the van! and 2 other passengers! Thats so CRAZY! They should have died! It was so close to flipping over.

Oh and this happened on the intersection of El Camino and Mary in Sunnyvale…same spot where a lady ran a red light and hit my car in februrary of this year! That intersection is cursed I tell you!

(Maroon car is mine. Car on the right is the accord that got hit. Sunnyvale police car in the background and cop in the foreground is writing down Faraaz’s account of the accident)

Seconds after I published this post, the driver of the accord emailed us to thank us:

“Hi Shiva and Faraaz,

Thank you so much for your amazing help tonight. I truly appreciated it. 

I was very fortunate that you guys kindly called to the police and explained the accident. Without your evidence, it would have been a difficult situation to me. I hope things will soon be clarified.

Thanks again for your kindness. I will keep you updated if anything happens.

Best regards,

(name withheld)”

Which massacare am I refering to? I’m talking about television networks remaking (and murdering) classics. First 90210 and now theres ANOTHER (does anyone remember the “Team Knight Rider” series that ran for a season or two back in 97/98?) remake of Knight Rider and they’ve completely murdered the classic.

1) Kitt is not a FORD mustang. No, I didn’t expect them to use a 80’s model Trans-am for this new series, but they could have used something that resembled the sleek looks of the original instead of a fat mustang.

2) What’s up with KITT’s voice? Sounds wayyy too human-ish. If they wanted to use a different sounding voice, they should have used a name other then KITT. THIS IS NOT KITT!

3) Part of what was appealing about the original series was that it was just Michael, KITT and Knight’s vision of “one man” changing the world! The new series has a command center with 20 or so staff members. What the hell is up with that? One of many sucky moments in the first episode was when Michael is close to dying, and to save his life a security protocol needs to be overridden and for “dramatic” effect two staff members argue about it for a minute before deciding to save his life. Halfway through the first episode KITT speeds up to over 300mph to put out some flames that engulfed the car, but can’t catch up to a regular production model car in a chase scene later on in the show? So much crap in the first episode? Pfff…

4) Why does such a big buget show have crappy computer effects? The scene in the first episode where KITT turbo boosts looked like graphics from last generations gaming consoles.

I scheduled my tivo to record this season of the show but after watching the first episode I’m left disgusted .Deleting it after I’m done with this post. If they wanted to make so many changes they should have changed the name of the main character and of the car, that way no direct comparision would have been made with the awesome original.

So I just received a call on my cellphone from a Dell telemarketer. She asked me if I was happy with the dell desktop I purchased last year. Bought it for my mom since her old Compaq laptop was about to die..but now she has a Lenovo Thinkpad t61 from work, so the desktop is mine (never use it though because it runs vista..use my Thinkpad t60 with XP instead). I lied and said yeah its alright, besides problems with vista (Didn’t want to get into a discussion about the cheap wireless card they put in the desktop that doesn’t work, how the hard drive died a week after I bought it etc etc) because I wanted to keep the conversation short.

She asked me how long I was going to keep the PC. I said until the end of this year. Then she asked me if I know that my warranty ends in october. I said I do, but don’t care because I’ll be getting a new computer anyway (I was planning on keeping the monitor, keyboard, mouse and just get a mac mini to replace the heart of the system..but waiting for Apple to update mac mini’s with better graphic cards). Then she has the nerve to tell me that a new computer will be more expensive then an extended warranty and asked why I would want to do that.

Yeah its more expensive, but why the hell would I want to keep that piece of shit Dell any longer then the end of the year? The only thing that sucks more then their cheap shitty hardware is their customer service. For example when the hard drive died, it took them a month and a half before they finally came home and replaced it. Each customer support rep I talked to made me do the same things over and over (”Ok turn off the computer and unplug it from the electrical socket..and now plug it back in and start it up. Is it ok now?) and when one rep couldn’t fix the problem they would pass me on to another rep who asked me to do the same stuff over. Even though I told them I suspected the problem was with the hard drive no one at Dell’s customer support was willing to listen.

Anyway back to the telemarketer…told her that I understood that it would cost me more, but an extended warranty would not help me solve the problems I have with Vista so its pointless for me to extend the warranty. She proceeded to go on and on about how the software support that comes with the warranty will fix my vista problems. Told her that nothing Dell’s customer support can do will fix Vista, and that I don’t care about those problems anymore because I’ll be replacing the desktop with a mac anyway, thanked her for her time, wished a good day and hung up.

Next time I’ll hang up as soon as they introduce themselves to me as a Dell telemarketer/rep, just like I do with those telemarketers from San Jose Mercury News who keep bugging me about subscribing to the Sunday newspaper. Who reads newspapers anymore? Why pay for the paper when I can get all my news for free and whenever and wherever I want it through the web?

The new generation of Ipod nanos were announced at todays “Let’s Rock” event in SF around 10:30ish a.m (but you already knew about that because all of us geeks were following live blogs of the event from 10am this morning right?).

Changes:

- Cosmetics. Has a oval cross section. Went back to the “thin tall” factor of the 1G and 2G nano (3g nano was fat and short). Looks pretty sweet. Check out image below.
- built in accelerometer (same as iphone). This will allow games designed with the iphone in mind to play on the nano. Sweetness! It will also allow the nano to switch to cover flow mode (the mode in which instead of listening song titles/album titles it displays album covers instead that you can flick through through the use of the click wheel) ..and it also allows for the next bullet point
- Shuffle songs by shaking the nano! Now thats cool!
- Genius mode (this is also being added to the ipod touch and to itunes). Here’s Apple’s description of this feature:

“Say you’re listening to a song you really like and want to hear other tracks that go great with it. The Genius feature finds the songs in your music library that go great together and makes a Genius Playlist for you. It’s like having your own highly intelligent, personal DJ.”

- improved battery life (up to 24 hours)
- headphones with built in mics and built in remote control.
- voice recording capability
- Use of more environmentally friendly materials

Changes to the ipod touch were also announced, but I’ll skip that for now due to time constraints. It looks like the iphone now and includes the genius feature. Also has external volume control and speakers like the iphone. Aside from that there’s also a new version of itunes (version coming out and NBC will be returning to the video store (they left itunes a year or so ago because they wanted to charge around $5 per episode for their tv shows including heroes, but Steve Jobs did not want to charge customers any more then $1.99 at the time).  Also out by the end of this week will be iphone software version 2.1 that is supposed to reduce number of dropped calls, improve battery life, crash less and provde faster backups. Mine hasn’t crashed much and my backups are also fast, but I know some readers of this blog have those issues so hopefully 2.1 will fix those problems.

Oh and heres more info on the new nano and touch. Cool thing about apple is most of the time their products are available to buy at the same time as the announcement.  Oh and there was supposed to be some Microsoft announcement today as well..but who cares? (new zunes…blah).

Just ordered a 16gb ipod nano to use in the gym. It’ll be replacing my older 30gb ipod whose screen is starting to give up (I sat on it) and i a lil bulky for the gym..don’t want to use my iphone in the gym because then it’ll be covered in sweat at the end of each session. Ordered the black nano…second on the left in the pic below. Can’t wait till it arrives! I should have just gone to the apple store in a day or two and picked it up personally instead or ordering it online but I doubt I’ll have a chance to go to the apple stores anytime soon.

Microsoft is prepping to insert its own version of the Apple Genius, dubbed Microsoft Gurus, in stores like Best Buy and Circuit City, but unlike the Genuis Bar staff, Microsoft’s pros will only help with pre-sale questions, according to Yahoo! Finance.

Tom Pilla, Microsoft’s general manager of corporate communications, isn’t comparing the Microsoft Gurus to the Apple Genius bar team. “Think of that as borrowing a page from Nordstrom with that retail customer experience,” he said.

The Gurus will be placed in stores to help potential customers select Microsoft solutions and to offer pre-sale support. They will not, however, be available for post-sale support, unlike the Genius Bar staff, potentially limiting their usefulness to new Microsoft customers.

The Microsoft Guru program is part of a US$300 million campaign the Redmond-based company has launched in an effort to improve its image. The company recently launched a new TV ad series with Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld as part of its image revamp, too.

Source

Sweeeeeet..now I can go bug these “Gurus” with questions like “Why is vista a huge piece of sh*t?” , “Why the f*** did some features/utilities from XP get replaced by less efficient utilities in Vista?”….

I wouldn’t touch a xbox 360 with a stick. The PS3 is my next gen gaming console of choice and it doubles as one of the best Blu-ray players on the market. So no thanks Microsoft, that fat markdown you’ve made on the 360 isn’t going to open my wallet to you.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of the xbox 360’s high failure rate (the ring of death failure)…I was curious about how many consoles were affected and finally came across some numbers in a book by Dean Takahashi (this is his 3rd book on the xbox).

Numbers:

-In July of 2007, Microsoft publicly acknowledged the so-called “Red Ring of Death” issue and took a corresponding financial hit of more than $1 billion to fix it. Prior to that acknowledgement, Takahashi reports that Microsoft had taken returns on 1.2 million of the roughly 11.6 million shipped Xbox 360s. However, the problems responsible for that return rate had been around since before the console hit shelves.

- Takahashi quotes a Microsoft engineer who raised the issue of hardware reliability in August of 2005, months before the system’s November launch. At the time, 68 of every 100 Xbox 360s made by Microsoft’s Chinese manufacturing partners were coming off the line nonfunctional. Worse still, when the first batch of the system’s three-core CPUs rolled off the line, only 16 percent worked.

- There were even issues with the QA machines that supposedly ensured the 360’s system reliability. Takahashi reports that the machines would approve faulty units and were not properly debugged because Microsoft wanted to save $2 million on a $25 million contract with its third-party manufacturer. (source)

With the recent price cut in the US, the xbox 360 is now $199 for the cheapest configuration..that makes cheaper then the Wii….but do you really want a cheap piece of faulty hardware? Your choice…I’ll stick with the PS3 (and i also have a wii that I don’t place coz theres no games out for it that I find interesting enough).

Exciting week for geeks everywhere. Net is buzzing with rumors of what Apple might be releasing next tuesday. I was hoping it would be a redesigned macbook pro, but looks like it’ll be updated ipods. In the midst of all that google announced that it was going to release a web browser!! Wooohoooo! Its available here and you can read the announcement on the official google blog. Been using it since yesterday and it is fast when it comes to rendering pages, has a sexy minimalist design, and I love how flexible the tabs are. Check it out for yourself.

Also out is version 3 of Picasa. Briefly used it today to sync some albums. Besides the sharing/sync features I love the new picture viewer..does a much better job then the default windows viewer. Download Picasa 3 Beta from here and read the announcement on official google blog here.

Back blogging after a brief hiatus..after the olympics finished needed to catch up on sleep that I missed out while trying to stay up late to caught all the events Now that the olympics are over theres not much to watch on tv….200+ channels and nothing good is ever on :(…ooo except for x-files reruns on TNT at 11pm! Reminds me of the days back in primary school when I used to stay up late trying to catch an episode on a school night…good times

Went camping last weekend with and it was a blast. Camp ground was located minutes away from the heart of Point Reyes National Seashore. Camp was set up on saturday and since daylight was quickly fading all we had time for was dinner…not gonna complain about that :) 

Sunday morning woke up early…to the sound of crows…and a crying baby from a nearby tent but that was alright since years of college have made me pretty used to getting no more then 5 hours of sleep. After breakfast drove out to the lighthouse. Beautiful scenery all around all around.

The steps leading down to the lighthouse didn’t look too bad intially…so I didn’t pay too much attention to the sign stating that the climb was equivalent to a 30 story building. Walk down was a piece of cake…but on the way up….all I’m gonna say is that I’m glad I’ve been hitting the gym lately haha..otherwise I’d be in a bit of trouble….I wouldn’t say that the climb was equivalent to a 30 story building though…maybe a 15 story building.

On the way back to the camp, we stopped by an oyster farm…and that brings up the most important part of the weekend…THE FOOD!

WOW..just wow…we had some kick ass chefs in our group who conjured up amazing kabobs, chicken and lamb dishes…and there was lots and lots of my fav…bacon haha

And for the health conscious….veggies wrapped in bacon! (the only way veggies should be eaten!)..

..and fresh oysters from the oyster farm!

A bunch of us also got to see a baby rattle snake on a hike. Turns out that baby rattle snakes are deadlier then full grown ones. According to Wikipedia:

Rattlesnakes are born with fully functioning fangs capable of injecting venom and can regulate the amount of venom they inject when biting. Generally they deliver a full dose of venom to their prey, but may deliver less venom or none at all when biting defensively. A frightened or injured snake may not exercise such control. Young snakes are to be considered more dangerous, as they have less control over the amount of venom they inject. A young rattlesnake will often simply inject all its venom, which is a deadly amount.

Well this one didn’t do much…just chilled in the middle of the path for a bit and once it got tired of all the rockstar-ish attention it was getting decided to just slither away into the grass. Within a blink of an eye you couldn’t distinguish the rattlesnake from the grass. Would suck to run into one of these accidently.

No more snakes on our hike, but lots of tree hugger eye candy

Returned on monday and hit the gym right away…needed to burn off all that yummy-ness from the trip.