Sheep Guarding Llama

No luck going out last night with my friend. He got stuck in the office so when Dominica got home we just ran out to IHOP for a quick dinner.

After dinner we can home and Dominica did some work on her Java work. After that we watched some of Rowan Atkinson’s The Thin Blue Line. I haven’t seen that show in years. Dominica has never seen it.

I got to sleep in with Oreo this morning. He has been so exhausted this week. He really needs a day of rest. He has been tired that last several days and Dominica practically had to carry him into doggie daycare yesterday.

Today is my work from home day as I usually do on Thursdays. It is “doggie/daddy day” when Oreo and I just chill out all day. He stayed in bed for quite a while this morning and then eventually came out and passed out on his car seat that he loves so much right beside my chair.

Dominica sent me a note today that her sister had to be evacuated from the school where she teachers near Houston, Texas because of a fireant infestation! That would be the bad kind of fireant and not the good kind of FireANT. No word yet on how that is going. We did find out that Dexter really liked his birthday card which was made out of rawhide. Dominica found it at Doggie Paradise and sent it to him (it is a regular birthday card that dogs can eat!)

Tonight is the big Sony PS3 release night that all of the people camped out on streets (supposedly) are waiting for. Andy and I are not convinced that there is going to be the rush that everything thinks that there is going to be and that there will likely be plenty of units left in stores tomorrow. But we will see. When the Sony PSP released there was so much comotion and then, the next day, people were just strolling into stores and buying the units as no one had bought any at all. There was no rush whatsoever. I won’t be surprised if the PS3 isn’t nearly the same. The price is just too high for average consumers to be running out to get one.

Here is my economic theory on the PS3 (which is risky, of course, as it will be releasing in just a few hours and everyone will know if I was right or wrong very soon.) The PS3 is releasing tonight at midnight. All of the big stores are opening at midnight to sell the few units that they will be getting. Everyone is convinced that they will sell like hotcakes. But if they are going to sell like hotcakes let’s ask ourselves an important question. Why would the stores be opening early if they are absolutely sure that all of the units were going to sell? It doesn’t reduce the time for people waiting in the lines, it just shifts it earlier. It doesn’t raise the price. In fact it costs a lot of money for Walmart and Electronics Boutique and other sellers to staff their stores and open late at night with only a handful of units to sell. And the profit margins are extremely low – remember that Sony itself is taking a loss on the units.

So why would the stores spend all of the extra money to open early just to sell a handful of PS3s? Simple. Because they are afraid of opening late and having all of the people who want units satisfied early. If you are the last store to open you might get stuck with your entire inventory because a few stores opening early could potentially satisfy all of the demand! If everyone opens early then the inventory that is left over is more likely to be more evenly distributed and no retailer is taking too much of a risk. Everyone is opening early because they are afraid of being left holding the bag. If they were confident in the inventory selling without a hitch they would just opening normally. So I feel confident that there will be Sony PS3s left tomorrow morning when the sun rises even if some shops sell out there will be many that do not.

PodOmatic has turned on enhanced reporting statistics for their podcasts and we are thrilled to discover that the SGL Podcast has listeners all over the world! Maybe the biggest surprise is that we appear to have a serious contingency listening to us fron Shanghai in China as well as some more casual listeners in Bejing. Sweden and the UK would appear to be our most popular locations in Europe and Louisville, Kentucky is the city in the US that loves us most which is really funny since my family is from Louisville, Ohio! Coincidence? I think so. It is fascinating to see listeners tuning it from all over the world except, it would appear, from Africa. There are no listeners showing up from Africa. Now keep in mind that this is only our podOmatic listeners and not people listening through SGL or OurMedia so there could easily be tons of people that we don’t know about.

Oreo didn’t get up until almost two in the afternoon and when he did he was definitely ready for me to take him for his walk in Military Park. We had a nice walk although it is extremely windy. Not too cold but the wind is something. When we got back I discovered that we are under a tornado warning until six this evening.

Seth Webster who went to college with me in the music performance program at MCC in Rochester’s band Heatseeker has an album due out in a few weeks on Surface Records.

Dominica got out of work and accidentally went to doggie daycare to pick up Oreo forgetting that he was home with me. She even went into the daycare and talked to the people working! They all had a panic for a minute before Dominica realized that Oreo was with me. So that ended up tripling her drive time to get home. Normally Thursdays are her chance to get home early. 🙁

By the time that Dominica got home the wind was blowing even harder and rain and started and there was some lightning visible to the south. This is some weather that we are having today.

Our first order of business this evening is working out in the gym. I didn’t do any gym time today so that I would be ready to go when Dominica got home. Dominica was feeling better today after having taken the day off yesterday. I managed to put in over an hour on the elipital trainer today. I am happy with my progress. Even if I keep gaining weight instead of losing. We went early enough that at least there were old reruns to watch. Better than new stuff.

After the gym Dominica cooked dinner and we watched Haley Mills in The Trouble with Angels. I watched this movie on television when I was young but it has been a really long time. I couldn’t remember the movie hardly at all until we had started watching it then it all started coming back to me. It is amazing how many scenes of the movie were ones that I could vividly remember while not remembering the thread of the movie at all. It is a classic.

Weight Loss: -4.0lbs 🙁

Today is the first official day of our building’s health club being open. They have just been testing things out in the evenings for the last week but now the club is really open all day. It opens at six this morning so I got out of bed at twenty till six and got down there just as they opened. I was the first one in. This is my sixth consecutive day working out. It hasn’t proven to be very effective yet but I am very happy with myself for sticking with it. Dominica is hoping to be able to make it tonight. I only put in forty-five minutes this morning but boy is it nice getting up and getting a jump on the day. Working out first thing really helps make you feel productive. I prefer coming down in the morning rather than at night. Things are very slow, it looks like, in the morning too. I was alone for a while and never had more than two other people, I think, the whole time that I was there. The problem with exercising in the morning is that there is nothing whatsoever on television to watch while you exercise. I watched the BBC news which was insanely boring as all they did was talk about the pomp and show of the Queen opening parliament for the season. That’s fine but it’s just pomp. There is nothing too it. Way too much of the British news is just covering the facade laid over the government. It is really sad for the BBC, the world’s most respected news service, to put so much emphasis on things that matter so massively little. More importantly it is boring!

Speaking of news, Al-Jazeera started English language broadcast today but is apparently not very interested in getting a wide audience as they are charging for viewership over the Internet instead of making the service free. But it is a start. More serious English language news. The BBC has become complacent.

On my way to work this morning I walked over to Subway and got a breakfast sub – egg and cheese with honey mustard sauce. It is handy having so many things within a minutes walk of home. It is so warm out that there wasn’t even a bite in the air as I walked even without wearing a jacket. And it is the ides of November! New Jersey is awesome. Weatherwise at lease.

We had an SGL outage again this morning. Not sure how long we were out for but only a few hours it looks like. Dad was heading to Geneseo today and stopped by to take care of the outage. Not too much longer for this recurring issue, I promise.

I had to schedule an appointment for nine o’clock on Friday morning for the PR5 to get into the shop in Dunellen, NJ. The stupid headlights are out again. This happens every several months. This time the right light is totally gone and the left one comes in and out. What a pain. I can’t believe how often I have to deal with this. At least it is a minor problem.

The plan tonight is to head to the Ironbound for some awesome Portuguese at Mompou with a friend from the office. We have been trying to get together for some food for weeks but haven’t been able to as we are both so busy but things are finally starting to slow down some so we are hoping that tonight will actually work.

I discovered a new Internet television service today: Lulu TV. They are more like a YouTube or Google Video service but it looks like they might have some interesting stuff. Yahoo Video might be interesting as well but I can’t watch Yahoo Video most places so I haven’t had much of a chance to check it out yet.

This is a good Internet discovery day. I found RSS News: All Puppet New All the Time. Which has sadly only done three episodes so far. But I hope for more soon.

Work was slow and I was able to hit the road by half past five. I should be just in time for dinner.

Weight Lost: -3.5lbs 🙁

Today on Opentopia I discovered a web cam coming from NJIT in Newark, NJ. Not the most exciting web cam in the world but it is the closest one to us in Newark. Just a few blocks away.

For more web cam fun check out the carpet cam in Syracuse. I really need to get a cam set up in Newark. That would be cool.

I made reservations for Dominica, Oreo and I at the Hotel Utica today for Thanksgiving. We are excited as we have been wanting to check out the Hotel Utica for a long time now. The Hotel Utica is a landmark in Utica and is right in the heart of town. Built in 1912 just five weeks before the Titanic first (and last) sailed the structure is an important part of downtown Utica. Dominica grew up there and has never been to the hotel so this should be really neat for her.

Today was extremely typical of a moderately slow day at the office. Nothing to report. This afternoon was exceptionally quiet so I took off on the early side and got home a bit before Dominica did.

I got home and Dominica and I went right out to Subway for dinner. We ate and then came back and I did just a little more work from home and then it was time for our evening workout. We went down at eight so that Dominica could work out while watching The Gilmore Girls which I also got stuck watching because there is nothing at all on. Cablevision is sure doing a bad job of trying to sell us cable. Not once have I gone down and found anything on television at all. If this is what cable subscribers have to choose from I am definitely not missing anything. I can’t believe how television has declined! Internet Television must be taking a pretty significant toll on the networks if they can’t turn out anything interesting anymore.

Today is the last day of the gym only being open in the evenings. Tomorrow begins the regular schedule of being open from six in the morning until midnight (at least that is the latest story – nothing at 1180 is an actual “plan”.) Dominica put in a full hour tonight! I only managed to do forty-five minutes but at least we are keeping up with it. This was our fifth day in a row working out.

So we went to bed on the early side and just played some Nintendo DS from bed. I am going to be up quite early tomorrow so I want to get some sleep.

Weight Lost: -5.5lbs 🙁

I was awake very early this morning. I was up at half past four and didn’t have much to do so I got partially ready for work and played an hour or so of Lunar: Legend. Once everyone was awake I walked down to McDonald’s on Broad Street to pick up some breakfast. This is our first time going to McDonald’s in Newark and I didn’t really realize just how close it is. It was hardly like I had even left the apartment.

Dominica and Susan left for work and I settled down to do some work from home before heading into the office. Susan forgot to take in the cheesecake that she had bought for her office Thanksgiving Party today so I walked that down to her office for her. The weather is pretty nice today. Good for taking a walk.

Once again my morning ended up keeping me from being able to go into the office when I wanted to. It was late enough that I decided to just to lunch at Food for Life rather than skipping lunch or trying to do it at work.

It was just after noon when I got into the office. I really like having the day broken up like that though because time really seems to fly. I needed the time to fly since things were so slow in the office once I got there. Quite the slow day.

I got home just in time to find Susan and Dominica at the door of 1180 with Susan’s car being pulled up right behind me. So I got a chance to see Susan off as she returned to Baltimore. Dominica and I then headed right up to get ready to go to the gym. This is our fourth day in a row. We are really excited that we have managed to stick with the program. Dominica worked herself up to forty-five minutes today. I had to cut my session down a little as my right leg went numb and my foot was starting to hurt.

Our shipment from Amazon came today so we have new DVDs to watch and CDs to listen to. Our Disney Hayley Mills collection has expanded significantly.

Weight Lost: -2.0 lbs (negative numbers mean net gain not loss 🙁 )

Dominica and I slept in a bit this morning – the result of two days of working out in the gym. We decided to start off the day with a work out to get ourselves going. We took Oreo out to the park and walked for about twenty minutes. It is a beautiful fall day. Warm and dark. It will definitely rain later on.

After Oreo’s walk we headed to the gym. Again we were the only people there the entire time that we were working out. It is nice having a totally private health club like that. Today Dominica put in forty-five minutes on the eliptical and I put in fifty-six minutes. Yesterday I burned, according to the machine, 612 calories and today I was up to 662 even though it was about the same amount of time. So I am pushing a little bit harder today. I felt good though. I am looking forward to this routine. Tomorrow is tough because I have to go to work and the club isn’t open in the morning, only at night. So I, along with everyone else in the building, has to use it after we get home from work.

After our workout Dominica and I walked over to Subway for a healthy lunch of veggie patty subs. On our way down we ran into someone heading to the health club so at least someone else is using it. After lunch we also ran over to the Dollar Bazar (yes bazar, not bazaar – I am sure that it was accidental but if you want to know what it means look it up in the Urban Dictionary.) I think having a store called Dollar Bazar tops even McDonald’s supposedly accidental “I’d hit it” campaign. Anyway we picked up some towels to use at the gym and a set of really cheap wine glasses because we didn’t have anything in the apartment and it has been getting to be a problem.

Dominica headed back to the apartment while I decided to take the very long walk down to the nearest liquor store (kudos to Newark for aparently bordering on being a dry city.) The walk was a mile or more in each direction and it started to rain before I arrived at the liquor store. I was very wet by the time that I returned to 1180. But at least I managed to get another bit of exercise.

Dominica is working on her Java class today. She is a bit behind and needs to do some catching up. The end of the year gets very busy with travel and events and it will get tougher and tougher as we near the end of her class.

I found a great Google video of a Comcast technician who fell asleep while on hold with Comcast at a guy’s house. The guy took a video of him sleeping and posted it online. Comcast is famous for having the lowest service levels on the east coast of any broadband provider that I have ever heard of and the highest prices to match. Comcast is so bad (and I am not talking about the infamously poor customer service but just the details about themselves that they announce) that it would make it difficult for me to move into an area that uses them. Now that I have used Cablevision’s Optimum for a while it is hard to ever leave them because the ROCK!

I found a cool video of a guy making a portrait of Abraham Lincoln out of pennies. Short but well worth the thirty-eight seconds to view. You also have to check out Panda Bear Sneezing.

Dominica spent the evening working on her Java homework. Susan got into town around eight and I drove out to Harrison with her to look at an apartment that she was interested in because I have a better idea of the safety level of the neighbourhoods around Newark. Then it was back to 1180 and just about bed time.

Weight Lost: 1.0 lbs