Saturday, April 12, 2003

Happy Birthday Mom!

~me~ at 1:51 PM

Hey, I decided to take a quick study break and add a fun new feature to my websites. Here on the blog you'll notice in the left column under "fun stuff" a new link for music. That's right my friends, you can now listen to music while you read my thoughts. Because I know some of you may be embarassed if in a quiet room all of a sudden music plays, I made it optional to listen to one of my favorite Mozart pieces "12 variations on "Ah vous dirai-je maman"" (aka twinkle twinkle little star). On my website, you can listen to Brahm's Hungarian Dance No. 5. The song on this page is very long (about 12 minutes) so it takes awhile to load...in other words be patient! I'll change the music every once in awhile and they won't all be this long. Unfortunately you can't download the song (you know you want to!) because I don't know how to post it that way. Enjoy!
~me~ at 1:44 PM

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Okay, so I decided to call the 1800 number and the guy I talked to told me that since a new deal is happening at 8 tonight, the web site acts funky in the transition times. I decided to go ahead and buy it since it was the best deal I've found in all my searches and the places with low prices have horrible customer reviews and since I've bought stuff from dell before and had no problems, I figured, why mess around. Now I need to buy the extra memory card for $25. And the battery charger and batteries. Good thing I can 3rd world it and live on rice and pasta for the next few weeks without the worry of dysentery, cholera, and other horrible things water bugs can cause. Well, that went down quickly! I'm so excited!

~me~ at 6:39 PM

I'm so mad! When I checked the dell prices on my camera I want, there was a 20% sale and the details said it was ending next week. Well, apparently it was changed to today. But here's where it's weird. It says it ends today at 11 pm CT. Currently it's almost 6 pm yet the deal no longer is showing up online! Ugh! I guess I'll spend my money elsewhere!
~me~ at 5:51 PM

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

My latest issue dealing with the prospective purchase of the digital camera has to do with warranty. There's a 1 year limited warranty from Canon such that I would have to ship the camera to them and at their choice, it will be fixed or they will send me a refurbished product (not too pleased with that bit). Then I could always pay $60 for the 4 year warranty from Best Buy and since I found out that they basically would give me a camera the same price as what I paid for the canon originally, should this beast break within that time and can't be repaired, I could get a nice camera. But since most people claim that a product if it is going to break will do so in the first year, is it worth the risk not to buy it? I mean, if this thing breaks after a year, I certainly won't have the money to repair it and would be forced to buy a new one and would have to go through this process all over again. I just don't know. If I opt not to get the warranty from best buy, then the overall price of the camera and an extra memory card goes down not only because I won't be shelling out $60 but because several online dealers offer much better pricing and no tax and even free shipping in some cases. I'm starting to believe the anti-warranty people a little (speaking from the wallet). I mean, if it happens, then I still have a film camera and I'll probably add Canon to my wishlist of companies to die and go into bankruptcy. I guess it is true that if a camera has a fatal flaw, it would be discovered within 365 days and that it's only the paranoid person (me) that feels that the company cleverly programs the camera to self-destruct on the 366th day. I mean, I paid a good amount of money for my PDA and it hasn't failed (knock on wood) in this past year that I've owned it. And if nothing bad happens, then I saved $60. Hmmmm....I'm sure dad will email me soon with his take on it. I know my mom would probably say to spend the money on the warranty cause of her computer issues she had on the last computer she owned. And on the pb G3 that's now at home, if I had bought the 3 year applecare plan, my screen that does a weird flashing thing could have been fixed cheap (possibly free) and that's the reason why I decided to buy applecare for this computer I have now (found an amazing cheap price on it 8 months after I bought the computer but that's why apple is good in that sense because as long as applecare is purchased within the limited warranty period, then the computer is still covered under applecare). My third option, which sounds the best at the moment involves the Visa extended warranty plan thing. Apparently any product you buy with your visa card is covered an additional year or if the product is covered for 90 days, it is doubled. And for a fee comparable to the best buy warranty plan, I can get extended covereage. It works as a reimbursement plan so whatever the manufacturer covers, visa will reimburse me after the limited warranty is over but I get to choose where I get it fixed which is very convenient. This way I can avoid tax and at times shipping and get a good price on the camera. well, I guess I made a decision and now find a place with the lowest overall price on the camera but I'm definitely going to stick to companies that are at least rated at cnet since apparently some of those internet retailers will strip the camera and then try to sell you stuff that should be included in the price of the camera as bought from the manufacturer or they'll sell you a camera that has a german warranty plan instead of the us plan thus making the warranty void. How sneaky and wrong of them! Maybe I should register my stereo and see how much extended warranty (3 or 5 year) is for that...
Well, back to diseases of the genital tract which has concerns and wonders of its own.
~me~ at 2:48 PM

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

I don't know why but for some reason I got a little attack of heart burn tonight. And this was awhile after I last ate. Anyway, if you look to the left, you'll notice a new link under "fun stuff" entitled "heather's house." This is Heather's website that she set up last night and it appears that there was some editing to the original as we had set it up last night. Originally the link for LSU said "crappy med school" and that is no longer as well as the noticeable loss of the link to Tulane (entitled "crappiest med school" because she had typed it in). The best was that we only changed the list title of "My favorite things about Angelfire are easy fast and fun" to "My favorite things about Jeff are easy fast and fun" I'm guessing that while she was over tonight, Jeff convinced her to delete it. Well, take a look and observe as her web page making skills grow in the weeks to come. Now, when she and/or Jeff get blogs, then they can make it to the "friends blogs" section. Yes, this is a formal challenge! Not really but I felt like typing that for some stupid reason. I'm going to try and get a bit more work done. I just got back from my weekly installment of god activities with my classmates. It was a good conversation tonight. I wasn't too impressed with the food tonight though. I think I"m going to take something for my heartburn. How can I be 25 and have such an old person problem?
~me~ at 10:08 PM

Monday, April 07, 2003

So here I was, working away and the power goes out because of a thunderstorm (dad, I guess you were almost right about the weather the other day) so I was excited cause I have these candles that smell nice so I lit them and then was in the process of unplugging my highy $$$ electronics to protect against surge (I don't quite trust surge protectors) and I got my computer and was about to unplug the tv and router when the power came back on...thankfully. So now I'm back to work...oh and now I've learned of a new camera that is putting up a better spec sheet compared to the sony. The Canon a70 has more manual controls when I'm ready to explore those options. The camera itself is a bit more expensive but memory is cheaper and I can afford to get larger capacity cards where as the sony memory sticks are spendy and anything higher than 128 is more than I'd like to pay. In fact, if I decide to get the canon now, I can buy 256 mb viking components card for $38.00 (the sony 128 is $70). Another added cost is the charger and rechargeable batteries for the canon but I've found reasonably priced ones and after it's all said and done, the cost of the charger and batteries and memory for the canon is only $12 more than just the 128 memory stick. I think that's a reasonable cost. I've also gotten this info from a couple discussion boards filled with people who seem to have lots of $$$ to be buying new digital cameras every year. I only say this because I asked what they thought of the best buy warranty plan and they said it was a waste of money because if it breaks, it will break in the 1st year (manufacturer warranty period) and that I'll probably be getting a better one within 2 years anyway so if it breaks after the limited warranty, I can buy a new one. Um yeah, maybe if they give me the money to do so!!! I'd rather shell out the $60 now so that I can get a full 4 years of covereage and hopefully a longer lifespan from the camera. I'm going to ask the best buy people some questions later on but one will be if my camera should break 3 years form now and requires replacement after all attempts to fix it, and if my model is no longer being made, will I get a replacement that matches the specs of my broken camera or a replacement that matches the price I paid for the camera (thus getting a better camera because I'm assuming the resolutions will be getting better and better). You know I'm hoping the answer will be the latter but I'm sure they'll say the former. Yes, it's pessimistic of me but I'd rather be delighted with getting the monetary equivalent rather than my hopes dashed because I'd get the similar spec camera. Well, back to pathology. It's interesting to see that the Zone diet is basically some guy taking the accepted guidelines of the NIH and other health agencies and exploiting them for his own gain. All he did was republish them for the mass market. If you want to know about the zone diet, I'll give you a copy of my class noteset...for free!
~me~ at 6:54 PM

Sunday, April 06, 2003

Daylight savings time has happened again. So remember, I'm 5 hours ahead of you hawaii people which means if you call at night, don't call later than 7 pm hawaii time or I won't be too happy with you for waking me up. On the other hand, if you happen to be up at midnight and I need a wakeup call for my exams, I may employ your services. In fact, why doesn't everyone plan on giving me a wake up call on June 16th.
~me~ at 1:31 PM