Haven't felt too bad the last several days, except for a brief "shivering" spell last night. I don't really know how else to describe it...it's like I feel cold all over my body, kind of the way you do when you've got a bad fever. But it doesn't go away when you get under the covers or do whatever it is you do to get warm. This one lasted for a couple of minutes. The worst thing about it was that I had no control over it. I tried to breath in and out slowly, to relax, but to no avail. I was really scared that the muscle spasms would somehow affect my heart. It's exactly what happened the night I went to the ER (without the preceding chest pains, I would add). I thought it was just cold in the room...and surely it was in the bathroom, where the window was open, and where the whole thing started. But the wife insisted that it wasn't cold at all in the bed.
But enough of that.
I was reading an article in Wired about Netflix, and it said that anyone with Vista/Windows Media Center could hook up directly to a television and watch the streaming content. I was not aware of this! I was under the impression that we would have to purchase a special device. I never had any use for the Media Center before, so I hadn't read up on it. Sure enough, when I had tracked down an RGB cable and ran it from the laptop to the tv, voila! Access to all of Netflix's "Watch Instantly" titles. The picture quality on our big screen actually looked quite good with our 6mps connection speed, but there was a little bit of "stuttering" when the image in the picture shifted from left to right (and vice versa) and some of the darker hues seemed more pixelated than brighter ones. If I weren't so picky that would have been fine. But I decided to take a chance, call Windstream and ask if they had 12mps available in this area now...when we upgraded to 6 we would have gone up to 12 at that time, but they told us it wasn't in this area. As it turned out, it IS available now, so I upgraded. We've got lightning fast internet speed and the picture quality of the streaming video is much better.
I beefed up my Instant Queue, seeing as how I'm sure we'll be utilizing the function extensively. I've got well over 200 titles there, but I'm a little disappointed that the display on the Media Center interface only shows 200. I don't know if they roll over as titles are pulled or what. I would think so. It's still pretty new to me, so I'm looking forward to figuring it all out.
Watching a concert from Einsterzende Neubauten right now. Good God, those guys are awesome. Originality means a whole lot to me...and these guys have always been one of a kind. So good! I'd like to own a copy of this one.
Posting this from my son's laptop, and it's kind of depressing because it has a few advantages over my Vaio. For one thing, the screen is wider and there doesn't seem to be quite as much "glare". The keys aren't quite as hard to push as those on mine. There's a nice, rounded front...I don't know who designed the Vaio, but it's sharp corners make for some very uncomfortable typing. But this computer does have it's drawbacks...I don't like the touch pad at all. It's too smooth for my tastes. I also prefer to not have a numbers pad...though I think I could get used to that. I've had a good run with my laptop, and have always been happy with Sony products...I don't see it biting the dust any time soon, but when it does I will take these things into account.
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