Monthly Archives: November 2006

My New TV – Acer XD1150 DLP Digital Projector Review

So I was watching television the other day and I knew the picture looked a little dim. I use a computer projector for my TV so I use the wall as my screen (it’s about 100 inches diagonally) and it’s great for movies and regular TV. So I checked the hours for the bulb and it was supposed to be good for another 350 hours but then it abruptly died that night.

My intent when I bought the projector a few years ago was to keep it until it died and replace it with a much brighter one with more features once I used up the bulb (bulbs are about $300). Projectors drop significantly in price all the time. For example, the cheapest Epson projector 5 years ago was in the $2200 range and now a significantly brighter model (possibly with a higher resolution) is now $675-ish (those are education prices and I’d have to pay more). But I don’t want the comparable model, I want the deluxe model!

So now I’ve got a dilemma, do I replace the bulb ($300) or buy the projector I want ($2000 that I wasn’t ready to spend) knowing the prices will keep dropping and features will keep growing?? The answer was the Black Friday ads, I saw multiple projectors for $400 (after rebate) and $500. I settled on the $500 Acer XD1150 DLP Digital Projector (from Staples), no rebate and it was available to ship. It looks like the one in the picture but the one in the picture is the next model up but still looks the same.

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Support “First Step” and get 15% off at Ikea (Canton, MI 12/10/2006)

FirststeplogoActually since I mentioned the local shelter in the last post I thought I’d mention their next fundraiser at Ikea. It’s $25 to get it and you get 15% off your purchase at Ikea (only on December 10th). Plus in the evening they’ll have entertainment, food, desserts and other drawings (at least they usually do at these types of events). Check out the website and flyer for more information. Oh and Santa will be there too!

If you donate $100 you get a bag with goodies and a Swedish food basket from Ikea (and your name mentioned in the newsletter). More than that ($250-$5000) and you get more tickets, more stuff in the gift baskets, signage at the event, and larger mentions in the newsletter (up to a full page). Be sure to click on the link to the PDF flyer to get all the details….

Do you use ChangeNotes?

Please be aware that ChangeNotes seems to be gone.
I’ve been using ChangeDetection.com for the same purpose now.
It appears to offer pretty much the same service.

ChangenotesI really like ChangeNotes and I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before so here’s some info for you. It’s a free service and they monitor web pages and let you know when they change. To me this is only useful on pages that don’t change very often. I use this on pages such as I’m waiting for information on a new book from an author, when the local shelter is doing a fund raiser, when the Mags For Miles list changes, or other pages that don’t change very often.

They’ll let you put a link on your page to make it easy for people to sign up so they’re alerted when your site changes. This isn’t so useful if you have a blog that changes daily, but for something that doesn’t change very often it’d be great.

The downside: It’s generally a slow site but since you don’t go there very often, that’s okay with me. I’m not really sure if they check the pages every day (but it’s at least every few days). Sometimes you get alerts when a page they check has time-out errors.

Worst Burglar Ever

Stolen from Dean’s World.

I laughed so hard when I watched this the waitress had to come see what was so funny.

A Musical Week

So it’s been a musical week for me. This is my third outing for music in the last four days.

  • Thursday I saw Sia at the Majestic Theater in Detroit.
  • Friday was the Indie Chick Night at Trixie’s coffeehouse in Roseville, MI. They were raising money money for a shelter. The only performers I had seen before were Audra Kubat and Lisa Hurt. But now I’ve seen Silent Violet (who’s off to London to record an album), Jessika Carmichael and lil’ Emily too.
  • Sunday it’s the Bittersweet Cafe at the Buzz Bar in Detroit. This is usually Blair and Audra (but she called and canceled since she’s sick) and as usual they have a guest so that’ll be Loretta And Julie Lucas (whom I’ve never heard).
  • And next Saturday is Jewel in Mt. Clemens at the Emerald Theater!
  • Free WiFi at Olga’s!

    So I’m eating at the new Olga’s in Allen Park (Michigan) and I just went to plug my laptop into my cell phone to check my e-mail and the WiFi network “Olgas” popped up! And voila, free WiFi! And to think I thought I was afraid I going to get a crappy signal in the not-near-the-window spot where they put me.

    FYI, it’s totally dead here and I got a great parking spot. Is there a football game or something on?!?

    Better World

    “If you want a better world…
    …you’re going to have have to be better people”

    Found on the chalkboard at Trixie’s coffeehouse in Roseville, MI.

    Win an Easy Million!

    Millionaire raffleSo Michigan is doing a special lottery. Only 500,000 tickets will be sold! Five $1,000,000 winners will be drawn, Ten $100,000 winners and Seven-hundred-fifty $1,000 winners will be drawn. You have 1 in 100,000 of being a millionaire and 1 in 645 of winning at least $1,000. Half the tickets are sold already!

    “The odds of being hit by a car on the way to buy your lottery ticket are higher than that of actually winning”

    I think I heard Robin WIlliams say that, but I can’t be sure.

    What I don’t like is the tickets are $20. That’s a lot of money for some families. I really wish they’d retool the lottery to have more winners. If the lottery prize is over some huge amount, let’s say 25 million, if the big prize doesn’t win they should keep drawing until they hit a $1,000,000. How cool would that be? A million dollar winner each drawing instead of no winner for weeks and it gets up to some outrageous amount. They should also draw a few more winning numbers and give away a few $50,000 and several hundred $1,000 winners, that would be awesome. It would barely affect the huge prizes and think of all the happy winners.

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