Category Archives: reviews

Reviews / feedback / comments on books, movies, television, technology, food, etc. (These might be short snippets and not long reviews)

The El Sano Banano Hotel – Montezuma , Costa Rica

Img 4271So we’re staying at the The El Sano Banano and we keep adding days to our stay. It’s a great hotel in that it’s located right in the center of Montezuma and it’s got all the necessary requirements for a hotel. It’s got air conditioning which to me is a must and not that many hotels have it (and it’s brand new, so it works very well), private bathrooms/showers, the showers have heat and it’s only about $65 US a night. There’s no internet but I just found out that the Ylang Ylang (the sister hotel) has free WiFi but I just found that out so I haven’t tried it yet.

It’s cute but plain vanilla, just beds and a TV in the room, no chairs and no desk. It’s tiny, only 12 rooms, but many of the places are like that. Free breakfast in the morning, it’s delicious(!), I get Huevos Rancheos, which is eggs and salsa on a tortilla but no frijoles (beans). The dinning rooms shows free movies with dinner; I assume the legality of this is questionable, but I haven’t bothered to quiz them on the legalities of international copyright and are they paying the proper fees (my spanish stinks and no one’s English is that good). But pretty much you’re wandering the streets or beech or at a restaurant or people-watching or on the beach.

I’d definitely recommend this place for the price, location, A/C and the rest of what I’ve mentioned above. The A/C really helps the enjoyability of it, the water pressure could be better (sometimes it’s awesome, but sometimes it’s not working). No one we’ve talked to has air conditioning, but they’re staying at places for half the price but we really like the A/C…

The photo is the view out my window.

The Hotel Balcon del Mar in Jaco, Costa Rica

Cr1902Cr1900So here’s a few shots from the balcony of our hotel, the wet stuff in the background is the Pacific (click the thumbnails for a larger photo). I really like the Hotel Balcon del Mar, it’s got everything I need. We’ve actually got a two bedroom apartment so there’s lots of room and I like that. The pocket camerea I used for these photos wasn’t wide-angle enough to photograph the room, I’ll try the other camera later.

Well, it’s not perfect, it could have WiFi (wireless internet), an elevator (Mark says there are 63 steps to our floor) and a better English speaking person. I can make it pretty difficult for people with all the questions I like to ask, imagine if they don’t speak English?!? On a side note, I was a little disappointed about the included breakfast this trip, it used to be made to order but now it’s a buffet (not made my way).

Today I was trying to figure out where to go when we leave here, I thought since I like the hotel I’d try to figure out where the people who own it might have other hotels. That conversation didn’t get me very far. Wouldn’t it make sense to have a list of other hotels that they have in there “chain”? They could keep it in the hotel room for you to look at and think “hey, maybe I’ll stay there some time…”, but of course no such list exists. If I tell them where I’m going the can tell me what’s close though :)

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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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Google Maps On Demand for my Treo!!!

GooglemapstreoSo they finally released Google Maps for Treo so I can run it on my SPrint Treo 700p. With this application I can pull up Google Maps from an application, not just via the web! This means I can zoom, get directions, see satellite views, get very cool driving directions, find local businesses, see traffic patterns (this is a little hard to decipher) all while dragging the map around with my stylus. Very cool!

It’s been out for some other handhelds but it never ran on mine. It’s pretty zippy with the Sprint EVDO speed. It’s pretty big, it weighs in at 423k. It seems to do a good job caching the maps, I wonder how it runs on the slower models and slower networks…

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MyTime in MySpace (a confession / review / commentary)

So it’s a weird web world in MySpace. I’ve been playing around a bit these past few days (and created an account for me) for a few reasons. The original reason was because a few local bands and bars have “space” but not much else in the way of a presence on-line. Then (of course) I found some people I know and linked to them as friends and so on and it consumes a bit of time pretty quickly.

One of the reasons it consumes time is that most of the pages are awful: they don’t load properly, millions of photos and flash slideshows all on one page and the MySpace servers just don’t seem to keep up. Part of this is a million sites with bad layouts that fall off the side of the page, sparkle too much or have transparent text/body and conflict with the background. But like the psychedelic LSD trip that some of these pages resemble, I keep coming back for more. Maybe that’s the appealing part? I’m not really sure. Maybe it should be called MyLSD…

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The Rough Guide to Blogging

So I picked up The Rough Guide to Blogging by Jonathan Yang at borders this weekend. This is from the folks who do the “The Rough Guide to _____” different places to travel. It seemed to be a decent book, pretty cheap $10-ish. It had the basic ides, rss, hosting, audio, video, podcasting, increasing traffic and making money and (very) short reviews of 250 of the “best” blogs.

It’s a nice intro if you have someone who’s been asking about it or if you’re a beginner and want to learn some more. It’s about 100 pages and then about 50 pages of types of blogs (politics, education, etc.) while mentioned some specific blogs and then a bunch of 1 line reviews. I haven’t read it yet, but all the pages I’ve flipped to look pretty good so far.

Kyle XY – Only 2 more episodes

So I’ve mentioned Kyle XY before and I really like Kyle XY (the character) and “Kyle XY” the show. As I was watching this week’s episode I was afraid I was wrong and there were only 8 episodes and not ten, but I checked and there are still two more (Overheard and Endgame). I’m afraid they’ll rush it because they just introduced a new story arc. Some spoilers follow…

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Fall Shows NOT to Miss (Fall 2006)

Heroes – Normal people start to gain extra abilities all over the world.
The 4400 meets the X-Files (maybe?). If you’ve ever read a super-hero comic or wanted to be different then this show is for you. We’ve got a lot of Lost-like coincidental meeting in this one. A great concept. We’ll see how it lasts. (What the heck is the girl in the mirror’s power?)
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – The director flips out on the air. They need new people in charge.
Sports Night meets Saturday Night Live (with a little bit of Network thrown in). A great cast in this one, a lot of your favorites from Aaron Sorkin shows.
Jerico – A little town in the southwest named Jerico. A mushroom cloud in the distance.
The Day After meets Invasion. This one might get a little old. But the first episode was great. Be sure to listen to the answering machine; the first time and the last time gives the most chills. The post disaster stuff is already reminding me of the city in Invasion being cut off from civilization.
The Nine – A bank robbery. Nine strangers. It’s 52 two hours later.
They’ve bonded, they’ve lost one and they still aren’t sure what happened. A lot of familiar faces in this one. Lots of Lost-type flashbacks and they’re trying to piece it all together. Intense.
Secrets of a Small Town – A murder in a small town. A reporter returns home after 5 years. A lot of other stuff/secrets I’m still clueless about.
Twin Peaks meets (I’m not sure what yet). A cast of thousands. Lots of people with secrets. This one is definitely worth watching the first few ’cause if you miss them I don’t know if you can catch up later.
Traveler – Two friends get blamed for a museum bombing. Their friend Will Traveler is missing. A coincidence?
9/11 meets the One Armed Man. This might get old as they track down clues to clear their name. (There has got to be a GPS tracker in the watch).