Footlocker Friends and Family

http://ww2.footlocker.com/2007/fle092407a/fle092407a.html

Champs and FootAction should have similar coupons.  Just go search FatWallet.

price drop already

Shortly after hitting Amazon (and getting really official), Creative has seemingly dropped the price of its 4GB and 16GB Zens — in America, at least. Of course, you can make of all this what you will, but the facts are that the 4GB iteration has sunk from $149 to $129.99 on both Amazon and the firm’s own webstore, while the 16GB version has dropped from $299 to $249.99. Interestingly, the 8GB version remains stuck (at least momentarily) at $199.99. So, if you’ve been eying a Zen for yourself but couldn’t quite cough up the required dough, here’s your chance to save some green.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/24/creatives-4gb-16gb-zen-players-see-price-drops/

PL

I spent the weekend in Port Lavaca.  I just hitched a ride with Ken who was itching to fish.  Oddly, my sister’s family and my brother also went to PL for the weekend.  It was cool to see everybody.

Saturday we took a boat out of Port O’Conner we rented and fished out of different spots along the coast.  It was relatively calm so there wasn’t even a chance of getting sea sick.  We did go to a spot that was getting hit pretty hard by waves, so after a few minutes of feeling sick I got them to move spots.  I caught plenty of fish but nothing was big enough to keep.  It was still fun because we were actually catching stuff.  It was a good fix of different types of fish.  I left the crew early at about 3 cause I didn’t want to spend the whole day out fishing.  Even though I got out early I still got sun burn on my arms.  I apparently didn’t spray the sun block correct and I just have a patch of red.

I stayed in with my family and a couple of my brother’s friends to watch UT crush Rice and all the upsets during the UFC fights.  I was exhausted from the fishing and basically just stayed home.

Sunday was some El Patio lunch and watching the Texans put up a good fight but losing to the Colts.  Overall it was a good weekend.  The fishing was really fun.  It was a good crew with lots of interesting action.

something you don’t see everyday

Driving in Houston you get to see more exotic cars.  I told Annie that this guy had to import this car from Japan.  We then passed him up and she was shocked that the driver was on the right side of the car.  It then clicked in her head that people in Japan drive on the other side of the road.  I had to change my normal habits when we were in London.  When two people walking meet in a path, the people in London naturally go left, unlike right here in the US.  Sometimes at the mall, I still go left on accident.  Of course the London rule did not apply in the tourist areas where people weren’t naturally from the UK.  There, it was just a crap shoot.

is the week over yet

So school has been a lot of work.  At the same time since we don’t have tests, I have no clue how well I am doing.  I’ll be glad to get some time off this weekend for some fishing.

The Rockets tickets are going pretty fast so if you want one, let me know (see post below).

In other news, I got a new car battery.  The week before I went to Austin, since my car was around 60k, I went and got my oil and transmission fluid changed.  I also got two new tires (I replaced the other two earlier this year), replaced the air filter, and changed the in-cabin air filter.   This past Saturday after a little San Dong, where a certain color of egg was a hot topic, we went to JuiceBox.  Afterwards I tried to start my car and it just wouldn’t go.  Thanks Jing for the multiple jumps that allowed me to get my car to my apartment for the night.   I got a new battery at Wal-Mart on Sunday and everything seems fine now.

Besides that, dinner this week is a boneless stuffed chicken from http://www.hebertsmeats.com/ on Richmond.  For $10.95 I basically have food for 3.5 days.  It doesn’t have bones, which is a plus and it is stuffed with goodness.  I picked broccoli, cheese, and rice.  It is a bit on the salty side so you may want to go ahead and make some white rice with it as well.  I never got around to the rice making and since it already has rice stuffing…I just drink a lot of water.

Lunch this week has been provided by the American Constitution Society.  Free food and interesting topics are a nice mix.

Rockets Tickets

Here is the list of games we have.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pisRIFPgq_N_nirTqbA0bHg

Weekend games are:
Phoenix, Dallas, Lakers

Weekday games are:
Dallas, Seattle, Cleveland, Boston

There are 7 games (no we didn’t get one for free) with 5 tickets available to each game.
Remember to give out of town people priority for weekend games.

Prices are $42.00 per ticket total. These are all lower level tickets.

Please pick your games and pay me, as I don’t really have $1470 sitting around to use on these.

Email me and I’ll update the spreadsheet constantly.

EDIT:

from Blazers.com:

An exploratory arthroscopic surgery performed on Greg Oden today revealed cartilage damage to the Portland Trail Blazers rookie’s right knee. Oden is likely to miss the 2007-08 NBA season.

Good thing we didn’t pick Portland!

Houston Home 1.0

This is where I spend most of my time these days.  Notice the large amount of desk space.  I moved my keyboard to a keyboard tray.  I don’t normally like my keyboard on a tray, but I like to spread out my books on the table.  My computer is on an extension of the desk.  My printer neatly slides under the computer.

Cleanup Issues

Happy Birthday to James/Brandon (8th).

Happy Birthday to  Liem (9th).

Thanks Doug and Peggy for taking me to Texas v TCU.

When’s Christmas?

Creative ZEN

I broke the battery compartment door on my current mp3 player. As an apple hater, this is on my wish list. I won’t have to use iTunes, I can just drag and drop. I will have an FM tuner to listen to radio and to TV at the gyms. I will have more codec support. I will also have EXPANDABLE memory. SD cards are dirt cheap now. This thing has the best of both worlds, internal storage and media storage.

Feature     Description
Capacity:     4GB / 8GB / 16GB
Size:     55 x 83 x 11.3mm
Weight:     65g
LCD:     2.5″ 16.7 million color TFT LCD 320 x 240 pixels
Songs:

4GB
2,000 WMAs1/ 133hrs (at 64kbps)
1,000 MP32/ 66hrs (at 128kbps)

8GB
4,000 WMAs1/ 266hrs (at 64kbps)
2,000 MP32/ 133hrs (at 128kbps)

16GB
8,000 WMAs1/ 532hrs (at 64kbps)
4,000 MP32/ 266hrs (at 128kbps)
Battery Life:     Up to 25 hrs audio playtime6
Up to 5 hrs video playtime6
Video Playback Formats:     MJPEG, WMV9, MPEG4-SP3, DivX3 4/5 and XviD3
Audio Playback Formats:     MP3, WMA, AAC4 (.m4A), WAV (ADPCM), Audible 2,3,4
Photo Formats Supported:     JPEG (BMP/ GIF / PNG / TIFF)5
Battery:     Embedded Li-ion battery
FM Radio:     32 preset stations
EQ Settings:     8 presets and 5 band custom EQ
Organizer:     Calendar, Contact, Task List
Power Charging:     Yes
Album Art:     Yes
Voice Recording:     Yes
Connectivity:     USB 2.0 SD card

It’s time

Rockets 6-game package (hopefully +1 free)
Section – $42 per game section, cheapest of the lower bowl

my top games:
Nov 09 (fri) – Milwaukee – Yi Jianlan
Nov 17 (sat) – Phoenix – Nash
Nov 21 (wed) – Dallas – boo the Mavs
Dec 15 (sat) – Dallas – keep to boo the Mavs
Jan 21 (mon) – Seattle – keep to watch KD
Feb 07 (thu) – Cleveland – Lebron
Feb 24 (sun) – Chicago – keep to watch Tyrus Thomas
Mar 16 (sun) – LA Lakers – Kobe
April 09 (wed) – Seattle – KD
April 11 (fri) – Phoenix – Nash

Trying to get
nov 9, nov 17, dec 15, feb 7, mar 16, apr 09
milwaukee, phoenix, dallas, cleveland, lakers, seattle
fri, sat, sat, thu, sun, wed

I called and confirmed that we can just pick any six games and get the combo package price and benefits.  HOWEVER, they have sold a lot of tickets and popular games like the ones we want on the weekend may not be available in the section that we want, SO…you basically have to leave all the game decisions to ME cause it will all be based on what is available the DAY i call

I have a rough list of the games I would like to see up top but generally I will pick games in this opponent order:
Phoenix, Dallas, Cleveland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Lakers, Chicago, Golden State,
Portland, Denver, Boston, San Antonio, Orlando, Utah, New Orleans, Sacramento, Miami

I’m looking for at least a group of 5
if less than 5 people want in on this then we’re just going to go single game tickets
if you have a team you HAVE to see, please specify and I will TRY my best to accommodate

You have until Wednesday NOON to put your name on this list.  The price will be $252 plus tax and what not.  Remember you can team up to just take one slot and we can buy extra tickets to these games.