Posted by mobile phone:
I wrote a few weeks ago about how we decided to try the netflix online service out. It worked wondefully the first time that we tried it with our new ClearWire service. But it seems that since then our download speeds have not been fast enough to support a streaming movie. Very annoying.
So I am currently near the airport in Portland Or, where I am going to be helping out with tech support for the OR bar exam and I got to my hotel and decided I would try the netflix again from here. The Radisson I am staying in offers free wifi so I crossed me fingers and gave it a shot. And it worked. I watched a documentry about scrabble players. It ran smooth with no issues.
We are going to be building a media server for the house soon. It would be really cool if we could use the netflix on that machine as well as getting the dvds.
Maybe if clearwire upgrades to wimax like they have been talking about their download speed will get better and it could work.

Ok going to bed now so I can be all bright and tech supporty. I am the Site Captain after all (woo hoo I have been waiting for so long for this momentus occaion).

Sleep. Now.

I just found a good reason to boot into the windows side of my machine, and that is the ability to watch movies from Netflix instantly.

We decided to try out the service because why not.  I mean for 8.99 a month you can get dvd rentals AND you can have unlimited online movie viewing.  We were figuring that if we get at least two movies a month that it pretty much evens out to what it would be to rent at Blockbuster.  AND sometimes we like to watch movies on marios computer in bed so now we know that we can use the online service as well to watch those on a whim sort of selections.

Launching into Vista was the worst part of this whole ordeal.  Then when we selected a movie to watch we had to install some netflix software.  That didn’t take too long.  Once the software was installed it really didn’t take that long to start playing, and I could set it to go full screen (which is not that impressive on a 13 inch screen, but not bad when you consider you are watching a full on movie).  It was a little hiccuppy the first few seconds of the movie, but once it got going everything played really well.
The sound on my computer is not that great, just good enough for listening to music when browsing the web, so I plugged some external speakers in and it worked really well.

I have a few trips coming up for work and am very excited about the prospect of being able to watch, what ends up being  on demand type of movies on my computer.  Shit 8.99 is a small price to pay for movies on demand.  I can skip a few lattes a month for that.

I can’t wait until the Linux community figures out how to make Netflix work, OR better yet, Netflix should just add support for Linux and then everyone out there could spend more time watching their movies and enjoying their service than trying to figure out a work around. Although they say necessity is the mother of invention so I am sure that something good will come of it.

I am off to bed.  We watched the Richard Rodriguez Grind house movie and now I am off to dream about having a machine gun leg and shooting zombies.

Posted by mobile phone:
Normally I don’t think too much about money. I pay all my bills at the beginning of the month and then just try to lay low and not get too broke at the end of the month.
This wedding and money is going to be a different matter. Last night mario started working on The Budget. The word budget is never a fun one, but in being responsible ahead of time and trying to estimate what one of the happiest days of our lives is going to cost us, we have added a layer of stomach ache to the day that wasn’t there before.

Our wedding ceremony and reception plans are actually pretty simple. We are having the cerimony and reception at the same place and the location is pretty cool as it is. And we are doing a pot luck dinner and we are already lucky enough to be saving money in other ways (me making my dress is not only cool, but saves a ton of money).
Watching those wedding shows on WE tv I already know that we are starting off really low. I need to get mario to watch a few episodes so he knows just how low we are already starting. Mario keeps saying “do we absolutely need that to get married?”. I want him to see the wedding as our special day, and ask how can we make it a nice day without going crazy, but right now he is still very dollars and cents (maybe after recovers from the mild stroke he had last night he will be able to see it in a different light).
I am afraid that when push comes to shove the only thing I really want to have at the wedding that is unique will get cut because its kinda pricey. Let’s hope not. I vow I will forsake nicknacks if I can just have that one thing.

UrRg money makes my tummy hurt.

Update: I talked to Mario last night and we came to an agreement.  We will have a Tim Gunn “Make it work!” attitude about out wedding and its budget.  On Project Runway they always have a very small budget and a big task ahead of them.  The designers that come out on top are the ones that are creative and take the constraints and make them into something wonderful.  So thats what we are going to do.  We are going to scrimp and save and then add to that scheme (i like to scheme) and plan and create something that is Simple and Elegant with a touch of Flair (aka animal print   I mean come on I am one of the people getting married here)