Random Thoughts

I have a big TV. I have no cable (there's a story that goes with it... that I shall document later), so I was wondering what sort of over-the-air HD programming is available. Apparently, quite a bit ! Now, that doesn't mean that I would get all or even many of those because I am sure there are limitations. For one, I am in a basement and any indoor antenna is unlikely to pick up line of sight signals that easily. I'm thinking of getting an antenna and giving that a shot to see if the hype really lives up to what they say. I am no fan of the cable company out here, so I'll spend the $$$ and see if it was worthwhile. Until then, I am stuck watching very grainy NBC...

Some things really bother me. Little, meaningless things usually. But it is based on principle and it really gets me going. So what is it? Well, I happen to have a sibling. This sibling has this terrible habit of taking my stuff and use it as if it was his own. Stuff like my car, tools in the house whatever. Now, I have no problem using those things, if you return them to where they are kept. Like tools. Well, lets clarify. Don't touch my car if you have your own. If you don't have a car, take the bus or walk or bike or whatever. But not so. My dear brother uses my stuff as if it were his own and then the silly bugger, he lies about it. He also has this terrible habit of wearing my clothes and then like a dummy, taking pictures in it and posting it on facebook. For Pete's sakes man, if you're going to deny using my stuff, at least don't put the pictures up yourself! People like that make me really mad. It is as if we have one set of rules and some of us are free to

Some of you may know that I have a recently acquired an LCD HDTV. It is a thing of beauty. I have no cable service yet because Comcast is somehow screwing me over. But that axe will be ground another day. Today, I am here to talk about NHK. How did I get to NHK? Well, lets leave that aside for a minute. What is NHK is perhaps the first question to ask. NHK is Japan's public broadcaster, a sort of BBC or CBC of Japan. So now that the what has been resolved, lets get to the why . UHDV. Ultra High Definition Video. What's that? You've heard of 1080p by now. Blu-Ray DVDs can be encoded at that resolution. 1080p is it , right? Hmm, maybe. You see, the standard 1080p on NTSC has a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. That's pretty cool. Well UDHV is 7,680 × 4,320 pixels. It is 4 times taller and wider. NHK is the force behind UHDV. That's how I was led to NHK. They are hoping to start broadcasting in UHDV by 2015. By the way, they switched to digital broadcasting in 2000.

I've been thinking of Africa of late. I am not sure why. Maybe its the Akon music. He's Senegalese. Or from New Jersey, your choice. Maybe its something else. Some of you may know that many years ago, I lived in Africa. I don't have too many memories of it, but the ones that I have are good ones. I somehow stumbled upon SABC's Greatest South Africans list . One tends to forget that a rather large continent sits out there and is teeming with some truly amazing people. Its amazing how we as a world are sometimes more obsessed with the next lunatic thing Britney Spears is going to do instead of perhaps enjoying the diversity that is this planet. As I scanned down the list, I noticed some names that I can say I have the honour of knowing about. There are the obvious ones for me: Mandela, Sisulu, Tutu, Tambo, Verwoerd (yes, he's on the list). But some that are not so obvious like Gandhi, Smuts (contemporaries of each other btw), Rhodes. But they are all sons and daughte

The last few days have been a bit different. I'm in Texas for one. I've been talking to some friends of mine... and life is interesting. One of them moved back to Vancouver recently from DC. Lucky her. She sounds more happy than anyone I know of. Another guy is out for work in Hartford, CT... and is apparently going to propose to his girlfriend in New York next week. And then head off to Thailand for work. He just came from Mexico city... where he was working insane hours. Another one hates his job and wants to move back to Vancouver for good. As for myself, I miss my family, I bounce between not hating my job too much to downright hating my job. And now my work place is so much different. Three of the people that made it more bearable are in various stages of buggering off: one's gone to a new job that he loves I think, the second one is moving on because he found a better opportunity in the company... the third one buggered off home to work from there. So, that leaves me