De-Scrooged?

Posted by terri | Filed under heart, home, natsukashii, watashi

We are at last in December and with Thanksgiving done and gone, it is time for the Christmas spirit to come into full swing. For about 10 years or so now, December hasn’t filled me with any Christmas spirit for a variety of reasons. I am, however, hopeful that this year will be different.

Kicking off Christmas: Happy December 1st!

Without going into too much detail, I want to say that life this year has definitely been more settled as opposed to the past 10 years, and I think it’s finally time to embrace the Christmas spirit. I’ve been thinking of ways that I could “de-scrooge” myself as I have normally been “bah humbug” about the entire holiday season. I came up with a couple of things, some of which I probably WON’T go through with.

Christmas Tree: The last time I had a Christmas tree in my house was in 1996. Every Christmas tree we got years prior were awesome, though our decorations were a bit ghetto fabulous. It definitely brought a spirit of Christmas that not even the most tricked out gift could. As much as I would love to welcome that wonderful, nostalgic scent into my home, it certainly is not practical enough for me to get one. I won’t have much presents to put under the tree and the electricity bill at my house runs high enough as it is. I admit, I feel a bit of the “mommy pangs” when I think about Christmas trees, because I think I can only justify getting one if I had a child to enjoy it. Not gonna happen this year.

Christmas Baking: I definitely take joy in baking and creating stuff in the kitchen, but my success rate has never been good and so I find that I have not been doing it much lately. I think Christmas time is as good enough a time as ever to start again. I’m thinking of cookies and other desserts that I can try my hand at to give out at Christmas time. And if Hunny volunteers to do the dishes, I can be even further motivated!

Christmas Party: I mentioned back in July or so that I wanted to do some kind of housewarming party to celebrate the closing of the “sale” on the house. I’ve made the house a little more inviting with the removal of a lot of clutter and the addition of a new TV, but I have to admit that I am still a little shy about bringing people into my house as I still feel it’s a bit messy and dare I say it, perpetually 汚い? Well, we shall see… I won’t rule it for this holiday season…

Photo Christmas Card: This tops the “most likely to do” list. It was actually Hunny’s idea that we do one this year. We haven’t discussed execution, but we don’t anticipate it being a huge production as I have seen with other people I know. And I think being the  geeks that we are, we probably will do it with iPhoto.

So my hope is that I will at least do one or two things to for the holiday season. My iTunes library has been rechecked with Christmas songs, and so I’m ready to get this season started…

Page Link | Comments (2) | Dec 3, 2008

Sam…wha?

Posted by terri | Filed under digital life, home, shiny

As I had reported earlier, I finally purchased a new TV for my living room. I have to say that I am quite surprised that I went with a Samsung. For as long as I can remember, my household has always been a Sony one whether it be a TV, VCR, or stereo system. And if we didn’t get Sony, we would get Toshiba or Panasonic. If someone had told me years ago that a Samsung TV would be the centerpiece of my living room, I would have thought they were crazy!

They're here!

I can be the first to admit that I never thought highly of Korean products. This was not due to my own personal experience, but I guess in the generation that I grew up, it was always about the Japanese electronics. And then, I dated a guy who, as an American, lived in Korea but had very few nice things to say about Korean made products.  And on top of that, my mom was born in Japan right before World War II, so you can imagine her attitudes toward anything Korean might have very well rubbed off on me.  To make a long story short, I steered clear of Korean-made products despite seeing its growing popularity in the marketplace.

Upon looking for a new TV, I realized Korean and Chinese brands would come up in my search.  That was when I had to remind myself that there was once a time when Japanese products were considered inferior.  I remember this coming to my attention when I saw a sequel of Back to the Future where Doc thought a circuit was faulty because it was made in Japan to which Marty reponds, “What are you talking about? All the best stuff is made in Japan.” It seems that we have to expect that any country can make huge strides over the course of several years, just like those before it.

After checking out all sorts of reviews and specs and then finally checking things out for myself in person, it became a toss up between a Samsung and a Sony Bravia model. I went with the Samsung because it seemed to have more value for the money, and I was namely impressed with its ability to scale standard definition TV. I bought it at the Aiea Best Buy, a place that Hunny and I normally complain about because of their high prices, but I figured since they were selling the Samsung LN40A530 at the retail price and offered a good protection plan for it, they seemed to be the way to go. They also had a deal where I could get a $100 off a Blu-Ray player, so I dove in and got that too. I really got it as a upscaling DVD player especially since Blu-Ray discs are so expensive. Yet of course, out of curiosity, I treated myself to one: Iron Man is indeed a very cool movie!


Iron Man on Blu-Ray

So far, it’s been pretty awesome. I think that ‘housewarming party’ I’ve been itching for might actually be a reality sometime soon. Stay tuned!

Page Link | Comments (1) | Oct 20, 2008

Homework before TV.

Posted by terri | Filed under home, shiny

Even with all this talk of the economy going to the crapper and the crumbling confidence in our markets, I am still thinking of making a big purchase. As I have reported via Twitter, I was deciding between buying a digital SLR camera or a TV for my living room. As much as I would like to get both, I can only choose one.

The scale has tipped toward the television only because it is the most utilitarian solution. If I get the TV, I can give the TV away to someone I know who needs one (desperately.) The TV I currently have in my living room is a 19″ CRT TV which we got from Japan when we lived there. It’s come from Japan, to our house here, to my sister’s and then back here. As to why I want to replace the TV, I think it’s to make my living room a little more inviting. Prior to my housecleaning frenzy, my living room was far from worthy of having a “nice TV.” My house is still far from being picture perfect with needing the carpet cleaned (or replaced, rather) along with a paint job, but I think having a bigger TV will not be out of place in it. Another big motivation is that of being able to play multiplayer games on a bigger screen; a 19″ screen just won’t do when you’re playing Mario Kart or Mario Party on a Wii.


My pitiful TV

Read the rest of this entry…

Page Link | Comments (2) | Oct 6, 2008

Cleaning house.

Posted by terri | Filed under flix, home, watashi

It has been a highly productive 5 days off as I’ve been working on moving stuff into my house while hauling trash out. Over the course of the past year, I’ve been making progress in making my house more livable, despite being back here for about 8 years now. I guess I’ve been motivated as of late due to recent events and am more determined not to have my head in the sand anymore.

My one problem in getting my house cleaned up is finding a reputable company to haul my junk away. I found a lot of ads in Craigslist, but I decided to play it safe and find a more established company. I have decided to go with 1-800-GOT-JUNK.com. I liked the convenience of making my appointment online and also the fact that they attempt to recycle what they haul away. What I am sort of worried about is that they are kind of expensive, but at least they charge by volume instead of by the hour, so it’s a bit more straightforward. They are coming on Monday, and if it is an unfavorable experience, I am bound to vent in here. Hopefully, I’ll be writing a more glowing review instead.
For my last day off today, I went to see a movie with my hunny for the first time in a long time. We made the trek to Dole Cannery so that we could watch WALL∙E on the DLP Projector. I usually don’t care to watch popular movies when they first come out because of the crowds that it attracts, particularly kids’ movies, but I figure it would be a great way to get my hunny out of the house as he had been in and out of the hospital for the past month. As I feared, there were about 50 kids there on a field trip when we got there, and we were forced to sit in the front. It wasn’t too bad because I feel we got to really experience the awesomeness of the DLP or Digital Light Processing Technology they used. It was like seeing a really huge high definition screen. And for the awesome movie that WALL∙E was, it was worth all the minor inconveniences.

A quick review of WALL∙E: the story was rather good but a wee bit on the depressing side, yet the character of WALL∙E really made it heartwarming and enjoyable. With the little dialogue it had, it reminded me of the PIXAR shorts, but with a highly expanded story. It wasn’t my favorite PIXAR movie, which remains to be a tie between last year’s Ratatouille and Finding Nemo.

And now it’s time to go back to work…

Page Link | Comments (0) | Jun 28, 2008