Category: Best and Worst

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League of American Bicyclists – League Cycling Instructor Seminar

This past weekend I had a great opportunity to work with many influential and passionate cyclists in an intensive 3 day seminar hosted by the Washington Area Bicyclists Association in NW DC.  We had the opportunity to polish our cycling and teaching skills as we trained to become “League Cycling Instructors.”

Cyclists are truly Natural Gas Powered 🙂

Get involved in the “Car Free Movement.”  Not only fun and good for you, cycling is a great way to get around town or to work and saves you money, and the environment green house gasses.

Contact a local biking advocacy group in your area for details and to learn about courses designed to keep you safe as you travel the roadways with motor vehicles.

 

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McDonald’s Giving 1 Cent to Ronald McDonald House for Every Kids Meal Sold?

So I just saw this great McDonald’s Commercial on TV where “hope” is in the empty paper Happy Meal box.  The ad claims that a donation will be made for every Happy Meal sold.  If you look at the fine print at the bottom you can see that 1 cent is donated.  Granted I don’t know how many Happy Meals will be sold during the promotion which goes through the end of the year from what I can tell, but don’t you think that McDonald’s, who I thought was the primary supporter of the Ronald McDonald House, should give more than a penny?  I am no accountant, but I would think that even a quarter would not bankrupt McDonald’s.  Perhaps the donation could be expanded to every item on the menu?  Say you buy 3 items, 3 cents would be donated?

Good Cause

It is very nice to see the collection boxes at each register, and I normally put my coin change in the box since I don’t carry change with me.  So, since McDonald’s is not making a serious donation with it’s penny a meal, take it upon yourself to help out 🙂

I don’t normally comment negatively about donations as every little bit helps, but I was just appalled that an advertised donation campaign would only donate a penny.  One has to wonder if we had a 1/2 cent piece……   Ahhhhh…. very sad 🙁

I would have to say, this is the worst donation campaign I have ever seen and for a big corporation with so many stores, very disappointing.

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Initial Reaction: Apple TV

My initial reaction to Apple TV is fair….

  1. Where is the power button on the remote?  I know they use the same remote for every other computer, but it would be nice to turn if off with a button and not have to navigate a menu.
  2. Great Quality!!!  I had some Digital Downloads from Blu-Ray disks and they look great!  I am thinking I will keep it and not send it back 🙂
  3. Unable to Multitask?  It appears that while I was watching a movie from iTunes, Apple TV was unable to download my rental.  I figured I would do something else while I waited for my slow DSL connection to grab the HD rental.  The progress bar on the Download did not move at all.
  4. Unable to Buffer Rental.  I was a little bummed to find out that I needed to download the entire rental before I was able to play it.  Amazon UnBox lets you download movies locally, but also lets you start playing them about 10 seconds after you start.  That would be nice.  Apple TV told me:  Ready to watch in 10 hours.  Granted if I had a faster connection this would not be a big deal, but until now, I did not see a need to have the $100 /month Internet Speed.
  5. Shady HD Rentals – I should not have to pay an extra $1 for and HD rental.

So…my initial reaction so far….I like it and it will do what I ultimately wanted it to do, play video files at a DVD quality level.  I don’t think I will dump my Blu-Ray anytime soon, but I may start picking up old movies from Apple for $4.99 if I don’t see the need for the Blu-Ray edition.

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Apple TV en Route

For the longest time I have been avoiding digital only content.  I thought to myself, it does not seem to make sense to pay the same amount of money for a digital download as a DVD from the local electronics store.

Why pay the same money for a digital movie as a DVD?

If the price were cheaper I could see possibly switching.  While I am good about recycling and do bike to work, I still do get my bank statements via mail and magazines.  There is just something about getting “less” for the same price that did not appeal to me.

Sharing Movies

I have let others borrow my movies for a while now.  Having the hard media has made that possible.  If I get a digital download, I won’t be able to let others borrow them.  This is something that apparently the Barnes and Noble “Nook” can do with books that the Amazon “Kindle” cannot.  I have yet to hear of any online movie sellers / renters offering this service and really doubt we will see it any time soon.  In fact, it is probably bad that I let friends borrow my movies now.

Move toward HD

As new movies come out, I have been picking them up on Blu-Ray.  Those that I don’t think are worth the premium price, I wait until they come to the local “Red Box” for $5 previewed on standard DVD.

I do own more than 400 standard DVDs and do watch them on occasion. There are some I enjoy so much that I needed to pick them up on Blu-Ray if the price was right to experience them in High Definition.  My goal now is to reduce the number of DVDs I own, and get that smaller collection onto my computer so I can put away the obsolete DVDs.

Digital Media Receiver

So….here we go.  I really have no idea how to setup a digital library other than iTunes.  I know some people have servers where they store all of their music and movies, but I am just getting started and wanted to keep the cost relatively low.  After looking at my options, it seemed like iTunes and the Apple TV were the answer.  I have some movies already loaded into iTunes and since I am a Mac user, seemed the easiest.

Apple TV not only allows you to stream movies purchased / rented from iTunes, but allows you to access your music and movies as well.  I was originally going to just get a HDMI adapter and cable to connect my iMac to my TV, but the idea of a wireless device that can work virtually anywhere the network, ultimately made up my mind.

10% Restocking Fee

I am skeptical about the quality of digital media, and since I don’t have HD Cable, have not even considered replacing my Blu-Ray collection.  I was once told that current, and likely future, delivery systems will NOT be able to provide end users with 1080p quality video and sound due to the extremely high bandwidth required.

Apple has a 10% restocking fee, and that likely means I will need to pay for the return shipping, but buying the unit from Apple online as “refurbished.” it was still cheaper than going to my local store and picking on up.  The only downside..it just left Sacramento, CA, when I could have one right now!!

More to follow…

I will let you know more after it arrives and I have a chance to test it out to see if it is a keeper or just not enough for the discerning audio/video phile.  Well, I don’t listen to LPs, so I am not that much of an audiophile 🙂

There are some that watch shows on Hulu and other free sites and no longer turn on their TV, but I don’t think the quality is there.  This is probably because I have the slowest DSL available because I am cheap.  LOL.  Perhaps If I enjoy digital media I will upgrade my DSL, but with my roommates in love with TV, will likely not be able to dump cable just yet.

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