I was cleaning my office just now and I deep in the corner of my room, I found a paycheck dated back to 9/23/2002. Talk about a pleasant surprise. Now I have to go into work tomorrow to see if they have to print me out a new one because this one might be void.

I’m home sick today. Actually, I’m not very sick. The day was just too nice. What better way to enjoy that by staying in and sitting in front of my computer working on my site and photo album? I’m trying to get my Christmas, New Years, and auto show pics up this week. Probably head out later to just take some bullshit pics too.

I don’t have time for a full update right now, but I wanted to show you one of my favorite cars in the show. It was a nice, but simple, modified Nissan 350Z in the aftermarket department under the main hall. Nothing fancy on the outside. A little lower, different set of rims, and a different grill made this thing easily the nicest car there in my mind. Click on the image for a larger version. Be back soon for a full update.

I’m telling ya. If it’s not one thing, it’s the other. My DVD player broke a couple of days ago right after I had finished setting up my home theater system. It was this nice Sony but now it’s a big ass paper weight. I take real good care of my stuff and anything I’ve owned that was Sony has just never kept. Their products (both high and low end I’ve bought) are just cheap and chinsy and I’ll never be buying anything from them again (except Playstations). I urge you to do the same.

Anyway, I can’t live without my DVD player so I hopped over to Circuit City and picked up this very nice Onkyo 5-disc DVD changer. Well, it’s awfully big and (go figure) it doesn’t fit properly in my entertainment system. It does look bad ass next to my HTS, though, because they’re the same material and brand. Now I’m thinking it’s time to get a new entertainment system but I really should stop since I’ve spent $550 on the receiver and speakers, $250 on cabling (Monster all around), $100 on speaker stands, and another $300 on a new DVD player. I’m also looking into the HDTV by summer this year. Consumer whore? Yes, and I love it.

I’m gonna try and take that QTVR pano sometime this weekend so you can see how the setup looks in the living room. I know you can’t wait for that.

Yesterday morning, Apple released the public beta of Safari. Safari is Apple’s open source OSX only web browser based on KHTML, the Konqueror rendering engine. I’ve been playing with it all day and here are some of my first impressions.

The very first I always do whenever I get my hands on a new piece of software is go into the preferences and check out all of the settings you can manipulate. After doing that with Safari, you can tell right away that this is a “no nonsense” application. It’s made to do one thing and one thing only: browse the internet. You aren’t going to find auction trackers or messenger services built in here. There are no web page editors or built-in e-mail clients. It’s a very trimmed down, very light program and, as a result of this, is very quick and responsive.

First with the good (and there’s a lot to be happy about). Rendering times are fast, though I don’t think it’s as fast as Chimera, another very trim and sleek browser based off the Gecko engine and also for OSX only. Program navigation and window scrolling are definitely faster on Safari then on any other browser on OSX (or any other type of OSX app in that case). The overall appearance is simple, but might be a little bland for most people’s taste (total lack of color when compared to other browsers). I tend to like it a lot because of its consistency with other Apple applications. The navigation buttons (the little there are) are small and simple. Organizing bookmarks is an absolute breeze, especially If you’ve used other iApps. There’s also a built-in pop-up blocker that works beautifully and feature called SnapBack that helps you backtrack through your page navigation. All very nice.

Now Safari is currently a public beta release and you can tell. Sometimes pages wont render correctly. Working with any kind of Shockwave content is a little on the slow side. Then there’s the occasional crash. It’s nothing that will pull me away from using Safari as my main OSX web browser for now. The bugs are really small fries for me because I know they will be fixed before a final release. What I am upset about is the lack of basic “features” that should really be considered a necessity in any modern web browser. Tab browsing (as found in almost all Gecko-based browsers) is a must for me. I mean how can having multiple browser windows arranged within one window be a bad idea? Apple missed the boat on this one and it’s inexcusable. Another item completely missing from this release is the auto-complete forms. If you do a lot of shopping over the internet like I do, then you really come to appreciate this feature when putting in addresses for shipping or billing. Again, this is something that just needs to be in any web browser you’re asking me to use.

Overall, this is a good start to what could be a great browser. “Refreshing” is a word that keeps coming to mind. It integrates very nicely with some of the other iApps and it’s going to remain my main browser for the time being. If you’ve tried it, let me know what you think. Don’t forget to send your feedback over to Apple. They do seem to listen and will act on what the community has to say. More to come.

So I got the 1st prediction partially right. Apple updated all of those pieces of software except iChat and they did make it a commercial package (as stated in the 2nd prediction) called iLife. I also got the 3rd prediction right. We now have AirPort Extreme which is a consumer friendly way of saying 802.11g capabilities. The 4th item wasn’t so much a prediction, but there was a strong emphasis on wireless technologies. The 5th prediction was partially right. There is Bluetooth on the high and low end PowerBook and FireWire 800 on the high end PowerBook. My 6th prediction was WAY off the mark. Apple introduced a 17-inch PowerBook that’s set to be a type of desktop replacement. What I’m highly interested in is the 12-inch “ultra portable” PowerBook. I’ve been looking to replace my Pismo and this is exactly what I’m looking for. It’s small, powerful, and super sexy. Other things released were Keynote (a presentation tool like PowerPoint), Final Cut Express (a trimmed down version of Final Cut Pro), and Safari (the Apple-branded web browser made specifically for OSX). All in all, a very exciting show.

I’ll be on my way to the Apple Store tonight to pick up a new AirPort Extreme hub and I’m seriously debating on putting in my order for the 12″ PowerBook. Sofa? What sofa?

Can the tension get anymore exciting? Can the excitement get anymore tense? The MacWorld keynote is only 8 hours away and I can’t wait. The Apple community is going nuts. There are some WILD rumors going around right now and that’s just adding to me going insane. I know one thing at this point. If Apple decides to release anything even close to exciting this morning, I’ll be buying it later on in the day when the Pasadena store has its grand opening. An updated iPod seems to be the consistent rumor, but I’m seeing stuff about an ultra-portable PowerBook too. Like I said, whatever it is, I’m getting it. All of it! Screw the sofa.

Ok, now that I got the wishful thinking out of the way, I’ll lay down some (what I would consider to be) realistic predictions. These aren’t educated guesses. There’s nothing educated about me. They are my “shots in the dark”.

• Updated iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, and iChat. (iTunes is excluded)li>iDVD, iMovie, and iPhoto will be commercial updates.li>AirPort will be updated to 802.11g (AirPort 2?)li>Strong emphasis on wireless technologies. (802.11g, Bluetooth)li>Hardware revisions will be built-in Bluetooth and FireWire 2 on pro and consumer models.li>There will be NO other hardware updates. (very disappointing)

I wonder how wrong I’ll be. I’m sure I’ll have tons more to say after the keynote. Good luck to us all…

The weekend flew by super fast and now I have to deal with the first full work week of 2003. Oh joy.

I did pick up my home theater system on Friday and I’ve been playing with it ever since. It sounds great, but I need to still get stands for the speakers tonight. I’m thinking I’ll do a QTVR of my living room sometime this week when I get the chance.

I should have said something about this last week but it slipped my mind. Smashem won the 2002 Football Pickem group and will be receiving the cheapest most generic form of cereal I can find. Congratulations c*cksucker.

Anyone know where to get a sofa for a good price? I’m done with what I have now and probably need to get something in there very soon. I’m thinking about one of those “L” shaped ones, but I really want black leather too.

MacWorld Expo starts tomorrow and I have a feeling nothing too special will be announced at it which is too bad since all of the recent MacWorld Expos have been kind of a let down. In a way, I hope I’m right because I don’t want to spend anymore money for a while (which is what will happen if ANYTHING comes out tomorrow). I really need to just get my sofa and be done. In any case, I can’t wait for the keynote tomorrow morning.

Chevrolet introduced the Chevy SS concept (pic 1, pic 2) and I really don’t know what to think. It looks real good in some spots and looks real bad in others. They’re branding it the “4 door Corvette”. I say give it only 2 doors, leave the 2+2 seating, shorten the whole length, rework the front end so it doesn’t sit so low, and replace the “SS” name (“SS” has always been a trim level and not it’s own model) with something like, oh I don’t know, Camaro, and I’ll be the first in line for it.

Although the news has been official for almost a year now, today the general public got its first glimpse of the 2004 Pontiac GTO production trim showing at the LA Auto Show.

The car will come with the exact same engine/transmission combo found in the Corvette and Camaro, but is rated at a very strong 340hp (compared to the estimated 305hp of the 2005 Mustang it will compete with). It was originally thought that the base version was going to be 380+ horsepower, but that’s not the case. A lot of people think they didn’t want to tread on the same ground as the 350hp base Corvette. Look for an even more powerful model later in 2005 that will go heads-up with the 390hp Mustang SVT Cobra. Anyone who said “the pony car wars are over and Ford won” were dead wrong.

You already know that I’m not a big fan of Ford and an even worse fan of the Mustang, but the new Mustang GT concept is being released today and The Car Connection (my favorite automobile industry news site) has the full article on it with pictures, so I figure I’d share.

My honest opinion: They’re definitely going for the retro look here with that front end. It’s a huge fad going through the industry right now and although most are pretty nice when you first see them, the style gets tiring pretty quickly (i.e. PT Cruiser or Thunderbird). This car is no exception. I think a lot of people will get tired of it pretty quickly after it gets nation wide exposure. The rear end is hideous (although I heard the production version is a lot more toned down). They says it takes after the ’68, but I don’t see it anywhere and as a stand-alone design, it’s bulky and ugly. The front end can definitely relate to the ’68 though and I think it’s pulled off pretty well. I would have preferred Ford did not do the retro thing all together.

Although the Mustang has tried to emanate an image of power and handling, it has always came off as more of a trendy car with the 6 cylinder version way overselling the 8 cylinder versions. The target buyer of this car has always been late 20 year old early 30 year old women who want that sense of performance. I don’t think they’ll have any problems selling this new one to them.

What do you guys think?