Category: Commentary

What I think about stuff…

Posted on

REVIEW: Grand Buffet Restaurant

What: A new Chinese buffet restaurant
Where: 609 N. Main Street, Belmont, NC
How Much: $8.99 per person for dinner (Friday & Saturday); $7.99 the rest of the week.  Lunch is less.

A few weeks ago a new Chinese buffet opened in a former steak house in lil’ ol’ Belmont. The missus and I have been long-time customers of New China right across the street, yet every time we passed Grand Buffet the parking has has been freakin’ packed! I’m sure Lisa got sick of me saying “ya know, we should really check that place out sometime…” every single time we passed the place.

And so it was this past Friday. Lisa was kind of tired after work and didn’t want to cook anything or drive very far to eat out. I couldn’t think of anything in the freezer that I wanted to make for dinner anyway. Charlotte is a long drive from Belmont if you’re tired and just to get something to eat, so I jumped on it with abandon: “CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET!” Perhaps I was a bit childlike in my tactics. Maybe I should have said something more erudite and well-reasoned instead of simply chanting over and over again. As it was, I needed only to grab a pan and a wooden spoon and start banging on the pan whilst marching in circles chanting “CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET!” to make my regression complete… but hell, it worked and so we went.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Grand Buffet Restaurant”

Posted on

REVIEW: New Order’s Waiting For The Siren’s Call

What: A review of New Order’s newest album
Where: Stores everywhere, April or May 2005
How Much: Around $15

I wish more of the members of my musical generation would die early. Seriously! Think about those tired, old 60s “heroes”… Would Jim Morrison still be revered as an “American Poet” if he was playing in Branson, Missouri today? Would Jimi Hendrix still be granted God-like status if he were pimpin’ his new albums via late night infomercial? Would people still get all misty-eyed about Janis Joplin if she was telling us to “get more” from T-Mobile?

Instead of our rock gods dying early, it seems that far too many of them are pumping out album after album of dreck that ends up in the $1.99 bin faster than William Hung’s newest crapbomb. Lord knows I loved The Cure back in the day, but to see Robert Smith still trying to fly his freak flag at age 45 is saddening. Watching Sting trying to remain “cool” while putting out disc after disc of elevator music is saddening. Even though Motley Crue and Guns and Roses are not my type of music, watching Vince Neil and Axl Rose still trying to be relevant is saddening. Even though Duran Duran’s new album is pretty damn good, it easily could have been a train wreck of the first order. It’s all depressing and it’s senseless, and that’s where this New Order disc comes in.

Continue reading “REVIEW: New Order’s Waiting For The Siren’s Call”

Posted on

REVIEW: Jaipur Indian Restaurant

What: Charlotte’s BEST Indian Restaurant
Where: 5909 South Boulevard, Charlotte, NC
Phone: 704-643-1421
Online?: Yes, here.
Lunch: 11 – 2:30 (M-F), 12-3pm (S-S)
Dinner: 5:30pm to 9:30pm (10pm F-S)
How Much: $10.95 per person for the buffet

One of my first priorities when I first moved to Charlotte was finding a good Indian restaurant. When it comes to epicurean delights, few things can beat a kick-ass curry. So I went to several websites like Creative Loafing, Citysearch and Digital City to see the score on local places. Several places were recommended, but for some reason, Jaipur stuck in my mind. And so the missus and I went there the first time to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (of all things). A year later, we went there to celebrate my birthday. And just a couple of days ago… Valentine’s Day. Why we pick an Indian place to celebrate B-list holidays is beyond me, but you’ll sure know where to find us on Arbor Day or Columbus Day!

Continue reading “REVIEW: Jaipur Indian Restaurant”

Posted on

REVIEW: Sonic Boom! Alarm Clock

What: The alarm that no one can sleep through.
Where: Available online; I used appliancehut.com
How Much: $34.99 (though I got mine on sale for $32.99)

I have a problem waking up in the mornings. Not only have I always been a heavy sleeper, I’ve also had a lifelong habit of staying up far too late into the wee small hours of the morning to allow for early rising. Because of this one-two whammy, I’ve never found an alarm clock that could wake me up properly. Oh sure, I’ve tried all sorts of tricks – randomly switching the alarm between CD or radio or buzz. I’ve tried moving the alarm clock to different places in the room. I’ve tried one of those clocks that gradually increases the volume of the alarm. You name it, I’ve tried it.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Sonic Boom! Alarm Clock”

Posted on

REVIEW: Archos AV400 Portable Media Player

What: Possibly the best all around portable media player
Where: Stores everywhere; Archos’ homepage is here.
How Much: Around $449

There are dozens of devices out there that can play digital video these days: laptops, PDAs, Smartphones, portable DVD players and personal media players. Each of these devices have their strengths and weaknesses. Laptops have huge color screens and large hard drives, but they’re rather bulky (and expensive and quite heavy at the lower price points). PDAs and Smartphones are as portable as can be, but almost all of them use some form of Flash memory, which means hours of re-encoding videos, not to mention the hassle of keeping track of 4 or 5 SD or CF cards. Portable DVD players are pretty neat, but are typically plagued by short battery life and the lack of codec support (MP3? Maybe. FLAC or Ogg? No. DivX? Maybe. Xvid? No.) Plus, DVD players also require you to carry around a CD case full of discs, which makes them less portable that you might initially think, especially on airplanes or inter-city trains.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Archos AV400 Portable Media Player”

Posted on

REVIEW: Motorola IMFree Wireless IM

What: A wireless IM device for AOL Instant Messenger
Where: Many vendors (see below)
How Much: $10-$129 (see below)

IMFreeThe tech world is littered with products that may (or may not) have been good ideas. One of the most famous (infamous?) was DIVX – not the popular MPEG4 video format, but the “DVD rental replacement” player. The premise behind DIVX players was that you could go to Circuit City and buy a DIVX movie disc for around $6. Once you put the disc into a special DVD\DIVX hybrid player, a chip inside the player would record the discs’ title and only allow you to play the disc for 48 hours. After that time, you could play the disc again by paying a “continuation fee” of around $3.25 or you could even upgrade the disc to “Silver status” allowing for unlimited playing. This was all done via a modem built-in to the DIVX player that would connect to a central server and charge your credit card accordingly. Although it seems silly now, there was great fear at the time that certain movies would come out in DIVX format only and thus turn the entire home movie market into one huge pay-per-view moneygrab by the movie studios. (For what it’s worth, the DivX MPEG4 video format was named after the failed DVD substitute as a last “Ha-ha” to the content industry.)

Continue reading “REVIEW: Motorola IMFree Wireless IM”

Posted on

Has The Music Industry Lost Its Mind?? (Part 2)

In part two of a two-part rant, Jim Cofer discusses the Sony DRM fiasco and its long-term implications for DRM within the music industry in general. Hopefully, this article will be far more coherent than part one, which was just some assorted rambling.

Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it? It seems the bad news just won’t stop for Sony Music these days – and given their almost maniacal hated and distrust of their own customers, it’s not hard to see why karma’s so busy dumping on them lately. Just about every website on the planet – including this one; see my news for 11/01 – covered the initial news about the “rootkit” that Sony included on 20-50 audio CDs for sale in the United States. Here’s a brief recap in case you missed some of the finer points of the story:

Continue reading “Has The Music Industry Lost Its Mind?? (Part 2)”

Posted on

The USA vs. The UK

I recently got back from a week in the UK, and while I was there the missus and I talked about a lot of the things that the US does better than the UK and vice-versa. It’s certainly interesting to go to a foreign country and see how things differ between that country and your own country. Maybe that country even does some things (gasp!) better than America!

Here’s a quick list of things we thought of that either the UK or the US does better than the other:

Stuff The UK Does Better

1) Scarves – This is one category where it’s not even a contest. The UK absolutely kicks America square in the ass when it comes to scarves, specifically the wearing of scarves. British people seem to have this innate ability to effortlessly fold a scarf and make it both practical and beautiful. Remember on the school playground how the girls used to play with string by hooking it around their fingers and pulling their hands apart? Remember too how the guys would occasionally try to copy the girls at this, yet only succeed in cutting off the blood supply to one of their fingers? Well, in that analogy the girls are British people and the guys are Americans. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that there are plenty of Yankees that can tie a scarf as well as an Englishman… but they just don’t have the grace that Britons (of both sexes) do.

Continue reading “The USA vs. The UK”

Posted on

REVIEW: VoiceEclipse VoIP Service

What: Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone service
Where: http://www.voiceeclipse.com
How Much: $19.95/month

When I moved from Atlanta to Charlotte, I wanted to be able to keep in touch with family and friends as much as possible. To that end, Lisa and I signed up for MCI’s “The Neighborhood” plan, which gave us unlimited local and long distance calling for around $49.99 a month. This worked well for us for a couple of years, but two problems cropped up which made the plan less attractive: for starters, I simply lost touch with many of my Atlanta friends, which made the plan seems less necessary. Also, MCI raised the monthly fee, so that with taxes one month of “The Neighborhood” ended up costing around $76.

Continue reading “REVIEW: VoiceEclipse VoIP Service”

Posted on

REVIEW: Uniden CLX475 Phone System

What: A multiple handset phone system from Uniden
Where: Many vendors (We bought it from Sam’s Club)
How Much: around $169 (see below for more information)

Uniden phonesLisa and I recently switched from a traditional phone service to voice over IP (VoIP) provider VoiceEclipse (see my review of the service here). One significant change with switching over to VoIP is that (for the most part), you’re stuck with a single phone jack – which is located on the back of the device the VoIP company sends you that connects to your router or cable modem. While it’s certainly possible to rewire your house for VoIP service, it’s simply a task that most folks don’t have the expertise or confidence to do. So the easy answer for this is a multi-headset phone. Although I was eager to volunteer my services, I don’t think that Lisa really wanted me monkeying around with the telephone cabling.

Now, multi-headset phones have (of course) been around for a while. But it’s only within the past year or so that they’ve actually become affordable in my opinion. But regardless of the model you choose, the phones all offer the same benefit: you can use multiple handsets from a single “base”, which means that you only need a single phone jack to use them anywhere throughout the house – which is prefect for VoIP.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Uniden CLX475 Phone System”