One of the best things about Google is that they continue to be innovate and add new features to their products. The most recent being traffic monitoring to google maps. Now if you check out the metro Columbus area (or any other major city) on google maps, you can click on the traffic button and it’ll show the speed of traffic throughout the city. A very handy tool if you’re about to head out of work and want to see the best way home. Microsoft’s Live Maps has had this feature for a while, but only in major metropolises like L.A. or New York that I know of.
On a related note, I’ve now twice become the personal GPS service for someone who didn’t know where they were going. Once it was to help Kim find her way home in Boston after getting lost trying to find a Trader Joe’s (we ended up finding the Trader Joe’s and getting her on her way home). And a second time it was to help Bree find Microcenter. For both instances I was explaining directions and even landmarks (using the satellite coverage) to help guide them through locations that I have never driven or seen. Its very strange how far technology has advanced.
You may have seen in the news how the DOW and S&P 500 dropped quite a bit yesterday. Its the first time in my life that such a large fluctuation in the stock market effected me directly. I’m now at the point where I have a decent amount of money invested in the stock market for savings and retirement purposes and a drop of that amount can add up to 100s of dollars lost in a single day. Did I run out and sell all my investments? No, this is how the stock market works and I realize that. It was just interesting to see how up until now, I had known the joys that 2 or 3 % single day gains can bring. Now I can see the flip side of how a loss of that magnitude can effect your net worth in the reverse manner. Just part of growing up I suppose and learning how the world works.
So I guess it has been a little while since I’ve last posted. I apologize about that. At least I haven’t hit a month absence yet. Really, there just hasn’t been that much to talk about. Sometimes I’ll come across an article or news story that would be interesting to comment on, but will forget it 5 minutes later. I should work on that.
My life is kind of in a place right now where nothing out of the ordinary much happens. A lot of times I’ll talk to friends or family that I don’t see on a regular basis, and when they ask what I’ve been up to, my usual response is “not much”. And thats the truth. I go to work, I come home, I relax. All of it’s good and I’m not complaining, but really there are no school updates or major developments going on right now in my life. And I kinda like that. I guess there are a few things that I could recap over the past month that would deserve note. Been going to all the Ohio State basketball games this season and that has been fun. I’m probably in the camp that is somewhat fearful of our #1 ranking currently, just because I think we have the potential to be that, but aren’t playing like it consistently. Kate and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary earlier this month. The Great Guinness Toast was last weekend, and Fantasy baseball draft is happening this weekend. Oh yea, and my Camry got broken into (the ‘94 not the new one). >:( I really need to get off my butt and sell that thing.
One news item I saw recently that I would like to comment on was that Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer have obtained the rights to make a movie based on the game franchise Prince of Persia. I’ve been a big fan of the recent series of PoP games and have always enjoyed the story and presentation style that UbiSoft delivers. I think this could definitely be the next big summer franchise, probably equivalent to the current Pirates series of movies. The game has plenty to develop a great summer flick. Action, adventure, love interest, deception, a sexy witty main character, time travel, badass fight scenes. I’ll definitely be looking forward to this one. Hope Disney can do a game film right.
I suppose in a stirke back to Googe Checkout’s $20 off $50 from the holidays, Paypal is now offering $15 off any $30 purchase from any store that uses Paypal! The offer is good now through March 31st and can even been used for ebay purchases. What really sucks for me is I just made two purchases in the past 2 weeks that would have qualified for this. Ugg. Get to spending. 
Edit: A quick note. This offer isn’t quite a simple or good as Google’s. First of all its only good for one use only, so you can’t use it over and over. Second, ebay purchases can’t be made to personal accounts, they must be registered businesses. Finally, the rebate isn’t instant. It’ll come as credit to your paypal account in late May. Still a good deal IMO.
I believe I’ve mentioned before that I pre-ordered a couple copies of the new World of Warcraft expansion, Burning Crusade. I did this not with the intent of using all of them, but instead making a profit off the limited availability and high demand of such an item. The original Collector’s Edition still goes for hundreds of dollars on Ebay.
The days leading up to the release of Burning Crusade, there were many Ebay auctions posting pre-orders of the CE version of the expansion for double the cost. I figured my gambling was safe. Here we are a few weeks after the release, I have all my copies (2 of which I plan on re-selling) and taking a look at ebay, it appears the market has been flooded. Copies aren’t even selling for more than their purchase value. I’m somewhat shocked. I guess a lot more people had the same idea that I did, and were able to get their grubby hands on multiple copies for re-sale. I’m sure the supply will go down as time goes on, but I’d be curious to see if Blizzard made more copies of the Collector’s Edition available due to the high demand of the previous version and increase in user base. It turns out my initial double money back guarantee, has turned into somewhat of a stock risk, where I have to wait and see how the market pans out, and sell at the most opportune moment.
I’ve been running a “less than legit” version of Vista retail for a while now, but that will soon change. I have a free version coming from a promotion put on by Microsoft, that I’ll pay to upgrade to the Ultimate version. This will go on my main machine. Then I have 2 other copies of Home Premium, that I purchased at a reduced price using my Beta Key with Microsoft’s Family Pack offer. One will go on my laptop, and the other, I’ll just hang onto for a while I guess. With the Ultimate upgrade I should have the option to purchase 2 more copies at a reduced rate, but we’ll see what comes of that. It’s kind of interesting, I really didn’t have the intent of having a legit version of Vista on my machine until I could find a good deal. But, when free and super cheap options came along, it just worked out. I’ll do a write up on my impressions of the retail version of Vista sometime down the road. Most of which will be highlighting my joy of Media Center.
