Once again, it was time to visit the Westfield Century City Shopping Center to meet my friend. It hasn’t been that long since my last trip but as soon as I went into the parking lot, I noticed what appeared to be really early Christmas lights in October.

As you can see in the picture above, there are a bunch of green and red lights everywhere.  At first, I just thought it was some weird viral marketing for some movie.  Then I noticed a pattern.  Spaces that were open had green lights, and spaces with cars had red lights.

The picture below shows the lights close-up.

As a gadget lover, I had to get out of my car to take a closer look.  Upon closer inspection, each and every parking space has what appears to be a distance sensor that detects when a car is in the parking space.  I’m not sure what technology is being used (laser, sound, or other) but from what I could tell, it worked very nicely no matter how big or small the car was.

Frankly, from a shopper’s point of view, this is great.  As you are looking for a parking space, you can clearly see the green light which indicates there is a parking space available.  It would be difficult to install the same device in outside parking lots, but it sure seems to work great indoors.

Of course, these lights still don’t stop a-holes from taking your space before you get there.

On Monday, my HP ink jet ran out of ink so I went over to Best Buy to replace it. They tried to charge me $42 for a box of 2 but I had already checked the prices online and told them that it should be $38.99.  After a quick check, the clerk changed the price down for me.

To my pleasant surprise, she also added a free 500 sheet of HP paper. The cash register showed that it normally costs $7.99.  The cachier told me that you have to be a Silver Reward Zone member, and I don’t know how long this deal lasts but it’s a great deal so hurry.

While I patiently wait for my Playstation 3 to come in the mail (hopefully by Wednesday this week), I decided to get the HDMI cable for it because I know that the PS3 doesn’t come with it.

Best Buy has the 3.3′ React HDMI cable for $59.99, or the 4′ Monster cable for $84.99 (on sale from $99.99), but I decided to order a 6′ Syba Premium Grade from OutletPC for $6.98.  Yes, $6.98.  The LD HDMI from OutletPC was on sale for $2.98 each but it’s not “premium grade,” and I like premium stuff so I opted for the more “expensive” one.

Since it’s so cheap, I decided to get 3 for $27.13 including $6.19 in shipping (and no tax).  I got 3 because my Vizio has 4 HDMI input ports and I stil have 3 left open.

HDMI 6' cable in packaging

One thing to notice is that I ordered the HDMI cable at the same time as my PS3 and I’ve already gotten my HDMI cable.  When OutletPC says, “Same day shipping,” they mean it.

The second my PS3 comes in the mail, I’ll hook it up using this HDMI cable and let you know if it works or not.  I hope it works or I’ll be pissed.

As you may already know, I don’t have a game console after selling my PS2 when I thought I was going to buy a PS3.  After the HD format war ended, I decided to go to the PS3 instead of the Xbox 360.  But Sony announced a new 80Gig version so I waited again.

The new PS3 is coming out shortly so I checked the Best Buy website last night (8/19/2008) and saw that they had them in stock at some stores.  I was very excited and immediately ordered one online for store pickup today, and went to sleep with my PS3 dreams in mind.

When I woke up, I noticed I had voice mail messages from my Best Buy credit card company. When I called them, they told me that they called to confirm the purchases and needed them to be approved by me, but because I didn’t answer my phone, they denied the purchases.

That certainly was not good news but I told them thanks for trying to protect me from identity theft, or whatever they were trying to protect me from.  No big deal.  I’ll just re-order online.

So, like the last time, I went to the Best Buy website to re-order the PS3.  Wait.  OMG!  Now, they are out of stock at the stores and cannot be picked up at the store.  NO!!!!!  Please tell me this isn’t happening to me.

After crying on the floor in a fetal position, I decided to go ahead and order for delivery instead of store pickup.  Damn.  I was so close to picking up a unit at the store today.  But noooooo.  My credit card company wanted to protect me from myself.

Back when I bought the Vizio LCD HDTV, I also purchased the Bush TV stand at Best Buy (SKU 8318144) for about $180 (shown above).  It was fairly easy to put together myself, attractive, and most importantly, the price was right for my budget.

That was in February.  Everything has been great up until recently.  But now, if you look at the close-up view of the front left of the stand, you’ll see that the fake wood covering whatever material is inside has started to peel off.

Bush TV stand close-up

If it peeled off from the left edge, it wouldn’t be very hard to glue it back together.  But unfortunately, it’s peeling from the middle out.  Either the entire table top is flexing, or stretching, causing this strange problem.  Of course, I could probably send it back to the manufacturer, but what a pain in the butt that would be.  For one thing, I don’t have the original box.  But even if I did, I’d have to take the entire thing apart.  It would be easier to just buy a different one.  I guess that’s how these companies make money.

If you thought you were rough with your iPhone, take a look at my friend’s here.  She dropped it onto concrete and got a big-ass crack near the bottom, with crack lines going all the way up to near the top of the screen.  However, amazingly, the touch screen still works.  She says she’s going to use the crack as an excuse to buy the new iPhone 3G.

Well, hello!  Now, do you see why they call me Cochinoman?

If you live in California, you should be aware that as of July 1, 2008, if you drive and talk on your cell phone without a hands-free device, you can get a ticket.  I’ve pretty much ignored this law change until recently.

Last year, I bought this Plantronics Discovery 640 from Best Buy, I think for about $80 but I’m not sure.  Assuming you know how big a casino chip is, you can see that this bluetooth cell phone headset is very small.  The sound quality from this unit is excellent.  That’s the good news.

The bad news is, the ear piece keeps coming off, and the charger plug keeps falling out during charging.  I also just didn’t like having something in my ear for a long time.  I guess I could never live in a Star Trek world where you have to have one in your ear all the time.  Actually, I see a lot of wannabe deal makers wearing these things all day, and all night.  They even wear it when they go out clubbing.  Yeah, so cool.

As the July 1st deadline comes closer, I decided I’d better get something else pronto.  So back to Best Buy I went and found this Motorola Motorokr T505 hands-free bluetooth device for about $130.

It has a rechargeable battery, a built in speaker and microphone, but can also broadcast on FM to your stereo system in your car.  In reading the reviews by people, there seemed to be some complaints about the FM signal being marginal in Los Angeles.

When I tried it out, I didn’t have any problems with the quality of the sound coming from my FM stereo.  The bluetooth setup was a snap, and pretty much everything worked as advertised… except for one small problem.  My first test call receiver told me she heard a buzzing sound in the background.  I didn’t make much of it since it could just be the connection, her cell phone, or even something in my car.  So I made another call, with the same problem.

Finally, I took the unit out of my car and made yet another call and the buzzing was still there.  It couldn’t be the connection, or my car, or all those people’s cell phones.  The only constant was my cell phone and the hands-free device.  I’m not about to change my cell phone right now so I guess I’ll have to return this unit and try to find something else.

I hope I find something before July 1st.  I don’t want to go to jail.

In case you’re not familiar with the rewards program at the Hustler Casino, basically, they keep track of each hour of your play and you get points for rewards.  You can either get free food, a coupon for the in-casino store, or the Hustler Hollywood store.  Since the food is free at the $300+ tables, I never use my points.

Last year, for Christmas, I took all my Hustler Casino reward points (or whatever it’s called) and bought a bunch of presents at the Hustler Hollywood store.  But more recently, I’ve noticed signs and notices at the casino telling me that if I don’t use my points for 6 months, they go away.  Damn it.

They must have learned this trick from the airlines and cell phone companies.  Oh well.  No matter.  Since it’s half way into the year, I decided I’d better cash out my reward points before they expire.  I went to one of those kiosks and printed out my coupon for Hustler Hollywood.

By chance, they had their Hustler girl Hoodies on sale ($16 off regular price) so I decided to just load up on them and hold them until this coming Christmas.  That’s right boys and girls.  I’m doing my Christmas shopping in June.  Can you beat that?

Everywhere I go, people seem to be talking about Pinkberry. I’m not a big yogurt fan but since they seem to be multiplying like rabbits, I decided to try it out.

As yogurt goes, it’s very tasty and I can see how people get addicted to it. After my initial purchase, I decided to try the coffee and green tea flavors. To me, they all pretty much tasted the same, except for a faint coffee or green tea flavor added.

As for the basic taste of Pinkberry, It has a somewhat spoiled milk sour taste. But in a almost drug-like way, it makes you want more of it. I think it’s possible that there’s some type of chemical, natural or not, that’s inside every cup of this yogurt. Originally, Coca-cola used extracts from coca leaves (which create cocaine) in every bottle. No wonder it was a hit.

There could be something similar in Pinkberry. That doesn’t mean that it’s unhealthy or bad for you. Maybe whatever is in it that’s addictive is good for you. Or not.

By I digress. The reason for this post is that I noticed that sometimes they charge sales tax, and sometimes they don’t. I was so confused by this, I asked the manager at Pinkberry. She told me that the law requires a “dine-in” tax. Therefore, if you ask for the Pinkberry “to-go,” there’s no tax.

Huh? Really? But when I get my Jack-in-the-Box “to-go,” I still have to pay tax.  The only thing I could figure out is that yogurt is a diary product, and I know milk is sales tax free at the grocery store. So does yogurt fall under this catagory?

The Pinkberry manager went as far as to say that if I were to order my yogurt “to-go,” then just sat down at one of the tables, there’s nothing she could do about it. .

Hmmm. Very interesting. Am I the last person on earth to figure this out? For all I know, since I’m new to yogurt, people may have had this thing figured out for years.

All I know is, from now on, it’s “TO-GO” please!