Well, all the hype of the iPhone is over and according to one lady I met at the Bicycle Casino with an iPhone, there was about 2,000 people at the Glendale Apple store on Friday. Reports are now that they are not sold out and there’s no longer any lines. So the people who stood in line for 2 or 3 days could have just waited. But then, they wouldn’t be on TV.

So since I’m with Verizon, and all my friends are with Verizon (read: free calls), I don’t think I’m going to be able to get an iPhone. If I were to get one, I’d have to keep my Verizon phone, which is the Verizon LG enV (aka VX9900), shown above being licked by Juliet. Why is she licking it? No reason, except that I didn’t have an iPhone for her to lick, and she refused to lick something else.

One thing that I like about my enV is the full QWERTY keyboard. It makes answering text messages a snap. In the past, I’ve tried answering using my old Motorola phones, and I got to dread having to do it. Now, I love it. Otherwise, the screen is kind of small, and I don’t understand why the time on the front screen is so tiny, I have to put get a magnifying glass to be able to read it. Also, Verizon has disabled the Bluetooth connection to my laptop so I can’t download music that way. I hate Verizon.

The lady I talked to had trouble with her headset plugging into her iPhone with the clear plastic casing that she bought at the Apple store. She had to remove the casing to get the headset plug to be able to plug in all the way. She also told me that it took 17 hours for her iPhone to get activated via iTunes, probably because of all the people trying to activate their phones simultaneously. She was in love with her iPhone.

Later, I was at another table with a guy with an iPhone. He was not in love with his iPhone. He told me the iPhone didn’t match up to the hype. As a matter of fact, he said he uses 5 cell phones and his friend uses even more. They each had 2 phones on them at the table. His friend has the Helio Ocean which they both love. He let me play with the iPhone and the Helio and I have to say that the Helio is easier to hold. The iPhone is just slightly too wide and too thin to be comfortable. But the screen did give me a boner.

So will I get one? I’m going to wait for my friend to get one. He’s married to Apple but I do trust his opinions on gadgets.

After evaluating the Cable DVR against the Tivo, I decided to close my Tivo account to save the $13 per month.

Before calling Tivo, I checked the GetHuman “get around the phone bots” list and Tivo was listed so I used his trick.

“Amy” the Tivo rep grilled me with questions. I told her that I couldn’t get the Amazon unbox to work, chanel changing was slow because of the IR connection, my Tivo only has one tuner, and some other complaints that I had.

She didn’t have answers for any of them except for the one tuner, which she said the more expensive Tivo model did fix. I told her I didn’t want to spend any more money.

Just when I thought I was going to be able to close my account, she said that she could lower my monthly rate down to $6.95, which would be good forever, even if I got the new HD Tivo box in the future. That made me stop and think about it because although the HD Tivo box costs something like $300, I know it’s a good box. Amy added that I could use the Tivo as a backup in the bedroom. Hmmm.

Then, Amy said, “And you can always still cancel at any time.” This was true.

Damn it. I got talked into keeping my account open. Amy had talked me into it. To top it off, after I had agreed, she even kept telling me other reasons why I should keep the Tivo service. I almost changed my mind again because it sounded like a guilty perp telling cops why his alibi is okay.

Well, I guess I’m going to keep my Tivo for a few more months.

Apparently, there was this same expo last year but I never even heard of it until this year. They changed the theme a little to add girls and gadgets to the gambling. Wait a second. This expo is the same theme as my blog! I guess that means…

From the exhibitor list for this year, it looks like a few Vegas strip clubs will be representing their wares. Among the listed are Library, Olympic Garden, Saphire, Seamless, and Treasures. On the floor plan, there was a “Rhino Vegas Basketball,” but I don’t think that’s the Spearmint Rhino. Too bad.

I don’t get the impression that it will be like the AVN expo or even the old CES, back in the day but I’m ready to see what stuff they have since I’ll be at the World Series Main event anyway.

Look for my double report of this expo and the goings on at the World Series of Poker 2007 Main event.

Gaming Life Expo 2007
July 5-8, 2007
Rio Hotel and Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada

Curry House doesn’t serve any sushi here but if you like Japanese style curry or pasta, you must check this place out. They also have branches in other parts of the city but the one in downtown is the best one, IMO.

For something simple, try the beef curry on rice if it’s your first time. Once you get addicted, try the different styles of curry and pasta. When you’ve graduated to the advanced levels, try the Ika  and Tarako (squid and fish eggs) pasta. Mmmm. Love it.

I’ve been going here for many years and their menu has changed slightly (I miss the asparagus salad) but the food here is very consistantly good. The house dressing is the bomb. Put it on your must try list.

If you want to get it to go, there’s a separate “to go” version on the first floor, but all they do is get the order from the restaurant.

Curry House
123 S. Onizuka St. #204, Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 620-0855
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Let’s get ready to rrrumble!

In this corner, the disputed champion of DVRs, Tivo Series 2. And in the other corner, Time Warner Cable’s generic DVR with 120Gigs.

As you can see, the remotes look pretty different. Most of the regular functions are the same.

Let’s start with the power button. On the Tivo, it always turns on/off the TV. On the Cable DVR remote, it will turn off the DVR, or your DVD player, or your TV, depending on what device was selected. So to watch a program, you have to push the “TV” button, push the power button to turn on the TV, then push the “CBL” cable button just to get started. What a pain in the ass. This round goes to Tivo.

Next, let’s take a closer look at the remote. What I love about the Tivo is the shape and position of the play, pause, foward and rewind buttons arranged in a circle, and are relatively large and easy to find without even looking at the control.

Alternately, on the Cable remote, even the play button is hard to find and you have to look down at the remote to find the buttons.  Also, there is no jump skip button like on the Tivo. Tivo takes this round.

On the Tivo, you can jump in increments of 15 minutes. Also, there’s a secret hack that lets you skip 30 seconds at a time. I love this feature for skipping commercials. No such feature on the generic DVR. So to get to near the end of a show, you have to fast foward all the way, which basically takes about 1 minute per hour of recorded programming. Tivo takes this round hands down.

Speaking of fast foward, on the Tivo, if you fast foward all the way, it will automatically pause, then you can press reverse to go back, or press the left arrow to go to the menu to delete or keep the program. On the Cable DVR, you are simply given the choice of delete or keep. If you wanted to see the very end of the show, you can’t do it. If you press “keep,” it takes you to the menu where all you can do is start play again and start from the start of the show. Tivo wins this round by far.

Tivo gets it’s show lineup via the Internet so either you need a phone connection or a WiFi (via USB) or ethernet connection to your router. Cable DVR gets it’s show lineup over cable so you don’t need any extra connections. Cable takes this round.

One of the biggest features of the Cable DVR is it has 2 tuners. I’ve heard rumors that the Tivo actually has 2 tuners in it but there’s no way to access it. In any case, the Cable DVR allows you to record one program while watching another. You can trick your Tivo to almost do that by using the tuner in your DVD player but you won’t be able to see all the digital channels.

Something cool you can do with the Cable DVR is to watch 2 shows simultaneously, and pause one, push “Swap”, watch another show, then pause that show, then go back to the first show and play from where you left off.  No way you can trick a Tivo to do that. Cable wins this round hands down.

Tivo has some nice search features, as well as keyword searches. You can only do simple searches on Cable. Tivo has very consistant user interfacing, like always going back to the previous menu by pushing the “left” button. Cable has a “last” button but it doesn’t always work and sometimes, there is simply no way to go back to the previous menu. Very inconsistant and confusing. Tivo wins this round.

Tivo has a slick user interface. It looks like a graphic artist designed it. The Cable DVR has a 70′s interface that looks like the interface embedded inside your TV set. Ugly. But they do allow you to change the color of this ugly interface. I’ll call this round a tie.

Tivo seems to have a lot of areas where “Please wait” messages come popping up because it’s so slow. When you change the order of your season pass, the wait is measured in time so long, you have to leave and come back later. Even just getting the list of channels can cause the dreaded “wait” message. So far, the Cable DVR is much more snappy and rarely has a pause and I haven’t seen a “wait’ message yet. Cable wins this round.

Tivo has some kind of tricky (probably patented) way of fast fowarding where when you push play, it rewinds back a little.  At first, I didn’t like it but I got used to it and eventually, learned to love it. The Cable DVR is more like a VCR and when you push play, it starts from just about that point. Sometimes, you overshoot and you have to push the “replay” button which goes back 15 seconds. I like the Tivo method.

Also, anytime you pause on the Cable DVR, there seems to be some type of small delay when you push play. It’s a little annoying to me. The image is coming from a hard drive. Can’t they buffer it or something? What’s with the stutter guys? This round goes to Tivo for sure.

As for sound, Tivo has cute sounds that it makes when you push buttons. It can get annoying but you can turn it off. I never realized how much I used this to let me know what was going on until I tried the Cable DVR, which has no indications at all. I can’t tell when it’s accepted my command.  In fact, when you delete shows, sometimes it takes a while and since it doesn’t make any sounds, you have no idea if it’s working or not.  But as far as the actual audio, I may be wrong but I think the Cable DVR sound is louder. Don’t ask me why that would be. I’m going to still give Tivo this round anyway.

When you go into a function or setup, Tivo shows that screen only and you can only hear the audio from the show. With the Cable DVR, you get a picture-in-picture of the show in the upper right corner so you can continue to watch the show while you do setups, and changes. Cable DVR wins this round.

As for the box, they are both basically the same, except the Cable DVR can record HD programs and has an HDMI output. If you have HD, this is a big difference, but otherwise, who cares. I’ll give this round to Cable DVR.

And finally, my Tivo Series 2 was $50 with mail in rebate. Later, I saw it for free with mail in rebate. I don’t know how much it is now. My monthly fee is about $13, but I see on their website that it’s now $17 for a 1 year plan. The Cable DVR is free and the monthly fee is $13. Cable wins this final round.

So with the score at 8 to 7, the fight goes to… drum role please…

Tivo! But at 8 to 7, it’s really close. And if you have an HDTV, it’s a no brainer for the Cable DVR because the HDTV version of Tivo is expensive.

After the Hawaiian Gardens tournament, I decided to stop by the Bicycle Casino on my way home for some live action to get my money back.

On one big hand, I flopped a small flush against A Q , who was the initial raiser. The flop was all , and the top card was a Q. I checked and the initial raiser bet out strong. I went all-in for about $400. But since he had top pair and nut flush draw, he called.  Unfortunately, the came on the river and I got felted.

But I re-bought in and got pocket rockets, got one caller who flopped top pair and called my all-in after the flop.  He came to the table with a lot of white chips ($100) and was an action player at our table.

 After that, I entered a pot raised to $20 (blinds are $5 and $5) holding Q 8 , along with 4 other people.  The flop was Q 8 7 . There was already over $120 in the pot, and the guy to my right bet out $100 into the pot. He was the tightest player at the table and I had not seen him play any big hands before this hand. There was a straight and flush draw so I went all in for $550.  Everyone else folded, and it was back to the tight guy to my right.

He called time and thought about it for a long time. He had over $1,000 so he had me covered. I figured he didn’t have a set or he would have called, even being a tight player. Now, I was starting to think he had a monster draw, like 9 10 , giving him an open ended straight flush draw. After what seemed like forever, he finally blurted out “I call.”

The turn was a completing a flush draw. My heart sank figuring I was now beat. Then on the river, I got the 8 giving me my full house! I opened my hand to show my full house and the other player mucked his hand.

The action player on my left asked the dealer to open the cards. Personally, I never do that because I think it’s poor etiquette to do that to the losing player. The dealer opened his hand and it was 9 10 which meant that he was only open ended and had 8 outs. That’s a crazy all-in call from what I thought was a tight player. I guess he got bored waiting for hands.

Not much after that, I decided to semi-hit and run and left.

As if google didn’t already have just about everything under the sun, they now have business applications (like spreadsheets, word processing) online for free.

Moreover, they allow each person in the business to have their own webmail and POP email address using their own domain name. Yes, it’s all free.

They have instructions at google.com/a on how to setup your email. Each email address has 2Gigs of space. You have to have access to your CNAME record and be able to modify it to be able to use this feature. You can still pick up your email via a POP app like Outlook, as well as get your email on the road via their webmail interface.

The webmail interface looks pretty much identical to the regular google mail interface. I signed up for it for this website and it seems to work just fine.

So let’s see. You get free webmail and POP mail, using your own domain name… for free. Hmmm. That’s what I love about the Internet.

Always up – probably true
fast – not the customer service
easy – certainly not the customer service

What a nightmare.

Currently, I use 3 different hosting companies. Each has their pros and cons. One that I use is a local company called globat.com. I pay by the year so I don’t have to deal with them very often.

First some background info. When I first signed up, they were supposed to send me a refund, but I found out after the fact that you only get a refund if you use your credit card, and not if you use paypal. Funny how they forgot to mention that. Anyway, in my second year, Globat changed their programs around and offered a cheaper plan than what I had, with more features, including 1,000 Gigs of disk space (instead of the 5 gigs I had).

So I called them and the catch was, I had to pay $40 setup fee. But after doing the math, it turned out to still be cheaper anyway, AND I got more features. So I decided to go ahead with it. When I was signing up, I found out that even though their front page says, “$6.95 / month,” what they don’t tell you is that you have to sign up for 2 years to get that price.  Oh well. Even at the 1 year price of $7.95, it was still cheaper than my old plan.

So everything seemed to be good.

But today, I tried to login and got a message that I didn’t pay my invoice. The invoice was for the $40 setup fee that I had paid back in May and thought it was taken care of. Obviously, it wasn’t.

So I called customer service and everything seemed okay. They confirmed that indeed I had paid and they would credit it towards the invoice. Next, they had a new invoice for the following 12 months.

But there were 2 charges on the invoice that I needed removed.  The first was for unlimited sub-domains, which was included free with the new plan, and the second was the yearly domain registration. Since I had moved my domain to godaddy.com, I should not have to pay.  All this seemed obvious to me, but not to them apparently. In any case, the customer service guy told me that he could not remove these extra charges, and that he would transfer me to sales.

Sales?

You and I know damn well the sales department can’t help me but before I can say, “WTF?”, on I go to sales. The guy in sales sounded like a true car salesman. Anywoo, as expected, he sends me right back to customer service. Luckily, I got a lady that knew a little more about how to help me, and indeed managed to take the charges off. Yes!

But this is after being on with them for 57 minutes. Yes, I know the exact time in minutes because I have Vonage which tells me the exact length for each and every call.

After hanging up, I try again to pay the invoice. When I tried to pay by my prefered method of using paypal, I get an error message saying that my credit card was refused. Interesting, since I wasn’t using a credit card. So I call customer service again. This time, only for 5 minutes. She told me I have to use a credit card now because apparently, it turns out they no longer accept paypal. Strange how the screen showed paypal as my prefered method of payment anyway.

Okay, I’m getting tired of this bullshit so I decide to pay by credit card to get it over with. I enter my number and press “pay.” Another error message. I call back customer service, this time it’s just 1 minute. They tell me that my mailing address doesn’t match my credit card address. I tell them that it’s my personal credit card so the addresses are different. She tells me that in order to process my request, I have to temporarily change my address, submit the payment, then change the address back.

WTF?! What year is this again? Let’s take Amazon.com, for example. They allow you to have a billing address, a shipping address, and a separate credit card address. Yes, 3 addresses. Globat has one. Are these guys just learning to use the Internet or something?

As you may have surmised, this experience didn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about globat.com. In fact, I think I’ll start figuring out my plans on moving to another host.

Everyone that’s read my blog knows how I hate myspace, but I use it to keep in touch with my friends.

Well, they just added the dumbest feature I’ve seen on a website that’s supposed to be worth over $600Mil. I guess they finally noticed that people were changing the design of their myspace page, so they added a profile editor. Their link says,

Check out the New MySpace Profile Editor NEW!
Now powered by Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer

I understand they have to make money with advertising. That’s okay with me. The part that’s insane is, after you design your new profile look, you get a screen that says,

Congratulations! You just created your very own customized MySpace profile! To complete this process and save your changes, click the ‘COPY’ button to grab the below code and then click the ‘PROFILE EDIT’. Paste the code at the bottom of the ‘I’d Like to Meet’ section. That’s it. Woo

Woo!? Woo my ass. You mean it took this long to come up with code that tells you to copy and paste some HTML code into your profile… you mean the exact same way people have been hacking their myspace page since the start!? You gotta be joking!

Chirashi Jyu Sushi Box (Ta-ke) $18.95

Found this gem of a sushi restaurant inside of the Little Tokyo Shopping Mall on Alameda between 2nd and 3rd Street. It’s a 3 story mall with a bunch of stores and restaurants inside. It’s not likely that you would accidentally find this place unless you were already shopping in the mall.

If you like authentic Japanese food, including real sushi, as opposed to some type of new fusion roll, this is the place to check out. If you look on their website, you’ll see the owners have a long background with Japanese restaurants in Los Angeles. In any case, their sushi chefs are one of the best ones I’ve come across, and they make great nigiri sushi.

The Chirashi box that I got on this trip comes in a double decker deep dish and the bottom one contains sushi rice and the top has the sashimi.  Hmmm.  All the dinners come with miso soup, pickles and other stuff, and as with other authentic Japanese restaurants, the hot green tea is free.

I’ve tried almost all the dinners here and I can recommend all of them, including the Una-Ju (eel bowl), and grilled salmon.  Delish.

Sushi Go 55 Restaurant
333 S. Alameda St. #312, Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 687-0777
sushigo55.com
Monday – Friday: 11:15am – 2:15pm Lunch, 5:30pm – 10pm Dinner
Saturday: 11:30am – 2:30pm Lunch, 5pm – 10pm Dinner
Sunday: Closed
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