But I Digress…

Okay so I’m on my way home from work and for the first two or three minutes it’s pretty much smooth sailing.  Everyone is behaving themselves.  Mind you it’s later than usual and there are less than half the usual number of people on the road which goes a long way to explaining that.  Sure as bunnies have big ears, another enormous pickup truck comes barreling down the road perpendicular to the one I’m waiting on, waiting for the perpendicular road to clear.  One car goes by, no problem, he’s got the right of way and I couldn’t have turned onto the perpendicular road without cutting him off.  Then there’s the other guy.

This big 4×4 decked out in chrome and and obviously built for the rough-and-tumble life that is city commuting.  First of all he’s doing close to twice the speed limit but I can let that slide – everybody has their hurries, especially that bowling club meeting with the boys from the NRA to discuss the misgivings of a roll bar light rack with slots for only two lights.  You know, the really important things in life.  So rather than speed merrily along his way in one lane, or pull obviously into the turning lane to obviate his intentions so I can turn as can the people waiting behind me, he instead desides the best approach is to not use his signal light at all and drive as close to exactly in the middle of both lanes as possible until the last possible second, then swerve sharply into my opposing lane.  He surely shaved at least three seconds off his trip to the bowling alley, and it was so nice of him to keep us all in suspense as I’m sure those behind me were as excited as I was to see him finally reach a crescendo in his masterpiece that I like to call “you freaking selfish prick”.  Excuse my French.

Now why do I feel the need to vent to what is likely to be a good five people, one of which will actually read this far?  Because it makes me feel better knowing there is at least a one in five hundred thousand chance that jerk in the red pickup will read this, realize the error of his ways, trade that monstrosity in on something sensible, and start driving like a less sinful man.  But I digress…

EarnieShoes Rants and Meanderings

Why should you care what I think about any TV shows now or ever?  Well you probably shouldn’t.  So this will be a short entry.  Until we moved and got hooked up with FiOS, I never really watched that much television at all and still don’t but right now while my wife and I are waiting on some things, I’ve had some time on my hands and what better way to waste that time than mind numbing chip gobbling tv-watching.

One show that got cancelled that I want to see resurrected this fall maybe by a new franchise owner like SyFy (previously the Sci-Fi channel) is “Terminator:  The Sarrah Connor Chronicles”.  I thought it was a good show you could get into with good writing, reasonably good acting, and a decent smattering of effects.  And it has nothing to do with the terminator being a total babe.  Honest.

Others at the top of my list would be Eureka, Warehouse 13 and Heroes.  I’m looking forward to the new Stargate Universe but Stargate Atlantis wasn’t all that great so we’ll see.  Prefixing a successful show title isn’t a formula for instant success.

The worst season premier – at leat I think it was supposed to be a premier but I haven’t seen anything about it since – I’ve ever seen was the “Terminators” series (not the Terminator movie series that it is loosely based on).  The acting was bad, the writing was bad, the story was bad, the effects were bad.  If you want to know how to produce something truly terrible, refer to this movie or season premier or whatever it was.  My friends and I could have gotten together and made a better time waster than this.  It was absolutely stupid.  Enough said before I get myself into trouble.

I’m sure Eureka and Heroes will see at least a couple more seasons as they’re reasonably popular.  Warehouse 13 is turning out to be a decent show so I’m hoping that continues on for a while.  No matter how much whiz-bang knock-your-socks-off special effects a show has, I think you ultimately need to care about the progress of the main characters.  Without that it gets a bit mindless and carried along solely because the effects are really cool.  That can only carry a show so far.  I think the original Stargate SG-1 series struck a very good balance with “effects where effects make sense” (and very well done), and good writing growing the characters as the show progressed, and most of the stories were interesting.  A few were kind of dumb but most of them didn’t leave me wishing I had a tme machine to reclaim a reprehensibly wasted hour of boob tube zombification.

Before this gets way longer than promised, I want to restate my desire to see “Terminator:  The Sarrah Connor Chronicles” return for another couple seasons.  It was one of the few shows I really really like.  And I’m not a Sci-Fi freak either.  I enjoy shows like House, Myth Busters and even “Dog The Bounty Hunter” so I’m not just targetting Sci-Fi that’s just the genre that gets more of my attention than others.

Hopefully this is my first and last blog about television shows.  I can’t believe I just wrote a blog about television shows with proselytizing through the whole thing.  Good for me.

EarnieShoes Rants and Meanderings

Well I can’t write a really full on review of this mouse and keyboard combo just yet as the mouse arrived somewhat crippled.  Everything works but the left button microswitch sticks somewhat and it’s not worth sending it all the way to California and back for what I paid for the pair on eBay.  I was able to replace the microswitch with one from another mouse that was the exact same size, but in doing so the cable that connects the thumbwheel, back/forward buttons and search button somehow got munged and works intermittently at best.

What I can say is that I like the feel of this mouse, and having the pleasure of taking it apart, I’m impressed with the overall build quality although for the (retail) price I would have expected more metal parts.  I like a heavy mouse and this one doesn’t feel any heavier than any other wireless mouse I’ve used.  I have a bit larger than average hands and I must say the mouse is very well designed to comfortably fit average to above average sized hands.  If it were up to me I’d like to see it another 10% larger still but it’s still a good one-size-fits-all size and larger than almost all other bluetooth mice that are usually the wee size as they’re meant for portability.

If you use your laptop alot, you’ll soon realize it’s worth sacrificing a small amount of portability for long-term comfort.  Those little notebook mice give me cramps in my hand after about half an our of continual use.

Well you get what you pay for when you buy refurbished so I guess I at least got my money’s worth with the keyboard and an extra bluetooth transeiver for my studio computer.  If I had it to do again I think I’d just wait for a sale at BestBuy or TigerDirect or NewEgg and call it a day.  I paid less than half retail and while the mouse does work okay, I could have gotten used to that thumb wheel that doesn’t work now.  I thought that was a good idea not just another button for the sake of another button.  As a software developer I’ll often have ten or fifteen or more windows open concurrently and thumb scrolling through them would be a real timesaver not just a gimmick.  Hats of to Logitech for that.  That feature is right up there the scroll wheel in my book.

Speaking of the scroll wheel, it has a neat feature if you spin it really fast it lets go of the typical clicking action and spins freely allowing you to scroll through a large amount of text in short order.  The wheel is heavy enough that if you give it a hefty spin it will go for quite a while before stopping.  You can feel the solenoid inside kick back in to “click” mode when the wheel slows down enough or is stopped altogether.  This takes some getting used to.  I think I would prefer a blend of this technology and Microsoft’s smooth scroll wheels they have on many of their mice and lose the cog action altogether.  I’ve actually gotten used to another scrolling technology that is a close second to the scroll wheel; Logitech’s own MX Air mouse I use in the home theatre.  The scroll “wheel” is just a touch-sensitive strip that actually makes a clicking noise that gets faster the faster you “spin” it.  The only issue I have with it is that it’s a little too sensitive and gets “spinning” very vast way too quickly, but that’s a rabbit trail for another blog.

Having had a chance to take the mouse apart I can say it is well built inside and well designed, except for the flimsy cable that connects the top half to the bottom half.  If I never find the short, I may just buy a new MX5500 Revolution when they come on sale next at the local BestBuy.  I really liked that thumbwheel option before it died.  You do need to install the Logitech SetPoint software to use some features like the thumbwheel, the search button behind the wheel, and the forward/back buttons and installing it isn’t a hassle at all.

Pairing both with the computer posed no problems. The keyboard’s LCD display even prompts you for the passkey when pairing it to the computer.  The mouse doesn’t require a passkey that might pose a problem in a room full of bluetooth mice like an airport or an internet café.  The range of both is very good.  I’ve left the keyboard and mouse in the basement two floors down and they still connect to my laptop if I leave them on.

The keyboard has a button that converts the numeric keypad into a calculator that uses the LCD display like a simple desktop calculator.  I haven’t used all the functionality of the keyboard as I bought the set mainly for the mouse for my laptop (the other Logitech MX Revolution mouse sold by itself isn’t bluetooth which is what I wanted for my laptop).  The keyboard will be perfect for the studio though as I’ve been looking for an RF type wireless keyboard for the studio I can carry around to say the drumset and run the sequencer from there.  There are plenty of multimedia and dedicated buttons all over the keyboard but I don’t use most of that stuff.  I wouldn’t buy this set for my primary desktop for one solitary but absolutely deal-breaking reason: the keyboard is not ergonomic.  It’s a plain old square keyboard with lots of bling.  I absolutely will not use a non-ergonomic keyboard for regular desktop use.  If you’re not a typist, you don’t type that much or just don’t care then this may not be a big deal for you but Logitech has other sets with ergonomic keyboards and the MX Revolution mouse (albeit the 2GHz variety not bluetooth but for the desktop who cares).  It would find a good home in your home theatre if you use your keyboard much in that environment.  I do occasionally if I’m using a web browser or something but it’s not something I use on a regular basis so as long as the keyboard has a decent range (and this one does) you should be good to go.

I haven’t run into any of the bluetooth issues others have complained about with some Microsoft mice, which also factored into why I went with this one, although the mouse does take its sweet time connecting when you first boot up.  My other wireless mice connect immediately.

So here’s the bottom line:

Pros:

• Bluetooth – no need for a transceiver on most newer laptops
• One of the best ergonomically designed mice available in my opinion
• Thumbwheel on mouse is one of those must-have options for people that use a lot of applications at the same time like software developers, game developers, graphic artists, etc.
• Keyboard has a ton of multimedia keys if you dig that kind of stuff
• LCD on the keyboard can display all kinds of stuff – only time will tell how useful it actually is

Cons:

• Keyboard is not ergonomic
• Mouse is almost bereft of metal parts inside given the price
• Refurbished pair I bought was obviously not tested very thoroughly if at all

Summary:

I would buy this set for the bluetooth MX Revolution mouse for use on a laptop but only if I had a bonafide use for the keyboard, otherwise save yourself some cash and either buy the mouse by itself (it won’t be bluetooth though) or consider a set with an ergonomic keyboard.  The LCD display on the keyboard has a certain whiz-bang neato factor but how useful it is is hard to say.  Don’t buy a refurbished set unless it’s from a reputable big box store you can take it back to (or Logitech themselves).  Once I get the mouse working properly (or replaced) I’ll be happy to add it to my other Logitech devices I use daily around the house – the MX Air Mouse and the Harmony 1000 Universal Remote.  Bottom line:  I absolutely love the mouse.  The keyboard is neat but not being ergonomic is a deal-breaker for desktop use.

EarnieShoes Rants and Meanderings