Then there’s this guy, Jiefu Zhang…  No feedback at all so that kinda set off a red flag right there and I should’ve voided the auction right off the bat.  Jiefu then pays with a PayPal eCheck which took another week to clear.  So after the money cleared, I sent the item and he receives it.  He says the speaker is dead which is fine, sometimes items get damaged in shipping.  It’s been raining heavily here in Vancouver, the package could’ve gotten wet.  Since I don’t have any inventory,  I offered a refund… no problem.

I dunno why he would’ve sent me a response putting the blame on me but he did.  All refurbs I send out are tested twice.  Once when I refurb it and once before I package it.  Of course, he doesn’t know this and probably thinks I purposely sent him a broken phone.  Yes… someone with over 140 positive feedbacks purposely sent you a broken phone.  Why can’t people be courteous and not assume everyone’s out to get you?  Maybe I’m reading too much into this, you guys can read the conversation below and decide for yourself.

On a side note…  how many people are willing to bet the IMEI of the phone he’s sending back isn’t going to match the IMEI I sent out to him?

Dear techargus,

Hi!

Im the buyer of your “refurbished” blackberry. As i tried working through the phone, i received a phone call. There was no ring tone, which i thought was weird. Then i couldn’t heard the voice on the other end of the call. I then tried the mp3 player, and the video that was in pre-downloaded in the phone. Bottom line is, the speakers does not work. i cannot make any phone calls. please email me back with my options.

-Jiefu Zhang

So the chowda craving kicked in and I was bugging people to go back to Boston with me.  My friend Colleen took the bait but on one condition.  We go to New York first for a few days and drive up to Boston.  Well, that was that and we were on our way.  I wish I hadn’t gone to New York because it’s ruined a lot of food for me.  Cheese cake and pastrami sandwiches just don’t taste the same anymore.  In fact, to get the taste of NY Cheesecake, I went to Morton’s of Chicago in Vancouver and bought a whole cake for $150 a year later (They flew them in fresh daily from NYC).

It’s been 3 years since I took this trip so my memory is quite blurred.  Let me know if some of my descriptions are wrong.  I also apologize for the quality of the photos, I took them with a Canon SD750 and it has horrible low light capabilities.  This was also before I figured out how to geotag my photos.  I didn’t learn how to do that until my trip to China in 2010.  Anyways, enjoy…

Why would that upset me in the Sonata and not in the MR2?  One word… well, more like an acronym…  MPG.  Ever since setting my gauge cluster to display my fuel economy, I’ve been obsessed with getting it lower (I think it’s because the Sonata’s fuel economy isn’t as good as I thought it was).  I’ve read a few hypermiling forums to see what some of the tips and tricks are to lower your L/100kms (I’m Canadian) and have applied them for a few months.  During these few months, I noticed that I’m a lot angrier when I drive.  One of the main techniques to increasing your fuel economy is slow acceleration and maintaining your momentum.  Where I didn’t used to yell and shake my fist at red lights, pedestrians and slow moving traffic… I do now.  All of those things cost you fuel economy, if you have to slow down, you will have to get up to speed again…. at a snails pace because rapid acceleration is bad.  I’ve noticed that I’ve been doing stupid things to maintain my momentum like tailgating, running late yellows, not slowing down before a turn, etc…  All of which are dangerous and I never did before I gave a crap about fuel economy….

I think I’m going to try this eco driving for another few tanks and go back to driving like I used to.  It’s a lot less stressful…  I mean is 12L/100km really that bad?

Everything went according to plan, alternator went back in without a hitch and the car was running like it’s normal self again….  for a bout a month anyways.  I was driving to work one morning and all of the sudden, my “check engine” light comes on.  Of all the things that went wrong with this car, I’ve only had the “check engine” light come on once and it was for the O2 sensor.  When I got home that evening, I checked the car for error codes and sure enough, it was the O2 sensor again…  I know it’s something small and easy to replace because I’ve replaced it before but it just pissed me off.  Instead of going out to purchase a new O2 sensor, I went to the automall that weekend and came out with a new Hyundai Sonata 2.0T.  I had seen the commercials and I looked into the pricing, the car looked perfect for me.  I had pretty much decided on the Sonata anyways, the 84 month 0% financing was pretty much just icing on the cake.  It’s a bit of a step down from the Cadillac CTS 3.6 that I originally wanted but there considering the Hyundai is just as fast, just as big and has more stuff for half the price; it’s not such a bad compromise.  (I will be trading the Sonata in for a CTS-V once my stocks take off tho.)

So now that I have my grown up car… what should I do with my sports car?  Until recently, I’ve driven an MR2 almost every day for the past 10 years so selling it wouldn’t seem right.  I’ve decided to do a full restoration of the car to “new” condition but I don’t know which engine to use.  Should I stick to the restoration route and put in a factory 3SGTE or should I go the 2GRFE route?  Once the car is restored, I would love to take it on long road trips to Las Vegas again.  The thing I don’t like about the 3SGTE is the lack of low end torque, I found the 5SFE powered MR2 to be easier to drive in the city.  Because of the torque, the gearing on the transmission is short and as a result, it’s not the best car to use on a hwy.  I did a few trips to Vegas in various MR2′s and at 80mph, the engine’s at 4000rpm.  That makes it difficult for the passenger to sleep.

I’m leaning towards a V6 right now because the extra torque allows for taller gearing in the transmission and I’m hoping at 80mph, the RPM’s would be closer to 2500.  On the other hand, a completely factory restoration might be worth some money one day so I’m a little torn between the two.  Which ever route I go with the engine, the rest of the car does need to be restored as well…  the interior, bodywork, paint, suspension, stereo, etc…   I think I’ll start this long weekend by installing those motorized folding mirrors that I’ve had in my closet for several years now.

This is what a PADD from Star Trek looks like in 2373

First off, you’ll need a Nook Color from Barnes and Noble that’s been modified to run an aftermarket ROM.  Personally, I’m running Phiremod.  I’m not sure if the stock ROM will allow you to run other launchers or not because I didn’t play with the stock ROM much.  In fact, because I’m in Canada without a US credit card, I can’t get past the initial setup screens so I’m not sure if just rooting the stock ROM will let you run other launchers.

Once you have your Nook hacked, you’ll need to install ADW EX Launcher and Desktop Visualizer.  Desktop Visualizer is free and you can download it from the Android Market.  ADW EX however is not.  I think it may work with the free version but it’s been so long since I’ve used it that I’m not sure what features from EX are missing.  The reason why I’m using ADW and not something else like LauncherPro is because ADW allows you to hide everything and allows you to lock the desktop in place.  Android users will know that if you hold something too long, you’ll drag it somewhere by accident.  Also, what I mean by hide everything is you can hide the status bar as well as the dock.  After installing ADW and Desktop Visualizer, you need to go into ADW Settings and change a number of things

Under UI Settings, Main Dock

Main Dock Style = None
Dock Background = None (Doesn’t really matter since the dock’s turned off anyways)
Desktop Dots = Off  (Mine is grayed out anyways)
Main Dock Size = Whatever
Advanced Settings = Doesn’t matter what’s in there

Under UI Settings, Screen Preferences

Desktop Columns = 9
Desktop Rows = 10
Show Desktop Indicator = unchecked
Home Orientation = Portrait

Nothing needs to be changed in Drawer Settings and under Hidden Dockbar, just uncheck Dockbar

Now here’s what you’ve been waiting for… download the theme here….  Link. Extract the contents to a folder on your SD card

Set “PADD Background.jpg” as your wallpaper.  Make sure that when you’re on the resize screen, you drag the box to the bottom of the image and stretch upwards.  My background image isn’t exactly perfect so if the box is in the wrong place, the theme looks off by a bit.  Apply the background

Create 8 Desktop Visualizer widgets on the desktop.  Two of them should be 3×1 in size and the other five are 2×1

Tap on one of the widgets you just created and you will be greeted with the Desktop Visualizer screen.  Hit Select Icon and select Image File.  From there, select the appropriate image for the button from where you extracted the theme files and hit OK.

Next hit the Select Action button, select Launch Application and select the corresponding application from the list

Make sure the Label field is clear otherwise, you’ll have text on your button.  Now hit OK and your button.

Continue with the other Desktop Visualizer widgets until you’ve done all 8.  After you’ve done all 8, you’ll be almost complete.  All you have to do now is to create the App button and choose your widgets for the two blank areas.

To create your app drawer button, you need to long touch the desktop for the Add to Home screen.  Select Launcher Actions instead of Widgets like you normally would and select Open/Close App Drawer.  Create two of these buttons and move them to the bottom so that they cover up APPS.  Now long touch the button until a menu comes up.  Hit Edit and another screen should come up.  On the left, press the button and hit Select Picture.  Select AppButton.jpg from the theme location and hit OK.  Repeat for the other App Drawer button you created.

By now, your LCARS theme is pretty much complete and you just need to select your widgets for the blank spots.  I personally like to have Beautiful Widgets running in the top spot and a calendar in the bottom but it’s up to you.  If you can, find a widget that has a black background because any other colour really clashes with the Star Trek colour scheme.

Once you’ve selected your widgets, the last thing you want to do is hit the menu button, select More and Lock Desktop.  This prevents things from being moved around.  Also, feel free to edit the buttons, wallpaper whatever.  Grab a copy of Photoshop or GIMP and have at it, you just need to find the LCARS font somewhere on the internet which isn’t to hard to locate.

I quickly started fumbling around for my digital camera and kept up for as long as I could to snap this one pic before it disappeared up the cut.  I’ve seen a Bugatti Veyron and Lamborghini Reventon up close and personal in a showroom but having a Mclaren F1 rip it beside you is something else.

After another day of walking, I noticed that my feet were really swollen.  They were like really plump, retaining a lot of water.  Must be the humidity…  For dinner, we went through these old alley ways that were transformed into hip urban shops.  I can’t believe the crazy amount of white people hanging out at the bars in this area.