"...A Three Hour Tour."

Well, we didn't get shipwrecked on an uncharted desert isle, but we did have a blast on my friend Ken's boat as we cruised around the Annapolis bay for a few hours last Sunday afternoon. The daughter even got to steer the mighty vessel for a bit:

And here's a shot of the rest of the gang enjoyin' the ride while she had the wheel:

Show Me the Funny

Here's a blast from the past. I visited the parents over the weekend, and spent some time looking through tons of scrapbooks of childhood memorabilia that they saved of mine. Here's a very old Star Wars cartoon I drew when I was probably 15. Looks like Vader found himself a day job at the county fair. Well, I thought it was funny.

"Holy Resolution, Batman!"

Behold.

The beauty that is the Oppo DV-981HD 1080p Up-Converting DVD Player.

With HDMI (of course).

After doing mucho online research, I placed my order at OPPO and received my new toy in just a short week's time. I even was able to track it all the way from San Jose, to San Francisco, to Hagerstown (!), to White Marsh, and finally to Columbia, thanks to the handy-dandy tracking number they gave me. Plus, as soon as I got home and opened the box, I saw that the player came in its own logo'd slip case cover! Now that's pride in one's product.

I didn't take long at all to pull the plug on my current 480p DVD player, and hook up all the cables for this new sweetness. Plus, they even included a 6' HDMI cable with the player! That's right... the same cable that sells for close to a hundred clams at Best Buy, they included for free. What a great company!

Ah, but what to watch first? I asked the Daughter, and she quickly and quite intelligently replied "Pop in Ben-Hur, and let's watch the chariot race." Oh, yeah. She's my daughter, all right. A few quick menu buttons later, and we were watching crystal clear moving images of Heston and Boyd duking it out in the Circvs Maximvs. Even though my Sony Grand Wega 60" HDTV only handles 1080i (not 1080p), the picture was still noticeably improved over my previous DVD player.

I still love the silver screen, and will never give up on my local Cineplex, but home theatre just keeps getting better and better at the Suffecool household. Hope to have you over to enjoy Sufferama in the near future!