Souplantation vs Fresh Choice

Souplantation and Fresh Choice are very similar cafeteria style restaurants. They offer salad, soup, pizza, bread and desserts for one price. Eat as much as you like. At one time, both had locations in Southern California, but at that time, I lived in Northern California. Around the time we moved to SoCal, Fresh Choice closed all their SoCal locations, so now we only get to go there on visits to NorCal. While they were very similar a few years ago, at least in my memory, now there is a huge difference to me. Fresh Choice has more choices, better quality food, and a nicer eating environment. Souplantation has fewer choices and they've raised their prices regularly without adding much to the menu. For vegetarians, Fresh Choice is much better. The only problem is that the closest one is 350 miles away.

Runescape obsession

Online role playing games are very open ended, so they lend themselves to lots and lots of time spent playing the games. World of Warcraft, of course, is the biggest, and seems to cater to a more adult audience. Runescape has a younger set of players, including both of my sons. I think they would play it 24 hours a day if they could, as would many of their friends, all of whom are male. What's been different this summer with Runescape is the number of real life friends who have tried to scam my sons as well as the bad luck they've had trusting anyone who they've met online through the game. It doesn't surprise me that people try to trick others to get ahead in the game, but the outright stealing and dishonesty among real life friends does bother me. Dealing with people online in an environment where it's difficult to establish trust is an invitation for people to be dishonest if they are so inclined, but when the people are known to you in real life, it's a different story.

iMovie 08 tutorials

Jim Heid may have more to write about on his blog now that iLife 08 is out. Or maybe he'll be too busy working on his book. Either way he's got an insider perspective on what's new and what's out in iMovie 08. Plus he helped with the tutorials on the new version.

iMovie 08

I read David Pogue's review of iMovie '08 in the NY Times. He says it should be called something else since it's not an evolution of iMovie but a different application which serves a different purpose. Reading the comments on Pogue's article and elsewhere, there do seem to be quite a few people who really like the new iMovie. It works with hard drive and flash media based camcorders and does seem to be aimed at a more casual kind of user who wants to put something together quickly. Others have pointed out the lack of audio editing and timeline features and maybe it is the case that Apple wants people to use Final Cut Express for those features. For me, the ease of use with iMovie kept me from spending any time on Final Cut Express. I could do what I wanted to do, for the most part, with iMovie, so I never bothered to learn FCE.

Fake Steve Jobs aka that guy at Fortune magazine even chimes in with some commentary about the Pogue review. It does make you wonder if Pogue will continue to get the insider stuff from Apple. He should, because at least he's honest with his opinion.

Mattresses from galleryfurniture.com

Furniture stores tend to be very large because they have to display lots of items to attract lots of customers. My town has very few furniture stores, but shopping online is a nice alternative. Lots of choices that you can browse through very quickly makes it a good experience. If you are looking for a mattress, the Tempur-Pedic brand is one I recommend. I've had a Tempur-Pedic mattress for about five years now and I really like it. The memory foam has a unique feeling to it and although it's heavier than a regular mattress, I find it to be much more comfortable. I've gotten so used to it that I sometimes have trouble sleeping on hotel beds which are often very firm. Gallery Furniture has a wide selection of Tempur-Pedic mattresses as well as lots of other furniture for any room in your house and they offer same day delivery within 100 miles and next day delivery within 500 miles of their stores! That's pretty amazing. At most places I shop for large items I'm happy to get my stuff within a week. You can also order from them if you live even farther away and they'll deliver on purchases greater than $20,000. If you are interested in Houston furniture, visit the Gallery Furniture store in person.

iMovie plugins

Among the many strange choices made with iMovie '08 is the lack of plugins for the program. I have a few plugins for previous version of the program and always wanted a few more if I could afford them. It's not clear whether or not there is a way to create plugins for iMovie '08 or not. The other thing I'm not seeing is a price cut on the plugins for the older versions of iMovie. If that software isn't going to work with the new version, the customer base for the plugins probably isn't getting any larger, so a nice discount on the plugins might spur some sales.

Educational price of iLife 08 not such a bargain

Maybe my memory is failing me, but I recall paying about $49 for previous versions of Apple's iLife with the educational discount. iLife '08 came out recently and the list price is $79 while the educational price is $71. Doesn't seem like much of a deal really. The same is true for the iWork package.

It sounds like you can purchase iWork for $49 by downloading the trial version and then buying a serial number. I think I will wait and see if they carry the boxed versions of this software at the campus bookstore when I go back to work in a couple of weeks. In the past they have offered an even better deal than the educational discount.