Plasma TV

Finally I got it. My new TV. The purchase that has been put off for over a year. First because prices were high, later because prices were plummeting and it was still a hope to get it cheaper. Last weekend I decided that price is satisfying and in the days of world crisis and rising PLN/USD exchange rate it's better to eventually buy this plasma. And here it's. My Panasonic TH-42PZ85.
Yes, it's plasma. Not a trendy, but shitty LCD display. I've been owner of LCD since 2007 and have to say that it's a crap. Colors are false, black is gray, white is gray, everything is strange. Quite different than on my new plasma display. Besides my LCD is smaller and has poor remote.
Moreover as far as I know this plasma has Linux inside! You can even read GNU license in tv menu. Amazing...
And what's even more important you've some hidden menus:
- hotel menu (you can select primary source of signal after tv turn on among other things)
- service menu (you can calibrate your colors here, but you've to be experienced in how it works. Otherwise you can easily damage your display using this nice and advanced menu)
- reset/cold boot menu (this is displaying to you all the info about tv status, but can also do hard/factory reset of the display. Very useful stuff when you plan to sell device to new customer :)
I don't want to reveal here how to access above menus, because one could accuse me of damaging his tv. But for intelligent people it's not very complicated to browse some pages and find access key strike combination.
For me there's one open question: how to get access to the Linux console and what is root password to this tv? If you can help, please drop me a message. Thanks!

True Blood

One of my friends recommended me a new, very popular series, shown in american tv channels. It's called True Blood and is the 12 episodes story about vampires living among us. Or to be exact vampires living among people in Louisiana. My interest in the series arisen after he mentioned that all actions is held in swamps and small cities of this nice state. And I love this state. Or at least I loved it while visiting New Orleans in 2000. I know it was before big flood and the city is not the same anymore, but I still feel that it has something mysterious, like voodoo or vampires.
And to be honest this movie is engaging - you can't stop watching it while started once. So I still have 9 episodes left and hope to finish them before the weekend.
I've one conclusion after watching few of the most popular american tv series of last years. Each of them has action placed in one of nice and interesting part of the states. Californication happens in California, Dexter in Miami and True Blood in Louisiana. I like this and can only ask producers for more... what about placing some action in Phoenix? Or San Francisco?

Chile Phototrip 20?? - first steps taken

So eventually I've done first shopping for Chile Phototrip 20?? - it means we don't know what year exactly will it be, but for sure two thousand something. But to prepare for the trip, you need at least basic items, like maps and guides. Thus I've ordered the cheapest available guide (polish translation of Chile Insight Guide) and road map of Chile. Now it's time to read the guide and study the map. Of course as you know we gonna focus on Torres del Paine, but maybe will find some other interesting attractions. We just need some time then we'll decide...

FlightMemory

Browsing kolumber.pl I came across interesting link. It lead to database of all your flights and quite interesting statistics about it. It's called Flight Memory. So I decided to put all my flight data into the system and see what are my stats. It took few hours and only because I keep all my boarding pass confirmations, so I had a big help. Can't imagine how to remember all these data. It appeared that I flew 111 times till today. You can see it for yourself using this link.
Of course my data still requires some fixes, but I hope I've entered all flights to date. I recommend doing the same, it's really great fun to see the statistics and refresh memory...

Torres del Paine?

This week, after seeing nice pictures from Torres Del Paine, I started to think over autumn phototrip one more time. Maybe instead of going to USA for 12th time, it's better to visit Chile? Of course it requires much more preparation activities and maybe even a little more money, but it's worth going there to see something unique and take unique pictures. I bet my spanish is enough for basic communication there and besides if I go there, I'll go together with my friend Sylwek, who is also spanish speaker.
So now I'm spending all my spare time on reading and learning about Patagonia...
If you wanna see why this is so tempting, please check this webpage.

Photo workshop March 2009

New photo activity is coming. Just a little more than a month left. Me and two my good friends, Sylwek and Czarek, are going for a photoworkshop in Bieszczady. They're organizaed in Zagroda Magija in Orelec by professional photographers. You can read more about the workshop on their webpage: Fotowarsztaty. I wanna see for the first time how such workshop is organized, because it's gonna be my first. Maybe later I'll try to arrange some kind of workshop by myself? Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be a profitable business. 3 days of a workshop costs about 400 pln, what is below 100 EUR and you have lodging and food included! Great price!
Of course I'll write more about my experience after the workshop, so be patient!

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