Christmas was a success!!

No one cried, stormed out, fought, and there were no other major altercations...... It's over! Christmas is always one of the most stressful times of the year for me.

Not only do I have the stress of gifting people on my limited budget (I'm a graduate student, but at least it's better than it was as an undergrad.  My job IS school...). But my family situation is always stressful. We (the 5 grown-up kids) want to get together especially since my sister moved to California. But, we have parents who can't seem to get along. Well, let me re-state that... My dad has 2 ex-wives with kids (5 kids are from these 2 women), and 1 new-ish, crazy girlfriend who throws a wrench into the works we affectionately call her El Diablo. More about ED later...this is a Christmas post.

Anyway, things moved along with hopefully very little hurt feelings and discomfort. We ate a great dinner, I actually learned how to cook a turkey (as it turns out, not that hard), ate entirely too much homemade pie (my CA sister should be a baker), and opened gifts. We did the name drawing technique this year. I think it turned out very well. I got a giftcard to gamestop and for anyone who knows me, that is an awesome gift. I'm in love with video games. My gift to my sister-in-law was to "take her to buy some shoes" she loves shoe shopping.

On the home front my fiance and I went in together to get a Nintendo Wii "for eachother" for Christmas, we got a few games for it too. Like Mario Kart of course and then the new Super Mario Brothers Wii.  Now, I'm trying to decide what game is worthy of my giftcard (most likely an xbox 360 game).

After gifts we had family together games... (at this point my dad and ED left...they're late arrivers and early departers). We played Balderdash, Apples to Apples and Smart Ass. We had fun so that's why I say all in all....christmas was a success...

The Nexus One...It's What I Want

This phone is what I want for Christmas (even though this one is over and it's not out yet for regular people), my birthday, anniversary, St. Patrick's Day, or how about just because it's Wednesday???

I WILL have this phone...It will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine...

Now that that's out of the way, let's put the phone on display...

Video...



This phone comes out supposedly January 5 to T Mobile. But it might be by invite only like a bunch of Google's other stuff at first.

Here's the exciting Specs:

• 11.5mm thick
• 1Ghz Snapdragon Processor
• 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 4GB microSD in-box expandable to 32GB
• 5 megapixel camera with mechanical AF and LED flash
• Confirms to work on T-Mobile 3G and AT&T EDGE
• 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display

I don't even know what AMOLED means but I want it...I just know that 1Ghz processor is 2x+ faster than my mytouch 3g and it uses Android (I'm in love!!!)

Full Specs:

Physical Dimensions:

• Height: 119mm
• Width: 59.8mm
• Depth: 11.5mm
• Weight: 130g with battery; 100g without battery

Storage:

• Flash: 512MB
• RAM: 512MB
• SD card: 4GB Micro SD card included (expandable to 32 GB)

Camera, photos, videos: 

• 5 MP camera
• Mechanical autofocus
• 2x digital zoom
• LED flash
• Geotagging capable 

Cellular & wireless:

• 3G T-Mobile and EDGE on AT&T
• Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• A2DP stereo Bluetooth

Location:

• AGPS receiver
• Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning 
• Digital compass
• Accelerometer 

Display: 

• 3.7 inch (diagonal) widescreen, WVGA AMOLED screen

External buttons & controls:

• Physical power key
• Physical volume up/down key
• Tricolor, clickable trackball
• 4illuminated softkeys (Back, Menu, Home, Search)
• Haptic feedback
• Teflon-coated back cover

Connectors and sensors:

• Dock pins
• 3.5mm, 40connector, stereo headset jack
• Earpiece
• Speaker
• Microphone
• Second microphone for active noise cancellation 
• SIM card slot
• Micro SD slot
• Micro USB port
• Proximity sensor
• Light sensor
• Tricolor charging and notification indicator LED

Processor:

• QUALCOMM QSD 8250, 1Ghz

Audio decoders: 

• AAC LC/LTP, HE-ACCv1 (AAC+), HE-AACv2 (enhanced ACC+)
• Mono/Stereo standard bit rates up to 160kbps and sampling rates from 8kHz to 48kHz
• AMR-NB 4.75-12.2kpbs sampled @ 8kHz
• AMR-WB 9 rates from 6.60kbit/s to 23.85kbits/s sampled @ 16kHz
• MP3 mono/stereo 8-320kbps constant bit rate (CBR) or variable bit-rate (VBR)
• MIDI SMF (Type 0 and 1), DLS Version 1 and 2, XMF/Mobile
• XMF, RTTTL/RTX, OTA, iMelody
• Ogg Vorbis
• WAVE

Audio encoders:

• AMR-NB 4.75-2.2kbps sampled @ 8kHz 

Platform:

• Android mobile technology platform 2.1 (Flan)

Image formats:

• JPEG (encode and decode)
• GIF
• PNG
• BMP

Video decoders: 

• H.263
• MPEG-4 SP
• H.264 AVC

Video encoders:

• H.263
• MPEG-4 SP

Power and battery: 

• Removable 1400mAh battery

Battery life is reportedly not that good, but...I'll get some sort of car charger or figure something out with extended life batteries.

Let's have some pics I found from random places on the internet......

^ Nice pic from nexusoneblog.com




Pic showing screen size difference between iPhone and Nexus One ------>




I'm getting one......

-Moni

Twitter.....

So.....

I've decided to succumb to social pressures and join the millions in the network world of Twitter.

Yes, I'll be tweeting my thoughts and random goings on here and there. I've already added it to my phone and done 3 tweets and followed 14 people, I'm well on my way to sheepdom. Hopefully, I won't jump off the cliff following the other lemmings (as evolutionarily impossible as that example from the animal world is) it's funny how on twitter when you follow people its cool, but in real life when you follow people its creepy and considered stalking...

something to think about...
Moni