The Dell XPS M1330 is a slick, travel powerhouse laptop small enough to actually be used in an airplane or airport coffee house. You get most of the bells and whistles of a larger laptop without the weight and chunkiness. As always, Dell offers tons of stuff to customize your build: Bluetooth, different Wi-Fi options, as well as an expanded batter pack. Plus, it’s just so damn sexy.
Design
This to me is was the biggest factor in buying a 13.3 inch laptop. Of all the laptops I looked at (sorry I didn’t bother looking at the Macs), this was the one that stood out the most. It’s thin, the keyboard is encased in brushed aluminum, and above the keyboard is a touch sensitive row of keys for DVD playback, sound intensity manipulation, and Media Direct initialization. On the leading edge, you got dual headphone jacks, a Mic jack, and an SD media port. The disc tray is a slot load, which is a welcome change, and though this laptop comes with all the standard I/O ports (USB, IEEE and VGA), it also comes with a HDMI port. A nice surprise is that where your dummy PCI express card usually would sit there is a media remote included with your purchase.
An ongoing joke Mr. Smith and I have going is whether this “hotel” actually ever has people calling to reserve rooms. I found the BathHouse at the Alexis Hotel late one January night in ’08 buried in a sea of web pages about Indonesian night life.
What interested me the most about this place was that not only were there local women there, but also lovely ladies from Thailand, Uzbekistan, Myanmar (Burma), Russia, and mainland China. After determining that this place was well indeed worthy of a trip, I telephoned Mr. Smith and made plans for the following night to hit up the Alexis Hotel.
Ok, so I’m a big movie buff. When I was in Jersey I had the good fortune of living 5 minutes away from a theater with 10 screens. More or less I would try to see about a movie a week. Sometimes it be 3 movies a week and sometimes it would be 0 depending on what was out for the week. The point is that I really love a good movie and watching it in a theater makes it 10 times better for me.
So one of the things I had to know was: what is it like watching movies in Southeast Asia??? Well, my first experience with this was Ironman at a “normal” theater in Bandung, Indonesia. I was there with a little sweetie who would later turn into the New Years Eve Stalker (I’m still a little creeped out by the “gift” she sent to my hotel room).
Right off the bat you notice something that makes total sense and makes absolutely no sense that American movie theaters haven’t adopted: when you buy a ticket you’re actually buying a seat. At the register there is a screen which shows you all the open seats and you pick where you want to sit. How ingeniously simple is that??? No more getting to the theater, buying a ticket and sitting in the nosebleeds or sitting so close to the screen you have to continually pan left and right. Oh and the tickets were only like 3 bucks.
I’ve been putting this phone review off for a bit just cause I wanted to get some time in using it. I’ve traveled a bit now since getting it so I was able to use it in a few countries and feel that this review can be put out.
Right off the bat you have to love just the look of the phone. The QWERTY keyboard is under a good size screen all encased in solid steal. This phone says “High end” right when you look at it and once you get it into your hand you feel something that I had never felt with a cell phone……..build quality!!! This thing is the meeting the design team had when they were planning the E71.
“Ok guys now this is what I want you to do. I want you to build me an M1 Abrams…………….but it has to make phone calls get email and fit into your pocket and oh yeah it can’t kill people” [CLICK TO READ MORE... >>]
Hey, everybody. This is Anthony Otomo and you’ll have to excuse me if what I’ve written seems a bit off. I’ve been drinking VSOP very heavily for the past few days. I thought I’d touch on my journey from being a slave to where I’m at now and the future goal of being free.
“Free” can mean so much to so many, but for me free meant never having to answer to anyone. It meant doing what I want to do with no consequence other than my own guilt (which the cognac is extremely adept at silencing). And most importantly it meant being my own master. Retiring at 65 when my plumbing doesn’t work and I’ve only got 2 or 3 marbles left rolling around upstairs is not free.
Roping myself to a huge house in Small Town Suck with friends of convenience and a few blood-sucking kids is not free. And trading my soul for a 7/11 on every corner and cable TV is a trade I’m not willing to make. And it is not free.
Every once in awhile you gotta hit up the Blok. Blok M that is. To me Blok M is like Taco Bell: you know you’re gonna regret it, but every once in a while you gotta get some. I try to stay at some of the more unknown joints in Jakarta. Places more akin to the ERS maxim which is: drink, party and play, but do it big time. However, that’s not to say that Blok M doesn’t offer fun for all you readers who hold highly the principles of the Expat Rock Star.
Me and Mr. Smith had been drinking for a good portion of the night (him scotch and me bourbon) and the snap decision was made to hit up the old Blok (quite like the decision for going to Taco Bell hits you). So we caught a Blue Bird from the Shangri La and headed out on the hope something spectacular was gonna happen (I was hoping to get into a knife fight).
Big Suites, a 6 Foot Tall Japanese Chick and BATS is Filled Wall to Wall With Girls
I should have written this article a while ago. I’ve logged enough nights there that I’m a Golden Circle member (an invitation only benefits club they have). When I first met Mr. Smith he told me enough about Jakarta that I HAD to go check it out. So when it was time to go to Jakarta I asked him where should I stay.
He gave a few options, the Mulia, the Ritz Carlton, the Shangri La, all hotels with comparable prestige, comfort and prices. Ultimately I made my choice by researching the clubs located at the hotels. After reading a few articles on BATS the decision was made to stay at the Shang. [CLICK TO READ MORE... >>]
It had been about a year since I had last been to a casino, this is not something I am proud to say. For the last year wile working in Iraq I had been making do with those late night, thrown together, rag tag poker games with people that no serious poker player enjoys playing with.
Like the guy whose never played before so he can’t figure out when to get out of a hand. Or the guy who won’t play anything so you have to spend the whole night whittling him down to nothing. It is annoying, to say the least. So when the time for vacation came up for me I knew two things: I’m going to Southeast Asia and I’m going to a casino.
