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Last night was the start of the third season of Dancing With the Stars. Despite some problems with the show, I was a big fan of the previous two seasons but last night’s show was just so boring. I think perhaps it just went on too long, or maybe the stars just weren’t very interesting or recognisable. The football star was better than last year’s but didn’t deserve any standing ovations; its only one show and already everyone is showing the same old biases. The judges are already bickering and, like with American Idol, it isn’t entertaining any more. There were some highlights: I loved the foxtrot by Vivica A. Fox and the ex-Miss USA contestant. Jerry Springer was fun to watch, and any time Karina Smirnoff is on screen is a good time by anyone’s standards.

Today, Apple announced a whole slew of improvements to the ipod lineup. Just a few of interest:

• New 80Gb model, 30GB now $50 cheaper
• The new shuffle is so small its almost invisible
• iTunes will download the cover art for every album you own, no matter how you obtained it
• Movies now available for download
• and coming Q1…. iTV….

This past weekend I flew Teri to Camarillo for a surprise trip to Santa Rosa Island. The island lies 40 miles off the coast of Ventura and I had signed us up for a tour with Channel Islands Aviation who would fly us there, and arrange for a guide.

The self-flying was fun, including a return trip with only one working brake, and you can read about it on my flying blog if you wish.

I can heartily recommend the tour. The island feels quite isolated and is beautiful with untouched beaches and rolling hills, just beware the high winds and the hunters (though hopefully they will be gone in 2011). We had a great guide, Inge, a volunteer with the National Park service who had a great passion and knowledge for the island. The trip across the sea to the island was also fun, our pilot Curtis skilfully brought the plane down on the dirt strip in very high winds and thanks to several people not showing up he was able to join us for the tour.

To the pictures I took, click on the photo above or go to this link to my flickr photoset.

Sad news today of the death of Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter.

Yep, the American football season in about to start and we haven’t yet got rid of that awful bore, the baseball season. Ugh, it gets so I’m scared to put on the TV lest I catch any of it and go into a boredom-induced coma.

I’ve had the Mac Mini for a few months and continually complain about how slow it is. So, before it goes in the trash I thought I’d give a memory upgrade a try. The standard 512MB really isn’t much these days and I read that the video card takes almost half of that so the apps don’t stand much of a chance.

I ordered 2GB of RAM off ebay for $160 and researched how to do the install. Its actually pretty easy if you follow the great instructions found at this link. It is hard to get the case off, no doubt but a good putty knife will see to it just fine. Also, a tiny Philips head screwdriver is required and make sure its magnetic, getting the screws back in is a real pain if its not.

Too early to say what kind of difference it has made but I think it will be obviously better. A couple of pictures on my flickr site.

Its not really a secret, but at the same time its not well known, that when I came to the US and embarked on what I thought would be a great dance career I was persuaded to “wear hair” to cover up my lack thereof. The argument is easy to make, there are few bald(ing) latin dancers and one must do what one must (fake tan, jet black hair dye etc) to compete with everyone else. But I forgot that whats really important is to have a good dance partner and my two partners could barely walk in heels, let alone dance. Oh, and then those damn Russian teens showed up, which didn’t help.

Anywhoo, since I stopped dancing a few years ago there really was no reason not to go back to au naturel, other than the inevitable ribbing I would have to suffer. And so, last night, I got a little medieval on my head and am now a paid up member of the Yul Brynner club. Its going to take a little getting used to but so far I’ve not had any small children run away from me, or animals recoil in fear, so although to me I look like an end-stage cancer patient, perhaps everything will be ok.

At some point I will dig out some before and after, and after again, pictures.

Get thee to Woot! for the woot off; deals are flying fast and furious. Already gone (and its only 8am):

• Bluetooth ipod headphones
• 250Gb Hard Drive(s)
• HP Photo Studio
• iRobot Roomba
• and much much more

Oh, can’t decide between a PS3 and a Wii? This video might help….

I’m off on a little mini-cruise to Ensenada, Mexico, back Monday so the Roomba review will have to wait until next week. I’ll be installing my cams before I go so maybe I’ll get to capture some more intruder “babes” whilst I’m away. [Images are broken in that post as I’ve now moved them to here.]

To keep you from missing me too much, check out this great song by Mattafix, To and Fro:

Went out last night for a couple of beers and was delighted to find that the hostelry had a trough to pee in rather than the usual single urinals. Now, I don’t ordinarily like to share my space while taking care of business but I like the trough: its large, no need to worry about where to stand, how to stand, where to aim. Just walk right up and go for it. And of course if there’s a urinal cake in there then there’s always the possibility of a little pee football if you’re with a friend.

In other news I bought a Roomba from my friend last night, one that he had spare from a Woot purchase. Its currently charging and I will post a review of its ability after its first cleanup.