Yesterday I was writing about HomePNA and commented that the adapters were $200 and USB to boot. But I didn't look around for alternatives. So today I did look and found the Homeline products from Proxim (nee Farallon). They have USB, PCI, and Ethernet adapters. What I really want is an Ethernet to HomePNA adapter. Ethernet is installed in just about any computer and it doesn't require a special driver like for USB and PCI. The Proxim adapter costs $100 which is not too bad and I may use it in the future.

What would really be cool is if Airport Base Stations could bridge to each other. Then you could have two Base Stations bridging two wire networks. You can do that now by replacing one Base Station with a Macintosh, but that's not cost effective. Hopefully Apple will add that feature in the near future.

For my new house I was not planning on getting cable tv since on the other side of the Oakland Hills from Concord you get good reception for all the local channels. But then I remembered that I want to get TNT and TBS so I can watch the Kings during the NBA playoffs, so I will be getting the low end standard cable package for about $40 a month.

Briefly I considered getting the full Digital Cable package at $80 a month. But really, how much of of those channels do I really watch? And I don't like dealing with a digital cable converter since you can only see one channel at a time. With normal cable any cable-ready box can pick up the channels. Once I have televisions and VCRs that can pick up digital signals themselves, then I might get digital cable. And if you think about it, the extra $40 a month is about 8 movie rentals. I don't watch that many new movies a month on cable tv any more.

The Winter Olympics start this Friday and this is the year that I want to watch as much of it as possible. NBC is showing the games on three channels totalling about 14 hours a day. Hmm, that's probably too much for me. But I can skip the subjective events like ice skating which should help. Good thing I have three VCRs to use.

I've been thinking about where I'm going to put stuff in my new house (at this point, there's so much emotional involvement that I have to get that house). The master bedroom will have my bed and dressers and file cabinet. One room will have the DSL line, servers, bookcases with books and games. The kitchen will have all the kitchen stuff and the heavy wood table will be in the dining room.

Television. Hmm, chances are I'll spend all my time in the game room since that's where the DSL line is so my computer has to be there. Oh, I have to see if my parents or Christopher still has the old Commodore 64 monitor, which takes standard A/V input. Coupled with a cable-ready VCR and it can function pretty well as a television. Probably one television in the game room and the other in the living room, along with the futon.

I think I'm putting too many items in the game room. I have three big bookcases, three small bookcases, one big "bookcase" (really metal shelving that's not strong enough for books but good enough for board games). I'm planning on getting another two big bookcases (and they sure are expensive -- $100 to $150 for a fairly good one) to hold the games that I currently have in closets. Plus my table, tv stand, space for Dave's server... I don't know if it will all fit well into one room. We'll see...

What about my dentist? I'll probably stay with my current one. I only go there every four months so it's too big a problem and I like my dental hygienist. Dr Dowd is actually getting better at his bedside manner. When I went there last month he was all chatty and friendly. Maybe there's hope for him yet. Optometrist I might switch and I still don't have a regular doctor. So the only thing left for me in Concord will be the dentist.