Jerry has wanted a PlayStation 3 ever since the console came out back in 2006. He is a pretty hardcore gamer, and has several other systems at home, so I wasn’t surprised that he wanted this one as well. But the problem for us was always the price, as the PS3 is considerably more expensive than other units on the market. So we decided to wait on the purchase.

Now, nearly three years later, I think we’re finally ready to take the plunge. The price has indeed come down a bit, with the PlayStation 3 80GB model costing less than a 60GB unit did a little while ago. But what’s even more important to Jerry these days is that the PS3 game library is significantly larger than it was three years ago. The worst scenario for a gamer would be to plunk down a lot of cash for a great system only to be stuck playing the same two titles over and over again because there’s nothing else available. But it looks like this won’t be an issue anymore.

So after doing some shopping, I found the 80GB PS3 on Sale at Buy.com for $398.99. That’s as good of a price as we’re going to get for a brand-new console, so we might as well go for it. As added incentive, Buy.com offers free shipping on this product and we can even get another $30 off the total price just by applying for a Buy.com Visa card. I’ve seen that credit card offer before, but never took advantage of it. This might be the perfect time to do it, though!

Usually, I’d balk at spending this much money on a non-essential item, but I know that Jerry will use the PS3 almost every single day, so it’s not like this thing will just collect dust in the corner of the living room. And as long as we get our money’s worth, I’m ok with the purchase!

This pretty much goes in the “duh” category for me, but I guess some people need everything explained to them. I just read on Yahoo Tech that when computers are left on overnight, your energy costs go up. *Gasp* Really? Who would’ve thought that to be the case?

Apparently some group put together an energy report saying that between businesses and residences, the number of computers left on all the time costs about $2.8 billion per year and results in 20 million tons of CO2 production — equivalent to 4 million cars on the road.

I have never understood the reasoning behind leaving computers on all the time. I know some people say they take too long to boot up or whatever, but that’s not the case with my machine. I just walk over to my desk, flip the switches, and go pour myself a cup of coffee while the computer gets ready. By the time I get back and settle into my chair, everything is ready to go.

Obviously I don’t turn off my computer every time I step away from my desk, but if I’m going to be gone for more than 20 minutes, I’ll shut it down. It just boggles my mind that people don’t bother turning their PCs or laptops off overnight!

Have you ever heard of Meredith Kercher? Originally from Britain, Meredith was studying in Perugia, Italy on an exchange program when she was murdered in the cottage she shared with another exchange student. Her body was discovered on November 2, 2007.

During the course of the investigation into Meredith’s murder, several theories as to what might have happened were bandied about by police.

One theory involved a man named Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivory Coast native who was apparently having a relationship with Kercher before she died. Police found evidence of Guede’s presence in the cottage at the time of the murder, but he said he was there to have consensual sex with the victim, and was using the toilet when he heard her screaming. He went on to say that he emerged to see Kercher being stabbed by an Italian man, who subsequently ran away. Guede professed to be so frightened by the experience that he tried to flee to Germany. This version of events landed him in jail for 30 years after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. His trial lasted 12 days.

But there are other theories, and other suspects as well, including an American exchange student named Amanda Knox, who was Kercher’s roommate, and her boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, both of whom are now on trial in Italy after behing held in jail for several months.

The whole affair is very convoluted and confusing to me. I feel bad for Kercher’s parents because obviously they deserve to know what happened to their daughter. But at the same time, I have to wonder if Knox and Sollecito are being held unfairly, or if Guede has been wrongly convicted. After all, it doesn’t seem as though all three of them can be guilty — at least not based on the theories that I’ve read thus far. Knox and Sollecito are a pair for sure, so if they did it, they were involved together. But Guede seems separate from them, making it an either/or proposition. Plus, there was another bartender suspected early on, but he was subsequently cleared.

Wow, what an amazing mess. I hope this all gets straightened out soon.

I have a consulting job that takes up about 10 hours per week. I obviously don’t have a lot of day to day responsibilities to take care of for that job, but I do sometimes have to deal with problem employees — which is something I absolutely hate to do. For the most part, we have good people working for us, but there are always one or two bad apples that tend to spoil everything.

Right now there’s this guy named Scott who thinks he has all the answers about how to run the place. He’s been working for us for just one year, and isn’t any more qualified than anyone else. Yet all he does is blather on and on and on about what needs to be changed and why. He doesn’t let anyone else get a word in edgewise and refuses to listen to other people’s opinions. Then, when the president of the company shoots every one of his ideas down, he practically cries and has a hissy fit. He’s such a big baby that he should wear incontinence products to work and take his meals from a Gerber jar.

As you can probably tell, I had a recent run-in with him that has ruined my whole week thus far. We’re having a work party/gathering over the weekend, and I really wanted to go, but since there’s a chance that this jackass will be there, I think I’ll stay home now. I hate know-it-alls with a passion.

Whenever I’m getting ready to buy a new tech product that stores data, the first thing I look at is whether or not the memory is expandable. This is very important, obviously, because the longer I have and use a device, the more data I accumulate and the more storage I need. I absolutely hate deleting things, so if I can’t expand the memory, I usually don’t buy the product.

I mean, take my PSP (PlayStation Portable), for instance. This handheld gaming system comes with a minuscule 32MB memory stick out of the box, which isn’t worth much when you consider all the gaming data, movies, and music files that I want to use on the device. I immediately upgraded to a 1GB card, but that’s pretty much full now, so I was shopping for another memory card today. That’s when I came across this SanDisk 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo over at Buy.com. The card I currently use in my PSP is a SanDisk, so I know that this brand is compatible with my device. And, really, we’re talking 4 gigs of memory here! Do I need to say any more?

Normally, I would expect to pay at least $70-$80 for this much storage, but right now the SanDisk 4GB Memory Stick is on Sale at Buy.com for just $15.99, with free shipping. That is NOT a misprint… only $15.99 for 4GB of memory! No wonder this item is Buy.com’s top seller of the day!

I better hurry up and order this memory stick because I have a feeling that they’ll be sold out very soon. There’s no way anyone else can beat this price, so I’m not even going to bother with comparison shopping. Off to place my order!

Wow, have you seen the video footage of that FedEx cargo plane that crashed at Tokyo’s Narita Airport on Monday morning at 6:50am local time? Apparently, there were very strong winds swirling when the plane tried to land, and the footage shows the craft pretty much going hard into the runway, bouncing back up, tipping a wing back down on the runway, and then breaking up and exploding into flames. It looked pretty horrific.

There were two casualties as the result of this accident, the pilot and the co-pilot. Though I haven’t seen any names reported yet, I’ve read that both are U.S. citizens. This hasn’t really been confirmed by official sources, but that’s the initial assessment.

The flight originated in Guangzhou in southern China.

I heard that Travis Pastrana, my favorite motocross racer of all time, is going to enter the St. Louis Supercross tonight. He hasn’t raced professionally in a couple of years, so it’s not like he’ll win or anything, but he’ll definitely qualify because he’s really that talented on a bike. I just hope he doesn’t do something stupid and get injured — which is the whole reason he quit racing in the first place.

It’s hard to believe that I attended this event in 2007 during Ricky Carmichael’s farewell tour. I would love to see Travis race again, and if I had known about his intentions a few weeks ago, I would have tried damn hard to make it to STL again. Damn!

Oh, well… good luck, TP!