Got the rebuild kit from Amazon

Here is how to reassemble it, the o-ring appears to be an extra piece for this model.

testing New post in xanga 2.0

As I’ve always said it never fails. When I want to do a post more often than not, Xanga is inevitably down or not available. Looks like last time was a move to WordPress. Good job Xanga for losing my accounts!

A review of the bus tour we took to DC/Niagara Falls was www.taketours.com which is probably one of many shell websites like gotobus.com and some other chinese websites. In the end they all end up with one puppet master controlling it all.
I just wanted to let you know the real deal so you know what you’re getting yourself into and if that is fine then it is an okay tour, otherwise you’ll be in for sticker-shock.

First we took the 3day two night [Visit the Thousand Islands, Niagara Falls, Corning Glass Center, Philadelphia (Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell), and Washington DC (the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, the Lincoln Memorial, and the White House). 2-night hotel accommodations. Round trip ground transportation and tour guide.]  is advertised as $132 per person but I think in the end you’ll be paying closer to at least double per person in admissions and tips and that doesn’t even cover the food and souvenirs along the way. There is a similar tour that skips the corning glass museum and replaces it with Howe’s cavern which I’ve been to in the past. If you like cold and damp caves with tight spaces it is okay to see.

The benefit of the bus tour is you don’t need to drive and you can take more people than the car will fit and it is semi-guided to the points of interest and they will leave you to explore.

The down side is the unspoken price and the limited time scheduled at each stop, and the time limit imposed at every stop – be back on the bus on time or else. Basically you get there, have a few minutes literally anywhere from 15-40 minutes (sometimes an hour or three hours per location), then you move on. Bring food because there won’t be time for eating regular meals except maybe one dinner. Normally they expect you to sleep and eat on the go on the bus.
Also because of the fast pace, this tour might not be good for older people who can’t keep up with the get on bus, get off for few minutes then get back in. As for toilets, there is one on the bus, good for guys not so good for females because it is cramped and I doubt any guy picks up the seat, no faucet in there either. Bathrooms at the sight seeing places are packed because of the many other tour groups also in the same area. That right there will take up 10 minutes or so at peak times, and when you only have 40 minutes at a location to sightsee OR eat it matters. And yes you need to decide to either sightsee or attend to basic human necessities like food or relieving yourself, it is that time limited. You need to also factor in if you have 40 minutes you need to allocate time to walk back to the bus because they sometimes drop you off at a location and expect you to meet at the same location which isn’t near the point of interest.

They demand tips near the end of the tour and make it seem like it is mandatory at $7 per person per day, and they hint that if you like the bus driver’s hard work you can put in more, but they split the tips I assume.

All prices are per person in cash. They said if you wanted to do everything on this tour the price was $106 per person. Otherwise you can pay a la carte.

Here are the attractions worth paying for (if you never done it before):

• Thousand Islands Cruise (Apr – Oct) $25 (it was a short one hour cruise)
• Maid of the Mist (Apr – Oct 24) $15.50 (prepared to get wet dress appropriately)
• Night tour of the falls $25**

Avoid these admission prices/unecessary (unless you into that kind of thing):

• Corning Museum of Glass $15 – museum is free, this is something they don’t tell you. This price is to watch them blow some glass live which is all of 20 minutes and not a big deal.
• IMAX Movie (Niagara Falls) $12
• President (Madame Tussauds Wax) Museum $23
• Indian museum/performance near Niagara falls $??
• Avoid the chinese buffet if you can find other food, $15 was a good deal which included tips and tax until you go in and see half the platters are empty or had food in it so long it is unedible and most of the quality of the existing food is below average and americanized style.

**The night tour at Niagara is another scam to get more money because we arrive at the falls in the afternoon around 3pm-ish then you get an hour or so to spend there plus time to take the maid of mist, then they originally planned on bringing everyone to the hotel/dinner. Then if you booked the ‘night tour’ a different shuttle bus will take you from the hotel back to the falls to see the same falls with some HD colored lights turned on and shuttle you again to the hotel after 40 minutes. They may have given more time but the math works out to about 40 minutes because only lights come on at five min to 9pm and you have until around 9:40 to get back to the shuttle bus (don’t forget walking time).

Some French lady had the same idea as me but she had the guts to voice it to the tour guide who actually made it a reality, however still charged the same $$ to get back to the hotel. The idea was why not just let everyone stay at the falls until it is night time then bus us back to the hotel.

pro tip – the food court at niagara falls is another tourist trap, but we were hungry. almost everything was $12 a plate, american/indian/chinese food all pre-priced at that selling point. that would explain why the food court was mostly empty, no locals would eat at that price.

Any more questions feel free to ask. I know it is a lot of negatives but I think if you know this going in, it will be much easier.
Oh yeah at canal street where they had 20 buses and hundreds of people with suitcases on the sidewalks over a span of five-eight blocks it can get very confusing to find the right bus. Get name of tourguide for your tour and find him and stick to him.
They have pickups in flushing HSBC bank (shuttle to canal st/delancy) and in NJ somewhere.

I turn off the lights in my room and stay alone in the darkness
I lay myself down on my bed
And try to sleep though it doesn’t come

The night we broke up
The last goodbye that I couldn’t say in the end
When I told you to be well – that was all a lie

I thought I forgot you, I thought I did forget you
For a moment, without you
I believed that I wouldn’t cry
But still, you live inside of me
Your breath that used to tell me you loved me
It still remains in my ears

* Even if all the other love changes
My love won’t ever change
Touch me touch me
You are everything in my life
Even if you get farther away from me
I will go closer to you
Kiss me kiss me
You are everything in my life

** The tears that ride and fall along my cheeks are wetting my pillow
And I’m also drenched in the memories
Your smile from afar
Becomes a single line of sweet rain in my torn heart and drenches me

* Repeat

Here I’m running to you
Wait for me
I miss you so much (I feel your breath)
Now I’m missing you
Will you hug me?
I miss you so much (I feel your touch)

** Repeat

* Repeat

-Davichi

Chao came to the rescue again today.

once again brains beat out brute force algorithm.

  

Satechi ST-69BTS Audio Cube Portable Bluetooth Speaker System
( for iPhone / Android Smart Phones / iPad / Tablets / Macbook / Notebooks)

The first question I had was “What is the difference between this ST-69BTS $50 vs. the Audio Cube  portable (ST-66BTA) which is $5 less and a misnomer as well?”
Well now the difference is more obvious since they’ve redesigned the ST-69BTS to be completely cube shaped while the ‘audio cube portable’ is in actuality an audio cylinder – think soda can but smaller. The main difference is that the ST-69BTS has a bass component, hence the B designation, while both models have dual speakers outputting 2 Watts each. On the ST-69BTS they are positioned facing back to back outwards from each other in a 180 degree position.

Design
The ST-69BTS is covered on all sides with a rubber coating, which can be a good thing as I found out it was 1-year-old-nephew-proof. It can take a tumble and still be okay at least on carpeting.
The top portion is finished in smooth plastic which does attract dust, but is easily cleaned off.
One thing that you can’t tell from the pictures is that once activated, there is an intense blue ring of light around the power button. Normally I’m watching a movie in the dark with this portable speaker and it is super very annoying to have this glaring blue light which you cannot turn off while the speaker is in operation. Obviously that isn’t much of an issue with proper lightning, but I found an ingenious solution: turn the thing upside down while so that the light is covered. The slight difference is that I can tell the sound also appears to be inverted with the bass creating an umbrella of sound from the top down.

The power button. I don’t know if it is still new and I haven’t ‘broken’ it in yet, but the power button is difficult to use. You’d think you can just press it to turn it on, but you’d be wrong. You have to actually hold down the power button for a few seconds until the unit beeps to notify you that it is ready for pairing mode. Holding the button down isn’t the issue but I would say there is a 50% chance you can hold it all you want and nothing happens. Perhaps it is not making contact properly, but after a few tries of holding it down I can usually start the device up. I have a suspicion if you don’t press the penny-sized button directly in the center it won’t start.

There is the standard audio in jack to connect it to an audio source with wires, plus the old style micro USB charging input.

As a side note the Beacon Audio Phoenix Portable bluetooth speaker looks suspiciously exactly the same (as the pre-redesigned ST-69BTS) with different branding of course, and more than double the price.

Bluetooth
This device appears to be able to hold one bluetooth connection at a time. This means that even if the previous device (call it device A) that you had connected is turned off this speaker will still be ‘attached’ to device A while you are trying to connect device B to the speaker. You have to turn on device A, manually remove the speaker or turn off bluetooth, then B will connect.
On the plus side, once it makes a connection there is a ringtone which sounds to let you know it has made a successful connection. You can also control stop and play functions from either device or the speaker. On my previous wireless bluetooth speaker, the Veho, doing so will cause a delayed lag in the controls, meaning you press stop, the video still plays then a few seconds later the video stops while the audio literally screeches to a halt, but you’ve already pressed stop more than one time because it took so long and now the video is playing again. Thankfully this doesn’t happen with the ST-69BTS.

The device does support incoming calls but I haven’t tested that since I was mainly using it for the speaker features.

Sound quality
What can I say, it is a small 2watt speaker the size of a large apple but lighter such that you can hold in the palm of your hand. The audio is good enough that someone from upstairs complained that she thought I was watching TV or some show and wanted me to turn it down at 6AM in the morning.

Battery
The battery life is pretty good. No I didn’t sit there to time it with a stopwatch, but I rate it by how many movies I can watch. I can watch back to back tv episodes and two movies at a time with plenty left to spare. It is rated for around 6 hours and that sounds about right. In comparison to my previous Veho, which lasted less than two hours it was annoying that after one movie it required a few hours recharge.

The blue circle can turn an amber color while charging so I assume it will take this color when it also has low battery status, I haven’t hit it during normal use since I recharge it per viewing session.

Also of note: if the device is left in pairing mode -the blue circle lights flashing- it will eventually time out and shut down by itself after a few minutes.

Conclusion
I would rate this a high “low end” and low “mid-range” type of bluetooth speaker.
I’m pretty sure it doesn’t sound as good as the 200 150 100 dollar Jawbone Jambox, and it certainly won’t be doing the Mexican jumping bean on full volume, but for a speaker in this price range and size, it is hard to beat for the quality and features provided despite the premium $50.

 Start it up, need a break.

Perhaps this catchy Library song will do the trick.

Also, Dim sum tomorrow in Brooklyn. Time to try something new.

big bob went to the hospital yesterday from work

I’m back!

A human being asked me for help today and I said, “no”.

It is unnerving when I get caught off guard and the first thing in my mind is to be defensive. I didn’t even really hear what this guy said to me, he mumbled something about being very hungry?

The blue hoodie clad korean kid looked just like any normal person in his twenties in the subway. Yet he approached me while I had my money and wallet out in front of the Metrocard vending machine. I was concentrating very hard to figure out how many more days I would need to fill up before the vacation and doing the math in my head when he asked me.

Thinking it over after my transaction was finally complete, I don’t know why, but this time this guy in particular seemed sincere…