What’s been going on since I last updated?  I got my new TV, and have been loving every minute spent with it.  My only complaint is that it seems like Samsung discontinued the Picture-in-Picture feature on their new TVs.  I used to play Wii while watching TV, and it looks like I won’t be able to do that anymore.    I wrote Samsung an email asking them if there’s a work-around.

So far I’ve been ordering Blu-rays on Netflix to show off my system.  I rented Speed Racer (which isn’t as bad as I thought, but also not great) and Taken (which was pretty awesome).  Speed Racer looked absolutely incredible; it’s almost worth watching for the image quality alone.  I bought The Dark Knight on Craigslist for $10, so I’ll be checking that out tonight.

Taylor and her friend Jessica have been in town since last Thursday, so I’ve been running all over with them.  We went to Universal Studios on Saturday (pretty fun, but no repeat-value) and hiking in Malibu on Sunday. They’re down in San Diego tonight, which gives me an evening to catch up on rest.

Speaking of San Diego, my roommate Carson is down there for the summer.  A girl from Michigan State is going to sublet from him, but I don’t know when she plans on showing up.  Until then, I’ve been getting a glimpse of what it would be like to live by myself.  It’s probably unhealthy how much I love it.

Back to Dark Knight…

So I had an unusual amount of loan money left over this semester.  I was faced with two options: 1) give it back and make it easier on 2011 Ryan, or 2) spend every last cent.  Easiest decision ever.

After a few days of research, I bought a new TV and Blu-Ray player from Best Buy.  I spent a little more than I had planned, but I think it’s gonna be worth it.  The thought of having a state-of-the-art television (for the first time ever) already has me more excited than I’ve been all year.

The TV is a Samsung 46″ LCD.  It’s just a base model (nothing fancy), but should be huge in my tiny living room.  It looks like this.  I also got a 4-year service plan to put my mind at ease.

The Blu-ray player is just a standard Samsung model.  It has the ability to stream Pandora and Netflix directly through the TV, which is pretty awesome.  I haven’t gotten these features to work yet (because of the UCLA firewall), but that should be resolved by Monday.  For those of you who aren’t won over by Blu-ray yet, check out this comparison.  The resolution on Blu-ray discs is noticeably better, especially on large TVs.

As part of some promotion, I got Star Trek 2-4 on Blu-ray for $5.  I’ve only ever seen Wrath of Khan, but I’m glad to have three movies to test out when the TV arrives on Sunday.

Anyway, it’s safe to say that I’ll be spending a lot of time at my apartment this summer.  I’ll post some pictures once I get everything set up!

I have my last real final tomorrow (note: my last final is on Monday, but it’s about legal research and only counts for 20% of my grade).  Finals have gone pretty uniformly terrible, but I’m so excited to start the summer.  I signed up for a Netflix account yesterday, so let me know if there are movies/tv shows that I should start watching.  I haven’t seen anything in months.

Now back to contracts.