Lately, the INOi MH720 that we use in our living room to watch movies has been showing its age, having trouble with new audio/video codecs and subtitle formats. I had been considering getting a new media player, but after looking into, figured it might be a better deal to get a nettop to use as a media center and as an additional family computer.

I finally settled on the AspireRevo 3610 and got lucky picking up the last one from our local Fry’s. It came equipped with 2GB RAM (enough for basic needs), 160GB hard drive (no big deal since using externals for storage) and an NVIDIA ION chip for graphics (hardware acceleration for HD video), along with an HDMI port out for both audio and video (easy HD connectivity to home theater).

The nettop came installed with Windows 7, which has and once again turned out to be a good upgrade. At first the network folder sharing was throwing me off because I was used to the previous Windows method. But after I got the hang of using HomeGroup [how-to geek], everything came together nicely. No more long USB cable running along the floor to transfer shows

For the media player application, Boxee came out with their latest beta, which does a nifty job of integrating local and web content to make a more complete browsing and watching experience. Basically, Boxee scans local folders and then displays the multimedia files with additional descriptions from the web, along with web-based episodes. It can even grab subtitles directly from opensubtitles for both movies and TV shows. Also, to keep from drowning in kids’ cartoons, I created a separate Boxee account to manage their content.

As for the remote control, the nettop came with a wireless mouse and keyboard, but that’s not very user-friendly for regular media use. I wanted to stick with our trusty universal remote URC-200 which has worked fine all these years, even with the different component upgrades. Unfortunately, the nettop didn’t come with an IR port. So I got a cheap media center remote with an IR receiver included. I used the media center remote to program my universal remote with the basic functions. Then, I found a program called Intelliremote which allowed me to control multiple applications with customized functions for each.

On a side note, I got to try out AmazonBasics when I ordered an HDMI cable. It was a good deal, came quick with Prime, and nice not having to wrangle with clamshell plastic packaging.

Of course, not everything is perfect particularly when on the “bleeding edge”, so here is my list of issues with the current setup:

• Boxee’s latest version does not have the ability to manually add, correct or update media files and descriptions.
• There’s some occasional strange resolution behavior when turning on the HDTV with Boxee already running in background.
• Annoying ads on web episodes, but nothing to be done about that.
• Flickr App on Boxee has been running slow, hopefully just a beta glitch.
• BBC App limited by geo-location (what’s with cold-war era borders).
• Easier customization of Boxee Homepage.
• Latest Boxee beta broke support for embedded subtitles (i.e. anime not working)
• Stronger parental controls on Boxee to limit content access.
• The current remote setup has limited mouse and text input ability.
• Windows 7 Homegroup folder sharing not backwards compatible with previous Windows versions.

A few months ago, we discovered the fun of Marshmallow Guns, but we could only play it occasionally as they were messy so had to be played outdoors particularly as the marshmallows got wet, sticky and yucky. A little bit after, our nephew got this insanely huge nerf gun that could launch Nerf darts clear across the room. Elijah eventually got a couple more smaller guns for himself and the boys that were easier to run and shoot around the house.

Originally, I figured that our girls wouldn’t be so interested, but boy was I wrong. I kept hinting that I was going to get a Nerf gun, and they just thought it was funny. After finally picking up a gun at Target, they wanted to try shooting it and really got into it, especially when shooting at me!

I ended up taking that first gun back and getting the gun pictured above, and I decided to get a couple for the girls (turns out Rebecca took them to Target to get some too, including one for herself). After trying a couple smaller guns for the girls, we settled on the one below which was easier for them to shoot:

After dinner, we had our very own Nerf gun war for almost an hour! Elise couldn’t load, cock and shoot as fast as the rest of us, so she decided it was more fun just running around collecting bullets for me, while I fended off Rebecca and Juliette who were ganging up on us.

We suggested to Juliette that she should secretly bring her gun to ambush Micah and Toby on Saturday, but she’s just too nice and said that I should tell them to bring their guns too. Could prove to be a lively Nerf gun war weekend.

Last year, I was talking to a friend of mine whom I’ve known since elementary school about my oldest daughter, Juliette. At the time she was in kindergarten, and I was mentioning to my friend how Juliette was one of only two Asians in her class. The parallel was that when my friend and I were in elementary school way back when, we were the only two Asians in our class. A couple of months later, my friend dug up this old class picture where you can see the two of us amongst our classmates.

And here is a picture of Juliette’s kindergarten class (just the girls) where you can see Juliette and her other Asian classmate. They are actually best friends and even though, this year, they are not in the same first grade class, they play with each other during every break they get.

While I was growing up, nearly all of my school classmates were non-Asians, which was in direct contrast to my friends at church which were practically all Chinese. Juliette is in a similar situation now except that our church is a little bit more diversified being predominantly Asian American.

I don’t know that I have anything specific to say other than observations and pointing out the parallels. My thought is that diversity is best accomplished as an ongoing process of person to person interactions. It is when we describe or assume in generalities that we take peoples as a whole for granted.

My friend and I actually have two other classmates from elementary school whom we still keep in touch with after all these years. It’s encouraging to see that Juliette is friends with lots of her other classmates as well. One of my hopes for my girls is that they will be able to enjoy as long a friendship with all of their friends as long as I have with mine.

This week marks the end of Juliette’s Kindergarten and my first year driving her to school in the mornings on my way to work. I know that barely counts as carpooling, but the idea that it is now my turn to take my kids to school is yet another milestone in my parenting career.

Some things that I learned or just want to remember from this first year of driving Juliette to school:

1. It’s better to be early in the carpool lane, less stress for everybody, especially the driver.
2. Remember to stop the car before getting out. (ask Juliette, she’ll never let me forget)
3. Keep a bottle of water in the car in case they get thirsty. But don’t let them drink too much.
4. Juliette likes to take the street route rather than the freeway (except when daddy has a dealer loaner 3-series and is driving crazy).
5. Juliette likes to take “big turns”, just have to remember not to spill coffee.
6. NPR is not the best radio station for “young” ears. Turning off the radio to have an actual conversation with my kids is a good thing.
7. It took a whole year for me to finally remember her weekly class schedule. (and now it’s over)

Until the fall…