But at least I'm home, in my own bed with wifi and @siskita now feeling better. Seems we're taking turns being sick. :( I hope I break the cycle....
thepete.com mirror
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Still snowing, still not home yet...
It's been tricky navigating the streets of Manhattan with a few inches of snow on them...
We're finally reaching the Heights so we'll be home soon...
In JFK, waiting 35 minutes for Super Shuttle. Sure am glad I made a prepaid reservation!
I'm just glad we're indoors. If this were LA we'd be standing in "cold" 50-degree weather waiting--sometimes just as long...
We've landed in New York... Holy crap are we tired!
This is how the world looks to us right now... Super Shuttle take us HOME!
OK, we've been on the ground for about ten minutes... Can somebody crack a window in here, PLEASE????
Grr... 2 little kids in front of us on the plane to LA insist on turning the lights on and off..
over and over and over and over and over...
Meanwhile, a slightly older child behind me is kicking the back of my seat every so often.
I'm sure I'd be much more patient if I had my own kids, but I have cats. I put them in boxes. Can I do that with kids? I don't have my own, y'see, so I don't know these things...Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Grrr... just worked out wireless at TheDad's. It took all of thirty seconds to work out, too...
Just in time to head back home. Geh.... That's the way it goes sometimes.
Turns out he's got a DSL modem that has wireless built-in. Have never heard of one of those. Ah well... at least I know for next visit...
Why I *won't* be getting a Nexus One. Damn it Google... you coulda been a condenda!
Home » Handset News, Rumors and MoreNexus One to be $530 Full Price, $180 on Contract
Submitted by AndroidGuys on Tuesday, 29 December 2009Comments (40)
...
The full cost of the handset will be $530 unsubsidized. Google won’t deliver us from the evil that is the US system (yet). Don’t feel like dropping a mortgage payment? Sign a 2-year agreement and get it for $180.00 instead. As of right now, there’s only one rate plan to choose from: $39.99 Even More + Text + Web for $79.99 a month.
...
Check this out: Wanna cancel your plan before 120 days is up? You have to pay the subsidy difference between what you paid and the unsubsidized price. That’s $350, kids. Or you can return the phone to Google.
via androidguys.com
Geh... $530 for a PHONE? That's something even Apple wouldn't pull without some loophole. The only reason I bought my 3G iPhone was because I knew I could cancel my 2-yr contract, pay the ETF and still end up paying around the same amount I paid for my first iPod. And didn't I hear something about $99 iPhones with a contract? Google's barely even trying to compete with that price-point, which is a shame. And for $180 you get the phone and the right to spend $80 plus taxes and fees every month for 2 years. Just more of the same from the wireless world.
Can I get an unlocked Droid? :)
I mean, seriously--$530?? Asus has a touchscreen tablet netbook for that price and it has *multi-touch* unlike the Nexus One. So :P
Color me disappointed. I thought TheGoog was going to do something amazing.
Serious sad-face.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone posting "get better" messages for me. I really appreciate it!
Sorry I can't reply directly right now. I'm trying to convince my dad to go buy a wifi router but I doubt he'll do it before I head back to NYC.
ARG! I just got my Boxee Beta invite! This totally figures since I'm still sick in bed with no wifi.
Ah well. At least I get to spend the entire day in bed relaxing. But watching all sorts of videos all day in bed would be better...
This sucks--my cold is back with a vengeance and I'm stuck at my dad's with no practical Internet.
Not to whine about it but, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! Dad has DSL but no wifi. The only place to connect is in his office. Meanwhile, I sick in bed upstairs in the guestroom. My iPhone only does email right now so all I can do is whine about stuff, I can't interact. How my dad can live so close to Silicon Valley and not have dropped $50 on a decent wifi router is beyond me. Oh and all the neighbors have passwords on their wifi. OK enough complaining. Going to try and get some more sleep. I hope you're doing better than me right now! I hate feeling this disconnected...
Sunday, December 27, 2009
This sucks...woke up this morning with a very sore throat and the urge to sleep forn*another* 11 hrs
Being sick on vacation sucks.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Wondering why pics don't show up on my Tumblr blog in Chrome for Linux or Mac.
I think it happens in Chrome for PC, too...
Friday, December 25, 2009
Here we are, back in LA! Can you tell how tired we are?
It's nice to be back in warm weather but the plane ride from NYC was turbulent and hard to sleep through...
Wifi aboard our flight from JFK to LAX, but there's a catch...
It's not free--we get no food, crappy entertainment (including, ironicly a puff piece on how great McDonalds is) and wifi is $8? Lame, American Airlines...
Ah, but there's more... here is the front side of a card in my seatback pocket...
Funny how they don't mention PRICE. Did I mention American Airlines was going to charge us an extra $20 for each checked bag?
Here's the flipside of the card. Look at the neat things you can do on the Internet! >_
But wait... Check out that finer print...
NO using the Internet the way it was intended! NO free phone calls or porn!
So I'm dropping $8 to check my email. I think I can last until we land, thanks!NSFW graffiti sentiment on a random door last night on the train to JFK
I'm thinking someone wasn't having a happy holiday...
@siskita and I aboard the plane! 1st stop: Los Angeles! 2nd stop San Francisco!
You can tell how excited we are!
Well, once you compensate for us having zero sleep since yesterday at 9:30am.
whoa--Merry Crazy Christmas to the lady who attacked the Pope!
I think maybe she was hitting the eggnog too much?
Huh. Nearly everyone on the train with us is either red-faced or passed-out.
I wonder why that is...
Yo, merry Christmas... word... I'm in a church in Brooklyn...
And my skin isn't burning... go figure...
Almost all alone on the 145th st D downtown platform on my way to @siskita in Brooklyn
Literally like 5 other people on the platform...
Thursday, December 24, 2009
On my way to meet up with @siskita in Brooklyn, then on to JFK
I sure I hope I don't catch any virus on the subway along the way...
Why do I suddenly feel like I'm about to get sneezed on?
The Empire State Building wishes *you* a Merry Christmas.
If you're not celebrating, you're getting dragged along anyway.
ConEdison can officially lick my armpit for their absurd security measures. I'm trying to GIVE YOU MONEY.
But, oooohhhh, no! I might be criminal and must prove I am who I say I am.
Hey ConEd, ever heard of "innocent until proven guilty?"
Geh... my local post office closes at 1pm, today. AKA 52 minutes ago :(
I still have pressies to mail. Luckily, the P. Off. at Madison Square Garden is open until 7pm. I wonder if they have any PO boxes available? :D
Whoa--all 5 washing machines in my building are being used. Who knew Christmas Eve was such a big laundry day?
I guess everyone wants to have clean underwear for Santa??
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
400MB+ of video took literally all day to upload and now Firefox is timing out on the custom thumbnail.
Note the Spinning Marble of Doom in the attached image...
Bloody brilliant, that is...SIGH... I don't know if it's Firefox's fault or if Blip.tv is to blame or if the culprit is my desperately-in- need-of-replacement MacBook.
Either way, I've just wasted a day of upload time. Let this be a lesson, kids! Don't upload so damn much in one sitting... The flv was something like 112MB, the m4v was HD and sized in at 232MB and the mp4 was another 72MB. Oh yeah and the thumbnail was 102KB. I love Blip.tv, in part, because they let you upload so many formats but uploading so many at once has its perils, unfortunately... So Firefox is not responding. That means only one thing. Force-quit and start the upload all over again--this time *one* at a time...Sunday, December 20, 2009
The view from my bedroom window last night before bed...
it's a winter wonderland! Or a snow-covered parking lot, depending on how imaginative you are. I was surprised to see frost on the glass, myself.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Lost an Isotoner so I dug out my 9 yr-old fleese gloves and their 9 yrs of dirty :(
Look at this pic! If you own a pair of very warm fleese gloves like mine, don't wait 9 years to wash them. Yuk.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Hey, anyone know when the iTunes Music Store started charging sales tax?
Sheesh. This seems lame to me for some reason. Like the government is
going to do something good with that 18¢, right?
So Windows Vista likes creating data even if you're doing nothing with it...
I finally worked out that I could save a GIG of space by telling Vista to not create a pagefile.sys--that's a huge help when your OS is riding on a 3.7GB SSD. The funny things that even after I did this and a whole host of other space-saving things, I noticed the amount of available space was shrinking despite the fact that I was still *deleting* files. Have a look at the pics to see what I mean.
1.16GB free at 6:18.
A bit more than ten minutes later and we're already down to 1.13GB.
A little over an hour later and we're down to 1.07 and this after a few minutes of Facebooking and a single web video watched.
10 minutes after that and we're down to 1.05.
I think I'll just stick with Linux unless I'm interested in streaming Netflix, thanks very much, Micro$oft... Of course, once Netflix decides to support Linux (or the other way around), I'll have one less reason to ever bother with Windows again.Defaced Spanish-Language Mike Bloomberg bus stop ad
Ironically, this bus stop is in a very middleclass neighboorhood. Regardless, I agree with the sentiment of the "artist" behind the graffiti. Too bad Bloomberg is so rich he'll never have to leave office.
Getting Vista on my eee PC was surprisingly easy, but I did have trouble browsing...
It was very strange--right after getting Vista up and running, I had serious trouble loading certain websites. My own would load fine, but I couldn't get to *Microsoft's*. As I clicked on Netflix's "install Silverlight" button (which is the only reason I was bothering with dual booting between Vista and Linux in the first place) I got one of those fun "domain unavailable" kind of error messages from both Firefox and IE. Hell, I couldn't even get to GetFirefox.com, I had to dump the installer onto a thumb drive after downloading it on my Mac.
So, the gist of it is: Vista was blocking some sites but not others. First, I thought it was some "net neutrality" thing, but once I saw Microsoft's Silverlight download page being blocked, I knew it was probably just some configuration screw up someplace. So, here's what I did:
I followed the instructions here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/236769-44-problems-websites-vista#t860080
In short, poster "Scotteq" explains:
Start - in the search box type: CMD
In the dialog box that comes up type: netsh winsock reset
Then press the enter key to execute the command
Restart your computer
That seemed to do the trick. Well, that or shutting down Vista's firewall. One or both did the trick. I'm now installing the free Zone Alarm and Threatfire as I type this. I've used them both on previous installs of Windows and recommend them.
And, as I've said before, yes, Vista seems to run just fine on the eee 4G pc. I'm a little puzzled as to why Asus didn't offer Vista with it instead of XP. It was very easy to install (much easier than XP has been). Of course, I'm not a poweruser of Vista, nor do I plan to be. I just want to have portable Netflix streaming. Also, I can plug a monitor cable into my eee and my HDTV and watch Netflix that way, too. :)
I'm honestly pretty stunned at how easy it has been to set this up. Maybe Microsoft is... getting better?
Now *that* can't be right...
One sentence of Kurt Loder's review of Avatar was all it took to tell me what was wrong with "Avatar."
via mtv.com
"But all of this expensive tech has been put at the service of a story so triflingly generic, you wonder why anyone would bother to tell it."
While I don't read Rolling Stone or watch MTV, I've almost always respected Kurt Loder's opinion on movies. A couple paragraphs in on his review (hit the MTV.com link above) he says the above quote.
'nuff said!
Sadly, I'm still hoping to find the chance to see it on the big screen *because* of all the FX in it, but now I know that, like "Titanic," it's only going to be about the spectacle and not about the story at all.
It's really a shame, since at one time, Jim Cameron could make a movie that had both great FX and a really good story. The first "Terminator," "Aliens" and "The Abyss" (yes even with the cheesy-ass ending) are all among my favorite movies. But "Titanic" was a titanic piece of crap, story-wise, that couldn't even manage to get "cliche" right. Hell, even the FX weren't as impressive as we were led to believe.
Ah well, I think, like "Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith" was the last "George Lucas" movie I'd be willing to pay for, "Avatar" will be my last "Jim Cameron" movie.
Holy crap! I got Netflix Watch Instantly working on my eee pc--too cool!
Gotta love dual booting into Vista--yep, Vista seems to run all right on the eee. Go fig. :)
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Oh, BTW, I'm sick today--I think I have the cold @siskita is almost over...
It's actually a pretty light-weight cold but thanks to my sleep schedule still being borked, post-NaNoWriMo, I'm kinda out of it. Doubt I'll be online much. Though I may not be able to keep away from Nexus One News. That thing keeps sounding better and better. Though I did read that Phillip K. Dick's daughter is trying to sue Google for using the name "Nexus One". How ridiculous is that? Ah well, I've got chicken soup waiting for me (as you can see), so enough outta me for now...
This is what happens EVERY time I try to register at PCWorld.com so I can comment on a Nexus One article
Ironic, huh? I'm sure it's all my fault for hacking my iPhone.
Of course, it's Apple's fault for giving me a reason to hack my iPhone (was recording video SO much to ask?). That 5-row keyboard is pretty sweet, though, huh? I don't feel like an infidel for including numbers anymore!Tuesday, December 15, 2009
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : Operation Chokehold
Got an email from Tim Toon of TimToon.com with a link to the a post on FakeSteve.net talking about an iPhone reverse-boycott of AT&T. Check it out:
Operation Chokehold I’ll tell you something — I’m really SiSePuedeRosieRivetorblown away by the way people have responded to AT&T’s bastardly behavior over bandwidth usage. Our engineers are friggin livid. And, because they’re engineers, which means they’re basically evil little pricks, they’ve come up with a plan to teach AT&T a lesson. They’re calling it Operation Chokehold. Last night I got this email that they’ve been sending around inside Apple, encouraging people to join the crusade:
Subject: Operation Chokehold On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. THe idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!
via fakesteve.net
Man, I HATE the phrase "speak truth to power" because 9 times out of 10 it doesn't actually fit the situation--like now. I'm all for this campaign of course, but I think AT&T is fully aware of the "truth" that iPhone users don't appreciate AT&T's sucky network or it's recent suggestion that iPhone users stop using so much data. It's just that AT&T either doesn't care or can't afford to upgrade their network.
Of course, when Google's Nexus One phone goes on sale next month all you iPhoners still with AT&T might want to consider switching over to the first phone that really holds a candle to the Jesus Phone. That's the best way to show AT&T (and Apple) who's the boss.
I've already decided that when I upgrade away from my iPhone (which has been on T-Mobile's network since November of 2008) I plan to upgrade to the Nexus One. No more of this iTunes crap. I'm sick of being told what to do with my phone.
I gotcher Global Warming RIGHT HERE:
Fricken 50 degree weather in NYC in mid December.
Granted the *rest* of the week is down in the 30s with snow on Sunday, but STILL!
Climate Change is about changes in weather patterns, not just Global Warming.
Finally got "Evangelion: You are (Not) Alone" from Netflix and am so psyched!
Think I might need to buy this one...
Macincrash: the Continuing Saga!
When I bought my MacBook 2 springs ago, I should have sprung for the MacBook Pro.
What's funny is that I had a conversation with a professional editor back then about which Intel Mac to go with and he told me that the top- of-the-line MacBook should be fine for me, assuming I was never going to cut HD with it! ...sigh... Nearly three years later HD cams are super cheap and I technically own three (I won the two pocket HD cams, but you get my point). Now I have a machine that works fine for everything but what I now use it chiefly for. Ah, Irony! ...if only you weren't so... ironic... Windows 7 runs fine on it but the poor thing gags on HD. Please, Santa, I know I'm an atheist, but if you're really out there, please bring me a MacBook Pro for Christmas. I'll be at my dad's and he'll have a tree and everything! I'll make sure he leaves out the tastiest cookies and milk for ya. No more curdled milk like last year (good thing you left it alone!)OK, now to keep an eye on my server log for Santa's IP address!
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