Billy Ray Cyrus Dept.
I just got back from driving over to the Safeway that’s just across the street.
Why did I drive when it’s just across the street and I have a predilection for walking anyway? I needed gas, and the Safeway gas is the cheapest (with the Safeway discount card, anyway).
In any case, on the short trip back, which is made slightly longer by taking the exit from the gas station, which takes me in the opposite direction of my apartment, then hanging a U-turn at the four-way stop, I spotted not one but two guys working for the road crew who were sporting full-on Billy Ray Cyrus-style mullets.
Naturally that song popped instantly in my head.
In the interest of full disclosure it should be noted that at various periods from 1987 to 1995 yours truly could be seen with hair that said “business up front, party in the back.”
Actually, most of the time it probably said something more like “going out of business up front, party breaking up in the back.”
Still, I make no apologies for some of my more unfortunate haircut choices. After all, it was the late 80s and early 90s, and as a metalhead during that period long hair was part of the uniform.
It was my intention to just have long hair all around, and I would let it grow for extended periods of time, but eventually I’d get sick of it being in my face and would have it trimmed back up front, leaving the hair in the back to grow.
By the time I got it cut for the third time in 1995 it had gotten pretty long.
I had cut it at that time because we were in the midst of a pretty humid August, and I just felt that it was time for a change. After all, my marriage had just taken a dump, I was back at home living with my parents, and life was just generally looking crappy, so any kind of change would almost have to be a good thing.
When the gray started establishing major beachheads on my head I resolved that I would never again grow it long, as I didn’t want to find long gray hairs all over the place, but in 1999 after getting canned from my conservative, restrictive job in PR (Public Relations, not Puerto Rico) I decided to give long hair another shot and I let it all grow for about a year before finally lopping it off in early 2000.
Since then I’ve kept it pretty short, though my natural disinclination to get haircuts coupled with the fairly rapid rate of growth does lead me to get a little shaggy from time to time, and I have to admit that long hair, whether it’s an ape drape or not, has a certain appeal, and I do find myself missing it from time to time.
Billy Ray Gun Dept.
Earlier today I read an article about a microwave riot control gun that the US government plans to roll out in Iraq in 2006.
It brought to mind stories of people working at radar stations in colder climates back in the earliest days of the technology who would stand in front of the arrays because it was warm there.
The one advantage to this gun is that after the riot has been cleared you have a fast and easy way to enjoy popcorn to celebrate a job well-done…
I’m amazed that riot control gear wasn’t needed over the weekend to deal with all of the rabid “Harry Potter” fans clamoring to get their copies of the latest book.
Before I go any further, I should point out that I feel a certain amount of bitterness about J.K. Rowling’s phenomenal success because in late 1996/early 1997 I realized that the youth of the world represented a vast untapped market for fantasy and science fiction stories and began working on a set of stories featuring a young magical character designed specifically to appeal to that potential audience.
Of course, I never did much with the idea beyond simply having it, so I’m sort of annoyed that Rowling managed to come along and prove, so successfully, that my theory about that potential market was correct.
Don’t get me wrong; I certainly don’t begrudge Rowling her success, and all of my bitterness is directed entirely back at myself and my laziness.
Still, I think that bitterness is part of the reason that I’ve never really warmed to the character.
I’ve seen two of the movies, and I’ve thought about reading the books, but overall…meh. I just haven’t cared much.
Also, whenever I think of Harry Potter I always think of Tim Hunter, a bespectacled British boy who learns that there’s a whole world of magic that he never even dreamed existed lying just below the surface of the mundane world in which he’s lived most of his life, and begins the process of studying to become a powerful (eventually the most powerful) sorcerer, acquiring a pet owl along the way.
This was a character that Neil Gaiman introduced in a mini-series called “Books of Magic,” which he wrote for DC Comics…in 1990.
Despite the similarities I doubt that Rowling even knew that Hunter existed, and Gaiman himself, in response to the similarities, merely states that the young man as sorcerer has a lot of precedent in literature, so I doubt that there was any plagiarism involved.
Also, Tim was introduced in the “Mature” line of comics at DC and was never intended for children, unlike his literary “cousin.”
Even so, though I recognize that it’s silly, on some level I feel as though I need to choose between Tim and Harry, and, if for no other reason than that I’ve known him longer (and because I have to believe that Gaiman is the superior writer because...well, just because), I choose Tim.
But while I clearly am not one of his legions of fans, I’m not disparaging Harry Potter or his readership in any way.
On the contrary, nothing could please me more than for children the world over to discover the joy of reading, so my hat is off to Rowling for accomplishing that.
Okay, so I never wear a hat, but that’s beside the point.
Anyway, on Saturday, Barb, one of the people I work with, went out to pick up her copy of the latest Potter book on her lunch break, and later in the break room I spotted a chick reading the copy that she had just slipped out to pick up.
The chick reading the book, by the way, was almost cute, though there was something not quite right about the way she looked (it was hard, for example, to determine her age), and she gave off this weird Brittany Murphy-esque “am I stoned or am I retarded” kind of vibe that sort of pushed her over to the other side of the fence when it came to the whole attractiveness issue.
For my part, I’ll probably get around to reading the books eventually, most likely after they’ve all been published.
But in the meantime…meh.
Once again my weekend is at its end and another long three-day work week lies ahead of me.
I feel like I haven’t been accomplishing as much with Threshold as I would like, and the “99 Cent Bargain Bin of Ideas” seems to be filled to overflowing lately. I’m not sure what I need, or want, to do about that, but I thought I should mention that I am aware that something has definitely been lacking here lately, in case any of you have noticed something similar.
I’ll give it some thought over the weekend and see what I can come up with, but in the meantime, have a good one.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
I'm Already Super-Sized
I just watched that documentary “Super Size Me,” in which the filmmaker eats nothing but McDonald’s food for a month.
By the end, he had gone from 185 pounds to 210 pounds and his cholesterol level had shot up by 65 points.
While the movie is quite an eye-opener about just why obesity has become such a problem in this country, what I found most distressing was the fact that I look pretty much the way the guy did at the end of the thirty days, despite the fact that I almost never eat fast food and have been getting a pretty decent amount of regular exercise for more than a year.
*Sigh*
While at IMDb to get a link to the movie info I saw that James Doohan has died.
Doohan is most famous for his role as Damon Warwick on CBS Television’s Daytime Soap “The Bold and The Beautiful,” and apparently he was once on some science fiction show or other.
Of course I’m being a bit facetious; Doohan is most famous for the role of Scotty, as in “Beam me up,” on “Star Trek.”
He was 85.
I could make all kinds of nerdy allusions to the final frontier, warp speed, and of course the most obvious one, as metaphors for his passing, but I’ll spare you (and myself).
Today I went to the dentist, which was fun and exciting as always.
The cute little extremely skinny Asian girl who usually works the desk wasn’t there today. Instead, there was a much taller, but still extremely skinny, but also cute, Caucasian girl, whom I have seen there before a time or two, running the show.
Of course, the woman actually assisting the dentist was the older, not very attractive, and slightly bumbling woman who usually assists him.
She seems nice enough, but my dentist is always correcting her for some kind of mistake she’s made. It’s always something minor, but it just gives the impression of someone who doesn’t really know what she’s doing, almost as if it’s somehow perpetually her first day.
I know it isn’t her first day, because she’s been there at least a year, and I would assume she’s probably been doing this for a while, as she is quite a bit older than I am and being a dental assistant isn’t the sort of job people typically get into later in life.
After I was finished I went up to the desk to pay, and along with the tall skinny girl there was another girl who wasn’t quite as cute as the tall one, but was nowhere near as skinny.
And that was a good thing.
Okay, actually it was two good things.
(For those of you who are unable to pick up on subtlety, the girl had big boobs)
Unlike the older woman, it was entirely possible that this was her first day, as I’ve never seen her before and the skinny girl was giving her all kinds of instructions on how to process my payment and print out my receipt.
For my part, I was enjoying watching her lean forward to grab papers and whatnot, but was annoyed that she couldn’t have been the one in there helping the dentist out, opening up the possibility for the occasional brush of a boob against me and the presence of something worth looking at while I sat there with my mouth open and my head held still.
Not that it matters, but for the record, both the skinny girl and the not-so-skinny girl had sizeable diamonds on their fingers (so does the bumbling older lady).
Even if any of the girls working at my dentist’s office were single, though, it’s not too likely that I would have any luck with them.
I mean, lets say for the sake of argument that I’m in the waiting area and I strike up a flirtatious conversation with one of the girls working there befor going into the exam room. Everything’s going well, and I’m ready to make my move, but then she leads me back, I sit in the chair, open my mouth, and bam! Game over.
I can’t imagine any patient at a dentist’s office doing well with someone who has to spend a certain amount of time looking into his or her mouth, but I think that given what the inside of my mouth looks like the view is especially damaging to the prospect of romance.
After I left the dentist I went over to the Giant shopping plaza that’s across the street from where my dentist is located to get a haircut.
I first went inside the Giant (a grocery store for those of you unfamiliar with the company) to use the ATM, then walked over to the SuperCuts.
The detour to the ATM caused me to arrive after a woman with three kids had begun setting up haircut appointments for herself and her sons, which meant that I was going to have to wait for 20 to 30 minutes to get mine cut.
I told the girl that I would come back another time and then came home. I just didn’t feel up to hanging out and waiting for that long.
Odds are I won’t go tomorrow, either, so I guess my hair will stay long until Monday at the earliest.
Not much else is going on, but I thought it would be an interesting change of pace to post a real entry before midnight, so here I am.
I may be back later if something occurs to me.
By the end, he had gone from 185 pounds to 210 pounds and his cholesterol level had shot up by 65 points.
While the movie is quite an eye-opener about just why obesity has become such a problem in this country, what I found most distressing was the fact that I look pretty much the way the guy did at the end of the thirty days, despite the fact that I almost never eat fast food and have been getting a pretty decent amount of regular exercise for more than a year.
*Sigh*
While at IMDb to get a link to the movie info I saw that James Doohan has died.
Doohan is most famous for his role as Damon Warwick on CBS Television’s Daytime Soap “The Bold and The Beautiful,” and apparently he was once on some science fiction show or other.
Of course I’m being a bit facetious; Doohan is most famous for the role of Scotty, as in “Beam me up,” on “Star Trek.”
He was 85.
I could make all kinds of nerdy allusions to the final frontier, warp speed, and of course the most obvious one, as metaphors for his passing, but I’ll spare you (and myself).
Today I went to the dentist, which was fun and exciting as always.
The cute little extremely skinny Asian girl who usually works the desk wasn’t there today. Instead, there was a much taller, but still extremely skinny, but also cute, Caucasian girl, whom I have seen there before a time or two, running the show.
Of course, the woman actually assisting the dentist was the older, not very attractive, and slightly bumbling woman who usually assists him.
She seems nice enough, but my dentist is always correcting her for some kind of mistake she’s made. It’s always something minor, but it just gives the impression of someone who doesn’t really know what she’s doing, almost as if it’s somehow perpetually her first day.
I know it isn’t her first day, because she’s been there at least a year, and I would assume she’s probably been doing this for a while, as she is quite a bit older than I am and being a dental assistant isn’t the sort of job people typically get into later in life.
After I was finished I went up to the desk to pay, and along with the tall skinny girl there was another girl who wasn’t quite as cute as the tall one, but was nowhere near as skinny.
And that was a good thing.
Okay, actually it was two good things.
(For those of you who are unable to pick up on subtlety, the girl had big boobs)
Unlike the older woman, it was entirely possible that this was her first day, as I’ve never seen her before and the skinny girl was giving her all kinds of instructions on how to process my payment and print out my receipt.
For my part, I was enjoying watching her lean forward to grab papers and whatnot, but was annoyed that she couldn’t have been the one in there helping the dentist out, opening up the possibility for the occasional brush of a boob against me and the presence of something worth looking at while I sat there with my mouth open and my head held still.
Not that it matters, but for the record, both the skinny girl and the not-so-skinny girl had sizeable diamonds on their fingers (so does the bumbling older lady).
Even if any of the girls working at my dentist’s office were single, though, it’s not too likely that I would have any luck with them.
I mean, lets say for the sake of argument that I’m in the waiting area and I strike up a flirtatious conversation with one of the girls working there befor going into the exam room. Everything’s going well, and I’m ready to make my move, but then she leads me back, I sit in the chair, open my mouth, and bam! Game over.
I can’t imagine any patient at a dentist’s office doing well with someone who has to spend a certain amount of time looking into his or her mouth, but I think that given what the inside of my mouth looks like the view is especially damaging to the prospect of romance.
After I left the dentist I went over to the Giant shopping plaza that’s across the street from where my dentist is located to get a haircut.
I first went inside the Giant (a grocery store for those of you unfamiliar with the company) to use the ATM, then walked over to the SuperCuts.
The detour to the ATM caused me to arrive after a woman with three kids had begun setting up haircut appointments for herself and her sons, which meant that I was going to have to wait for 20 to 30 minutes to get mine cut.
I told the girl that I would come back another time and then came home. I just didn’t feel up to hanging out and waiting for that long.
Odds are I won’t go tomorrow, either, so I guess my hair will stay long until Monday at the earliest.
Not much else is going on, but I thought it would be an interesting change of pace to post a real entry before midnight, so here I am.
I may be back later if something occurs to me.
How About One That Says IMAR3TARD?
Today I slept in until 10, which is extremely late for me.
Because I had to be somewhere at noon, I didn’t bother going for a walk.
Where I went at noon was to HQ, where my bank, which actually has a branch inside of HQ, was holding a seminar on online banking.
I had opted to go to it not because I was especially interested in the subject, but because it gave Kathleen and I a chance to get together for lunch and not have to pay for it, as the seminar included a free lunch.
After it was over and I’d dropped Kathleen back off at her building (HQ is a pretty large campus with several buildings. In fact, there’s a shuttle bus that continually goes around from building to building.), I headed off to Best Buy to pick up a case for my PDA and the second season of “Dead Like Me.”
I picked up the latter – for even less than the already reasonable price ($36.99) that it was marked at – but not the former.
I was really only looking for two things in terms of a PDA case: a belt clip and a non-cheesy design.
The cases at Best Buy didn’t match my criteria in either regard.
From there I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and from there, Wal Mart.
As I was leaving Wal Mart, where I’d checked to see if they had any PDA cases, which they didn’t, I thought about something that had happened when I was in line at Best Buy.
The woman ahead of me had asked the girl working the register where the nearest Office Depot was. The girl didn’t know, but I did, and so shared my knowledge.
So it occurred to me that I should go to Office Depot myself to see what kind of cases they had.
I went there and found a case with a belt clip that was made specifically for my PDA by HP. It also was fairly non-cheesy, so I bought it.
There was a trade-off, though, in that it’s a flip open case rather than a booklet style, which is what I was kind of looking for, though the non-cheesiness and belt clip were more important.
Because I was in the vicinity, I decided that it would be wrong for me to not go into Circuit City, even though I didn’t intend to buy anything there.
Which is what I realized after wandering aimlessly for a couple of minutes and dodging employees before they could ask if they could help me.
So I started to make my way out, but decided to grab a Sprite for the drive home.
I did so, stopped at the register, gave the teenager with the acne and cracking voice my money, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Apparently the register had locked up.
He led me over to the customer service counter, where the register was also locked up.
It turns out that, just in time to inconvenience me, the entire register network in the Circuit City had gone down.
After waiting a bit, I took my money back, put the Sprite back in the cooler, and walked out to my car.
I considered going back into the Office Depot to buy a Sprite. After all, I’d nearly done so in the first place, before realizing that I didn’t want to bring it in to Circuit City with me, and leaving it in the car on a 90+ degree day while I wandered aimlessly and dodged employees before they could ask if they could help me would be a really bad idea.
However, I didn’t want to go back into Office Depot and look like a dork, so I opted to stop at a gas station on my way out of the little plaza.
As humid as it was (and has been), you’d think that if I was thirsty I could have just poured myself a tall glass of air, but somehow it doesn’t seem to work that way, so I stopped at what was apparently the world’s busiest gas station.
Eventually I made my way out of there, Sprite in hand, and headed home.
Once at home I didn’t do too much beyond make dinner (homemade Salisbury Steak with Smashed Potatoes), though I did watch an episode of “Dead Like Me” while I ate.
At first it made me happy, because it was a great episode, but then it made me angry because it was so good and I realized that there will never be any more because the people who run Showtime are a bunch of fucktards with their heads so far up their asses that you’d need to perform an Upper G.I. to see their faces and the American TV-viewing public would rather watch stupid-ass “reality” shows featuring some of the best arguments for mandatory contraception on the planet than watch some of the finest, most original, well-scripted and acted television ever broadcast.
(Takes a deep breath)
So that was pretty much my day.
After a while I did sit down and finally do some work on that picture for Scott’s D&D group. I finished one of the male characters and finally made it so that he doesn’t look like the gay International Male catalogue model that was used as the reference picture for him as he once did.
That leaves me with two characters to go, followed by some sort of background image for the final picture, and then the process of actually putting the whole thing together.
I don’t know how relevant the picture will be now, though, given that two members of the group just moved to a different state. Sorry it’s taking so long guys…
Along with summertime air that you can practically swim the breast stroke through and two-bedroom townhouses that cost as much as Bill Gates’ home, one feature of Northern Virginia that seems to be extremely common is the “vanity plate.”
I see them constantly on the various SUVs, luxury cars, luxury SUVs and other vehicles that clog the highways around here. Pretty much every other car I see has some kind of vanity plate.
Usually they’re just “cutesy” little things, like “K8TQT,” or, given the vast number of tech sector jobs out here, they’re nerdy, such as “IN2UNX” or “IMME” or “NOSPAM,” or totally nerdy, like “ONERING” (bolstered by a bunch of LOTR bumper stickers), but one thing I’ve noticed about them is that they often make no sense at all.
This can be because it’s some sort of “inside” thing, but most of the time they’re just totally inexplicable.
There are some that are so obscure that you can’t even be certain that they’re supposed to mean anything, though the letter-number combination just doesn’t quite look random.
Sometimes, when I’m stuck in traffic, it can help pass the time to try to decipher some of the more esoteric plates, but I frequently find myself just scratching my head in total bafflement at some of the sheer nonsense.
Like the other day I saw one that said “NXLIFE.”
Probably not random, but what the hell is it supposed to mean?
And today I saw one that said “TEA-PLEASE.”
WTF? Do you want people to think you’re gay?
My license plate spells absolutely nothing whatsoever, and that’s pretty much the way it’s going to stay. There’s pretty much nothing that I have to say that can be expressed in the form of a license plate.
I’m not really faulting people for having vanity plates (my dad has one, after all, as does my boss), but if you are going to bother having it say something, at least make it something reasonably sensible.
Or better yet, have it say something totally rude. Like “F3LCH3R,” or “DNKYPNCHR,” or “STEAMR,” though that last one would really only work in Cleveland…
In any case, that’s going to do it for today’s entry.
Because I had to be somewhere at noon, I didn’t bother going for a walk.
Where I went at noon was to HQ, where my bank, which actually has a branch inside of HQ, was holding a seminar on online banking.
I had opted to go to it not because I was especially interested in the subject, but because it gave Kathleen and I a chance to get together for lunch and not have to pay for it, as the seminar included a free lunch.
After it was over and I’d dropped Kathleen back off at her building (HQ is a pretty large campus with several buildings. In fact, there’s a shuttle bus that continually goes around from building to building.), I headed off to Best Buy to pick up a case for my PDA and the second season of “Dead Like Me.”
I picked up the latter – for even less than the already reasonable price ($36.99) that it was marked at – but not the former.
I was really only looking for two things in terms of a PDA case: a belt clip and a non-cheesy design.
The cases at Best Buy didn’t match my criteria in either regard.
From there I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and from there, Wal Mart.
As I was leaving Wal Mart, where I’d checked to see if they had any PDA cases, which they didn’t, I thought about something that had happened when I was in line at Best Buy.
The woman ahead of me had asked the girl working the register where the nearest Office Depot was. The girl didn’t know, but I did, and so shared my knowledge.
So it occurred to me that I should go to Office Depot myself to see what kind of cases they had.
I went there and found a case with a belt clip that was made specifically for my PDA by HP. It also was fairly non-cheesy, so I bought it.
There was a trade-off, though, in that it’s a flip open case rather than a booklet style, which is what I was kind of looking for, though the non-cheesiness and belt clip were more important.
Because I was in the vicinity, I decided that it would be wrong for me to not go into Circuit City, even though I didn’t intend to buy anything there.
Which is what I realized after wandering aimlessly for a couple of minutes and dodging employees before they could ask if they could help me.
So I started to make my way out, but decided to grab a Sprite for the drive home.
I did so, stopped at the register, gave the teenager with the acne and cracking voice my money, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Apparently the register had locked up.
He led me over to the customer service counter, where the register was also locked up.
It turns out that, just in time to inconvenience me, the entire register network in the Circuit City had gone down.
After waiting a bit, I took my money back, put the Sprite back in the cooler, and walked out to my car.
I considered going back into the Office Depot to buy a Sprite. After all, I’d nearly done so in the first place, before realizing that I didn’t want to bring it in to Circuit City with me, and leaving it in the car on a 90+ degree day while I wandered aimlessly and dodged employees before they could ask if they could help me would be a really bad idea.
However, I didn’t want to go back into Office Depot and look like a dork, so I opted to stop at a gas station on my way out of the little plaza.
As humid as it was (and has been), you’d think that if I was thirsty I could have just poured myself a tall glass of air, but somehow it doesn’t seem to work that way, so I stopped at what was apparently the world’s busiest gas station.
Eventually I made my way out of there, Sprite in hand, and headed home.
Once at home I didn’t do too much beyond make dinner (homemade Salisbury Steak with Smashed Potatoes), though I did watch an episode of “Dead Like Me” while I ate.
At first it made me happy, because it was a great episode, but then it made me angry because it was so good and I realized that there will never be any more because the people who run Showtime are a bunch of fucktards with their heads so far up their asses that you’d need to perform an Upper G.I. to see their faces and the American TV-viewing public would rather watch stupid-ass “reality” shows featuring some of the best arguments for mandatory contraception on the planet than watch some of the finest, most original, well-scripted and acted television ever broadcast.
(Takes a deep breath)
So that was pretty much my day.
After a while I did sit down and finally do some work on that picture for Scott’s D&D group. I finished one of the male characters and finally made it so that he doesn’t look like the gay International Male catalogue model that was used as the reference picture for him as he once did.
That leaves me with two characters to go, followed by some sort of background image for the final picture, and then the process of actually putting the whole thing together.
I don’t know how relevant the picture will be now, though, given that two members of the group just moved to a different state. Sorry it’s taking so long guys…
Along with summertime air that you can practically swim the breast stroke through and two-bedroom townhouses that cost as much as Bill Gates’ home, one feature of Northern Virginia that seems to be extremely common is the “vanity plate.”
I see them constantly on the various SUVs, luxury cars, luxury SUVs and other vehicles that clog the highways around here. Pretty much every other car I see has some kind of vanity plate.
Usually they’re just “cutesy” little things, like “K8TQT,” or, given the vast number of tech sector jobs out here, they’re nerdy, such as “IN2UNX” or “IMME” or “NOSPAM,” or totally nerdy, like “ONERING” (bolstered by a bunch of LOTR bumper stickers), but one thing I’ve noticed about them is that they often make no sense at all.
This can be because it’s some sort of “inside” thing, but most of the time they’re just totally inexplicable.
There are some that are so obscure that you can’t even be certain that they’re supposed to mean anything, though the letter-number combination just doesn’t quite look random.
Sometimes, when I’m stuck in traffic, it can help pass the time to try to decipher some of the more esoteric plates, but I frequently find myself just scratching my head in total bafflement at some of the sheer nonsense.
Like the other day I saw one that said “NXLIFE.”
Probably not random, but what the hell is it supposed to mean?
And today I saw one that said “TEA-PLEASE.”
WTF? Do you want people to think you’re gay?
My license plate spells absolutely nothing whatsoever, and that’s pretty much the way it’s going to stay. There’s pretty much nothing that I have to say that can be expressed in the form of a license plate.
I’m not really faulting people for having vanity plates (my dad has one, after all, as does my boss), but if you are going to bother having it say something, at least make it something reasonably sensible.
Or better yet, have it say something totally rude. Like “F3LCH3R,” or “DNKYPNCHR,” or “STEAMR,” though that last one would really only work in Cleveland…
In any case, that’s going to do it for today’s entry.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Random Picture
Among other things, my PDA includes a built-in 1.2 Megapixel digital camera.
The image quality is pretty much what you'd expect from a built-in camera on a PDA or cell phone, but it works in a pinch if you really need to take a picture.
Of course, I seldom "really need" to take a picture, but I did take this one today while watching the crazy, hot Italian chick cooking on TV...
The image quality is pretty much what you'd expect from a built-in camera on a PDA or cell phone, but it works in a pinch if you really need to take a picture.
Of course, I seldom "really need" to take a picture, but I did take this one today while watching the crazy, hot Italian chick cooking on TV...
Fun And Games With My New Toy
As is apparent from previous posts, I got my PDA on Thursday night.
Over the weekend I played around with it to whatever extent I could at work, and ended up staying up a little later than usual playing around with it at home.
Mostly I just filled in all of the “Contacts” information, and put all of my upcoming training (JavaScript and CSS) into the calendar.
I had IMed Kathleen a couple of times to get all of her and Brian’s contact info on Friday, and along with their address and phone numbers she started rattling off her various likes and dislikes, finally prompting me to say “I’m just trying to add you to my list of contacts, not write your Playboy Playmate Data Sheet.”
At home on Thursday and Friday night I tried, and failed, to get the PDA to work with my wireless network. The settings all seemed correct, but it just wouldn’t connect.
It was annoying me that I didn’t have the time to take it to a free Wi-Fi hotspot and ensure that it wasn’t a problem with the PDA’s wireless adapter, but then on Saturday, while messing around with it at work, I left the Wi-Fi turned on inadvertently and noticed that it actually connected to the wireless network there.
Of course, not having the required VPN client on the PDA I couldn’t actually do anything on the wireless network, but the fact that it connected was a good sign.
And when I got home that evening, randomly, it just decided to connect to my network.
I’m not sure what happened, but the end result is that it does work with my network now, which is cool. Now I can sit and watch TV and not have to get up and walk over to my computer when I see someone I need to look up at IMDb: I can just do it from the comfort of my couch!
Okay, there is actually a lot more that I can do, such as streaming audio and video to and from my desktop PCs, and of course send e-mails and IM, but the simple convenience of not having to walk all the way (like ten feet) to my computer is a big plus.
One other cool feature is that, because it has an infrared data port, the PDA can serve as a universal remote control with the included remote control software.
I was especially impressed by the fact that the software actually had codes for my no-name DVD player. I’ve never encountered a remote that had any codes for it before.
I mentioned this in an e-mail to my friend “Zalfiro,” who responded by congratulating me on purchasing a $400 universal remote.
Not being one to let sarcasm slide, I considered the fact that my wireless capability allows me to use the PDA anywhere inside my apartment (and within a fairly decent range outside), I used it to send him this follow-up e-mail:
Correction: a $400 Universal Remote that lets me send you e-mail while sitting on the can.
In any case, Brian had made a similar comment about my purchasing a “GameBoy” over the weekend as I played one of the included games (“Jawbreaker”).
By the way, in response to his comment on the previous entry, there was no “Duddy can suck it” drawing; it was a note I wrote using the handwriting recognition software (which would work really well if my handwriting didn’t suck), and it is included in the notes that go along with his entry in my list of contacts.
On Friday I ordered a 1 GB SD card to increase my PDA’s storage capacity, and I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it arrived today. Even with the extra money I paid for two (business) day shipping, I didn’t expect it until Tuesday.
When I went for my walk during the day I brought my PDA with me to see if there were any unsecured wireless networks in any of the neighborhoods I walk through that I could connect to. I found that there are wireless networks pretty much everywhere, and many of them aren’t secure, though most of the signals were too weak for me to lock onto.
There is a Starbucks across the street that has a free Wi-Fi hotspot, though, if I ever need to make use of it.
As cool as the PDA is, I think I’m still going to buy that Tablet PC within the next couple of months. The capabilities of the PDA have opened my eyes to the possibilities of a larger, more fully-featured computer with a similar interface.
So basically buying the PDA just managed to whet my appetite for more gadgets.
Tomorrow I’ll be doing some accessory shopping for it, as I definitely need a better case than the cheesy little sheath that came with it.
I’ll also be picking up the second (and, sadly, last) season of “Dead Like Me” on DVD while I’m out.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry.
Over the weekend I played around with it to whatever extent I could at work, and ended up staying up a little later than usual playing around with it at home.
Mostly I just filled in all of the “Contacts” information, and put all of my upcoming training (JavaScript and CSS) into the calendar.
I had IMed Kathleen a couple of times to get all of her and Brian’s contact info on Friday, and along with their address and phone numbers she started rattling off her various likes and dislikes, finally prompting me to say “I’m just trying to add you to my list of contacts, not write your Playboy Playmate Data Sheet.”
At home on Thursday and Friday night I tried, and failed, to get the PDA to work with my wireless network. The settings all seemed correct, but it just wouldn’t connect.
It was annoying me that I didn’t have the time to take it to a free Wi-Fi hotspot and ensure that it wasn’t a problem with the PDA’s wireless adapter, but then on Saturday, while messing around with it at work, I left the Wi-Fi turned on inadvertently and noticed that it actually connected to the wireless network there.
Of course, not having the required VPN client on the PDA I couldn’t actually do anything on the wireless network, but the fact that it connected was a good sign.
And when I got home that evening, randomly, it just decided to connect to my network.
I’m not sure what happened, but the end result is that it does work with my network now, which is cool. Now I can sit and watch TV and not have to get up and walk over to my computer when I see someone I need to look up at IMDb: I can just do it from the comfort of my couch!
Okay, there is actually a lot more that I can do, such as streaming audio and video to and from my desktop PCs, and of course send e-mails and IM, but the simple convenience of not having to walk all the way (like ten feet) to my computer is a big plus.
One other cool feature is that, because it has an infrared data port, the PDA can serve as a universal remote control with the included remote control software.
I was especially impressed by the fact that the software actually had codes for my no-name DVD player. I’ve never encountered a remote that had any codes for it before.
I mentioned this in an e-mail to my friend “Zalfiro,” who responded by congratulating me on purchasing a $400 universal remote.
Not being one to let sarcasm slide, I considered the fact that my wireless capability allows me to use the PDA anywhere inside my apartment (and within a fairly decent range outside), I used it to send him this follow-up e-mail:
Correction: a $400 Universal Remote that lets me send you e-mail while sitting on the can.
In any case, Brian had made a similar comment about my purchasing a “GameBoy” over the weekend as I played one of the included games (“Jawbreaker”).
By the way, in response to his comment on the previous entry, there was no “Duddy can suck it” drawing; it was a note I wrote using the handwriting recognition software (which would work really well if my handwriting didn’t suck), and it is included in the notes that go along with his entry in my list of contacts.
On Friday I ordered a 1 GB SD card to increase my PDA’s storage capacity, and I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it arrived today. Even with the extra money I paid for two (business) day shipping, I didn’t expect it until Tuesday.
When I went for my walk during the day I brought my PDA with me to see if there were any unsecured wireless networks in any of the neighborhoods I walk through that I could connect to. I found that there are wireless networks pretty much everywhere, and many of them aren’t secure, though most of the signals were too weak for me to lock onto.
There is a Starbucks across the street that has a free Wi-Fi hotspot, though, if I ever need to make use of it.
As cool as the PDA is, I think I’m still going to buy that Tablet PC within the next couple of months. The capabilities of the PDA have opened my eyes to the possibilities of a larger, more fully-featured computer with a similar interface.
So basically buying the PDA just managed to whet my appetite for more gadgets.
Tomorrow I’ll be doing some accessory shopping for it, as I definitely need a better case than the cheesy little sheath that came with it.
I’ll also be picking up the second (and, sadly, last) season of “Dead Like Me” on DVD while I’m out.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Pocket Artist
Among the many cool little applications included on my PDA is a little paint program.
Obviously a PDA isn't an ideal "canvas," but for such a tiny program it is pretty full-featured.
Here are some doodles I did over the weekend at work:
This is my first sketch after discovering the program's existence. It's a sketch of my co-worker Chris, as he was sitting to my right, and so was the first thing I saw when I looked up from the PDA to find something to draw.
This is just some random doodle I made while waiting on hold for an extended period of time trying to get an update from a vendor. It's not really supposed to be anything, though I suppose there is a sort of demonic face in there.
Here's a rather impressionistic version of a tree, making use of some of the different brush styles included in the program.
Here's a picture of Fontaine, one of my favorite characters. As you can see, I'm getting a little better at using the program to render finer details.
And here we have Ren, another favorite character of mine. I did this one after I discovered that the program actually does have a control for setting the width of the brush stroke.
I find it kind of odd that in the fifteen plus years that I've been attempting to render an accurate image of Ren using various media (pencils, paints, collages, digital tools), this is the closest I've come to getting her features to look exactly the way I want them to look. Sure, it's not an especially detailed image, or even especially good (though I think that it's surprisingly good considering the medium), but the basic "look" is there more than it is in any other image I've created of Ren.
The fact that I accomplished that feat with a medium that's nowhere near as well-suited to the task as any of the others I mentioned is just...well, I don't know what it is. Ironic? Sad? Pathetic? Just plain weird?
The whole experience of the slight learning curve and gradually developing skill within the very limited capabilities of the program reminds me of using Microsoft Paint for the first time around eleven years ago.
(It should be mentioned, by the way, that the painting program on my PDA is more fully-featured than even the current version of Paint that ships with new computers)
Over time I developed my ability to use Paint to what may very well be the limit of human capability...without massive amounts of patience and talent, at least.
Eventually I got better tools to work with, but it was a valuable lesson, and one I can apply to my new toy, as I now have a digital sketchpad I can carry with me anywhere.
Obviously a PDA isn't an ideal "canvas," but for such a tiny program it is pretty full-featured.
Here are some doodles I did over the weekend at work:
This is my first sketch after discovering the program's existence. It's a sketch of my co-worker Chris, as he was sitting to my right, and so was the first thing I saw when I looked up from the PDA to find something to draw.
This is just some random doodle I made while waiting on hold for an extended period of time trying to get an update from a vendor. It's not really supposed to be anything, though I suppose there is a sort of demonic face in there.
Here's a rather impressionistic version of a tree, making use of some of the different brush styles included in the program.
Here's a picture of Fontaine, one of my favorite characters. As you can see, I'm getting a little better at using the program to render finer details.
And here we have Ren, another favorite character of mine. I did this one after I discovered that the program actually does have a control for setting the width of the brush stroke.
I find it kind of odd that in the fifteen plus years that I've been attempting to render an accurate image of Ren using various media (pencils, paints, collages, digital tools), this is the closest I've come to getting her features to look exactly the way I want them to look. Sure, it's not an especially detailed image, or even especially good (though I think that it's surprisingly good considering the medium), but the basic "look" is there more than it is in any other image I've created of Ren.
The fact that I accomplished that feat with a medium that's nowhere near as well-suited to the task as any of the others I mentioned is just...well, I don't know what it is. Ironic? Sad? Pathetic? Just plain weird?
The whole experience of the slight learning curve and gradually developing skill within the very limited capabilities of the program reminds me of using Microsoft Paint for the first time around eleven years ago.
(It should be mentioned, by the way, that the painting program on my PDA is more fully-featured than even the current version of Paint that ships with new computers)
Over time I developed my ability to use Paint to what may very well be the limit of human capability...without massive amounts of patience and talent, at least.
Eventually I got better tools to work with, but it was a valuable lesson, and one I can apply to my new toy, as I now have a digital sketchpad I can carry with me anywhere.
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