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The latest Unconscious Mutterings. Please don't read if you're planning on doing it yourself, but come back afterwards.
Memorial Day weekend on Cape Cod, when everyone who lives here braces and gets ready to take one for the team. It's the unofficial start to summer, so there's an influx of tourists, summer residents and weekenders.
The Cape is very dependent on tourist money, so I can't begrudge these people their fun, but part of me resents it -- mostly because my living is not dependent on them in any way, shape or form. Maybe I'd feel differently if I was doing work for tourists, but as I don't, I don't feel that way. All I see is that as the weather gets better, it gets harder to travel and less convenient to get around.
Fortunately, after you've lived on the Cape for a while, you learn to navigate the backroads. They're not necessarily the fastest ways to get where you're going, but they're inevitably less congested and usually much more scenic.
And no, you can't know where they are. I could tell you, but then my neighbors would kill me.
I'm not really that thrilled with the prospect of voting for John Kerry this fall, but I realize he's the only viable alternative to Bush. And while I don't think he's the greatest leader or even a very good one, I'll vote for Kerry out of desperation to get The Other Guy out of office, even though my heart tells me to stick with the Libertarian party like I have since I became old enough to vote.
This whole "Senator Flip-Flop" thing bugs me, too, but mainly because of what it says about political discourse in America, not John Kerry himself. Kerry has clearly reversed direction on more than one occasion, but what's wrong with changing your mind? Since when has pig-headed obstinance been a quality we look for in a world leader?
For a summer project I'd like to put together a PC piece by piece. It's been a long time -- more than five years -- since I've had to work with a Windows PC on anything more than a cursory basis, so I'm a babe in the woods and could use some advice.
Before you ask, I'm taking this project on because it looks like my Mac hardware needs have been satisfied for the time being. I'd really like a G5 but I've decided to wait a while longer before getting one; the first-generation models are already getting a bit long in the tooth and my experience has been that Apple's "sweet spot" for pro systems is often two or three revisions into each major model's introduction (a dual-processor 1GHz 2002 "QuickSilver" is my current machine, which I'm still very happy with).
Although I'm hoping to ultimately use the system more for online access and general application use, I'd like to build something that will be good enough to play games on, at least for a while. Not necessarily a no-holds-barred top of the line pro gamer's rig, but something good enough to get by on.
As far as requirements go, I have a few basic guidelines: I'd like it to have wireless networking capability, USB 2.0 and FireWire, and I want it to have DVI video capability and a DVD recordable drive as well. Otherwise, I'm pretty open to suggestions.
Am I better off just buying something factory-built, or can I get away with building my own for so much less that it's silly for me to buy a name brand?
I still love my Dreamcast, but I really have neglected it. It's been at least 9 months since I fired up the Dreamcast last, but today James was hankering to play a racing game and picked out Daytona USA by himself. I fired it up -- on the projector of course -- and was stunned to realize that the Dreamcast looks every bit as good as the games I'm playing on the PS2 and GameCube as well. It was a hell of a good game system, and died a premature death that it totally didn't deserve.
It got off to a gray and dreary start, but today turned into an absolutely glorious spring day -- warm and sunny. So I finally did that which I've been putting off since I got home from LA last week -- mowing the lawn. Finally I'm not ashamed of the overgrowth of weeds and grass that have made us look like the white trash family of the neighborhood (complete with Frickin' Van silently rusting into oblivion on one side of the driveway, covered in a thick yellow-green blanket of spring pollen).
The job actually went quicker than I expected, thanks in part to a soundtrack provided by my iPod ("Hello Nasty" by the Beastie Boys). This is the first time I've had the iPod during warm weather, so it was great to be able to tune out the country music station blasting from the open doors of a utility van parked in my neighbor's driveway and the drone of the lawn mower.
I ended up doing some more yardwork, too. There was a lot of overgrown shrubbery and small trees that needed to be taken down in a small area that borders my neighbor's yard; a diseased holly shrub got cut down to its roots, and a few small birch saplings that had grown too top-heavy to grow upright were whacked away too. I also cut down some wood in the backyard that was causing it to have that "forest moon of Endor" look -- gotta keep the Ewoks at bay (and by "Ewoks" I mean the giant raccoons that occasionally molest my trash).
I recovered a handheld fertilizer spreader I'd left at my mother's house a few years ago, too. At some point this week, I'm gonna get to the hardware store so I can pick up a bag or two of broadleaf killer and lay that stuff all over the lawn, but not today -- I'm tired and sweaty and covered in dirt and bug guts. But now that I've cut down the dandelions and spread their damn seeds everywhere, I might as well do something to try to kill them off.
So canned cat food comes in all sorts of flavors and varieties. Salmon, ocean whitefish. Turkey, chicken and beef chunks in gravy. All flavors except pork, that is. WTF is up with cats that they don't like pork?
At least part of the trick for this has been to do the free association before I've been influenced by others' responses.
So I went to Electronics Boutique at the mall to swap out our GameCube. We've had it since the GameCube was released and really love it. We probably get more use out of the PlayStation 2 -- especially as we use it as a DVD player as well (something the GameCube cannot do), but the GameCube is a sweet system with a lot of great games available for it.
A couple of months ago, the GameCube died. It simply stopped being able to read the discs we put in it. I'm not sure what happened exactly; I suspect it's some obscure component failure. Long out of warranty, it would have cost $70 to swap it out with a refurbished system if I'd gone through Nintendo directly.
You can buy a new GameCube for $100, and Electronics Boutique offers a $45 trade-in. So I simply traded mine in, got another one (in a different color -- we had traded in a black one and picked up a platinum model), and saved myself $15 in the process. The kids are thrilled. They've got their GameCube back, and it looks cooler than the last one did.
Now I'm just mulling over the deal they have going on the Xbox Halo Edition. It's a special green Xbox bundled with Halo: Combat Evolved for $170. Bonnie doesn't really care about the Xbox -- the games are almost all for hardcore gamers -- the Xbox has very limited mainstream family appeal. Which is, of course, why I really want one.
While we were in the mall we stopped at Best Buy so I could ogle widescreen TVs. I'd really love one; if I had a lot of disposable income I'd definitely get one. The plasmas are nice. Fantastic, actually, but still oh-so-expensive: One 50-inch model I looked at from Pioneer cost $9,000. But boy, it would look glorious hanging on a wall.
A relatively less expensive alternative is the new breed of DLP-based projection TV systems -- not wall projectors, but completely enclosed projection TVs that use DLP technology. They're every bit as good looking to my eye as the plasma displays, but they cost a fraction of the price -- $2000 - $3000, depending on the model, and they're still quite thin -- one model I saw was only about 17 inches deep, which is narrower than the 27-inch CRT-based TV I have now. That's still a hideous amount of money to fork out for a TV, but eminently more reasonable than $9,000, which is more than what I spent on my last three cars combined.
Less expensive alternatives abound. 46-inch widescreen projection TVs were available in the store as low as $1,200 (the model I saw was an open box unit or a demo system that was about $400 off its retail price). But what I'd really like to do is hang a projector off the ceiling and just put a big screen on one side of the wall and do it that way. We've borrowed a projector before and the kids love it. James calls it "turning the living room into a movie theater." It's a lot less money up front -- about $1,000 for a decent one that's flexible enough to do everything I want -- but the downside is that it's only good if you can make the room dark. All that would take is better blinds and heavy drapes, however.
Ah well. Something to think about as I'm saving up my money for that Halo edition Xbox. I'm saving the receipt for the GameCube because I figure there's gotta be some way I can write it off on taxes next year as a game reviewer. I wonder if I can do the same with a new TV? Maybe we'll think about buying a new TV after we've replaced our bed, which seems hell-bent on crippling Bonnie and me.
So I cranked out my latest Game Room column today, with my boss' permission I spent most of the day finishing it up so I wouldn't miss deadline -- thank heaven for big favors every once in a while. I'd procrastinated too much because I'd been in LA all last week and Minneapolis for a few days the week before, and just hadn't had any time this month to put my thoughts to paper.
Anyway, it's all set and I think the August issue is going to turn out all right.
I turned it in around suppertime and didn't feel like cooking; I'd been so preoccupied with getting the column done I'd forgotten to defrost anything. So Bonnie and I drove for a spell up to Hyannis, where we checked out a discount furniture store she's been raving about then went for Thai food.
Emme and James didn't care for it too much, I don' t think, but Bob liked the sweetness of pad thai and ate a good portion. Bonnie and I also ordered a beef cashew and pineapple chicken dish, but the runaway hit of the night was a curry puff appetizer that all of us decided was fabulous. Then we all got dessert (everyone else opted for fried ice cream, while I had mango and sweet rice, which is rice prepared in a thick sheet, almost, infused with coconut milk -- it's to die for.
After that we went home and the kids went to bed. All in all a nice way to cap off the week.
I'm bad at yard work. It's not that I don't like it, though I don't particularly love it. I just don't think about it because I'm often inside for days at a time. It struck me when I signed for a package today that my lawn is totally overgrown and choked with weeds.
It isn't just that I haven't cut the lawn. I haven't done anything to keep broadleafs like dandelions in check since we moved in; this year, my yard is more weed than grass.
I gotta get this thing under control, or there's gonna be kudzu growing out there soon.
So now that I'm back from LA it's that time again. Free association:
So I'm staying a hotel in downtown Los Angeles, in the Bunker Hill area (we have one of those in Boston, too). As a business hotel, the place I'm staying at is near the large financial buildings you see in skyline shots of LA.
Although a little further south is dominated by small, old buildings and a rather run-down but heavily trodden area, but this part of the city is pristine and very corporate. I had a chance to take a walk this evening and was struck by the really austere beauty of the place -- despite the fact that's all totally manufactured, the few blocks around this hotel are really well pieced together to allow people to enjoy open space, which is odd, since these enormous skyscrapers rise into the sky.
Right outside my window and a couple of stories down is the MOCA -- the Museum of Contemporary Art -- and right up the street is the new Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by famed architect Frank Geary. It's quite an impressive site when you can see it from the surrounding hotels and high-rise towers, but even more so when you're standing on the curb near it.
The places I walked all had these geometric, open areas filled with shops and stores and restaurants that cater to the daytime businesspeople and travelers. The open areas, however, are these vast expanses of marble, stone and concrete, lush with green vegetation in carefully cultivated beds, many of them surrounded by or accented by long reflecting pools, fountains and other waterworks. Great place to get in some walking exercise with the iPod.
Dear hotel companies:
Please stop putting glass countertops on your desks. Makes it impossible for optical mice to work.
kthxbye.
So I landed in LA today for E3, which officially kicks off Tuesday. The party doesn't really get started until Wednesday, though, which is when the actual exhibit halls open. Tuesday is a bunch of press conferences and other events which frankly, hold little interest for me, since they're off of my "beat," as it were. I do have some evening activities planned that will let me catch up with old friends.
It's good to get into town a day early since I'm traveling from east to west -- it gives me a day to sleep in and adjust to the time difference before things get hectic. This is a short trip -- I'll be leaving again on Saturday morning, just enough time to catch up on sleep after the last day of the show before embarking.
The trip went well -- I advise anyone who's looking for budget rates to consider JetBlue, if they fly where you need to go. It's a no-frills airline like ATA or Southwest: Coach from end to end, and no meals on board, but plenty of snacks and comfy leather seats. They give you real seat assignments, so you don't have to deal with the cattle-call like Southwest, and each seat has a DirecTV screen in front of you, which is a much better way to pass the time than trying to wedge open your laptop and watch a DVD or, heaven forfend, do real work. Also, bring your own headphones -- theirs work, but they're crappy.
As it turns out, we were about 30 minutes early getting to our destination -- what a rarity, especially traveling against the jet stream!
So Mom and Beth both jumped on this Unconscious Mutterings thing now that the Friday Five is officially kaput. Might as well give it a shot:
"Now all Iraqis can taste liberty in their native land, and we will help make that freedom permanent by assisting them to establish an equitable criminal justice system based on the rule of law and standards of basic human rights." -- U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, May 20, 2003.
Fire Rumsfeld.
Ah, the week is finally over. Well, almost. I have a few little things to work out but it's more or less behind me now. That two-day trip was disruptive to the rest of the week; I needed some down-time on Thursday morning just to catch up on things. And Friday was a remarkably unproductive day: I had to recap Apple's 10-Q, put together an electronic newsletter for a colleague who's on vacation, go to FedEx and write two articles for the magazine that absolutely, positively had to be done by the end of day yesterday.
On Monday, I'll get on a plane to LA for a five-day trip for E3 Expo. I'm looking forward to it mainly because it's a video game show, but also partly because I've intentionally kept my schedule very light next week. I tend to over-schedule myself when I travel. This year will be different. E3 doesn't generate a lot of Mac news, so I'm hoping to see up close and personal some of the games I'm really interested in.
Fortunately my trip back was much less eventful than my trip out. I got to the airport in plenty of time to return the rental car and pick up some souvenirs for the kids, the first flight was on time, no more elbow-to-elbow with other fat guys, the second flight was early out of the gate and early home, and I had plenty of time to catch a bus to the Cape. There was a cab waiting there, so I didn't even have to bother folks to pick me up.
The only downside was that it was a long day -- I didn't get to sleep until about 2:30 or so, and was up again about four hours later once Bob and James decided that running around the house squealing, banging things and giggling was EXACTLY what Daddy needed to wake up.
I'm on a short trip this week; I'll be back home tonight, good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.
Here's a list of everything that's gone wrong so far:
1) The fountain drink dispenser at the place I went for lunch had a broken or depleted CO2 tank on it. Hence, no bubbles in my Diet Pepsi.
2) One plane was late leaving the gate because its engines wouldn't start. We were even later getting to our destination.
3) They packed three big fat guys, including me, in the same row, on an overbooked flight in which every seat was full. I looked at the guys sitting on either side of me (I was in the middle) and asked, "Who did we piss off?"
4) The same plane had to try to land twice; the first time, we were almost on the runway when we throttled up and took to the sky again. Pilot said it was because another plane was on the runway. It was a white-knuckle ride to the gate.
5) The hotel room key they gave me didn't work.
6) Once it did work, I discovered the hotel room hadn't been cleaned from the previous guests, and there was stuff everywhere -- just EWWW.
So they checked me into a new room, and that's where my luck started to change. I hooked up with some old friends, talked shop for a while, ate and drank, and generally have had a great time so far. Outside of the previous list o' bitches, that is.
"Hooray, Hooray! It's the first of May. Outdoor fucking begins today!"
A good Beltane to you all.
