Tikkabik

So Prince Charles is once again in hot water with the British press, this time for muttering some epithets at the press who were asking him questions during a ski vacation with his sons. "Bloody people," he said. "I hate doing this."

He also directed some angry words under his breath (or so he thought) to one particular journalist, a BBC correspondent named Nicholas Witchell.

Let's see -- the press are basically responsible for his ex-wife's death. They've hounded him his entire adult life. They hound his sons, pouncing on any possible slip and making it front page news. They say unkind things about his fiancee. And despite a tacit understanding that the photo op that Charles, Harry and William were engaged in at the time was supposed to be the one and only opportunity for the press to take pictures, the paparazzi got some pics of William and his girlfriend beforehand anyway.

I wouldn't wish that life on my worst enemy. Personally, I think Prince Charles exhibited a hell of a lot more grace under pressure than most of us could muster.

Posted by flargh at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Because of acid, I know now that butter is way better than margarine. I saw through the bullshit." - R.I.P. Mitch Hedberg

Posted by flargh at 05:21 PM | Permalink

May Will Lyman narrate PBS's Frontline as long as that show airs. I can't possibly imagine anyone else's voice filling that role.

Posted by flargh at 10:09 PM | Permalink

So we're having our house hooked up to the town water main this week. This is a good thing: It's a plus for selling the house in the future, and it's better quality water than the well we've been drinking from all these years.

Unfortunately, the town screwed up.

The contractor who's hooking up the line is here -- he's just dug a miniature version of the Death Star trench in my front lawn, from the house's foundation to the street. And he's laying in the pipe that will take water from the street main to the house.

And the plumber arrived when he was supposed to -- he's drilled a hole in the house's foundation and installed what pipe he can to hook us up.

The problem is with the town inspector, who was supposed to inspect the work today and let us get on with our life, but is apparently too busy to do so -- so these guys, or at least the plumber, have to wait until the inspector signs off on the work before our household plumbing can be cut over to the town water supply.

So our two choices are to wait until the inspector does his thing, or live without water for three days.

Call me silly, but I've gotten rather used to indoor plumbing. So the choice is obvious.

Posted by flargh at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Months ago I traded in my old cable box to Comcast for a model with digital video recording (DVR) capabilities. It's changed my TV viewing habits 180 degrees.

I've got a whole bunch of shows that I watch on a regular basis. 24, Lost, The Shield, Enterprise (at least until it ends in May), Stargate SG:1, Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica round out my absolute must-watch shows. The kids have a few cartoons they like to see, and Bonnie has her things as well (amazingly, none of our shows overlap). I've set the DVR up to record them all.

It may seem that having a DVR would cause me to watch more TV, but in fact, I'm watching a lot less. I'm sure Comcast and advertisers don't want to hear that, but it's true. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's absolutely the case.

Now that I know with some reliability that the shows I watch are going to be recorded so I can watch them later, I'm not likely to watch TV at the same times as I usually do. Before the DVR, if there was one show I wanted to watch during the night, I probably would -- and I'd often sit for an hour before or after the show channel surfing, trying to find something to entertain me. I don't do that anymore.

I can fit TV viewing into my schedule -- Battlestar Galactica is a perfect case in point. I'm often starting to doze off at 10PM on Friday night (I know, it's pathetic). Lately I've been watching it on Saturday morning instead.

Best of all, I don't feel obliged to watch something rather than do something else. I can get a bit of work done during prime-time, for example, or I can watch a Netflix disc (tonight's a perfect example -- The Shield is on at 10, but Bonnie just came home from the library tonight with Ray on DVD).

The biggest win is the ability to scan right through ads. It's nice to ride right over those annoying-as-hell Seaworld ads without having to hear that shrieking jingle. Or blast past Toyota's blanket ad coverage.

I've got some problems with the interface of the Motorola DVR that Comcast distributes. The software isn't nearly as well-designed as TiVo's. The user interface just plain sucks. It's good enough for what I need to do 99 percent of the time, however. And its integration with the cable tuner makes a difference, as does the low monthy rate I pay (I save myself having to buy a discrete unit -- it's just $10 more a month to have the DVR added to my cable bill).

Posted by flargh at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Okay, so it's been almost a week since I got the PSP. Party due to budgetary constraints and partly due to time constraints, I haven't spent nearly as much time with it as I should have, but I *am* thoroughly enjoying it, even if I've only got two games -- Wipeout Pure and Lumines. That's one more game than I really need right now. I think the Penny Arcade guys summed it up succinctly.

Posted by flargh at 05:11 PM | Permalink

What a lot of childless people or people raising just one kid don't understand is that with each additional child, the amount of effort expended to keep track of them increases exponentially. Even people with two kids might look at Bonnie and me and feel some sense of empathy based on their own experience, but they don't really get it. They can't.

So we spent Easter at Bonnie's aunt and uncle's house in Foxborough, which is about an hour's drive from us. It's been a few years since we've had the chance to do Easter with them, since we've been going to my own grandmother's house for the past few years. The kids put on their Sunday best and we climbed into the van, and off we went. The Easter Bunny doesn't give our kids much candy, instead preferring some small trinkets and gifts; crafty things or toys. Too much sugar is just asking for trouble.

That, of course, did not stop our kids from eating lots of sugary stuff when they got to Andrea and Bill's house. So they were running rampant throughout the house and the backyard; Bonnie felt uncomfortable enough with it that she summoned James into the house so she wouldn't have to keep an eye on him out there.

Things were relatively under control until almost the time that we left -- James had been cooped up long enough and yearned to go outside; we allowed it, as long as he agreed to stay in sight of us. James was playing with his sister and another girl in the driveway, rolling a ball back and forth between them. But at one point I had to go to the van to exchange some packages with my brother-in-law, and Bonnie had to say her goodbye to our hosts.

By the time we recovered our children less than two minutes later, we found them in the backyard. James was jumping up and down in a mud-puddle up to his ankles, spraying his brother and sister with splashes of mud. As they were holding their Easter bunny gifts. In their Easter Sunday best.

Just a rotten way to end an otherwise okay day. But kids will be kids, I suppose. Meh.

Posted by flargh at 09:48 AM | Permalink

Picked up my Sony PSP first thing this morning. It's really pretty. They did a nice job transfering Spider-Man 2 to UMD -- if this is an indication of what H.264 can do, everyone should be happy about QuickTime 7 (presuming Apple's codecs don't totally suck).

Also picked up Lumines and Wipeout Pure. Best Buy had a deal that netted you a $10 gift card if you bought two games. It helped that they had a $5 off coupon for any one game. I picked up Pelican's Starter Pack Plus accessory kit too -- they had a $10 off coupon for that, and I rang it up as a separate transaction, so I got to use my $10 gift card for that. ph34r my ch34p sk177z mb.

Haven't played with it too much, as it's the middle of the workday and I have stuff to do, but I can say this unreservedly: Trying to input a 128-bit hex string for my wireless lan WEP using the PSP's controls and the on-screen keypad is teh big, fat luze.

Posted by flargh at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been a Verizon Wireless customer since last fall after two and a half very unhappy years with AT&T Wireless, and I have been mostly satisfied. But there's one aspect of Verizon I really dislike, and that's their insistence on controlling almost everything that goes in and out of my phone and charging me for it.

It is a trend in the cell phone market that I see holding up the implementation of new features and technology, and it's disturbing.

Recently Motorola's introduction of a phone that supports Apple's iTunes Music Store seems to have been delayed. While there are conflicting reports about why it happened exactly, some reports have said that it's because the service providers are trying to figure out a way to get a cut of the action. As a Verizon Wireless customer, I wouldn't be surprised.

My LG VX6000 phone can take pictures, surf the web, play custom ringtones, use special wallpaper and so on -- but most of these features I can only access if I pay Verizon Wireless an added fee on top of what I'm already charged every month.

So I guess it's not surprising that Verizon has essentially cripped the one telephone it sells with Bluetooth support -- its Motorola V710 model -- in such a way that I can't make it synchronize data with a Bluetooth-equipped Mac or PC. Again, Verizon wants a piece of the action, and cutting them out of the loop on Bluetooth data sync would make it possible for users to upload wallpapers, ring tones, and other custom stuff to their phones without paying anything additional to Verizon.

It's apparent that "smartphones" are the big trend right now in personal information appliances, but will that hold up if service providers nickel and dime their customers for every new feature? Hopefully the providers won't kill the goose that laid the golden egg, stifling the growth of this technology as they seek to put a stranglehold on any potential profit.

Posted by flargh at 10:06 AM | Permalink

Audioscrobbler is yet another social networking engine. The hook to this one is that it uses a plug-in that works with your music player of choice to compile information about what sort of music you listen to, then generates recommendations and can match you to other people with similar tastes (clicking through one of my song titles, for example, I can see others who have listened to the same thing -- then I can view their recent;y played tracks, their favorite artists and so on).

I've known about Audioscrobbler for a while but haven't had much interest in using it, but Frank finally talked me into it. So now you can see what I've been playing lately.

Posted by flargh at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

"To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand.

"If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience."

I see this probably once a week, usually from someone asking for advice or seeking help. Invariably, it's someone I don't know.

It's a lousy, absolutely rotten way to control spam. It's inconvenient and it adds an extra step to communications. It's also inevitably something that I throw right in the trash.

Posted by flargh at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I don't expect kids to stick to their guns as far as career aspirations go, but Robert's interests have taken a turn that I can help him with, given my current resources.

An avid gamer, the boy has said he'd like to code games. I figured that if his interests kept up with that, we'd eventually have to get him a PC so he could tool around with modding and so on to cut his teeth. But in recent weeks he's changed his mind -- now he wants to design graphics for games.

Design graphics. As a Mac guy, this is something I can help the boy with.

Needless to say, I've got a full arsenal of software (and even some cool hardware) that will help young Robert test his mettle with drawing and illustration. I'm planning on giving him my old Wacom tablet, Photoshop, Kid Pix 3 Deluxe (the new OS X version), Painter and a few other goodies.

Anyone have any practical suggestions for what I can do (outside of the obvious) to help stimulate his interest?

Posted by flargh at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

There's been a lot of attention paid to the combative relationship Apple has with its independent reseller channel, especially as the company's own retail channel grows. I can say with no reservation that I absolutely prefer to work with my own local reseller than I would with Apple any day of the week.

That's not a disparagement of Apple by any stretch. Their retail stores should be a model for a lot of companies to use for how to run their business. In fact, I believe their example helped my local guys step their own retail presentation up a notch or two. But these guys have Apple pretty much nailed when it comes to personal service.

Over the years, Mac resellers haven't consistently had a good reputation as consumer-friendly organizations. Some of these guys are rude, arrogant, run shoddily maintained businesses, and just generally leave casual customers with a bad taste in their mouth. I'd be really surprised if anyone had an experience like that with my guys.

What makes them different? A lot of it comes down to a very simple philosophy that really works consistently in any retail business: Service with a smile. Treat your customers nicely. Remember their names. Offer them help when they need it. Don't try to sell them something they don't need or want. And if they run in to trouble, lend them a hand. Really, folks. It isn't rocket science. But given the way many big businesses are run, customer service is a dying art.

I've heard a few horror stories from customers who have had service or support problems from the Apple Store. I know the experiences are few and far between, but usually by the time I'm hearing about them, they are people who feel they've been wronged by bureaucracy. People who feel their experience has been marred by an absence of the common business sense I just talked about. In their defense, I've had good experiences at Apple Stores too. So I expect such problems are the exception to the rule.

But when I walked into the local independent reseller a week ago with my PowerBook in tow and showed them the keyboard, which displayed really bad wear-and-tear, there was no question of whether the damage was covered under warranty. There was no request for my original receipt. There were a friendly pair of faces, a quick check to make sure the part could be ordered relatively soon, and that was that.

We chatted for a while. They showed me some of the cool new hardware that came in. We discussed what inventory was moving, what customers seemed to be interested in, and I even got to hear and see their latest radio and TV ads. It's a well-run shop, managed by an owner who cares about the business and really likes the people he gets to meet. He has realistic expectations of how much money he's going to make in this business and, what's more, he's figured out a way to make the business work: By providing just the type of service I described.

Does his approach work?

I ordered a MIDI keyboard from them a few days later. Next time I need something, I'll call them first.

You be the judge.

Posted by flargh at 02:00 PM | Permalink

Today is James' 5th birthday. More than any of our other kids, I mark the passage of time by James' birthdays, and I think it's for two reasons: One is that I've been working from home since before he was born (when the other two were born, I was still working an office job), and the other is because he is our last kid.

James has, of course, changed a lot over the years, but he's still very much the baby of the family -- he occasionally plays it up, but for the most part he's just very sweet and well-behaved.

For his birthday, James got what he wanted: A few DVDs and a deck of his own Yu-Gi-Oh cards, so he can play against his brother and sister. Tonight, as is the birthday tradition in our home, we will have his favorite dinner: Pizza. Later we will have cake. James asked for chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ice cream to top it.

Posted by flargh at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

After all the shit I've given Corey Tamas for playing with his Warhammer dollies, I am totally ashamed to admit that I find this as cool as I do (link via boing boing). Lordy, but is that a nifty use of a PowerBook and LCD projector or what?

Posted by flargh at 10:56 AM | Permalink

Just had to plug Angel of Retribution by Judas Priest and Mafia by Black Label Society while I'm thinking of it -- had metal on the brain last week. Both albums are great, and they offer really contasting perspectives on how metal has evolved.

Regarding Angel of Retribution, there's certainly a lot to recommend it, though it's occasionally inconsistent. There's some stuff that's evocative of "classic" Priest of the British Steel and Screaming for Vengeance era, and there's some stuff that's totally self-indulgent (the 13-minute finale "Lochness" comes to mind). But Rob Halford has a hell of a set of pipes for a guy who's in his mid-50's -- he sounds like he's in his early 20's. And while Ripper Owens wasn't bad, it's glad to have Halford back where he belongs: Out in front of Judas Priest screaming like a banshee, while axemasters Tipton and Downing play point-counterpoint.

Listening to Angel of Retribution, I'm immediately brought back to my teen years before I became a punker: I listened to a lot Priest when I was in junior high and early in high school. The sound really hasn't changed that much over the years, and why should it? Sharks haven't evolved in 100 million years because, well, nature crafted them more or less perfectly for their environment. By that same measure, 2005's Judas Priest is just as well-suited to craft that gleaming polished-chrome, oiled black leather, Satanically-fueled arena metal as they were in 1983.

As far as Mafia is concerned, holy crap is this bone-crunching metal. There is absolutely nothing delicate or graceful about Zakk Wylde's approach to songwriting: Just listening to it fills my nostrils with the smell of stale beer, sweaty ass and motorcycle exhaust fumes. Anyone who's heard an Ozzy Osbourne or a Black Label Society album anytime in the last 15 years knows what to expect from Zakk Wylde's stylings -- this is unabashed, unapologetic heavy fuckin' metal almost from start to finish. It's not as machine-gunning as 2003's "The Blessed Hellride," but every bit as potent.

Zakk Wylde's position in the pantheon of rock's all-time great guitarists is secure, and he's certainly proven his ability to act like a vocal battering ram with Ozzy-like growling and howling -- Nick Catanese, James Lomenzo and Craig Nunenmacher all provide potent punctuation for Black Label Society's brand of smashmouth metal. But Wylde shows his versatility taking a turn at ballads like "In This River" and "Dirt On the Grave," and a cover of Skynyrd's "I Never Dreamed." Mafia is an absolutely must-have if you're a SDMF, or want to be one.

Posted by flargh at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So I snapped a few photos at Emme's play that I recently told you about, and finally got around to uploading them to Flickr. You can see them in the right-hand sidebar on this page.

Posted by flargh at 12:09 PM | Permalink

Netflix is offering a month's free membership to my friends, because I'm such an awesome customer.

Want in on it? Drop me a line.

Posted by flargh at 12:26 PM | Permalink

Robert represented his class for the fourth grade spelling bee; they had their competition today. He held up quite well under pressure, though he flubbed "perpendicular" and was eliminated. He can take solace in the fact that three other kids couldn't spell it correctly either and were immediately eliminated.

Bob's been studying hard for it the last few days, so I know he's a bit disappointed he didn't win. But on the other hand, he's also been able to skip two writing assignments, so it hasn't been all hard work for him.

Bob's friend Tim won. He and two other finalists proceed to the school-wide spelling bee final, which will be held this Friday.

Posted by flargh at 12:01 PM | Permalink

It's been a busy week, especially for Emme and Bonnie (who did Emme' schlepping).

Emme was in a Missoula Children's Theater production of The Jungle Book. Her role was as one of the Monkey People.

They came to town this past week and on Monday auditioned almost 100 kids for about 50 parts. Emme was lucky enough to have been chosen, and she spent the rest of her afternoons after school this week rehearsing, along with all the other kids.

It was a fun time. The show ran just over an hour. While the main part of Balloo the bear was played by the theater director, all the other parts were played by the kids. What's more, four kids acted as Assistant Directors to help corral everyone else and get the work done. There was singing, there were dance numbers, there was lots of dialogue.

The kids did amazingly well, given the limited amount of time they had to get organized and rehearse. They did two shows on Saturday, and hardly any of them missed their lines during either performance.

I'll get a few photos up when I can find my camera's data cable. It's around here someplace.

Posted by flargh at 05:07 PM | Permalink

Stuff like this would really make me consider moving to Canada, if its weather didn't suck so bad this time of year. And, you know, if my wife would ever consider it. Which she won't.

*sigh.*

Posted by flargh at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Happy 03/04/05. I think we should all have a drink to celebrate at 1:02.

Posted by flargh at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of my favorite hard science fiction authors is Vernor Vinge. While he's not very prolific, he makes up for it by impeccable storytelling. His A Deepness In the Sky ranks as one of my favorite books, ever. He's one of those authors who elevates SF to "real" literature. He recently announced that he's signed a multi-book deal with Tor Books, with the first book expected out in early 2006. Yay!

Posted by flargh at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bonnie walked into my office this afternoon with this stunned look on her face. Then she told me the story.

Our soon-to-be five year old James was on the floor in the family room playing with his toys. Cars and trucks, as usual. He loves the wheeled stuff. Later he was giving Bonnie a blow-by-blow of his playtime.

Most of the babble was lost to Bonnie, as it usually is to me. It's too much to keep up with sometimes, especially when you're concentrating on something else. But she tuned in for the end.

"I had to line up all the cars and trucks, capiche?" James said.

Capiche. Stopped Bonnie dead. 1940's slang derived from conversational Italian (capisci, do you understand?) isn't something he hears a lot of around the house. That he'd know the word and what's more, know how to use it, was a moment.

Yeah, we figured out where he heard it. But I'm not gonna tell you. Where's the fun in that?

Posted by flargh at 07:51 PM | Permalink