Tikkabik

So the MBTA is finally getting with the 1980s and is upgrading its fee collection system from metal tokens to charge cards, just like the BART, NYC subway and DC Metro have had for years. They've also replaced the old eggbeater-style turnstyles with newer, flashier ones that open when you insert a card with the appropriate fare.

Apparently the new pass -- called the "CharlieTicket" (in honor of the old song "Charlie on the MTA") is now standard issue at a dozen and a half stations throughout the MBTA service area, including Quincy Adams. So if you want to get on and off at one of these stations, you need to have one. But the irony is that other MBTA stations -- including major stopping points like Downtown Crossing, where I was today -- don't accept them.

"We don't take those heah," the token collector at Downtown Crossing told me. "You'll have to walk to State Street if you wanna use that."

I ended up hoofing it South Station instead -- a five minute walk on a pleasant day, so I didn't really mind that much -- but the MBTA's attempt at modernization seems half-assed at best. As a practically life-long Mass resident with years of experience riding the T I found it confusing; I pity the poor day-tripper or out-of-towner here on vacation that stumbles across this logistical nightmare and doesn't understand why they've just plugged $10 or more onto a paper ticket and still have to buy metal tokens at $1.25 each.

Now it's irony time: "Charlie on the MTA" was a protest song that was first written back in the 1940's to complain about the then-MTA's byzantine fee structure. The Charlie of the song was a fictional character doomed to ride the rails forever as he'd forgotten to take with him the extra nickle he needed to pay an exit fare.

I'm glad I knew where to go to use the card, otherwise I might still walk forever 'round the streets of Boston. Then I'd be the man who never returned.

Posted by flargh at 05:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We spent a three-day weekend at Anime Boston 2006 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Quite a lot of fun, and it was great to be there from the start to the finish.

Well, more or less from the start. We didn't get there til Friday afternoon as Emme was sick, unfortunately. Mom had to attend to business on Friday morning, so we didn't get there in time for many of the Friday discussion panels or afternoon events.

We spent most of Friday cruising the dealer room and checking out what the show had to offer, then Bonnie sat down with a highlighter and figured out what events and panels she wanted in on. I more or less did the same.

Friday night's centerpiece was Kaiju Big Battel -- imagine pro wrestlers dressed up in elaborate giant monster suits, crushing cardboard replicas of Boston landmarks like the Prudential Center as they were throwing each other around. Absolutely hilarious.

Saturday was chock full of interesting presentations, previews of what's coming in anime this year, and other events. We took in as much as we could before we finally crashed. Sunday, more of the same, though we stuck around for the closing ceremonies, when they showed the winners of this year's AMV (Anime Music Videos) contests, where creative video editors set footage from anime to music.

Mom graciously watched the kids for three days while we had our fun.

Posted by flargh at 07:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bonnie is rapidly converting all of her anger and frustration with the Mashpee school system into a career as a parent support liaison for the Parent Information Network (PIN), which helped us a lot to understand our rights when Robert and Emmeline's diagnoses first came down.

She still rants frequently. This morning was no exception. James, who's home alone today because Emmeline and Robert are spending the weekend at Grandma's, was quietly playing on his Game Boy Advance. He asked her some questions, and she answered.

Her main point was that the teacher's decision to file charges after Robert kicked her, following a sensory overload, should never have happened. It criminalized a child's emotional disability.

"If it's really No Child Left behind, then the teacher was wrong," said James. "It makes no sense. That's exactly what the teacher was doing."

Hooray for the six year old who can figure it out. Too bad the "professionals" in town can't.

Posted by flargh at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MacBook benchmarks in black and white:

MacBook 1.83GHz/Intel Core Duo: Unreal Tournament: 17.8 FPS
17-inch MacBook Pro/2.16GHz Intel Core Duo: 63.1 FPS

Anyone interested in "serious" gaming ought to examine these numbers carefully if considering the MacBook. This is not a gamer's machine.

Posted by flargh at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So there's been the predictable handwringing about Apple's new MacBooks, which look beautiful and sexy (especially in black), because they feature integrated graphics much like the Mac mini does.

This will negatively impact the MacBook's ability to run games and other software that use OpenGL.

I'll say the same thing about the MacBook that I said about the Mac mini -- the only reason Apple hadn't already gone to an integrated graphics processor before now is because Freescale, which was providing the CPUs used in these systems, couldn't offer them one.

The new MacBooks will surely be less suited for OpenGL-intensive tasks than the MacBook Pros, which will make them less suitable for anything more than "casual" gaming, and will probably make them not ideal matches for pro apps and other software that heavily leverage the OpenGL-intensive aspects of Tiger's Core Video and Core Image technology.

Does that mean they're bad machines? Not at all.

Does that mean I'll recommend them for gaming? Snowball's chance in hell.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating -- I anticipate that my Macworld brother Jim Galbraith will post a benchmark article before too long -- but everything I've seen and read suggests that the performance of these systems will be less than ideal for gamers.

But I'm wondering if this will spark a cottage industry of customizers who make black MacBook Pro cases.

Posted by flargh at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New England's monsoon conditions have made national headlines for the past few days; more than a foot of rain has fallen in some parts of the area. Fortunately, that isn't the case for us here on the Cape -- we've had grey, wet weather for days, along with some flooding in low lying areas and lots of standing water -- but we've been fortunately compared to towns like Lawrence and Methuen.

Anyway, this afternoon we saw the sun for the first time in days. It's still quite chilly, but at least it's dry. At least for now. They're predicting more showers later this week.

Posted by flargh at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

No, not Bilbo Baggins, just me -- I haven't posted in a while because all last week I was at E3 in Los Angeles, and just too damn busy or tired for most of the week to post to Tikkabik while I was doing other things.

The show was great -- I got to see the public reactions to the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii first-hand. I think it's safe to say that the Wii is going to be a monster hit -- lines to get in Nintendo's booth to see it regularly lasted three hours or more.

Three hours. Let's put that into context. Many of the people standing in that line had paid hundreds of dollars for their passes. The show lasts three days. One of the days it's open nine hours, two days it's open for seven. Many people are only able to take a single day off from work.

Regardless, they were willing to wait three hours (or longer) just play with the Wii for a few minutes -- that ought to tell anyone all they need to know.

The Wii controller is simple and intuitive and, most of all, fun to use, and the games look great too, even if they lack the same visual pizzazz so evident by the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.

L.A. was positively gloomy for most of the week. Most days stayed gray and overcast except for some afternoon sunshine, with temperatures in the 60s -- uncharacteristic for this show the past couple of years. Then again, when I got home to Boston on Saturday afternoon at about 4PM, it was in the 40s and downpouring torrential rains.

Sunday was my cousin Michael's wedding to his fiancee Kathy. Luckily for us, a sitter was available and the event was pretty closeby, at a beachside resort on the lower Cape. As I told Michael before the ceremony, rain on the wedding day is good luck for a new couple -- and given that it rained all last week and is expected to for much of this week, as well, they ought to have fantastic luck. They're taking their honeymoon in Tahiti. Tahiti sounds great right now.

Posted by flargh at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Attention, Mac news sites (you know who you are):

McAfee announcing that VirusScan works under Rosetta on Intel Macs is not the same thing as "McAfee releases VirusScan for Intel Macs" or the other bullshit headlines I've read today.

Geesh.

Posted by flargh at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Anyone need another GameCube?

Posted by flargh at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After two miserable days of cold, damp and wet weather, it's glorious out today. In the upper 60's and sunny, with a brisk but pleasant breeze. We've got the windows open in the living room -- mainly for the cat's benefit, as spring is in the air and he's going nuts being stuck in the house.

It also gives me a taste of what I can expect for LA next week, which is predicted to be sunny and in the low to mid 70s all week.

Right now I'm prepping for a week-long trip to Los Angeles that starts next Monday, to go to E3. I'm really looking forward to it, as I always am, but this year in particular, as there are new consoles afoot and tons of new games I'm looking forward to getting my hands on for the first time.

One thing that really bugs me is how short E3 is: Although there are press events that run from Monday through the end of the week, the show itself is only really Wednesday through Friday, so I have to compress all my meetings into two short days (Friday is really kind of a waste of a day -- a good day to play clean up and view all the stuff I'd missed the prior two days).

If the past eight years remain consistent, I'll end the week wishing I could have cloned myself a dozen times over to see all the stuff I missed the first time around.

Posted by flargh at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we had an IEP addendum meeting to address Emmeline's gradual integration into a general education classroom. We came prepared this time: We brought reps from the Parent Information Network, Department of Mental Health and an educational advocate as well.

Understanding what-the-hell the school is talking about is difficult even at the best of times. But you know you're in trouble when the teacher explains the school's discipline policy and the ed advocate goes, "Huh?"

At least we're not alone.

Posted by flargh at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)