Queen for eight bucks
Best deal on iTunes. Thirty-four tracks and there isn't a single bad one.
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Best deal on iTunes. Thirty-four tracks and there isn't a single bad one.
A couple of hours of surgery and a can of compressed air later, and the PS2 is recognizing DVDs again. Giant clots of dark grey dust came billowing out of the poor thing once I got the can of air in there, including an alarming amount that had accumulated near the DVD drive's laser assembly. No wonder it wasn't happy.
Our PlayStation 2 doubles as our family DVD player. When the old player died, I decided the PS2 was all we needed, as it had an optical audio output and could decode DTS and the other stuff we wanted our player to do. It's worked out pretty well, though in recent days it's been giving us fits, failing to recognize some discs as being in the drive at all, and failing to read some discs it recognizes. Oddly, with some movies it'll work just great, and with games, it seems to do okay -- so the problems it's having are selective at best.
Anyway, after doing a cursory examination of the outside of the unit, I decided it might be a good idea to clean it thoroughly inside and out, as every ventilation port, nook and cranny on the outside of the PS2 is choked with dust. That meant at least a partial disassembly of the system to get the cover off so I can clean the parts especially around the DVD player that might be obscured with dust or pet hair.
I've complained a lot over the years about some Apple systems' lack of serviceability. Most recently, taking apart my PowerBook G4 gave me problems, and I haven't even attempted a thorough diassembly of James' iBook -- iBooks are an absolute nuisance.
But compared to the PS2, iBooks are a joy. You have to pull eight screws just to get the cover off, then you have to pry it apart while being careful not to tear a delicate ribbon cable that connects the power button to the power supply itself.
Getting at the underside of the case, which I won't even attempt, requires considerably more effort and work, and getting the DVD drive out of the mainboard assembly requires the removal of several screws and ribbon cables.
So I'm settingly for a top-down approach. I've gotten the PS2's case apart, and have taken the lid off the DVD player (and found the hardware underneath to be caked with a thick layer of dark dust). I've got to run off to the store and buy some cans of compressed air so I can at least get some or most of this dust out of here without damaging the PS2's sensitive electronics. I'll let you know how it goes.
James has coined a new word to describe food that tastes good but doesn't agree with you: Diarrhific. For example, McDonald's:
"James, how was that Egg McMuffin you had for breakfast?"
"Diarrhific!"
"Emmeline, please put away the clothes in that basket that's been sitting in the hallway."
"But I ALREADY fed the cat!"
"In California, driving with people in the trunk will be illegal."
Uh, you mean it isn't already?
President Gerald Ford's death really hasn't registered to me as a major event.
I was passing a state office today and I saw the flags at half-mast. My first thought was, "Why are they flying the flags low for James Brown?"
Mental health, education and child welfare advocates in Massachusetts were up in arms when it was revealed that outgoing Governor Mitt Romney -- an early frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008 -- had slashed hundreds of millions of dollars allotted to state higher education, social service programs and early education and care. Yesterday our incoming governor-elect, Deval Patrick, announced plans to restore those cuts in their entirety.
This money is used for a variety of social service programs -- everything from funding preschool and kindergarten to keeping domestic violence telephone hotlines open. The cuts that Romney announced, which happened mid-year, were to make up a budget shortfall, and according to some of the reports I've read, Romney actually overstepped his reach by making cuts in projects that are outside his jurisdiction.
Patrick said that the re-allocated money for these restored programs comes frm higher-than-anticipated tax revenue in November and December. If worse comes to worst, he said he'll dip into a "stabilization fund" to make sure the money is available. And he warned that this won't come without some sacrifices -- for FY 2007, he said, the Commonwealth will have to "make tough choices." Still, I'm glad to see it restored for now.
I'll fully admit that I have entirely selfish motivations for doing so. State agencies have been crucial for our family in obtaining the help and professional services our kids need. What's more, my wife's part-time employer is a state agency partially funded by this program, and she was recently told by the head of her department that her hours would be cut, rather dramatically, as a direct result of Romney's cuts. It'll be a little while before we learn if the money to pay Bonnie has been restored, unfortunately.
What a strange week. Monday was Christmas, and I took Tuesday off. Today the kids go for their annual overnight trip to a hotel in nearby Hyannis with their cousins and my father in law -- it's his last hurrah with the kids before he and my mother in law migrate seasonally to Florida.
On Saturday afternoon my mother takes the kids for her annual trip to Newport, RI, and she's going to keep them until Monday (New Year's Day), when we all gather at my grandmother's for a holiday meal. That's another short week, that culminates in my departure for San Francisco on Saturday.
Bonnie and I will have a nice, quiet weekend this weekend, which will be a welcome respite before I take off for the other side of the country. And the long weekends are always welcome, but there's something about the compression of days and weeks this time of year that always, always makes it fly away in the blink of an eye, and before I know it, I'll be in a hotel in San Francisco, prepping for the Expo.
I'm actually looking forward to it a bit this year, for the first time in a couple of years. Can't quite put my finger on why, exactly -- maybe it's the expectation that Apple will do something remarkable, but mainly it's because at least for me, it's *the* social event of the year. It's my one opportunity to spend quality time with a lot of people who I don't get to see at all during the rest of the year.
Yay, Boxing Day. Christmas is over.
The kids were all obnoxious as hell leading right up to it, including waking us up at 2:30 AM, 4 AM, 6 AM and 8 AM on Christmas Day. They didn't get everything on their lists, but they did get lots of stuff, lots of Santa presents, and lots of gifts from relatives. I think they're pretty happy.
I decided last week to take the day off today to decompress a bit, and I'm just as glad I did -- after the nocturnal hijinks of Christmas Day, Bonnie and I are both totally wiped out today, so we're just as happy it's a pretty low-key day.
So SciFi showed The Last Starfighter this afternoon, and it caught James' attention -- we watched it from start to finish. I am once again reminded of why this movie remains one of my favorites.
For those of you who don't remember, The Last Starfighter tells the story of Alex Rogan, a young man from a trailer park in the middle of nowhere whose life is indeed going nowhere until he discovers that his prowess at a video game has catapulted him into an interstellar war unknown to the human race. He's kidnapped by an alien shyster masquerading as a human and finds himself at the controls of a vessel known as a Gunstar, where he saves the Star League from Xur and the Kodan Armada, aided by his navigator, a reptilian alien named Grig.
The Last Starfighter was remarkable for its time because all of the film's major special effects were done with CGI. It wasn't a big hit in its day, but it's become something of a cult classic since then, and it's even spawned a freeware video game (that's unfortunately only for the PC) modeled to replicate the game seen in the movie.
Sure, it's a bit cheesy -- simplistic plot (hero saves the universe, wins the girl, rockets off to adventures unknown), but it's sweet and it's a basic hero tale, and a story about a boy who saves the galaxy by playing video games is custom-made for me. I'm just as happy that it seems to be catching the attention of a new generation.
So Robert and I got to talking about, of all things, Buddhism. Robert's got a surprisingly good grasp on the fundamentals, and shares some of my interest in it. So I was happy about that.
"Daddy, I think of all of us, Max is the most enlightened," he said. "He's the most peaceful, and he spends his day meditating and looking at the world outside."
I murmured my agreement.
"And he is also the most enheavyened," Bob added.
I know, I've been living in a cave, apparently, but it's not just me is it?
Celebrity proletarian chef Rachael Ray has a disturbing resemblance to an auburn-haired Kelly Ripa, no?
Please, for the love of God, someone donate some Web design skills to Ilene Hoffman so she can get the Hess Memorial Macworld Events List out of 1996. That looks like Claris Homepage, even though the source says it's BBEdit.
So I was reading news headlines this morning when I saw "Blizzard pounds Colorado" this morning, and my first thought was, "What's this about World of Warcraft?"
To whom it may concern:
When I go to a restaurant, unless it's a fast food joint where everything's served to me on recycled paper or styrofoam, I implictly understand that the silverware I'm using has been in other people's mouths; that the glass my Diet Coke is in has touched other people's lips, and that the plates I'm being served on have held other people's food.
I also have a reasonable expectation that the utensils I'm using are clean. A lipstick-stained glass, for example, or a food-encrusted fork, would earn the management of the restaurant a sharp rebuke from me for being so slovenly.
Likewise, I understand that the DVDs I rent from Netflix have been viewed by other users before me. And believe me, I understand that yours is a volume business and sometimes things fall through the cracks. I'm also fully aware that thanks to the vagaries of postal delivery, you're unable to make sure each and every disc you mail arrives in good working order. I've received my share of broken or scratched-beyond-playable discs since I first established an account with you several years ago.
But when I get a disc that my player can't manage for the simple reason that it's smothered in fingerprints, well, I get a bit ornery. When the DVD smudged like that, with other people's hand oils and occasionally something hard and crusty, as if it briefly served as the filling in a peanut butter sandwich which was then left out on the counter to dry for several weeks, I get a bit repulsed. Actually, I get very repulsed.
I keep a bottle of optical disc cleaner handy for just such incidents, and more often than not I'm able to make the disc work again just by spraying it with cleaner and buffing it radially with a soft cloth for a few moments.
I really wish you, Netflix, would take the time to make sure that what you're sending out is, in fact, playable as soon as it's removed from the envelope.
Because seeing someone else's snot and slobber on a rental disc is just, well, icky.
James: "Daddy, does the van have ejection seats?"
"Uh, no. Why?"
"Because that'd be fun."
"Wait. You'd like to be in an ejection seat?"
"Yes. Then I'd fly up into the sky and go, 'Wheeee!' And then we could eject Emme when she whines."
Forbes has posted a pretty interesting slideshow entitled Why Gears of War Costs $60. It goes a long way to explain why a top-tier video game for a new console is so expensive.
The bottom line: Art and design, programming and engineering, retail markup, and console owner fees (the fees that a publisher pays Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft for PlayStation 3, Wii or Xbox 360 licensing, respectively) make up the bulk of that cost -- almost 75 percent of it, combined. The remainder goes to marketing, market development, manufacturing costs, licensing fees, publisher profit, distribution, corporate costs, and other miscellany.
This doesn't really give any insight to the Mac game market, which is largely dependent on ports, or conversions, which follow a fundamentally different business model. There's no owner fee, for example, and negligible art and design costs, as those assets are already made by the time Mac game makers get their hands on the code. But if you've ever wondered why you have to fork over half a c-note for the newest title for your shiny new console, this will give you some information.
I've decided to take Friday and Tuesday off, so I'll get a five-day weekend out of Christmas. I'm very much looking forward to it. Though you wouldn't notice it from the volume of articles we've posted to Macworld for the past few days, this time of year gets insanely busy as we prep for Macworld Expo, which happens the second week of January.
All the vendors are asking us for meetings and we're doing a fair amount of planning amongst ourselves too. For the most part, the folks at the magazine try to break up coverage of the vendors at the show by beat and divvy them up equitably, but for Jim and me it's a slightly different story, since we're the "news" guys that most of these vendors go to when they want to see their new products or updates mentioned on the Web site. So Jim and I try our hardest to meet with all of them, if nothing else just to shake hands and say hi. That doesn't always mean sitting down with them for a real meeting, but it's this time of year that we all try to blip on each other's radar to make sure we all know that we're going to be in San Francisco for the show.
The "business" end of the show doesn't thrill me that much -- in all likelihood, I could stay home, fly by remote control by reading press releases and such, and still be quite productive and busy. But what I love about the Expo is the opportunity to reaffirm social bonds with other people in the business who I only get to see once a year.
It's a bit like a big family reunion, and it's surprising that even among competitors, there's a lot of camaraderie -- it's unlike any other business most of us have ever worked in, in that respect. To that end, there are a lot of after-hours festivities that go on, such as our own MacBowl charity event, that are always a good time, even if it means some late nights.
This year I'm doing the trip a bit differently than I usually do. Because it's January, I often try to get a direct flight from Logan in Boston to SFO, so I don't have to worry about bad weather borking up the trip. But over the course of the past couple of years I've grown really intolerant of being stuck in middle rows in the ass-end of coach, and flying is drudgery to begin with. So this year I begged a boon from our travel agency, and the kind agent was able to get me exit row aisle seats there and back.
That means connecting flights through DFW via American, and going into Oakland instead of San Francisco, arriving and leaving at *very* odd hours compared to what I normally do, but I think it'll be worth it: The cramping and discomfort I usually feel on these flights is not the right way to either start or end a week-long trip that's physically and mentally exhausting to begin with.
I'll be the first to admit that as a pop star, Justin Timberlake leaves me a bit cold. I'm not a huge fan of his music. But his appearances on Saturday Night Live have been consistently hilarious. He's got awesome timing and a killer delivery, and he seems to enjoy the hell out of it, because he's in almost every skit they do.
Anyway, the absolute standout from Justin's latest jaunt on SNL was this little number featuring Andy Sandberg of "Lazy Sunday" fame. Warning, PG-13 (thanks to Katie for the link):
Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of my awesome friends Dan and Katie, who had a spare iBook that was gathering dust at the bottom of a closet, James' most fervent Christmas wish was answered early: He has his own computer.
It's a dual USB-equipped white iBook. It's about as basic as you can get: 128MB RAM, no AirPort card, CD-ROM drive, and it's perfectly adequate for the needs of a six year old. I've already given him an old DWL-122 USB wireless stick I got from D-Link years ago, and have ordered a 512MB SO-DIMM that should arrive early next week. Presuming I can get my hands on a relatively inexpensive used AirPort card (haha, they're as rare as diamonds), I'll eventually get rid of the USB stick.
I'd gone back and forth about making it a Christmas present and decided ultimately not to. James already has plenty of Christmas gifts from us and from Santa, and is bound to get more from relatives on Christmas day. Besides, this way, he gets to start benefitting from it now.
As it always is with new gear that I get, I had some fun putting about with it when the iBook arrived yesterday -- upgrading the software to the latest release for Panther, cobbling together a package of software I thought would be good for that system. I still have a few things to do, such as install Classic, so James can run edutainment software that we've had lying around for years, that the kids still enjoy.
So now, James is quite happy surfing on the Intarweb and even has his own e-mail address (which I've limited to only accepting messages from us, his brother and sister and his grandparents, as I don't think my first grader needs to understand the benefits of penis enlarging products quite yet).
Emme:
"Can I have some Sierra Mist?"
"Sure, but only a little."
Ever since I was diagnosed with diabetes we've switched from sugared to sugar-free sodas. We don't encourage the kids to drink them.
"Niiiiice," says Emme triumphantly.
"What?"
"This says it has zero calories," she reported, reading the bottle's label as she was eating lunch. Emmeline has become concerned -- not overtly, but healthily -- about consuming too many calories, since she began to pack on weight from one of the medications she's taking. She tries to eat things she knows are full of "empty" calories only in very modest proportions.
"Right, but look at the list of ingredients," I said.
There's a long pause and then, "What the ...?"
"Yeah."
"I don't recognize most of these things," she said.
"Do you think they're good for you?" I asked.
"Uh, no. Not most of them, that's for sure," she said.
So now that we've erected our (fake) Christmas tree, Max has, in typical fashion, decided it is his favorite new hiding spot. And it's little surprise, really: He's safe in there -- unable to be picked up, pet or otherwise molested. The only way you can see him is to lie flat on the floor and look underneath, where he's inevitably curled up, having a nap or licking himself.
Max snores -- quite loudly. It's enough to have made Bonnie and I wonder if he has a deviated septum or something (the vet says it's nothing to worry about). But there's something vaguely comical, and perhaps a bit frightening, when you're sitting in the living room and all is quiet, and all of a sudden the Christmas tree starts to snore. It makes me think of that classic SNL skit involving killer Christmas trees. I keep waiting for the tree to spring to life and stab me through the chest with one of its evergreen appendages.
So today's my 37th birthday, and it's decidedly low key. Bonnie's feeling a bit under the weather and I'm recovering from some discomfort that kept me housebound yesterday, so we just decided to order a couple of pizzas and stay in. Emme and James were nice enough to make me birthday cards and a couple of others arrived in the mail, too, including one from my grandmother and one from my aunt -- yesterday I got a package from my father, too. I got a new video game in the mail for my PS2, so I treated myself to that for a gift.
I didn't even make Bonnie get me a cake -- there was so much left over from a brunch my mother made me on Sunday there seemed little point in doing another.
So all told, it's been a nice, quiet birthday. Just my speed this year.
On the way home from Sunday school, James announced. "They talk about God too much at Sunday school."
"Well, what else should they talk about?" I asked.
"Video games," he said.
"But God is what Sunday school is all about."
"it's all Jesus, God, Jesus, God, shepherds, shepherds," he said, exasperated.
"Today I learned that Jesus was born on a pile of leaves," said James.
"I think you mean a manger. It's a trough they used to feed animals out of. Sometimes they show him in a cradle on top of a pile of hay," I explained.
"It looks like leaves to me," said James.
Apple's screwed on the iPhone, no matter what they do.
Fact one: Apple has not announced an iPhone.
Fact two: That hasn't stopped either the general public, tech press or Wall Street analysts from wildly speculating about what the iPhone is or is not, or how it will affect Apple's earnings potential in 2007.
I was listening to the BBC World Service radio program last night, and they had a brief recap of Wall Street market events. The reporter noted that Apple stock price slid on Thursday, on news that their "new" iPhone product would be delayed.
I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it: So now Apple's stock price is affected by speculation about a product that doesn't exist yet and whether or not they'll be able to ship it to suit some imaginary time frame that's entirely made up.
It's total bullshit, and it goes just to the root of how completely arbitrary the value of a company is in the eyes of investors, who apparently are just as prone to believe in signs, portents, the positions of chicken bones and the phases of the moon as they are to sound fundamentals.
I just had delivered a new Sony stereo which will replace an old decripit model that's occupied my bedroom for the past several years. It struck me that the speakers that I'll be tossing out at the transfer station this weekend have been with me for most of my adult life.
They're a pair of tower speakers with long-throw woofers that I bought when I was working for Radio Shack, which I did off and on for a couple of years in high school and immediately thereafter. They've been great speakers, but in recent years finally started showing their age as their grilles fell off and collapsed, and the material that attached the speakers to their mounts slowly corroded into dust.
I'm a bit sad to see them go, but the fact is that they're old and long past the point of needing to be replaced. But the good news is that I've replaced them with a much more compact, much more robust 5.1 surround speaker system that I'm sure will deliver much better quality sound. And occupy much less space.
James: "Who was that on the phone?"
"A plumber. He's coming over tomorrow to fix the leaky toilet and showerhead in your bathroom."
"Too bad it's not Grant and Jason."
We're watching the news last night and they do a piece on Rumsfeld's memo that suggests our strategy in Iraq isn't working.
Robert: "And it only took them HOW many years to figure this out?"
Yeah, smart kid.
Many of us across the region -- including me -- are seeing their first snow of the season. It isn't supposed to account for much, maybe an inch or so of slushy crap in some parts. But still, it's that first blast of winter, only a day after I was wandering around outside wearing a t-shirt. Strange, strange weather.
James: "Daddy, Christmas is Jesus' birthday."
"Right."
"Normally you get presents on your birthday. But on Jesus' birthday we give each other presents."
"That's right."
"But all you get on Jesus' birthday is socks and undies."
James and I were talking about all the video game consoles we own. And we do own a lot of them -- everything from a Super Nintendo to a Saturn to a Dreamcast to the new Wii, with lots more in between. I'm not a completist nor am I collector, but I do love to take a trip down memory lane now and again.
"You don't want a PS3," said James.
"Actually, I'd love a PS3," said I. "But we can't afford one right now and they're too hard to get."
"And you probably don't want to get shot trying to get one, either."
Yeah. There's that.
James: "What are we having for dinner?"
Bonnie: "I think we're having steak, rice and green beans."
"Daddy, what are we having for dinner?"
"Steak, rice and green beans," said I.
"Why did you ask him?" Bonnie said. "I just told you that a minute ago."
"You said 'I think,'" said James.
"I don't like steak. Is that my only choice, Daddy?"
"Your other choice is poo," said I.
"I'll take the nothing choice."
Every day we'll post a tech story of general interest and we'll get some smarmy response in the forums along the lines of "What does this have to do with the Mac?"
And the straight answer is, nothing. Not a goddamn thing. But there's a lot of stuff that I, as an editor, think is of interest and want to let our readers know about.
But given the strident tone, you'd think we held a gun to their heads and insisted that they read it.
We don't charge a subscription fee for the online content. We don't require you to click on every link we post. We fully expect that some stuff isn't going to be relevant to every reader.
So quitcher bitchin'.