Tikkabik

Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but we were supposed to get 4 inches of snow last night and got nothing. Bopkes.

They had forecast up to four inches of snow for our area. That's right on the limit of what I'd use our new -- and as yet, unused -- snowblower to remove, but I figured I'd be prepared. I gassed up the van last night; got gas for the snowblower. When I got home I even raised up the wiper blades on the van so they wouldn't get buried if it did snow.

And when I woke up and peeked outside this morning, there was nothing. A few flurries fell -- not even enough for a proper dusting.

This has been a weird, weird winter so far.

Posted by flargh at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The town is screwing around with out of district bus schedules; we got a new van driver this morning for Robert, and she called yesterday (very apologetically) to let us know that she was going to be there at least 15 minutes earlier than usual to pick him up.

As it is, Robert was leaving the house at 7:00 and not getting home until 4:00 -- that's the longest "school day" of any of the kids (though technically, Emme's out of the house longer, as she goes straight from school to an after school program four days a week and generally doesn't get home before 6:30).

Anyway, he put up a fuss yesterday when we told him -- he's unhappy getting ready that time of the morning -- but he grinned and bore it this morning, and managed to get out on time. And the good news is that the driver called this afternoon to let me know that they were readjusting his schedule back to 7:00 or so. So hopefully this will be a zero sum game, after all is said and done.

Posted by flargh at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've found a new store that I'm dangerously in love with. How I found it is a story in itself.

After a birthday party for James' friend this afternoon, I took a cruise down Main St. in Falmouth vainly searching for a music store. I had to buy a new cable for the electric guitar my other gave me last week; the one the music store sold her was bunk and made a horrendous feedback noise no matter what it was connected to.

I gave up after a cruise all the way down the road, and figured I'd go to Wal-Mart. I know they sell electric guitars so I figured I could buy a cable there.

Now, if you know me, you know I hate Wal-Mart. It's not just the shopping experience. It's the knowledge of how they treat their workers and suppliers, the negative effects they have on small businesses, and the strong arm tactics they use to get into the towns they're in. And when I pulled into the parking lot and swallowed my pride, I heard James pipe up from the back seat.

"Daddy, don't you hate shopping at Wal-Mart?"

There it was. The six-year-old voice of my conscience. I thought about it for a moment and said, "You're absolutely right, James. Let's go home." I popped the van back into Drive and drove away.

But instead of going back the way I came, I went out the back way, onto Spring Bars Road. Directly across the street from the Wal-Mart parking lot is a small strip mall that I'd driven by but never really looked in at.

And there at one end is a little store called Harmony Hut. This place fixes and reconditions stereo gear, computers, TVs and electronics of all shapes and sizes. And they sell guitar cables. And picks. And amps. And used video games. Lots and lots of used video games.

I struck the motherlode. I came home with a bag of stuff dirt cheap, including some long out-of-print Sega Saturn games.

This place looks like a store that I'd make, if I was in retail. It's a bloody mess. It looks like my office, seriously. Of course, the guy that owns the place is the only one who knows where to find stuff.

Anyway, I love my new home away from home.

Posted by flargh at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This may very well be the best contest ever.

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

I've been using a 17-inch MacBook Pro since shortly after Christmas, and this is absolutely the best laptop I've ever had. Not only is it markedly faster than the laptop it replaces -- my 17-inch PowerBook, which had a 1.5GHz G4 chip inside -- but it's also greatly more flexible, capable of running both Mac OS X and Windows.

I've installed Boot Camp for those rare times when I'm actually motivated enough to restart my Mac in Windows to play a Windows game, like Half-Life 2. But for the most part I've been using Parallels Desktop for Mac, which lets me run Windows without rebooting first. It comes in particularly handy when I hit a Web site that I'm having trouble with in Safari and Mac Firefox, or if I want to run a utility that's not Mac OS X friendly. And thanks to Coherence, a new feature of Parallels Desktop that enables you to run Windows executables straight from the Mac OS X dock, it's almost irrelevant about what kind of host OS my applications need.

It's weird. The lines between Mac OS X and Windows are really starting to blur. Here's another practical example: I'm also playing around with a development version of Myst Online: Uru Live, a GameTap game that uses Cider, TransGaming's virtualization technology for Mac OS X. Like Coherence in Parallels, it enables you to run a Windows application from Mac OS X, but unlike Parallels, it doesn't require you to have a full version of Windows installed -- instead, Cider encapsulates the Windows executable and makes it run as a Mac program.

Regardless, the Mac OS X experience -- and the Mac hardware experience -- is still so much better than Windows it's worth it. But I'd defy anyone to show me a laptop computer that's as powerful and as flexible as what I'm using today.

Posted by flargh at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So if Kim Jong-Il blows up the West Coast soon, it's my fault.

Last week I went out to dinner with some clients at Ozumo in San Francisco -- some of the best sushi in the city, and quite a scene on its own -- almost more of a night club than a restaurant.

One of the place's unique touches is that instead of piping in music in the bathrooms, they pipe in conversational Japanese lessons. During my few minutes there I learned that Watashi wa Cohen desu is "My name is ..."

So a few nights later I was riding in an elevator and I heard these three asian guys talking, and I decided to introduce myself.

"Watashi wa Cohen desu," I said.

Their eyes went wide.

"Oh no no no," said one of them, waggling his finger at me. "We're KOREAN."

Now, if I only knew "jwe-song-hahm nida" at the time...

Posted by flargh at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A week after returning from Macworld Expo and I'm finally starting to feel like a normal human being again.

I often return from San Francisco feeling really beaten up after a week of late nights and days on my feet, but this was a rare one. I got nailed with a double-whammy on the return trip: Not only did I get a headcold, which would have been bad enough on its own, but I got a severe stomach bug that's dogged me since last Saturday.

At first I thought it was food poisoning, but since then I've learned that there are a *lot* of people out there who have had really bad stomach problems for the past few weeks, so I presume that I caught whatever is going around from some other person -- some filthy bastard who failed to wash his or her hands properly at some point after using the rest room.

Posted by flargh at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Watching my kids play with their computers, I'm absolutely astounded by how much things have changed in the 30 years or so that PCs have been a part of my life.

My kids like to play games. With me as their dad that's probably no surprise, but it might interest you that the vast majority of the time they spend gaming on their computers is spent online -- typically in community sites specifically oriented to hosting games kids can play.

Compare this to 30 years ago, when I, as a 7 year old, was introduced to PCs through my "big brother" Ron's TRS-80 Model 1. If we wanted software, we had to program it ourselves and write it out to a cassette data recorder, at least until Radio Shack realized there was a cottage industry in this whole software thing.

Fast forward a few years to my first Macintosh -- a "Fat Mac" circa 1985 -- and the Apple 1200 baud modem I got from a friend, trading my entire TI-99/4A rig for it (a deal that I still say I got the upper hand in). I started tooling around on bulletin board systems and discovered you could download software from them, too. Though some of it was illegitimate, much of it was something I'd come to learn was "shareware," which meant that if I liked it, I was obliged to send the author a check (or sometimes just a post card, or something, to let him know that I'd tried it).

But for the most part, to satisfy my gaming jones, I'd buy software. El Gato, for example, the submarine simulator, or Dark Castle, or Deja Vu. Games were on floppy, then, post-Myst, CD-ROM, then, more recently, on DVD.

Now, however, monolithic games on disc are becoming a bit of an afterthought for my kids, as they find richer and richer gaming experiences online.

Sure, really intricate games are still the almost-exclusive domain of CDs and DVDs. But with digital distribution systems like Steam in full force on the PC, and burgeoning equivalents like Gamerhood, Deliver2Mac and others, it doesn't seem long from now that game discs all together will be a forgotten relic.

Posted by flargh at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

James:

"Daddy, I have a cough and a sore throat."

It's true. His voice is much raspier than usual.

"I sound like a murloc."

Posted by flargh at 06:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With more than two dozen people in attendance, I'd say the first planning meeting of the Mashpee Special Ed Parents Advisory Council was a great success.

It's been a long time coming -- there hasn't been a PAC in Mashpee in several years. There are a lot of reasons why, but most of them come down to the school district's insistence in meddling in it. Which is, in point of fact, not keeping with either the spirit or the letter of the law. Towns in Mass. have to have them, and they *have* to remain independent of the schools to which they're supposed to advise.

We were expecting a bunch of horror stories from folks; nothing brings people together like tragedy and misfortune, it seems, but I always also really pleased to see parents who *aren't* having a lot of problems with the special ed department also get involved, simply because it'll help balance out the perspectives that we all share with each other.

We formed off three different committees, each tasked with elements of getting the PAC up and running. I'm working on the operations committee while Bonnie is chairing the programming committee, and I think that's perfect: She's awesome at coordinating parent training, which is one of that group's mandates.

Anyway, I'm hoping we can maintain momentum going forward and attract new parents to the group so we can really turn this into something important and sustainable for the future growth of the town. Lord knows it's overdue.

Posted by flargh at 05:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After the green tea latte I had at Starbucks on Saturday night, I think I can safely say that unless it's an emergency, I'm done with that company, period.

I wasn't feeling particularly well this past weekend (more on that later -- some of what happened was absolutely legendary) so after dinner Jim and I popped into the Starbucks across our hotel for a beverage. In typical fashion he ordered a coffee. I almost always order a venti non-fat sugar free vanilla latte, but this time I decided that coffee or espresso wouldn't agree with my stomach, so I opted for a green tea latte instead.

Green tea. It's one of the most benign beverages on the planet, traditionally made from leaves that haven't been overly processed or oxidized. Some people say that green tea tastes like grass; others that it doesn't taste like anything at all. Either way, its health benefits have been documented for more than 1,000 years, and I've found that a good cup of green tea helps soothe my tummy if I'm feeling off.

I guess that Starbucks' idea of a green tea latte is something loosely based on matcha, the powdered green tea used in Japanese tea ceremonies, infused with what tasted disturbingly like a shot of some sort of melon-flavored syrup. Add copious amounts of hot, frothed milk and what you're left with ain't tea, folks. It's a syrupy soft drink.

After a few experimental sips, I opened up the cup. What I found within was downright terrifying. This frothing, protozoan mass of green liquid that more closely resembled some seaweed monster come to life than a proper cup of tea. It looked like a melted Shamrock Shake from McDonald's.

Leave it to Starbucks to totally bollox a simple cup of tea.

If I ever have to go there again, I'll opt for a bag of Tazo in a cup of hot water.

Posted by flargh at 05:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been remiss in my blogging responsibilities for the past few days as I've been in San Francisco for Macworld Expo, but I'm on the final leg of this journey, preparing to leave the hotel and head back home. I can't wait to sleep in my own bed and see my family.

This was a great week -- our annual MacBowl charity event raised $24,000 in equipment and cash for the Paul Revere Elementary School here in San Francisco to set up its own Mac lab. I'm the event's MC and it's always the most fun I have at the show every year.

I also saw some really cool stuff -- like our Best of Show award winners and tons of great software and accessories for Macs (and iPod gear too). In fact, it was an embarassment of riches. Despite Apple's lack of Mac-related news at this year's show, there was a lot of Mac-related news, including a few surprises, like Feral's acquisition of Lego Star Wars II. OWC/Axiotron's ModBook is an incredibly cool piece of hardware for artists who want to sketch or illustrate directly on a Macintosh screen. I love Gelaskin's iPod covers -- they've got the craziest artwork you've ever seen, and they don't bulk up the iPod unnecessarily.

As usual, there weren't enough hours in the day for me to see everything -- lots of meetings with vendors and after-hours events, but it was all worth it in the end. I'm very happy I came out and I'm looking forward to coming out again soon.

Posted by flargh at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night I attended a school committee meeting at Emmeline's school with several other special ed parents, mainly as a way of showing solidarity as we start to try to get a special ed parents' advisory council off the ground. The director of special ed was there and she was quite conciliatory towards us, which is good.

We've gotten some mixed signals from the superintendent, but I think in the end she'll have no choice but to accept us as the "real" SEPAC. She'd like us to think that we need the school's involvement to be legitimate, and while it's obviously of key importance that the SEPAC work with the special ed department, ultimately it's a parent's advisory council, not a committee appointed by the school. The whole reason for a SEPAC to exist is for parents to advise the special ed department (and other parents) about special ed needs in the town.

Our first general meeting will be later this month at the parish hall of the local Catholic church. We're hoping to get flyers distributed to parents in time, to get the word out, and as I told the folks who came last night, I think it'll be of key importance for us to get in the faces of everyone in town anyway we can, by putting up flyers in public areas, canvassing the public where we can and trying to get our message out to people in town.

My first step was to get a simple Web site up and running, which I have. Next will be to populate that site with more info (including this nifty SEPAC finder utility that my mother helped to make. We're planning on distributing a survey to get a handle on what the special ed parents in town want and need, as well.

Posted by flargh at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)