A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

It seems as though the masses in Maryland have risen up and stated that they will no longer drive like sane people. In the last couple days, throughout the monsoon we've had, I have seen several instances of people deciding that they don't like their cars and crashing them into objects not moving at even remotely nearly the same speed. Today, the inspiration for this, somebody apparently decided to turn the wheel and drive directly into a metal guardrail that was fifteen feet from the road. Yesterday, somebody wanted to see what it would be like without an engine and slammed into the car in front, compressing the engine's compartment. The day before, something similar happened, only the person who crashed decided it would be fun to see what the car in front of him looked like without a trunk.

For no apparent reason, also, this week's commute has been miserable. My poor clutch.

On a more somber note, this week and next are going to be hard. They already are for me. We're having a gathering on Saturday to celebrate what would have been our baby's birthday. We feel like it's the right thing to do. We don't want a service or a wake because those are too formal. We just want to remember him and acknowledge that he would have been here.

Some other people don't seem to think this is a good idea, or else give me the impression that they feel awkward about it. We didn't want that to be the case. We just want to have the people who are important to us around for it if they can be here. We're going to be upset, but we wanted to show them that they are important to us, and that they've really meant a lot to us and really helped us deal with this as well as we have. It's as much to show them we care about them as it is to remember Andrew.

Sometimes it feels like the pain will never stop...

If You Bend Me, Do I Not Charge?

This is brilliant! I want one. I'd buy it just to support use of the inherent underlying technology.

It's an awesome cell phone! I don't even know what the phone's capabilities are, but it's awesome! All I do know is that it's kinetically charged. What's it mean? "Hey, my phones running low on battery. Hold on a sec..." followed by the protagonist violently folding his phone repeatedly to charge it.

The screen bends, the keys are OK with the bending. I have to wonder what kind of actual electronics are in it, but guess what! They bend! Three cheers for Kyocera!

Apple: The Jerks That Know How to Design UIs

WARNING: RANT AHEAD!

That's it. I'm pretty sick of arbitrary limitations and restrictions. I had an idea for an iPhone application. Today, I decided to look up how to do it. It turns out that Apple doesn't have an API for bluetooth for the iPhone. I don't get it. Why do they arbitrarily restrict things? "Oh, here you go. You can have a steak, but you can't have a knife or fork to eat it with!" That might as well be Apple's motto. It would probably be the prettiest steak ever, too, and very user friendly. How would steak be user friendly, anyway?

Some other highlights from Apple...

• "Here's our BSD-based OS with a really well-designed user interface, but you can't install it on just any computer. You have to buy one of ours for a serious markup!"
  
• "Meet the iPhone. It has a fantastic user interface, but sorry, you can't use it to store files or take videos. Oh, and the camera has no zoom. We know the phone looks pretty, but we're going to restrict the hardware just because we're dicks!"
  
• "Check out the iPod. Guess what! No file storage. Only songs."
  
• "iTunes! We're going to sell you files with DRM on them so that you can only use an iPod or iTunes to listen to them."

This is a short list, and there are many many more issues. I just can't think of them through the fiery red haze clouding my thoughts.

What are the alternatives for somebody like me? Microsft "the Devil" and Linux "the raw contender." I have had enough of Apple's business practices. I had enough of Microsoft a long time ago, but that's for another time. Linux is free, at least. Ideologically, Linux is our friend. It just needs a bit of professional help to get to the masses. Ubuntu is a good start, but still falls a bit short. Fedora is becoming Microsoft. Slackware is nowhere near ready. I haven't seen hide nor hair of Mandriva or Suse in a long time.

If I could just get my own operating system going...

Random Daily Thought

Conversations should be called sequiturs. Definitely. Non sequiturs need places to belong.

There's a bird chewing on my beanie. Perhaps cleaning her beak. Squawking.

Insanity Ensues

It's been two days of pure hilarity and insanity. As always, a few tears mixed in, but they've been the norm recently. The hilarity and insanity have not.

Yesterday was Sunday. The plan was, beginning at Amanda's house, to bottle beer, eat lunch, go for a walk, and brew beer. We got to her place, went to Safeway for supplies, and came back to prepare a tasty lunch of quesadillas.

Halfway through sauteing veggies, Amanda realized that we forgot to purchase one of the things necessary for quesadillas; black beans. So, back to the store. We then, after purchasing all sorts of ingredients, forgot to use half of them. Just forgot they were there. Avocado? Forgot it. Enchilada sauce? Forgot that too. Black beans in the first place? Forgot them? Wow.

We then bottled beer. Bottling sugar, you ask? Nope, I forgot to add it. Fortunately, Amanda caught it early enough that it wasn't a problem?

Walk time. We went to an arboretum in Columbia. It began with the Girl and Amanda saying something like, "Hey! Go run quickly down that hill!" I did, and proceeded to roll my ankle pretty badly no more than thirty seconds into our walk. Fortunately, it sorted itself out and only two of my toes are black and blue. No long term damage, I think.

Later on, I got to climb a few trees. That's a dying art, I think. Not nearly enough people climb trees these days. They're meant to be climbed.

Notice at this point that all that has happened and it's only about 4:00 on Sunday.

We had Chinese food at what might as well be called "Super Awesome Chinese Food Place" in Columbia, and then we went back to Amanda's and began brewing a wheat beer. That went relatively smoothly, and so we'll have the tastiness sometime around the end of April.

At some point that evening, something like this happened:

G: What are you doing?
J: Sitting in the bedroom that's not a bedroom. Because it has a window that's not a window!

This was in reference to the cat room.

We then watched a flick and went to bed. After all, it was a work night.

Even before the next day happened, weirdness hit. We were awoken at 4 AM by a police chase in Columbia. I'm pretty sure it was a police chase because I heard a siren, and I also heard an engine that couldn't have had more the four or six cylinders rev up prior to the peak point of the Doppler effect of the police siren.

A few hours later, I got up, got infused, and hit work for about an hour. I came back with lunch for the Girl and myself, and then we proceeded to fall asleep again (which sounds nice right about now). Amanda came home, and the true business began...

See, the reason we stayed over at Amanda's to begin with was that I didn't want to drive all over creation prior to taking the children of the Alleys climbing. So, we got to Earth Treks, took Lindsay and Lori climbing, and generally had a nice time. Afterward, the Alleys and we (the Girl and I) went to dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger, where everything that could be thrown or spilled was thrown or spilled. Everybody enjoyed though.

At that point, we had to turn around and go back to Amanda's to get the Girl's purse. On the way back, we learned that the other missing item, Amanda's digital camera, had turned up... in her refrigerator?!?!? Not somewhere I usually put electronics, or anything other than food really.

Tomorrow, normalcy should ensue. It was a nice diversion from some of the rougher points in life recently, however, and it is yet another reminder among many that we are surrounded by wonderful people in our lives.

She Does It Again!

J: "I like water. It's like cold tea with no flavor."

She's a riot. It's great.

I have decided to share a few of these with everybody because I feel it's unfair keeping this kind of humor to myself. It's just too funny for one person.

Daily Dialogue

G: "The guy who played Rorschach is going to play Freddy Krueger. Good casting, huh?"
J: "Yeah. I can see that. In what?"
G: (pauses) "In the remake of Wizard of Oz!"
J: (laughter ensues)

So a conversation like this happens probably every day. I'm just not usually in front of my computer to share the marvelous humor with the world.

The Best Laid Plans...

Fortuity can be fiendish. Not always in a good way, either. Such was the case Sunday night. The Girl and I had dinner guests. It had been our plan for quite some time to have them over to make steaks (from Costco!!), because I've finally learned how to make a pretty mean steak.

At least, I can make a mean steak when higher beings don't mess with my time table. I started cooking the steaks around 6:15. The steaks should have been done at 6:31. At 6:21, we ran out of propane for the grill.

So, on a Sunday evening after 6 PM, I went out, accompanied by Lindsay, one of the daughters of our guests. Thinking that somewhere other than Home Depot had to have propane, we started.

Mars didn't.
BP didn't.
Lauer's didn't.
Shell #1 didn't.
Safeway didn't.
Giant didn't.
Shell #2 didn't.

Finally, on stop number eight, Shell #3 had propane. Granted, this was some pretty expensive propane, but it was propane nonetheless. So, Lindsay and I made our triumphant return, propane in hand, at 7:30 or so. The steaks finally got done. We finally ate. Longest steaks ever.

The Girl says there's always something to say, but I don't know what. Today was the first time in probably over a month that I've gotten to just sit on my keister and not be excessively stressed out about anything. It was nice. Despite it, lots seemed to happen today...

• The Girl named her latest scarf, and we all lost our composure. I miss my son immensely
  
• Amanda spent the day here. It was remarkably pleasant, and I'm really glad she did
  
• College roommate Forrest's computer is not fully functional. I feel bad for him
  
• We caught up on Dollhouse
  
• Castle is an awesome show, but ABC's player is so unbelievably bad
  
• We had ice cream for lunch
  
• We had pizza for dinner
  
• We bought tickets to Jonathan Coulton, who is coming to the Birchmere in May.
  
• REI has my climbing shoes, but not in my size, so I can't buy them
  

Of it all, the "pizza for dinner" story bears explanation because Hell may have frozen over. We had pizza for dinner because (1) the Girl chose dinner, and (2) the Girl actually wanted pizza. Neither of these things happens on any given day. Both may as well be a sign of the coming apocalypse.

ABC's on-line video player really irritated me. It stutters. It's useless. Hulu just dumps you to ABC's website, too, so nobody can win.

Yup! That's a relaxing day.

Consumer Hell

Stores are on my hit list. Every retail store in existence has become a waste of time. If not all of them, then at least electronics ones. The Internets are taking over. The only time I ever even attempt to go to a store is when I want something immediately. Today was such a case. I wanted a SATA cable or two. Seeing that crappy vendor one had them online for cheap, I figured I would just stop at the store next time I was nearby. Tonight was that time.

Needless to say, I failed miserably. Or rather, crappy vendor one failed miserably. "We only have it online." Had I known, I'd have ordered it days ago and suffered the shipping costs. Now, alas, I benefit from neither the time with the cable nor the lack of shipping costs.

So, in tandem with Best Buy sucking and Circuit City (not that it was any particular gem) going under, retail electronic stores are dead. I'm not sure whether others are as well, but I'm wondering...