Darkness On The Edge Of Page
Posted on | March 10, 2008 at 7:00 pm | Comments Off
Once again, I’m going to tread on Josh’s territory and make some comments on some comic strips he and his commenters may have overlooked.
I was sickened and horrified today when I was reading my Rocky Mountain News during breakfast and awful, twisted images lept out at me from the comics page. It was like a theme today.
Cornered, 3/10/08
That little “…and sadistic” at the end just blew my little Corn Flakes-eating mind. We’re used to seeing executioners and guillotines in comic strips (doesn’t The Wizard Of Id have some running gags involving those?). But to openly admit that a death dealer is sadistic.. whoa! I think this is somehow a political comment about our administration’s policy on torture.
But that’s nothing compared to this:
Brevity, 3/10/08
A young disabled woman in a wheelchair, virginity intact, is being sent to her death, but has to figure out her own way to get there. Now that’s comedy gold! Again, this is probably a political comment about how political correctness has gone too far.
And then finally there was this:
Lio, 3/10/08
So, our hero Lio has basically condemned some more elderly soul to an immediate death. That’s… that’s… um… a political statement about how this country views our seniors. Yeah.
Actually, I did think all three of these were pretty funny, which is a pretty mean feat in these days of bland status quo comic strips. A little pushing-the-envelope is always welcome. I just can’t wait for the Letters to the Editor to start rolling in…
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 32°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Quiet Planet” (Bill Nelson)
- “Norfolk Coast” (Stranglers)
- “All In A Day’s Work” (The Posies)
- “Australia” (Manic Street Preachers)
- “Song from a Box” (Possum Dixon)
- “The Beginning” (The Features)
- “Hesitation” (Gutterball)
Latre.
My Nemesis
Posted on | March 9, 2008 at 11:13 pm | 5 Comments
That Steve guy – he really burns me up. First, he has to post a blog entry every day since 10/30/07, just because I’m doing it. Then, he goes out and buys an iPod Touch the day after I buy an iPhone. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Well, at least he can’t make calls on his iTouch. Though he does have twice as much memory. The other cool thing in regards to the iPhone vs the iTouch is that I don’t need a WiFi connection to surf the Internet or get e-mail. If there’s no WiFi in range, it will use AT&T’s (pokey) EDGE network to access the Internet. It’s adequate, but not real exciting. I just couldn’t wait for the rumored 3G model this summer though.
So, anyway, it’s time to up the ante for Steve. Here’s what I’m doing next. Let’s see him copy these!
1) Watching every episode of The Love Boat on DVD.
2) Viewing the famed (and ill-fated, at least for its creator) DIA “Mustang” statue on foot.
3) Forgetting to shave two days in a row.
3) Touring the remains of the Gates Rubber factory.
4) Talking on the telephone during a thunderstorm.
5) Eating a KFC Bowl.
6) Winning PowerBall. There’s a lot of gadgets I can buy with $230 million.
Okay, Steve, go for it! Step Up.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Short weekends!
Latre.
UnSuper Humility
Posted on | March 8, 2008 at 5:14 pm | 3 Comments
This morning, I was watching the series finale of The Batman, which is a much weaker cartoon than the old Batman: The Animated Series. So I’m not surprised it didn’t last as long. Anyway, this one hour finale was a Justice League-centric episode and had a bunch of the JLA heroes, including Superman. Suddenly, though I’ve never felt this way before, it was strange hearing everyone else call Superman “Superman”. I started thinking about that. I know that Supes didn’t pick his name – the press or the public or whatever did – but he’s kind of a humble guy and it seems odd that he would want to be referred to as that. All the other heroes have names that don’t suggest any sort of intrinsic worth: “Batman”, “Green Arrow”, “Hawkman”, “The Atom”, etc. Yet the name “Superman” really says a lot about what someone thinks of himself. Maybe he should’ve gone with “Flying Guy” or something.
But then again, he was the first, so maybe he deserves it…
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 39°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse” (Of Montreal)
- “Sleep” (Garbage)
- “Seven Seas” (Echo & the Bunnymen)
- “What If I Knew” (Dinosaur Jr.)
- “A Place We Pray For” (Channel Light Vessel)
- “Saint Julian” (Julian Cope)
- “Sisters Eyes” (Gem)
Latre.
Frogs Reducks?
Posted on | March 7, 2008 at 9:36 pm | Comments Off
Rumor has it that Reign of Frogs bandmate DJ Smallberries and his wife will be moving back from Mississippi to Denver this summer. Does this mean that there’s a band reunion in the offing? Some new material after 8 years? Hmmmmm…. never say never…
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 30°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Meaning” (China Drum)
- “In My Dreams” (Scanners)
- “Kill the Power” (Snowden)
- “Holding Me Down” (Buzzcocks)
- “Mozart Sonatas” (Loud Family)
- “Desperate Man” (Chris Stamey)
- “Boys Wanna Fight” (Garbage)
Lots more people out jogging and walking this morning, even though with the wind chill factor it was possibly colder than yesterday when it was 16° and there was no one out.
Latre.
Re-Gadgeted
Posted on | March 6, 2008 at 9:55 pm | 6 Comments
Despite what I said about it in yesterday’s post, I went out and bought an 8GB iPhone today. Fahey pushed me into it, since she was the only one who made a suggestion (InfK’s Android suggestion didn’t quite do it for me, since there’s not much there yet). Though I didn’t get Fahey one too like she asked. I doubt they even work in Australia. Anyway… It was today’s announcement about the release of the iPhone SDK and the impending third party apps that tipped the device over into my favor. Yeah, the PIM capabilities are very rudimentary, but they’re okay for the simple stuff, and I can still use the Palm for the complicated stuff until those third party apps come along. Although the Palm’s bluetooth keyboard disintegrated into little bits of plastic today (another factor that weighed into my decision).
The iPhone is pretty cool, though I have yet to try out most of it’s capabilities so far. I can see the text input is going to take some getting used to, but I think I’m already getting the hang of the virtual keyboard. I was at least able to import my contacts from the Palm Desktop (through syncing with Yahoo Address Book), but I’m still stuck for calendar syncing/importing until I get Outlook. Just like if I had gone with a Windows Mobile Device. Yes, an Apple product depends on a Microsoft product.
So, I’m going to cut this short so I can play with it some more and watch tonight’s Lost and finish my laundry.
Tomorrow I’ve got some more exciting news!
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 16°F*)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Pearls (Submarine #2)” (Starlight Mints)
- “Losing All Control” (Rooney)
- “Signal in the Sky (Let’s Go)” (The Apples In Stereo)
- “Pandora At Sea” (Shalini)
- “Most Of Us Prizefighters” (A.C. Newman)
- “Girl From Mars” (Ash)
- “Take Me Down” (Loud Family)
* – For once, I didn’t see a single other jogger or dog walker this morning when I was running. I presume this was because of the cold temps, but usually that doesn’t stop everybody.
Latre.
Smartphone Me
Posted on | March 5, 2008 at 10:52 pm | 3 Comments
I’ve repeatedly gushed about my Palm T|X PDA, but lately I’ve been thinking about replacing it with a smartphone. My current cell phone contract is up and my old Motorola RAZR is on its last legs. The T|X itself is falling victim to the dreaded digitizer problem, where the touchscreen is not working very well. And the second keyboard I bought for it is falling apart. The first one, an infrared keyboard, had problems almost from the beginning. The second one, a bluetooth keyboard, has not dealt well with being carried around in my backpack and has not held up. It is literally falling apart, and almost every day a new piece comes off it. Plus, I’m just getting tired of carrying around two devices all the time. It’s especially hard in the warm months, because then I don’t have a jacket pocket to put the PDA in. And I really do need the PDA with me all the time because I have to keep referring to it for information, mostly about the stuff I do for my dad. I keep pretty extensive notes about his financial and medical issues, not to mention all the account numbers and passwords and such in an encrypted database.
There are a lot of smartphone choices out there, but it really comes down to either Palm OS or Windows Mobile for the operating system. One thing I like about those is the ability to install third party apps on them. There isn’t much out there in the way of third party apps for Symbian OS and Blackberry. (I really don’t like the Blackberry screens too.) It appears I’m in a weird position, because the important things to me are 1) being able to make calls and 2) organizing information. I don’t care about media (the strength of the Symbian world); I don’t need to play music or videos or games on my phone/PDA and chew up battery power. That’s what the iPod and the PSP/DS are for. I don’t even really care about e-mail or web browsing (the big thing on Blackberries), since I usually don’t want to do that when I’m out and about or at work. I just want to be able to make calls and review/update/enter information. I want something that makes it easy to enter information without a separate keyboard or touchscreen/digitizer pad. A full QWERTY keypad on the device is pretty much essential, but it has to be somewhat comfortable to type on. I’m comfortable with not having a touchscreen on the smartphone, as that doesn’t really work out too well anyway. I’ve found that using a stylus is kind of annoying.
My current carrier is AT&T, but I can be persuaded to switch if there’s reason enough, and if it’s not going to cost me too much. (I get a discount on my monthly bill from work if I use AT&T or Verizon.)
I’m not sure about staying in the Palm world, partly because I think Palm OS is on the way out, and partly because I think they don’t make very good hardware (re: the TX digitizer problem, and both of the keyboards, which were Palm-branded). I want something a little more future proof. The Treos look okay, but I’m not quite sure they’re my thing. The new Palm Centro is cute and compact, but I think the keyboard is too small and wouldn’t be comfortable to type on for very long. And the screen is too small. But the big advantage of sticking with the Palm world is that I would be able to use the same data without having to convert it, and would not have to re-buy a lot of applications, especially if I neutered the T|X in the process and moved the apps from it to the new device. Note that I would still probably keep the T|X around for eBooks, WiFi web browsing, and a few other things that the bigger screen is nice for.
So that pretty much leaves me with the Window Mobile world. Many of the apps I use on my Palm have WM versions available, and I may even be able to transfer some of the data directly to those. One of the applications on my T|X that I count on is DateBk6, a Personal Information Manager application. There’s no WM version of it, but there is a PIM for WM called Pocket Informant that looks pretty similar (maybe even better) that I would probably want to use. However, the problem with using any PIM on a WM machine, including PIM extenders like Pocket Informant, is that in order to sync up the PIM data with a PC, you must have Microsoft Outlook installed on your PC. I don’t have that. I use Eudora for my e-mail and the various Palm applications for contact, calendar, memo and task data. So if I went to WM, I’d have to buy Outlook for my home PC (I don’t want to sync with my work PC, which does have Outlook), and I’d only be using it for the PIM capabilities and not for e-mail. I really dislike the way Outlook does e-mail. I just really need to be able to backup the data on the PC and modify it/enter it there as well as on the PDA. I also don’t care much about modifying Word/Excel/PowerPoint documents, which is a big draw of the WM (and to some extent, Palm) world. The business functions of a smartphone don’t appeal to me, though it appears that smartphones cater exclusively to that market. No one makes a really good personal smartphone, from what I can tell. Nevertheless, I’m leaning heavily towards Windows Mobile. And though I’m not keen on hitching my PDA wagon to Microsoft, I think WM has a brighter future than Palm (not to mention bigger market penetration).
I’ve played around with the Motorola Q Global (which runs WM) and I like it a lot, but I haven’t taken the plunge yet. The screen is pretty big and the keyboard is comfortable. The phone is slim and not too big, and I think I would be okay with it in most pants or jacket pockets. It gets fairly decent reviews. But again, I’m not too keen on having to buy Outlook.
So… does anybody have any suggestions? I’ve done a lot of research on this, but still haven’t completely made up my mind. It’s daunting, but I need to do something soon.
Latre.
Edit: Yes, I’ve thought about the Apple iPhone, especially since it looks like it will be getting some decent third party application support, but it’s a bit out of my price range right now and I don’t think the PIM capabilities are quite up there yet. And I’m not sure about the virtual keyboard, though it looks like it might be pretty easy to use.
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