Saw Jeff's band Thief Thief play at Mama Buzz in Oakland tonight, and was surprised at how good they were. Much better than their recordings on their MySpace page, and they've certainly come a long way from their early days.
I have to admit I had my doubts because it's not exactly my kind of music, but I should have known better. Go Jeff!
Helped Danny celebrate his upcoming nuptual last weekend. It started with a round of frisbee golf in Golden Gate Park, and then it was back to his place in Belmont where we took it upon ourselves to get him rip-roaring drunk. I think we did a pretty good job...
The picture on the left is how I recall the end of the poker game. The picture on the right is how Danny recalls the end of the poker game. More incriminating shots available on request, and video is available for a fee...
Joss Whedon's at it again. This time it's a musical. A supervillain musical! It's good, but it's going away soon. To a DVD that is. The three acts are only going to be free to watch online for a limited time, so don't delay. Unless you're the kind who likes to wait and get the entire season on DVD. Then you should probably just wait.
When my shiny new Dell Studio 17 finally arrived in the mail a few days ago, I was like a kid in a candy store. So shiny! Alas, reality is slowly setting in and the candy's melting.
I've no real complaints about the core of the notebook itself. The screen is gorgeous although I've some concerns on how well the new hinge will hold up after extended use.
What's driving me batty right now is the new keyboard and touch pad. I've only seen positive comments about the new keyboard in reviews floating around the net, so I have to wonder if those reviewers actually do much typing on their notebooks. The problem is that they've added a dedicated number pad on the right, just like a standard standalone keyboard. Sounds good, right? Not for me:
And don't get me started on the software. It came with Windows Vista installed, and it is my first real experience with the new "improved" OS. What a load of crock. I now totally understand everyone's complaints with it. It seems hell bent on making it twice as hard to accomplish anything other than starting up applications. I'll try and live with it for a couple of weeks, but I haven't really encountered any redeeming qualities so far.
In both cases, my complaints are against the UI. I've come to expect certain modes of interaction, and I'm easily annoyed when those expectations aren't met. While in the back of my mind I'm wondering if it's because I'm getting old and set in my ways, I can't see too many good reasons for the changes that have been made, other than perhaps "it looks cooler," which is not a good reason in my book when you sacrifice functionality.
When I first found out that I could get a new notebook at work, I thought it was a blessing. Silly, silly me.
Due to the way the budget is set up, I had to order the notebook before the end of June or the money would just disappear into some accounting black hole. Not a problem, I thought. I'd always been a fan of Dells, surely they'd have an updated version of my current Inspiron 9400 I could get. After all, I'd fairly simple requirements:
After much research, I realized that I had very few choices. #1 rules out most notebooks. Dell, in their infinite wisdom, decided to remove the DVI outputs on their 17" Inspirons, so those were out, and their XPS's are just ridiculously heavy. Lenovo and Gateway notebooks all break rule #3. The only thing I could find that met all my requirements was something from HP's business line.
Unfortunately, at almost twice the price of anything else, the HP notebook wasn't quite going to fit into the budget unless I cut out on more options that I really wanted to. A few days before the deadline though, Dell announced their new Studio line, which pretty much gave me everything I wanted in a slightly lighter package to boot. Problem solved! Or so I thought...
Been reading a lot of thrillers lately. Seem to have found some reliable writers in Clive Cussler, Jack Du Brul and Steve Berry. Short, fast paced, and just enough of an escape... probably in response to the fact that our tivo has died and we haven't watched any tv in a while.
Steve Berry's books have the added benefit of being educational since they're borderline historical fiction, and he takes care to inform readers exactly what's real and what's a figment of his imagination in the appendix.
Now that Obama's the nominee I'm paying a bit more attention to how he's voting on major issues. So far, it's not been too good -- he voted for the FISA Ammendment Act. Booo!
For the record, McCain also voted for the ammendment, while Hillary voted against.
Hope: 0
Disappointment: 1
Time to do something that will require a bit more effort: no more paper cups. I'm a coffee fan, and while I'd love to drink coffee from a real cup, more often than not I find myself getting it to go, which means I end up using either a paper or plastic cup. This month I'm going to give that up as much as possible. This means being prepared and traveling with one of those travel mugs.
I've not quite decided yet if I'm going to go so far as to say that if I don't have my travel mug I'll just skip the drink. I'll have to play it by ear and see how frequently this problem crops up.
Today I learned... that if I ride my motorcycle around with a bottle of root beer in the trunk, it will have exploded by the time I get to my destination.
