Free Hockey Chicken?

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

This is as true today as it was when I posted it almost four years ago:-)

After seeing this review of the Tivoli PAL on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools site, I purchased an “iPAL” (the one that matches my iPod in color). It has totally lived up to my expectations, being the perfect bedroom companion to my iPod. It’s nice because it takes up very little space on my nightstand, but still has fantastic sound within the volume range I want when I am in bed or getting ready to go somewhere. The bonus is the built-in radio, which I have found myself using more than I thought I would. I haven’t used the battery to take it elsewhere, but I could see taking it to the pool, or using it in a hotel room on the road since it is fairly small. If you are looking for a small speaker output for your iPod, this item may very well be the perfect item to fill your need.

As you doubtless know, Apple updated the iPod line today with a different, smaller form factor, and cheaper prices. Of course, since I already have a 40 GB 3g model, I’m more interested in finding out if they plan on updating the OS on my iPod to add the new menu functionality we can see on the 4g models. They have previously not updated the OS on earlier models when they went from 2g to 3g, but there were a lot fewer iPods then than there are now. It’s an operating system, and we deserve operating system updates, within reason for our hardware, in my opinion, for our investment. The most recent update does not add the new menus.

Steven Johnson puts his finger on the features missing from this new generation in light of the newly shipping Airport Express units. I seem to remember that Jobs hinted that this was a gap that Apple planned to fill.

Now that Kobe has re-signed with Lakers, and the stupidest trade in the history of the NBA has sent Shaq to Miami, and Phil Jackson is relaxing on a ranch somewhere meditating, maybe we can go a couple of days without having to hear about the team that lost in this year’s NBA finals. History will look unfavorably on all this stuff in a few years, I guarantee. Even if Kobe is acquitted, and there is no way to be certain about that, the Lakers are one of the lower echelon playoff teams in the West now. Miami should be the third or fourth best team in the East now, depending on matchups and injuries.

I've been a Lakers fan since I was twelve years old. Growing up in New England, I think I gravitated to the Lakers simply because everyone around me was a Celtics' fan during the great rivalry run between the two teams. Now, I feel like I want to break one of the cardinal rules of sports, and switch to being a fan of a different team out of disgust and revulsion. I've only done this once before, when the Whalers were moved out of Hartford, but under those circumstances, I felt it was justified.

I’m on a very odd sleep schedule because of The 2004 Open Championship.

House Votes to Block Aid for Saudi Arabia. What? Why are we giving the Saudis money in the first place? They can’t afford to train their own troops with all that oil money?

I spent the weekend up in the big city; went to a Yankees game, did some shopping in Soho, and spent a lot of quality time with my younger brother. I always seem to come back to Atlanta from these trips exhausted, but mentally recharged. Anyway, I’m now trying to catch up with email, rss feeds and a work plan for the week. I will probably not get caught up with posts here until tomorrow or Wednesday.

bumptious

I had to have a repairman come yesterday and replace the fan in the HVAC system at my house. The prospect of even another day in the hot Atlanta summer without AC, or even a fan to move air, was a dreadful one. I called the HVAC company up, and set up an “afternoon” appointment. The polite and helpful operator told me that they would come by “some time after noon,” and that they would call me about twenty minutes before their arrival. I decided to work from home so that I would be sure to be there when they arrived.

Around 2:30p.m., I called them to make sure that my appointment was definitely scheduled. I was told that it was and that they didn't know at that point when, exactly, they would be arriving. Around 6:30 p.m., I called again to make sure that they were still coming out, and they were. Around 8 p.m., there was a knock at my door, and the repairman was outside. At this point, he then made the repair, and I now have working HVAC and a much more comfortable house. Grand total of time between the waiting and the repair, just over nine hours.

What I don't understand, is why this method of scheduling home repairs, cable appointments, etc.. is still acceptable in this age of technology. Not only did I have to spend about 8 hours of my time just waiting around that were not necessary, but I then had to pay them for the repair. It's not that I don't understand that there is some level of variation in the amount of time things like HVAC repairs take, but rather that that variation is within a set of easy to establish parameters. Given those parameters, it should be pretty easy to give people a one or two hour window, still keep all of your repairmen busy, and not waste too much gas doing so. All I know is that I would have appreciated the ability to go into work for the full day, which I could have done.

The sad thing about this, to me, is that Moncrief, the company in question, did great work. Everyone was polite, answered my questions honestly, and the price I was charged was reasonable. I don't think I will call them again though, I don't have have enough extra time to wait around that much, this is compounded by the fact that I am a single guy trying to keep up with the responsibilities of a hous eby myself. Am I wrong to find this sort of thing disrespectful to me and the value of my time?

I am certain you will never read this, but it would have been ten years today. I’m not holding on, just waxing sentimental, as I have a tendency to do. Some of the best years of my life so far, to be sure, but certainly also some of the worst.

Wow, Dave Kopel has an essay that lists 59 Michael Moore deceits put forth in F9/11. I read through most of this article this evening, and it casts some doubts in my mind about Moore’s means of achieving his goals in the film. I’ll be interested to see if there will be any sort of answer to this piece from Moore’s camp, especially since he has assembled a “team” to deal with this sort of thing.

(Via NSLog();.)

Maria did it. It was only her tenth tournament, and she beat Serena, arguably proving herself to anyone who might doubt her.

Sharapova stuns Davenport to advance to her first ever Grand Slam final. Now, one might say that the fellows at the office and I got interested in watching her play for reasons that are best described as “typically male”, but after watching a profile on her and her life, I’ve become something of a fan, and have been pulling her through the entire draw. Her intensity is contagious.

This trailer for The Corporation, a documentary about corporate entities, looks very very interesting. Although, I will say that it looks as if the people who made the film were not completely unbiased. I wonder if that means it isn’t a documentary? (That last bit was sarcastic.)

Joystiq has a link to a clip from the new Fight Club game. It looks very good, and not surprisingly, exceedingly violent. I especially enjoyed the X-Ray effect.

Dave Hyatt continues to add to our perspective about Dashboard with his most recent post, which compares Dashboard to the sidebar panels in Mozilla, liberated from the browser window.

Mr. Gruber has a very well thought out and articulated essay about the whole Dashboard rips off Konfabulator debate. The essay does a fantastic job of putting things in a historical perspective. If you are a relative youngster to the whole Mac OS thing, I highly recommend you read this essay, you will learn something. I’ve been using Macs since 1987, and this essay jogged quite a few things in my memory that I had forgotten.

Dave Hyatt says “widgets are HTML+CSS+JS. They are not some JS-only thing.” The interesting thing in this post, however, is the mention further down the post about Flash and Quicktime.

Atlanta Time Machine (via Kottke) “The Atlanta Time Machine website is dedicated to examining the history of Atlanta, Georgia  by comparing vintage photographs of Atlanta with much more contemporary images shot, more or less, from the same perspective of the original photographer.” This is really neat stuff, these are perspectives that I drive or see on a daily basis. The sheer number of them is incredible.

Apple Previews Mac OS X Server ‘Tiger’: “Weblog Server is fully compatible with Safari RSS in Mac OS X Tiger and makes publishing a weblog as simple as checking a box in Server Admin preferences. Weblog Server is based on the popular open source project ‘Blojsom’” You can find out more about Blojsom here.

Andy has some insightful comments about the design of the RSS Aggregator that Apple built into Safari 2.0. There is also an eWeek story on the subject, which explains that both Atom and RSS will be supported by Safari.

Bacardi buys Grey Goose. I find this stuff fascinating. I also find a Grey Goose and Tonic with lime quite delicious. Since I stopped smoking, I have been drinking less too.

I went to the supermarket tonight, I have a friend visiting from California this weekend, and I wanted to make sure I had Diet Coke, the beverage of choice, in the fridge. Oddly, when I got to the supermarket, they were completely out of Diet Coke. However, they had tons and tons of Coke’s new C2 mid-carb beverage. It made me wonder if they were trying to boost sales of C2 by making it the only choice available to people who would normally drink Diet Coke.