Circadian

Back in September, we laid down the cash for a condo rental in Vegas. Just a bit off-strip, but not unbearably so, it came to just a hair over $180 for the week – one of the benefits of being timeshare owners, I guess.

I wondered, at the time, just how much it was going to cost to fly there – you see, the week we have is from 11/23 through 11/30 – the week of Thanksgiving. All of the flights were looking really, really bad for when we wanted to fly. But we did some tweaking and got into a pair of tickets just the other night for a pretty good deal. Certainly significantly better than the $580 we had been looking at.

Now I’ve found us a rental car, again through the timeshare company, for a meagre $140 for the duration of our stay, which, thankfully, we won’t have to pay out of pocket for until we’re there. Add to that the costs of eating, drinking and being merry, and we have a very exciting vacation planned.

And let me tell you, it beats the hell out of staying in Denver and cooking turkey for two.

During most political seasons, you’ll see polls about the type of person that the public will or will not vote for, regardless of the rest of their politics. In most of them, you learn that for all that Americans think of themselves as forward-thinking and advanced, atheists start out with, per this poll from 2007, 53% of people automatically discounting them as being someone they could vote for. That’s right – disavow the existence of god, and over half of the populace wouldn’t vote for you even if your politics perfectly jibed with them.

And then today I learn that atheism is sexy. Yes, while your public atheism will get you onto the do-not-vote list, it can also get you a date, with it increasing the chances of your first-message being read and replied to on Ok Cupid’s dating website.

So, let me get this straight. If I don’t believe in god, people trust me enough to want to date me, but not enough to vote for me. Please tell me there are other extenuating circumstances!

Twitter seemed a little odd when it first came out. I tried it then and failed. Tried again a couple months later and still didn’t get it.

Now, third time seems to be the charm. I’ve found some uses for the darned program after all.

First, Twitter seems unintentionally designed for comedy. The 140-character one-liner. The setup tweet, followed by the punch-line tweet. While blogging is more of a monologue, Twitter is perfect for the quick one-two punch.

Second, with the number of famous people who seem to have really come to love Twitter, it’s yet another way to connect with people that you are interested in. Sure, there are some who use it as yet another marketing tool, but the ones who are really successful are the ones who use it like the rest of us do.

Finally, yes, it can be a great advertising tool. We’re planning travel, so I’m following airlines. Sure, it won’t last, but they’ve got me for the short term.

Most of my married friends now have children, the rewards of which appear to be exclusively intangible and, like the mysteries of some gnostic sect, incommunicable to outsiders. In fact it seems from the outside as if these people have joined a dubious cult: they claim to be much happier and more fulfilled than ever before, even though they live in conditions of appalling filth and degradation, deprived of the most basic freedoms and dignity, and owe unquestioning obedience to a capricious and demented master.

I have never even idly thought for a single passing second that it might make my life nicer to have a small, rude, incontinent person follow me around screaming and making me buy them stuff for the rest of my life.

– Tim Kreider, “The Referendum“, NY Times, 9/17/09

To this I would only add that I know that not all children are like this, nor do the ones who are stay that way, but we are talking about perception here.

And that, in another similarity to having joined a cult, parents seem unable to avoid proselytizing. To put an uncharitable spin on it, parents are like someone who has made a dubious purchase: they seem intent on speaking only of the intangible benefits, luring others into the same decision in an attempt to dilute their own foolishness in numbers in a very “misery loves company” sort of way. Or, more charitably, to vindicate their decision has having been the “right” one to make.

I do take umbrage with some of the article, however. Rapidly approaching 40, and reading about the recent flowering of a friend of mine who, I suspect is approaching 50 [Edit -- in fact she is past 50, according to her blog. What an odd pair we made when I was 20 and she in her 30's. Was it simply that we were both 'non-traditional' students?], I simply can’t accept the notion that, as quoted in the article, “Acts demolish their alternatives.” In this day and age, there are no limits to what a person can choose to do. We do not need to ossify as time goes by, and in fact, I finally find myself in a place where I can start doing some of those things I always wanted to do, but considered secondary to the more mundane issues of career.

No, I may feel a palpable, green jealousy over having not been the one who articulated the quotation that begins this discussion, but I certainly can’t subscribe to the notion that our choices narrow as time goes on.

I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with me. I have great high-tech devices in my home. Why am I so interested in something that does less?

I read an article two days ago lauding the forward thinking (at the time) Mac Portable – essentially a Mac Plus in a sixteen pound carry case with an LCD screen. The next day, a discussion of Mac Plus love. And both made me a little wistful, thinking about the fun to be had by putting together a machine like that, from craigslist and ebay purchases and making it do useful work.

I have an old PowerMac 6400 in the basement. It’s not quite in the same league as those others in terms of antiquity, but it’s certainly old. Maybe I’ll bring it out this evening, after I’ve cleaned the living room, and set it up again. I’m not sure if I can make it do much, but really, isn’t that the point?

Some people out there have upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6, a.k.a. Snow Leopard, with less than stellar results, and that is sure making the Apple haters happy.

By my reading of the message boards and reviews, about 9 in 10 of the problems are related to third party software or hardware. When Snow Leopard runs into a driver that won’t work with the system, it puts it in a quarantine, and lets you know that it has done so. Nice, but that means that the hardware that that driver was driving no longer works as expected.

My take on this is that Apple has been the underdog so long, they don’t know how to deal with being popular all of a sudden. Back in the day, they could make changes like this one without fear of problems because back then, none of these vendors supported using their gear on a Mac in the first place. Of course your printer won’t work anymore, the vendor never intended for it to work on a Mac! I’ve yet to hear much complaining from anyone out there whose Mac is equipped with strictly Apple software and peripherals. Using iWork and iLife with your iPod? You’re probably one of the many, many people whose upgrade has been utterly smooth sailing.

What could Apple have done to prevent this?

For starters, they could have avoided playing into Microsoft’s hands by trying to one-up the Windows 7 release. Microsoft has a great OS on their hands this time, perhaps the best Windows that has ever existed, and they’ve made it freely available to power users for so long, they’ve had plenty of time to work out the majority of bugs from it, and so have the third-party vendors. You can be sure that HP is going to have all their drivers in a row for the October 22^nd release of Windows 7, whereas with the rushed Snow Leopard, they did not.

Second, Apple needs to let go of some of that secrecy they love so very much. We love Apple products, and if we know what’s coming ahead of time, I suspect that most of us will still buy them. If they had allowed Snow Leopard a nice long gestation period, with an open beta, or at least an appropriately lengthy release to all the vendors who wanted a copy, they’d not be in the boat they’re in now, patching up software and reputations simultaneously.

Finally, get with the vendor program. Don’t see those people as competitors or the opposition – they’re your partners. If you and they work together, you both sell equipment. It’s a win-win situation, three wins if you include the purchaser who can know, with certainty, that the toys they love will work with the computer and OS that they love, in advance. It’s time to be a little less like Linux and a little more like Microsoft in this regard. The big boys want to play in your market, and you’re making it harder for them to do so with any success. So lighten up, open up, and make these relationships into real two-way streets. For your own good and that of the industry.

I just hope that Apple can learn these lessons in time for OS X 10.7, in the future. Because  good will is hard to earn in the first place, and harder to win back after you’ve let someone down.

And to all the haters? Best to keep mum. It’s just one month before Windows 7 comes out, and people like your parents buy new computers that won’t work with their ten year old software and fifteen year old scanner and… well, you get the idea.

I’m old enough to remember when VH-1 went on the air, alongside the then remarkably successful MTV, Music Television.

It was MTV, that is a place to watch videos, but for older people. At the time, I thought of it as the place for OLD people. They showed music that I had no real interest in, and so I never really watched it. At some point, however, I grew up, and VH-1 grew down. We met somewhere in the middle. And I was able to watch it, because by god it wast still showing videos, and ones that I recognized for a change.

And then, somewhere, we diverged. Different paths, different goals, different ideas.

And lately, I’m beginning to think that VH-1 may be going the way of MTV for good this time. Have you seen their slate of shows? From videos to documentaries – good change. From documentaries to reminiscence shows – I’m still with you. From reminiscences to reality TV? You’ve gone just a little too far into the dark side, there.

Oh, I know, reality TV is cheap and popular with the slobbering masses, but I’d not expected it from VH-1. Not really.

And it makes me more than a little sad.

Yesterday, we went hunting for ideas for costumes for Halloween. It’s the best holiday of the year, as it’s also our wedding anniversary. M wanted a Red Riding Hood costume, which we found many of, but most were very cheap and very one-size-fits-nobody, honestly. Went back to an earlier idea of going all out ’80’s, to the point that we’re going to see “That ’80’s Band” up in Lafayette on the night of the 30th, and intend to drag everyone we know along with us.

Anyway, we were out and about yesterday, driving a great deal. And I swear to you, I was behind the slowest people on the planet yesterday. People who didn’t know the speed limit. People who were hopelessly lost. People who were unaware that the accelerator is the peddle on the right. And, at the same time, was also interacting with people who thought that 75 MPH was a reasonable speed for a parking lot. Honestly, I know there are lots of great deals out there folks, but death ain’t worth that kind of trouble.

Halloween is the one time of year that everyone feels totally comfortable wandering through stores that sell fishnet stockings and frilly panties. I swear, when the season ends, they’ll take the kids costumes and the animatronic zombies out, wheel back in the dildos and crotchless, edible panties and turn the Halloween stores back into adult bookstores.

M found almost everything she needs for her Madonna-inspired look. Some of it brand new, at stores that sell things to teenagers. Man I love it when the stuff from my generation comes back, but the sheer amount of neon out there right now, well, it’s a little bright for an old guy like me. I’m going back and forth between straight-up metal rock dude and ’80’s vintage vampire (picture Lost Boys). They’re really the same costume with one requiring fake teeth and maybe, if you’re hard core, some contact lenses, while the other demands a guitar and maybe, if you’re hard core, a drug addiction.

I’m trying to remember now, just what it was that made me think of it in the first place, but I spent a chunk of my evening watching, by way of YouTube, the 1977 classic animated film, Wizards.

I was introduce to the movie as a boy, ironically enough, by my now-fundamentalist brother. He had seen it somewhere and procured a copy for to play on the first VCR that we ever owned. He would be terribly embarrassed to be reminded of that, today, I’m sure.

It really isn’t all that great a movie, but I enjoyed it even in this late showing. The things that I definitely remembered from my first time seeing it, all those years ago, were the fairy princess with the just-barely-there outfit, and the two wizards referenced in the title. And the positively twisted wizard duel that serves as the climax of the movie. I think it would make a fantastic property for a remake. Oh, sure, it’s a little ham-fisted with the allegories and nobody in this day and age would be quite so profligate with the nazi imagery in anything short of a period piece, but it would still rock if it could be done with more competent artists and some computers.

Some days, I feel like that guy from the old DSL commercial, who, when his wife says “I thought you were surfing the Internet”, he responds “I’m done…”

More often than not anymore, I find that my craving for new content outstrips those who create the content. I’m spoiled by the fact that most of the blogs that I like to read are updated at least once a day, and usually multiple times throughout the day. But things tend to slow down on weekends, and all of a sudden I find myself without an external source of stimulation. It’s a bit boring being online in those periods, usually, though occasionally I’ll find something new and dive into it with both feet, and just immerse myself in getting caught up.

It’s like that with web applications, too. I see why so many people want little applications for their smart phones – who wouldn’t want an app that takes you right to what you’re looking for with no fuss and no intermediary steps. It’s what desktop applications have done for years and years now, before the advent of ubiquitous web applications.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see the allure of web apps – they’re almost entirely cross-platform by nature, necessitating little in the way of tweaking to work on Macs and Linux just as well as they do on Windows. And yet…

There must be plenty of others like me out there, who don’t mind lugging our own laptop around, who crave an application that will do exactly what we’re looking for, without the intermediary of a web browser. Why else would there be such an excellent variety of applications for Twitter, and Word Press, and slowly but surely Facebook?

It must drive those folks crazy, though. Facebook is first, last and always an application designed to put advertisements in your face. So a program that lets you just do what you wanted to do, like seeing the updates that people have put on their pages, must make them utterly crazy.

Anyway, that’s my take on things. I think that I’ll be happiest when, like the iPhone ads claim, there really is “an app for that” for everything I find of interest in my life.