patrickrhett

… to an almost unhealthy degree. I carry it with me everywhere. Some Jehovah’s Witnesses just came to my door, and I unplugged it and put it in my pocket so I would have it with me in case I needed it in the 90 seconds I was away from the computer. After I’d had it for 6 hours I picked up The Lovely Wife’s Blackberry and tried to answer a call by touching the screen. I got more and more frustrated as I mashed on it over and over until I realized it wasn’t going to do anything, and then I just gave up. It was no longer worth it to me to expend the energy to scroll the wheel and push the button and whatever else you have to do to answer that dinosaur of a phone. You might as well have asked me to go out in the back yard and bang out morse code on a giant drum for the calvary division on the next hill.

Now I address the criticisms:

Yes, it is. So is 3G, the standard you’re whining for. Do you live in a cornfield? If you don’t, WiFi is everywhere – look into it. And the 2 times I’ve had to rely on EDGE it was a bit of a drag, but it was perfectly acceptable FOR A TINY INTERNET IN MY POCKET. Are you also upset that it doesn’t have tricorder functions? Shut up, nerd.

It’s a wide screen, touchscreen video iPod with text, email and internet access, AND it’s a phone. The first generation, 10GB iPod with a mechanical scroll wheel was $499 in 2001, and it is an enormous, functionless brick of compressed crap compared to the iPhone.

So do I. I also hate every other wireless company I’ve ever done business with, which is most of them. They all charge about the same and work about the same, and then when something goes wrong, they all have the same terrible service. There is almost nothing to differentiate them, except… oh, look. It’s an iPhone. AT&T wins.

You still have a land line and carry a transistor radio, don’t you? Are you reading this web page at the library?

Before.
(Dingy, old, moldy.)

After.
(Clean, new, monkey-tastic.)

Cleaned, installed new composite floor tile, replaced cabinet sink with pedastel sink, re-caulked, and increased monkey content by 1000%.

Skim Milk, Cream, Sugar, Corn Syrup, Whey, Monoglycerides, Diglycerides, Carob Bean Gum, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Annatto Extract, Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Water, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Sodium Benzoate, Beta Carotene, Vitamin A Palmitate, Baking Soda, Ammonium Bicarbonate, Chocolate, Cocoa Butter, Milkfat, Lactose, Cornstarch, Yellow 5 Lake, Red 40 Lake, Blue 1 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Blue 2 Lake, Blue 1, Blue 2, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Dextrin.

“It’s all juice coming from the same place, I don’t see how that makes it redundant.”

I was sitting at my desk when someone on the other side of the cube wall walked by and I heard this snippet of conversation. I don’t know who it was or specifically what they were talking about, but it made me pause for a second and think about it. Where is the juice coming from? Where is it going? Is this in relation to a building system, or some tiny electrical component? After a couple of seconds I snapped out of it, but it made me wonder how many of these bits of conversation I hear in a day, and then promptly, after a second or two of consideration, flush out of my short term memory.

This will be a record of those bits that I hear today, I’ll add them to the post as they occur. If there are no more, or if I find all the rest of them to be terribly boring, this post is done.

“Kids are going to fall off the swingset, and when they do you need to ignore them.”

[edit] So what I learned yesterday is that I tune most people out. Even when I’m trying to pay more attention to them, I spend most of my time in my own head – planning, replaying songs, conversing with myself, daydreaming about ruling the Earth, whatever. It’s a little disconcerting to notice my constant internal dialouge so much, so I’m reverting back to my pre-self-aware state as of now… Ahh, that’s better. [/edit]

We went to Houston last Fall to see Body Worlds @ the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We visited the museum that day, but had to call and get on a list to see the Body Worlds exhibit at 1:45 in the morning.

We went to the zoo the next day with my parents and nephews. I took a few pictures, but not many.

Oh, and at some point we rode the train.

We need one of those things here.

I went to this show with my brother Ian, but I don’t remember that much about it. I think she wore a suit.

The lovely not-yet-wife and I were in the last row of the Austin Music Hall, but could see just fine, and it was close to beer. There was a guy who stood behind us for a minute on his phone yelling to someone about what show he was at, but he quickly get stared down. The sound was big and orchestral and tight, and we left feeling good about the world. An excellent show. Top 10.

1. Our old printer ran out of ink, and to replace the ink was only about $15 less than a new printer/scanner/copier, so I now have a printer/scanner/copier.

2. Last week, my brother Ian mentioned that he was scanning all of his concert tickets. I don’t remember what he does with the scans. I’ll have to ask him.

3. I have trouble throwing things away, thus I have a lot of old tickets and stuff. Ephemera, if you will.

4. Maybe if I scan it and post it I can remember the event and get rid of the mess.

5. I added a new category.

We’re off tomorrow morning to Dallas for a couple of days of sightseeing, then, Tuesday night, we see The Police. This is the second big reunion tour I’ve been excited about recently, the first being The Pixies a couple of years ago. We saw them twice. It’s only a matter of time before The Lovely Wife and I find ourselves at a bar inside a Red Lion or Holiday Inn, happily listening to a Cure/New Order cover band, reminiscing about how good music used to be while drinking well drinks and chain smoking. Oh yes – I will be smoking. I’ve only quit until my 60th birthday. After that I fully intend to smoke it up until something else kills me.

My wiener dog army grows. Meet Sadie:

Her owner got sick and surrendered her. She’s 9 months old, and we’ve had her for 2 days.

So far, Gretchen is not pleased.