more good music from iceland

Listening to my iPod on shuffle yesterday, I happened to hit on Emiliana Torrini's song "Sunny Road" (from her album, Fisherman's Woman) and was reminded, again, just how much Icelandic music I enjoy.

I've been a longtime fan of the The Sugar Cubes and all-things Bjork. Then I stumbled on the so-eerie-it's-cool sounds of Sigur Ros. And now, a little poppier with Emiliana Torrini's music.

I wonder what it is about that small island nation that cranks out so many good musicians?

Wonder what she sounds like? take a listen to Emiliana via this YouTube video for "Sunny Road":

my new music drought is over

I downloaded my first free album just now, Radiohead's In Rainbows, and I'm listening to it as I type this post.

I've been a Radiohead fan since Pablo Honey dropped in 1993 and I've dutifully purchased every other album since, even defending my purchase of OK Computer to friends who thought the band had gone off the deep end.

So, getting In Rainbows, an entire album from one of my all-time favorite artists, for the price I chose to pay ($0.00) marks a seminal moment in my life. Yes, I could have paid the typical $9.99 for the album, as I've been conditioned to do so by my iTunes (and, now, Amazon) experience. Somehow, I didn't feel compelled to do so, as Radiohead's given me the chance to name my price, and my price at this time, in this format, is "free." When the physical CD is released later this year, I fully intend to purchase it then. But I won't pay for the music twice. Nor will I wait. Maybe I'm just hoping other bands follow suit and give folks a chance to sample the entire album, guilt-free, before spending money to buy the damn thing.

This is a big deal for me, as I've always eschewed the music stealing sites like Napster and Kazaa, and have only ever downloaded music I'd actually paid for or was authorized to download for free by the artist/distributer (at iTunes or direct from an artists' site). I appreciate the 30-second samples available at the music sites, but there's nothing compares to listening to an album straight through to know if you're dealing with a single solid tune, or an album of hidden gems that'll never make it to the charts, but you'll know by heart within the week.

Listening to music has always been a big part of my life, and I think a lot of this comes from having grown up in a small town (Los Alamos, NM. population: 15,000) where listening to the same album over and over and over provided some sense of escape from the day-to-day monotony that is the small-town way.

The radio was a gateway to another world, and I remember my first personal turntable: not the "good stereo" that was in the living room, but a turntable of my own to keep in my room to play whatever I wanted to play on it. I bought my 45s and LPs at the local record shop which meant my collection was limited to whatever was on the charts in the early 1980s.

My tastes, thankfully, swung from Heavy Metal (the official state genre in the 1980s) to New Wave/Punk around ninth grade thanks to a crush I had. When I discovered my crush's taste in music, my collection grew from Pink Floyd and the Scorpions and Def Leppard to include Depeche Mode and The Smiths and Black Flag as I got to know her better.

These were the years of the first Sony Walkman personal cassette players, and I'd go through cases of double-A batteries powering my trips through my own worlds of tones and lyrics and beats and moods created by artists who seemed to somehow know exactly what I was going through as a teen growing up in a small town. I was a member of Columbia House for years, spending my allowance on cassette tapes that each had the tell-tale double-pink stripe on the spine to indicate it was a Columbia House product. I still have most of the cassettes in a box downstairs in the garage, even though I don't even own a cassette player anymore (that's a topic to be explored in a future post, though).

And so I collected cassettes. Lots of them. And I created mix tapes with favorites songs, first by hooking two cassette decks together, then using the same dual-cassette deck once that technology became affordable. Yes, I was that kid in high school who constantly made and distributed mix tapes in quest of the perfect mix.

And when I started driving a car, I think enjoyed the ability to crank the stereo as much as I did to get from point A to point B while listening to the cranked stereo.

Then my parents got me a CD player as a high school graduation gift (my first CD was Suzane Vega's Solitude Standing) and a whole new realm opened up for me. Gone were the days of playing a song then waiting while rewinding to replay the song, always guessing where the beginning of the song actually was, and wearing out the tape in the process. Now, at the click of a button, you could fast forward, start over or shuffle!

And so the next decade of my life was spent acquiring CDs, both through the mail (BMG this time) as well as at the funky record stores around college in San Diego County and then at places like Amoeba Music and Rasputin Records up in the Bay Area.

I had CD players everywhere I could get them (portable CD walkmen, CD/cassette player in the car, CD players around the apartment) and was listening to music just about non-stop. Mix tapes were much easier to make, and the quality of sound was much better. And I could dub multiple copies to give to friends so they'd be inspired to go buy the same CDs I had. I never once thought my mix tapes were taking money away from the artists, because all I ever saw was my friends going out to buy the albums of the artists I'd exposed them to via my mixes.

Then the digital music scene hit, and, while I was an early adopter of computers an online life, I never got into the song-swapping scene. I was too busy ripping my own CDs onto my PC in a format that could be read by my first-generation iPod (remember Rhapsody in those days before Windows-based iTunes?). I'd collected over 800 CDs, so it took a lot of time to rip, and I wasn't about to just give away all this music I'd spent so much time and money accumulating as my own to someone who was just acquiring for the sake of acquiring.

So, I never got caught up in the Napster scene, and after a while, it became a point of pride that I'd never swapped music that way. Sure, I'd still trade (and rip) CDs with friends, but that was on a one-to-one, in-the-flesh basis. But I haven't ever participated in large-scale anonymous music-swapping. Call me old fashioned, by I think this large-scale swapping is theft. And while I think the RIAA is going about the problem (suing folks) the wrong way, I do think these swappers are getting what's due.

So yes, I think the RIAA and the labels have completely blown the opportunity to embrace mass digital distribution as a way to revolutionize the industry and change up their business model. And they'll continue to fail, which will leave room for innovation and experimentation by the artists themselves. Innovations like Radiohead's pay-what-you-like to download the album before the physical CD drops (hell, even before they line up a label to distribute the physical CDs). Wilco and others have shown the free-to-download-digital, pay-for-physical-item model works. Why wouldn't it work this time with extra revenues coming from those who choose to pay twice (for whatever reason motivates them)?

So, legally downloading In Rainbows for free feels good to me. It feels right.

And it's a kickass album to boot. I can't wait to by the CD.

last week's rubik's cube solving competition

Yes, I'm a geek about the Rubik's cube. My fastest solve ever was back in my prime (my teens) at 45 seconds.

In this year's competition, just held in Budapest, the fastest single solution was recorded at 10.18 seconds.

The overall winner was a 16-year-old japanese kid, Yu Nakajima, who averaged 12.46 seconds after solving it five times.

Not content with just the straight-forward solution (two hands, eyes open), competition categories included solving with one hand, blind-folded, with feet. See the Reuters Video for the visuals (while it's available).

I gotta work on my technique!

mt whitney climbing video

Still trouble-shooting the dramatic pause at the 58 second mark, but here's video I shot at 13,300 feet on the way up to the summit of Mt Whitney.

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 - a dream car

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 driver's side
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

Apologies to the Bare Naked Ladies:

If I had a million Euros... ("if I had a million Euros")
I could not even afford this car! ("no he certainly could NOT!")

Why? the sticker price for the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 is 1.1M Euros. And even if I could afford to buy it, I'd only drive it once, to get it up to it's top speed of 407 km/h.

And then I'd put it away in a showroom like the one it's in now with all the great hardwood and lighting and barriers and pay someone to keep the lint off it for the rest of my life.

It's just that beautiful a machine. (Click the photo to see the eight other pictures I took of this car)

Oh, and there was a new Audi R8 in a showroom around the corner that didn't even merit a photo after I'd spent time in the Bugatti showroom. Tough act to follow.

just back from climbing Mt Whitney

Made it to the top at 14, 497 feet. Much colder and snowier than expected, so it took a lot longer than planned. Finally returned to the cars, triumphant, 20 hours after we left. Only half our party made it to the top, and only a handful of folks made it the entire day we were permitted to be there.

More detail to come, but I've just posted my photos over in my Flickr Mt Whitney set.

minor improvements to DirecTV HR20 experience

In this latest round of software updates on the DirecTV HR20 HD DVR, they've finally introduced "smart" technology into the experience of fast forwarding or rewinding through a show. By "smart" I mean "forgiving."

The situation they've addressed is to help compensate for people's slow reaction times when speeding through a recorded show. If you're fast-forwarding through a block of commercials and you see the show's started again, by the time your brain sends the signal to your finger to press the PLAY button, you're already several seconds into the show already and have to rewind. No matter how hair-trigger your own response times, you still miss a couple seconds of shows.

The brilliant folks at TiVo took this into account from the start and always backed up the show a few seconds from when you hit the PLAY button when rewinding or fast-forwarding. A nice touch that demonstrates they really pay attention to how folks use technology, and a great demonstration of technology closing an interface gap seamlessly.

So, having been trained on a TiVo for three years, you can imagine our frustration when we discovered the HR20 did not compensate for this gap and we had to relearn how to fast forward and rewind through a lot of trial and error to get our timing and prediction skills honed.

Flash forward to this past week, and the good folks on the HR20 dev team have at last introduced this compensation feature so that the DVR automatically backs up five seconds from the moment you press the PLAY button. At last!

On another front (following up on my DirecTV Ka-Lo upconversion process) we're at last seeing the lineup of HD channels expand. This morning I see in the menu a total of 21 high-def channels (up from eight), and the DirecTV folks are promising 100 High-Def channels by the end of the year. Now we get to see the Weather Channel folks in all their HD goodness 24 hours a day!

using Blackberry 8830 outside USA? think again

Something's been nagging me for the last couple days about my new Blackberry 8830 and whether or not I'll really be able to use it in Berlin (Germany) when I fly there this weekend. One of those too-good-to-be-true nags that's probably borne of all my past experiences with Verizon's products not quite working as billed.

So I gave the folks at Verizon tech support a call today just to make sure I'd be able to use my 8830 next week in Europe.

Boy am I glad I made the call today.

Turns out you need to acquire (read: purchase) the "Verizon Wireless Global Support Pack" which is a fancy way of saying: you need to get the Vodafone(TM) SIM card which does not come standard on the Verizon Wireless Blackberry 8830 World Edition.

Beg pardon, but what, exactly, makes it a World Edition phone if it doesn't come out of the box equipped to work around the World?

Maybe the same folks who decided to cripple the GPS also made the brilliant decision to ship the phone sans SIM card.

In any case, the tech support rep was happy to inform me all I needed do was stop by any local Verizon Wireless store and pick up the Global Support Pack for $39.99 and install the SIM card and call back to make sure the phone's ready to go before I leave the States.

So, to the store I went, and surprisingly I wasn't charged for the SIM card (thanks to my being a BlackBerry Global Email subscriber) aside from the 20 minutes it took to wait in queue and then wait some more for the sales guy to do all that hocus-pocus behind the scenes to lock my phone to the SIM card from VZW. (If the stakes weren't so high for my making and receiving calls next week, I might've waited to see if I could buy a SIM card over there so as to have a local phone instead.)

In any case, be forewarned: if you've purchased an 8830 thinking you can use it straight away overseas, be sure to call *611 from your phone stateside to see what all you're still missing before you leave.

Can't wait to blog from Potsdamer Platz, but I've got a mountain to climb in the meantime.

UPDATE: I called the Global Support Services team this morning to double-check all is well and ready for my trip, and I was instructed to update the roaming capabilities on my phone by calling *228 from my phone and choosing option 2 from the menu. Did so, and one minute later, I'm all set to go!

three days to the Mt Whitney Summit

Three nights from now, I'll be a couple miles into my ascent of Mt Whitney at this hour of the night (midnight) as part of a same-day assault on the summit. We'll be covering the full 21 miles of hiking (going from 8,360 feet up to 14,497 feet and back down again) in a single day as we have a day permit to be on the mountain Friday, September 28.

I've been training for this climb the last two months with a variety of exercises running, cycling, hiking and lifting weights (in the process I've shed 15 pounds from my frame, to boot). So, I feel I've done everything I can to get ready, now it's just doing it.

I'm leaving the Bay Area Wednesday with my climbing partner, Victor, to make it to Mammoth Lakes (elev 8,000 feet) to sleep at altitude before making our way down to Lone Pine to meet the rest of our party (six of us total) for dinner Thursday. We'll start hiking around 10pm Thursday night so we can summit by dawn and be back at the Whitney Portal by Friday mid-afternoon.

From there, we'll drop back down into Lone Pine to re-feul our bodies and then up to Bishop to sleep (at last!) before returning to the Bay Area Saturday.

In all, it's going to be a great trip. Per the weather forecast, we'll have mostly clear skies for the hike with temperatures ranging from the low 20s to the low 40s at the summit (about 10-15 degrees warmer down the mountain), and we'll have an almost-full moon to help save our headlamp batteries, as well. Couldn't ask for better conditions.

Now it's just up to my own conditioning. Wish me luck, and help me figure out what the next goal should be so I don't gain all 15 pounds back again!

tracking another season of survivor

Finally got around to watching the season opener of Survivor: China last night (it'd been festering on our HR20 since Thursday), and a few passing thoughts on the situation as I see it:

• why oh why does anyone show up to meet Jeff wearing anything but sensible clothing for the 39 days ahead? This means no skirts, no spiky heels, no rompin' stompin' footwear either.
• If you know you've been chosen to be on Survivor, and you're going to be outdoors for 39 days, make it a point to actually go camping for a night or two before leaving the States.
• And there's absolutely no reason anyone going on Survivor shouldn't be able to make a shelter or (gasp!) make fire. We're fifteen shows into this thing, and folks have no excuse to be surprised at the challenge that awaits the first couple days in, no matter where the show's taking place: Australia to Africa, Cook Islands to Vanuatu.

And a few thoughts on the participants this year:

• I can't wait for Courtney (the bitchy waitress) and Leslie (the righteous talk show host) to get voted off... bonus if it's in a surprise two-fer trip to tribal council.
• From the looks of things, Ashley (the pro wrestler) is going to keep the blur-it-out censors busy since she can't seem to keep the twins in her top for more than a few moments at a time.
• Given both his accent and his attitude, I coulda told you Chicken (yes, the Chicken Farmer) was going to be first to go the moment he drawled in his only-in-Virginia-way that he wasn't going to share his opinions anymore cuz nobody was smart enough to listen to him. A shame, as I'd hope I'd pick up some chicken farming tips from him
  
• I hope James (the quiet grave digger) goes all the way.

Looking forward to the next 14 weeks of the show to see who does what to whom and when (and why).

Sharks hockey season is here again!

San Jose Sharks Season Tickets
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

It's that most wonderful time of year!

Just as I did a year ago, tonight I had the distinct pleasure of cracking open the San Jose Sharks season ticket books and dividing up the tickets to be shared with my fellow season ticket holders, D and N. There's nothing quite like the smell of a fresh print job to conjure up images of a stellar season ahead.

Looking forward to another great season of Sharks hockey, and the long-awaited trip to with the Stanley Cup here at the Shark Tank in San Jose.

While the Sharks are playing their first preseason game tonight down in LA (untelevised, of course), I'll have to wait until this Saturday to see Grier and the boys take the ice in person. In the meantime, I'm amusing myself watching footage of last year's playoffs wherein my man Grier put the smackdown on Nashville's Hartnell over on HockeyFights.com.

Let's go Sharks!

favorite items from Bourdain's Overrated Menu

Kottke points out this precious article in Radar Magazine: Anthony Bourdain's Overrated Menu wherein the celeb chef plates and then eviscerates trendy food items from a menu near you.

While I haven't seen this particular menu printed out just like this, I know I've seen some dishes remarkably close to these popping up on menus I've recently perused.

My three favorites overrated dishes (Bourdain's commentary for each):

• Pea soup topped with truffle oil: Truffle oil is the lazy chef's way to add value, by which I mean charge more.

• Mesquite-grilled Amish organic free-range chicken, served with Fijian mango chutney and accompanied by foraged mushrooms: It should never take longer to describe your dish than to eat it. Mango chutney was innovative when Bobby Flay did it in 1978. Foraged mushrooms? Amish chicken? Who gives a shit about who picked the mushrooms or if the people who raised the chicken wear bonnets?

• Cruelty-free Berkshire pork with shallot reduction and Yukon potato gnocchi: Nobody wants to be cruel, but you did kill the thing—what's cruelty-free about that?
  

Hear hear!

who would ever use fuzzmail?

Normally I'd think to find the funnies in the Style section of the Mercury News. Over a bowl of Grape Nuts this morning, however, I found my humor in this Monday's Tech section in the form of a product review written by Craig Crossman titled "Fuzzmail gives importance to what you delete"

You know you're in for a good time when the product under review isn't even mentioned until the end of the eighth paragraph(!) of the review and even then the product's only mentioned three times total.

The premise is this: Fuzzmail allows a recipient to see how little much time a dupe sender spends composing and rewriting an email before it's sent. So, instead of seeing the finished product that says simply and politely "thanks for your inquiry, we're not interested," Fuzzmail would allow the recipient to see all the different ways the sender really wanted to tell the recipient to buzz off before doing the proper and polite thing. As a bonus, the recipient could actually see how much time it took the recipient to calm down and do the right thing.

To me, this begs too many two questions:

1. Who, in their right mind, still indulges their fantasy response in the actual email window at the risk of prematurely hitting "send"? Isn't this the stuff of urban legends by now?
2. Who else, being of right mind, would ever willingly subject themselves to the watchful recordings of Fuzzmail? Seems to me, it's the stuff of a sneaky spyware install, not something a person would consciously force themselves to use. While the recipient might benefit from a voyeuristic tour of how someone composes an email to them, there's no payoff for the sender (the one who's giving up the goods).

Crossman claims Fuzzmail provides insights into the composition process that are completely lost once the author hits the "send" button. Sure, there's plenty to online communications that's suffering for lack of context, but if Fuzzmail is the best response we've got to adding dimensions to our electronic communications, we're all in for a wild ride big trouble.

to donate platelets or whole blood?

Since I was old enough and heavy enough to do so, I've been donating blood somewhat regularly for a couple decades now. In all, I think I've donated close to five gallons of blood, one pint at a time, although there's no one place where I can get my history, as I've donated all over the country and it seems none of the collection groups are on the same tracking system.

In addition to donating whole blood (something you can only do once every eight weeks), I've also donated platelets by apheresis which is this nifty process by which they drain blood from your arm, send it through a machine that uses a centrifuge to extract the platelets from your blood before pumping the blood back into your body. Since we humans generate so many platelets so quickly, one can do apheresis a lot more often than giving Whole Blood (once a week if not more often).

The apheresis process is stunningly cool from a geeky technology standpoint... you're basically hooked up to a machine that's acting like part of your circulatory system for a short time. You can watch as the blood is drawn out of you and as it's returned back to you (with some anti-coagulants mixed in). The side effect of the anti-coagulants is that you get really cold during the process (at the Stanford Blood Center, you recline on a heating pad and are covered up with toasty blankets throughout to counter this sensation), but it only makes sense you'd get cold given your blood's coursing through a machine, right?

Nowadays, the draw and return are done through the same needle, in one arm. Back when I first did apheresis in the early 1990s, you had to sit for an hour plus with a needle in each arm: one side is where the blood was drawn and the other side was where blood was returned. It was a rather bizarre experience back then because the return side of your body got amazingly cold while the rest of you got only a slight chill.

So, this past Friday morning, I showed up at the Stanford Blood Center at 7:30a to undergo apheresis, in response to an emergency call for platelets they'd sent out earlier in the week.
I was pleased to learn that they paperwork one has to fill out before each and every donation has finally been updated, so the long list of questions you're asked once behind closed curtain is a lot shorter than it used to be. Still, it takes a good half hour to check in and get your vitals taken and all that jazz.

By 8am, I was reclining in the apheresis lounger feeling my back get nice and toasty thanks to the heating pad. I was one of six donors that morning, all male, and with the exception of one other guy my age, I was youngest by a couple decades. Given how long it takes to do apheresis (an hour versus the 10 minutes to drop a pint of whole blood), it's most popular with retirees who've got plenty of time on their hands. Taling with the nurse, I found that they're starting to get more young people to do platelet donations, but mostly early in the mornings (like when I was donating).

Now, given how long it takes to donate platelets, it's no wonder the Blood Center has numerous ways to help you pass the time: a huge DVD library, lots of cable channels and free wi-fi. I didn't bring my laptop with me (this time), and instead brought a book that I need to read for work. Next time, though, I'll be bringing in the laptop so I can spend the hour catching up on RSS feeds.

This time around, I only donated 4 x 10^11 platelets, and it still took me an hour. Compared to the older gentleman to my left, I was a real lightweight. He donated 12 x 10^11 platelets in 75 minutes, putting me to shame.

But, as the nurse reminded me, it's not a race. I learned this the hard way when the apheresis machine got a little too quick on the draw, and I could feel the needle shimmy in my vein and my lips momentarily got numb. The process is automated, though, so an alarm signal went off when the machine sensed the draw was too fast, and the nurse immediately came over to slow the machine down a bit.

I especially enjoyed being able to watch on the monitor my own progress and see the machine calculate how many platelets it'd extracted and therefore how much longer I'd be in the chair watching it share my blood with me. Once the allotted number of platelets were extracted, the machine beeped approvingly, and at 9:04am, the most painful part of the donation process occurred: they ripped off the tape holding the piping in place on my arm. If you've seen me, you know that this means they ripped off quite a bit of hair from my forearms, too boot. Thus, the pain.

But by 9:20am I was hopping in my car to go to work, knowing I'd given platelets for someone who really needs them more than I do.

So, while I like the fact I can donate platelets more often than I can whole blood, I find it ironic that the apheresis process takes so much time. The incentives are all backwards on this. Shouldn't the thing that takes the least amount of time (donating whole blood) be the thing you can do most often?

Alas, no.

So I'll have to figure out where the value proposition is for me. I get the same payoff in feeling I've done a good thing whether it's whole blood or apheresis. do I give whole blood six times a year at a cost of six hours to me? Or do I give apheresis the same six times a year at a cost of 12 hours to me on the assumption I'll actually find even more time to donate via apheresis more often?

Not quite sure what I'll donate next (mid-October, once I'm done with climbing Mt Whitney and my business travel overseas). Maybe I should decide on apheresis now while I'm still sufficiently geeked out at the thought of sharing my circulatory system with a machine. Better check my calendar.

using my blackberry with my bmw

One of the biggest joys of owning my new Blackberry 8830 World Edition is how it seamlessly interfaces with the telecommunications package on my 2005 BMW 325i.

My e46 3-series came with the BMW Assist package (among other things) which includes the Bluetooth capability to pair the car with a phone. Longtime readers know how displeased I was to find out my Verizon Treo 650 wouldn't work with the car because Verizon crippled the connection (kinda like they've crippled GPS on the 8830). So, prior to buying the 8830, I borrowed a friend's phone (exact model and carrier) to make sure it would work on my e46 bimmer. It paired and called easily, so I made the jump and got the phone.

After setting up email and contacts, the first big thing I did was pair my phone to my car (the pairing process was a piece of cake). After they paired, it took about a minute or so for the phone book contents to sync between Blackberry and bimmer, and now, whenever I hop in the car and need to take or make a call, I use the bimmer's built-in handsfree to do so.

Here's how it works:

INBOUND When there's an inbound call, the music (be it from radio or CD) stops and instead I hear the ringing of a phone through the car's sound system. The phone number of the inbound call displays on my stereo head unit and I press the "talking head" button on my car's steering wheel to accept the call. According to those I've spoken with via my car's telecom system, I come through loud and clear on their end with little outside noise bleeding through (the microphone for the system is in the reading lamp cluster, just above the rear view mirror). When I'm done talking, I simply push the "talking head" button again and the call is disconnected and the music comes back on.

OUTBOUND When I want to place a call, I use the Blackberry to scroll through contacts like I would if I were placing a normal call from the phone. When I tap the SEND button, however, the car intercepts the call, cuts the music (if needed) and handles the mic/speaker duties just like on an inbound call.

The super-double-bonus piece of this is that if I've left my cell phone in my bag (as I sometimes do) and want to initiate a call, I simply press the R/T button on my steering wheel and my contacts list shows up in my stereo's head unit and I can use the fwd/rev buttons on the steering wheel to scroll through the names until I find the one I want and initiate the call by tapping the "Talking Head" button on the steering wheel to start/stop the call. Sweet.

QUIRKS Since I've paired the phone to the car and enabled them to automatically connect whenever the car is in range, I have to be careful when Left Coast Mom borrows the car while I'm in the house. When she starts the car, my phone turns on and connects to it even when the phone is inside on the kitchen counter (about 30 feet away). Once she drives off, the phone and car disconnect, but I know one of these days the timing of an inbound call is going to be perfect so she hears the inbound ring as she drives off.

I've got over 800 contacts in my phone book, so it takes a long time to scroll one-at-a-time through the list via the steering wheel controls. I'd like to find a way to do this faster.

I have yet to deal with managing a call and a passenger at the same time since most of my driving is solo driving. Not quite sure how I'm going to handle it when it comes to taking a sensitive call with someone in the car, but I have a feeling I'll figure it out on the spot.

All in all, though, I couldn't be happier with my paired Blackberry and bimmer. Not sure why Verizon nor BMW touts the fact the phone and car work together... seems to be a HUGE selling point on both sides, imo.

comcastic indeed, redux

Thanks to my friend Lisa, I've had a schadenfreude morning reading about Bob Garfield's experience as yet another displeased Comcast (soon-to-be-ex?) customer.

While my lousy experience trying to LEAVE Comcast ultimately was resolved by my throwing up a white flag, Bob's been burned by Comcast's lack of customer support trying to BECOME a customer.

I like the way he's ended his post with a call to action:

In any event, the damage has been done. They have ruined two weekends and screwed up half of my telecom services. I will shake them down for as much free service as I can get, then drop them at the first opportunity. And they deserve it. They deserve much worse.

Is this company so frantic to seize market share on voice and broadband that it is willing to disrupt customers' lives, fail to appear, repeatedly lie to them, walk out on them and then treat the customer as if he or she is a nuisance?

Well, we shall see. This is the Listenomics age. We will not take it quietly.

And by the 49 comments (and counting) left so far, it looks like folks are not staying quiet.

setting my goal as the Feynman point

Courtesy a kottke.org post today, I have a new goal: to memorize pi to the Feynman point.

The Feynman point is the sequence of six 9s which begins 762 digits into pi. "[Feynman] once stated during a lecture he would like to memorize the digits of pi until that point, so he could recite them and quip 'nine nine nine nine nine nine and so on.'"

Maybe I can work on this as I climb Mt Whitney at the end of the month?

Why the rote memory exercise? Well, it helps me pass the time on those solo ventures (hiking, motorcycling, kayaking) when the mind otherwise goes to jelly. I've already memorized pi to the 76th digit (cluttering up my memory from a contest in math class back in high school over 20 years ago). Oh, and I can sing the alphabet backwards, too.

So many brain cells, so little time.

recording industry exploits, redux

Yet another example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, social capital style...

In today's WSJ (online), there's a great story about the secret behind YouTube (and MySpace) Singer-Songwriter Marié Digby.

In an Aug. 16 blog posting on her MySpace page, Ms. Digby wrote: "I NEVER in a million years thought that doing my little video of Umbrella in my living room would lead to this . tv shows, itunes, etc !!!"

Ms. Digby's MySpace and YouTube pages don't mention Hollywood Records. Until last week, a box marked "Type of Label" on her MySpace Music page said, "None." After inquiries from The Wall Street Journal, the entry was changed to "Major," though the label still is not named.

The artist and her label say there's nothing untoward about the campaign. In interviews, Ms. Digby and executives at the company describe her three-month string of successes as part of a lengthy process of laying the groundwork for the upcoming release of her debut album.

Ms. Digby says she doesn't mention her record label on her Web sites because "I didn't feel like it was something that was going to make people like me."

So, while she's been playing up the aw-shucks-how-did-this-happen-to-little-old-me? schtick by posing as an amateur on both MySpace and YouTube, she's actually been signed to the major Hollywood Records label since 2005.

It turns out the passed-as-happenstance events that have found her on TV, on radio, and on iTunes were actually part of a carefully executed exploit of the audience's thirst for amateurs and disdain for labels.

Just as lonelygirl15 has heightened our suspicion of anything that seems to good to be true in terms of amateur-produced video, now Marié Digby has raised our guard around amateur singer-songwriters.

Sure, the exploit works once, but where's the long term payoff when the customer base only grows more suspicious of any future endeavors?

UPDATE: Good to see Ben over at Church of the Consumer Blog take this issue on (what with his huge readership). With a week's distance from the WSJ article, he's made the same hopscotch leaps from Digby to lonelygirl to future implications, and has a nice follow up on the repercussions on Digby's MySpace presence.

changing habits to fit a Blackberry 8830

I've been using a Treo 650 for the last couple years, and have finally migrated over to the Blackberry platform, specifically Verizon's 8830 World Edition Blackberry.

If you're looking for reviews of the 8830, check out what's being said on C|Net, PC Magazine or Mobile Tech Review.

This post is about what it's like to try to get used to using a Blackberry after having lived on a Treo for two years. Likely this'll spread over several posts, so let's get started.

• Size and Feel: while the 8830 is the biggest Blackberry, it's still shorter and thinner and lighter than my Treo 650. And the keyboard of the Blackberry's a lot easier to touch-type from thanks to the raised beveled keys.
  
• The trackball: I'm liking the trackball a lot. It certainly beats the buttons on the Treo for navigating around the screen. However, the tracking is a little slow for my taste in its default setting, and I haven't yet figured out how to speed up its sensitivity (assuming I can). (you can control the trackball sensitivity under Options>>Screen/Keyboard) When I'm trying to get to the bottom of my deep email inbox, it'd sure be great to have the iPod-like tracking mechanism to move around quickly, but that's not to be.
• The Back Button: I considered the lack of a back button to be the major flaw of the Treo. The fact that I can get back to where I was by clicking a single button is great. Kudos to RIM on this feature. Now if only I could figure out how to stop accidentally going back, I'd be in business
• Email systems: Not until I started using the Blackberry's text-based email system did I realize how spoiled I was using SnapperMail on the Treo 650 which allowed me to read html-formatted email easily. I'll get used to the RIM's email system quickly tho (although I need to change my email subscriptions to be text-based instead of html-based), especially since I love the push email system. I also really like being able to direct both my work and personal emails to my 8830 and they both alert me when a new message comes in. I would like to be able to separate them out so that during the day I only get work email alerts, but I can live without it (for now).
• Camera (lack thereof): I didn't realize just how much I used my Treo's camera (crappy as it was) until I found myself looking for the camera app on the 8830. Hmmm. In skimming the crackberry forum boards, I'm reminded I've got a business tool now, and next time I report to jury duty, I won't have to fork over my phone due to its built-in camera function. Seeing how much I love my wife's Canon Powershot 1000, I think I can live without the camera-based phone.
• Memory: Given the Treo's lackluster performance on the built-in RAM front, I'd supplemented its capacity with a 1GB smart memory card which I used (thanks to an adapter) as an always-present thumb drive. However, given the location of the memory card (top center of the phone), I was always accidentally ejecting the smart card. On the 8830, however, the micro memory card is tucked away in the battery compartment so there's no chance of accidentally ejecting it. The opposite is true: I was able to install a 2GB micro memory card only after a lot of precision installation work. Not likely to replay that installation process, so I view it as a permanent install. Considering I can't take pix or movies, I wonder what I'll fill it with?
• Themes: I've only learned about four different themes on the 8830 (the Verizon style and three BB styles), but wow, I'd love to be able to personalize it a bit more. It's not readily apparent how to add graphics, styles or sounds to the 8830, so I'm stuck with a default theme (for now). The Treo, on the other hand, was quite personalizable (what a word!).
  

The biggest difference I'm enjoying between the Treo 650 and the Blackberry 8830 is that the 8830 is compatible with my car's telecom system, so all calls to me while I'm driving are routed through the hands-free car system, and no more fumbling for the phone or holding it awkwardly while I drive. As a bonus, I can scroll through my address book using the buttons on my steering wheel and initiate a call from there. Sweet. This has made the purchase worth it all by itself.

BTW, I got my 8830 for $199 after all the discounts from Verizon (new every two and online ordering) along with a two-ear commitment back to Verizon. Hey, I've been with them this long, what's another two years?

(of course, I've still got another 25 days to change my mind without penalty)

Stay tuned!

Crowded House concert set list

My longtime favorite band Crowded House is in town on their Time On Earth tour, and I got a chance to catch them in a phenomenal show at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA, last night. The Mountain Winery is a small 2,500 seat venue that's up in the hills above Silicon Valley. Once the sun sets, the lights of San Jose and all the surrounding cities glimmer on the valley floor.

And as a bonus last night, the almost-full moon rose about a third of the way into Crowded House's set and was so impressive that Neil Finn stopped the show, told us to all stand up and turn around to see the moon rise across the valley floor.

You could really tell the band enjoyed playing together, as the banter was going full force, and the show felt more like watching good friends play songs for you in their living room than the larger affair it actually was.

I kept track, and the set list from the 2+ hour show:

• There Goes God
• World Where You Live
• Say That Again
• Don't Stop Now
• Fall At Your Feet
• Distant Sun
• Silent House
• You Are The Only One To Make Me Cry

(moon rises, we all look, and they do a partial cover of Van Morrison's Moondance)

• Nails in My Feet
• Don't Dream It's Over
• Pineapple Head
• People Are Like Suns
• When You Come
• Something So Strong

encore

• Locked Out
• She Called Up
• Weather With You

encore encore

• Fingers of Love
• She Goes On
• Four Seasons in One Day
• Better Be Home Soon sing along (this was an acoustic version, as the venue staff had pulled the plug on the sound due to curfew. Neil led us on an extended version as an "F you" to the man)

There's still quite a few dates left on their tour, so by all means buy a ticket and enjoy the show.

giving Verizon Wireless one more chance

I've been flummoxed trying to make sense of all the plans and equipment and rates at the various carriers. Recognizing this FUD leads to a rather dear switching cost, I decided to give Verizon Wireless one more try, despite my blogged claims to the contrary.

I borrowed a friend's VZW-powered Blackberry 8830 today to see if I could pair it to my car and use my car's system to talk hands-free. Sure enough, the 8830 worked like a charm.

Rather than go in to a retail store and pick up the phone (why should they get the commission?), I instead used Verizon Wireless's online store and saved myself $100 in the process for upgrading my phone online.

So, I've ordered my own Blackberry 8830 (and upgraded Left Coast Mom to a RAZR in the same shipment). They Should arrive early next week.

And I'll be sure to blog about my experience changing from the Treo 650 world to the Blackberry 8830 world. First stop: how to get all my data from one to the other?

My daughter wants to be John Moschitta

A good friend shared this video with me this morning, and I now know who my daughter's idolizing at the ripe age of four. I swear she spends her days (all day, every day) practicing to take over his throne as the fastest talker in the world.

Fast Talking Fedex Commercial

Posted Nov 22, 2006

Fast talker John Moschitta runs his mouth through this '80s spot for Fedex. John Moschitta is best known as the fast talking fellow from the Micro Machines ads.

Best Burger in the USA at Bobcat Bite? YES

I'm a huge fan of Alton Brown (his shows on the Food Network include Good Eats and Feasting on Asphalt), and when I caught a glimpse of a Food Network special on the Best Restaurants in America, I knew I had to see the whole thing to find out where in this fine country I could find the best fried chicken, the best pizza, the best ribs and the best burger.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that the food editors at Bon Apetit magazine had chosen as the best in all the land the green chile cheeseburger at Bobcat Bite outside Santa Fe. Why was I surprised? Because I was scheduled to fly out to Santa Fe the day after watching the special on TV.

What luck!

I did a sufficient amount of research (going to the web site) to get a pretty good idea:
- where the restaurant is (on the Old Las Vegas Hwy, 4.5 miles east of the Old Pecos Trail exit off I-25)
- when it's open (11am to 7:50pm Tuesday through Saturday)
- what to order: a green chile cheeseburger, home fries and iced tea

I pulled up outside the pink adobe building at 3pm on a Thursday. Late enough, I thought, to miss the lunch crowd and early enough to avoid the dinner scene.

The two outside tables (four-tops, each) were full of folks enjoying their meals, so I pulled open the screen door to go inside and took a seat at the long wooden bar that runs the length of the skinny dining area. Behind the bar is a big picture window through which you can watch humming birds flit about the feeder and thrushes and jays and juncos splash around in the bird bath. Between the door and the bar is a single row of tables giving the place a decidedly cramped-but-cozy feel to it. Lots of Old West memorabilia on the walls, and the murmur of good conversations taking place over even better food.

In short order, Bonnie, one of two waitresses working that afternoon, had placed a menu in front of me and told me she'd be back for my order in a moment as she walked down the length of the bar and through the doorway into the kitchen. From my vantage point, I could see the very cast iron griddle stove that had been featured on Alton's program.

While I already knew what I'd be ordering, I opened the menu out of curiosity to see that, on the left side of the page, their sandwich menu ran the gamut from a plain hamburger to my green chile cheeseburger to a simple ham and cheese (ranging in price from $5.60 to $6.85). On the right side, they listed out the various steaks they serve, ranging in price from $12 to $20.

I told Bonnie my order (burger medium rare, please) and she quickly brought my glass of unsweetened tea and I sipped it while looking around the room to see who else I was dining with. Of the 27 seats available inside, there were only four empty chairs to be had. The crowd on hand ranged from a couple tattoo-laden young guys at a two-top talking about cars to a cluster of white-haired friends swapping stories about who'd forgotten what more often. If I didn't know any better, I'd say well over half the customers were locals on top of being frequent guests.

Bonnie and the other waitress certainly made everyone feel at home as they brought out plate after plate of burgers and home fries and refilled glasses of lemonade and tea.

A scant 20 minutes after placing my order, Bonnie set the most beautiful looking green chile cheeseburger in front of me. It's served open faced so you can add lettuce and tomato as you wish before setting the top bun on the patty. The patty was a beautiful brown and thick 10 ounces of ground-that-day choice chuck. The monterey jack cheese was perfectly melted so as to capture the diced green chiles underneath it and not allow them to fall off. The home fries that were scattered around the burger were a perfect golden color... yum.

When I stacked the bun on top of the burger, it was thick enough that I had to consciously open my mouth as far as it would go (just shy of painfully wide), and when I bit in, the taste was heavenly. The texture of the beef was a hearty and moist crumb, the mild jack cheese helped to cool the surprising heat of the green chiles, but all of it worked to really make my mouth sparkle bite after bite. I closed my eyes in bliss. I had found the perfect burger.

Before I knew it, I'd eaten well over two-thirds of the burger, and only ten minutes had passed since the plate was set in front of me. I slowed my attack and enjoyed every chewing motion that unleashed more of the yummy burger taste into my mouth. I started alternating bites of burger with bites of home fries (perfectly cooked and salted just the right amount) trying to stretch things out even more. But, 15 minutes after I'd taken my first bite, the whole thing was gone.

While I wanted to order another burger then and there, I knew it was only a matter of minutes before my stomach would be puffed out to here. I resisted and instead walked up to the register to pay Bonnie for my meal: a grand total of $10.45 (plus tip).

Maybe they sell more steaks at night, but while I was in the place, I only heard anyone order the same thing I was getting: a green chile cheeseburger (supposedly the best in the land).

If you ever find yourself in the Land of Enchantment,

impatient picking = unripe watermelon

unripe watermelon
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

Longtime readers know that we've been growing vegetables in our backyard and on our deck this summer. In the backyard garden we've had corn, pole beans, bell peppers (purple, red, yellow, green), tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash and jalapeños growing to much success.

We've even had a couple watermelons sprout up from the vine I planted as almost an after thought. We picked a miniature variety, and when the melons stopped growing and just sat there unchanged, I got anxious and picked one thinking it'd be ripe.

As you can see in the picture, the melon's still unripe. We've still got one melon still on the vine, so I'll be waiting before getting that one. Next season I'd better do some Googling before I pick.

preparing to leave Verizon Wireless

I've been a Verizon Wireless customer since shortly after the company
came on the scene in 2000 (out of the merger of Vodafone and Bell
Atlantic). The first five years of service were actually quite good,
as I found VZW had rather decent coverage for my cell phone and the
rates were competitive. I even stayed with Verizon Wireless when I
switched coasts in 2003, moving out west to California and swapping
my 703 number to a 408 number.

Then, in 2005, I upgraded my handset to a Treo 650 to take advantage
of the data capabilities of the Treo, and my relationship began to sour.

As a VZW subscriber, my Treo's feature set was crippled as a matter
of corporate practice. How did this manifest itself to grate at my
nerves most? I have BMW Assist in my car with Bluetooth technology.
Theoretically, I can pair the Treo with the car to be able to use the
car's built-in hands-free (steering wheel embedded) communications
system. I say theoretically because VZW saw fit to disable this
feature on the Treo so if I try to make a call via my car, the phone
reboots as soon as the other party picks up. If I had my Treo on the
Cingular or Sprint networks, it'd work just fine. It's just that VZW
has decided to cripple this feature. This is purely a VZW issue (even
though they insist it's a BMW thing).

Biggest bummer: I got my car a month after getting the phone and was
locked in a phone contract for another 23 months.

Flash forward to today and I'm free of the contract. As I wade into
the tar pit that is cellular calling plans and equipment choices, I'm
willing to give VZW one last chance to keep me (and my wife) as a
customer. I find the Blackberry 8830 equipment on the VZW web site
and spend a lot of time trying to figure out if the Bluetooth is
compatible with my car. No info available.

I drive over to the nearest VZW storefront and fondle the 8830
(nice!) and think, you know, I could re-enlist in the Verizon
trenches if this thing'll work in concert with my car.

I approach the customer service rep at the store and ask about the
8830 and its compatibility with a 2005 325i. The kid is too quick to
say "of course it'll work... it's got Bluetooth!" I push him a little
bit and ask for the product documentation showing that the link
hasn't been disabled (I've been down this road before). He tells me
to go talk to the BMW folks.

I tell him goodbye.

I'm finally ready to leave Verizon Wireless. Good riddance.

technical quest update: bluetooth a2dp anyone?

Just about a year ago, I posted about my technical quest to simplify our AV stack and augment its capabilities. Updates here and here and here.

While we're getting good 5.1 sound out of our Harman Kardon AVR245, it's not a push-button experience (yet). We've got the Harman Kardon HKTS-14 speaker system and in our setup, the front speakers are mounted to the wall on either side of the plasma TV, the center channel is perched on a shelf above the TV (the subwoofer is tucked in the corner) and the sleek HK stands for the surround speakers are stored at the front of the room and pulled around into surround position only when we're watching a movie that warrants the surround experience.

Why do they get stored at the front of the room? Our two little girls would undoubtedly knock them over if left in place post-movie (during the day), and I'd likely catch the wires walking by them since we've got hardwood floors. The net effect is that the majority of the time we don't listen to programming in full surround mode, as the surround speakers are stashed in the front of the room where the aural effect is minimal, at best.

While I could spend the time and energy to route the wires through the wall and attic to mount the speakers on the wall in their proper surround location, that's a wiring headache I'll put off for a long time to come, thankyouverymuch.

But now, David Pogue's column today in the NYTimes about Bluetooth and the End of Audio Wiring has got me thinking of a wireless solution our problem. Surely there's a bluetooth solution to be had here, right? I mean, given the A2DP protocol, I can bluetooth stereo signal streaming wirelessly from my AVR245 to the surround speakers mounted on the wall.

But how to do this?

Google searches on bluetooth stereo surround speakers seem to indicate there's more supply in non-North American markets, but here's a list of Bluetooth Stereo Speaker Suppliers in China that will only grow over time, right?

So what are the prerequisites before I'll add A2DP to my system? I have to be able to use my existing speakers. I've paired them purposefully for the entire system and I don't want to have to buy any bulky speaker to mount on my walls that'll unbalance the system.

What this means the gadget/widget I'm looking for will need to be a combination speaker mount/Bluetooth access point that talks to a Bluetooth gateway plugged into my AVR245. Bonus if there's a way to cut down on the battery consumption needed to run the speaker access points.

But if I can find something like this, I'll leapfrog straight over 5.1 sound all the time and start exploiting the AVR245's ability to pump out 7.1 sound.

Of course, if I get the speaker situation taken care of, then I really should upgrade to a HD-DVD player, and maybe I can use that upgrade moment to swap out TiVo for the DirecTV HR20 we've got... hmmm, better not start this just yet.

herbivore, carnivore, omnivore... local-vore?

So, as our chickens are quickly approaching their egg-laying age and our garden is producing its bounty, I'm more and more intrigued by the challenge of cooking a meal made up entirely of ingredients produced within 20 miles of our house.

An easy win would be to create an omelet using our eggs, produce from our garden supplemented by dairy and herbs from the farmer's market.

But what if I want to get more complex? Where's the limit? I see the bounds have already been pushed.

Looks like there are folks already way ahead of me given the recent ZagatBuzz item about Spruce's ascension to be "the ultimate local-vore's gathering spot."

This will be a fun trend to follow!

price changes inside amazon.com shopping cart

Well, I learned the hard way tonight that I shouldn't put off taking advantage of a good deal on Amazon.com.

I've joined a group that's going to be climbing Mt Whitney (elev 14,495') at the end of September, and when I checked my water filter that's been in storage for a while, I discovered it no longer works.

So, I did some research at the REI.com site to discover that the filter I want to get is the Katadyn Hiker PRO Water Microfilter. It retails at $69.95, but a quick search on Amazon showed I could pick it up for the low, low price of $58.30 (tax free and free shipping!). I quickly added it to my shopping cart on Amazon but then got distracted and didn't follow through on the purchase.

A couple days go by and I remember that tonight, I must purchase the filter, tonight! (truth be told: I won big at last night's poker game and so now I've got the cash to buy it)

I navigate to Amazon, click on the shopping cart icon and there's a note in big bold letters at the top of the page (not exact, but the gist): The price of your item has increased since you placed it in your shopping cart. The prices of items in your cart may change if you wait to purchase them.

The price of my lapse? The price on Amazon is now the same as any other place ($69.95), so there's only the tax-free, free shipping going for it.

Lesson learned. Don't make my same mistake.

making a coleman lantern work (cont)

Well, karma's come full circle on me in regards to the coleman lantern episode.

The morning after testing it out on our deck, I brought it inside, tucked it into the plastic carrying case and set it on the kitchen counter, fully intending to take it off the counter and walk it downstairs to the garage for "proper storage."

Well, one thing led to another, and I rushed out the door without remembering to take it downstairs.

Enter: our two year old daughter, aka "the counter cleaner."

Mind you, she's not of the let's-neatly-clean-this-up school of counter cleaning. She's more a swipe-and-smile devotee.

So, with one swipe of a two-year-old arm, the lantern, in its "protective" carrying case took a fall, a la Humpty Dumpty.

And the carrying case couldn't keep the globe nor the mantles from breaking into itty bitty pieces.

At least, this is how Left Coast Mom described the happenings to me via IM.

Being removed from the scene of the crime made it a lot easier to shrug my shoulders in a "sh*t happens" kinda way.

I look at it this way: I've got another excuse to go to REI now!

DirecTV Ka-Lo band up-conversion process suggestions

And just as I thought DirecTV was getting less geeky in their approach to dealing with their HD DVR customers, this new Ka-Lo band up-conversion process comes to bear.

As a DirecTV HR20 HD DVR owner, here's my up-conversion experience and some suggestions for the DirecTV folks on how to make it better (should they care) next time around.

First Encounter: I'm sent an email with subject line "Important Information about your HD Equipment" in which I'm invited to go to a web page to figure out if I've already got the B-Band Converter (BBC) module installed in my machine.

Better approach: DirecTV already tracks my equipment, my viewing habits, my programming... they should already know whether I've got the BBC modules or not. Send me an email to tell me the required modules are being shipped to me (and why) unless I opt out.

Second Encounter: A system message delivered to the inbox of my HR20 telling me to go visit the directv.com/bbc web page to see if I need to order the BBC modules for HD programming.

Better approach: Send a ping through the system to see if my BBC modules are installed (you can do that, too, right?). If not, give me a system message that says the modules are being mailed to me and to call DirecTV if I haven't received them by X date.

Third Encounter: As seen in the picture at the top of the post, the (two) modules arrive in separate padded envelopes (oh, the cost savings!) FedEx'd to my home. Each envelope contains a box containing one module and one single-page instruction sheet. The instruction sheet seems pretty straight forward: Thanks for ordering, installing is easy, pretty explanatory pictures and a copyright notice.

Upon opening the box and sliding the module out, however, my inner geek goes wild and my "I'm just a dumb customer" side barfs on the table. Included with the module is a two-color, double-sided page of instructions from the manufacturer of the module, Zinwell, whose brand is directly under the bolded, big-texted title of the Instructions sheet (no copyright notice on this puppy, thus the repost):

Installation Guide
DIRECTV Approved "B Band Converter (BBC) Module"
(for Ka-Lo band up-conversion)
SUP-2400

And then the getting gets good with the introductory paragraph that includes the BBC Module Functional Description:

The BBC Module is to be used in conjuction with the Ka/Ku Out-Door Unit (ODU) and the A3/MPEG-4 capable satellite receiver, hereafter to be called "the IRD". The Ka/Ku ODU output will consist of a three-way stacked signal: a Ka Lo-band (B Band) at 250-750 MHz, a Ku band at 950-1450 MHz and a Ka Hi-band (A Band) at 1650-2150 MHz. The IRD has an input range of 950-2150 MHz so an up-converter must be used in order to access the 250-750 MHz spectrum. Failure to install a BBC Module at the back of the IRD prevents the IRD from receiving Ka Lo-band. For clarity, a BBC Module must be used with each A3/MPEG-4 capable IRD in the home system. As further clarification, a BBC Module must never be used in a system that contains an Frequency Translation Module (FTM) as the equivalent function is already contained in the FTM.

WTF is an FTM and how can I tell I don't already have it, thus rendering the BBC module moot? Why must the BBC "never" be used in a system with FTM? so much FUD, so little time.

And still a page and a half of tech directions and illustrations I won't bore you with here (still with me?)

Better approach: Get the vendor to leave the technogeek screed out of the module box. Catch pre-shipping the fact I need two and send them both in the same envelope. Include the simple picture-laden how-to single pager and include a bright yellow postcard that says "If you do not install these modules, you risk losing your HD channel access." Done.

Boy, these new HD channels I'm about to get (now that I've successfully completed the DirecTV Ka-Lo band up-conversion process) better be good.

making a coleman lantern work

Back in May of this year, I found a screaming deal on Amazon.com to purchase a Coleman Lantern. In the same order, I picked up a Eureka tent as well as a Coleman stove. I was planning ahead for taking my family camping in the summer, so when the stuff arrived, I just put the unopened cartons in our storage room without opening them up. Why bother since we wouldn't use them for at least a couple months?

Oops, wrong move.

When it came time to actually get ready to go camping (in July), I pulled out my tent, stove and lantern to give them a test run before putting them through their paces at the camp site.

Smart move.

The tent and stove worked just fine.

It was the lantern that gave me fits. I've used plenty of Coleman lanterns before, so I know how they work. This one, however, just didn't stay lit no matter how much pressure I pumped into the damn thing.

I'd pump pump pump (30 times) and then open the valve and apply a flame. The mantles would glow for about 10 seconds and then pulse before going out. WTF?

I tried burning in another set of mantles. No luck.

I couldn't return the lantern to Amazon as defective because I'd waited over two months to try the damn thing out. I was stuck with it. The screaming deal was looking less than money-saving at this point.

I took the lantern over to our local REI to see if the experts there could help me understand what, exactly, was wrong with the lantern. Again, no luck. They tried to make it work and got the same result (10 seconds of light, then pulsing, then nothing) and suggested I might want to "tinker" with the regulator.

A tinkerer I am not, so I went to the Coleman web site to find the local authorized warranty repair place which turned out to be a place called Traders in San Leandro, a good 30 miles and a toll bridge crossing away from us in Redwood City. Believe it or not, there's no other warranty place in the Bay Area. Thankfully, the lantern has a five-year warranty, so I screwed up my courage and took the lantern over to get it fixed.

The guys at Traders were nice enough. They took the lantern, listened to my story, gave me a claim check and told me it'd take about 10 days to fix.

Flash forward to yesterday and I called Traders to see if the lantern was ready. Indeed, it was. Could they please tell me what was wrong with it?

After a short pause, I was asked, "did you take any fuel out before bringing it in?"

"No."

"Well, I ask because I filled it up with more fuel and it's worked fine for me every time I lit it."

"So, there was nothing wrong with the lantern. It was really my not filling it up with enough fuel."

Another pause. "It seems that might have been the problem, yes."

"Wow. Color me embarassed. I'll be by this week to pick it up."

"Come on over when you get a chance!"

So today, I made the drive of shame over to Traders to pick up my perfectly functioning (and now full of gas) Coleman lantern. I timed my visit to coincide with the repairman's lunch break, so I didn't actually have to meet him face to face. The guy at the counter just saw the big "NO CHARGE" stamp on the invoice and let me walk out the door with it.

And tonight, when I tried lighting the lantern on the deck, wouldn't you know it works just fine.

So, two lessons learned on this camping purchase:

1. when you buy stuff from Amazon, make sure it works as soon as it's delivered. If you wait too long, there's no recourse should something (seem to) go wrong.
2. if it takes fuel, fill it up all the way before trying to make it work.

Don't repeat my mistakes!

hi viz yellow in the redwoods

hi viz yellow in the redwoods
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

just back from six days on this motorcycle wearing my hi viz yellow aerostich through hot and cold weather. Put 2500 miles on the odometer over the six days, but saw some of the most beautiful scenery you could wish for by going up the Northern California coast into Oregon and then criss-crossing both the Coastal Range and the Cascades before finally topping out at Mt Hood. Then back again on the express path down I-5 from Portland to Eugene to Grant's Pass, then over to Hwy 101 and down through Eureka and Ukiah to the Bay Area again.

Prepping other blog posts, but sharing my flickr stream (click on the pic to get there) in the meantime.

Glad not to be sitting down on the bike for a while (wow, I'm sore!)

i like ilike

A confluence of promotions caused me to discover iLike.com yesterday, and am I glad I finally paid attention. 

I was futzing around on the iTunes Music Store podcast section and saw iLike promoted there (didn't follow through), and then last night a new friend on Facebook shared the iLike application with me (followed through).

I've found iLike to be a clean, simple interface to show the music I enjoy, see what my friends enjoy, find new artists based on my taste and play the time-sucking iLike Challenge, a game where you listen to snippets of tunes and have to name the artist or song. On the Facebook app, after selecting or entering the names of the bands you like, you quickly see not only whether the bands are touring, but whether they're coming near you. Indicate you'll be at the concert, and you get a list of all the other Facebookers that'll be there with you.

Later this weekend, I'll install the iLike sidebar for iTunes and see where it takes me. If you're into music and want to map your tastes to those of your friends, give iLike a spin.

On a side note: I can't believe how much I've enjoyed diving into Facebook since they opened the platform. Find a lot of interesting new things and people, which is why I play in social networks anyway, right?

nhl to make live games available on web

Saw the story in the Wall Street Journal today that the NHL will be "using Internet video to make up for the dwindling television audience." And they'll be doing it via a "Center Ice" package showing about 45 games a week at a cost of $169 for the season.

The notion of playing "where the (censored) is the puck?" on choppy internet video is laughable. Even if it's offered for free (hell no, I'm not paying).

Commish Bettman is quoted in the article saying "we need to be nimble in this space." Of course he's referring to these internets we're using. How about we be nimble in another space: high def signal.

Hockey in high-definition is a remarkably satisfying experience. Now that I've got a plasma HDTV, I have a hard enough time tolerating the standard-def hockey games via Center Ice on DirecTV. Standard def sucks. Putting up with watching the playoffs (THE PLAYOFFS!) on standard def Versus was infuriatingly unsatisfying.

If you're serious about being nimble, Bettman, you'd better move all your broadcasts to high def and quickly. Hey, make a deal with HDNet to broadcast the "Center Ice" package in high def only. I'd pay a premium to get that coverage, even though most of the games are done by the time I get home from work on the West Coast.

getting music while on my motorcycle

I'm getting ready to go on a six day motorcycle ride through Northern California, Oregon and maybe parts of Washington, to boot.

For my birthday a couple weeks back, Left Coast Mom and the kids gave me a great gift: Iasus Noise Terminator in-helmet speakers for my Shoei RF-1000 helmet. Since I'd chosen not to get the optional radio/CD unit for my BMW R1150RT, my long rides have been rather quiet affairs.

Now, I've been riding motorcycles for 19 years, and one of the things I've always pined for is the ability to take music with me on the road on the bike. No good road trip is complete without a soundtrack, right?

However, I've only ever tried using my daily ear buds inside my helmet(s), and it's quite the painful experiment since the ear buds are so thick and my helmet is so tight. I've even drawn blood from scratching my ears trying to get the frickin' helmet off once I realize there's no way I can stand the pressure of the ear buds pressing against my drums. Now that I'm using Shure e4c ear buds with my iPod, I know there's no way I can get the helmet over those without really tearing my ears up, literally. So I don't try. I ride in silence instead.

Enter: these IASUS 3D Bass Helmet Speakers. They're less than 1/2 inch thick, and they mount directly to the helmet. To boot it's as if they're made specifically for my RF-1000 helmet, as right behind where my ears sit inside the helmet, there's a patch of vinyl that the IASUS speakers fix onto perfectly. They have a ring of velcro that glues into this spot, so I can take the speakers out when I'm doing short (music-free) rides, or don't want to be bothered with the wires hanging out.

The speakers come with a cord extender that has its own volume adjuster, so even with my thick motorcycle gloves on, I can turn the volume up and down while the iPod stays snug inside my jacket's inside pocket, safe from the elements.

Installation took all of 2 minutes to peel off the tape covering the velcro glue backing and press it into the helment. When I test-drove the speakers wearing just the helmet out the back deck, the sound inside the helmet was nice, but I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to hear the music once I got out into traffic. On top of that, I wear foam ear plugs whenever I ride, so wouldn't that block out even more of the sound?

I just had to give it a whirl, so I suited up, put in my ear plugs, donned the helmet, fired up the iPod and took off.

Much to my delight, the IASUS speakers are the perfect pitch for helmeted riding. The foam ear plugs block out enough of the ambient sound that the music comes streaming through clearly at neighborhood speeds (up to 35 mph) even with my helmet visor open.

The real test came when I accelerated to get onto I-280 near our house, and the IASUS speakers passed the freeway riding test with flying colors. Even when I was doing 80 mph (I mean 65 mph!) with a decent cross-wind, I could hear the music clearly over the motor, the street noise and the breeze. Not in a WHAT-I-CAN'T-HEAR-YOU!!?!? way, but in a nice, mellow, this will be entertaining background noise on that first 12-hour day in the saddle kind of way. I've got over 40 Gb of music to run through on the ride to and from Oregon, so I'm not worried about running out of tunes.

The real test for the IASUS will be if I can listen to podcasts in my helmet without missing any content. If I can, then I'll be able to catch up on my outstanding books-on-tape on the way to ride the twisties of the Pacific Northwest.

Next post: my experience installing throttlemeisters on my motorcycle (think: cruise control for motorcycles).

Only 10 days till the road trip!

favorite new texting application

I've grown so accustomed to ignoring the reminder beeps on my Treo, that I need another way to capture my attention that it's time to do something.

Enter: oh, don't forget...

It's a killer app where you plug in your cell number, a date and time to be reminded and the subject you need reminding of.

At the appointed time, the reminder comes in to your cell phone as a text message (I pay a lot more attention to these than the other beeps and boops) telling you it's time to move the car or it's time to head out for that doc appointment or it's time to schedule the visit to the vet.

Bonus: I can sign up my significant other to be reminded, too (as long as she's game for it).

our corn's first silks

our corn's first silks
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

Just uploaded a set of photos of our backyard garden. This is the first time (as an adult) I've grown corn, so I'm amazed to see the formation of the ears coming... and fascinated by the site of our first silks.

See the set here.